BOYSTOWN Season 10 by Jake Biondi #LGBT #Review #Drama #GayFiction

Dana reviews BOYSTOWN Season 10 by Jake Biondi (Published September 22, 2020, 334 pages) A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 1 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 2 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 3 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 4 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 5 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 6 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 7 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 8 click here. To read the review for BOYSTOWN Season 9 click here.

Blurb:

“Can we help you?’ one of the guards asked him, eyeing his state of disarray curiously.
“I think I can find my own way.’
“Do you have your invitation? If you’re not on the guest list, we won’t be able to let you in.”
“I don’t have an invitation,” the man said, “but I’m not leaving.”
“Sir, we are going to have to escort you out.”
“The hell you are,” he replied. “I’m Derek Mancini and I’m here to see my son get married!”
-BOYSTOWN Season Nine

The epic tenth installment of the BOYSTOWN series is like no other that has come before it. Two timelines in one book, BOYSTOWN Season Ten not only propels the thrilling action forward, but also reveals the events of the twenty-five year jump that occurred at the end of Season Nine.

At the wedding of the year, the parents of Hope Ciancio and Joseph Mancini prepare to watch their children get married unaware that an uninvited guest will forever change the course of their lives. A sexy cowboy arrives to claim what belongs to him, unaware of his own ties to the Ciancio and Mancini families. His presence quickly sparks a fire that reignites the Ciancio-Mancini feud.

In the meantime, Cole and Victor DelVecchio’s marriage is put to the test not only when Derek Mancini returns to Chicago very much alive, but also when a hot young model unleashes a twisted plan to get Cole for himself. As Emmett Mancini and Keith Colgan expand their own empire, one of their restaurants becomes the scene of a shocking death that devastates their circle of friends. And an international scheme puts many of Boystown’s residents in danger.

It all leads up to a birthday celebration that leaves many of its guests on the brink of life and death.

There’s no place like BOYSTOWN!

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The BOYSTOWN series is not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure. I have reviewed the previous nine books in the series, but I always feel the need to make sure it’s understood that the series is not a m/m romance. There are characters that enter into romantic relationships, but this is series is a soap opera brought to page with plenty of sex, lies, murder, and cheating to give Dynasty a run for it’s money. With the series set in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago, the couples are a lot more diverse than any of those older soaps, though. We see male/female pairings, lesbian romances and trans characters, but a majority of gay or bisexual men take center stage. The storylines are dramatic and delicious but can also be frustrating when the actually nice guys in the story get screwed over by some of the bad ones. There are no slow moments in this series.

In the first nine books, the stories revolved around the three Mancini brothers and the two Ciancio brothers. The two families are rivals and the friends and acquaintances in their lives have a habit of getting caught in the crossfire. In book 10, we are transported 25 years into the future and the two families are still in the limelight, but it’s their children pulling strings, and trying to hurt each other. I had thought the adults in the first series were pretty corrupt, but these young adults put them to shame. We open on a wedding day, where the groom has one last affair with the man who took care of him as a kid. The bride gets married knowing that she might be pregnant with another man’s child. Their relationship is a disaster waiting to happen. And it doesn’t take long.

As far as the older generation, I thought maybe we would be seeing them settle down after all this time. But the surprising loss of one character and the reappearance of a character thought dead shakes things up for all of the friends. I want to talk about one character in particular in this series. Derek Mancini has always been one of the biggest drama causers in the series. Sometime between the last book and this one, the character was thought to be dead but we learn he was kept drugged and lived a whole other life with a wife and a son. A life in which he seemed like he was a pretty decent guy. After he discovers what happens, he is eager to get his life back, and I get that, but the return of his nastier personality traits is something I could have done without. I hoped that after he was manipulated he would hesitate to do the same to others. It’s not to be, but it is good that his brothers and his ex aren’t going to just let him walk over their lives like he did in the past. He is still one to watch out for.

The end of this book holds a lot of cliffhangers like the previous books. More than one someone wants to do the Mancini and Ciancio families harm. The motives are not quite explained for some of the characters, so I am hoping there might be a bit of backstory given as we go along with these new characters. Several characters’ lives hang in the balance at the end, and I believe there might be at least one more deceased character, though I don’t know who. It is a nerve-wracking experience as a reader, not knowing what is happening or going to happen next. As much as some of these characters are scoundrels, you can’t help but be invested in their lives. For me it’s wanting them to redeem themselves. If you haven’t checked out this series yet, and enjoy dramatic soap opera style stories, I definitely recommend the series to be read in order.

8.5/10 Pots of Gold (85% Recommended) – Compares to 4.25/5 Stars

Jake Biondi began BOYSTOWN in June of 2013 as an online story and intended to release one “episode” online per month, each ending in a cliffhanger. The story became so popular — and the online reading audience grew so quickly — that people from all over the country began to email him demanding to know what happened to their favorite characters and wanting the episodes to be released faster. They also had suggestions for future storylines. Excited by and grateful for his readers’ responses to BOYSTOWN, Biondi began to write and release installments more quickly.

In November of 2013, Biondi moved BOYSTOWN offline and published the first ten installments in book form as BOYSTOWN Season One. The book became an international hit, with fans all over the globe clamoring for more. Since then, Biondi has released nine additional BOYSTOWN series books.

In 2019, Biondi introduced his thrilling MAJESTY series, a period drama about the royal Chamberlain family. Like BOYSTOWN, MAJESTY has been embraced by fans who love action-packed twists and turns as well as a touch of romance.