Review: Remarkable Restraint by Devon Rhodes
Publisher: Totally Bound
Publish Date: February 20, 2015
Reviewed by: Heller
How I got this book: E-Arc from Publisher
Grad School Guys #1
When Justin gets fed up with his best friend Chaz avoiding him, he decides it’s well worth sacrificing his favorite T-shirt to try to save their relationship.
Chaz is finding it impossible to hide his attraction for his straight roommate, so he tries avoiding Justin until he leaves for the summer. He just has to get through a few more days, then he’ll be home free—at least until Justin comes back in a couple of months. Still, he firmly believes space between them is the best answer for now.
But Justin is not a man to be ignored. He’s known Chaz for almost a decade, and can tell when something is weighing on his mind. And being shut out is not acceptable, especially just when he’s finally ready to commit to more than friendship. When closer than usual proximity just before his trip to Central America turns up the heat between them, he takes matters into his own hands by restraining Chaz’s hands—and feet—until he gets some answers.
The results are explosive and more than either could have dreamt, but the abrupt shift in their relationship is almost impossible to reconcile in the short time they have left together. It will take remarkable restraint from both to find a way to weather the separation, stay friends…and to grow into something more.
Reader Advisory: This book contains light BDSM elements and bondage.
Publisher’s Note: This book was previously released in the Games In The Dark Anthology. It has been considerably expanded for release with Totally Bound Publishing.
While I enjoy this author’s writing style this was a book that didn’t work for me. Chaz and Justin are best friends and have been for years but neither man reveals to the other that they’re gay and this leads to an odd dynamic. The air is eventually cleared but then Justin has to leave for two months and Chaz acts really immaturely. All communication between the two of them after that point is done through flashback or over the phone. The MCs are only together physically for maybe 10% of the story, right at the very beginning and then a few pages at the end.
Now the BDSM element actually works very well but the lack of communication between the men has me wondering just how best of best friends could they be when this is such a huge red flag. I am curious about Chaz’s friend Andy but I think story restrictions in length hurt this one so I have reservations about the next.
I’m giving Remarkable Restraint a D+