Megan Linden

I received Open Endings from the author through the M/M Romance Group’s Don’t Buy My Love program for an honest review. The story is told in third person through the eyes of Matt Holston, a soon-to-be college graduate, and Cole Perry, a Marine back from the war and working in the recruiting office. He suffers from PTSD.



This story was OK. It was about how Cole and Matt meet, then develop their relationship. The blurb makes it sound like there’s conflict in this story, but there really isn’t. Cole’s PTSD isn’t all that bad and Matt’s issue is his mother treating him like a kid and Matt not knowing what he wants to do when he graduates. I had trouble getting into the characters because the book was telling rather than showing so I couldn’t feel anything for Matt or Cole. Also the conflict in the story really wasn’t there. I think the best interaction between Matt and Cole came at the very beginning when Cole convinces Matt not to join the Marines. After that the story was flat.

Most of the editing seemed OK, but the start of chapter thirteen had a major hiccup. The chapter starts with Matthew lying on the sofa in the living room as he’s contemplating Cole’s PTSD.

“Matt stretched lazily on Cole’s couch.”

But in this paragraph implies they are still in bed:

“As much as he loved waking up surrounded by Cole, who was spooning him from behind, Matt knew that at some point something was bound to happen. He just hoped he wouldn’t do anything wrong when it did.”

But then we are told Cole is in the bathroom taking a shower.

"He heard the shower starting in the bathroom and smiled. Cole always took forever shaving…”

There were a couple things I think would have worked better if switched around. In the beginning I though Matt was in high school because I thought most guys decide to enlist after high school rather than college. Around three-quarters through the book we are told what Matt’s major is at college and how old he is. That would have been better off near the beginning of the story because since the readers aren’t told, I thought he was in high school. We also learn Matt has to write a thesis in order to graduate. The only people I know who had to write a thesis were students in grad programs. But for all I know maybe some undergraduate majors require it, but I haven’t heard of any.

Open Endings was an OK read. It was very fast and easy read since it’s almost error free. It just read flat because of the telling instead of showing and I couldn’t identify with Cole and Matt or why they fell for each other. The book however is a simple, romantic story without a lot of angst if you're looking for that. I give this story 3 Stars


… (mer)

First of all, Thank you to Megan Linden for writing this story for the Love is an Open Road event.

I want to like Zack. I want to like Evan. I want to like this story, but there's not enough story in which to get to know the characters. This felt more like a convenient set up of two gay guys in an otherwise limited setting (small town America somewhere in Texas).

Zack is a former detective with the NYPD who lost his job due an injury to his leg. There's no discussion about the injury other than the one time in the story he limps a bit. Beyond that and the fact that he's staying in his sister-in-law's house to do renovations, we really do not learn anything about Zack, other than that he played basketball through high school, college, and while he worked at NYPD, where he remained in the closet about his sexuality.

Evan, the next door neighbor, is openly gay, a computer programmer of some sort (or does he do website design? the story isn't clear about that) and works at the local high school teaching computer classes. His mother is the principal of the school and when she finds out Zack's background in basketball, she immediately marches over to invite him to be the girls basketball coach.

All of this would have been a great set up for exploring how different people deal with coming to terms about their circumstances and the opportunities presented in the story, from the girl, Mako who comes to Zack for advice, to how Zack and Evan's relationship evolves and grows over time, to how the girls come together as a team under Zack's coaching. Instead, we barely get highlights. There's barely any dialogue between the two MCs, and when they do get together their time seems to be all about how fast they can get naked and in bed together. Sorry, but that's not character development, that's just two guys getting naked and having sex. The second time it happened, I started skimming, looking for something that never appeared. In the end, when we get to the "I love yous", I just rolled my eyes because nothing in the story proved to me that they genuinely were in love with each other.… (mer)

This was definitely a sweet and enjoyable read which left me wanting to read more about these two.

Matt Holston will be graduating from college soon and has decided to consider the Marines, following in the footsteps of both his father and stepfather. But when Cole Perry, the Marine he encounters when he goes into the recruiting office, tells him he should completely rethink that choice, he finds himself more intrigued by the man than by the possibility of a military career. And by unraveling the mystery tht is Cole, Matt just might begin to figure out who he wants to be come, as well.

It's easy to be taken with these two guys. Because this isn't a lengthy book, the relationships develop quickly, but none of them seem forced; it has a very natural pace. While this wasn't set up as a series, I could see myself reading one if the author felt inspired to write it.

(eBook copy provided by the author via the Goodreads M/M Romance Group's 'Don't Buy My Love' program in exchange for an honest review.)… (mer)