Worth Searching For

Qualls’s second Heart of the South contemporary (after Worth Waiting For) is a city boy–country boy tale that is a bit facile in its approach to gay hookups and prejudice, but offers decent chemistry and a bonus bit of charm for dog lovers. Designer Carlos “Lito” Apaza leaves his friends in Atlanta for tiny Black Lake, Ala., where he works for a small hotel chain. He finds a social outlet in training his dog, Spot, to participate in a K-9 search and rescue team, which moderates his frustration with being “the only man... the only non-white person, the only non-straight one, and the only one who’s ever lived within reasonable shopping distance of an IKEA” in his workplace. He also finds a more personal interest in the search team leader, military veteran Dave Schmidt. The bigotry Lito experiences in rural Alabama is based mostly in cluelessness and almost always conflates homophobia and racism, which comes across as simplistic. Qualls does a decent job of making Dave and Lito’s friendly hookups sexy despite their relative mundanity and basis in a limited choice of local partners, but fails to convince readers of Lito’s willingness to shun urban work opportunities and return to Black Rock for Dave and the team. There’s little to elevate this contemporary over others in the genre. Agent: Moe Ferrara, BookEnds. (Mar.)