Tag: slight age gap

Review: Two-Man Team (Stick Side #5) by Amy Aislin

Rating: 4.5 🌈

Kris Xappa’s getting ready to make his post season retirement announcement. On top of that, there’s the eminent launch of the charity youth foundation, Forward Thinking, he started with his two long time best friends but nothing is going according to plans.

In trying to stop a fight at a friends bar, Kris comes off looking like the instigator in a vid someone posted to a media account that went viral. That’s had a huge negative effect on every part of his life.

Additionally , there’s his teammate, Rory Stanton ,who’s also the younger brother of his best friend. Rory is injured and and in need of his assistance.

What more could go wrong? Ah yes, mutual attraction and Kris ‘s sexuality which has always been identified as “straight “ to his fans and team.

Once more Aislin has given us complicated men in hockey, off the wall chemistry, a great story, and a romance to sigh over.

Hockey romances are my jam and Aislin’s Stick Side series is just one amazing book after another. Each managing to loosely connect the characters and their stories to each other’s by their teams and struggles with their sexuality and battles to navigate homophobia within and without their sport.

Each character is layered, individualist, and nuanced. From the main couple to everyone who supports them, all feel believable and relatable.

When Kris is feeling the intensity of the exposure from the media and the unfairness of the slights against his character, which he’s not allowed to push back against, it’s such a real situation that the reader feels absolutely in his corner.

Everything in the book will connect you to these men and their journey towards love and happiness.

It’s a pleasure to join them on the road to HEA and whatever their future may hold. Have i said how much I adore this series?

I truly do. Indeed I do. Including Two Man Team.

Highly recommended. All of them.

Stick Side Series:

On the Ice #1

Christmas On the Ice #1.5

A Valentine’s Trade #1.7

The Nature of the Game #2

The Nature of Christmas #2.5

Shots On Goal #3

Risking the Shot #4

Calder & Lacroix #4.1

Two-Man Team #5

Two-Man Team

Synopsis:

NHL team look bad. Now, with orders to keep his head down, the last thing he needs is to develop feelings for his younger teammate—and best friend’s brother. The fact that he can’t stop thinking about their one illicit kiss doesn’t mean anything.

Rory Stanton is perfectly capable of taking care of himself and doesn’t need his brother’s best friend keeping an eye on him. Sure, he likes having Kris’s attention, but he’d rather have it for entirely different reasons. Too bad that one kiss they shared wasn’t enough to convince Kris to take a chance on him.

When an injury lands Rory in Kris’s care, will these teammates be able to see past the obstacles to become a two-man team?

Review: The Foreman and the Drifter (Farthingdale Ranch #1) by Jackie North

The Foreman and the Drifter (Farthingdale Ranch #1) by Jackie North

Rating: 5🌈

While I started this amazing series with the third book, this incredibly sweet, heartwarming romance is exactly the way to fall into this universe and found family.

It’s a slow burn, first love, first time romance that captures the essence of all that confusing, unsettling overwhelming feelings of true love . Set on a ranch where you can almost smell the wild fragrances coming through the tall meadow grasses, feel the heat pouring down as the men ride and go through their chores, it’s an old fashioned slowed down day in a modern world story. One to savor along with the very sweet, almost innocent nature of the relationship that’s beginning to form between Leland and Jamie.

The ranch, it’s full time staff which is also a family, it’s guests comes across as a real place. From the dining hall to the dusty tack room to the fire pit where the grasses need to be cut back for safety purposes, it’s described so clearly, easily such a deep integral part of the people there that it becomes a part of your heart too.

And as a worn, torn Jamie finds himself deposited at the ranch uncertain and almost beaten, you just hope he’s finally found home. Which he has.

Jamie is all young vulnerability, openness, and hope waiting for someone to want him. He’s an amazing character and you love him immediately. As the strait laced Leland does, even if he’s not sure what to make of his own feelings.

Leland we also understand and adore, in a totally different way. They gently spark, gaze, and as two men who’ve never had relationships, stumble towards each other.

How I love this and them.

Like sitting on that veranda in the summer’s evening, sipping root beer, listening to the owls call and holding hands under the blankets.

Sighing now. Perfection.

I’m so in love with this series. On to book two.

Need a new series to read and love? Start here. I’m recommending them all.

Out now:

The Foreman and the Drifter #1

The Blacksmith and the Ex-Con #2

The Ranch Hand and the Single Dad #3

Coming Soon – The newest book in the Farthingdale Ranch Series! soon…..

The Wrangler and The Orphan #4

The Cook and the Gangster #5

The Trail Boss and the Brat #6

Synopsis: If only Leland would forget forget that Jamie was a drifter. If only he’d give their hearts a chance.”

With Farthingdale Ranch at risk, Leland Tate, ranch manager, has to get tough and make sure everyone on the ranch follows the rules he’s laid out. That means no handouts, no fraternizing, and no drifters.

But what happens when a young drifter comes looking for a job? What happens when that drifter makes Leland want to break all the rules?

A gay, m/m cowboy romance with age gap, hurt/comfort, first time, rescue, sunshine/grumpy, boss/employee, emotional scars, and opposites attract. A little sweet, a little steamy, with a guaranteed HEA.

Buy The Foreman and the Drifter to fall deeply and forever today with the first book in the new Farthingdale Ranch Series

https://www.goodreads.com › showWeb resultsThe Foreman and the Drifter by Jackie North – Goodreads

A MelanieM Review : No Place Like Home by Annabelle Jacobs

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Will Oliver get the gift he’s hoping for this Christmas?

Oliver Walker’s Christmas is shaping up to be a quiet one. That is until hunky neighbour Ed Middleton moves in next door.

Attraction is instant, but Ed is only there temporarily and neither wants to start something with an expiration date.

As the festive season approaches, holiday cheer wraps around them, and giving in to temptation is inevitable. But Ed is still set on moving in the new year—a fresh start, miles away from those he’s closest to.

If Oliver doesn’t want to lose his heart, he’ll have to show Ed that home is wherever he wants it to be, and love is possible no matter what.

No Place Like Home is a heartwarming story of love between neighbours, family and friends, about adorable rescue cats, and remembering that sometimes the very thing you’re looking for is right under your nose.

My only complaint about No Place Like Home by Annabelle Jacobs?  That is wasn’t longer!  I just adored this story!  It was heartwarming.  It was adult, that dealt with a number of themes besides the wonderful romance.  All of which Annabella Jacobs addressed with sensitivity, folding it gently into the building slow burn romance between Oliver and Ed.
One that kept recurring was Ed’s half hearted “leaving for the North” motion and the later revelations behind it.  It made sense as did what happened when Ed thought through everything that had happened and all it had meant to him.  It was realistic and meaningful and heartwarming.   There is so much here about family.  Whether is is Ed, his sister’s, his friends and their SOs or Oliver’s nan, and Oliver’s family. They all start to meld together in one joyous holiday group of familial love.  There’s the understanding moments of acknowledging Oliver’s nan’s aging and decline in memory, the all encompassing support from all corners.  for her , for Ed, and for Oliver.
And the cats, including Monty, looking for his forever home.
This story is so beautifully written, the characters so well crafted, and the relationships so well developed and laid out that I know No Place Like Home by Annabelle Jacobs is a story I will revisit again and again.  Looking for a special holiday story?  Look no further, here is one to treasure and one I highly recommend.
Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Universal Link
Book Details:
Kindle Edition, 1st edition, 218 pages
Published November 26th 2019
ASINB081TD3QC4
Length: 48,000 words approx.