The Hand-me-down

This is an exceptional book. I was a little unsure at first, but by the second chapter I couldn't stop reading.
This is an emotional journey of people who feel real. These are not perfect characters with a single flaw they are complex people going through good and hard times.
I recommend this to anyone who wants something that has depth and feeling.

I didn´t like this book because i didn´t believe the main characters, especially Jamie, a man so painfully shy he can’t even bring himself to talk to strangers?? But fucking strangers isn't a problem??

What do you do when the only man you can truly call friend, who is also the only man you ever came close to loving, tells you he's dying and asks you to care for his young lover after he's gone? For that matter, what do you say? This is the predicament Jez finds himself in when he's stranded in Barcelona and looks up his old friend, Nick, and his beautiful young lover, Jamie. I'm a firm believer in the old adage that everything happens for a reason, so maybe it's fate intervening to provide Jez and Jamie what they both need, but don't know they need.
\"I have lung cancer, Jez. I had surgery, then radiation, then low-dose chemo, just to prolong my life. I'm living on borrowed time. Jamie knows it, and I've accepted it,” Nick's voice was calm, a lot calmer than I knew I'd be if the shoe were on the other foot. “But, Jamie, well.... he doesn't know anything about business, or managing money, so even if I leave him my estate, he probably won't be able to live off it. He needs… help.\"
Jez has a successful, globe-trotting job as a headhunter based out of New York. He doesn't do commitment and, in fact, Nick is the only man in his life Jez has ever slept with more than once. Fifteen years Jez has worked for the same company, never taking vacations, and living only with work for the company. He's surprised when he realizes he's envious of the obvious love and commitment that Nick and Jamie have. Jez requests a month vacation from work to stay with Nick and Jamie at their villa while Nick gives him all of the information he should need and for Jamie to learn to trust Jez. Jez learns of Jamie's sad and traumatic childhood locked in a trailer with his severely psychologically impaired mother, and then later, being used as a fuck boy in an illicit sex club. A place where they didn't take care of their boys and the boys were abused, physically and mentally, not shielded from disease and used until they were no longer viable and then thrown away with the trash. It's no wonder that Jamie doesn't speak very much, or at all, can't handle social situations, and has a huge issue with thrust.
After Nick passes, Jez asks Jamie to come back to NY with him as Jez promised Nick he'd look out for Jamie. Unfortunately, one day after Jez's return to work, he's sent on assignment to Latvia for five days. Jez makes sure there are plenty of groceries, he emails Jamie every day, but when Jez returns, Jamie has disappeared. It takes ten days for Jez to find Jamie, drugged and working as a fuck boy in another illicit sex club. It takes a while for Jez to get answers out of Jamie and to understand what he needs and how Jez can best keep Jamie safe while also keeping him happy. Jez is shocked to discover that Nick didn't quit his porn star life because he met and fell in love with Jamie. Nick quit because he tested positive for HIV and Nick gave it to Jamie. Jez knows the reason Nick didn't tell him is because Jez would've been able to walk away and say no to Nick before Jamie crept under his defenses and into his heart.
So much of the storyline and the direction the author sent me in took me completely by surprise. Reading the blurb made 'The Hand-me-down' seem rather straightforward and, possibly, simple. It was anything but. Jamie is an intensely complex man and even knowing his history, didn't make it any easier for Jez to try to understand his reactions. Jez was a revelation; watching him turn from being a self-centered workaholic to being able to put someone else's needs first. Two very interesting main characters that I was happy to watch both evolve, in their own way, and derive something from the other which they didn't even know they needed.
This was my first Zahra Owens book, but it won't be my last. An interesting and lovely story that I can easily recommend.
NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews

The Hand-me-down was an interesting story about a different sort of relationship. The dynamic between Nick and Jamie and then Jez and Jamie was certainly not one a lot of people would understand - especially from the outside looking in.
Seeing how the characters blossomed and grew made this book excellent reading. So did the multi-facetedness of the characters, their pasts, the changes in their lives, and the storyline.
Another winner from Zahra Owens!

Workaholic businessman and occasional Leatherman Jez gets stuck in Spain due to his plane being grounded thanks to the eruption of an Icelandic vulcano. For lack of anything better to do, he pays a call on his old friend and occasional lover, former porn star Nick who has gone into retirement in a villa near Barcelona. This is where Jez learns Nick is married, to incredibly shy and reclusive Jamie. Jez also learns that Nick is fatally ill--and that Nick plans to entrust him with caring for Jamie once he'll be gone.
Jamie is so shy he can't even speak to strangers. Events of his past have left him quite unable to cope with life on his own; he needs guidance in many regards, and he desperately needs something or someone to give him structure (this might sound like a classic D/s setup but it's not, not at all--Jamie isn't some submissive boy, but a grown man, deeply damaged by life, and neither Jez nor Nick are actual Doms)
Jez goes from incredulous to refusing to resigned to accepting over the course of Nick's last weeks on earth, not least because he learns quite a surprising lot about himself by watching Nick and Jamie together. But taking responsibility for another person, let alone someone so dependent as Jamie, was never something that fit into Jez's busy lifestyle. Once he finds himself actually in charge of Jamie, he's out of his depth. Only when Jamie suffers through a deeply self-destructive episode, Jez realizes what caring for someone else really entails. But he does care for Jamie, a lot more than he thought he would. And it's not only Jamie who gets something out of the equation; suddenly Jez has someone he wants to come home to, someone who brings constancy into his unsettled life. Jamie and Jez may have fallen into each other's laps, but neither of them will let the other go ever again.
Jamie was a fascinating character. He was a modern day Kaspar Hauser all grown up, with all the implications of the \"wild child\" premise executed to perfection. As for me, his character was totally consistent, everything he did well founded in Jamie's own strange logic, and I loved so much watching him find his feet in life. I also loved very much that this story refrained from turning into a D/s setting, even though outwardly Jez was the dominant part and Jamie the dependent one. But in reality, Jez turned out to need Jamie just as much as Jamie needed him. In fact, they raised each other, grew mutually and grew together. In the end, they were fully equal partners, no small feat to achieve with a story that started out on such an imbalance of powers as theirs did. Beautifully, masterfully done.
I'd only read one story of this author a few years ago, Diplomacy, which I found nice but quite unexciting. I was baffled with how much both the writing and the storytelling had matured since then. Pulling off this story, making it believable, making the characters come alive on the pages despite their almost incredible backstories was, I'm repeating myself, no small feat and deeply impressive.
My only little niggle here was with Kee, Jez's best female friend, who acted a bit too much like a benevolent genie in a bottle (completely with vanishing into thin air once the crisis was overcome) and with the fact how easily everything fell into place for Jamie and Jez by the end. Then again, they've both won my heart and I was far from begrudging them their hard-won happiness.
Warmly recommended.