Customer Reviews

Capital Games

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

YES! Anger, frustration, jealousy, and passion all happened between two ad executives competing for the same high dollar account. Steve Miller is currently one of the top salesmen at his company, when newcomer Mark Richfield is hired and lands a huge account within days of employment. Steve expected the advertising world to be less dangerous than his stint as a Los Angeles police officer, but corporate politics seem to be taking over both his personal and professional life with the all likelihood of breaking his heart in the process. Mark is polished, sexy, charismatic, British and everything Steve admires in a man.

When top management and company executives are required to attend a team building retreat, the sparks, arguments, tension, and sexual desires all explode when Steve and Mark are on their own in the middle of the desert. In Capital Games, I found both Steve and Mark to be men I liked. Steve was upfront and honest about his feelings, though easy to anger. Mark, as sexy as he was, drove me nuts with his desire to please the people in his life, from his family to his fiancé. And see, that one little problem word: fiancé? Can Steve convince Mark to become a permanent fixture in Steve's life and cancel the wedding?

I enjoyed watching the relationship unfold and especially the sexual attraction between the two men and the games they played! HOT! Humorous note: look for mention of the book The Kiss, also by G.A. Hauser. The reference was tied to the plot of the story and was fun to see Steve pick it up for his reading pleasure. Capital Games for me is a Joyfully Recommended Read!!!!

Beth Anne
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

G.A. Hauser has to have a kink for English brat... and if she continues at writing so beautiful stories she will manage to pass me her kink!

Steve is a young executive at an advertising firm. He is a very successful man and till now he has had not interest in men (even if he has fantasized about a porn actor who performed in gay film when he was still a teen). Instead he is still mourning on his former girlfriend, a beautiful and strong-head Afro-American woman, who has dumped him with no apparent reason. And now the new guy on the firm, an handsome Brit block, charming and outspoken, apparently is on the good way to stole him an important contract he has worked so hard to obtain.

Mark has spent all his life to claim to all the world he is not gay. Too handsome for his own good, first his abusive father has tried to take off him the "queerness", then during the college he has avoided the advance of his gay roommate, and best friend, and then during his first work, he was obliged to quit cause all the innuendo from the colleagues about him gay. And now he is about to marrying a girl he no more loves, and maybe he has never loved, only cause it seems to complicate to stop the flow.

But when Steve and Mark meet, better crash, the sparks fly and the sex seems inevitable, and when happens is so good! Steve and Mark are two young stud in heat. It seems impossible not to touch, and then they work good as a team and so neither at work it will be a problem if they are a couple. Steve wants Mark and wants him in his life forever, but Mark is too bound to duty and even if he craves Steve's touch, everytime he tries to quit with his fiance, the courage seems to lack.

Steve and Mark are very intensive characters: they fight, they fuck, they love and they cry, but I have never had of them a feminine perception, they are all male and very sexy. I don't know if they are the female fantasy of how we women want to imagine two male in love, but I like them very much. Steve is in love and Steve has no problem to say it aloud; Steve lusts for Mark and Steve has Mark where he wants and when he wants. Mark is in love with Steve, but he is not the perfect man who can, without second thoughts, drop everything and embrace his new "gay" future. They fight and Mark seduces Steve not with words but with his body, because he loves and he aches to be far from Steve.

Capital Games is a novel who has aroused and satisfied me.

P.S. The cover doesn't suit the book, both Steve and Mark are more handsome of the guy on it.

Following his resignation from the police force (and subsequent end of a relationship with a foxy female attorney), Steve Miller put his social life on "hold" as he competed for a promotion at a prestigious advertising agency. At a "team building retreat" in the New Mexico desert, Steve is teamed with his main competition at the firm, a charismatic and handsome Brit named Marc, and both men are very surprised by the turn of events when a night stranded in the desert turns into the most satisfying sexual experience either has ever had. Neither man had considered himself gay or bisexual, with macho Steve's past dating history and Marc's current engagement to be married. When it happens again (and again), with even more intense feelings, Steve is reconciled to the fact that he is indeed in love with Marc, but Marc - unwilling to confront his family, friends and fiancé - continues with his wedding plans, much to Steve's chagrin. It's a dilemma both men are agonizing over, with family and friends trying to help them make the right decision.

