Scrambling

Title: Scrambling

Author: Lex Valentine

Publisher: Loose Id

Publisher’s URL: http://www.loose-id.com

ISBN/BIN:  978-1-62300-014-1

Genre: {M/M}, Contemporary, Sports

Rating: 3.5 Nymphs

Literary Nymph Reviewer: Critter Nymph

Evan and Reed have been friends since they both joined the Pee Wee football league.  They’ve also been perfectly matched football partners since then as well.  Now that the men are in a pro league and one of them is thinking of coming out of the closet, neither knows what that will mean to their friendship or their professional careers. Once the genie is let out of the bag, there’s no going back.

Scrambling is the current release by author Lex Valentine.  The story centers around two young men who have been friends for so long neither knows what they would do without the other.  This is one of those stories where the author spends a lot of time jumping back and forth between the past and present.  While I can understand why the author did this, I must admit that there were times when I wished the characters would just tell us what had happened without all the jumping around.  For me, it was easy to see how strong the men’s friendship was, but I had a hard time seeing the romantic connection between them.  The fear that both Reed and Evan have over losing their longtime friendship keeps them from coming clean about their true feelings, resulting in the men spending more time in other romantic endeavors rather than thinking about what they can’t have, which is unfortunate since the times they do end up in bed, they really heat up the pages. 

The author does throw in several different outside issues that cause the men more than a few difficult moments and there are some interesting secondary characters that help move the story along as well.  Scrambling also has a sports theme, but unlike some authors, Ms. Valentine does not bombard the reader with so much sports info that the reader will feel that this is all they are getting.