I have difficulty to categorize this one: It doesn't have enough mystery/investigation focus to be called m/m mystery. It doesn't have enough romances/love-making to be called m/m romance or m/m erotica. It doesn't have enough moral/social issues to be called LGBT/gay fiction. I guess I have to stick it as m/m contemporary read for now.I think this book starts as free-online reading and I don't know whether is it BECAUSE of that, the story comes pretty much flat all the way through. It's like a [...]

I'm setting this one aside. This is a story completely devoid of emotional content. It's also excessively detailed, mundane and dull where we're told every meal they eat, every restaurant they go to, and all in the same tone as we're told about their sex life. One of the main character continuously has sex with twins and we're told about it in the same tone as one would say I just fed and walked the dog. There's a scene where the main characters realize they're in love with each other but the ch [...]

I consider this book a missed opportunity. The materials are there, but the book fails to be a good mm romance novel because it basically devoid of any emotion. Reading it like reading a police report about things that happened. Consider the scene where one of the MCs is shoot and almost dies, which makes the other character realizes how much he loves his friend. Instead of making it a bit emotional by telling us how he feels about his friends, the author makes him going back to the house and ge [...]

I hesitate to say this, but I may need to read this book again. I can't remember it well enough to give a fair review, but I know it's not good.I do remember it being an oddly hypnotic "not good" though, where the endless minutia of trips to McDonald's ("Mickey D's") or Walmart ("Wally World") were faithfully recorded, and I want to say, a lot of conversations on speaker phone? At the time I found it soothing, but my tastes can be odd.

I wasn't very happy with this but I took 3 pages of notes and that's just too much to twist into lucid text at this hour. Suffice to say, I agree with most of the not-so-great reviews. It started out pretty good but then it just fizzled. It was slow moving and I just didn't care enough. All of the emotion is in the dialog, the men saying what they feel. There really wasn't any true impression of these emotions. They could have been lying or felt stronger than it sounded, etc. I just couldn't rel [...]

The plot is good, but the story is not well told. The characters do not show the love they are supposed to feel for each other, we are just told to believe they are in love. It does not work like that, I'm afraid.

George and Mike, the heroes of this book, are strong, masculine men. The kind of men not given to a great deal of 'lovey dovey' talk, which is fine, because you instinctively know how they feel for each other long before they articulate those feelings. Best friends since childhood, and roommates when the story begins, we learn that Mike has always loved George. And when Mike steps in front of a bullet meant for George, George realizes the truth of his own feelings.As the youngest (at 30) ever Li [...]

It pains me to give this book only 2 stars. But I have to.The story has so much potential. TONS!But all the characters sound the same, talk the same, have the same constant phrases. And those phrases repeat and repeat and repeat. It just doesn't make sense.There's not enough depth and development, and the language is choppy. I wish there was a good beta that could sit with Etienne and work with him on this because again, this has potential to be such a successful story.

3.5 stars. Good story but lacked the romance spark for me.

First and foremost this reads like a travelogue. Not only am I learning way more than I ever wanted to learn about Jacksonville but also about some of it's businesses. I read a romance because I want to read about the characters, their feelings and their actions. Not learn about a city! Furthermore I'd like at least some realism besides the area.He certainly doesn't act like any cop that I've ever known and I know a lot and am even related to a few. A cop wouldn't have just played those headgame [...]

This is a first Etienne book I read so it could be that I'm not familiar with his style. But I'm just glad I got to finish this at last.The puppy and the food cinched it for me. The story itself was decent if somewhat boring. Didn't feel any emotion throughout; even on the relationship between both MCs. For someone who supposed to harbor one-sided love for his best-friend, Mike didn't sound like a man with suppressed feeling. Likewise when George realized his true feeling when his buddy got shot [...]

This could have been so much better all the plots, sub plots were good and the characters were great but the thing that let this book down was how it was written. I didnt really feel any real emotion apart from the killer. The sex scenes between George and Mike well their was barely any content to them compared to the ones with the killer and george. I wanted to feel the love and passion between George and Mike but didnt. I did have to read it to find out what happened so thats a plus point.

Yeah, I'll have to agree with Amy's review and really have nothing more to add. Plain boring this one.

somewhat similar to reading a play- almost like stage directions w/the amount of detail that is unnecessary in books.

