Controlled Burn
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $0.99
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- $0.99
Publisher Description
At eighteen, Joel Smith was outed in the local newspaper after his boyfriend died in a car crash, and he did everything possible to outrun his past. He moved to Oklahoma for college, changed his name, and started over. Since then, he hasn't let anyone get close. The strategy has served him well for over three years. No reason to change it now.
But Joel doesn't plan on the articles about his boyfriend's death being used as a case study in one of his classes. And he doesn't plan on Paulie McPherson, who is sweet and giving and fun. In Paulie, he finds a reason to stop running for the first time in years.
But love isn't simple, and lies have a tendency to get in the way. Joel must figure out if he'll allow his grief to rule him, or if his connection with Paulie is worth letting his walls come tumbling down.
NOTE: This is a reprint of a previously published novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McLellan's flimsy debut erotic romance dives deep into angst. High school senior Jared Smith innocently texted his boyfriend, who was driving at the time; while reading the text, the young man crashed his car and died. Jared was outed, blamed, and all but abandoned by his family. Three years later, Jared, now in college in Oklahoma, has changed his name to Joel and uses sex with strangers to dull the pain. When a chance assignment stirs up Joel's tragic past, his flamboyant classmate Paulie helps him through it. Despite Joel's fears of opening up to another person, Paulie quickly becomes a vital part of Joel's life. The pair stumble their way through familial difficulties, the rigors of college life, and Joel's fear of commitment. Moments of pure sweetness and connection between Joel and Paulie are vastly outnumbered by their frequent trips to the bedroom, which eventually get boring. The plot serves merely as a loose framework for cleverly written but repetitive sensual scenes, much to the detriment of character development.
