REVIEW: Blyd and Pearce by Kim Fielding
Born into poverty and orphaned young, Daveth Blyd had one chance for success when his fighting prowess earned him a place in the Tangye city guard—a place he lost to false accusations of theft. Now he scrapes out a living searching for wayward spouses and missing children. When a nobleman offers him a small fortune to find an entertainer who’s stolen a ring, Daveth takes the case.
While Jory Pearce may or may not be a thief, he certainly can’t be trusted. But, enchanted by Jory’s beauty and haunting voice, Daveth soon finds himself caught in the middle of a conspiracy. As he searches desperately for answers, he realizes that he’s also falling for Jory. The two men face river wraiths, assassins, a necromancer, and a talking head that could be Daveth’s salvation on their quest for the truth. But with everyone’s integrity in question and Death eager to dance, Daveth will need more than sorcery to survive.
Review.
I expected this book to work much better for me than it actually did unfortunately. It has all the components that I am looking in the book with m/m romance in it. The guys participate in the actual adventure storyline, there is an actual mystery involved, there is a new world I could have gotten super excited about and there is a building romance amongst all the action. It sounded as a perfect book for me and it is nicely written.
However if I were to sum up my impressions, MEH is the word I would use .
Jory and Daveth *sounded* as if they should be interesting characters, but I could not bring myself to care about them much or at all. Separately or together. Often enough I like the guys separately, but do not feel chemistry between them. In this book, I just did not feel almost anything for them and their romance left me cold. Actually, scratch that, I did feel a little bit of chemistry closer to the end, when they were supposedly in most danger, but then the spark left as suddenly as it appeared.
World building was okay, but I think “been there, seen something similar many many times” applies here. Extreme division between poor and rich can be used very effectively to sharpen the characters’ portrayals. Unfortunately all that ended up happening here was myself thinking why the heck did Daveth care so much about this city which cares so freaking little about him and other poor people? Yes I know we were meant to cheer for his patriotism no matter what. Alas, I thought he was a little bit of an idiot .
Jory, well, Jory was supposed to be someone who lies all the time I guess? Somebody for whom truth is difficult in his own words. However the ultimate truth for him seemed to be that he fell hard for Daveth and that truth he never ever betrayed (and once again per his own words did not plan to), so couple of small lies of his just felt inconsequential (even the last one). I felt some kind of dissonance in his portrayal.
Last but not the least, I kid you not, I figured who the villain was right after their first appearance.
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Hmm. Kim Fielding has written some of my favorite male/male romances. I’ll likely give this a chance just to see what I think. It will be interesting to see if my thoughts align with yours, Sirius. Thanks for the review.
Kareni this is the case where I totally see how other readers may like the book you know ? I mean any review is the matter of one person’s taste of course , but sometimes I feel like – oh everything sounds wrong here and not executed well . This one just nothing worked for me if this makes sense .
Yes, I understand exactly what you mean, Sirius. Sometimes I really like a book that others find ho hum while the reverse is often also true. I’m glad that there are so many books out there that we can all find favorites.
Bummer! I bought this one and was looking forward to reading it. :(
Kaetrin you may find it a five star read for all I know !