Crossing Borders by Z.A. MaxfieldMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Honestly, I held off on this book for a while before purchasing it during a 50% rebate day at ARe. It seemed a tad cliché from the title, but really, the plot wasn't the focus for me when I read it. While that sounds silly, it's true.
The characters made this story. 'Officer Helmet' aka Michael was interesting as seen through the eyes of 'Sparky' aka Tristan. As a fellow redhead, I soooo got Tristan's beef with his nickname. I loved the disparate ages-yet similar desires. It just went to show that opposites can be more alike than most think, and make it work.
Not to say the plot wasn't interesting-if not exactly 'new'. I laughed my ass off as 'Sparky' plotted and planned to find a man at the bookstore coffee shop. The texts back and forth were witty and definitely made the scene even better. I liked that the will they or won't they aspect was resolved pretty quick, which left the actual relationship the focus, imo.
Since the relationship was the focus, and the source of conflict in the end, I felt the plot arc fit, even if it did feel uneven. The author could have predicated that aspect a little better by seeding in small moments here and there earlier in the story. It would have also served to give us a more realistic interaction between Michael and Tristan-even newly together couples generally aren't that perfect.
Still, this story was mostly full of warm and fuzzy feelings, even once the drama hit. As always, ZA Maxfield's writing flowed and I was sucked in start to finish. Definitely a recommend!
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Crossing Borders was of the first M/M books I've read. And maybe that factors in too, but I love this book.
ReplyDeleteOfficer Helmet and Sparky are so great together :)
But the cover...still awful.
LOL. I didn't go into that aspect and maybe I should have. I don't feel that the cover fit the characters at all either. Then again, it can be really hard to fit covers into characters after you've already written the story. They didn't really take a lot of the aspects of the plot into consideration either, like doing red and blue highlights like cop lights, or adding a skateboard, since that's an integral part of the story. Ah well, what can you do? This is an aspect of online eBooks that isn't as vital as a paperbook, imo, since you get more of a glimpse of the story without needing to judge just by the cover but it is still important. I'd love to see the author arrange for different art for this. I'm so glad you picked up a M/M book, Cayce, because there are some great ones out there.
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