Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novella
Karl has made a living as a song writer and guitarist for the well-known band Ocean of Tears. He’s known his band mates most of his life and they are his extended family. Yet while they all have families and someone to go home to, Karl has remained single. It never seemed to bother him before because he had his music. But recently the music has gone quiet and at the age of fifty-three, Karl feels like an old man. Things seem to be looking up for Karl, however, after he meets twenty-one year old Noa one night while he is drowning his sorrows.
Noa’s only dream has been to be a ballet dancer and he’s talented and on his way to achieving his professional dreams. He sees something in Karl that interests him and for Noa, age is just a number. But Karl is hesitant to become attached to Noa as he feels he’s setting himself up for certain heartbreak. But Noa has a way of making not only Karl’s music sing again, but his life.
This book started out with a great tone and two interesting characters. Karl is depressed for a few reasons and while he acknowledges this, he’s not at all sure about how to make a change. When Noa enters his life, he brings healthy eating and exercise to Karl’s life, and while Karl isn’t fully on board with it all, he is certainly interested in spending time with Noa.
This book follows a lot of the same patterns of books that have age differences. It seems that the younger man is more often the confident one and goes after what he wants, while the older man is hesitant and feels like he has nothing to offer a relationship. In that aspect there was nothing new here.
I liked the feel of the book at first and Noa was a character that drew me in. I was then waiting for something to happen and it never quite materialized for me. The characters have great chemistry at first and there is a shared intimacy of lingering looks and Noa running his fingers through Karl’s long hair. They build a friendship as they spend time together, but as a romance, it missed the mark for me. Throughout the entire book, Karl feels he is too old for Noa. Noa then makes a huge life decision without ever having a conversation with Karl about it. There is narrative about the men almost sharing a first kiss and they think about having a first kiss, but it never materializes. They think about their attraction to each other, but they came across more as companions that enjoyed each other’s company rather than the true love story the book was portraying. There were also several side characters in the form of Karl’s band mates, but it seemed to detract from Karl and Noa’s story rather than add to it.
This was my first book by this author and while there were parts that worked for me, I needed more depth from the characters and more on the romance aspect if it is going to be categorized as one.
