Review: Cruce de Caminos by Heidi Belleau and Violetta Vane

This book is part of the Riptide Rentboys 2012 Collection

Warning: This reviews does contain some spoilers

Street kid Sean O’Hara has never had it easy, but New Orleans has driven him to his knees. His girlfriend’s broken up with him for a sugar daddy, a gun-toting pimp has robbed him of everything but the clothes on his back, and he’s down to his last two Oxycontin. Sean’s no seasoned streetwalker, but he’s not above it either, not when he’s already itching for his next fix.

A familiar-seeming stranger named Ángel may be his ticket to some quick cash, but only if Sean’s willing to help him indulge a high-class john’s weird fetish for the night. As Ángel tells him, in this city and this business, you have to get a little weird to survive.

When night falls on the French Quarter, Sean realizes Ángel and the john want more from him than he was expecting to give. What once seemed merely strange soon crosses the line into supernatural and sinister. And Ángel, the man Sean had viewed as a partner and protector, might also be his otherworldly judge and executioner.

Sean is down and out. His girlfriend has left him, he’s been robbed and now has no money for food or shelter. He turns to panhandling and then turns to prostitution. Ángel turns up as Sean is about to make a bad decision with a john. Ángel says he’s an males escort and he has a client who wants brothers together. Sean feels extremely comfortable with Ángel so he agrees. After cleaning up they head to the appointment. Sean is having serious doubts but trusts Ángel so moves ahead. Unfortunately Sean was drugged and blacks out. He wakes up the next morning and can’t remember a thing.

Ángel is not who Sean thinks he is and seems to keep showing up when Sean least expects it. But what he is saying to Sean is basically that he’s fuckin up his life and if he keeps heading on the drug induced road that he’s on that the future will be bleak and short. When Sean describes the man to his girlfriend Cristina she believes that Ángel is a some sort of God and since Ángel said that Sean should leave the city Cristina’s anxious to go and not tempt fate.

Sean and Cristina get to Florida but life keeps getting worse and worse and eventually Sean has to truly think about the things that Ángel told him.

Let me start by saying this is not a romance. It’s stated to be erotic horror but frankly I didn’t find it too erotic or horror ridden. It was definitely in the odd/bizarre category for me but it didn’t seem it all that dark.

Sean is definitely in a bad place in his life. He has his priorities screwed up beyond belief and Ángel shows up when he’s truly needed. Ángel was an enigma as he was never truly explained. Yes, we heard who Cristina thought he was but it was never confirmed.

Ángel and Sean share some hot kisses with the john that Ángel had who wanted the brothers and though the warning on the book says “non-explicit rape” I never got that. I actually didn’t see the warning until after I read the story and was actually surprised as what happened was a blank. It was weird and unexplained and a bit disturbing, I guess, but that was all.

There is m/m in the book but Sean thinks himself in love with his girlfriend and that presented a strange angle for the story. He didn’t seem all that into the m/m aspect although he was getting hot for Ángel there for a bit.

The story was not something I would normally read as it wasn’t a romance but the rentboy aspect of it intrigued me. While I liked it the book showed us a portion of Sean’s life and how he dealt with it. As a reader I think I would have liked the story to be longer as I wanted more information on Ángel as well as Sean. His life experiences once he left New Orleans was told but not shown and I think that would have added a more in depth aspect to the story and made it a tad more emotional for me.

From what I understand we will be able to read more about Sean in the upcoming book The Druid Stone which is an m/m urban fantasy. I have to admit that I’m interested enough in Sean after reading this story that I might just pick it up.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Violetta Vane
Heidi Belleau

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