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suze_1624's review
2.0
2.5*
I just couldn't gel with this book, which is a shame as I had bought on the back of strong reviews.
I just felt I was missing a big chunk of the story, and even at the end I was still confused about a few things.
Trav is a guy whose family life has trained him not to trust anyone and run away from his problems. Deacon has also had his share of bad events but his stability in Detroit does give Trav a base.
However, in both mens stories there were questions I wanted more on. The story may cover them but by the end I probably wasn't paying proper attention.
I just couldn't gel with this book, which is a shame as I had bought on the back of strong reviews.
I just felt I was missing a big chunk of the story, and even at the end I was still confused about a few things.
Trav is a guy whose family life has trained him not to trust anyone and run away from his problems. Deacon has also had his share of bad events but his stability in Detroit does give Trav a base.
However, in both mens stories there were questions I wanted more on
Spoiler
the why of Cat, and Audra/Deacon's conversation by the carkaje_harper's review
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up. This is a thriller/mystery/romance story between a young guy with wanderlust who has finally come home for a while, and an older, fired SWAT cop turned private security. Reader ratings will no doubt be all over the map, depending on your level of amusement by the characters, and your tolerance for lapses in logic.
The writing is good, and I enjoyed Trevor and Deacon, especially early on. There is some fun and humor here, decent heat, and some good secondary characters as well. The dialogue isn't always believable, but it made me smile. It's a fast easy read, and the four stars is purely for the pleasure of the ride.
There are rather a lot of plot holes, from some of the basic premises behind Trav's back story, to the multiple unprofessional moments on the part of ex-cops that were required to generate the climax. The book gets credit for a plot twist I didn't see coming, and loses it for the number of times I couldn't buy some minor point. This is not a story for a picky reader, or someone who hates instalove, but I admit to gulping it down in one fast rush, and chuckling more than once at the guys together. For that pleasure, I'm giving it a purely personal rounded-to-4 stars.
The writing is good, and I enjoyed Trevor and Deacon, especially early on. There is some fun and humor here, decent heat, and some good secondary characters as well. The dialogue isn't always believable, but it made me smile. It's a fast easy read, and the four stars is purely for the pleasure of the ride.
There are rather a lot of plot holes, from some of the basic premises behind Trav's back story, to the multiple unprofessional moments on the part of ex-cops that were required to generate the climax. The book gets credit for a plot twist I didn't see coming, and loses it for the number of times I couldn't buy some minor point. This is not a story for a picky reader, or someone who hates instalove, but I admit to gulping it down in one fast rush, and chuckling more than once at the guys together. For that pleasure, I'm giving it a purely personal rounded-to-4 stars.
the_novel_approach's review
5.0
Damaged Package is yet another in a long list of S.A. McAuley’s books that had me falling hard and fast for the characters, something that seems to be the norm in her books. Whether or not it’s vastly different men—Merq and Armise in the Borders War series or Poe and Isaac in Someday It Will Be—there’s an undeniable chemistry they share that makes them not necessarily perfect but absolutely perfect for each other. Trevor Barrow and James Deacon are now tucked safely into that list of characters I love, right along with all the others. These two men won me over with not only what they said but how they said it, as so much of the attraction comes across in their verbal play. They spar with words, flirt, though you’d think with all the talking they do there wouldn’t be so many secrets for Deacon to keep. But lies of omission are still lies, and that’s at the heart of the issue with him and Trav (short for Traveler, the nickname earned because he’s not stayed in one place for very long since he turned sixteen and left Detroit behind).
Mixed into this budding relationship—the one Trav is building up defenses against just as quickly as Deacon tears them down—is a bit of a corporate thriller that throws Deacon and Trav together when Deacon takes on a new job working with the wealthiest man in Detroit and brings Trav onboard to act as a bicycle messenger, something Trav has invested a living in, albeit an intended short-term one since Trav tends to do a runner when things in his life get too real. There was as much suspense in the relationship between these two men as there was in the building evidence that something stunk at Hubert Enterprises, and all this suspense adds up to betrayal and a surprise twist at the end that tugged a little bit at my heartstrings and proved that love can be shown in even the most convoluted of ways.
