Ami's Hoard

3.5 stars

** yes, this review is spoilery; you have been warned **

When I first decided to read this novella, I was quite aware of the blurb: "...preparing to marry his beauty-queen girlfriend". See, I have never been comfortable reading about cheating or another person being hurt for the main characters to be together. Then why did you read it, Ami? What can I say, sometimes curiosity got the best of me, okay? So yes, reading the first chapter, I thought I thought I would've regretted it;

Well, it was good to know that I was wrong about it -- that this came as a nice surprise. Because the extent of this story, probably about 80% of it, actually happened in the past. Four years ago, after a car-accident following the night that changed the status of their friendship, Hunter cut Devon out of his life. Being a congressman's son, whose life had been mapped by his parents, Hunter was forced to succumb to his father's demand. Until few days before his marriage, and his fiancée sent him to Dallas to de-stress, which actually brought Hunter to Devon's door.

This story basically told about that college days -- about their friendship up until that fateful day. Because of that, I was able to leave my discomfort at the door :)

I enjoyed Roni Loren's writing -- this is my first experience of hers -- and for an author who writes mainly M/F romance, I thought she was able to write hot, steamy, and passionate romance between the two young men. The tension between Devon and Hunter was thick and engaging, and the fact that they were friends first made the chemistry believable. Yep, I really liked it.

I would've loved that their reunion to last a bit longer; but then again, they have been separated (not exactly willing) for four years, and Hunter has been two years celibate (apparently his fiancée is a virgin and want to wait until they are married), so maybe they need to immediately fix that. And Hunter decided to break things off first with his fiancée before he and Devon stumbled into bed. The ending was rather abrupt, though. Maybe because they will appear in the next book in this series?

Oh, by the way, even if this is a novella in Loren's "Loving on the Edge" series, but it can be read as stand-alone.