My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
By now, most people have heard about actor Kal Penn’s engagement to his partner of eleven years. How timely the release of Not Until Noah with this lovely news as Lisa Henry’s latest shares some parallels with real life.
Carter is the closeted actor; Noah is the younger love interest hired as the nanny to Carter’s daughter. Lovely set up for a romance between a celebrity and an “ordinary, common” person. While I enjoyed the story overall, I didn’t find the romance plot to be fully developed, and I debated over a 3 or 3.5 rating.
My decision to go with 3.5 stars (4 rounded up for Goodreads) is largely due to every other aspect of the story not involving the romance between Carter and Noah. I enjoyed all the characters and the side plots. Emerson is a cute kid and her scenes with Noah are sweet. Noah is very involved with Emerson (as he should be) and their connection comes across strong. In fact, I feel as though Noah’s connection with Emerson is stronger than his connection with Carter.
I enjoyed the MCs separate from their sole interactions with each other. Even their interactions with others characters present are lovely. But, Carter’s and Noah’s one-on-one scenes didn’t connect with me. They barely had any contact or conversations before they were having feelings for each other and going straight to sex. While there is nothing wrong with characters heading straight to the bedroom, I needed more connection from these two.
I also needed more after Carter comes out. I wanted to see more of Carter and Noah together in a relationship. Henry gives a broad overview of the progression of their relationship that left me yearning for more to accept that these two belong together.
There are also some loose ends I would have liked to see resolved, mostly regarding Exogenesis.
Not Until Noah kept me engaged despite my issues with the romance. I am looking forward to Marco’s story (the second book in this series).
***Thank you to Gay Romance Reviews for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.***