Playing on the title is the fact that indeed both Trav and Deacon are maybe more than just a little bit flawed. Deacon’s been riding a slow burnout that finally sent his career up in flames when he pulled shenanigans at the scene of a crime, which spelled the end of his career on the Detroit Police Department’s SWAT team. Trav…well, poor Trav’s got family issues, which is why he’d left Detroit seven years earlier, and is why he’s got no incentive to stick around now he’s back. Watching these two men, who are damaged, slightly frayed at the seams but still strong at their broken places, take a tumble into love with each other was purely sublime.
Deacon may be fifteen years older than Trav, but don’t think for a minute this is anything like a typical May/December romance. Trav is something like a world weary old soul and Deacon is just playful enough to erase the difference in their ages, and I love the way Trav put Deacon through his paces at every opportunity. But let’s just lay all the cards out on the table here, shall we? Deacon is one sexy mofo who wears all his thirty-eight years well, and I don’t mind saying I would’ve wanted to wear all those thirty-eight years like a second skin myself, so go Trav!
The secondary characters do an excellent job of supporting Deacon and Trav’s storyline, with Detroit possibly being the most interesting of all of them. The last time I read a book set in Detroit, it was S.A. McAuley’s and she’d populated it with zombies, so while the Detroit in this story doesn’t crawl with the living dead, it still has the feeling of a city that’s trying to resurrect itself from the death throes of a brutal recession, and I liked the way the feelings toward the city played conversely in both Deacon’s and Trav’s lives.
As far as recommendations go, I have to say whether you’ve read every one of this author’s books, or have never read a single word she’s written but have been thinking about picking one up and don’t know where to start. Start here. Damaged Package…err…well, it delivers.
Mixed into this budding relationship—the one Trav is building up defenses against just as quickly as Deacon tears them down—is a bit of a corporate thriller that throws Deacon and Trav together when Deacon takes on a new job working with the wealthiest man in Detroit and brings Trav onboard to act as a bicycle messenger, something Trav has invested a living in, albeit an intended short-term one since Trav tends to do a runner when things in his life get too real. There was as much suspense in the relationship between these two men as there was in the building evidence that something stunk at Hubert Enterprises, and all this suspense adds up to betrayal and a surprise twist at the end that tugged a little bit at my heartstrings and proved that love can be shown in even the most convoluted of ways.
Playing on the title is the fact that indeed both Trav and Deacon are maybe more than just a little bit flawed. Deacon’s been riding a slow burnout that finally sent his career up in flames when he pulled shenanigans at the scene of a crime, which spelled the end of his career on the Detroit Police Department’s SWAT team. Trav…well, poor Trav’s got family issues, which is why he’d left Detroit seven years earlier, and is why he’s got no incentive to stick around now he’s back. Watching these two men, who are damaged, slightly frayed at the seams but still strong at their broken places, take a tumble into love with each other was purely sublime.
Deacon may be fifteen years older than Trav, but don’t think for a minute this is anything like a typical May/December romance. Trav is something like a world weary old soul and Deacon is just playful enough to erase the difference in their ages, and I love the way Trav put Deacon through his paces at every opportunity. But let’s just lay all the cards out on the table here, shall we? Deacon is one sexy mofo who wears all his thirty-eight years well, and I don’t mind saying I would’ve wanted to wear all those thirty-eight years like a second skin myself, so go Trav!
The secondary characters do an excellent job of supporting Deacon and Trav’s storyline, with Detroit possibly being the most interesting of all of them. The last time I read a book set in Detroit, it was S.A. McAuley’s and she’d populated it with zombies, so while the Detroit in this story doesn’t crawl with the living dead, it still has the feeling of a city that’s trying to resurrect itself from the death throes of a brutal recession, and I liked the way the feelings toward the city played conversely in both Deacon’s and Trav’s lives.
