In Lynda Aicher’s The Farther He Runs, Tanner Dorsey returns from deployment to find that two of his closest friends, Chris and Finn, have been in a whitewater rafting accident. Tanner and several other Marines formed an extreme sports company called Kick, but the accident left Chris dead and Finn in a coma. Finn has come out of the coma, but he’s in bad shape otherwise.

This book is the third in a series, and that’s something readers new to Ms. Aicher’s books should be aware of before they pick it up, because I feel it doesn’t stand alone. At the start, Tanner sits in his car and broods for about five pages about his brothers in the Corps, how much he needs them, how he feels like a failure for what happened, and so on – yet the actual incident is never described. The friendships and the accident all happened in some other book. Finally he gets out of the car and meets Finn again. They attend Chris’ funeral, and then Tanner takes Finn to a remote cabin to help him recover.

When writing reviews, I try to see how much of the book I can remember without needing to look anything up. What I remember of this one is a lot of exercise, as Tanner tries to build up Finn’s strength while secretly lusting after him. Meanwhile, Finn secretly lusts after Tanner, and eventually bets that Tanner can’t run a certain number of miles while wearing a butt plug. Needless to say, this leads to sex, and soon other toys – nipple clamps and a cock ring – make their way into the exercise sessions. I learned a couple of new words while reading this.

What I didn’t do was enjoy the read. Nothing happens except for angsting, lusting, exercise and sex. Finn and Tanner get matching tats which are all about “the brother on the right of me, and the brother on the left” (get used to that phrase if you plan to try this book). They talk about their survivor’s guilt. They think about how much they love each other. There’s no sexual tension – other than, perhaps, whether Tanner will enjoy being paddled and whether Finn can handle Tanner’s Dom side. Spoilers : yes, and yes.

So the slow-paced, low-key plot doesn’t stand out. Neither do the characters. They can all be summed up in three words : gay Marine doms. Despite their grieving over Chris’s death, I never learned one concrete detail about what he was like as a person (though he was probably a gay dom too). Tanner has some Korean heritage, not that this plays a role in the story. I just recall it because his “almond-shaped eyes” are mentioned. Finn is even less memorable. Their thoughts, conversations and lives are all about sex and the military.

Which brings me to the sex scenes. These are varied and well-written, and although the story is told from the third-person point of view of both main characters, I never had any pronoun confusion. However, there were a couple of ongoing annoyances. The first is the nonverbal conversations Tanner and Finn have.

They talked then, their eyes communicating what his voice couldn’t free.

We’re doing this.

We’re still good.

I don’t want to lose you.

You won’t.

I guess it’s meant to show how well-attuned to each other these guys are, but at times it verges on telepathy.

Are you sure?

Yes.

What if…

It won’t.

The other problem is the amount of swearing. I’ve read books liberally sprinkled with the f-word, and I’ve enjoyed them, but here, it becomes irritating. Maybe because it seems like it’s a way to show how macho the guys are; they all talk like they’re auditioning for a Quentin Tarantino film but haven’t yet mastered the more memorable parts of the dialogue.

The Farther He Runs wasn’t bad per se, but it was bland and sluggish. At some points, reading it felt like a tiring struggle though a sludge of angst and lust. Readers who loved the previous books and who look forward to reading about these guys should enjoy it, but personally, I won’t be trying any more of this series.

Buy it at: A/BN/iB/K