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Title and Link: DiplomacyAuthor: Zahra Owens
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Publisher’s URL: www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Genre: Contemporary, GLBT (M/M)
Length: 228 pages (print)
Rating: *****+(out of 5)
Jack Christensen is living the perfect life with the perfect wife. He has recently been appointed the youngest Ambassador for the United States in Belgium. The evening following a State Banquet there is a reception for US citizens to meet the President and the Ambassador and it is there that Jack meets Lucas Carlton, a junior Information Officer with the British Consulate and his fiancée, Lucy Marsh. One look into Luke’s eyes awakens feelings that Jack, who is deep in the closet, thought he had buried over 20 years ago.
Things heat up quickly and Luke and Jack go away for a very passionate weekend together when their women are on a weekend shopping trip, and they continue the relationship after they return home. They realize that they are playing a very risky game and Jack knows that the slightest hint of scandal could result in him being recalled as Ambassador and most likely his marriage will be over. For Luke it will mean the end of his career in the Foreign Service if his sexual orientation and affair with the Ambassador were revealed. Will Jack and Luke have the courage to stay together and take the heat and all the negative consequences that their affair will have on their careers and their personal lives? You will have to read the book to find out.
Diplomacy has everything - danger, intrigue, high stakes and a whole lot of sex as Jack and Luke can’t keep their attraction under wraps. The sex is erotic, sensuous, hot, combustible and above all, loving. Zahra Owens paints a picture of two wonderful men whose love has to withstand a kidnapping, the constant glare of living in the spotlight, being fodder for the tabloids, and betrayal. At times the story is bittersweet as they separate but try to find a way back together.
This is Ms Owens’ first novel and what a treat it was for me read this book. The two main characters are believable and three dimensional and the supporting characters add breadth to a very complicated plot. Although English is not her first language the author has done a great job of mastering it, and her prose has a European flavour which only adds to the dialogue. This is a wonderful story with lots of plot twists and turns and the right amount of conflict to make it extremely interesting. Based on this terrific book I’m confident Ms. Owens has a long career ahead of her as a writer and I highly recommend Diplomacy.
2 comments:
WARNING-SPOILER ALERT-Hi Jessewave! After reading your review of the book, it moved straight to the top of my RL! Having read it now, I was wondering if we had read the same book! I re-read the review again and could not find anything you wrote in my copy of the book! To say the least I was very disappointed by the book! It read like a synopsis of a still to be written book and not like a complete book! To give an example: the kidnapping of one of characters! The whole SL was over and done with in a few pages! Danger! The character was never in danger! The way it was solved was very unbelievable and even rediculous! Another example is the way the characters often meet and have sex! He is an US Ambassador, one of the top diplomatic jobs in the world but when it comes to sex he can go and stand as he likes the office, a hotel in European city for the whole weekend, the apartment of his lover! Secret Service, does not exist! I know that you must take some kind of reality skipping when reading certain novels but this was to much to be believable and so it deminished the whole story! A complicated plot? Eeuuhhh! What was complicated about it??? Everything got solved very easily, divorce, meeting the partner again... The characters had to endure nothing and were just like leaves in the wind! Everything happened around them, no opposition, they only flew in the direction the wind took them - the never fought for their love and waited untill everything was over and safe! To end on a positive note! The author is European and I believe Belgian or has lived a long time in Belgium because she wrote some things of the country and the city of Antwerp that you could have only known when you have actually been there, so that was plus for the book!
Hi Mirko
First of all I'm very sorry that you were disappointed with Diplomacy. It's been a while since I read this book and I had to think about your comments before I replied.
I always value the opinions of readers when they buy a book based on my review and I wanted to see if I was totally out of the ballpark by checking on amazon.com a few minutes ago to see if my review was so far off the mark. To my surprise there were 14 reviews on amazon and 8 of them (from well respected reviewers) gave the book 5 stars and the remaining 6 reviewers rated it as 4 stars. Probably we were all off the mark.
I always urge readers to check out as many reviews as they can before purchasing a book, especially a print book.
I do apologise if you felt that my review led you astray but that was obviously the way I felt about the book at the time. If I recall, I think I read this book at least a few months before I reviewed it. Tastes vary and reviewers get it wrong all the time. Sometimes when I see a review by someone else of a book that I read I wonder if we read the same book. I guess this is the case here. I can only urge you to check out as many reviews as possible before you put down your hard earned cash and offer my sincerest apologies.
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