on Paper/eBook
**NB – this review first appeared in the March ARRA members newsletter**
Too Busy for Love by Tamsin Baker – C- Too Busy for Love is a short (about 35 reading pages) erotic m/m novella featuring rich mergers and acquisitions man – Thomas and a younger architecture student/part time gardener, Luke.
Even though Australian spelling it used (eg mum), the book is set in America. I think Luke is about 19 or 20 – he is two years away from an architecture degree. The bonus for him working at Thomas’ estate is access to the extensive library for study after work. When Thomas stumbles across Luke late one night, he is instantly attracted and promptly propositions Luke. Luke hesitates because he’s not sure he’s gay.
Thomas doesn’t usually do any form of relationship and prefers no-strings sex but Luke has him thinking about other things.
I admit I was troubled by the idea that having sex in itself is the identifier of sexuality. I believe sexuality is more complicated than that. I also found it a bit unlikely that this 19/20 year old man would not have checked out a bit of gay porn on the internet, perhaps done a little solo experimenting – but apparently he has not. There is also a bit of pronoun abuse – when the main characters are both men it can sometimes be confusing which “his” we are reading about.
It is a very short story so there isn’t a lot of time for deep characterisation or deep discussion of sexuality issues either for that matter. I think it works better as an erotic story because most of the page count is filled with pretty hot sexual encounters between Luke and Thomas.
I didn’t really see them fall in love. I didn’t see why they fell in love. I saw why they were attracted and their definite sexual chemistry. The story does have a romantic epilogue – I wouldn’t have minded having more details about their relationship apart from sex within the story though.
