Acting Out

Title: Acting Out

Author: Sharon Maria Bidwell

Publisher: Musa Publishing

Publishers URL: http://musapublishing.com

ISBN/BIN: 9781619372023

Genre: {M/M}, Contemporary, Series

Rating: 4 Nymphs

Literary Nymph Reviewer: Critter Nymph

Nick and Alex have been friends for some time; both are actors who attended the same school.  After making a movie together, the public wanted more, yet the two men know that to keep from being typecast, it’s important to wait for just the right thing to come along.  When the two men are offered parts in a movie that could put them on the A - list they have to decide just what and who is important to them.

Acting Out is the first book in author Sharon Maria Bidwell’s new series, Calm and Chaos.  This is an interesting story that pulled me in from the beginning.  The two main characters are long time close friends, yet they still have secrets between them that come back to bite them in the butt when they are offered roles in a possible hit movie.  Even though neither man has acknowledged, to themselves or anyone else, the fact that they have feelings for the other, the attraction between them is strong, and out there for anyone to see.   Once they decide to take the roles as friends/lovers in the movie, the feelings they have for each other come out big time and the two heat up the pages like crazy.

While good, Acting Out is predictable at times.  It is easy to see that Alex usually gets his way in their friendship so the outcome of conflict regarding the movie is a forgone conclusion.  Just as the fact that the feelings that have been kept tightly under the surface will spring up once their characters become involved.  However, there was one aspect of the book that drove me crazy.  Alex spends a lot of time trying to get Nick to understand that there is something between them, yet as soon as they move from friends to lovers, and Nick is ready to embrace their new relationship, Alex back peddles so fast he becomes annoying.  It reached the point, at times, when l began to dislike him. 

Acting Out is full of secondary characters and not all of them are likeable.  Each of these characters helps move the story along however.  The author does a good job wrapping the men’s story up while, at the same time, leaving an opening for more.