Grand Jete

The Blurb: Jordan Armstead is not a ballet fan, so finding himself at the Opera House with his family, watching his niece in ‘The Nutcracker’, is not his idea of a good time.  That is until a god-like specimen wearing little more than a loin cloth and simmering oil appears on stage, effortlessly partnering his female counterpart through the sensuous ‘Arabian’ pas de deux.

That night, when the very same man, after suffering a potentially career ending injury, appears in the emergency room where Jordan is a nurse , Jordan finds himself as attracted to the man as he was to the dancer. The attraction is mutual, and they share a magical twenty four hours. But at the end of it, Jordan finds himself wondering if he’s impulsively given his heart to someone  who has more important things to do than think about a one night stand. Against the backdrop of Christmas trees, sugar plums and falling snow, two men with absolutely nothing in common find out that where the heart is concerned, it just doesn’t matter at all.

The Review: Being gay can give a man a hard time with his family as well as  his professional life. Jordan Armstead has been lucky that way, his family and his co-workers are totally accepting of his orientation. Almost too much so, he can’t help thinking when his mother hands him the playbill with the pictures of the ballet dancers performing in “The Nutcracker” and tells him to “take a look at the menue” . Still, Jordan is enticed by the picture of one dancer, and even more so when he sees the same man perform later in the Arabian Dance. As a trained triage nurse Jordan can’t miss that the dancer hurts himself, though; he ‘s worried for the man, but can’t do anything for him.
To Jordan’s surprise and silent delight, the dancer shows up a few hours later in the ER. Davis Conrad is drunk, high on painkillers, and apparently well  aware that he has just suffered a career-ending injury, but still he immediately hits on the attractive male nurse who takes care of him.  Jordan knows he can’t let himself in on flirting with a patient, but he can’t deny how attracted he is to the beautiful dancer. Witnessing Davis being abandoned by his former lover who is also the company director only ups the ante for Jordan. Davis is stranded in Jordan’s town until the next day, without a place to stay, and so Jordan somehow ends up offering him a bed for the night. He hasn’t consciously planned to share this bed with Davis, but –  sometimes things don’t turn out the way you expect them to, or do they?

This was a very good story. Even though the string of events that leads to Davis and Jordan getting together is very unlikely to happen, it isn’t entirely improbable, and this is part of the magic of this book. An extroverted and outgoing ballet dancer like Davis  could actually start flirting in an emergency room, especially when inebriated. And a professional nurse could slip from professionality far enough to feel attracted to a patient, to a point where he would go out of his way to care for him, especially given Jordan’s personality. Jordan himself says that what he likes best in his professional life is making people fell better, and at first he’s that way with Davis, too- until Davis’s easy ways and his unconditional trust change everything.

Both men  behaved exactly in character; the author made me buy everything they did because it fit the way they were drawn.  This inherent consistency, along with a great deal of realism in the setting of the story, went a long way in keeping it from being trite.

Reading this story I kept waiting for some kind of shoe to drop. It can’t be that easy, can it? Yet, it was. Two men who are seriously attracted to each other meet, come together, fall in love and decide to stay together. Still, this was no tacky insta-love hearts and flowers flick but a pleasantly written, at times hilarious, entertaining story with comfort-read potential, mostly thanks to the author’s writing skills. Not only the main characters but also the secondary cast were well drawn; particularly Jordan’s mother, who was one of the most likeable female characters I’ve ever met in a m/m romance;  and Jordan’s niece, who was adorable.

So all of you who aren’t fed up with Christmas yet and are reluctant to leave the holiday spirit behind, go for this treat, you won’t regret it.