A Heart Without Borders, Andrew Grey
Rating: 4 Stars
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Gay Romance
Tags: Psychological – Grief, Haiti Post 2010 Earthquake, Creating a Family, Contemporary
Length: 200 Pages
Reviewer: Cindi
Purchase At: Dreamspinner Press, amazon.com
Wesley (Wes) Gordon is a pediatrician who has accepted a temporary position with Doctors Without Borders in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. The quake struck three years earlier but the entire area is still devastated by it. In mourning over losing his partner eighteen months prior, Wes loses himself in his work in order to escape the grief. The conditions are miserable. There is no end in sight when it comes to patients who need care. Some survive. A lot don’t. One night after a grueling shift, all Wes wants to do is go back to his sleeping quarters and sleep for a few hours until he has to start it all over again. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) Wes is startled by a scream in the night and rushes to save a young man who is literally seconds away from being murdered by a group of young men. The group scatters and between Wes and one of the nurses (Sandy), the young man (later identified as René) is treated but there are complications that keep him confined to the hospital for a few days.
With each day that passes, Wes feels a tug toward René, who is only sixteen and an orphan after losing his parents and other family members in the earthquake. For three years René has done what was necessary to survive and that meant selling himself. This means of survival is the reason he was attacked. René is gay and there are a lot of people who believe that what he got during his attack was deserved. Wes is not one of those people and he makes it his mission to protect the teen, even going so far as to finding him a job and a place to stay once he recovers. Wes is gay himself and he knows that what he witnessed was a hate crime… a hate crime that most people believe should be brushed off and forgotten. The tug that Wes feels for René is not sexual in any way. What he feels is parental. He knows he must do whatever it takes to keep René from going back out to sell himself and in only a very short time he makes the decision to try to adopt him and take him back to the states when his time in Haiti is complete.
Then there is Anthony Crowley, a ‘diplomat’ who shows up at the makeshift hospital one day and introduces himself to Wes. Anthony is a mystery in many ways. Mourning his own loss, he works himself into the ground accepting the most dangerous assignments he can get. Over a period of time Wes and Anthony gradually move toward a relationship but their time together is sporadic. One, no one can know that they are spending time together because of the country’s views on homosexuality. Two, Anthony’s job is classified and he has very little time to spend with Wes as he is constantly being turned out for another assignment. On top of that, there is René and Wes’s desire to adopt him as his son so that when his time is up in Haiti, he can return back to his home state of Maryland (Mary-Land, as René likes to call it) with his newly adopted son in tow. Paperwork is filed but there are snags every step of the way. There is no proof that René actually lost his parents during the earthquake. There are no death certificates nor is there even a birth certificate for René. Time is quickly running out and Wes is terrified that he will be forced to leave René behind where the teenager will no doubt be forced to go back to selling himself just to survive. After the last attack, Wes does not see René surviving at all if he is left behind.
Anthony is there and then he’s not. There is constant secrecy surrounding him but yet he still somehow finds a way to help Wes with the René situation, even when his own whereabouts are unknown to Wes.
There is a nice group of secondary characters with Sandy the nurse being one of the best. It’s so common to see female characters written in bitchy roles in M/M books so it was quite refreshing to see one written as a very nice person. There are also Wes’s uncle and his partner back in Maryland who are the ultimate older gay couple. They are only in the book a little but that little bit of time made me adore them both.
The author does an outstanding job in describing Haiti as I have no doubt it is today. He did this where the reader could get an idea of how things have definitely not progressed since the earthquake but the story was not bogged down by unnecessary or overly depressing details. The reader knows what is there and it is described well but it’s not described so graphically that it took away from the rest of the story… the story being about Wes and René first and foremost with Anthony being included as the love interest to Wes. Don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a love story between Wes and Anthony and the love story is written extremely well. However, this is more about making a family, a family that would never be considered traditional. Not only must Wes find a way to bring his new ‘son’ back to the United States with him but he must also find a way to go back with or without the man he has grown to love in such a short amount of time. A man who Wes doesn’t know if he’ll ever see again. Anthony’s work is so classified that it takes him away from Wes for long periods of time. Not just takes him away, but he is unable to share even a tidbit of information so Wes is left wondering if he’ll ever see him alive again.
A Heart Without Borders is written by Andrew Grey so you know there is a happy ending. There are a few sad moments as the reader is witness to the all too real devastation of Haiti. Throw in the situation with René just wanting to be a normal teenager and Wes fighting desperately to give him a normal life. There is also the sadness of Wes and Anthony as they have to part again and again wondering each time if this will be their last moment together. But there are also happy moments and I have to say that the resolution was very sweet. Everything comes together nicely and there is nothing left undone at the end.
Highly recommended.
This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press in exchange for a fair and honest review.
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This sounds like a good read, Cindi. The book is very much based on experiences that others have had in trying to care for/adopt children left homeless by the earthquake in Haiti, a devastated, poor and dangerous country. Definitely would have been some tears in this one I think. Lovely review.
I’ve seen a lot of horror stories about bad experiences with people trying to adopt children left homeless after the quake as well. This is written very realistically and yes, there were a few teary moments. It was another good read by Andrew Grey.