I love this book. It was a really nice balance between romance, humour and some great sex.I just love the honesty of the characters and how the writer made you absolutely love them- I could really identify with them.The only reason I'm giving it a 4 star is the character Patricks Dad. He went from being a shitty old Dad to the nicest, coolest most generous Dad ever. It just didn't sit very well with me. Apart from that- fab story and I enjoyed it lots. Good recommendation from my Goodreads pals. X This was a thoroughly satisfying romance for me. Interesting characters — 1) Patrick, who has ADHD and has not fared well in the world so far, starting with a father who doesn’t think much of him, and ending with a boyfriend, who, after their car ends up in the river, rescues himself but leaves Patrick to drown. 2) Whiskey (Wesley), an field biologist studying amphibian abnormalities in the Sacramento River, who does rescue Patrick, and then takes him under his wing because he clearly needs somebody to make him feel better.As so often, Amy Lane gives us an amazing unusual family (which is one of the major draws for me in her work), and characters who are somewhat out of the ordinary, who don’t quite fit neatly into mainstream society. This time the initial family is small; Whiskey and Fly Bait (Freya), his lesbian colleague, friend, and grumpy conversationalist of 17 years. Patrick is clearly lost, suffering from badly controlled ADHD, and a tendency to apologize profusely for everything, including just being. Whiskey is attracted, but not going to go there because heck, Patrick is a kid compared to him, 23 to his 35, and a young/naive 23 at that.I love the characters. I love that Whiskey and Fly Bait care about Patrick in ways nobody else has ever bothered to. Though frankly, what the hell is wrong with everyone else? Patrick is so clearly a good guy that I am angry at his father, never mind his fuckwit of a boyfriend, and in fact, all prior selfish fuckwit boyfriends. I enjoy how Whiskey and Fly Bait calm him down, how they don’t let themselves get irritated by his spazziness, how they include him in their work, and facilitate him finding things within himself that he can see as worthwhile, how they help him grow into his own. This falls just short of 5 stars. While the resolution of the subplot is foreshadowed at the very start (what kind of a person leaves their boyfriend to drown in a car accident?), I am unsatisfied with Whiskey’s reaction to the accident. What is his motivation? It doesn’t make sense. Yeah, I grok having issues with authority, but I have issues with authority that go well beyond smoking dope in college, and I would still call the cops on that boyfriend, no hesitation. At the very least it was negligent homicide; but Patrick was drugged and being driven somewhere away from home, and that made it feel like attempted murder to me from the very start. Yet everyone seems to be abnormally sanguine about it, and doesn’t even look any further into it. So, I was waiting for the foreshadowing to pay off, but I can’t say I was happy about the way it happened. I think my problem lies with the flow of dramatic tension: it was extremely high to begin with, and then everything settled down to be relatively non-angsty (for Amy Lane-y values of non-angsty) for most of the book, with only a couple of reminders that bad boyfriend is still somewhere in the picture. And all of a sudden KAPOW, things go seriously, dangerously, life-threateningly pear-shaped. It’s too much, too sudden, the story didn’t properly build towards it, and consequently it feel melodramatic and took attention away from the protagonists.I also have an issue with the redemption of Patrick’s father. It was all too pat at the end. Somewhere I am missing a major chunk of reasoning — exactly WHY was he such an unmitigated arsehole to his son? I mean, Patrick was obviously diagnosed as having ADHD, so his father had to know about the issues, and still he was as cruel as he was? Frankly, I didn’t want him rehabilitated by the end -- again, not sufficient motivation for his original actions.Last but not least, while Patrick clearly grows and comes into his own to a point by the end, he is right back to living off his father, and that leaves me a little dissatisfied. I would have been happier if he had driven Whiskey’s car.So overall I would have liked it better if there had been less melodrama surrounding the boyfriend and his criminal machinations — the subplot about the pollution affecting the frogs could have still worked, with not quite so much personal danger. But I still like this story; it’s a keeper, and I am a whole lot happier with this than I was with "Behind the Curtain".
What do You think about Clear Water (2011)?
My first Amy Lane book and I love it!Patrick is definitely an unforgetable character.
—zijadin
I really enjoyed this book. All the characters were great.
—jmshaw94
God. Just so sweet and nice and smart and sweet some more.
—swati
