B+
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Theme: Age Difference, One Night Stand
Archetype: Blue Collar, Military
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by cleo. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Mid-Length Contemporary category.
The summary:
After a decade of serving in the Army, everyone still expects me to be Dominic ‘Nicky’ Costigan–the skirt-chasing player. They don’t know I’ve been spending my days trying to figure out my post-military life. Including how to pick up guys.
When I meet Luke on a hookup app, he makes it clear it’s for one-night only. That’s fine with me, because I’m down to see what this silver fox can do. But after I arrive at his doorstep, it doesn’t take long to realize we have serious chemistry, and we end up meeting again.
He’s got more walls around his heart than a military base, but I think he’s as addicted to me as I am to him. He can’t resist me for long. I mean, who can? Except Luke’s rules exist for a reason, and when I test his limits, things get complicated. Maybe too complicated.
Here is cleo's review:
Updated March 2018: Since this review was posted, allegations have been made about Santino Hassell specifically about abuse, manipulation, and the hiding or concealing of the actual identity of the author of the books published under that name. You can read a complete summary of everything at The Salt Miner’s three part series: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. This guest review as part of the RITA Reader Challenge project, was written and posted more than a year prior to these events.
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I loved Fast Connection. It’s my favorite book in the authors’ Cyber Love series and I’ve re-read my favorite parts many times since I first read it. I signed up for the RITA reader challenge this year specifically so I could write this review – I mostly read m/m and queer romance these days (after decades of reading het m/f romance) and I was so excited when I saw that one of my favorite m/m romances from the past year was nominated for a RITA.
That said, when I re-read the entire book for this review, I found the first five chapters tedious. Even knowing that I had loved this book, I had trouble getting into it. I found both the writing style and the main characters annoying. It starts with a Grindr hookup and a lot of fairly impersonal sex and it’s written in first person (alternating between the two main characters). I don’t find first person narrated sex particularly sexy or compelling, especially when there’s not much of an emotional connection between the couple. I’m also not a fan of characters describing themselves and one of them, Dominic, does that a lot in the first few chapters. After the characters started developing feelings for each other and I became more invested in the characters, I started enjoying the story and I found myself loving it again.
Cyber Love is a series about people who meet and fall in love online. In the other books in the series (so far), the MCs get to know each other online before meeting in real life (IRL), but in Fast Connection they have IRL sex first and then get to know each other messaging through Grindr. The story opens with Dominic Costigan, a newly discharged Army veteran who’s recently realized that he’s bi, trying out Grindr for the first time. His profile catches the eye of Luke Rawlings, who lives two blocks away in their blue collar Staten Island neighborhood. He’s a single dad and his MO is to hook up with someone different every Friday, when his twin 16 year olds are with their mom. Because of some past baggage, Luke is determined to keep his sex life separate from his family life. Because this is the beginning of a romance novel, it’s pretty obvious how well that’s going to work for him.
Dominic is a good-looking, wisecracking guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s pretty hilarious, Googling “what to wear for a gay hookup” and texting his Army buddy Garrett (one of the MCs in book one) for advice about Grindr. The hookup goes well, with lots of graphic sex, but Luke kicks Dominic out pretty much before the after glow wears off. Despite that, they hook up a second time and then fall into a weekly routine, getting together every Friday after Luke’s kids leave for the weekend. Dominic messages Luke regularly through Grindr about random things and they start to get to know each other and develop an emotional connection. And that’s when the story started to work for me. I particularly enjoyed their messaging exchanges – there’s definitely an epistolary quality to parts of this novel. Both men are more open via message than they are in person, particularly Luke who tends to be private and brusque in person.
I really liked them together. I liked that their personalities complemented each other and they each got something from the relationship besides blinding orgasms. Dominic makes normally grumpy Luke laugh and lighten up and Luke believes in Dominic, who’s struggling to find his place as a civilian. He’s living in his parents’ basement, working in his family’s bagel shop and feeling lost and anxious. Luke was discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, has been out much longer and is more established. He’s 39 to Dominic’s 27, with a successful landscaping business, and offers advice and support without being condescending. Here’s an early messaging exchange about it.
StaffSgt: I just feel like a scrub. I’m not where I thought I’d be after getting out of the army. Makes me feel like I should have just re-upped and crawled back into the MRAP to wait to get my fucking head blown off.
Luke: What do you mean you’re not where you thought you would be?
