Austin is a former teenage heartthrob and one-fifth of a world-famous boy band. Now that he and his bandmates have reached their late twenties, they are tired of putting out the same old pop music that made them famous a decade earlier.
During a break from recording and touring, Austin lands his dream job: taking over mid-run as the lead in the musical Aida. No one believes that this boy band member can sing, but he proves them wrong with his impressive range and mastery of his voice.
One of his initial detractors is Uriah, the primary tailor and secondary costume designer for the production. Even though he secretly owns all of Austin’s band’s albums, Uriah is annoyed that a pop star can swan onto stage and take what other working Broadway actors have spent years trying to achieve.
Early into the production, Austin comes out to Uriah. He’s kept his sexuality private for fear of ruining his career and alienating his fans. His family and bandmates know, but Austin is not ready to come out until he is completely sure it is the right time. Uriah has been out since he was sixteen. He and Austin are falling for one another and he doesn’t want to hide his feelings for the sake of Austin’s career.
This part of the book was interesting. It showed the main characters struggling with the need to be their authentic selves while also trying to preserve what they already had. I found it charming and engaging.
However, about halfway through the book, we got an estranged sister newly freed from her ex-husband and his cult, a team of undercover CIA operatives, a kidnapping plot, and more than one marriage proposal. This book went completely off the rails, and not in a good way. It felt like the author had concepts for two books and decided to smash them together and see what happened. She should have kept them separate. The story between Austin and Uriah was sweet and angsty. However, the plot with the sister and kidnapping did not fit at all. I skimmed most of those chapters hoping that we would get back to Austin and Uriah. We did get back to their story eventually, but we never even found out what happened with Austin’s show.
I almost forgot! This book also contained the cringe-inducing phrases (at least to me) of “velvet steel” and “licked it like an ice cream cone.” I’ve seen worse, but I’ve also seen better.
This book didn’t make much sense. I loved Petty, but I think I’ll stick with this author’s superhero stories from now on.
The D in 403B
I honestly forgot that I read this until I was scanning my Kindle and saw the familiar title and went “…oh yeah…huh.”
Declan can’t sleep. He can’t sleep because his new neighbor’s dog goes bananas barking every morning and throughout the afternoon. It doesn’t help that Declan cannot be around dogs of any kind as a result of a dog attack when he was a child. Angry, exhausted, and chronically blunt, Declan leaves a nasty note on his neighbor’s door explaining that he will take legal action if his neighbor does not get rid of his dog or find a way to keep it quiet.
Newly heartbroken and relocated to the first apartment he could afford, Brett is immediately put on the defensive. Even though his dog, which is actually his ex’s dog, is having a hard time getting used to his new home, Brett cannot believe that someone he hasn’t even met would threaten to remove him from his home less than a week after he moved in.
What starts off as aggressive notes taped to front doors escalates quickly when these two neighbors begin to let their guards down and grudgingly consider that the other one has a point. Declan works nights and needs to sleep during the day. Brett has no choice other than to take care of his ex’s dog while said ex is out of town at a conference.
After some handwritten apologies, the two meet and, well….you can guess the rest. This is a very low-stakes romance. I didn’t like either of the characters that much, but they were mostly inoffensive.
However….
First of all, even if you are a veterinarian, Brett, you don’t help someone get over their traumatizing animal attack by forcing them into close proximity with another animal! What the fuck, dude? I love pets. However, no matter how sweet and cuddly your baby snake is, I don’t want to hold it! Unless I need to be a trained reptile handler, I do not need to get comfy with your pet!
In this analogy, your snake is his rowdy husky mix who wants to love everyone up close and personal, all the time.
Okay, maybe the cute snake metaphor is inappropriate in the context of this genre, but whatever. You get my point.
Topping the Alpha
Jake is part of a six-person special ops team. Two months earlier, he made the mistake of hooking up with his teammates’ younger brother Nick. Jake is a dom, and when he seduced Nick, Nick was more than willing to play the role of grateful sub. Now that Nick is back in town, Jake wants to push him away, but Nick won’t go easy.
Jake offers to take Nick on as his sub, but on the condition that Nick finally come out to his family. Oh, and the special ops team also has a family-run BDSM club.
I skimmed the military-adjacent and law enforcement parts of the story. It had plenty of characters that I’m sure have or will have their own stand-alone love story, but I just couldn’t care about them one bit.
Jake and Nick’s story isn’t bad, but this book wasn’t the right one for me. There are so many other similar books that are both more interesting and more heartwarming. As an FYI, this is not an omega-verse romance.
I received these books as part of Stuff Your Kindle day from Romance Bookworms.