5 Star New Release Review: The Fortune Hunter by Bonnie Dee

Title: The Fortune Hunter

Author: Bonnie Dee

Publisher/GR Link: Goodreadss

Genre: MM Historical

Rating: 5 Stars!

Lock this book up: 3 keys!  Its hot and keeps the pages turning

Length: Novel

Satisfaction: HEA

Cover Impressions: What is not to love??

Summary: A man with nothing finds everything.
Abandoned at birth, WWI veteran Hal Stanton faces bleak employment prospects in post-war London. Desperation spurs him to reinvent himself to hook a wealthy wife, one he will be devoted to even if he feels no real passion. But when he meets his fiance’s cousin, Julian Needham, it’s all he can do to keep his heart in check and his eye on the prize.

From the moment he’s introduced to the charming stranger Margaret plans to marry, Julian suspects the man’s motives yet fights a relentless attraction. He’s determined to reveal Hal as a fraud but must handle the matter delicately to protect his sweet cousin’s feelings. A weekend at the family estate should allow time and opportunity for him to expose Halstead Wiley.

Even as the men match wits in a battle of attempted unmasking, powerful sexual attraction threatens to overcome them both and win the day. Can a true love connection possibly grow between these adversaries without destroying lives and loved ones?

Review: I have been a fan of Bonnie Dee for ages, and I was so excited to get a sneak peek at her newest release, and I was not at all disappointed!

In the Fortune Hunter we meet Hal, desperate to make his life into something better than he has had, he is looking to join the Needham household, a landed gentry family.  When he comes to meet Julian, the cousin of his betrothed, sparks fly.  Hal is so wonderfully sweet and strong, and Julian is so proper and yet so much in need of love and acceptance.  Ms. Dee masterfully walks the line with each character, and these men jump off the page.  I understood Hal and yearned for him to find the stability he had always been denied, and I wanted Julian to find the love he had denied himself.

The secondary cast of characters were great additions, and I loved the setting of the novel which really captures high society in the midst of major changes and adaptations.  I loved the nuances of the setting that really made this novel so realistic.

I cannot recommend this novel enough, especially for historical fans.  If you are an MM historical fan, no doubt your already know Ms. Dee by her work, but make sure not to let this one slip by you!

5 Star Book Review: Fool of Main Beach (Laguna #5), Tara Lain

Title: Fool of Main Beach (Laguna #5)

Author: Tara Lain

Publisher/GR Link: Dreamspinner Press, GR

Genre: MM Contemporary

Vice: Coming Out, Neurodiversity, actors

Rating: 5 Stars

Lock this book up: 4 keys- Tara Lain kept me locked to my kindle screen, with the fan aimed at me!

Length: Novel

Satisfaction: HEA

Cover Impressions: Gorgeous!  Love the look of the whole series together. 

Synopsis: Merle Justice wants to reach for the stars, but it’s tough to get respect when playing a teeny bopper vampire on TV. Then he meets a famous director anxious to give him all he thinks he wants—and maybe a bit more. Everything’s looking up until a life-threatening encounter with some homophobes on Main Beach puts Merle face-to-face with a Sasquatch-sized hero in a pink puffer coat.

Tom Henry defies description. As unsophisticated and simple as an angel, he walks through life content with who he is and asking for very little except to care for his sister, Lily, and the dogs he loves. Then he meets Merle, the embodiment of dreams he barely knows he has. Merle knows the people who hold his future in their hands might love Tom—but they’ll never understand Merle and Tom together. Tom knows it too. With lives this far apart, who’s really the fool of Main Beach?

Impressions:  I love Lain's Laguna series, and the book that kicked off the series is one of my all time favorites.  Her series made it to my top of 2016.  With this release, Lain rivals the magic of her first release in the series.

Merle is an actor at the top his commercial success who can't find the respect he wants as an artist and an actor.  When he escapes to Laguna where his friends (and our beloved cast of characters from books 1-4) he meets Tom, a handyman working on Merle's new house.

Merle is a great character. He is genuine and likable and he though he yearns for more in his field, he appreciates his fortune and the opportunities that have come his way.  When Tom rescues him on the beach, I fell in love! It is so hard to describe Tom and do him any justice.  Tom is both simple and at the same time he is so much more evolved than the people who typically surround Merle.  Lain does an amazing job with Tom.  He is not a shallow stereotype or a 2D character, he is a complex man who has to realize he deserves everything he wants and more.

I haven't wanted a couple to get their HEA as much as I wanted these guys to in a long time.  I stayed up all night to finish this, and I hope to see more of Merle and Tom, and especially Tom!

Highly recommended!

Title: What Remains

Author: Garrett Leight

Publisher/GR Link: Riptide, GR

Genre: MM Contemporary

Vice: Amnesia, Angst

Rating: 5 Stars

Lock this book up: 3 Keys. The focus of this book is romance, but the sex is hot and supports their love.

Length: Novel

Satisfaction: HEA/HFN

Cover Impressions: Love it!

Best Line: “The old Jodi was gone, and Rupert would mourn him forever, but this Jodi…Rupert loved him more than he would have ever believed possible…”

Synopsis: Web designer Jodi Peters is a solitary creature. Lunch twice a week with his ex-girlfriend-turned-BFF and the occasional messy venture to a dodgy gay bar is all the company he needs, right?

Then one night he stumbles across newly divorced firefighter Rupert O’Neil. Rupert is lost and lonely, but just about the sweetest bloke Jodi has ever known. Add in the heady current between them, and Jodi can’t help falling hard in love. He offers Rupert a home within the walls of his cosy Tottenham flat—a sanctuary to nurture their own brand of family—and for four blissful years, life is never sweeter.

Until a cruel twist of fate snatches it all away. A moment of distraction leaves Jodi fighting for a life he can’t remember and shatters Rupert’s heart. Jodi doesn’t know him—or want to. With little left of the man he adores, Rupert must cling to what remains of his shaky faith and pray that Jodi can learn to love him again.

Impressions:  Garrett Leigh is becoming one of my go-to authors, and it is books like this that make me love her work.  This book was amazing, and gave me the ability to get lost with her characters and their lives.

This was a great book.  It was hard to read about the loss that Rupert and Jodi experienced.  I really connected with both of them, and I loved the way that their backstory was woven into their modern tale. 

When their relationship took such a turn, it was heartbreaking.  Though it was difficult at times, I really appreciate how Leigh wrote about the ups and downs in a realistic and moving way.  There was no magical cure or Prince Charming kiss, but rather a love that connected and drew two men back to each other and to the love that supported them since the first time they met.

I strongly recommend this read.  I started it and finished it in one day because I couldn’t put it down.