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gillianw's review against another edition
4.0
Although I think it would be a mostly terrible idea IRL, I love books about MC's who fall for their bosses. Especially bosses that start off all aloof and remote until the funny and charming MC wins them over. I initially thought this would be a completely lighthearted story, but it certainly had some darker moments and moments of levity. Neither of these took away from my enjoyment of the novel. In fact, I thought it added to the story and made it more than a simple romance. 4 stars.
bitchie's review
4.0
When I first started this, I was a bit let down at not having Malin Lacroix's POV. With this type of story, I always like to have both sides, so that I know what's in the guy who's suddenly attracted to a man for the first time. However, once I finally got to the point of Malin telling Avery his story, I got it. I think, at least for this particular story, that it was better this way. This way, we shared in Avery's uncertainty, for one, and for two, we readers really got to feel it, just like Avery did, when Malin finally opened up. Since I didn't know what was coming, it affected me in the same way that it affected Avery, and that really worked for this story.
I won't pretend to understand Avery's sudden love of pain, and I don't understand for myself why reading about a guy getting his ass whipped, flogged, or spanked is ok, but face smacking feels a bit too close to abuse, but it worked for them, so I guess that's all that matters.
I did think that most of the time, Avery came across much younger than almost 32. He felt like, at most, early 20s, not like someone into his 30s, with apparently 3 degrees, living on his own for so long. Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy, he just seemed really young.
Avon Gale is turning into a flat out autobuy author for me, I've read three books so far, and really enjoyed them all.
I won't pretend to understand Avery's sudden love of pain, and I don't understand for myself why reading about a guy getting his ass whipped, flogged, or spanked is ok, but face smacking feels a bit too close to abuse, but it worked for them, so I guess that's all that matters.
I did think that most of the time, Avery came across much younger than almost 32. He felt like, at most, early 20s, not like someone into his 30s, with apparently 3 degrees, living on his own for so long. Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy, he just seemed really young.
Avon Gale is turning into a flat out autobuy author for me, I've read three books so far, and really enjoyed them all.
mdee's review against another edition
5.0
Wow I never would have guessed that this was a debut novel. It was awesome! I absolutely loved Avery. He could have easily fallen into an "annoying character" category, but he didn't. Instead I appreciated his sense of humor and ability to talk nonstop. On the other hand, it took me a while to warm up to Malin. I was infuriated on Avery's behalf when Malin refused to open up to Avery. But once he did, I understood why it took him so long to do so. As Malin opened up about his past, I started to see what Avery probably saw in him right from the beginning. No wonder Avery fell in love with him.
I'm so glad I took a chance on this book. It was so refreshing to finally read a book again that I could give 5 stars without another thought (I've been very picky lately). Highly recommended.
Spoiler
(I cried when I found out about Claudia and Julien and the tragic loss Malin suffered.)I'm so glad I took a chance on this book. It was so refreshing to finally read a book again that I could give 5 stars without another thought (I've been very picky lately). Highly recommended.
tinkcourtney's review against another edition
5.0
Even better the second time
I had mixed feelings about this when I first read it because the guys were getting involved with kink with little idea of what they were doing and even less communication. But you know what? I’m sure that happens sometimes. And what matters here is that they course corrected (with a bump or two along the way) and figured out what was right for them. Also, Avery is freaking hilarious and I adore him.
I had mixed feelings about this when I first read it because the guys were getting involved with kink with little idea of what they were doing and even less communication. But you know what? I’m sure that happens sometimes. And what matters here is that they course corrected (with a bump or two along the way) and figured out what was right for them. Also, Avery is freaking hilarious and I adore him.
leelee68's review against another edition
5.0
I don't normally read anything with BDSM in it, I will automatically skip it, it's just not one of my reading jams, but this book did sound good so I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did, it ended up being really good. I think the reason it was so good, Avery. I loved his personality. The BDSM part, they did not know what they were doing in the beginning, so yeah I winced a few times,It really wasn't that bad though at least to me ;-) . It's not all the book is about ,it's actually about Avery and Malin's relationship. It was hard to warm up to Malin at first(he really does have his reasons) but stick with him, he gets better for Malin , lol. I also enjoyed Avery's friends. BDSM is not going to automatically become my reading jam but I will be open to read a book that has BDSM in it, if it sounds good to me ;-)
bookish_notes's review against another edition
3.0
I'm waffling between giving this three and four stars. On the one hand, I love Avery and I really liked the story. However, there's some things about this book that rubbed me the wrong way (and I'm not talking about the BDSM). The book would have benefitted from a dual POV, but we only ever see Avery's side of the story. Avery is fun to read. He's a junior architect, 31-years-old, and starting to lose his cool that his boss won't approve a single one of his designs to submit for a proposal. He doesn't have the greatest opinion of his boss, Malin Lacroix, who is cold and distant. Avery is an extrovert, loud, and befriends everyone he meets. It isn't until one long day, after many hours of working together, that lines are crossed and Avery finds himself falling for his boss.
