Review: The Condor by Isa K

The Condor is a book that presents unglamorous life with its human complications. It does this with grace but without celebration. 4 stars

I like The Condor. This book takes its reader on an interesting, but not dramatic, cruise along the countryside of the sex industry. It doesn't try to cover the grimy corners with polish or hold aloft its sex scenes as if to say, 'Look! Who cares if lives are falling apart, the sex is great!' The Condor puts its reader in the roll of quiet onlooker, 'See here as the whore preens in his native habitat, surrounded by fellows.'

This book doesn't sensationalize its content nor its characters. Everything is considered evenly important, from a new hire's first trick to the manager's heartbreak. I'm used to a romance introducing the love interest from chapter one and anticipating the 'how do they get together' moment from the start, but The Condor doesn't have a traditionally romantic plot. I didn't have any notion of where this story could take me, but nor was I clawing for more at the edge of my seat.

Instead I soared, gently, like the book's namesake, through the lives of these characters wanting to know more about what made them who they are now. This will never be a story that grabs readers by the throat demanding attention and that's a risky move. It's so heavily character driven that I frequently forgot to wonder what all of this was leading up to.

TL;DR: 4 stars. The Condor is a cozy M/M sex-industry novel. Quite possibly alone in its genre.