I wanted to read this series because of a bunch of reasons:
1. The title is poetical and beautiful. It stuck andAmazing. This is the real thing.
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I wanted to read this series because of a bunch of reasons:
1. The title is poetical and beautiful. It stuck and couldn't forget about it ever since. 2. The covers are suggestive and artsy. 3. Kou Yoneda's style agrees with me. 4. Shady environment: the Japanese mafia. 5. One of the MCs is impotent. The other one is a masochist. I wanted to see how the hell this would be sorted out.
Yes, I kind of expected this to epically explode in my very face, yet it didn't.
So...
Yashiro is yakuza. He's also an teasing irreverent masochist who has been secretly pinning his best (and only) friend from high school.
Doumeki is an ex-con, and an ex-police officer, who intercedes in one of Yashiro's 'scenes'. He's also impotent. Nothing can scratch his imperturbable armor. Or does it?
Yashiro takes him as his bodyguard (although he finds other uses in him) and loves provoking him in all ways he can think of. Sexually mostly, and the non-answer he receives from Doumeki only spurs him on even more.
Strangely enough, there is a compelling atmosphere in this story. The characterization is incredible, and their attachment to each other may be deeper than it seems at first. Even when they are unable to meet in the middle.
In order to read this book, you have to suspend disbelief.
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Indefinitely.
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And then more.
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I had three major problems with this book (In order to read this book, you have to suspend disbelief.
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Indefinitely.
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And then more.
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I had three major problems with this book (Whaaaaaat? Only three?).
Firstly, this is unrealistic. Not a little, or much. Just I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E. I spent the first 25% rolling my eyes six ways to Sunday (and the rest 75% I managed to combine the eye-rolling with some kind of grumpy acceptance). I was sinking in despair seeing how ridiculous it all was, seeing two grown-up men behaving like teens. Their infatuation lead them to make great mistakes and missteps because they can’t simply control themselves, even when the situation they are in requires a composure none of these guys happen to have a hint about.
How is it possible Jack Spiers became President of the USA? How is it possible Ethan Reichenbach is the detail lead of the POTUS, not only once but also three times before Jack?
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Really, I appreciate fiction in my books, but this one goes too far. I was close to taking my eyes out with a spoon to see if they were working correctly. Because I was reading nonsense after nonsense. There was no bottom.
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They both have important positions, important jobs, important tasks. Still, they seem to be a pair of totally irresponsible hotheads, drooling over each other when they are supposed to keep a professional distance, a distance they are both masters at, because they’ve spent years of their lives acting that way. Dealing with people. Having professional relationships. It’s not as if they don’t have any practice. However, they struck me as immature kids playing a game together, instead of fulfilling their duties, which are not few.
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Yes, I’m aware public personalities are not as perfect as they want to make us believe, but for some reason I couldn’t picture Jack nor Ethan, in the roles they were meant to fit into. I couldn’t picture Jack as the winner of the general elections, I couldn’t picture him as someone with connections, charisma, poise and that astuteness you would expect from a wannabe President of an important country. How did he survive all the sharks in the path towards the White House’s seat? He’s too candid and too trusting for this. He is simply not able to achieve it.
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And then Ethan… his job seems like a child’s play. I expected his job to be something of utter complexity, but he seemed decaffeinated in his duty, as if it wasn’t challenging at all. As if it required just a little effort, but not much beyond that. I tried to imagine him as a hardened Army guy with lots of experience in his field, but failed. He just doesn’t have that aura. He just seemed too vulnerable, too out of place. He falls for the President and he can’t avoid it nor keep a professional stance.
He’s a big boy. Supposedly.
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I was beginning to tell a friend everything about the book (I do it very often, above all when I’m so WTF I need to give a way to out all my stupefaction) and the first thing he asked was “Do they masturbate themselves while crying?” (Damn, he’s good), and I said, “Almost”. Because, seriously, they both cry and sob multiple times in the story. For God’s sake, they are forty years old (or more) each! They have onion paper skin, everything hurts them and makes them cry!
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I’m aware Presidents (and Secret Service people) can cry, too. They are human beings, after all. But please, they are public personalities, they have an image to maintain. They represent a country, after all. It was pathetic. The Russian President had more spine. Even the Chinese guy and the Saudi prince were made of tougher material.
It’s amazing they each got so far in their respective careers, that they could handle all the obstacles and difficulties they surely had to overcome. I don’t mean they can’t be good people or feel affected by the events but their roles are too big for them both. They don’t live up to their reputations.
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I was driven to despair for most of the book. I’m serious. I was pulling my hair, rolling my eyes, crying in disappointment. This is so unrealistic I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I pushed and pushed, making a great effort to finish this book, but with each passing page I was more and more traumatized.