The sex scenes are hot. They're also more intense than some other BDSM romance novels I've read recently. But both Avery and Malin are completely inexperienced and sometimes things get taken a little bit too far. In addition to that, Malin is a mystery. We know nothing about the man until almost 80% of the way into the book. I mean, when he decides to take a trip with Avery into the middle of nowhere, for all the readers know, he could be taking Avery out into the woods to kill him. This isn't that kind of book. But, you just don't know Malin as a character for a majority of this novel, and when we do find out about his backstory, it's almost a little too late.
Around the 50% mark, you can start telling that the relationship, or whatever it is they have, isn't a healthy one. We get confirmation from all of Avery's friends that they're super worried about Avery and that Malin seems abusive. Warnings are just flying off everywhere in my mind and even at the end of the novel it's just hard to come back from that mindset and say that Malin is a totally awesome person or that the relationship between Avery and Malin is just misunderstood.
I liked Avery's friends. They're real supportive and a good sounding board for Avery. I kind of wish there was a spin-off novel for Harlan, because doesn't he deserve a HEA too? <333
So...some things about this book that I had issues with. There are no female characters in this story. Unless you count the ex-wife and a girl Avery hooked-up with over one weekend. Also, the double-talk, or the double-negatives, between Avery and Malin got extremely confusing and kept throwing me off near the end of the novel and I had to go back and re-read sentences to try to piece together what they meant. This isn't really an issue really, but just note that this story is written in third-person present. It's different, and I don't usually read books with third-person present, but Avery was a captivating character that made me keep reading this book.
And a few things that don't sit well with me in this story are all the bisexual jokes? Avery and his co-worker's boyfriend, Justin, are bisexual and the comments by a gay person that bisexuals are "half-gay" and the constant threesome jokes seem callous. There's also throwaway comments really didn't like that "introverts are so weird" or the constant internal dialogue where Avery keeps thinking that him liking BDSM means he's "weird".
I do like the story. Avery is a lovely character. There's an age difference between the love interests (Malin is 46) and hate-to-love romances are great but, unfortunately, there are some things that just really stuck out to me that I didn't like in this book. I'll still read the author's other books, so we'll see how that goes.
Maybe Lacroix is blackmailing him. A Disney prince should not date a Disney villain. This is madness.
The sex scenes are hot. They're also more intense than some other BDSM romance novels I've read recently. But both Avery and Malin are completely inexperienced and sometimes things get taken a little bit too far. In addition to that, Malin is a mystery. We know nothing about the man until almost 80% of the way into the book. I mean, when he decides to take a trip with Avery into the middle of nowhere, for all the readers know, he could be taking Avery out into the woods to kill him. This isn't that kind of book. But, you just don't know Malin as a character for a majority of this novel, and when we do find out about his backstory, it's almost a little too late.
He likes symmetry, just like Avery. Fucking architects. He should date an abstract impressionist or something.
Around the 50% mark, you can start telling that the relationship, or whatever it is they have, isn't a healthy one. We get confirmation from all of Avery's friends that they're super worried about Avery and that Malin seems abusive. Warnings are just flying off everywhere in my mind and even at the end of the novel it's just hard to come back from that mindset and say that Malin is a totally awesome person or that the relationship between Avery and Malin is just misunderstood.
I liked Avery's friends. They're real supportive and a good sounding board for Avery. I kind of wish there was a spin-off novel for Harlan, because doesn't he deserve a HEA too? <333
So...some things about this book that I had issues with. There are no female characters in this story. Unless you count the ex-wife and a girl Avery hooked-up with over one weekend. Also, the double-talk, or the double-negatives, between Avery and Malin got extremely confusing and kept throwing me off near the end of the novel and I had to go back and re-read sentences to try to piece together what they meant. This isn't really an issue really, but just note that this story is written in third-person present. It's different, and I don't usually read books with third-person present, but Avery was a captivating character that made me keep reading this book.
