Show Me How to Heal: Juniper Creek Book 2, Ray Celar

From the very beginning I felt for Luke.  He was so broken, just floating on the brittle mantra of "I'll be okay, I'll be okay", and needing someone to wake him up to not only his path to healing, but to just acceptance of himself, his situation, his desires.  Finding that in Zayne was perfect and even though there was a sizable secret between them their connection was everything I was hoping for in this series.

I truly love this setting, the characters are captivating, problematic, and make me yearn for them, the town and surroundings are things I can imagine and want to visit, and the relationship pairings are well crafted with personal evolution and a believable outcome.

My only frustration is the immediate shutdown of Luke by Zayne.  Yes, secrets are hurtful and when they're revealed in a surprising way from the wrong source it can exacerbate that hurt, but to immediately run to "everything there ever was was a lie" is a personal pet peeve that drives me insane.  I get it.  I do.  I just don't like it, like, at all.  You end up increasing the hurt for yourself and for the other person and it makes the apologies fall flat when they finally come.

Maybe it's a trust issue thing that I have, that when something happens later on and you end up counting on your partner to blow up and run away or kick you out because of a situation blown out of proportion.  I'm not saying that Luke's issues with the lie of omission wasn't big, no, that's not it at all.  I just don't think Zayne's actions were completely justified, especially his first thought of everything being a lie because he was extremely intuitive to Luke's real feelings even when the details were vague.  The hurt, pain, yearning, loss...it was all there and Zayne specifically mentioned it in those moments.  The surprise about the career truth should have clicked rather than exploded in his brain.  At least that's what I hoped would have happened.  It's not though, and I'll have to live with that.  It's the reason for a 4 star rating instead of a 5.

So overall I truly enjoyed this book and would read it again.  I'm absolutely coming back for more from this series and can't wait for all my favorite men to have their own HEAs.  My one pet peeve thing likely didn't bother a lot of other readers so take my review with a grain of salt and dive in because Luke and Zayne have some amazing moments that make their whole relationship worth realizing.

Masters of Romance, Emma Alcott

Side Character

https://amzn.to/3to2Oc2

Quick and dirty, that's what I was expecting and that's what we got.  What I didn't expect was the subtle cuteness or the awkwardness or the two-way pining that happened.  Sawyer's friends were hilarious and I had no idea they'd even play a role, but the role they played actually made this short story much better.  I have to admit, the synopsis really turned me off, but since I like this author I was willing to give it a shot and I'm actually glad I did.  The set up for what's to come was the tiniest thread so I'm not sure what we'll get with Bad Boy, but if there are moments of cute like here in Side Character, I'm all in.  There was a lot of depth missing as well as an actual promise of transition from crush to real, but if you only focus on the funny side characters and the awkward cuteness that was endearing, then I think you'll probably like this prequel just fine.  3 stars.

Bad Boy

https://amzn.to/3xS3Lww

A tattooed reclusive ex-con and an imaginative, skittish, young man...on paper neither of them belong together, unless that paper is in a romance novel, then all bets are off and they're a match made in literary heaven.  I liked Colton and Russ together when the moments were good and not awkward and I mostly enjoyed Russ' POV.  Aside from that, the story was hit or miss for me and I'll be back because the group of authors are more intriguing than this particular coupling ended up being.

I think what bothered me the most was Colton's reactions and thoughts.  There were so many moments that I rolled my eyes and either skimmed through or longed to skim through his portion of the story.  Juvenile can be appropriate and amusing and endearing, but in Colton's case it was inconsistent and made me uncomfortable.  Especially the jumping in the sack thing right away...way too soon and on the heels of some disturbing thoughts racing through Colton's brain.

It's Russ that saved it for me and while I wasn't a fan of everything he did, thought, or said, he was the character that I gravitated to from the very beginning.  I like a bit of redemption with my romance and while I believe Russ had nothing to prove to anyone, he needed to show for himself exactly the type of man he was; a good man deserving of the young man that captured his attention and his heart, not to mention other bits of his anatomy.

There was some contrived drama that pushed the story forward but was honestly overkill and inappropriate, so I feel that could have been beta-read out of there, but I can't say I didn't understand why the author went in that direction.  It was kind of an easy road forward conflict-wise and seemed ready-made for overreactions and prejudice to overcome.  I wish it had been less predictable and more organic though.  Other than that, I enjoyed reading this story and am definitely coming back because my curiosity has been piqued with the group of authors that deserve their own HEAs.  3.5 stars.