"Chad Anderson’s new house is...older. When he pulled up one of the floorboards, he was horrified to discover termites in the wood. So they’re having the premises fumigated.

Chad just moved to Houston, Texas from Boston a couple of weeks ago, right after he graduated high school.

With the fumigation needing 48 hours, Chad is going to stay with his neighbor, Rory.

Rory is built! He’s in his late 30s and he has a fantastic body.

The men have immediate, strong sexual tension. They bond over sharing work out regimens and talk of the sports they each participate in.

Great variety. A lot of patience from Rory. Fairly accurate and realistic; very hot."

"This was excellent—funny, sensible and very more-ish.

Patrick's got a life he's happy with, thank you very much. A life, three pleasant daughters, and a house with...potential. Sure, his wife's walked out on the whole family, his kids are pushing for a puppy and for him to date, and he's having inconvenient dreams about the man he walked away from 15 years ago. But still. It's all good.
I really enjoyed this long-set up, mainly because the children are (if not completely believable) certainly very good value, and it's good to see the familial respect (which goes both ways) behind the top-quality snark.

Matt's re-entrance into this more-than-OK life is just as jarring for the reader as for Patrick, blind-sided by the scheming charm offensive that's immediately blasted at him. Matt is not altogether sympathetically portrayed to begin with: there's a touch of the entitled force-of-nature to him & the second half of the story shows his gradual rehabilitation. I loved the way that the MCs' coming together was shown through their music, both symbolically (they write a song together) & physically (in sharing a piano stool).

The story's predominantly from Patrick's POV, and I was relieved that Ainsley North allowed him to be mature about the whole Matt-barging-in thing. There's a tendency in second-chance stories for the POV MC to waffle around, to be uber-silly and teenager-y, to allow themselves to be pushed about. Fortunately, Patrick doesn't oblige. He's in his 30s, he's an awesome father & has his own successful career: he doesn't revert to stupid dramatics, but stands his ground. At least for a bit—the second half of the book moves very much faster than the first and I'd have appreciated just a little more time for things to work out.

If I were going to quibble (which I don't really want to do, because this was hugely enjoyable) I'd have paid more attention to the "this is Book 1" bit. I was mildly frustrated that there wasn't more about Patrick's marriage, or what exactly went wrong with Mattrick first time round. Also, because the timeline is pretty short, the ending, while satisfying, is essentially a HFN. Hopefully these dangling threads will get resolved in Book 2 & you can bet I'll be pre-ordering as soon as there's a date.

Anyway, I'm highly recommending this. Maybe not quite DIK status, but Ainsley North has taken a standard trope & lifted it with excellent & witty dialogue, a focus on the MCs and just a straightforward maturity about what's going on.

PS - the blurb on Amazon compares this to "Red White & Royal Blue". Um...no? Other than US-set & m/m, there are precisely zero points in common. Like, NONE. Who writes these things?

Cover design by Kelley @anotherwellkeptsecret (Tumblr). Not bad, but the characters look too young, it took me ages to work out that Matt is holding a microphone, not sure why "Sleeve" occupies so much space, and Book I just didn't register. But not AI, so that's a win."

"“I would’ve welcomed some noise to break the quiet. I would’ve welcomed anything to distract me on the night when I might sign my life away for two million dollars.�


Alistair Briggs has been drawn into doing undercover work by Dr. Larson and his sinister cronies.

Alistair is an introvert. Soft, kind, apologetic…doormat.

And Alistair is in dire straits. Relationship problems, on the cusp of eviction, and trouble—severely anxious, paranoid, and agoraphobic.

Travis Findlay, a high-ranking member of the Sixth Cartel�

Training. Studying. Mimicking. Practicing. The new technology of the performance shell. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

When you become someone else—when you’re forced to—how can you maintain your identity? And what happens when the aforementioned “someone else� is a terrible person?


“The conditioning was complete. I no longer needed the mechanical shell. I’d shed it like a snakeskin, and I was flesh again.�"