Review: Stray Home by Edith Scott

Stray Home by Edith Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one is a MM gay romance novel featuring hotness and a puppy.

Stray Home starts with a big and buff, tattooed carpenter feeling all alone.

He's out of the military, he's bought and refurbished the family home. But he's feeling unfulfilled. Sad and alone in his big house, he wants a family. He has a sister and a brother and they have kids, but Mike wants his own partner, maybe his own kids. He's got a big house and yet he's all alone in it. Makes you want to sing 'All By Myself'.



Mike is making breakfast and wants someone to share it with him. Just as he gets it all cooked up he hears a sound outside. Is it a prowler? A raccoon? He checks it out and only finds his recycling can knocked over and some holes in the dirt. Going back inside he finds the miscreant--a dirty little Golden Retriever puppy chomping down on his bacon.







Abandoned and alone, the little pup is hungry and scared, and not even a big, bad man like Mike can resist those puppy dog eyes. Mike has never had a dog before, but it seems he's got one now unless he can find the owner. In the meantime, the puppy is dirty and hurt, so they head off to the vet where Mike gets another surprise. The veterinarian is none other than David, his long lost best friend and first love.




Mike and David grew up together and fell in love, but were forced apart by David's father and his homophobic views. Mike joined the military to cope with his sadness while David reluctantly married. Now, years later, David is divorced with twin girls and Mike is home. Can the pair get back together as they bond over the puppy? Or will David's father step in and tear them apart once more?

This book has some of my favorite elements. Big, buff tattooed guy. Sweet puppies. Geeky and awkwardly shy love interest. Friends to lovers. It's everything one could want in a mm romance, but sadly, it fell a bit short.

I liked this book, don't get me wrong. But it had some major issues that will cause a lot of people to not enjoy it. David is really weak-willed. He's so passive he'll do anything if someone tells him to do it strongly enough. One moment he is promising himself to Mike and the next he's reverting back into his shell. And of course his wishy-washy behavior hurts Mike. Some of that is needed for the story, but David never really gets back to that likeable stage for the reader. The redemption arc just sort of falls flat.

For a new author, the book is actually fairly decent. It has flaws and definitely needs some tune-up, but the bones of the story are great. The execution just needs some work. There's some great descriptive language used and it really is refreshing. Everything from hairs on his clothes to crossing the parking lot has evocative descriptions, but at times they seem a bit like someone just went over the book and added them in. They don't quite flow enough. It's almost there. So close. But the sentence structure just pulls you out of the story. I think a few more run-throughs and edits would have helped it become more cohesive.



So, this book was worth reading to me because I can never get enough of hot guys rescuing puppies, but it didn't quite hit the mark. I have high hopes for future books from this author as with experience I think she'll get better.

This is the first in the Amberly book series, so I'm off to read the others. The next one features a hot, tattooed firefighter with a dalmation puppy and a cute dog trainer ;-)