And a few things that don't sit well with me in this story are all the bisexual jokes? Avery and his co-worker's boyfriend, Justin, are bisexual and the comments by a gay person that bisexuals are "half-gay" and the constant threesome jokes seem callous. There's also throwaway comments really didn't like that "introverts are so weird" or the constant internal dialogue where Avery keeps thinking that him liking BDSM means he's "weird".
I do like the story. Avery is a lovely character. There's an age difference between the love interests (Malin is 46) and hate-to-love romances are great but, unfortunately, there are some things that just really stuck out to me that I didn't like in this book. I'll still read the author's other books, so we'll see how that goes.
scrow1022's review against another edition
5.0
I find it funny that people chose to read this based on the kink, somehow that escaped me in the descriptions. But I'll read anything by Avon Gale.
This was similar in pacing to the Scoring Chances books, and there was some similar character dynamics. But there was more at stake here. More opportunity for things to go wrong (especially since they did not know what they were doing when they started), which meant it was all the more lovely when they did manage to communicate and to change.
Love seeing an extrovert take care of their introvert.
It was interesting to only get Avery's perspective, but I admired the sly ways we managed to see Malin from other perspectives.
Another relationship that would have gone nowhere but for the intervention of friends. Advice, more in this case, and I liked seeing how Avery remembered that advice at opportune moments.
One review I saw said something about how the breath-play and pain stopped at a certain point in the relationship but I don't think that's true, we just didn't need to see it. That's one thing I like about her books - the sex that's depicted always serves a purpose in expressing what is going on in the relationship. I'm more than happy to read explicit descriptions of sex but it needs to have a reason to be on the page. There are so many tender (or hot, or otherwise significant) moments expressed in just a quick sentence and I admire and appreciate that about her writing. That's why I end up reading and rereading her books, this one included.
This was similar in pacing to the Scoring Chances books, and there was some similar character dynamics. But there was more at stake here. More opportunity for things to go wrong (especially since they did not know what they were doing when they started), which meant it was all the more lovely when they did manage to communicate and to change.
Love seeing an extrovert take care of their introvert.
It was interesting to only get Avery's perspective, but I admired the sly ways we managed to see Malin from other perspectives.
Another relationship that would have gone nowhere but for the intervention of friends. Advice, more in this case, and I liked seeing how Avery remembered that advice at opportune moments.
One review I saw said something about how the breath-play and pain stopped at a certain point in the relationship but I don't think that's true, we just didn't need to see it. That's one thing I like about her books - the sex that's depicted always serves a purpose in expressing what is going on in the relationship. I'm more than happy to read explicit descriptions of sex but it needs to have a reason to be on the page. There are so many tender (or hot, or otherwise significant) moments expressed in just a quick sentence and I admire and appreciate that about her writing. That's why I end up reading and rereading her books, this one included.
queenofswordsandwords's review
4.0
this is a tough one to rate because it was highly readable but one of the mcs is behaving horribly for most of the book and his past trauma doesn't excuse his actions.
they enter a weirdly toxic sexual relationship with bdsm elements with no safety protocols and one of the mcs gets hurts (emotionally and physically) and does all the work of trying to make this connexion they have into an official relationship where they get to know each other.
so i enjoyed the ride but i needed some sort of groveling instead of a tragic backstory.
CW : death of a spouse and a child, impact play with no previous training or knowledge that went too far (i'm not quite sure how to explain this)
they enter a weirdly toxic sexual relationship with bdsm elements with no safety protocols and one of the mcs gets hurts (emotionally and physically) and does all the work of trying to make this connexion they have into an official relationship where they get to know each other.
so i enjoyed the ride but i needed some sort of groveling instead of a tragic backstory.
CW : death of a spouse and a child, impact play with no previous training or knowledge that went too far (i'm not quite sure how to explain this)
frogy927's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book, but I wish there were an extra scene or two at the end to wrap things up. The ending felt kind of abrupt. Also, this felt like the second book in a three book series and I'm sad that it's not. I want to read about Justin and Brandon and Harlan and whoever he ends up with.