Solid As Stone by Amylea Lyn
The Brotherhood, Book 1
Silver Publishing
Gay Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781614955474
Reviewed by Cassie

When his mother dies, Dr. Wesley Folcomb has to come home from his expedition in the Amazon to take care of her final arrangements. He’s devastated by the loss of his only remaining parent—even more so when he finds information she had hidden about the true cause of his father’s death. Finding out his father discovered something that a government agency used to twist children into super soldiers horrifies Wesley. Before he can decide what to do with the information, he’s attacked.

Stone, otherwise known as Agent One, has been assigned to capture Dr. Wesley Folcomb and deliver the doctor to his employers. When he finds out who Wesley is, he realizes the doctor may be the key to freedom for himself and his Brothers. Instead of taking Wesley to The Company, he takes the man to the secret compound he and his Brothers built to hide out when they went AWOL as they planned. All he wants is to protect his Brothers, and free them all. He doesn’t expect to have feelings for Wesley.

With The Company determined to reclaim their investments, can Stone and Wesley have any future?

Solid as Stone is an action-packed and sweet tale of a man who’s been trained to kill learning that he can also love. I couldn’t help but like Stone, whose horrific childhood and stringent training couldn’t turn him into the machine-like killer his superiors wanted. He’s done a lot and seen a lot in his lifetime, and been hurt over and over, but all he cares about is protecting his Brothers, the other men who were raised and trained with him. Stone is strong, tough, scarred, and capable, yet inside he longs for love. When it seems he might actually get a chance, fear and inexperience with emotions may ruin it.

Awkward, intelligent Wesley seems an odd match for Stone on the surface. He’s small, emotional, and ill-equipped for dealing with violence. Somehow he begins to get under Stone’s skin almost immediately, and Stone has the same effect on him. When Stone tells him of his plan to free the Brothers, Wesley agrees to help. Falling for Stone wasn’t part of the plan, but Wesley’s more than okay with it. All he has to do is convince Stone.

Solid as Stone has a lot going for it. The storyline is engaging. I liked the characters, including all the Brothers (who I’m sure will get their own stories soon). The conflict is interesting, and the villains are suitably evil. I found Wesley and Stone’s love to be a bit fast, but under the circumstances it didn’t bother me too much. The only major problem came from the editing, which was seriously lacking. It was disappointing to find so many misused words, extra apostrophes, and other errors. Normally I would ignore such things, but in this case they jerked me out of the story quite a few times. I liked Solid as Stone enough that the errors didn’t completely ruin the story for me, but I hope the next installment in the series doesn’t have so many of them.