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Soul Mate

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Edna Murphy places a personal ad to find her son, Jovan, a mate. He spends most of his time working or fishing with friends and rarely goes out on a date. She wants him to find someone nice and settle down.

Galen Costas drives his mother crazy. He cooks dinner three times a week, does the grocery shopping, and cleans and arranges the furniture. And he doesn't even live in the same house. Gemma thinks he needs a life and takes matters into her own hands by answering a lonely heart ad.

Jovan and Galen click the moment they meet. But their match made in heaven could be ruined by a man from Galen's past.

111 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 18, 2013

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About the author

Shawn Bailey

122 books58 followers
Shawn Bailey hails from New Orleans, LA, where she works as a programmer and help desk administrator. Shawn loves mangas and anime. Her current hobbies are watching Japanese and Korean dramas, when she has the spare time. She’s also trying to learn to speak and read both Japanese and Korean. She’s also into Korean pop music and can often be found with her MP3 player attached to her head. Shawn is single and enjoying the heck out it.

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5 stars
9 (11%)
4 stars
10 (13%)
3 stars
22 (28%)
2 stars
26 (34%)
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Meggie.
5,393 reviews
May 18, 2013
Okay, the way this story starts is absolutely absurd, sure it's comical, but ABSURDLY bad one. And their first sex scene in middle of Jovan's party, a badly written corny comedy. Wow this story was sickly bad and definitely not for me.
Profile Image for Lizzie.
446 reviews12 followers
June 26, 2013
This story was the bare bones. In fact it read like a very long synopsis. It hit on the key points with no depth. I would recomend the author go back and flesh it out and try releasing it again.
Profile Image for multitaskingmomma.
1,359 reviews44 followers
May 20, 2013
Am I the only one who really liked this one? I laughed hard, found it ridiculous, but smiling muscles are on extreme workout. It entertained me a lot and that's what is important.

When I first read this blurb, half-way through it, I was already giggling. Here it is....

Edna Murphy places a personal ad to find her son, Jovan, a mate. He rarely dates anyone, spending his time working or fishing with friends. Gemma Costas answers, hoping to hook her son Galen up with a nice young man.

Edna Murphy places a personal ad to find her son, Jovan, a mate. He spends most of his time working or fishing with friends and rarely goes out on a date. She wants him to find someone nice and settle down.

Galen Costas drives his mother crazy. He cooks dinner three times a week, does the grocery shopping, and cleans and arranges the furniture. And he doesn't even live in the same house. Gemma thinks he needs a life and takes matters into her own hands by answering a lonely heart ad.

Jovan and Galen click the moment they meet. But their match made in heaven could be ruined by a man from Galen's past.

I see that many found this ridiculous but fun to read.

I say that it is its ridiculousness that makes it one of the funner reads I have had in a long time.

Soul Mate, the story of Galen and Jovan, reminds me of the movie Failure To Launch without SJP in it.

Galen has been successfully launched but due to his obsessive compulsive hyperactivity disorder, he refuses to stay launched and instead becomes a mother's worst or best nightmare: refusing to let go of his parents by cooking and cleaning and supporting and every other thing he can think of.

Jovan is the one who literally failed in any launching. He hides behind his logic that his aging parents may need him any time so he refused to get his own place so he can be near them - just in case.

The two meet, the two click, they have sex, they meet friends, Jovan gets to meet the ex who refuses to be an ex, and then the usual flaming behavior of Galen who nearly meets tragedy and all that jazz.

Truly, this book does not merit a literary award, but I have to give it a four stars for I Do Really Like It! It made me laugh, it made me giggle and its ridiculousness can be best described as quintuple layered lasagna in its cheesiness, but who cares!

It did exactly what it set out to do: entertain.

So go! Have a fun time and read it. Purchase Link




Profile Image for Phaney.
1,248 reviews22 followers
March 9, 2014
Oh, wow. I was going for something nice and easy. This was uneventful and bizarrely bad.

