3.75 ( )

4 stars

Wren heads to Majorca to spend time with his best friend, scraping the money together. When said friend leaves with his new friends, Wren calls out the attitude of the friends before they leave. Wren is planning on heading home the next day, since he really doesn't have the money, but is convinced to stay by the owner of the hotel that he is staying in when he points out that he has a different experience at the hotel from people who appear to have more money. Mateo pays Wren to help him for the week, and then asks Wren to come back to Venice with him for a month. Wren agrees, because he isn't ready to be done with Teo yet. Teo's family are super welcoming (well, a couple of them), and Teo gets busy with work, so Wren spends a lot of time alone, exploring the city. The time that they do spend together, though, brings both of them closer to real feelings than either thought would happen.

I enjoyed this. Teo and Wren are good together, and I liked Teo's grandfather and mother. Wren was a special character, in that he had had a tough life growing up, but he didn't let it get him down, taking good from his experiences. Watching I-won't-fall-in-love Teo soften to Wren, and appreciate him for who he was made the warm fuzzies bloom. I also liked that they knew each other well, and did little things for each other that they maybe wouldn't think of doing for themselves. Typical Morton fare that I enjoyed more than the last couple that I have read by the author. ( )

See Toni K's and Emma's reviews, they said almost everything.

I'll add that there are quite a few minor inconsistencies that denote a messily final edit. Let's look at a couple of examples:

1) Wren says of Mateo: "He's fluent in English, Spanish, French, German, and Russian."

Hello? He's Spanish and lived in Spain until his sixteen years; it's axiomatic and unnecessary to include Spanish in this list.

Hello? (Again): where does the Italian language go?

Additionally, Mateo almost doesn't have expressions in any of his mother tongues, being half of the book takes place in Spain, the other half in Italy.

It's my opinion that in this book, the author –that writes in English for a primarily English-speaking audience– makes almost no effort to incorporate Spanish, let alone Italian. Reading this book, I had the feeling of having come across before a way of ignoring one or more cultures, as if they were a picturesque resource but as if they don't really matter. I believe it was unintentional, yet I prefer the Lily Morton who works with British characters; is what she really knows, that's where she achieves more consistency, credibility, and the banter that is her hallmark.

If you're going to mess with something as tricky as placing a book in countries that you only know maybe as a tourist, then please, do well your research or at least take lessons from Lynne Graham, since Mills & Boon is mentioned so much in this book.

2) About the epilogue, I thought exactly what Toni K's review comments.

Moreover, I believe that at first, the epilogue must have elapsed many years later, five or more; probably was the later idea of ​​a future story between Enzo and Alfie that shortened those times.

I understand that this is clear thanks to another mess: In the epilogue, Mateo says that he was putting on the "T-shirt that Wren bought me so many years ago" Two years, is "so many years ago" ?? Borrowing the end of the review from Toni K, C'mon. ( )

I loved this as the author writes great characters like Wren who was so lovely and deserved the best, and he had a perfect match with Mateo. It was fun to see the different locations here of Majorca and Venice and how they affected these men; they were definitely their own characters in this journey. ( )