Brief Encounters

Title: Summer Surprise
Author: Teegan Loy
Length: 17,081 words
Publisher: Silver Publishing
Genre: m/m Contemporary Romance
Rating: D+

Blurb: It’s hard being in love with your best friend. For Kasey, it’s meant watching endless guys walk through Devyn’s life. Will Kasey tell Devyn how he feels before summer ends and not live a life filled with regret?

Years of wanting his best friend have worn Kasey down. After graduating from college, the two head to the lake for the summer. This is Kasey’s last chance and he’s going to make the best of it. But Kasey’s plans often go awry.

He has Devyn to himself–until boys start turning up everywhere. The crabby old lady next door prods him to make up his mind, reminding him to avoid a life of regret.

Summer is almost over and Kasey has all but given up on Devyn. One drunken night, accusations are made, and Kasey confesses his love. Next morning, Kasey discovers the truth. but will the summer end where Kasey wanted it to begin?

Review: This story is told mostly in one long flashback by Kasey, who is in love with his best friend Devyn. He’s miserable after four years of watching man after man parade through Devyn’s bed, and him there to witness it all, first as his college roommate and now while they spend their last summer before getting jobs in the real world at a cabin on a lake. Kasey’s objective for the summer was to tell Devyn all about his feelings, even if they’re ultimately unrequited just as he thinks they are. But, once again things don’t go to plan when the summer passes by with Kasey watching Devyn seduce man after man, all while Kasey can’t bring himself to start the conversation he told himself he would.

I swear I’m a masochist. I hate this plot line but I always read these stories whenever they crop up. I’m not even sure why, but maybe because I want to find one that really works for me. So far, it isn’t working and though this is an okay story, my frustration with it made it difficult for me to really like.

The problem really rests with Kasey and Devyn. They’re have a pretty strange relationship where Kasey pines after Devyn, watches him seduce yet another man he wishes were him and then pines over it afterwards, all while Devyn is moving on to the next person to warm his bed. I understand what it feels like to be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, honestly. And therefore I can totally understand how Kasey would get stuck in these games they play, but it was just pretty frustrating for me to read about. I just wanted Kasey to make a choice and commit to it, no matter what it was. And for the most part, I felt like they’d probably be better apart.

Because the story focuses on Kasey’s heartbreak, we mostly see the dysfunction between Kasey and Devyn. We don’t get to know Devyn well at all — both in their friendship and as a character. I wasn’t sure of Devyn’s behavior because I could never really tell if it was his way of making Kasey jealous or if he was really clueless. The first way made him a jerk and the second made him seem like an idiot.

All I can really say is that this story isn’t bad, but it really wasn’t for me, and I’ll quit listing the problems I had with it before I turn readers off completely because it may not have been for me, but if you don’t mind a little bit of cluelessness and a friendship where the guys really need to sit down and talk, then you should give this story a try. How you feel about that will definitely skew your perception of the story and whether these guys are just totally frustrating or could actually have a relationship. For me, it was the former.