WL's Mainstream Gay Book Reviews - 21. Will and Patrick Do the Holiday (Book 3 of the Wake-Up Married Series) by Leta Blake

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/27407335

At this point in the book series, you are likely committed to the ride with the author, so I think Leta Blake gave her readers the much-deserved sexual release that has been coming for a reason. Everything has added tension and deepened the character development of Will and Patrick, along with the characters of Healing, South Dakota. This series is thought-provoking, intelligent, and comedic with its realistic issues and surreal situational comedy. The holiday novella within the series is no different, covering the period from Thanksgiving to New Years, we are left feeling satisfied and ready to embark on a journey with our beloved dysfunctional gay married couple.

At 97 pages and around 4 hours on Audible, it’s another short read for most people.

Thanksgiving occurs at the home of Elanora, Will’s paternal mafia-connected grandmother, which ends in near disaster. Patrick does build a rapport with 2 of Will’s younger half-sibling: the snarky independent free-thinking Olivia and the innocent redhead Connor. Patrick and Connor enjoy building Lego sets together, while Patrick correct Olivia snide remarks about him with facts. Olivia was told misinformation about Patrick from her mother Kimberly and older sister Caitlin, including everything from Patrick seeking to steal Will’s fortune to potentially causing Will to die of AIDS due to his presence. Through his interactions with Will’s siblings, Patrick learns that Kimberly believes that Ryan, Will’s abusive ex-boyfriend, was keeping Will safe. During thanksgiving dinner, Kimberly makes a scene that caused Will to react and jump to Patrick’s defense, which nearly ruined the event. Patrick reads a text message from his foster mother Dinah that reveals his humanity and inner most desire for family connection. Will blurts out a private admission to Patrick that Ryan has refused to have anal sex with him, but Patrick is oblivious to the comment. After thanksgiving, Will and Patrick settle into a routine of work, Patrick begins to get more cases from his old Atlanta practice and after work, Will and Patrick enjoy nights eating room service, while watching streaming shows. Elanora confirms after thanksgiving that the Molinaro spies had left Healing, South Dakota, indicating that the mob family believed in Will and Patrick’s marriage. One weekend in December before Christmas, Patrick agrees to go out with Will and they do some Christmas shopping together. Patrick figures out exactly what to get Will for Christmas. He also has a flashback when he began playing on a piano again to his traumatic childhood. The following day, when Will returned to his foundation, Good Works, he is confronted by Owen, his AA sponsor and attorney again. He admits that the AA program hasn’t worked for Will, while Will’s new path with Patrick appeared to be doing him good. While Owen appears to be supporting Will throughout his speech and offering him a “soft sell” alternative to AA dogmatic rituals, along with agreement that Ryan may not be the proper partner for Will. However, he does leave Will with the statement “I think you hit rock bottom, when you married a stranger” as Will was about to head home to spend the evening in companionship with Patrick (I missed this initially during my first reading, but now recognize what the speech held in context). During Christmas on the family farm, gifts were exchanged between Will's extended family. During a lull in the festivities, Will and Patrick have private conversation in the horse stalls, we learn Patrick has a fear of horses. Patrick surprises Will with a medical alert bracelet, so everyone will know he has type-1 diabetes to ensure his safety. Will is touched by the act and nearly kisses Patrick. Christmas was going well until Ryan visits Will’s family; he was invited to the party by Kimberly. Will confronts Ryan outside the house, while Ryan berates him about being “perverse”, “sick”, and “a drunk who die alone”, Patrick overhears the entire dramatic confrontation. Will in a fit of anguish over being thoroughly disparaged and dejected by Ryan secretly goes to a bar. However, luckily for him, Patrick kept an eye on him and drinks all his alcoholic beverages for him, then causes a public spectacle to prevent Will from returning to the bar that night. Patrick assures Will that Ryan never loved him, he only loved the power he had to harm Will through Will's desire for love and destroy his sobriety with his words. Will is grateful for what Patrick had done, he fell into a fitful sleep on the bed, having been completely exhausted by the night’s events alongside Patrick for the first time, since their drunken hook-up in Las Vegas. Will and Patrick maintain a sexless sleeping arrangement after that, both of them cuddling each other at night providing comfort and warmth, feeling more assured of the others benign intent. During New Years Eve, Ryan and his new boyfriend Heartily attend the same reception as Will and Patrick, where he announced their intentions to leave Healing, South Dakota. After a terse conversation, Ryan punches Patrick for bad mouthing him. This act of violence forces Will to accept the reality once and for all that Ryan is a hurtful and destructive human being, while seeing Patrick as the man, who has been true friend to him. Their passions rise to the point, where Patrick and Will have consenting sex with one another without any alcohol clouding their judgement.