As far as recommendations go, I have to say whether you’ve read every one of this author’s books, or have never read a single word she’s written but have been thinking about picking one up and don’t know where to start. Start here. Damaged Package…err…well, it delivers.
see_sadie_read's review
3.0
Not bad, but nothing exceptional either. Deacon was incredibly sweet. There is something really emotionally resonating in seeing a man just want to make someone else happy. It pushes a lot of my happy buttons. I also liked that he was an older man. I liked that Trav wasn't brainless. He was a smart guy. I appreciated that. The sex was pretty good too.
But the book full of clichés. Full of them. It's all pretty predictable, and everything after about 75% is 100% predictable. Worst of all it has the dreaded, 'he didn't know what but something made this man/situation/feeling/etc different.' NO. That is NEVER enough to explain someone's uncharacteristic feelings about someone or something. NEVER. It's as bad as, if not worse than, insta-love. Which to be fair, this isn't quite (pretty close though).
Plus, a lot of it just didn't hold together very well. For example, The initial event in which Deacon was supposed to have come to Hank's attention didn't appear to be one in which a SWAT team would have been needed. Pretty sure the normal police could have handled that. Then, for the whole book it's hinted that Deacon was working for Hank to investigate corporate espionage, but it felt a bit over the top that he hires ex SWAT and soldiers for this. Then suddenly at the end, we're dealing with terrorists instead. But only for about 10 pages, it was all resolved in an instant. Then there's the fact that Deacon's ex just happens to work there too. Everything just barely hangs together. It does, if you don't look too closely at it, but just barely.
Lastly, a personal irritant, as someone who worked in Child Abuse & Neglect investigations for several years: if by some manner Trav did become emancipated form his mother at 16, which it takes a lot to do, all her other children should have been removed as well. Think on it. The court is willing to declare, and thereby be accountable if something happens to him, that his mother is so unfit her 16 year old is better off caring for himself. Would they then leave several other children ranging from infant to 9 years old in her drug-addled care? I think not.
The writing, however is fine and though the plot is shaky a lot of the men relating to one another is touching in it's own occasionally sappy way. The book is a solid, middle of he road read.
But the book full of clichés. Full of them. It's all pretty predictable, and everything after about 75% is 100% predictable. Worst of all it has the dreaded, 'he didn't know what but something made this man/situation/feeling/etc different.' NO. That is NEVER enough to explain someone's uncharacteristic feelings about someone or something. NEVER. It's as bad as, if not worse than, insta-love. Which to be fair, this isn't quite (pretty close though).
Plus, a lot of it just didn't hold together very well. For example, The initial event in which Deacon was supposed to have come to Hank's attention didn't appear to be one in which a SWAT team would have been needed. Pretty sure the normal police could have handled that. Then, for the whole book it's hinted that Deacon was working for Hank to investigate corporate espionage, but it felt a bit over the top that he hires ex SWAT and soldiers for this. Then suddenly at the end, we're dealing with terrorists instead. But only for about 10 pages, it was all resolved in an instant. Then there's the fact that Deacon's ex just happens to work there too. Everything just barely hangs together. It does, if you don't look too closely at it, but just barely.
Lastly, a personal irritant, as someone who worked in Child Abuse & Neglect investigations for several years: if by some manner Trav did become emancipated form his mother at 16, which it takes a lot to do, all her other children should have been removed as well. Think on it. The court is willing to declare, and thereby be accountable if something happens to him, that his mother is so unfit her 16 year old is better off caring for himself. Would they then leave several other children ranging from infant to 9 years old in her drug-addled care? I think not.
The writing, however is fine and though the plot is shaky a lot of the men relating to one another is touching in it's own occasionally sappy way. The book is a solid, middle of he road read.
rissa53's review
4.0
I so did not expect that.
Lol
I had a lot of questions, so much, but the book still kept my attention. I wanted to find out just what it was!
I think I'm still a bit confused but I was certainly entertained.
I did like Deacon a lot. Trav, too!
Lol
I had a lot of questions, so much, but the book still kept my attention. I wanted to find out just what it was!
I think I'm still a bit confused but I was certainly entertained.
I did like Deacon a lot. Trav, too!
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