Review: Misinformation by Keelan Ellis

Ethan Daniels, host of a popular conservative cable news program, has never thought of his bisexuality as a problem, though he has never acted on his attraction to men. Since his divorce, that desire has become more acute. When he meets Charlie Woods, his daughter's first grade teacher, they have an instant spark, but Ethan hesitates to act. His contract is up for renewal, there are already rumors swirling about him because of a brief encounter from his past, and the last thing his employers want is for one of their stars to come out publicly.

Charlie avoids romantic entanglements because he prefers living on his own terms. He keeps love and sex completely separate, never seeing anyone more than a few times. Hooking up with a closeted celebrity like Ethan seems safe from emotional involvement, even if they have to keep their fledgling relationship secret.

The last thing they expect is to fall in love, but their strong mutual attraction moves them both to make changes neither of them thought they wanted or needed.

He was beautiful in a slightly off-kilter way that translated best in motion. The still pictures Charlie had seen of him on buses and billboards never did him justice, but on television he was golden. In person, Charlie found him astonishingly hot.

Ethan has a nice life. He has a well-paying job, a good relationship with his ex-wife, and a beautiful little girl. Still, it's not all it's cracked up to be on paper. He works for a conservative news station that forces him to take stances on issues he doesn't agree with, and for the most part, he can deal with it -- Until he meets Charlie, his daughter's teacher. Their connection throws a wrench into all his plans, and Ethan finds himself suddenly wondering if the money is worth living a lie.

“Can I tell you how many fucks I give about what people think? Take a guess.”

Ethan smiled despite himself. “Like, ten? Ten fucks?”

She laughed. “Zero fucks, Ethan. Don’t use me as an excuse.”

There were a lot of really great things about this book, but I'll start off with the one thing in particular that took this down quite a bit for me. I honestly didn't feel the connection between Charlie and Ethan. Eventually, as the author kept telling us about it, I bought in, but for a lot of the first half, it just didn't sizzle for me. Sure, they had hot sex, but the emotional aspect was really lacking. Again, toward the end, it fell a bit flat as the author rushed through a lot of time (over a year) in a matter of pages. Those things simply didn't work.

However, as I said, the book had some really lovely points. For example, Ethan embraces the fact that he is bi. The author made a clear effort to not diminish the importance of Ethan's relationship with his ex-wife and the loving nature of it, which I truly appreciated. At the same time, the fear that others would think the marriage was a lie was addressed, making it feel more realistic.

I also really liked all the characters. I would've loved to have heard more about Josh, in particular his adventures with Roland, but in general, even the secondary characters were fun and had multiple layers. There were some that didn't seem to come full circle, like Ethan's ex-girlfriend and his roommate from college who kind of just fell off the face of the book at some point, but I can live with that.

In general, it's a fun, easy read with a nice bit of heat.

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