Damage Done by M.J. Schiller

Teddy McKee was bullied as a young boy because he has a handicap. The way people treated him left him a very angry and bitter man. Sean helps Teddy in one of the bullying situations and they become best friends for the next 50 years or so. Sean has a playboy reputation and does not work within the law. Teddy has a woodworking business so Sean asks him to make him coffins with false bottoms. Teddy appreciates the business so makes all the coffins Sean wants without realizing they are being used to smuggle drugs.

Teddy met Gabrielle and they marry but Sean also fancies her. He doesn't handle it well when Gabby goes for Teddy instead of him.

Once Teddy found out what the coffins were being used for, he left Gabrielle and their son Michael. He didn't want to leave them but knew Sean's boss would come after him and his family. He hoped, by leaving, they would look for him and leave his family alone. After that Gabby worked long hours to keep food on the table for her and her son but that didn't help when a tragedy struck.

Many years later Michael was working with the band at a tavern where he met Tess. Tess also had a very hard life and was struggling to make ends meet. Their life together is quite an adventure - not all of it good.

This well written story is an unusual tale showing how the choices a man makes affects so many other people in his life. This novel addresses hardships, betrayal, love, passion and redemption. All the characters had issues they were trying to deal with but not all were successful.

I didn't like the characters at all. I especially didn't like Sean. He was a terrible "friend" to Teddy and treated everyone badly. Yes, he had a sad childhood but that didn't justify the way he treated everyone. As for Gabby, I didn't connect with her so I didn't like or dislike her. Teddy I felt sorry for. He was used by Sean and didn't even realize it. I stopped feeling sorry for Teddy as the story went on and just thought he was stupid for not seeing what was going on around him.

Please note I won this book in a Just Romantic Suspense giveaway.

First I will just say that I love Supernatural. It’s a great show and if I could I would love to visit Comic Con, but…I think there is a limit to how far one takes ones obsession with a show/movie/singer/group/whatever…it’s one thing to like something, but to let it take over one’s life totally? It’s not that I don’t enjoy fandom’s, but I just don’t have the need to ruin my economy, drive away my friends or family for it.

The ladies in this book, middle age women, suddenly start to obsess over Supernatural although it seems mostly Jensen Ackles, they fly to see him in play, watch everything he is in from movies to tv-shows. Nothing wrong with that, I have favorite actors also. But it bothered me reading how for example Lynn hid the fact from her family that she ordered passes to a convention. Like what she did was something shameful. And here we have the BIG problem with the book. Everything they did was so shameful, liking Supernatural and writing fanfiction. It’s shameful to like something; it’s shameful to write slash fanfiction. It’s shame, shame, shame. And I tried to remember if I have ever being ashamed for liking something (Hell I liked David Hasselhoff in Baywatch when I was a teenager and not even that makes me ashamed nowadays).   

This book felt like an excuse to be able to get up and close with Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, a middle life crisis now that the children are almost grown up.

"As we pondered and plotted and looked for opportunities to get up close and personal with actors, our road trip through fandom continued"  

But there are moments I feel for them, because in a part they manage to find a life outside being a wife, mother and professor. That part of the book I liked, but I ultimately I think they failed in their mission to show the good side of the fandom,  it felt more like they showed the worst part, the over enthusiastic fans, the fanatic fans that sleeps in hallways to have breakfast with actors.     

There isn’t any shame in liking Supernatural. And if you like writing fanfiction, slash or not slash go for it. It’s your life.  

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!

Jim Beaver, what a darling!

But I still think they are way over the top fans. Also doesn't Supernatural have any male fans? I have a picture in my head of a Supernatural convention with just a lot of women... 

Three women fly to see Jensen Ackles in a play and all they can talk about how good his ass looks in his pants…

I don't know what they are after with this book right now. If this is an attempt to explain fandom, then they are failing by bringing up all the worst examples they can find . . . a women with dolls dressed up as the characters…middle age women obsession with a tv-show that they ignore their families.

And they write slash fiction...Oh well!

Are they really professors? This book is badly written and I would have thought that being professors, well you should be able to write a book that doesn't feel like two 16 year old schoolgirls infatuation with two actors…

Have these women never seen a tv-show before? Never liked a tv-show before? Being grown up is the same thing as not being able to enjoy a tv-show?