Title: Cartography for Beginners
Author: Jenna Jones
Publisher: Torquere Press
Pages: 264
Characters: Leo Bellamy, Stuart Huntsman
Sub-Genre: Contemporary Romance, Series
Kisses: 4.5
Blurb:
At the age of fifty-one, Leo Bellamy from Chiaroscuro and Something Beautiful has to do what he never expected: start over. Leo has been mourning the end of his long-time relationship for over a year. It takes the death of a close friend to convince Leo that he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life being bitter. It’s time to move on and find a love that will last. Leo accepts his friend Stuart Huntsman’s invitation to visit him in London, where Leo’s friends hope he will find a holiday romance that will kick start that “moving on” business.
Meantime, Stuart has been tentatively rebuilding his relationship with his estranged children. For twenty years Stuart thought his children were better off with him, and it’s a shock to learn they don’t feel the same way. Stuart doesn’t think he’s good for anyone — and certainly not for Leo, even if he and Leo call each other daily and Stuart is always a welcome guest in Leo’s home.
There’s no road map to true love and it’s easy to get lost along the way. But with patience and understanding, Stuart and Leo may find their way to each other.
Review:
Leo Bellamy is a middle-age program director of a radio station on San Francisco. He’s feeling depressed and all alone since his partner of over 25 years has left him for a young man less than half his age.Stuart Huntsman is an English art promoter and gallery owner who has been mentoring and sleeping with young talented and beautiful men for over most of his adult life. The two men have been good friends ever since they met through mutual friends of Leo’s son Dune.
The two men find their friendship turning into sexual attraction and deep feelings for each other, but Leo fights it because he still has feelings for his former boyfriend and Stuart fights it because he believes that he can’t be loved for who he is and thinks Leo deserves someone better suited to him.
I enjoyed reading this story about two men who find themselves at a crossroad in their lives and the problems and roadblocks each one faces while trying to figure out what they want and where they want their lives to go. The struggles and heartaches the men go through make this a very compelling and believable story about how you don’t always find love with the type of person you think you will.
Reviewed By: Pat
I loved this whole series (Chiaroscuro and Something Beautiful before this one), but Cartography is, by far, my favorite out of all of them.