He lost weight and then lost his boyfriend. Fortunately, there was a better man around the corner.

Ross Jenson spent the last eight months successfully losing weight. Unfortunately, the day he reached his goal, his boyfriend wanted to celebrate with cake. His best friend and roommate, Janet, takes him to a sex club where he meets Miles Shigihara, an apparent expert in Shibari. The two of them begin a sweet romance while dealing with other life events.

The first half of the story focused on Ross and his relationship with his friend Janet. Ross was a nice guy, and he spent his days trying to bring trans-inclusive health plans to the workplace. Miles owned his own landscaping business creating Zen gardens. Once the two of them meet in the second half, the story focused a little bit more on the romance side and gave us both points of view. The Shibari scenes were very interesting.

Unfortunately, the story was very frustrating to read for the most part. There were too many times that a plot point was started and never finished or clarified. Miles is at risk of losing his house and business, but at first it isn’t clear why it’s happening, which made the entire scene confusing.

In addition to Janet, we also met Ross’ brother Rune. It appeared that Rune and Janet were having a relationship. However, at one point they were upset, but we weren’t told why or what happened. Janet and Rune disappeared after a bit of the story so we never found out the final outcome of that relationship. Leaving these as open items, along with several others, made me feel like I kept missing things which took me out of the story.

If you enjoy Shibari, there are some sexy scenes included in this story.

Originally reviewed for The Romance Reviews. Complimentary copy provided by author/publisher for an honest review.

BLURB

Ross Jenson is looking forward to a little midmorning delight to celebrate making Lifetime in Weight Watchers, but after he spent eight months losing ninety-eight pounds, what his lover gets him is a triple-layer chocolate cake. When Ross refuses to eat it, the newly minted ex leaves the country and dumps him via e-mail, with three sentences and a link to a chubby chasers web site. A few days later, Ross’s best friend and workout buddy takes him to her favorite club for drinks. Ross is shocked when he realizes it’s a sex club but warms to the idea in record time when a mysterious Japanese man and his silken ropes sweep him off his feet. Ross has never thought of himself as adventurous, but he can’t stop thinking about the man who makes his bones feel like gummy worms.

Warnings: this book features a corporate sensitivity trainer with an agenda, an awesome gal-pal, an unconventional sex club, a mysterious Japanese rope artist, and another taste of Portland, Oregon as seen through my twisted mind.