Title: Checking In
Author: Debbie McGowan
Series: Checking Him Out (#3)
In the Checking Him Out Series:
Checking Him Out (Book One)
Checking Him Out For the Holidays (novella)
Hiding Out (novella – A crossover featuring Matty and Noah, and Josh, George and Libby from Hiding Behind The Couch)
Taking Him On (Book Two – A Noah and Matty novel)
Checking In (Book Three)
Length: 250 pages
Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
Publication Date: December 15, 2015
Freelance engineer Sol Brooks is in hot demand. He’s landed a couple of big contracts and is all set for a business trip back to the other side of the pond. The last thing he needs is an unexpected visitor to complicate his departure.
Especially when that visitor puts his relationship with husband Adam on rocky ground.
Determined to fulfil his contractual obligations, Sol goes ahead with the trip. It’s a great opportunity and a chance to catch up with old friends. And he’s going to check in regularly.
What could possibly go wrong?
* * * * *
NOTE: this novel follows on from previous stories, and coincides with Taking Him On, but can also be read as a stand-alone.
* * * * *
WARNING: this story contains sex acts between consenting male adults.
Note: Though this is part of a series, they can all easily be read as stand-alones. I read them out of order except for this one, and it did not spoil my enjoyment.
I can’t believe it took me over seven months to get around to reading this. It’s probably my favorite in the series. Sol is such a great narrator, and I love his sense of humor which I will call “politely snarky.” He always seems just this side of exasperated by the chaos around him and oblivious to how much of it he’s helped create. Fortunately for us, that makes a good story. And he really does learn how his actions and reactions have ripple effects, so he gets a gold star.
This is pretty much what I look for in a story. The writing is excellent, the pacing is good, and while there is a romantic relationship, the focus is not exclusively on the two of them. There’s also a good balance between the heavy, difficult things and the more lighthearted ones, keeping it from becoming either too weighted down by or too cheerfully dismissive of real-world challenges.
There’s some romance of the loving married couple variety, which includes some delightfully steamy parts, if that’s what you’re into. On at least one occasion, that means you might want to tell Sol to stop thinking and get on with it already, very much like real life. I’m generally non-committal on sex in a book; I don’t care if it’s there or not. In this case, I thought it worked well, matching the mood of the moment nicely. There is quite a bit of explicit fooling around, so you’ve been warned.
As in life, this isn’t a tidy summary of two lost souls finding each other and living happily ever after. Adam and Sol have a complicated existence, often messy and unpredictable. What makes them good is the way they fit together, both as a couple and with the people around them. They start off this story with a lot to learn about how to communicate effectively, and the way they both grow is wonderfully satisfying.
One of the themes here, and which I see a lot in many of the author’s works, is making a home with those who know and love us best. They may be family of origin or by choice, but whoever they are, these are the people we come back to no matter how far we’ve wandered. I can’t say for sure this is intentional, but I suspect it is because virtually nothing in these stories is accidental. In this case, Sol and Adam don’t start out seeing themselves as the center, but they are, and by the end, they’re in process of figuring out how that works.
The whole story is a bit of an emotional ride. Sometimes I was crying with laughter, and other times just plain crying—often on the same page. The plot itself matters very little here (though it’s quite good) because it’s all about what’s going on in the heads and hearts of Sol and Adam and the people they love. So many of the things they express are painfully (or awkwardly or frustratingly) familiar. Many of us can recognize our own failures in Sol’s flawed narrative. Hopefully we can also see our redemption in the actions he takes to make it right in the end. Guaranteed we see our potential to love and be loved through it all.
For a deeply emotional journey home, a narrator who’s imperfect but likable, and a stellar supporting cast of characters, this gets 10/10 fountain pens.
Heat Rating: 4/5 (frequent and/or explicit sexual content)
Beaten Track: http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=checkingin_format
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Checking-Him-Out-Book-ebook/dp/B017166SL0
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/checking-in/id1052059068?mt=11
DEBBIE McGOWAN is an author and publisher based in a semi-rural corner of Lancashire, England. She writes character-driven, realist fiction, celebrating life, love and relationships. A working class girl, she ‘ran away’ to London at seventeen, was homeless, unemployed and then homeless again, interspersed with animal rights activism (all legal, honest ;)) and volunteer work as a mental health advocate. At twenty-five, she went back to college to study social science— tough with two toddlers, but they had a ‘stay at home’ dad, so it worked itself out. These days, the toddlers are young women (much to their chagrin), and Debbie teaches undergraduate students, writes novels and runs an independent publishing company, occasionally grabbing an hour of sleep where she can.
