This should really be a 1.5 stars rather than two. I wanted to like this, I really did. But after continuing past the cliches and typos I finally had to stop when the plot went from mildly interesting to abject-boredom inducing. The final scene I had to stop at (WARNING - Spoiler!)was probably the fourth Mateo-Riley sex scene in twenty pages where they're in the shower.

Given what was going on for the bad guys going Riley-hunting, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for a surprise. They kidnap Riley, shoot him, threaten him after they incapacitate Mat, you get the idea. Instead it was a reiteration of them having sex.

You can only read about two guys obsessing over each other whilst having great sex so many times, fewer if it's either repetitive or cliched. After that you need to keep your reader by injecting something more into the plot. This is an action novel (yes, in both senses of the word.)

While I wasn't expecting a gay version of James Bond, I was hoping for something more engaging. It's rare that I have to put a book down before finishing it, but I honestly couldn't take any more.

There is hope, however. What kept me reading as far as I did were the moments of good writing. I'd be squirming from a cliche or annoyed for the over-use of a writing rule and then a paragraph or a page would grab me. And I kept hoping for some solid improvement.

Unfortunately, I may take this as a challenge and write my own gay romance novel. Like so many other writing endeavors in the LGBTQ realm, this one focuses too much on the gay versus finding a balance between the action and the *action*.