US
Him #2
Releasing March 8th 2016
255 Pages
Publisher: Rennie Road Books
Genre: New Adult | M/M Romance | Sports Romance
Series: Him | Format: E-ARC | Source: Author
Book Summary
Can your favorite hockey players finish their first season together undefeated?
Five months in, 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?
Warning: contains sexual situations, a vibrating chair, long-distance sexytimes, and proof that hockey players look hot in any shade of green.
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Excerpt
From US by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy:
At long last, I’m twenty paces away, then ten. Then I’m opening our door. “Hey babe!” I call out like I always do. “I made it.” I drag my duffel over the threshold, then toss my suit coat on top, abandoning these things beside the door, because all I need now is a kiss.
Only then do I notice that our apartment smells amazing. Jamie has cooked dinner for me. Again. He is the perfect man, I swear to God.
“Hey!” he calls, emerging from the hallway leading to our bedroom. He’s wearing jeans and nothing else except—and this is unusual—a beard. “Do I know you?” He gives me a sexy smile.
“I was going to ask the same thing.” I’m staring at the sandy-blond beard. Jamie has always been clean-shaven. I mean—we’ve known each other since before facial hair. He looks different. Older, maybe.
And hot as blazes. Seriously, I can’t wait to feel that beard against my face, and maybe my balls… Jesus. The blood is already rushing south, and I’ve been home fifteen seconds.
And yet I’m just stuck there in the middle of the room for a moment, because even though it’s been eight months since Jamie and I started up together, I’m still a little stunned at my own good fortune. “Hi,” I say again, stupidly.
He walks forward, his easy gait so familiar that my heart breaks a little bit. He puts his hands on my traps and squeezes the muscle there. “Don’t go away for so long. If you do that again, I’m going to have to sneak into your hotel room on the road.”
“Promise?” I ask, and it comes out like gravel. He’s close enough now that I can smell the ocean scent of his shampoo and the beer he drank while he waited for me.
“If I ever get a winning lottery ticket and a day off, I’ll do it,” he says. “Hotel sex after a game? Sounds hot.”
Now I’m measuring the distance to our sofa and counting the layers of clothes I’ll need to remove in the next ninety seconds.
My Thoughts
*ARC provided by authors in exchange for a fair and honest review*
The thing I love about Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy’s HIM series is that in both currently published books, the writing is impeccable and the characters so compellingly realistic that every single page draws me in deeper and deeper into the story. It was as I fell deeper and deeper into US that I fell more and more in love with Jamie and Wes. I think these two men are so unbelievably genuine and so utterly real that I half expect them to pop up in my real life somewhere over the course of a day. And maybe they do.
What I loved in this book the most is the fact that we got to see Wes and Jamie doing their best to make their romantic relationship work between them while also silently acknowledging that it isn’t as easy as they thought it would be, and that keeping their relationship hidden from their co-workers and friends-from the world-is taking a huge toll on them both.
I felt bad for Jamie because Wes’s need to keep their relationship a secret put him in an awkward position in so many ways. He came to terms with his bisexuality last summer, but doing so didn’t magically make Wes any more ready to tell his teammates he’s gay, or that Jamie is his live-in partner, and it’s that lack of readiness—and also Wes’s fear of losing his career and Jamie’s own inability to effectively communicate—that makes things so difficult for Jamie and Wes in this book.
US is an amazing, emotional, fast-paced, and sexy read that I couldn’t put down. It is an exceedingly well-written love story that captured my heart right from the start. In fact, there isn’t a single part of Jamie and Wes’s journey in this book that I didn’t love. It’s just so good, so amazingly perfect, and it captivated me in a way only a few other books I’ve read this year have managed to achieve. I absolutely loved it.
Rating: 5 Stars
About the Authors
About Sarina Bowen
Sarina Bowen is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance and New Adult fiction from the wilds of Vermont.
Sarina enjoys skiing, coffee products and a nice glass of wine. She lives with her family, six chickens and more ski gear and hockey equipment than seems necessary.
She would be honored to connect with you at her website. You can also follow her on…
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sign up for her Newsletter to stay up to date with her latest releases.
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About Elle Kennedy
A New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Elle Kennedy grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario, and holds a B.A. in English from York University. From an early age, she knew she wanted to be a writer, and actively began pursuing that dream when she was a teenager.
Elle writes romantic suspense and erotic contemporary romance for various publishers. She loves strong heroines and sexy alpha heroes, and just enough heat and danger to keep things interesting!
You can find out more about Elle Kennedy on her website or follow her at:
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