Book Review: Misunderstandings by Angel Rothamel

Title: Misunderstandings
Series: SEALS of Cedar, Colorado Series, Book 1
Author: Angel Rothamel
Genre: Contemporary Romance, M/M Romance
Sensuality Rating: Erotic
Source: review copy provided by publisher
Published: May 2013 by MLR Press

What would you do if you got a call informing you that the family as you knew it, was a lie.

Dan Brock, retired SEAL turned mechanic in small town Cedar, Colorado, gets a call that changes his life. Dealing with the family he never knew about, Dan takes his frustrations out on the man, that because of his good looks, Dan refuses to have anything to do with. Dallas Bainbridge's primary job is flying Dan's former CO from place to place. Getting a request to fly Dan to his father's funeral, Dallas tries to keep to himself, not knowing why Dan doesn't like him. Can the two men get past their differences, or will a simple misunderstanding keep them apart?

Reviewed By: J9

In a Nutshell: Awesome premise of a gay SEAL finding his love but the title says exactly what wrecked the book for me.

The Set Up: Dan Brock retired with his SEAL squadron to Cedar, Colorado and met Dallas, a man he thinks is high maintenance and conceited. When Dan has to go to New Mexico for the reading of his father’s will, who he never knew, Dallas is asked to fly him there. Will these two men ever be able to get over their misunderstandings to build a relationship?

Why I Read this Book: I love me some gay military guys!

What I Liked: I love the premise of this story and the series. Dan is part of an entire squadron of retired Navy SEALs who live together in Cedar, Colorado. I love the explanation of how they became SEALs and how much they mean to each other. The times when the SEALs interact together and come to each other’s rescue sets up a great community that I love in books. I also really liked some of the other SEALs and may even try some of their stories.

What I Didn’t Like: I really wanted to like this book but couldn’t. Dan is a jerk in my opinion who constantly falls back on his first impression of Dallas, even when Dallas has shown him plenty of times who he is. To make it worse, Dan has moments of self-reflection when he’d say things like I wasn’t taught to treat people according to my moods but that’s what I’m doing to Dallas. Then Dan would apologize to Dallas just to repeat the cycle the entire book. In my opinion, romantic tension should come organically from the characters and not forced on them for the sake of keeping the characters apart, and that’s the way I felt about Dan and Dallas.

The plot involving Dan’s father, whom he never knew, leaving him money was decent at first but the evil sister ruined that plot for me. She’s an over the top evil villain straight out of a soap opera. To be fair, the brother was a little more nuanced even though his life was straight out of a made-for-tv movie.

Finally, the narration was totally off.  Huge things would happen in sentences which resulted in reader whiplash for me.  For instance, Dan and Dallas are having dinner and within two sentences they’re back at their hotel and engaging in sexy times. The dialogue was off as well as characters would say convenient things to further the story when it seemed out of place.

IMO: I wanted to love this book but should have figured with the title that the romance was going to be one misunderstanding after another instead of showing a developing relationship. The other Navy SEALs were interesting enough that I may pick up one of their stories in the future but otherwise this book didn’t work for me.

 

J9’s Rating: