Blurb:
Everyone’s got secrets. Some are just harder to hide.
With his father’s ponzi scheme assets frozen, Tom Worthington believes finishing college is impossible unless he can pay his own way. After months sleeping in his car and gypsy-cabbing for cash, he’s ready to do just that.
But his new, older-student housing comes with an unapologetically gay roommate. Tom doesn’t ask why Reese Anders has been separated from the rest of the student population. He’s just happy to be sleeping in a bed.
Reese isn’t about to share his brutal story with his gruff new roommate. You’ve seen one homophobic jock, you’ve seen ’em all. He plans to drag every twink on campus into his bed until Tom moves out. But soon it becomes clear Tom isn’t budging.
Tom isn’t going to let some late-night sex noise scare him off, especially when it’s turning him on. But he doesn’t want any drama either. He’ll keep his hands, if not his eyes, to himself. Boundaries have a way of blurring when you start sharing truths, though. And if Tom and Reese cross too many lines, they may need to find out just how far they can bend…before they break.
Warning: This book contains cranky roommates who vacillate between lashing out and licking, some male/male voyeurism, emotional baggage that neither guy wants to unpack, and the definitive proof that sound carries in college housing.
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Samhain Publishing
Contemporary, Bisexual, M/M, GLBT+
317 e-book pages
3rd person
Bend or Break, book 1
March 5-7, 2016
Kindle Edition
Rating: ????????
Ratings are 1 to 5 stars and based mostly on GoodReads standards.
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Review:
I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!
Why, oh WHY has it taken me so long to start reading this series? And this author?
I don’t have a good excuse, and excuses suck anyway.
This was really, really good.
A good bit of sad. A good bit of angst. A good bit of damaged heroes healing and doing it together nice and slow over time and building trust and intimacy and, and, and!
So good.
I know why this took me so long. Because it’s a college setting. With college kids. And…I’m so far past that I didn’t think it would be something I’d enjoy.
Oh, but I did.
Both Tom and Reese had a lot, a lot, a lot of baggage and good reasons to secret away from the world as best they could. In doing this, they found love and confidence and healing in each other. That’s not to say they didn’t have some internal reflection to get themselves to a better place and be fully ready for each other and the world.
Just wow.
And so a lot of this was Tom coming to terms with his bisexuality, something he’d never considered fully claiming. A lot of this was closeted hiding and Reese being as patient as he could be, longing to, at least, hold his lover’s hand in public. A lot of this was Reese dealing with intimacy issues after a brutal attack…and Tom returning patience in kind.
That’s what I loved most about this — the patience. That great sex and chemistry weren’t quick cures to the tragedies that had befallen them.
This was some smart writing with all the nuance and layering that I absolutely LOVE.
So yeah, the rest of the books are locked and loaded on my Kindle and I’m eager to get to them. (Except I read book two already. I’m late to this series and also really behind on reviews! I’ll get there. Promise.)
This review also posted on GoodReads.
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