Tag: M/M

Book Review: Us by Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen

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Genre: 

New Adult, cialis 40mg Romance

Pages: 

328 pages

Part of a Series?:

Him #2

Release Date: 

March 8th, search 2016

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

iBooks

Elle’s Website / Sarina’s Website

GoodReads Summary: 

Five months in, side effects NHL forward Ryan Wesley is having a record-breaking rookie season. He’s living his dream of playing pro hockey and coming home every night to the man he loves—Jamie Canning, his longtime best friend turned boyfriend. There’s just one problem: the most important relationship of his life is one he needs to keep hidden, or else face a media storm that will eclipse his success on the ice.

Jamie loves Wes. He really, truly does. But hiding sucks. It’s not the life Jamie envisioned for himself, and the strain of keeping their secret is taking its toll. It doesn’t help that his new job isn’t going as smoothly as he’d hoped, but he knows he can power through it as long as he has Wes. At least apartment 10B is their retreat, where they can always be themselves.

Or can they?

When Wes’s nosiest teammate moves in upstairs, the threads of their carefully woven lie begin to unravel. With the outside world determined to take its best shot at them, can Wes and Jamie develop major-league relationship skills on the fly?

My Review:

I loved this book. I love both Elle and Sarina and I think they both have such a way with romance, especially when it has a hockey element in it, and I loved loved loved this sequel to their first novel, Him.

I just gotta say…the biggest reason why I loved this book so much is because of the realism of it. And there are two parts to that. One…I love that Jamie and Wes don’t just live happily ever after after book one. Relationships are hard work. They aren’t all sunshine and rainbows as much as we wish they were. Some books and movies just paint relationships as so perfect. We never really get to see what happens AFTER the kiss, you know what I mean? The fact that there are struggles in this relationship, and there are ups and downs, and they have to fight for each other, even when they sometimes don’t feel like it, just made the book feel so much more real to me.

And the second part of that is…I’ve only had experience with heterosexual relationships. And I connected with this so much. Which just shows again and again and again how much you can connect with love and friendship and affection and compassion and all of that, whether its a heterosexual and homosexual relationship. I loved every minute of that.

Plus I just adore Jamie and Wes so much. Everything about them is so genuine, so real, and I wish I knew them in real life because I would so want to be friends with them. Except I wouldn’t interrupt them so often like the others… ;)

Also, I just don’t think anyone is as capable as causing my cheeks to go as red during steamy scenes the way these two do! I know that I definitely use them as inspiration when I write my own NA. Those scenes are just so good, and I read a good chunk of this book in public, which was even better, because no one knew what was going on with my red cheeks haha.

 

Rating: 

4 out of 5 stars

Book Review: Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

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Genre: 

New Adult, help Contemporary, this site Romance

Pages: 

276 pages

Part of a Series?:

Standalone Novel

Release Date: 

July 28th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

iBooks

Sarina’s Website / Elle’s Website

GoodReads Summary: 

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Ryan Wesley’s biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he’ll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend…and a big one to learn about himself.

My Review:

Warning: The following review is based on a book that features a male on male relationship. Yes, this book is sexy and awesome but if you are uncomfortable with this, please click away now. And probably never come back. 

I just read this book a few days ago and I am in love love love love love with it. The first time I ever read a male on male relationship was in Sarina Bowen’s The Understatement of the Year and I knew that I was totally hooked on books like this. I adore both of these authors so so so much and I’ve been pushing them on pretty much every single person I know and I was ECSTATIC when I learned they were writing a hockey book about two guys falling in love, and they were writing it TOGETHER.

Rewind to a few nights ago when this book was released. I had preordered it in order to get it around 9 pm so I could stay up all night and finish it. That was the plan. Then I had some last minute things go through on my debit card and I didn’t have enough money for the preorder to go through. I was so SAD. Luckily, a good friend of mine sent me an Amazon gift card and I was able to buy it. Saved by Chris! You rock, Chris. I’m just saying.

I stayed up all night to read it and I just…I love everything about this book. I love that it had two beautiful hockey boys. I love the romance and the friendship between those two characters. I love that you can hear both Sarina and Elle’s voices in the book but they write so beautifully together and its just perfect. I love that they teach younger kids about hockey, the way they learned it as kids. I love the sex scenes because holy moly, grab me a cold washcloth, those things were steamy as hell! But what I loved the most about this book was the character of Jamie.

There are not enough bisexual characters in YA and NA and as someone who is bisexual and struggles to keep her anger in check at the completely misunderstanding of what that means…it means a lot to have a character like Jamie in the book. While I definitely adore Wes to no end, I think the person I fell in love with the most was Jamie. Jamie struggles to figure out who he is. He likes girls but he loves Wes too, and its a hard thing to go through. Its confusing as hell but I love how fearless he can be and I love that he feels this attraction and he has these feelings for his best friend and he just goes for it. I LOVE Jamie Canning so much. I wish he was a real person that I could just hug and love and be friends with because Elle and Sarina created a great character in him. He’s real and genuine and familiar and I connected with him from beginning to end.

But just like both of these authors tend to do…they made me laugh and cry and they made me want a cold shower STAT and they just wrote an incredibly GREAT romance novel about two people trying to figure shit out and finding each other in the process. I can’t speak highly enough of Elle and Sarina and their books and I love that they wrote a book together and I loved every minute of the book they wrote together. Brava, ladies, please do it again sometime soon!

Rating: 

3.75 out of 5 Stars