So. Edna’s husband is named Jonas (or Peter when the author falls asleep and mixes him up with Gemma’s husband) and her son’s name is Jovan?
Come on. This isn’t a large enough story to have two such similar looking names. Of course it turns out there are five people whose name begins with the letter j (Jovan, Jonas, Jason, Johnny, Jean-Paul). I’d read that such names are popular in romance and I am fond of them myself, but really? Not within the same story!

Seriously? Exchange about five dry sentences with a dude at your parents’ party and just invite him upstairs for sex? Uh. Okay.

He didn’t normally do one-night stands, but Jovan couldn’t help himself this time. Galen grabbed his attention the moment they were introduced. He found him funny, downright sexy, and he had a great ass.
“I guess you like what you see,” Galen said after Jovan had stripped him out of his clothes. He let down his hair.
Jovan nodded, looking him over. “Yes. You have a nice body.”

OMG, this is bad. It’s not obvious just from this snippet but the above is what immediately follows upon the “let’s go to my room” bit. *stunned silent*

Oh god, what do you mean, “the little crevice felt surprisingly tight and warm”? You’ve done this before, right?
This is as unromantic and unsexy and wooden as it gets.
And referring to bottoming as being “reduced to passenger” is probably offensive…

I think the best moment occurred when I misread “Jason Petry, his twenty-two year old assistant” for “his twenty-two year old assassin”. That’d have been a fun story.

Both men’s relationships with their mothers creep me out. And I’m saying this as someone who is close to her own mother! I mean, yeah, that’s the theme of this story, I suppose. I just… Wah.

Found myself reading this with a sort of horrified fascination. This is completely nuts and if I try to detail it I will go nuts as well. Have to just roll with it…

The sex “scenes” are particularly awful. Summarized and textbook-detached, the phrasing more clinical than personal. We are informed it is good for them, but that has about as much impact as the way I just put it.
Here’s a long sample:


On the second date: “The sex is good. Move in with me.”
But what am I doing? I decided I would not go into this. It’s too ridiculous as a whole. These people are either entirely unreal or just freaking scary.
This might be a smidgeon easier to bear if either of the protagonists were the least bit likeable. But the only shred of personality each has consists of some variation of shallow. Well, Jovan is a little more shallow, and Galen a little more nuts.



It’s amusing how tepid a catastrophic event can feel.

The ending just tops it all off.


This reading experience had WTF written all over it.
Profile Image for Pixie Mmgoodbookreviews.
1,206 reviews43 followers
May 18, 2013
3 - 3 1/2 Hearts

Review written for MM Good Book Reviews

http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com/

Edna loves her son to bits but he still lives at home and is shy, so she takes matters into her own hands and places an ad for a soul mate for her son Jovan. Gemma adores her son Galen, but he is a worrywart and tries to look after his parents constantly, when she sees an ad placed by another mother she answers in the hopes of distracting Galen and finding a bit of space. When Galen and Jovan met the sparks are instant and the pair click, but Galen’s own penchant for shiny cars and a conniving ex-lover nearly ruins their perfect match.

This is a great little cutesy story of opposites attracting and interfering mothers. Jovan is shy, hardworking and has few really good friends and he still lives with his parents, he doesn’t want to leave them alone and he quite likes having his mom look after him. Galen is successful, energetic, high maintenance and loves looking after his parents, he cooks for them and cleans and visits them every day. When Galen and Jovan meet they are perfect together, Galen has someone to look after and share things with and Jovan has someone to look after him and spend lots of time with, their parents are ecstatic that their boys have found the perfect partner but Galen’s ex-lover turning up nearly wrecks what Galen and Jovan are building together.

I did enjoy this story, Galen and Jovan’s instant attraction to each other was hot and both their parents are wonderful if a little interfering. Although the storyline moves quite quickly it’s a simple boy meets boy, boy falls for boy and begins to have a happy ever after when boys ex turns up trying to tempt boy with shiny toys, boy does something stupid and learns his lesson. Both Jovan and Galen are excellent characters, with their love for their parents shining through and the rapid development of their relationship was actually perfect for them, their sex life is very hot and Galen really does like to switch it up.

