1.5 stars, where half star is for the nice cover art.
It's not even the lack of m/m romance, it's the lack of adventure and consistency, the fact that the opening line of the story is dropped and forgotten by 30%, the fact that prose takes on purplish tint through the middle for no reason at all that bothers me.
Mysteries pop up left and right, but they are never revealed for the exception of one or two minor instances. I do realise there are more books in the series, but I don't want to find out what the commotion in the beginning of the first volume was about at the end of the last installment. If I invest my time and money in series this long, I expect the author to give me something back in return. Something other than boredom and frustration.
Not sure if or when I will find time to read the second book. There are more exciting and entertaining one-star reads out there, like
Taken by: M.A. Church or
Command and Compliance by Tadgh Faolan . Laugh at me, but I will read the next installment of "Command..." for it was quite entertaining in its unbelievably awful freakishness.