A review by anitalouise
Open Seating by Mickie B. Ashling

5.0

My word, this was superb!! I have had an uneven experience with M. Ashling's books so was quite worried but as they say, not all books are the same. This was thoughtful, nuanced and deeply emotional. And the very best was that our two MCs are older. Seth and Bryce are both close to 50. The author deftly weaves a story about how one deals with the death of a partner by suicide. That is bad enough but the circumstances under which it happened were particularly tragic. We also get a wonderful layering of Seth. Initially you want to slap him and think he is a whiny idiot but as we read more, you get a complex individual struggling with what happened, how to go on after 20 years and having his world kicked out from under him. With Bryce, you get a manwhore whose reasons for his whoriness (is that even a word) are linked to something that occurred in his past. How things that happen to us inform our thinking, our relationships with people and how we perceive the world. The slowly coming together for Seth and Bryce and how they deal with their respective issues while discovering who each other really is. A badly worded sentence but the skill the author displayed in peeling back the onion for each guy was brilliant. Coupling the character driven and excellently written MCs with the boiling hot smexy just added to the enjoyment. What a treat. Yet another book that has been on my Kindle since 2017. Now to unearth book 2 in this series!