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I’ve not read many political books (but I do watch movies) because I’m not into thrillers but this was so perfect, so idealistic: the bad guy is very bad, the friends are all so good and supportive, the conclusion is so fairy-tale. Everything is so neat, so ideal, so black-and-white. When the big secret comes out, there is a scandal for a short while. They are so honest and morally strong and brave. Then everybody is happy with it all. Only a grumpy guy or two. Ugh? A pink ribbon or something similar would have been the icing on the cake in this madness.
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This felt like a movie but not a serious one. I expected Q to appear all of a sudden to show off the new devices he has invented since the last mission and saying “Please, return the car in one piece”. With the difference that his movie doesn’t have the same charm Roger Moore’s films had.
Secondly, this major problem is only mine to blame for, but it didn’t help. My mind makes funny things sometimes. I plead guilty! I’m going to regret explaining it here and you are definitely going to hate me, but here it goes: I began comparing it with real life. For real. I began thinking about George W. Bush in this role. No kidding, I couldn’t erase that pic from my head. I began imagining Bush having a gay affair and now and then this thought came out in the most unexpected moments and I began giggling stupidly. Then I imagined Reagan. Or Donald Trump.
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It’s not that a President can’t be gay, it’s just that the prospect of imagining the sexual life of certain people is bizarre at least. I prefer not thinking about their private lives at all. But I can only speak about myself, maybe some people do.
Then I did something worse, I imagined this situation in my own country. There are shipping stories with wannabe Presidents in my country (no joking here, and please, don’t ask how did that ever happen). What, you don’t believe it?
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In this book, I find I’m ruined for future Presidential books. My bad.
[image] (This is the only pic I’m going to post about this, I’m trying to control myself, dammit! And only a cartoon, reality is too creepy to tell)
I will draw a veil over this.
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My third issue is this premise, or better said, the absence of this premise: you not only have to tell me you are good, you have to demonstrate you are good. Replace “good” with every word you can come up with: “clever”, “cool”, “strong”, “powerful”, etc.
Well, the characters and the narrator are talking all the time about how wonderful, awesome and effective USA is in every field you can think of.
If that’s true, then how is it possible they had so much shit in their politics and government and everything under the sun? How is it possible they ended up making a fool of themselves in front of everyone, with so many corrupted and powerful personalities manipulating so many people for so long… everything behind the President’s back, behind many important people’s backs! For years! And nobody suspects a thing! Only the Chinese guy and the Saudi prince and even the Russian President suspect something is off! Really! It’s worrisome!
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The President is the best one in years, the Secret Service is infallible, the counselors are the most prepared people on Earth…
Yet they are deceived very easily. Yet they fail in their purpose. Yet they are ridiculous.
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Is that the impression you want to give the readers about how awesome they all are? Because you are proving the opposite with these actions! Words are words, nothing. Actions are the ones that count. And here actions were crappy, at least.
However, the worst thing is that bad people are laughable. How did these idiots maintain the secret from everybody? It’s absurd. I knew for ages who the traitors were, who the moles were. And I suck at mysteries, everybody knows who the assassin is before I do. But here, I knew it before everybody else. They are supposed to be experts! I was never impressed. The nemesis is ridiculous.
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I was thinking “This can't be happening” all the time.
I was in a constant state of facepalm.
This was a comedy, not a thriller.
This was a caricature of itself.
Now, about the love story. It was a gay-for-you. Jack Spiers is a widower, and he didn’t feel attraction to men. Until he meets Ethan. Well, that’s not true, after Ethan makes the move. Before that, Jack considers Ethan his best friend. That’s it.
I admit there were moments in which I smiled but still, the chemistry was off to me. I couldn’t believe the gay-for-you thing. Their relationship is more about “telling” than about “showing”. The sex scenes were cold and forced. I didn’t get the vibes I’d like to get.
Yes, I kept reading because of them, because they kept me interested, but I was never entirely captivated.
I was really looking forward to reading this one. A Keira Andrews book with ***DNF page 138 out of 269***
Not bad. Just boring. Just not for me.
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I was really looking forward to reading this one. A Keira Andrews book with awesome reviews? I’m in.
I’m the only one among my friends who decided to DNF it. So it’s safe to say mine is quite a dissenting opinion.
I’ve read a few books with bodyguards and I have to say that Close Protection is the best I’ve read so far. In both the protectee is 10 years younger (or more) than the bodyguard. In both there is this “forbidden” love story.
I was terribly disappointed in Valor on the Move. There is no believable development of feelings. Suddenly, Rafa has a crush on Shane. Rafa gets under Shane’s skin easily. They make mistakes all the time, they slip with each other all the time. Slipping is so frequent, so calculated, and happy coincidences are so scheduled and convenient. It was all so forced and simple I couldn’t buy it. There is no real falling in love, no real inner conflicts, no real “resistance”. They slip and slip and slip. They are supposed to maintain a distance, but they slip and their real feelings are hopelessly out, with no option to hide them from each other.
