The Layover by Roe Horvat | Cat's Release day Review, Excerpt & #giveaway @Dreamspinners

Eight years ago, Ondro Smrek fled Slovakia and the bigotry that drove his first lover to take his own life. The demons proved impossible to outrun, though, and now, desperate for somewhere to belong, Ondro is returning to start over. During a layover in Basel, Switzerland, he meets Jamie, an American living in Scotland who is as brilliant as he is beautiful.

Jaded Ondro never would have guessed he could fall in love during a brief layover—until now. When he is put in a position to offer Jamie comfort without hope of recompense, Ondro doesn’t hesitate. Soon, he catches a glimpse of the home he longs for. But with their separation looming, confessing his feelings would only lead to pain and humiliation. Life has taught Ondro not to hope, but then, he never believed in love at first sight either....

Buy links: Dreamspinner | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Cat gives this one 5 Meows...

I love this cover. It says so much about the book. This is the first book I have read by Roe Horvat. It won't be my last. I added Roe to my favorite author list. I loved the writing style. The imagery in this book was outstanding and I learned so much about the history of Slovakia. 

Ondre was at a point in his life he needed change and closure. He quit his job as a flight attendant, left his roommate and apartment to go back to Slovakia even though there was a lot going on there.

Jaimie is a beautiful soul. So sweet and innocent. I fell in love with him at first sight! 
Both characters are great. Ondre solid and intense, Jamie sweet and shy. Both have a past that holds them back from relationships.

The storyline is beautiful, bittersweet and with a happy ending. If you like a deep story set in a different country, low sexual content you will like this one!

Excerpt...

Looking at his delicate profile, I felt my exhaustion lift like a morning mist giving way to a sunny day. I had a free night in this city and hadn’t got laid for four months. The last time was Clive, my roommate in Dubai. He was from Australia. If you’re picturing Jackman or Hemsworth, forget it. Clive was a towheaded, clingy drama queen with a permanent sunburn and a squeaky joke of a voice. Most of the time, he’d got on my nerves. Hell, he got on everybody’s nerves. It didn’t stop me from fucking him, but in my defense, I was drunk that one night. Oddly enough, he helped me with my luggage last night when I was leaving Dubai. He hugged me, whispering mournfully that we probably wouldn’t see each other again. And I realized that there’s a difference between lonesome and lonely, and that I no longer knew which one applied to me.

I deliberately wiped my mind clean of desolate thoughts. Walking purposefully and holding my head high, I approached the boy in the crazy hat. I was sure he was intentionally looking away.

“Did you manage to get a flight for tomorrow?” A non sequitur? Maybe, but we’d seen each other, noticed each other. He knew that I knew. So why bother with formalities. I admit that my social skills have always been limited, and I exhausted them all on the job I abhorred.

His big blue eyes snapped at me in confused surprise. Then he frowned, clearly uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

The horrible sound of luggage wheels on concrete ceased, immediately making the silence between us deafeningly loud. He took a drag from his cigarette.

“Where are you headed?” I asked.

He huffed out a breath. The smell of his cigarette was surprisingly pleasant in the cold, humid air. His annoyance was just a disguise. He was nervous. I thought of his terrified stare back inside the terminal.

“Edinburgh.” He had a rich voice, a little nasal like people with allergies sometimes have. And an obvious American accent. My smile became smug.

“Then back to the US?”

“No, I live in Scotland,” he said harshly, grimaced, and sighed. “I’m sorry, man. I’m not in the mood.” He pressed the cigarette in the ashtray with more force than necessary and eyed me, frowning deeper. Then he averted his pretty blue eyes and squinted into the rain.

I watched him and waited to see if he would turn back to me. He didn’t. He seemed to be expecting me to leave. I scrambled for something interesting to say, to catch his attention, keep him talking to me. Watching the slope of his nose, the curve of his upper lip, I lost my line of thought and came up empty. Why did I even think it was a good idea to bother him? How come I couldn’t remember even a single one of those lines that had always worked?

Several seconds went by, and I heard him breathe out slowly. “Sorry, I’m really tired.”

Not interested. Of course not.

“I’m disturbing you.” I nodded once. “I should be apologizing, and you should continue scowling.” I was ready to move on when he laughed briefly, surprising me with the sound. He finally lifted his face and glanced my way carefully. His eyes felt assessing and distrustful, yet a shadow of the brief laugh was still lingering in the corners of his lovely mouth. I couldn’t help it. His features were mesmerizing to me; every emotion seemed to reflect on his face so openly.

I felt a familiar warmth of embarrassment on the back of my neck, realizing I was just standing there and staring at this surreally beautiful person, who just wanted me to get lost.

“I should get a cab,” he mumbled.

He nodded to himself and tugged on his luggage with brute force. The monster rolled forward threateningly. It seemed likely to dislocate his shoulder on the nearest curb. He gave me one last solitary half smile. “It was nice meeting you.”

Yeah, right.

I watched him load his bags, with the reluctant help of a ginger-bearded, fat taxi driver, just ten meters away. If I could move my feet, I could get to him in a matter of seconds and ask him to give me his number. But how would I justify the request? Hey, we have a free night in town, let’s have a few margaritas and suck each other off? He didn’t seem to like me much. Not that I blamed him.

He looked my way for half a second, not meeting my eyes. The door of the taxi closed, and the vehicle rumbled past me. Another insignificant meeting, another human being I felt a brief connection to and would never see again. If I had a list, there would be hundreds of them from all over the world.

Roe Horvat was born in former Czechoslovakia in a time when everybody wore the same red and blue sweats and free thinking was a risky business. They endured a miserable adolescence in the postcommunist wasteland, mostly observing from afar and dissecting the pointlessness of being. It might have made them sophisticated… or bitchy. Equipped with ample sense of sarcasm, they left the Czech Republic to explore Europe.

Roe lived in Germany and Spain for a while, reinventing their inner sweetheart. Finally, they settled in Sweden, where the weather is nasty but the landscape vast and freedom great. They work as a motion graphics artist and are the ultimate daiquiri junkie in their spare time. They grow their own strawberries and freeze them in small batches to survive the long and dark Scandinavian winter.

Roe started writing their first novel at the age of seven. The time travelers finished their machine, but the child got distracted after two chapters, leaving the unfortunate explorers stuck in the stone age. Luckily, Roe developed a stellar attention span since then and never left a soul behind again.

These days, Roe writes to gain control in the chaotic world, saving the lives of their fragile imaginary friends and sharing the love in all shades of the rainbow. Contemporary romance conveniently balances out Roe’s real-life pragmatism. One day, though, they might start time traveling again.

• Roe's Website: http://roehorvat.com

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