Ethan in Gold (Johnnies #3), Amy Lane

 

Ethan in GoldRating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Genre:  Gay Romance

Tags: Porn Industry, Angst to the Max, Series, Contemporary

Length:  350 Pages

Reviewer: Kazza K

Purchase At: Dreamspinner Press, amazon.com

 

He knew the word “skin hunger” and now he believed it, believed it with all his soul.
He needed to be touched.

 

 

 

Evan Costa has had a strange upbringing. A teachers aide molested him when he was five and his mother never dealt with it. From the time he was discovered to have been molested onwards things changed irrevocably for Evan. His mother blamed him. Blamed men.  Evan’s mother’s dysfunctional reaction grew and spread like a cancer and it affected everyone in Evan’s family which pinged back onto Evan. Evan sees a shrink Dr “Uncle” Stottlemeyer – uncle comes into it because he seemed more family in his own way than Evan’s family.  So from age five Evan didn’t know what it was like to be hugged by family, his mum, anymore. But he was sure up on good touch bad touch. He bulked up, he hung out with the geeky comic/anime crowd at school, which he liked – the girls were all prepared to hug him, Curtis, his friend, wanted more but couldn’t because he had also been molested. One of the girls overdosed due to family dysfunction, Curtis cut himself until he was institutionalised, and his good friend, and fuck/body hugging buddy, Ryane, eventually heads off to university elsewhere. Evan joins Johnnies – plenty of touch and sex to be had there – and Ethan is created. 

Jonah Stevens is twenty two and works at PetSmart. He is hard working, has been overlooked as the manager in favour of newcomer Tommy (first met in Chase in Shadow) has a sixteen – turning seventeen – year old sister, Melly, with CF and all the inherent problems that go with it. He and his mother work hard to give Melly a longer life, a good quality life, but Melly is young and not well. Sometimes she wants comfort food, TV and a book. But Melly needs to do P/T and be on the move, something she tends to balk at. She just wants to be young. Between Jonah and his mother they keep the health insurance coverage and the bills paid. Their father comes in an out but he is so sad about his daughter he can’t stay permanently. Jonah is bone tired from everything he does, but he loves his fish and he dreams about the Italian God that came into PetSmart with his friend, and now Jonah’s manager… and that lovely smile. He laughs at the description Ethan gives of himself as being a “hedonist” as behind those eyes Jonah sees a lot more than a hedonist. Although wouldn’t it be nice just once to be able to be just that? That’s the truth for both young men as Evan can’t leave home for fear that his crazy mother will continue to control his sisters, she’s already driven off one sister’s husband and caused carnage…which gets laid at the feet of Evan as they find out he is in porn. This is the catalyst for Evan finally moving out.

Jonah and Ethan (Evan) have things in common – they have pressures brought on by circumstances they can’t control, they are both gay, they both love anime, manga, yaoi, and they are both decent young men at heart. But Jonah is a virgin and Ethan is a porn star. So how does that work? However, for a while, Jonah does not know what Ethan does, he believes he is a model. But when Ethan talks to Tommy, or is that Tango? he seems to see a recurring pattern of double names. What types of work could that occur in? Jonah knows Ethan is not being honest about his work, but he doesn’t hold it against him –

Jonah heard it then – the pause before “modelling” – but he didn’t know what to say or how to comment or even what question to ask.

But it was the second time he heard it, and he swore he’d remember it – the sound of Ethan Lying. 

Jonah soon puts two and two together and finds Ethan online in his videos. There is a lot that goes on in Ethan in Gold and it is too much to cover here in a review so I’ll just say that there is much drama, much angst, much sorrow and there are also good friends, good family, bad family and a growing relationship between Ethan and Jonah.

I liked Jonah. A lot. He was incredibly patient and worked out fairly quickly that Ethan has issues – that he may look like an Italian God but he is a mere mortal with his emotions and his only-just-hidden vulnerability. Also, imagine finding out your partner, the guy you have fallen for, works in porn? That his friends are also fucking him for pay. It takes a certain person to deal with that and Jonah is a very lovely character. Two things stuck in my mind the “chocolate bunnies” talk between Jonah and his father and Ethan singing The Boxer when he couldn’t have done anything nicer.

The narrative is very well done for the characters involved – simple characters at heart with complex lives. The growing relationship between Ethan and Jonah was sweet and right. There were reasons as to why this unlikely pair would be good together – 

“You mean who was getting beaten up? The anime club in high school.”
Jonah caught his breath. They were standing outside in the funky gray autumn day, in the middle of the almost-empty parking lot, and suddenly it was like the holy fucking grail was shining down on the Italian man-god, illuminating him as the Chosen One. “You like anime?”

——

…but that wasn’t what Ethan was looking at. He was looking at the innocent curiosity and the quiet sense of humor and the pure awesome averageness of the guy.
He was everything Ethan had wanted to be growing up.

And when Jonah needed to know why him –

“You are unbelievably sexy,” he murmured into Ethan’s ear. “And you could have any guy on the planet. Do you really want me?” 
Ethan leaned closer, and Jonah felt the heat from his bare chest and his lips feathering the whorls of his own ear. “More than I want to breathe. More than I want my heart to beat. More than I want to see tomorrow. That’s how bad I want you.”

Pretty heady stuff.

So here are my only niggles –  Everyone has major baggage in this book. Right from when Evan is five through to current day – Evan’s childhood friends to everyone at Johnnies, too, and I felt there was so much that it lost its impact. But then some very nice writing would occur and I would settle into it again. The book is too long, some scenes are repeated from both MC’s perspective and it was unnecessary. Some of the dialogue was repetitive as well – the reader knows Evan/Ethan needs hugs. Some tighter editing would have helped. I felt the main relationship got lost in amongst the other characters at times, but I guess that’s one of the main aims of this book – it’s about this family of flawed and scarred characters who build this series. But I prefer a more MC driven, as opposed to the porn family and their sister’s and porn star breakdowns and porn star’s pets driven story.

The sex in this book was com si com sa for me. There should have been more passion. There was a slow build but when it did happen it just didn’t knock my socks off. And it should have.

I know this series has quite the following and I understand why. There is some lovely prose and some truly touching moments. The main characters are very nice guys and I liked them, particularly Jonah, and Evan/ Ethan is lovely and so lost. They fit together well. I have to say that I did so love Melly. So, for these reasons, I give Ethan in Gold 4 stars. I also have to mention that beautiful cover!

Book supplied by the publisher, Dreamspinner Press, in return for an honest review.



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The cover is lovely. This looks like a really nice book full of a lot of angst. Great review, my friend. 🙂