WL's Mainstream Gay Book Reviews - 10. Will & Patrick Wake Up Married Book 1 by Leta Blake

https://www.goodreads.com/series/166060-wake-up-married

Leta Blake is one of my favorite gay fiction writers, she is what I ideally want to be more like as a writer in my own right: thought-provoking, compassionate, deeply immersed in human condition, and skillful in plot development. She isn’t a perfect writer, but despite her flaws in story flow at times, her overall story and characters carries the narrative. There may be better writers out there, better creative fiction, but a well-rounded story is a marathon, not a short race to the finish line.

So, here’s my review of the story that got me into reading so much more, it’s a gay romantic comedy with extremely touching moments, subtle truths about relationships, hot sex scenes that felt like true pay-offs for dedicated readers in book 4-6, while building sexual tension in book 1-3, and engaging flawed characters. This is not a story you can judge by reading just one book, you should purchase the complete collection 1-6 of the original series to gain a full scope of the story-line intricacies. Book 7 is optional, but if you like the series, it’s worth it to understand the characters more.

Logistically, her original series consisted of 6 novelettes, around 90-110 pages long, so it’s very easy to read one of these in one sitting at a time if you are not a speed reader, or a little over 3 hours each book on average. The 7^th book is a novella in length with over 150 pages and 4 hours long by audio. Total reading time to finish this series for me was about 30 hours. It’s probably between 150K-200K words in total, maybe more for all 7 combined.

I’ll only deliver a review for Book 1, but if there are other fans of the series or interested readers, feel free to ask me to review the rest.

The funny beginning to the most interesting, unexpectedly touching, and crazy little gay fiction book series I read in the modern romance fiction genre starts off with two guys waking up hungover in a Las Vegas Hotel Room, having had enough sex to consume 6 condoms. Will Patterson was dumped by his boyfriend Ryan, who has been cheating on him with another man, but Will has been the accepting doormat to Ryan’s abuses due to his traditional views on relationships (Spoiler: we learn in later books that’s partially due to fear instilled in him by his mother, Kimberly, and gay uncle, Kevin, whose partner died during the AIDS epidemic due to infidelity. I’ve met enough gay conservatives to know this mindset isn’t too far off about mistreatment and loyalty in order to maintain fidelity. Sadly, the sins of the past affect the current generation’s outlooks even among gay community, causing other issues now).

Despite being a Type-1 diabetic, Will goes on a drinking binge and marries Patrick McLeod, an Atlanta-based neurosurgeon. After marrying and having the best sex of his life, Will wakes up to discover he has been married to Patrick, who is a very irate asshole for most of this book and seems to have very poor social skills without filters. There’s a particularly funny scene between Patrick and his boss, which plays off like a classic comedic routine from an old-fashioned sitcom, which ended with Patrick’s termination from the hospital he was working at.

Patrick, incensed at being married to a stranger and fired from his job, thought it would no issue if Will and him divorced, but a complication arises: Will Patterson cannot divorce Patrick due to stipulations in his grandfather’s will that gives him money to fund his foundation, Good Works. Furthermore, Will Patterson be the son of high-ranking mobster Tony Molinaro and if his money is returned to the family, which is notorious for various illegal activities. Patrick wants to divorce Will, but after a guilt trip placed on him by Will pleading, he accepts Will’s invitation to go home with him to Healing, South Dakota. They settle into the Tall Grass hotel with some comedic hijinks with the front desk and bellboy. Patrick also meets his equal in term of snark and gossip in a woman named Jenny, who will become his best friend, after fighting her for the last doughnut. There's a lot of fun small-town moments that you'd expect, while Patrick and Will pretend to be a happy couple.

Leta Blake took a concept of "Fake Boyfriends" genre and morphed it into something far sweeter and adventurous than a lot of other authors had done. In this scenario, not only are both men actually legally married, but there is no denying at from the outside observer that they do have sexual chemistry, having had sex already. It's a great juxtaposition for gay romance genre, which I was extremely please to have read. Sex is needed for Will and Patrick, but they had already settled that score initially unlike so many other characters in their genre. The marriage was also not fake at all, just inconvenient for both of them and enforced by a conservative value system instilled by Will's mafia family trust fund stipulations. This was a great deal of set-up for the series, I have re-read this several times after finishing the series and still can find little details that come into play later in the series. It might only contain two characters, Will and Patrick, initially, but we get a glimpse at some of the best elements in these characters that drives the story forward. Will is a messed-up character, he’s a diabetic and an alcoholic with very low self-esteem, which has a complex psychology behind it. He’s one of the most intriguing characters dealing with Alcoholism, dysfunctional family, and lack of love, which thankfully readers slowly unwrap over the course of 6 books in the original series, plus the supplemental 7^th book. He’s a complicated man, who wants traditional loving relationship with another man in a modern world that may never be able to offer it.

An aspect that was very revealing in this book was Ryan’s response to Will about sex being “unnecessary” as long as both people “love” each other, along with the fact that Will has been verbally punished by Ryan for being “needy” when sex comes up. It’s a point that I missed initially in my first reading and something I realized in my second reading was very revealing about the differences between traditional heterosexual and modern homosexual relationships. There’s a very repressive air to the concept that sex is not necessary and pleasure is wrong, a flaw that allows abusive relationships based on emotional control to persist. Leta Blake made a subtle point here that I think should be praised, especially when the entire series is taken into context.

The first book introduces us to Patrick’s quirks as a character without a filter. It might be a personal preference, but I do like guys who don’t hide their thoughts or feelings. Through several lines, we also learn he’s got personal demons, stuff that lingered from his childhood. Patrick’s father was an alcoholic and there’s a dark revelation about Patrick’s father in book 4, but most readers can probably use their imagination. He’s a damaged and haunted man, despite his snark and attitude. Patrick may seem like an asshole at first to readers, but he is very charming and takes great care of Will. To be honest, Patrick is a perfect unfiltered realist foil to Will’s conservative values, which permeate throughout book 1.

We also meet Will’s mafia-connected grandmother, Elanora Molinaro. We’ve been given very strong hints throughout Book 1 and the series in general that she and her “woman”, Reba, are not just female roommates or best friends. There’s an interesting subtext of a lesbian relationship that isn’t pronounced, but I do enjoy the added detail it gives to this elder character, who helps guide Will and Patrick through their relationship struggles. In my head, I can only imagine Elanora’s story as a closeted bi/lesbian woman having married a mob boss, had his children, and only gaining freedom and liberation to be with the woman she loved. Though to the outside world, they appear to have a master/servant relationship, I wonder if that is not just the structure of their relationship as Elanora strikes me as someone, who may prefer a dominant role.

There’s a lot of detail to unpack and a lot of comedy in the first book that set-up the entire premise of two guys getting drunk married and being forced to remain married by Mafia rules.

My Rating: 5 out of 5, the set up was nice and original. It’s a short with a lot of jokes and sitcom type humor that not everyone will enjoy, but the premise it sets is quite entertaining. Since I have read the series several times, I have come to appreciate this initial book even more beyond just the premise. If you only read this book or stop at book 2 or middle of book 3, you will miss out on the pay-offs in later books, which is why I advise people to invest their time in reading it fully as the story gets better with later books and re-reading after finishing book 6 is highly recommended.