As usual, G. A. Hauser spins a realistic and engaging romantic tale, with just the right amount of erotic content that never gets in the way of the story she is trying to tell. There's a cute wink-wink to her devoted readers, when one of the characters, in trying to reconcile his gay leanings, picks up a gay romance novel called "The Kiss" ... one of hers, of course! My one "nitpick" here is that the title is a bit misleading, as one expects a story based in Washington DC or at least within the financial industry, but that doesn't merit any reduction of the rating, which is five stars out of five.

#Spoilers in review #

I wanted a light-romp for a snowy Saturday afternoon and I got that with "Capital Games." Very light, as in minimal. There is not much character development beyond the descriptions of Mark and Steve and despite this being a long novel, the plot drags along until the bitter end.

Premise: Mark is a gorgeous, engaged Brit who comes to the advertising firm Steve work at. They butt heads immediately. What could have been a hot enemies turn lovers plot quickly falls into a cliched story of insta-love and Mark being an idiot. (He won't break off his engagement to a woman, even though he's gay and having sex with Steve.) Steve, on the other hand, goes from hating Mark to loving him in a second. He cries buckets over Mark and his upcoming wedding and acts like a total girl when he meets Mark's fiancée, Sharon. That part I had a hard time believing what grown-up formerly straight man would cry so much over some guy he just met? Extend disbelief for this.

Now, I saw the ending coming from a mile away (Steve crashes the wedding and Mark and Steve run off together) and it did not make me like Mark at all. Dump your fiancée on her wedding day in front of all her friends and family even though she had given you an out prior to this? Yeah, Mark is not a likable character. Actually he's a "wanker" to quote the author and to me there is nothing redeemable about him.

The secondary characters could have been interesting. I thought Jack, Mark's roommate, was a bit over the top having been in love with Mark for years and pining over him yet now losing out on him to Steve, what does he do but cheer the couple on? That relationship could have been more fully explored, but I guess that was left for the sequel, "When Adam Met Jack." However, the female characters were badly written, extremely cliched and not really bright.

Overall, I liked some aspects of the book (the retreat Mark and Steve attend was amusing), and am willing to read Jack's story on how he finds love, but I stop there. After that I will not be buying any more books in this series. I have no desire to see Mark float through each impending sequel seducing other men (cheating on Steve) and being his usual unsympathetic self. I loathed Brian Kinney from Queer as Folk (although Stuart from the UK version was divine), and Mark seems to be cut from that same cloth, so reading about Mark in this book was enough. YMMV.

If anyone can afford beaches this year, this book would be great fun in the sun with a lovely cocktail. It is light, interesting, and engaging.

What will these boys do next? Beat one another up, have sex, fall in love, or just run away?

Why not try doing all of the above?

This book was consistently recommended to me via my Kindle and given the synopsis, I thought I would enjoy an executive-based gay novel instead of the typical twink at a club type of story. What I didn't know was I began reading a gay version of a Harlequin Romance. This book is not for my straight friends. Potential readers are forewarned - this book is spends more time describing the intimate segments of the main characters relationship than developing a plot. If you are looking for a gay Harlequin Romance, this is for you.

What is unfortunate about this novel is it had the potential to be more than a romance book. Both characters are heavy hitters in their advertising agency and both characters are in the closet. As with any romance novel, of course both are extremely attractive and there is a power struggle. Without giving the plot or ending away, both have commitments to either family or significant others that they are dealing with as they become more attracted to one another. This could have been great - it had all the elements that could relate to readers.

Besides the number of pages spent describing the sexual escapades of the two, where this book fell apart for me is how quickly Steve falls in love with Mark. He declares his love for him after the first date. At that point, the character that Hauser had done such a good job developing totally fell apart for me. He became that obsessive twink instead of the masculine, mature character I had envisioned.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the book at times. It isn't one that you will be raving about to friends but it is one that you may enjoy reading as a simple pleasure and a break from the typical complex novel. As long as you know you are picking up a gay version of a Harlequin ... your expectations will be correctly set and you will enjoy this novel so much more. I'll probably be picking up another one of Hauser's books in the future.

