One Among Men by Connie Almony, is a romantic suspense novel in which the female protagonist, Samantha (Sam) Hart, manages to become the resident director for an all male dorm at the fictional Maryland State University. She had originally applied for a similar position for the university's female dormitory, and cannot understand how she ended up with the assignment to Calvert Hall which houses 500 male students. Besides earning her graduate degree, she must oversee a staff of assistants as part of her duties in managing Calvert Hall and its inhabitants, which at times, requires her to discipline residents who break the dormitory rules, end up overly inebriated, or use banned substances on site. She finds it challenging to win and maintain the respect of the male residents who don't regard her in the same way as they would towards a male resident director. On top of that, there is a rapist loose on the campus who the police are trying to apprehend and arrest.
Chris Johnson, a music major, and one of the resident students who also has a job working as a go-to fix-it guy for the university's Facilities Department, meets Samantha when he comes to check on the outlets in her apartment. Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that he meets...and blocks... her elbow to his gut, and a palm thrust in his face, in addition to backing away from a stomp meant to crush his foot. It takes a few minutes to convince her that he is not the rapist.
Sam is not the only one who is caught off guard by the other's appearance. Chris can't believe that the university is actually putting a female in charge of a building filled with college-aged men who would see her more as meat rather than as a serious authority figure. However, as the days and weeks, pass, he becomes intrigued and fascinated with her; he can see that she cares about the residents in the dorm.
Sam can't quite figure Chris out. Once she recovers from the scare of their first meeting, she senses something different about him; he seems older and more mature than the rest of the students at Calvert Hall. She also wonders about his ability to block all the self defense moves that her uncle, a police officer, had taught her. The looks and words of encouragement that he gives her contrast with his seemingly irresponsible behavior; he hangs out with the resident drug dealer at Calvert Hall, and consumes huge quantities of alcohol every night. Rumours start to fly about him selling for the drug dealer, but she can't stop her attraction to him. She is also puzzled by the alternation of warmth and distance in his behavior towards her.
Chris also appears to be quite a mystery to us as readers. We are privy to his thoughts; we know that he has secrets to hide and that he wants to resume another life that he once led. We also know that he harbors anger against his father, who used drugs and abandoned his family in order to pursue a career in music. He is also a bit resistant to the Gospel, although Preacher (aka Clive), one of Sam's assistants, has been sharing the message with him. Preacher knows that there definitely something strange about Chris. He sees that Chris is a leader, yet follows a known drug dealer. He is also aware that Chris has been looking out for Sam's safety and has taken measures to keep that from being made widely known.
Throughout the first half of the novel, the author drops a trail of crumbs, hinting about what Chris is really doing. We are finally informed outright about this midway through the novel, and by this time we realize that Chris is facing battles on several fronts, in his relationship with the drug dealer, in distancing himself from Sam, whom he is finding harder to resist, and in facing the challenges that Preacher keeps tossing at him over issues of faith in the Lord. Will Chris survive with both his physical and spiritual lives secure? Will he be able to convince Sam to accept him romantically when she finds out what he really is?
At first, I wasn't quite sure if the central plot of the novel was going to involve the capture of the rapist, but instead, it really is about Chris and what is happening to him spiritually. Sam impresses Chris with how she lives out her Christian life in spite of all the resistance to her leadership at Calvert Hall by its residents. Conversations with Preacher, and lots of tunes from the band, Third Day, help Chris to come to a place where he is open to attending a church to see what Christianity is about.
I thought that One Among Men, for a self published novel, was pretty good. I admire how the author laid out the plot and how she resolved most of the plot threads. The novel is written from several third person points of view, although the two major ones are those of Sam and Chris. There is quite a large cast, but it is fairly easy to keep track of who is who, and what their significance is to the story. I felt that most of the characters, even the nasty ones, were fairly believable, although the character of the drug dealer, Drake Dixon, might have had a touch of being a little over the top in his nastiness and unpleasantness, but this didn't really detract from the story.
The novel also offers a look at campus life, especially what might happen in an all male dorm, besides the issues of drug and alcohol abuse, and how some college aged men might view women.
I enjoyed reading One Among Men, and hope to read more about life at Maryland State University in the sequels, An Insignificant Life, and Flee From Evil.
