"Quinn's Need"

Review - "Quinn's Need" by SJD Peterson

Worthy and terrific follow up

Highly Recommended

"How does someone get an elephant out of a room without shit breaking?" 

It has been a year since Lorcan made his choice to stay in Indiana with Jess and make a life.  Even though he and Quinn love each other, there has been too much hurt, and he just...can't...leave Jess.  So Quinn stays at the Whispering Pines Ranch and burns with anger and hurt.  And drinks.  And treats everyone else badly.

When Quinn finds The Push, a local D/s bar, he finally finds an outlet for his anger, using every sub who will bend for him.  And meets Ty, a young man who craves the punishment Quinn is only too happy to give him.  And give it to him Quinn does, taking what he needs without qualm.

When Lorcan and Jess decide to move back home to Pegasus and work Jess' family ranch, that means facing Quinn again.

"The only thing he knew for certain was that something would get broken."

The anger that each feels for the other, and the hurt, is still there.  After seeing each other, they know the love and passion is still there too.  But Lorcan is committed to Jess.  And after one kiss, Quinn knows his heart still belongs to Lorcan, and Lorcan's to him.  And, if he can use Ty's body, maybe he can make it all work.

"Only the extent of the damage was unknown."

When an accident happens, the delicate balance between all these men crumbles, and the tensions break.  Will things ever be the same for these four men, and will love have a chance?  Will all of the unspoken things will be faced, and all the elephants in the room be named?  And how much damage, and to whom, will they leave in their exit?

SJD Peterson had crafted a fine, emotional and devastating, yet oddly hopeful, followup to "Lorcan's Desire" with "Quinn's Need".  The three men - Quinn, Lorcan, and Jess - are all lovingly drawn, with faults and cracks and desires and virtues.  Each has wants and needs, and each are aware that what exists between Quinn and Lorcan is still unfinished business.  There is a crackling tension that carries over into this book, even a year later.  Their incompleteness is so true to their characters - Jess quietly complacent in his acceptance, Lorcan internalizing and doing his version of the right thing, and Quinn scowling and physically acting out his pain.

The new factor is Ty.  He is all need and want and submission.  At least on the surface.  And here, Ms. Peterson does what she does so well.  She thrown a lump of clay on the wheel, and then gently shapes and works the material under hands until she forms something complex and layered and distinct and perfect.  With Ty, we first see him as a receptacle for Quinn's pain and anger.  Then he slowly takes shape, and we see a hurt and needing young man, used and abandoned, slow to trust and falling in love.  Only to be crushed down one more time.

We see Quinn and Lorcan and Jess grow in their own ways, sometimes hurtfully and sometimes with joy, and we see how abandonment affects each of them, in their own ways.  And we get angry with each, and then forgive them.  Because, really, how can a man act against his own nature.

And what I really like here is Ms. Peterson has made these men real.  Not one of them is a hero.  They are just men, going through life looking for love, and hurting others in their search, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.  But there are no punches pulled here.  Not quarter asked for, and none given.

And when the elephants in the room are named, they face them.  Name them.  And do their best to deal with them.

But not all of them.  And thank God, there will be a third book in this amazing series.

I can't wait.

Tom