A Better Man by Jaime Reese (The Men of Halfway House #1)
Released: January 16, 2014 (second release)
M/M Contemporary Romance
Self Published

Reviewed by Mandi

One of the main reasons I decided to read this book is because one of the hero’s has been in prison for five years. This intrigued me and I wanted to know more. Unfortunately, once I read it, my intrigue stopped.

Matthew Doner was in jail fora white-collared crime. Now he is out and wants to do something positive with his life. His aunt left him her entire estate when she died, so he now owns a delapidated building in Miami that he wants to turn into a halfway house for others to come to once out of prison. Matt friended a man named Sam in prison and Sam has really helped Matt transition into civilian life, and Matt wants to do the same for others. Matt and his family are not close.

Matt needs a contractor to turn his house into a halfway house and Julian Capeletti applies for the job. Julian sees great potential in this house, even though Matt doens’t tell him exactly what he is building. Matt is too scared to tell anyone he was in prison, so he just tells Julian it’s going to be office space. Julian really needs some money, so he accepts, and even starts living at this place to make sure he has enough time to get this job done in the one-year time-frame Matt gives him.

This book starts out with Matt very stuffy and uptight and Julian pretty sarcastic. I liked those two personalities together and it’s a strong start. But the story started to go south for me because each chapter is a new month. So the story jumps ahead a lot. In one chapter, Julian and Matt share their first kiss. Obviously, this is a big deal because this changes everything about their working relationship. But the next page is a new chapter and we jump ahead a month. So what’s been happening in the days/weeks we don’t see?? Did they talk about the kiss? Did they kiss again? This happens again – each chapter something new furthers their relationship, but then we jump ahead again and miss the ramifications for their actions. This all leads to the 50% mark of the book where the profess their love to each other. But it didn’t make sense because we only get flashhes of them falling in love. I needed a more continuous story – even if it only took two weeks for them  to fall – at least we would get to see all two weeks.

After the 50% mark, the story gets kind of mushy and Matt becomes all ‘woe is me’ because I was in prison and can’t tell anyone. And then the prison explanation you get did not impact the story the way I wanted it to.

I liked how it all started but by the end it was a miss for me.

Rating: C

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