The Way She Reads

Note: The word ‘Grenzen’ translates to border, boundary or brink. Making this a very apt title for a BDSM-themed romance featuring characters from two different countries.

The first line of the blurb is maybe a bit deceptive since the German Dom and his American sub aren’t actually apart until about the last quarter of this book. In fact, the being apart takes up relatively little time and space in ‘Grenzen’, something I greatly appreciated. While I’m slowly learning to appreciate the ‘angst’ aspect in romances I still prefer characters who look at their issues and solve them as soon as they can.

The development between Ryan, the American system designer and Julian, a German mature student, is sweet, tantalising and hot. We get just enough information about Ryan and Julian’s working life and background to get a good feeling for who they are without it taking away from the love story between them.

I liked the way the sex scenes were dealt with in this book. While it is clear from the story these two men have frequent and quite kinky sex, we only get two or three detailed scenes. Those scenes however are descriptive and hot enough for the reader to imagine exactly what happens after the ‘camera turns away’ at other times in the story.

I admired and appreciated the way Chris McHart managed to weave the difference between German and American society into this story. Not only is the German attitude towards homosexuality far more tolerant than the American, we also experience, through Ryan, how much better German labour laws are for employees there. And yet, these were presented as matters of fact rather than an exercise in one ‘upmanship’. Well done, Chris.

This is a relatively short book - more a novella than a novel - but the story never felt rushed or lacking in detail, both about the characters or the setting. In fact, I defy anyone to read this book and not end up wanting to jump on a plane to Nuremberg in order to visit that Christmas market.

In short this was a sweet, romantic and hot holiday read by an author I’ll be keeping an eye on.