It’s common knowledge that I like college boys, they are always so cute, and the two in this novella are even cuter in their indecision, typically of an age that is not meat or fish, when you are on the edge of becoming the man you will be.

Carey is an average student, not particularly clever so that, he is doing good in College, but he needs to work a lot for it, he has good friends, he is on the swim team, he is not a nerd but he is not even a jock, he is cute but not drop dead gorgeous, and so he basically has to be committed on what he does. Then to this average guy happens something unexpected, two days before Valentine’s Day he receives a box of expensive chocolate from a Secret Admirer. He has not idea who he or she is, but he would like for it to be Walter, the TA of one of his college courses: Walter is the odd one, aloof and seldom smiling, he is not even so handsome, but love is blind, and he is the one Carey is in love with. Maybe pushed by the search of this Secret Admirer, or maybe by the love is in the air feeling near Valentine’s Day, Carey has the courage to approach Walter, and surprisingly Walter seems to reciprocate the interest. But Carey and Walter are so young and insecure, that when one offers a way out to the other, fearing the other wants it, but hoping he doesn’t take the chance, the other thinks the same… it’s like a pull and push, like pulling the stone and hiding the hand, sometime I wanted to knock them on the head to make them see the true, but in the end, they were so endearing and sweet.

I have already noticed it in the recent past, but here even more than before, I had the feeling that Josh Lanyon was really writing a true to good romance, even the little “mystery” of the Secret Admirer is really nothing in comparison to the love story between Walter and Carey. And despite their insecurity when dealing with feelings and the awkwardness when they have to admit them, sex instead is easy and nice, as it should be at their age.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935540122/?tag=elimyrevandra-20