"Stolen Dreams"

Review - "Stolen Dreams" by Sue Brown

A beautiful second chance story

Very Highly Recommended

Morgan and Jase are happy.  They really are.  Morgan's an up-and-coming director's assistant, Jase an actor.  They've been together three years and are preparing to marry.  Life is wonderful.

Until Shae walks into the coffee shop Morgan owns.  Shae, the man Morgan's known since kindergarten.  His first friend.  First kiss.  First love.  And the man he thought he would be with forever.  Until Morgan cheated on him and Shae walked away for good.

It took him eighteen months, but Morgan put himself back together and when he met Jase, he found he could love again.  Five years should be long enough to be over Shae, shouldn't it?

But when Shae came through that door, even Jase could see what it did to Morgan.  How those feelings were just buried, not gone.  So for the sake of everyone, Morgan shoved those feeling down and decided to try to be friends with Shae.  If that's possible. 

Can Morgan and Shae be...friends?  Is the love they shared dead?  Or will Shae's arrival back in town to see his sick dad mean stolen dreams for Morgan and Jase?

Sue Brown just never stops, does she?  In "Stolen Dreams", she has created two more amazing characters, Morgan and Shae, and given us a beautifully realized love story between two men who were meant to be together.  The strength of this book is in its characters, how Ms. Brown makes us fall in love with them as they discover their feelings.  And, of course, in her lovely writing style - never an extra word, an economy and restraint of phrase.

Morgan is a great character.  Strong yet breakable.  Firm yet soft.  Vulnerable yet steely.  I liked him, and forgave him for his flaws immediately.  He so wants love, and is his own worst enemy.  His headstrong ways get him far in business, but so totally screw him in romance.

And Shae - a delight.  A man who loves hard and fully, knows what he wants and goes for it.  But, like Morgan, is so very willing to be his own worst enemy in getting what he wants.  The secrets he keeps made me want to knock his butt out.  But then, I understood him so very well.

Which, I think, is why I love Ms. Brown's books so very much.  I read them and find myself there, splayed across the page.  Her men want love, bleed for it and yet, yet they seem to go out of their way to make it so very difficult to have and keep it.  Which makes it all the sweeter when they do make it.

I loved this story.  Great job.

Tom