StaffSgt: Dude, it’s like I’ve gone back in time. Like I never got anywhere or did anything. I hate it. And even tho I hate it, I wake up every day and keep doing this same shit routine instead of trying to make a change.
Luke: You’re in a rut.
StaffSgt: pretty much yes
Luke: Why don’t you look for something else?
StaffSgt: I don’t think I’m qualified to do shit else, man. What do I have to put on my resume?
Luke: Stop.
StaffSgt: sorry. This is too deep for a Grindr convo. I’ll STFU.
Luke: That’s not what I meant. Look… I have experience with radical lifestyle changes. If you want, I can help you.
StaffSgt: Really?
Luke: Really.
StaffSgt: Thanks, Luke.
Just as they start to get emotionally involved, they discover something that the reader learned much earlier – that Luke’s son Micah is best friends with (and has a massive crush on) Dominic’s much younger sister Adriana. A lot of the conflict in the story comes from this connection – both because it interferes with Luke’s desire to keep his sex life separate from his family life and because Dominic is protective of his sister and thinks Luke is too quick to blame Adriana for any trouble that she and Micah get into. The two teens go to different high schools and met online playing Fallen World, a fictional game similar to World of Warcraft (the same game brings the stars of book 1 together).
The other conflict in the story is Dominic’s relationship with his dad Duffy. They argue frequently about many things, particularly about what Dominic’s going to do next, how Duffy runs the failing family bagel shop and how Duffy treats Adriana. Duffy initially comes across as a verbally abusive jerk, constantly criticizing his children. Dominic is not the most reliable narrator when it comes to his father and his characterization of Duffy changes as his understanding changes. He spends the book trying to figure out if Duffy was always like this and he just didn’t notice before, or if Duffy’s actually worse, and if so, what changed and what, if anything, he can do to help. I liked the way Dominic’s relationship with his father is portrayed as dysfunctional but not irredeemably toxic.
There’s so much that I enjoyed. The dialog is so much fun. For example, after a particularly bad fight with Duffy, Dominic shows up at Luke’s during a family dinner with his ex-wife Nadia and her new boyfriend Anderson (he and Nadia married young, divorced amicably and are still close). Here’s Luke’s description of what happens when Dominic joins them for dessert and his daughter Chelle says what’s on her mind – at this point, Luke hasn’t told his family about his relationship with Dominic.
Chelle was still closely observing him. It occurred to me to redirect her attention but before I could, she blurted out, “I’m sorry your dad’s an asshole.”
Dominic’s fork clattered on his plate as Nadia and I both yelled at the same time, “Michelle Victoria!”
“I’m just saying what we’re all thinking!”
“Jesus Christ.” I put my head in my hands.
Nadia was still yelling, Anderson was trying to calm her down, and when I looked over at Dominic, he met my gaze, his eyes crinkled. He was laughing.
Laughing.
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“It actually is funny.”
“My daughter called your father an asshole.”
“He is an asshole. She knows it.” Dominic gestured at my son. “Micah knows it, because he’s pretty much Adriana’s only friend. I mean, Chelle’s your daughter, so do what you’re gonna do. But she was just trying to be nice and take care of the elephant in the room.” He stuck a loaded fork in his mouth, then pointed at the rest of the slice. “Also, this is great fucking pie.”
I shook my head. “You’re an idiot.”
He grinned around another mouthful. “Yeah, pretty much.”
When I looked up, the room was silent, and all eyes were on us. Fuck.
As a bi woman, I loved the bi representation. Both heroes are matter of factly bi. Luke knew he was bi at an early age. He’s out to his ex-wife and children, although not particularly out in the rest of his life when the story begins. Dominic didn’t realize until he was on tour in Afghanistan. I also liked that Fast Connection has a strong sense of place. As a lifelong Midwesterner, I have no way of evaluating how accurate the portrayal of Staten Island is, but it feels real.
I’ve gone back and forth about what to say about the writing. It’s written in the first person, with alternating viewpoints. I know that’s a deal breaker for some readers, although it doesn’t usually bother me. As I’ve mentioned, I loved the dialog and the messaging via Grindr, but some of the descriptive passages made me roll my eyes, at least during some of my re-readings. And the tendency of Dominic to describe himself really made me roll my eyes. Here’s an early passage from Dominic’s POV that I found particularly annoying on my second reading. Please note that I’ve re-read this passage so many times now that I can no longer tell if I’m just cranky or if the use of language is actually a little awkward.
