I enjoyed this story, but it isn't as rich as other work by this author. I glanced at a few other reviews, and saw that others felt the same way. It isn't the age of the work, there are older novels that are deeper and more thoughtful. The characters are fine, but here's the thing. I liked Sophie the best, Rafi second, and then James, when James is the POV character. So, it's a little off, and the little not-an-epilogue after it is worse, but I don't regret reading it! Because it's still better than 90% of the romances on the market. ( )

James Richards is a college professor who has reached the stage in life where he feels his age has caught up to him. It's just him and his dog, Marole, and he doesn't know if he'll ever find that elusive dream of love. But when one of his students introduces him to Rafael, a younger man with the looks of an underwear model, there's a small spark of wonder. But Rafi is far too young for James, and Rafi's family dynamic is one that James hasn't ever really encountered before. Can he really put his heart on the line and hope it won't be shattered again?

This one just didn't hit the mark for me. The dialogue was awkward at times and the relationship seemed very forced--it was like it went from 0 to 110 in a matter of seconds. It didn't feel organic at all. So I found myself just unable to get into this at almost any level, really. ( )

I really enjoyed this story. I thought it was great how Rafael and James interacted despite their age difference. And honestly? The eggs at the end...PRICELESS! Loved it. ( )

Very entertaining. Another great story by Amy Lane. 4 stars ( )

There are mid-life crises, and then there are mid-life slumps. James Richards, a gay English professor at a small junior college outside Sacramento, California, has slumped so low at age forty-three that he’s nearly belly dancing with the pavement.

That is until he meets gay Latino, politically incorrect, good guy Rafael Ochoa, whom James thinks of as an underwear model. Then not only does James’ life perk up, but readers will start to grin on their way to laughing out loud.

After his boyfriend leaves him and wipes out their shared bank account, college professor James decamps from Maine and takes the first available teaching job on the Left Coast. There he acquires a Boston terrier that he names Marlowe, after the writer who may have been Shakespeare.

James is in a decided slump and unhappy not so much with life as with himself. But one of his students, an “androgynous Goth chick with dyed blue-black hair” who challenges practically every statement he makes in class, decides she can’t see her favorite teacher so down. When she talks about James to her childhood friend Rafael, the almost thirty-year-old mechanic is intrigued and wants to meet James because as Rafi says, he’s got a “white-boy kink.”

So begins a love affair to rival that of any Shakespearean couple. White bread James is thrown into Rafael’s colorful Latino life, complete with his chubby cousin who refuses to have a Quinceañera because everyone will laugh at her, a fortune-telling grandmother, and homophobic male relatives, including a scowling father.

Read the rest of my review at AAR: http://www.likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=9292 ( )