Book Title: Love’s Trials
Author: Janice Jarrell
Publisher: ACX
Narrator: Walker Williams
Release Date: January 28, 2020
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Trope/s: Hurt/comfort
Themes: Redemption, forgiveness
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 9 hours and 24 minutes
It can be listened to as a standalone. But listening to Love’s Magic first would be helpful in understanding the characters.
Author: Janice Jarrell
Publisher: ACX
Narrator: Walker Williams
Release Date: January 28, 2020
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Trope/s: Hurt/comfort
Themes: Redemption, forgiveness
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 9 hours and 24 minutes
It can be listened to as a standalone. But listening to Love’s Magic first would be helpful in understanding the characters.
When the trial is deadly enough, love can lose its way.
After half a lifetime spent in short-term liaisons that allowed no intimacy, charismatic Irish police officer, Colin Campbell, found the love of his life. Dark-eyed, steady Joshua Abrams burned through Colin’s emotional barriers and taught him to look at life through new eyes, eyes that made room for the love and closeness he had always denied himself. Deeply in love and completely happy, their life together remains idyllic and their fiery passion for each other seems limitless.
They survive the Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' riots, though not without scars. But later that month Colin’s position with the campus police force places him in charge of an informant program designed to crack a dangerous drug ring. Fully aware of the risks, he swears to Joshua that he will oversee the program without becoming directly involved. But Colin's promise shatters when he becomes the only thing standing between a young Nigerian exchange student and a deadly drug lord.
I don't even know where to begin. This book hit me hard. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to slap someone, and this time it wasn't the characters...well, maybe them a little. LOL. Ten years ago, I became sick and disabled, so this one hits close to home. I could relate to Colin on a level I couldn't in book one, and while it was an emotional read, I absolutely loved it. Let's get into the review.
STORY: 4.5 STARS
Colin, Josh, Nate, and David are back, but this time the story solely focuses on Colin and Josh, and I will tell you now, I liked that a lot more than I did the first book, Love's Magic. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed book one, but it wasn't my fave. This one...blew me away. Maybe because we only have to keep up with the one, which I'm going to tell you now, there was enough drama, nothing needed to be added to it. LOL. The raw emotion that is written into this story when Colin is hurt and the way he deals with it came through loud and clear. Not everyone can do that. Like I said, it hits close to home for me and pressed certain buttons. I'm not saying it has triggers, but if you have ever had a disease or injury that basically put on the breaks and changed your life, you will be able to understand Colin very well. Still a great cast of characters - I love the physical therapist - and a plot that will touch you emotionally.
NARRATION: 4.5 STARS
Once again Walker Williams brought these characters to life. With a steady pace, the book is easy to follow, and he gave different voices to the various characters, which means you won't get lost trying to figure out who said what.
OVERALL: 4.5 STARS
I loved this book, and while there were still a couple of times when I yelled at my audible app and told the characters to pull their heads out of their...you know, the story pulled me in. For some of you, this will be very emotional, and I'll recommend tissue to those of you that warning applies to. I needed them a few times. Great story, great plot, fantastic characters, and good narration. Overall, I'm giving this book 4.5 stars and recommend you one-click today!
My name is Janice Jarrell. I am a retired grandmother who lives in Seattle, WA. I have two children and three grandsons. I’ve been writing gay romance since I was twelve years old, only back then it wasn’t called ‘gay romance’. In fact, it had no name at all. It was the fifty’s, and it was worth your life to admit to being gay, let alone confess to being a girl who constantly fantasized about relationships between gay men. Hell, I didn’t even know what a homosexual was. I lived on a farm out in the sticks in a tiny Michigan village and I’d never, to my knowledge, even heard the word. I just knew I loved the thought of boy on boy romance. I just knew that there was something hot going on between Tom Corbett and his Space Cadets and all those guys on ‘Combat’.
I wrote slash fanfiction for 30 years, writing over 337 stories, some as short as 100 words (a drabble) some as long as a series which was over 119, 012 words. I enjoy writing my stories. I enjoyed the feedback I received from my readers. It was a creative release I’d been searching for my entire life and I blessed the Internet for leading me to this artistic oasis for my spirit.
Love’s Magic was my very first step into writing my own characters. I will always be grateful the slash fanfiction community for nurturing the budding author until she was ready to blossom into a fully realized novelist, and I am thrilled that it is now available on Audible! It’s been an amazing thing to watch the gay community’s growth over these past twenty years. My own journey has echoed theirs in many ways, and I’m grateful to all those gay activists who fought to give the gay community the rights and privileges they always deserved.
My second contemporary gay romance novel, Love's Trials followed Colin and Joshua on their journey as men and as a couple. The readers who fell in love with them in Love’s Magic were thrilled to see their romance continue to grow and blossom, but were forced to watch our beloved boys go through some pretty traumatic trials in this book, trials which nearly shattered their relationship. But their love proved stronger than any troubles in the end and they now move forward into the happiness they know they deserve.
In Love’s Glory, my newest release, Colin and Joshua bask in the happiness that eluded them in Love’s Trials. If you’re looking for a book filled with anger, fear, and anxiety... look elsewhere. Love’s Glory is about just that... the glory of love and the continued growth of these two extraordinary men and the amazing friends who are a large part of their lives.
I’m also grateful to the gay romance community, readers, authors, publishers and promoters, who are making these, my retirement years, the most creative ones of my life. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling, walking, hiking, knitting, crocheting, and weaving, and enjoying my life here in the heart of the Pacific Northwest.
