REVIEW: Mike and the Spring Awakening (Victorian Holiday Hearts Book 3) by Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon

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A bitter sweet from Dee/Devon.

Young Micah “Mike” Cordett’s privileged life explodes when he is caught naked with a schoolmate. Running away from disgrace, he blunders into a trap in a seamy part of London and endures months of abuse before escaping. But with the help of the Andrews family, he’s begun to climb out of his fear. Yet, when a reminder of his happier past erupts into his life in the form of Lucas Spring, Mike’s not certain he’s ready to face the remnants of the charmed life he’d once enjoyed. He’s certainly not ready for love.

Lucas Spring pined for Mike from afar when they were in school. This shadow of the confident boy he once knew shocks him, and Lucas vows to do anything he can to help restore the person he’d so admired. With patience and determination, he hopes to ease Mike’s fears and perhaps even win his love.

But when a violent figure from Mike’s past looms into his present, will the tender shoots of a new beginning be crushed?

Book 3 in the Victorian Holiday Hearts series

WARNING: Contains themes of sexual abuse that may trigger some readers.

REVIEW by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

Mike has been through hell.  First he is caught with another boy naked at Eton and tossed out on his era.  His parents reject him for his perversity.  He escapes to London where he is grabbed by a man who rents him out to whoever wants him for sex.  He is a short time away from death by exposure when the Andrews family finds him and gives him their large and loving family and incredible amounts of kindness to help him heal.  When Spring, a young man (not the season, though both coincide) comes to look for him, the family is tense and protective.  But Mike is ready to start facing the world.

Spring remembered Mike as the terribly gentle and thoughtful older student who protected and soothed him from the cruelties of other boys in school.  He almost doesn’t remember the boy, who has grown into a good looking and confident fellow who just wanted to find Mike and where he is and satisfy himself that he is okay.

But Mike is not okay.  He is starting to heal, but only just.  He can’t stand to be touched and he can’t tell others what was done to him.  But Spring brings out the softer and sweeter side of him. Will Spring help Mike heal?  Will he stick around long enough to make him his love?  And what will happen if one of the perpetrators of the earlier torture shows up in his life?

Every Bonnie Dee and/or Summer Devon astonishes me with its sensitivity to the pain of the human condition.  Far from the sort of books that make light of or play off child prostitution, this book spells out just how damaging the abuse can be.  It not only traumatizes the child but can result in suicide or a thoroughly battered adult.  That Spring was a fat boy and appreciated Mike’s tenderness brings about a realistic reunion where Spring can take the time and care to help Mike heal.  The conclusion to what will happen in the long run to the couple is the cherry on the top of a lovely love story.