Review: Reunion, Reunited, and Elysium by J.J. Harper (Reunion #1-#3)

The Reunion series is composed of three novellas which fall under the M/M contemporary romance category and it's written by J.J. Harper. The series is about one couple, twenty-eight-year-olds Ryan Connelly, a military veteran and now a police officer, and Nico Angeles, a former porn actor turned physical fitness model and gym co-owner. Ryan and Nico were in love at eighteen but everything ended when Nico disappeared without a word, leaving Ryan feeling abandoned and heartbroken. It takes their tenth-year high school reunion for their paths to cross again. Is this their chance to finally right all their wrongs and get their much delayed happily-ever-after, or is this them tying all loose ends and moving on?

Reunion finds Nico returning to his hometown after having walked away from his parents and the only boy he's ever loved. He didn't envision his first meeting with Ryan to be as the victim of sexual assault, but it does open the door for the two of them. The feelings are still there, but they are no longer limited to love, not with Ryan being angry and hurt and Nico being ashamed and lost. This does end in a cliffhanger and the story continues with Reunited, which has a dash of suspense added to it, as Nico's past comes back to haunt him and wreak havoc on his second chance with Ryan. There's yet another cliffhanger here and their story concludes with Elysium, which has Ryan's army past threatening to destroy the couple's future.

Let me start my review off by saying that the series had potential, what with the idea of two erstwhile lovers who finally get their shot at being together again but have baggage upon baggage of issues they have to deal with as individuals and as a reunited couple. Ryan and Nico have good points, but sheesh, these two had a habit of throwing the past back in the other's past even after they claimed they were over it. A lot of it became repetitive, not just the issues but the reactions of both parties. It was like this vicious cycle involving one getting pissed about the past then walk away (Nico) or storm off (Ryan) and then when the other makes amends, the other party then decides it's their turn to pout and pull their full-blown tantrum.

I had also had a major issue with the editing, or what seems like the lack thereof. Sentences that should have ended with a punctuation mark, creating run-on sentence after run-on sentence. There's also a lack of commas after the name of a person being addressed and that's kind of a pet peeve of mine. It became clear that this was something not limited to just one of the books since all three of them suffered from the same sad dilemma. And as much as I really wanted to like the series and give it a higher rating, editing issues took away from the whole reading experience. Reunion gets two stars, Reunited gets 2.5 stars, and Elysium gets three stars, so the series gets an average of 2.5 stars, but please feel free to give them a shot. ♥

Date Read: 18 June 2016

Learn more about J.J. Harper.

Purchase the Reunion series:

Reunion (book one) - Amazon

Reunited (book two) - Amazon

Elysium (book three) - Amazon