His To Cherish by Jessie Pinkham

His To Cherish by Jessie Pinkham
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short story (88 pages)
Other: M/M, Anal Play
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Fern

Love may be within his reach … if he is able to trust in it.

Gabe Thorne was disgusted by his sister’s plan to purchase an empath. She wanted someone who would be compelled to please her, and only her sudden death interrupted the plan. The empath she’d chosen, Ignacio, needs to bond with an anchor almost immediately, and Gabe volunteers to prevent him from being auctioned off to an abuser by his greedy parents.
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Ignacio proves to be a sweet, enchanting guy, and soon Gabe begins to develop real feelings for him. Despite this, and the lifelong commitment he made when he let Ignacio bond to him, Gabe doesn’t believe they can have a real relationship. His long habit of pessimism has protected him from a lot of disappointment over the years. This time? Expecting the worst might ruin any chance of a happy relationship.

Gabe had never been close to his sister, but after her death he still felt guilty that his grief wasn’t stronger. Gabe wasn’t particularly close to any of his family, but he felt it was still a new low that they dealt in what amounted to human trafficking – buying empaths who would attach and become fully reliant on their “owner”. When Gabe meets Ignacio to inform him that Ignacio’s fiancée had died Gabe is rather upset to find Ignacio’s parents as money-hungry as he’d feared. Making the deal despite his original intentions, Gabe has to wonder what he’s going to do with an empath he never expected to have.

I found this to be an interesting and engrossing read. There’s a small reference early on to another book in the series – which I hadn’t read previous to this story – and I was pleased that I could easily read this as a stand alone novel. While set in an alternative/futuristic type of world I didn’t find that there was an over-abundance of weird slang/terms/world-building that I needed to grasp quickly. I actually prefer this sort of “easy understanding” in my sci-fi/futuristic style of stories so I was really pleased and quite relieved. It helped me focus on Ignacio and Gabe’s characters, their situation and the story itself and not have to constantly feel like I was catching up or trying to wrap my head around the world they lived in. Indeed, I felt comfortable enough with the author’s voice, the futuristic world-setting and adored both Gabe and Ignacio’s characters enough I hadn’t even finished the story before I made a note to check out the first book in the series. Personally, I can’t think of a stronger recommendation of any author or story to want to read more, new books before even completing the one I was already in the middle of.

I thought Gabe and Ignacio’s characters to be interesting and the entire situation they found themselves in to be a good storyline. A part of me felt a little like Gabe was “too good to be true”, but I think that’s a bit of cynicism on my behalf. I know I would have hated Gabe’s character had he wanted to take advantage of Ignacio or treat him poorly, so I feel a little unfair thinking the fact Gabe wanted Ignacio to be “free” and have his own life and choices was unrealistically good. The world and setting was certainly different enough that I didn’t feel anything outrageous needed to occur to add extra interest in the plot of characters. Simply the whole situation of what empaths were, and how their lives were structured was plenty of plot and world-building to keep my interest keen and as stated before I enjoyed both Gabe and Ignacio’s characters in and of themselves so that was a bonus.

Readers looking for an intensely erotic story might find the sex parts of this story a little lacking. While Gabe and Ignacio are sexually intimate toward the end of the story the focus was far more strongly upon their relationship and emotional/empathetic connections. While I was pleased they didn’t simply jump right into bed (Ignacio was both quite young and completely inexperienced to the point in my personal opinion of being borderline unable to knowingly give consent) I also would not have been opposed to the two men being intimate a little earlier than they were in the story. I can appreciate, however, that this was a fine line that the author had to walk. While explicit – and the eventual penetrative sex scene was certainly hotly written to my mind – there wasn’t an abundance of erotic, steamy sex in this story.

A surprisingly good, refreshingly different story I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I found the characters and world to be vibrant and engrossing and the relationship between Gabe and Ignacio to be extremely well written. A great new author and series and I am eagerly looking forward to reading more.