This was the culmination of build-up throughout the other books in the series and helped define the relationship that Will and Patrick shared. While many gay romance stories would likely have granted a night of passion after Will’s near miss with alcoholism and Patrick’s heroism, the simple act of accepting Patrick in nightly cuddling felt far more intimate than the sex they had at the end of the book. I am happy that they released their sexual tension, but I think when Will accepted Patrick literally in his bed, he accepted Patrick’s love already. Sex in this case was a foregone conclusion that was only missing a catalyst. Additionally, we got a deeper view of Will's psyche in this chapter, like I mentioned in previous reviews; Kimberly, Will's mother, and his gay Uncle Kevin have left him emotionally vulnerable to people like Ryan. It's incredibly sad that a fear of dying from HIV and AIDS brought on by Kevin's dead partner, Roy, through his infidelity to Kevin has to led to Will's current psychological suffering. We learned that Will has been taught upon his coming out that he must always "love" just one person and remain faithful to them, no matter their flaws in order to not be another "Roy". In terms of Kevin's motivation, I wish Leta explored it more in her books, because he doesn't strike me as a vindictive gay man, just a lost soul who still hasn't dealt with his own pain from his partner's betrayal and grief over his death.

Kimberly on the other hand came off in this book as an absolute hypocritical B**ch, she is having affairs with 2 men at the same time, while preaching and even manipulating for Will to go back to his abusive boyfriend Ryan. Knowing what she knew about Ryan's willingness to throw punches at people or Will's lack of sobriety around him, this women must know on some level she's sending her son into a potentially deadly situation. Worst still, she continuously tries to alienate and belittle Patrick, despite his obvious care and love for Will. I think she has her own set of psychological issues stemming from Tony, Will's mobster father and her ex-husband, where she views Will as his surrogate and cannot let him be with someone who could provide him love. There's a reverse Oedipal complex thing going on here.

Other psychoanalysis, Patrick's observation in this book that Will has a deep seeded sense of masochism is very thought provoking to me at least. If you read the subtle hints in earlier books, and the revelations of Will's kinks in later books, it makes a type of sense. Patrick knows Will's subconscious interests. I'll probably discuss the psychology behind Will's needs for pain and pleasure later in Book 4, when all his kinks are on the table, but that throwaway line from Patrick telling Will he needs to rise above his self-loathing and mindset from his upbringing to be happy opens a lot of thoughts upon a re-reading as to his motivation and drives.

The main villain of this book is Ryan Whitehead as it has been throughout book 1-3, but as I tell readers, do not forget to keep an eye on Owen, either. Ryan is openly abusive and cruel to Will, emotionally being the reason why Will nearly loss his sobriety again. Personally, I’d wish Patrick confronted Ryan in the snow, when he spouted all that crap about Will’s desires being perverse and how he was doomed to die alone. That SOB deserved a slap at least for what he was doing to Will. For readers who read up to Book 7, you know Ryan’s fate and I think this confrontation can work as a mirror into his own soul. Ryan is not a good man, but I would speculate a psychological component in his hatred of any gay sex with Will, Oral or Anal, and his fate has led me to think Ryan may have been sexually abused at some point. I am not apologizing for his actions, but what is said during Christmas confrontation with Will appears to indicate this to me.

The best scene of this book came, when Patrick goes to the bar to stop Will from succumbing to his alcoholic fueled depression. Patrick drinking all of Will’s drinks, telling him that he won’t stop him on his “self-destructive train to hell”, but will join him was perfect. Patrick acted with so much gallantry and actual love in this scene. He showed how much he cared about Will’s health, both body and mind, without any filter. He also admits to Will that his own father was an alcoholic like Ryan, who never loved him, just as Ryan never loved Will. This was a powerful revelation and breakthrough for this character, who has been building throughout this book’s tension riddled suspense about his childhood abuse and sexual trauma. Patrick is a complicated character, he has no filter due to his autistic spectrum disorder, along with an inability to easily process his emotions. Will’s issues with Ryan forced him to confront his own demons, choosing subconsciously at this point to reveal the truth to the man he loved in the hopes he won’t fall into the same trap of alcoholism.

My Rating: 4.5 out 5, it’s a solid plot with emotional payoffs throughout the book. The sexual payoff was great as well, if you are just interested in a consummation of their relationship.