REVIEW: Hearsay (Bylaws book 1) by Taylor V. Donovan

SiriusC Reviews / C- Reviewschronic illness / lawyers / m/m romance4 Comments

Senior associate attorney Derrick Swain wants it all: a loving husband, a fulfilling career, and a couple of kids. After years of hard work he’s on the fast track to a promotion. He’s also met the man of his dreams. A week of daily lunch meetings in Central Park provides the perfect setting to get to know him better, and Derrick thinks it won’t be long before they take the next step and go on a date. But instead of asking him out, the object of his affection stops showing up without explanation, leaving him to wonder what went wrong.

As part owner of one of the most prestigious law firms in New York City, Roman Bradford knows that professional success isn’t the be all end all. Although he’s been lucky in life, true love has eluded him for the most part. One too many failed relationships have caused him to be leery of trying again, until he meets a man that can only be described as temptation personified. A few conversations are all it takes for Roman to start believing things will be different this time around. It doesn’t matter that they are boss and employee, or that he’s feeling too much, too fast. Not when he can see the same emotions in Derrick’s eyes. Then life turns on a dime, and Roman has no option but to let his chance at happiness go.

A battle of wills ensues when a life-altering case brings them together a year later. Roman wants to do the right thing by not letting anything happen between them, and Derrick is determined to prove they’re meant to be together. Evidence will be presented and final arguments will be made. Will they be able to come to an agreement, or will they opt to have their potential relationship dismissed?

Review:

Dear Taylor Donovan, I have wanted to read your new book ever since you announced that it was forthcoming. I stalked your blog and the minute I saw that the book was released I purchased it. Unfortunately some of my book buddies, who were waiting for the book with as much impatience as I was, read it faster than me and warned me of the cliffhanger. That decreased my desire to read it because I hate cliffhangers. I was determined to wait till the second part was released but as you c see I could not stay away. And I am not even sure whether the ending could be called a real cliffhanger (even though the possible danger lies ahead for one of the main characters).

I really liked the settings in the book – the author clearly knows what work in a law firm looks like. I never worked in the huge firm, so I cannot attest to each and every detail, but I work in the profession in a smaller firm, and the details of legal work that are the same or similar for many lawyers, are spot on without any doubt. Whatever legal terms were used were correct, and the things lawyers do were described correctly. I really appreciated that, because I do not see it too often.

I also think that Derrick and Roman had an *explosive* chemistry when they were interacting and for me this is always a plus in romance – there is not much sex, but plenty of chemistry in this story. Unfortunately I really disliked the reason for unresolved sexual tension between main characters – I thought it should have been resolved much earlier than it was, because for me it made one of the characters look like a drama queen, and I had very little patience for that.

As the blurb states, after admiring one of his associates from a distance Roman made a very conscious decision to pursue Derrick, which is where the story begins. He considers the possibility that he may be sued for sexual harassment if Derrick is not interested or, if anything goes wrong, and because it is more than I get in some other romances, I was okay with it. Derrick is also interested in Roman, and later in the story he also considers the possibility that he may get fired if Roman is not receptive to his advances, and he makes a conscious choice to proceed anyway. What I am trying to say is, surprisingly enough for the purposes of this story, the romance between one of the Big Bosses and an Employee (Roman is one of the three senior partners of the firm, Derrick is one of the senior associates and on the partnership track) did not bother me. I was convinced enough to suspend disbelief which is no small feat to achieve, since usually this bothers me a lot.

In the prologue we learn that Roman started to court Derrick by inviting him to have lunch together for a week and a half or so, but at the end of that time he suddenly backed off. The present story starts about a year later and Roman is still very much in love with Derrick. Derrick still really wants Roman, and cannot figure out why his Boss and his Prince Charming (Derrick wants to have a Disney fairy tale and surprisingly that part worked for me very well too) suddenly put on the brakes. Take note, please, they are both dying to see what their courtship may bring, they want to have sex with each other and just plain be with each other, but for a year Roman does nothing. He does nothing, that is, except admire the object of his affection from a distance. He does nothing, despite his partners, friends, and family telling him to stop being an Idiot and go after Derrick if he wants him that much, especially since Derrick is obviously that interested. Derrick, by the way, was crushing and falling in love with his Boss for at least four years – no wonder he is confused.

We learn early enough in the book that the reason Roman backed off was because he learned he was in danger of becoming sick and he did not want to inflict that on Derrick, because Derrick, during the week and a half they had lunch together and talked for hours, said that he basically was not keen on seeing his loved one die, because he had watched his mother die from lupus when he was a kid.

I doubt that you will have trouble figuring out what Roman’s potential illness is, but just in case ( he only says it when the story passed the 70% mark on my kindle), here is the Spoiler cut:

So this conflict between them which I discuss under the spoiler cut seems to be mostly resolved in this book (this is the first part in a trilogy, I believe, at least a second book is definitely mentioned at the end). The second, more external conflict arises from a high- profile, horrible case which involves one of Derrick’s friends, who is also a client of the firm, and eventually Derrick himself. This issue is very far from being resolved when the book ends, in fact it heats up a couple of chapters before the end and the book stops on some sort of cliffhanger. I say some sort of cliffhanger because despite the danger that Derrick will lose his freedom, somehow I did not quite buy the possibility and I cannot say more without spoiling it. I will be very happy if the second book roves me wrong.

I also think that the pacing was a little off, because this second problem was talked about in the beginning and then, while it did not completely go away it was barely mentioned till almost the end of the book. So I was a little irritated about that too, at times I wanted to scream at Roman to *tell Derrick already* and to see more about the case.

There are awesome secondary female characters in this book – especially Derrick’s friend Tashana and also Dani Contreras.

I still want to read the second book, despite the issues I had.

Grade C-/C

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Sirius

Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.

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