cover image Owner of a Lonely Heart

Owner of a Lonely Heart

Mel Bossa. Less Than Three (lessthanthreepress.com), $4.99 e-book (176p) ISBN 978-1-62004-632-6

Bossa’s chaste triad romance trips over its own tangles. Declan Lonely, a French teacher in Montreal, is a likable fellow who’s trying to keep his tumultuous personal life from affecting his career. When his older brother, Valens, is released from prison, he moves in with Declan, and their shared violent past and Valens’s violent present threaten to ruin everything. Declan is also dealing with his unrequited love for his friend Rhys, who’s preparing for an extended trip to Poland. Rhys and Declan both have feelings for mutual friend Felix, but neither has the courage to act upon them until Felix breaks up with his abusive boyfriend. Too many plot lines without substantive character development have a pinball effect: each story shift yanks the reader’s focus away from the previous threads and people, whose potential goes unrealized. (Nov.)