If you follow this author's novels you'll recognize some faces! Mark is from A Question of Sex, and Steve is from Miller's Tale. Two hot handsome men competing for the same high-powered job literally battle in the desert in New Mexico during a business retreat. The love/hate relationship is both hilarious and intense. Great surprise ending too.

I like fast-food romance! While reading I couldn't stop thinking "this is no good, but I like it". The characters seem impossible: Steve, a hunky, former cop turned executive for an advertising firm, and Mark, the incredibly beautiful, sexy, charming, English new employee in the office. They find themselves competing for the same big and lucrative job and the dislike is immediate. When their firm organise a training camp during which they get lost in the desert, they seek some human heat to survive the night and, boy, do they find it!

Steve falls hard for Mark, and who wouldn't, for once I could picture a character without fearing that it was too handsome. I think that Steve falls too fast for Mark, there's no doubt in his mind that he loves the man, LOVE. But Mark comes with a difficult past, he is in the middle of his wedding planning and he can't accept he's gay. He's so indecisive that it's almost painful to read, the way he tries to handle his life is hysterical to say the least. This is why the two characters didn't seem real: they were like drama queens (Mark probably wrote the book on drama queens), their reactions to what happens to them so over the top, their relationship with the other characters (friends, family, girlfriend) incredibly complicated, based on lies or untruth. But I am ready to forgive them, because I'm shallow and silly and because they were so hot together I got steam in my eyes reading about them. And all we need is love.

If you're looking for depth of feeling and angst, this is _not_ the book for you, but if you need some happy time, go for it!

I thought the book was great. Showing masculine type A's getting it into a relationship together was very hot.

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 5/10

PROS:
- Doesn't go off the deep end with the sex. It's light, it's fun, it's not terribly detailed, and it doesn't take up the majority of the story.
- Appearances by characters from various other Hauser books (see list at the bottom of this review). The universe she's creating is a lot of fun, particularly if you've read any of the books that the one you're currently reading intersects with.
- I enjoyed the interactions between Steve and his sister and brother-in-law. I had begun to despair that Hauser was incapable of creating a multi-dimensional female character, but there is hope, as Steve's sister proves. And I liked very much the scene in which he comes out to her.

CONS:
- The characters aren't terribly likeable. At least, not the whole way through the book. Mark is (at times) despicable and pathetic; Steve is (sometimes) gutless--although I cheered up when he FINALLY told Mark to stop torturing him and either break off the engagement or leave Steve alone; Jack, Steve's friend, is whiny and selfish; the guys' co-workers are unbelievably nosy; and Sharon, Steve's fiancée, is just plain awful.
- Didn't believe the characters' attraction for each other. They dislike each other at the beginning. Okay. They can hate each other's guts and still be attracted to each other, but Hauser never says anything about that. It's all frostiness and daggers and resentment and disgust...and then they get stranded in the desert one night and it's cold, and WHAM, they can't keep their hands off of each other and the next minute they're having the hottest, dirtiest sex of their lives and they can't get enough from then on.
- Steve falls in love way too fast. I understand that there are people who fall in love after one date (or, more accurately here, one session of sex), but I simply didn't believe it this time. At all.
- Mark's accent (or I suppose I should say 'vocabulary') is way off. He has some British heritage, but he was raised in the States, so his English accent is supposedly slight but eloquent. But quite a few of the things he says are more in line with a Cockney (or Irish) accent than the high-sounding English of Eton: he sometimes uses "me" instead of "my," for example ("He's me best mate"). And he says "bullocks" numerous times when it should be "bollocks"--plus, I had a hard time believing someone who has lived for years in the States would have held onto such a singularly British curse word.

Overall comments: I didn't hate it, but I was disappointed in several different aspects of the story. I found the book just mediocre all around.

CONNECTIONS TO OTHER HAUSER WORKS:
* Miller's Tale (story of Steve and Sonja, who break up before Capital Games starts)
* A Question of Sex (story of Mark and Sharon, who break up at the end of Capital Games)
* The Kiss (Steve reads it while pining for Mark)
* Love You, Loveday (Steve meets Angel Loveday and has a drink with him; doesn't sound like Angel is married off yet, so I suggest you read Capital Games first)
* When Adam Met Jack (Capital Games introduces Jack, so I suggest you read it first)