Review: After the Siren by Darcy Green

Aussie sports romance fans rejoice--finally we have a sports romance set in the high stakes world of AFL. Debut author Darcy Green's After the Siren tells the story of Theo and Jake, a pair of enemies from rival football clubs. When Theo Bestravos fails to kick what should have been a career changing goal, he finds himself put up for the draft and picked up by a rival interstate club. The same club where their star player arrogant Jake Cunningham has been publicly rejoicing a little too much at Theo's failure. Starting over at the new club, Theo wants nothing at all to do with Jake. But when a preseason camp forces the two men into close proximity they discover that they might have a few things in common ... and they might just be more than friends. 

After the Siren is entertaining with two equally great but different lead characters whose romance is complicated by their high profile careers in the top tier league of a sport where there are no players who are publicly out. At the time of writing this review there are no current AFL players who are publicly out as gay or bisexual. I have no doubt that they exist, and, of course, other people's private lives are exactly that, but it does raise the question of why players keep their sexuality quiet and whether it is to avoid scrutiny from the media and the public. And, obviously, this book does an excellent job of looking at that exact issue. However, I do have a few grumbles about this one, mostly I felt the editing could have been improved. Also it glosses over some of the challengers that AFL level footballers face that could have easily added to the plot, such as interstate travel. What I did like, however, was the respect the novel gave to the AFLW and the discussion of what rainbow flags and inclusivity mean. This being romance there are a lot of spicy scenes directed at the female gaze. Overall, a very well meaning but imperfect novel.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh

Image
I picked up a copy of the first novel in the Boys of Tommen series assuming that it was set in a university. Turns out that I was wrong. The characters are all in high school, though as per the note in the front, the novel is pitched at readers over the age of eighteen. The setting is quite dark and topics addressed include alcoholism, physical abuse and bullying. The romance, pairing a fifteen year old girl who is small for her age and described as having a childlike appearance with a boy who is physically mature, sexually active, who invades her privacy and is not far from his eighteenth birthday seems questionable.  After suffering through years of bullying at school, some of which put her in hospital, Shannon has transferred to a private school, one so expensive that her mother has to take out a loan to pay all the fees. Things are going well, she has friends at her new school, there are strong anti-bullying rules in place and everything at Tommen College seems well, nicer ... ...
Read more

Feature and Follow Friday Feature blogger!

Image
Good grief! It's 8am, I've just jumped on the bus, checked my emails and discovered that I'm one of this week's Feature and Follow Friday feature bloggers! So, welcome everyone, and thanks heaps to Parajunkee and Alison Can Read ! This week's question is:  Confess your blogger sins! Is there anything as a newbie blogger that you've done, that as you've gained more experience you were like -- oops? For me, probably being a bit too hard and critical in my reviews than what the author deserved. I used to think that I was failing as a reviewer if I didn't point out at least one thing that was wrong with the book. As I've grown more experienced, I've realised that sometimes that said more about my skills as a reviewer/critic than it did about the authors work. 
Read more

Review: Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

Image
A sequel of sorts to The Code of the Woosters, Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves finds Bertram Wilberforce Wooster an unwilling (and unwanted) guest at Totleigh Towers with his ever-impressive valet Jeeve's in tow. Bertie's job is simple--to steal an ornament that Sir Watkyn Bassett bought at an unfair price, and return it to the previous owner at the insistence of Sir Watkyn's niece Stiffy, who wants revenge on the family matriarch for the fact that he won't give her fiancé, Rev Harold 'Stinker' Pinker a vicarage. Meanwhile, there are other problems afoot--chiefly in the form of Sir Watkyn's daughter Madeline, who believes that Bertie is still in love with her. She is also busy forcing her own fiancé, Gussie Fink-Nottle, to become a vegetarian against his will, which leads to Gussie falling in love with the new cook--who is none other than Pauline Stoker's younger sister Emerald, who has fallen on hard times. In the hands of many writers, such a shallow, farcical...
Read more