Iron Lace

** This will most likely contain spoilers ** So where too start??? I rated this 3 stars because buried underneath all the tons of soap opera drama there is a potentially good late blooming gay story but I confess to being a generous grader because I genuinely want to like a book when I start to read it.Back to the book. This edition is a two in one. The original and a sort of epilogue novella that [a:Mercy Celeste 4615197 Mercy Celeste https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1442532314p2/4615197.jpg] added for the republication of the book. The first part of the book is ostensibly about Darcy Butler (don't ask) a 29 year old Oregonian who has relocated along with the staff of his on-line magazine to New Orleans at the urging of his business partner & friend with benefits Bailey. She runs the public face of the magazine while he is the maverick editor. Darcy is 29 and a fish out of water in New Orleans and his own skin, he's repeatedly described as a gorgeous Clark Kent type, glasses and all, completely unaware his good looks, a little rigid and a whole lot unsatisfied. Enter Remy Caleb Lasseigne Mitchell, Pulitzer Prize winning photo-journalist, artist, millionaire, descendant of a New Orleans crime boss who on a whim while temporarily in town decides to offer his services to Darcy's magazine as an art director, they meet and BAM insta-love & insta-lust ensue. The third day after meeting Darcy who was ostensibly straight or even asexual proceeds to have unprotected, unlubricated (just spit & pre cum ‘cause that's plenty) sex with Caleb who also happens to be a walking sex God, with Rock Star looks and bad boy written all over him. Yep that happened and from there on it's a sex fest which I would normally love save for the fact that the author suffers from a Tell Us rather than show us style of writing so everything is abbreviated and one can't even get hot and bothered with the nasty. By the second day our two MCs are professing undying love to each other and by the end of the week shocking revelations have come to light and Darcy runs back west to take refuge with his family and restart his life and Caleb tries to drown his sorrows in alcohol and this is barely the first part of the original book!There's a cross country chase, declarations of love, meet the parents and then we get to the added bonus where a secret baby is the least of things the author throws at us to see what sticks.In the end the purple prose and the Jackie Collins drama just had me laughing but I was also annoyed because what could've been the story of a still young man discovering his sexuality with a mysterious & alluring older guy is overloaded with extraneous nonsense and his inner voyage is never addressed. And then we have Caleb who has history to fill 1,000 page novel but it's only used as window dressing.Too bad.