Title: After The Siren
Author: Darcy Green
Pages: 384
Formats: Reviewed on eBook
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Acknowledgment: Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Australia for providing an ARC.
I was eager to read this book and what can I say but wow, wow,wow!
After the Siren is one of those rare MM romance books that deal with gay players in the AFL- while there are books out there, it's not as common as say hockey so when one comes along I tend to heavily scrutinise it.
The plot itself is amazing- it features Theo being traded from a Sydney club to a Melbourne cub (to those who don't know, Melbourne is AFL central!), and not only being traded but to a team he played against that resulted in him having a serious case of the "yips" and being ridiculed in the social media world and the footy world.
The great thing about Darcy Greens' tome is that they capture the world so beautifully and magnificently- if you're a fan of AFL the use of colloquialisms that belong in the AFL world is spot on and that's not an easy thing to do- if you don't know the terms 100% there's a high chance it'll make no sense but not in this case; the on field action is accurate and is just as important as the off field action.
Off the field- Green hits the characterisations of the main characters spot on with Theo being a somewhat surprisingly (for a footy player that is!) introvert who slowly comes out of his shell inch by inch- we are shown things about him that while aren't fully spelled out there's enough to draw the correct inference .
Opposite Theo we have Jake- your classic golden retriever type of character, who when he gets his head of his arse, is a very switched on person and there's scenes in the novel that is sadly true to life and show that we all need a Jake in our life.
While this would normally be given a five star review, I sadly had to take a star off a poor editing decision- as this is an Australian set novel, with an Australian writer, I tend to judge based on the useage of Australian/English English versus American English where appropriate. In particular there is one word that is initially spelt in the Australian English terminology before reverting to American useage- a shame as the inconsistency is noticeably and its a shame that the editing decision was made to use the American term despite this being an Australian book set in Australia with an Australian author.