I had seen the mixed reviews about this book before I started it, so wasn't expecting too much. However, I did like this read.Yes, its a bit 'preachy' about the landmarks, but as I am unlikely to get to Jacksonville it was quite interesting to know most of these were real places(I'm the sort who will do an internet search on them). I also wondered if maybe this story was written initally as an installment based story as that can be a reason to see repetitive statements in a story.It is written i [...]

OH boy This book sounded good. It was a mystery / romance and was free a loan from my library.People read to learn and to be entertained. Good fiction should paint word pictures so the reader can see and feel like she/he is a part of the scene. Good fiction should make the reader stop and think, feel emotionally attached to the story and either care for the main characters or want to scream at them. This book doesn't cause any of that. It doesn't instill any passion in the reader.A great deal of [...]

The book was good but it would have been better if the author had cut it in half, an editor should have told this author that he didn't have to write every minute detail like, the history of the city they live in, the history of dining establishments, and how to remodel a cabin,etc. I like the fact that the author didn't have to be graphic in his depiction of the sex scenes between the main characters, it was refreshing to read a gay novel that didn't come off as gay porn. I have also another co [...]

This is not the first Avondale story I have read but it is the first in the series and it is a series worth reading. The writing style can be a bit hard to get to grips with if you are used to fluff and very descriptive writers, Etienne does not waste words he gives the reader credit for being able to see the picture he is painting without every aspect being laid out for you. I have to be honest if this had been the first of his books I might not have completed it but I read book 4 first and tha [...]

This is a rarity; I didn't finish the book. Normally if I'm not that into a book I'll at least skim through, gather the main plot points and see how it ends. I didn't do that with this one, I just couldn't get into this book even enough to skim it. Even if I hate a book because of the writing but found the premise interesting I'll skim it to see how it ends. I didn't get far enough into this to tell you whether I disliked it or not. So to be fair to the author I can't rate this book. The writing [...]

This book is not my cup of tea The entire book is incredibly bland!!!! You don't get in to the characters head. There is no real emotion. You dont get a feel for the MC's. It's like the author is telling a story he heard from another person. After i had read 129 pages i gave up. I was really bored. If this is how the author writes all his books, I have to say that I won't read anymore of his books.

This book was quite frankly painful to read. I started and stopped multiple times hoping that it would get better but it never did. The story was told and not shown do much that I could never engage it. I agree that there were multiple story lines going on so that I didn't know what the focus was supposed to be. I did finish by skimming quite a bit and since I bought the next installment in the Avondale series before reading this I've I it gets better.

What a great story ! it was fun to read. A little slow and some repetition both in actions and in words but the day-by-day life of our heroes was not boring at all and that is important ! The twins and Thor are so cute ! And I was really happy to see that Dreamspinner Press has already the 3rd volume on the incoming page !!! Now I'm gonna start the 2nd one !

I really enjoyed reading Bodies of Work. While it might start out a little slow, it is because Etienne is building George and Mike's world for us to enjoy. He really made George, Mike, and the Z's come alive for me. I wish I had my own brook :)I hope everyone enjoys this book as much as I did. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

I liked this story well enough. I thought at times it could have benefited from less details and more plot. I appreciated the author trying to set the scene, but doing it for each scene was a bit too much information. Overall it was entertaining, I fell in love the characters and definitely with Thor.

Involved and complicated; a lot of fun! Love George and Mike, and the supporting cast is well-fleshed as well! No over-the-top mushiness; just people who fit together like puzzle pieces and can support each other in an understated way, and without one personality overwhelming or overshadowing the other.

The writing quality is what turned me off here. All the dialogue is really forced, trying to shove as much exposition between the quotation marks as possible. And situations didn't evolve organically. It really read like "to do" list to get us through the plot. Nothing really pulled me in.

Well written story. Enjoyable. Certainly worth reading again.

This book is almost written like a diary. I couldn't stop reading it, but it wasn't my favorite for sure. It draws you in, but it is very basic in terms of story. It is very hard to categorize.

Well written too verbose. Should have been cut by half

DNF at 12%. The writing voice is awful. It's like a stream of consciousness of the most boring person to ever live. There's zero emotion; just a recitation of plotless events.