Book 1,024: Planes, Trains, and Hurricanes – Eli Easton

I grabbed this one over winter break from Kindle Unlimited, because I wanted to read a MM Holiday Romance and Eli Easton is one of those MM Romance authors who writes good stories, they’re not the best, but I do enjoy them. And growing up in the hurricane belt (Southeastern NC) I was interested in finding out WTF was happening in this novel.

Planes, Trains, and Hurricanes is the story of Joe, NYC hotshot with a rich future father in law trying to navigate the world of money having grown up relatively poor, and Remy, a southern do-gooder who has dedicated his time to educating and housing orphans and making the world a better place in general.

A hurricane is coming to Florida, because of course it is, and all flights are cancelled, including the one Remy and Joe were booked for. Then there’s only one car left, and they decide to drive together and it just goes downhill from there including flooded roads, a hotel they have to get out of the second floor window in a boat to volunteer to help with search and rescue; cancelled trains; you name it.

‘Joe Blankenship.’ I shook his hand. I tried to discern if he was wearing colored contact lenses? But, no, those baby blues were real. They were the sort of eyes that socked you in the gut—Elijah Wood eyes, Paul Newman eyes. The center of the iris was a light turquoise blue surrounded by a navy rim, and lit up from within like they were powered by GE. Christ. They didn’t seem to fit in what was an otherwise unremarkable face, rather square-jawed, with an ordinary nose and mouth. Then he smiled. His teeth were even except for one in the front that slightly overlapped the next, giving him a quirky look. It was one of the sunniest smiles I’d ever seen, the glow in his eyes spreading to his whole being and somehow, maybe through our joined hands, to my gut too.(Loc. 188)

Remy is heading to NY because his estranged mother is dying and Joe for his engagement dinner. But that doesn’t stop the intermingled moments of happiness and wonder. When Joe makes the decision to stop at a Zoo with a Christmas wonderland for Remy, even though he claims to hate it, they really bond and it’s just so adorably wonderful.

I freaking loved it—every gaudy, sappy inch. The truth was, I secretly loved Christmas. Even well before I’d been a college student driving home for the holidays, I’d been a little kid who thought it was the best time of the year. How could it not be? (Loc. 469)

And I think this is when Joe starts to really re-think what he wants and where he wants to be in his life. It’s definitely an abrupt shift, but I don’t think he was 100% in the engagement with his boss’s daughter. It was definitely a marriage of convenience for both of them and Joe is going to be so much better off not marrying her.

When was the last time I’d been this attracted to a male? Maybe never? I was bi, but the male side of the equation had always been an opportunistic, physical thing. Never romantic. Never soft and downy like this, heart hot in my chest, bluebirds singing in my ear. (Loc. 487)

I honestly have no recollection of the sex in the novel. It may have been a clean/sweet novel, but I don’t think it was. Nothing stands out that made me mad about it, so I have to assume they were decently written and if they were verse characters, Easton walked the walk, but it’s been quite a bit of time since I read it so I can’t say for sure.

As for the minor characters that make or break a novel for me, there weren’t really any in it long enough to sway me either way, but I have to say I HATED everyone in Joe’s life except for his mother and everyone in Remy’s life was so perfectly sweet and wonderful.

Recommendation: Worth the read. Easton is a solid MM Romance author, and this is another one that’s worth reading. It’s a whirlwind romance and road trip and that makes it an easy quick read. There is only one super-angsty moment when Joe makes a decision for both him and Remy but regrets it almost immediately so we end up getting our happily ever after in the end.

Opening Line: “The day I met Remy Guidry, there was an apocalypse. Not the apocalypse with a capital A but the lowercase kind that hits Florida on a regular basis.”

Closing Line: “Getting stranded again in a hurricane with Remy? ‘Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.'” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)