How to Save a Life (The Haven Book 1)
By Sloan Parker
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
No big deal. Walk into a club. Pretend to be gay. Dance. Flirt. Secretly get evidence to shut the place down. The perfect plan. Until I saw him.
Reporter Kevin Price has a knack for tripping over his own feet. And everyone else's. He's in over his head undercover at the Haven, a swanky gay sex club, determined to find out why members of the club keep vanishing. Five minutes inside and he can no longer deny the truth about his sexuality. He turns to the one man he can't get out of his head, the sexy ex-cop handling security. Too bad Kevin doesn't trust cops. Not since the only night he let himself be with another man.
Walter Simon doesn't do the club scene anymore. Not since he found love and lost it. That doesn't mean he'll let anyone hurt more innocent gay men. Even if that means going head-to-head with the klutzy, closeted, much-younger reporter. Kevin has information about the disappearances. Better to keep him close. And safe.
Neither is at the club to hook up or fall in love. Now they must work together amid their growing passion in order to uncover the truth before more men disappear.
Note: How to Save a Life features Walter Simon, a secondary character from MORE, but can be read as a stand-alone story. This book contains explicit sexual content and graphic language.
Sloan Parker
Award-winning author Sloan Parker writes passionate, dramatic stories about two men (or more) falling in love. She enjoys writing in the fictional world because in fiction you can be anything, do anything—even fall in love for the first time over and over again. Sloan lives in Ohio with her partner and their neurotic cats. Her greatest moments in life are spent with her family, her friends, and her characters. To contact Sloan, find out about her books that are available for purchase, and read free stories, visit: www.sloanparker.com. If you'd like to be notified of new releases and get exclusive sneak peeks, be sure to sign up to receive Sloan Parker's newsletter via her website.
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Reviews for How to Save a Life (The Haven Book 1)
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's been awhile since I've read such a captivating novel.
The Plot:
Missing men prompts a reporter, Kevin Price, and a private detective, Walter Simmon to work together. But by drawing closer to the kidnapper, so do the two men to each other. Can they survive the danger and overcome their differences?
Kevin Price:
He is our young reporter, who has remained in the closet but now finds that hiding that part of himself is becoming too much. What I liked about him the most was his humor and his dedication to others. Although he did do some boneheaded things while chasing a bad guy. And I really related to his clumsiness.
Walter Simmon:
Ahh, our hot, older former-cop. When we hear about his backstory, I could not help but feel poorly for him. There are times however, when we see through that crusty exterior and see his warm and loving center.
What I liked:
What I liked about this was how the relationship unfolded. We did not just jump into the sex, although there was plenty of sexy scenes. The mystery aspect was very good and I found the tension compelling.
What Could be better:
The only thing that really annoyed me was reading the "bad guy" perspective of the book. I really dislike reading those section and I mostly just skimmed the scenes where he did the preverbal "evil hand rubbing and cackling" bad guy stuff.
Overall, I loved this book! I will be looking more from this author. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Save a Life by Sloan Parker has a terrific beginning through the first thirteen chapters with complex characters, a fast pace, heart-stopping tension, and a perfect balance between the romance and the mystery. However, through the middle, the pacing gets sluggish with our heroes’ sex scenes and heart-to-heart conversations outweighing the mystery plot, which is frustrating because the mystery grows increasingly urgent. Meanwhile, two unnecessary characters from the author’s novel More, outstay their welcome to give relationship advice to Walter and Kevin. Also, one or two action sequences struck me as improbable.
However, it’s still a good book, and would have been a top pick if the perfection of the beginning had carried through to the end. The author’s smooth writing, flashes of humor, strong plotting, and sure hand with the sexual tension are all excellent. The story unfolds in the alternating third-person viewpoints of our two heroes with the occasional addition of the villain’s insane perspective. The book’s tone is realistic, suspenseful, serious, and romantic. The setting is a contemporary big city that I think might be Toledo, Ohio. The word-count is 111,364, which means this is a book you can really settle down with and savor.
The story opens with journalist Kevin on an undercover assignment to the Haven, an exclusive gay sex club, where he hopes to blend in as a new member and investigate the suspicious disappearances of some beautiful young men. He enters the club in an amusing state of turmoil as he struggles with his too-tight leather pants and tries to tamp down his excitement at seeing so many men. For complicated reasons buried in his past, Kevin has reached the age of thirty while completely denying his gay orientation.
He meets Walter, a sexy older ex-cop who is also looking into the disappearances of the young men as a favor to his friend, the club owner. Walter and Kevin have some red-hot verbal exchanges, stemming from their mutual suspicion and lust. Their chemistry is intense but neither has a full picture of the other’s involvement in the case. They agree to work together, and soon develop a romantic relationship. Walter, in particular, isn’t sure if they can get past their eighteen-year age gap. And Kevin has problems of his own when the villain singles him out as the next “boy” to disappear.
Val for AReCafe