I will recommend this to those who love soul mates meeting, hot sex, making mistakes, forgiving the one you love and a nearly perfect happy ending.
Profile Image for Gabbi.
395 reviews2 followers
August 3, 2013
Once I read the blurb to Soul Mate, I knew I had to read it. Unfortunately, I don’t think the book was as good as I expected it to be, and it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but it was a quick, easy read and the sex between the two men was pretty hot.

Galen and Jovan’s mothers want them to find someone to date. Even though they meddle in their lives, they have good intentions and it was cool seeing how much their parents really loved them. I think part of my problem with the book was how fast Galen and Jovan jumped into their relationship. Once they met, they were in bed within the first five minutes. Sex was definitely a big part of their relationship, and although I do understand this, I never really thought they connected on a more emotional level.

Although both men were interesting people, I thought they were a little one-dimensional to me. As I read the book, I found myself easily becoming distracted and I stopped reading this story several times before I finished it. I felt like the story was being told instead of shown to me. I thought Galen and Jovan’s relationship moved a little too quickly and I had a hard time getting into their story.

Now, this doesn’t mean you won’t like the book. There will be readers who will like the sizzling physical chemistry the two men have together. They immediately click and their story moves fast, so if you like quick reads, you might like this one. Also, the author is a good writer. I’ve read several books by her and although I’ve liked some more than others, I keep coming back to her books because she does have a lot of potential and I’m always interested in seeing what creative storyline she comes up with next.

As you can tell, this book really wasn’t for me, but you should check it out for yourself. Silver’s website has an excerpt you can read and you can come up with your own opinion about it. As for me, in the end I’m glad I read it and I look forward to reading more by the author in the future.

Profile Image for Cathy Brockman.
Author 5 books95 followers
May 22, 2013
Galen and Jovan’s moms both love them very much but they both want their sons to find love and move on. Jovan’s mom has put a lonely hearts add in the paper and Galen's mom replies to it for Galen. Jovan’s mom has a party for Galen inviting some of the replies and Galen and Jovan hit it off immediately.
Ok so this story was good. It had a lot of promise and is a very basic boy meets boy falls in love at first site, hits a bump and happy ever after. It’s very sugary sweet with some very hot loving so you can’t really go wrong if you’re looking for a nice romance to make you go ahh! I loved all the characters even the moms. I though they about stole the show!! I loved Galen’s quirks and Jovan is the classic gotta love hot male. I also loves the touch of humor. Now for the things I didn’t like so much. #1 they were so opposite there would be some clashing, Jovan’s messing and masculine and Galen was overly compulsive on cleaning though not a tiff or word ensued there. Then along comes Galen’s ex Johnny flashing fancy sports cars for Galen. Jovan gets a bit jealous but that’s about it even when he follows and issue ensue he basically shrugs it off and even helps Johnny? *shakes head* Then there is all the man ogling from all the characters. They even tease about Galen’s assistant and Johnny’s boyfriend that he brings along when he is trying to win over Galen. Like I said before it’s a great story but oh so sweet unbelievably sweet!
Recommendations: If you like syrupy sweet romance, meddling Moms that mean well, love at first sight, fast cars and hot men this one is for you
Profile Image for Juli.
115 reviews43 followers
March 16, 2017
Purchased through Silver Publishing



The synopsis of the book is what drew me in and I wish the book had been as good as the synopsis made it sound.

Two loving mothers who want their gay sons to be happy so they arrange a party so they can meet. And they do but have sex after barely meeting each other, move in with each other after a few weeks.


There was no real character devolpment, weak supporting characters and I am not a fan of insta love which is what this felt like.


So much promise and no delivery.
Profile Image for Gigi.
2,159 reviews1,078 followers
Did Not Finish
October 11, 2014
Terrible reviews
Profile Image for Ruth.
91 reviews5 followers
Read
April 17, 2016
this story felt hollow, i felt like I wasted my time with this one
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews