Book Review: Where Nerves Ends by L.A. Witt

Who comes up
 with these covers?
I mean, really?!

At First Sight: Jason Davis was near the end of his rope: his recent breakup left him with a mortgage he couldn't afford, his business partner died leaving him with a struggling night club that bleeds out almost as much money as it makes, and for the last five years he has had to deal with chronic pain on his shoulder as result of a biking accident.

Each one of these things is bad enough, but all together they are making his life hell, he's on first name terms with the pawn shop owner and about having to decide between putting gas on his car or food in his fridge.

In a last ditch effort to manage the pain, Jase follows his friend Seth's advice and goes to see Dr. Michael Whitman to be treated with acupuncture, not expecting it'll work but secretly hoping it will. He's didn't expect to be attracted to Michael, or to propose a roommate agreement with the man.

Michael moved to Tucker Springs (where the air is pretty clean) with his now ex-wife so their son Dylan wouldn't have to struggle so much with his asthma, but life in Tucker Springs is very expensive, and he's struggling a bit to make ends meet. Since Jase is also friends with Michael's best friend Seth, Michael finds himself considering and later accepting the roommate agreement with Jason.

But living together might be more difficult than either of them imagined, particularly after they realize they are very attracted to each other. 

Second Glance: So, a few weeks ago I read and reviewed Second Hand, the first book of the Tucker Springs series - connecting books written by different authors but loosely linked by the setting and the fact that most of the characters know each other - and I really liked it, so I went back and picked up Where Nerves End by L.A. Witt.

At first I thought the set up was pretty similar to Second Hand - openly gay man attracted to 'straight' if a little confused man - but the stories turned out to be very different. You can really feel Jason's mental anguish about everything that's going on in his life with the pain and the debts and the money trouble, and Michael's struggle with his own sexuality and with doing what's right for his son.

Neither of them makes good decisions all the time and the book indulged on one of my personal pet peeves - when the members of the romantic pairing get involved with other people even though they already know and are attracted to the person they are going to end up with - but I liked it.

I liked that their ending wasn't all happy and the situations weren't black and white. I did feel like I got to know Jason a lot more than Michael, maybe because the story is told from his perspective, maybe because he was just more fleshed out. 

Bottom Line: Where Nerves End was a good read and I really enjoy visiting the Tucker Springs universe. I like these people and I want to keep on reading their stories. Jason and Michael weren't my favorite so far but it was pretty good read anyway. The writing was quite addictive and I wanted to keep on reading until I finished, which was nice. 

1/2