The Edge by J.J. Massa

TITLE: The Edge
AUTHOR: J.J. Massa
PUBLISHER: Linden Bay Romance
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 33k)
GENRE: Gay erotic romance
COST: $5.99

Tyler Baker has been transferred. Strike that. He’s been shipped off as part of a bribe, from all his troubles in San Jose to Philadelphia where supposedly he gets a clean slate from the suspicious murder of his partner/lover 14 months earlier. His new partner, Paytah, is Mr. By the Book, but when they get thrown into the middle of what’s been discounted as suicides, Paytah learns that there’s more to Tyler than just his pretty face. The connection and respect grows between the two men as they try and find the redheaded woman they think is a murderer, until their passion explodes. Only problem is, so does their case.

J.J. Massa is one of those authors whose name I’ve seen online here and there, but have never bought from before. Considering the rash of not so great gay romances I’ve seen around lately, when I found one that sounded like it had a real plot, I decided to take a risk. For once, my risk-taking didn’t screw me over.

The prologue on this story is a marvel. It’s short, but its brevity gives it even more of an emotional punch. In it, the reader is thrust in shallow waters on a beach, with Tyler talking to Daryl. Except Daryl’s dead, and Tyler is almost so, and what could have been melodramatic turned into a gutwrenching wallop that completely sucked me into the story. For the most part, the rest of the story held me there, even if it never quite reached the magic of those first few pages.

Paytah is a gorgeous alpha male - Native American (yum!), tall and broad, intelligent and forceful - but my primary complaint about the book is that I never really bought the romance between him and his new, openly gay partner. It’s one of those stories where one of the heroes never, ever considers a male partner…until the perfect one comes along, courtesy of the author. Those kind of stories only work for me when the author takes the time to show why he’s willing to switch hit all of a sudden, to build the UST and make the coming together inevitable. That didn’t necessarily happen here, though I think the fact that this is only 33k – with a pretty hefty cop story running alongside the romance – held it back. There are hints of some really good UST, but the sex when it happens wasn’t nearly as mind-blowing for me the reader as Tyler claimed it was for him the following morning.

The advantage this story has to others where I don’t completely buy the romance – gay or straight – is that there’s a solid enough B-story to keep me engaged. These two men act like cops, spend time acting like cops, and do enough things other than staring at each other googly eyed to entertain me as a reader so that the romance isn’t nearly as crucial to me as it could be. That’s a lot more than most romance writers do these days.

Readability	8/10 – Realistic dialogue and reliable pacing keeps this an even flow.
Hero #1	8/10 – I felt for poor Tyler, even if I didn’t completely believe the romance
Hero #2	7/10 – Not as sharply drawn as his counterpart, and his sudden jump from hetero to gay didn’t ring true
Entertainment value	7/10 – A solid enough read with a good balance between the romance and the cop world
World building	8/10 – Nice to see a world where it feels like a world I could actually live in, with a good balance of varying personalities
TOTAL:	38/50