The sexual tension is non-existent. Their relationship inspired me nothing. I was bored. I was struggling to keep reading, to finish the book.
I also had a few issues:
Rafa and his siblings had always just been Castillo, his father’s name. His parents had worked hard to make them into the whitest, most non-threatening Hispanics Republican money could buy while still courting the Latino vote with great success.
I wonder… why Rafael and not Raphael? Isn’t that a “whiter” name? More “Anglo-Saxon”? Maybe I just can’t stop thinking about Rafael Nadal everytime I read “Rafa”.
I don’t really understand Mexicans not being “white”, I’ve met/seen blond and/or “pale” Mexicans in real life and in TV. There is a lot of diversity there. Or are people from the USA all Caucasian? What about African Americans? Native Americans? Asian population?
“We’ve discussed this before. My parents left the old world behind to make a new life for us here in America.”
Last time I looked, Mexico was in America. It's just bizarre to me that this character, who was born in Mexico, speaks that way about these two countries in the same sentence. I have no idea if that's usual or just a way to emphasize that she is indeed “whiter” than the average Hispanic person. I'm just mentioning this fact because it was remarkable for me. Surely it means nothing and I'm just making pointless questions. Again.
And Mexico (year 1821?) is younger than USA (year 1776?). Old world? Which old world?
Small power bottom manhandling a big hunky guy at his taste. Hot sex. Plenty of smexy times. What's not to like?
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The book is very long, but it dSmall power bottom manhandling a big hunky guy at his taste. Hot sex. Plenty of smexy times. What's not to like?
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The book is very long, but it doesn't feel that way. Imagine, 890 pages. I had to charge my kindle because the battery didn't last (not that I always remember to charge it, anyway). My mother words: "You read this book and it never ends but you can't stop reading, and when you are not reading it, you think about reading it". I think that thought is compatible with my own.
If I judge the book with a minimum of objectivity I have to admit it sounds like sci-fi if not like soap opera. I criticized in Play Me, I'm Yours, YA, that one of the MCs was into BDSM before beginning the relationship with the other MC. But in that book it felt like an eyesore: it wasn't meant to be there. Here Luca has been controlling men around since he's 16 and he has slept with more people than he can count. But his personality matched up his actions. His confident presence was displayed in cocky and nonchalant provocations and shameless manipulations. He exploits his looks, charm and charisma to play with people's desires, in a praying mantis sort of way. He has such a remarkable personality I never doubted of his power to handling men like puppets. He was the whole time taking the lead and he has everybody wrapped around his little finger.
That's why his mother only hires female bodyguards or ugly males... except for Ryder, what was she thinking?
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Ryder is a righteous and honorable person and professional to the bitter end, so he doesn't bend to Luca's insistence, which doesn't mean it's a piece of cake to reject Luca's insinuations. An ex-soldier himself, he is strict and assertive, and his principal looks for new ways in his repertoire to push all his buttons, trying to shatter his impassive attitude.
Which was fun as fuck.
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Don't get it wrong. It's a tar baby, of course. But this story was also oh-so-very-sweet. I didn't expect it. Yes, my mother kept telling me I had to read the book because they were "so cute" and she knows I can't resist cute characters. It's my weakness. And when the sweetness is in a "mature" sort of book (meaning, not YA), I just got more curious.
Luca has just been expelled from his third boarding school in Switzerland due to "improper behavior" and you can guess which kind of. No other school accepts him so he is forced to come back home in the States, which is dangerous as hell, as menaces are more real than in Europe. That's when Ryder becomes the leader of the bodyguard team and has to prevent those menaces from coming true. If that wasn't enough, the shit hits the fan when Luca begins receiving letters and presents with connections to his past from a person who calls himself "the Admirer", and his modus operandi suggests he's serious about his intentions and that he is supported by a mole in the house.
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The mystery doesn't call my attention as much as the love story. Luca has never been exclusive, and he demonstrates it. Ryder tries to distance himself from Luca but at the same time he can't help himself from sharing his opinions about Luca's definition of a hobby. Jealousy and possessiveness take place in a normal basis, from both sides. When one of them wants, the other one gives his back. When the roles are reversed, it happens equally. This dance sounds frustrating and childish but it's not. There are issues Luca and Ryder have to sort out, inside their heads and in the core of their relationship. Ryder can't think about being the boyfriend of a 18-year-old, whereas Luca doesn't think he can control his need to control and sacrifice an important part of himself. At first you believe there is no way for them to find a common path, to reconcile their desires and feelings. But the advantage of having a book so long is that there is enough time and space for the characters to evolve and change coming to terms with their consciences and natures.
Did I mention the sex is hot? There are power exchanges, too. Just saying.
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Don't let the length of the book discourage you. It's worth it.