War Paint by Sarah Black

War Paint by Sarah Black
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Short story (88 pages)
Other: M/M
Rating: 3.5 stars
Reviewed by Fern

There’s an art to love.

Mural artist Ben has come from Tel Aviv to Atlanta to work on a commission. A successful artist, he’s still lonely and isolated after his family’s rejection. Ben is charmed and surprised when local soldier Eli mistakes him for homeless, and brings him a cup of coffee and a biscuit. This gesture opens the door. Eli is lost, trying to make sense of a future without the Army after a combat injury ends his career.
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Art gives them a new language and a path forward. But lost men can reach out, desperate to hang on to anyone close. Is what they find together real, and the kind of love that will last?

Eli’s head hasn’t been on straight after returning from duty as a soldier. Really struggling to follow the suggestions of his counselor, Eli notices Ben and mistakes him for a homeless man. Ben is an artist on a work visa from Tel Aviv, is struggling in his own way with all the changes so far from his native home. Eli and Ben slowly get to know each other, can they each be what the other needs?

This is an interesting and sweet story. At first I found it a little difficult to get my head around the style of the story – each chapter is divided into two sections, one showing the story from Ben’s perspective and the other from Eli’s. They’re both told in the third person, but the short chapters and changing between the two characters took a little getting used to. I did end up enjoying it, and indeed seeing things from both men’s perspectives helped me feel attached to each character in his own right, but it was certainly a different style of writing and I could understand if it wasn’t every readers’ cup of tea.

I have to admit to being a little surprised that most of the sex scenes had the bedroom door effectively closed. While I admit that Ben and Eli jumped into bed together fairly early on in their friendship, for an erotic romance I rather expected at least some level of detail to be made explicit in the sensual scenes. I admit that I appreciated a little more “getting-to-know-you” time in the story, but readers expecting and wanting lots of hot, steamy sex might be as surprised as I was when the story cuts to the next scene before the first “main event”, so to speak. But I also have to admit that having the sex be not quite as descriptive as I’m used to made the story feel slightly less passionate. I loved the connection and chemistry between Eli and Ben, and I absolutely felt that they become deeply in love and devoted to each other, but when I am reading an erotic romance I do feel there needs to be a certain level of explicitness.

I loved how complicated both Ben and Eli’s characters were. The author did an amazing job to my mind in revealing all the layers each man had and showing me as a reader just how good they were for each other. This came across to me as a deeply emotional read and I was thoroughly hooked and invested in both men, not just their romance together but also each as individual men, healing from their wounds and finding the next path they each wanted to take.

Readers looking for an emotional, strongly character-centric story should find this as breathtaking as I did. While the sex wasn’t as detailed as I would have liked, the connection and chemistry between Eli and Ben was undeniable and the strong plot and detailed characters made up for a lot of this.