Read in Trust the Connection

Read in Trust the Connection

Received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I’m going to sort of guess that anyone reading this will have read Connections. If you haven’t, I would recommend that you read that before reading Trust—Trust directly follows Connections and I wouldn’t say it’s a stand-alone novel. (It’s not a great horror to have to read Connections if you haven’t already :-) ).

I have been reading a lot of my one of my favorite genres lately, Regency romances. What, you might ask, does that have to do with Trust? A discussion came up about the hero and whether or not a hero who was somewhat of a villain was worthy of redemption. One of the things making them worthy of redemption was vulnerability, a willingness to do better/make themselves a better person not just for someone else but because they realized they could be a better person.

Now, Jeremy is far from a villain, but I think in his own mind, he has built his faults, physical and mental, up to villainous proportions. He is a tortured soul. One thing that good storytellers remember is that, whether a character is in a Regency romance or a contemporary romance, human nature doesn’t change. Jeremy isn’t a swashbuckling rogue of a lord, but he has let his accident turn him into someone who isn’t always a very nice person, who is distant, and who is not easy to get to know—who in fact, doesn’t want to get to know anyone because life is easier that way. He isn’t really living.

Evan is the breath of fresh air in his stagnant world, the one who sees him with fresh eyes, and who doesn’t see him as someone who is lacking—he sees what is good in Jeremy. I don’t think that’s too spoilery. This is the basis for the premise of the book. Evan’s optimism vs. Jeremy’s pessimism.

Trust is a story of exactly that—the ability to trust someone enough to have faith in them to grow into themselves, into the person they are meant to be. It’s the knowledge that mistakes will be made, but will be forgiven. That love means the ability to accept a person’s faults as well as their strengths.

Ms. Vaughan does an exemplary job of showing how Evan and Jeremy overcome their obstacles, in a realistic manner—I especially appreciated how Jeremy moved through working through his issues regarding the accident. The issues and fears that they face are realistic and ones that come up in many relationships in their fledgeling stages—I could definitely identify with some of them very clearly and empathetically. I love that they have their misunderstandings, but they choose more constructive ways to deal with them than the confusion caused by non-communication.

The secondary characters are well-drawn, and also good at judging how much both Evan and Jeremy change through the course of the book. I love the idea of family and making ones’ own family. I think this is true not only in the lives of people who are in LBGT relationships, but just in some families in general, for a variety of reasons. It’s definitely true that sometimes the families you make are closer than the families you’re born into.

On the other hand, imagining Jeremy as a swashbuckling lord is sort of fun. ( )