Coming back to Staten Island wasn’t turning out to be the amazing homecoming I’d pictured for the past eight years. After working on the base between tours and only returning to Port Richmond on the holidays, I’d changed a lot. In some ways I was still the big, brash blond with the smart mouth and quick temper, but in other ways I’d matured. I wasn’t Nicky anymore. I was barely Dominic. I was Staff Sergeant Costigan, who’d survived countless patrols, several ambushes, and a couple of exploded IEDs.
I’d tried for years to cling to my sense of humor despite the grimness of so many situations. In a sense, it’d worked. I was still me. Still smiling. But my smile wasn’t as quick for some people.
And here’s a passage of Dominic describing taking his profile photo.
Garrett had advised me to use a picture of my abs to set up a Grindr account, but while my torso was a thing of working-out-seven-days-a-week beauty, I had a hard time believing it was a bad move to go with a face pic on my profile. Meeting the eyes of a pretty girl had never steered me wrong, and I couldn’t see how it would fail with men.
See what I mean about Dominic describing himself a lot? It does kind of make sense in terms of his character. He’s very good looking and although he’s not a jerk about it, his awareness of how he looks and of how people react to it is part of his personality. But all the self-descriptions still made me roll my eyes.
This series is co-written by Santino Hassell and Megan Erickson. It’s less gritty than Santino Hassell’s Five Boroughs series but grittier than Megan Erickson’s Focus series (at least the ones that I’ve read). Despite my quibbles with the writing style, I loved this book and this couple and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys contemporary romances, grumpy heroes, or blue-collar characters.
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Fabulous review!! It’s always awesome to hear perspective on non-mainstream romance from a person who’s lived some of those experiences. Thank you for this!
It’s not just you; that writing style is grating for me too. It’s an easy way to help us picture the characters, but a) very few people describe themselves that way in real life, so it feels odd to read it and b) people who do describe themselves that way are, more often than not, flaming narcissists. It doesn’t sound like these characters are, though, so the flattering self-descriptions are just jarring.
Yeah, I tend to find the writing style a bit off-putting too, sometimes, but it’s easy for me to get over because the story *always* pulls me in. I love this series unreservedly. The new one just came out the other day too.
Thanks for your review, Cleo. I enjoyed this book, too.
And FYI, the book is currently 99 cents at Amazon.
I love this series so hard. I pre-ordered each of them after reading the first one.
Yeah, the writing can be jarring at time, but the story is so damn good I can look (read?) past it.
Although, given the bits of Dominic we saw in the first book (when he and Garrett were deployed), him talking about himself that way isn’t quite as odd.
Thanks you guys! I’m so glad to hear that I’m not the only one with problems with the writing style. It’s funny – I love this book and this series so much that it’s easy to gloss over the writing quirks while reading them. But not so much when writing the review.
I wrote and submitted this before book 4, Mature Content, came out – and I enjoyed it a lot. It’s about 2 you-tubers we meet in book 3.
Really enjoyed this review. I debated whether to buy this book, even at 99c, because of the same issue with the quality of the writing. I read Megan Erickson’s first book (Trust the Focus?) and liked the story but found the prose clunky and the dialogue often annoying, so I’ve not read any others.
I like m/m romance in theory, but in actuality I’m often disappointed by potentially great story ideas let down by average execution. (And I totally agree about the first person sex being offputting). A lot of reviewers only focus on the story itself, but the writer’s skill makes such a difference to the emotional impact of a book, in my opinion.
Still, this book does have a lot of interesting elements, so maybe one day….
@oceanjasper – yeah, I think that’s one of the biggest challenges of finding romance authors I like (writing any pairing). I have fairly specific standards and tastes when it comes to writing and execution. If I connect emotionally with the story and characters sometimes that will pull me through writing styles I normally don’t care for. And since romance tends to be all about the emotional connections, a lot of reviews focus on how the book made them feel.
And because I can’t resist, have you tried KJ Charles?
@cleo – yes, I love KJ Charles’ writing but I’m not into paranormal elements, so I’ve only read some of her books. And since we’re recommending, for anyone who loved Charles’ Think of England, I recently discovered Elin Gregory. Her book Eleventh Hour has the same English pre-war “ripping yarn” style with pitch-perfect period detail and a secret m/m romance.