Books

Book 620: Delivered Fast (Portland Heat #3) – Annabeth Albert

Flew through this one like the first two, basically reading one a day (on my commute to/from work) and maybe 20-30 minutes before bed. I started to see some of Albert’s tropes that she depends on/works into every story, but I’ll get to that.

Albert continues to diversify her characters and their relationships. In this novel we have Chris, the aging disgruntled restaurateur (the same restaurant that the others visit or supply bread for), and Lance, the young undergrad delivery boy from Vic’s bakery and the development of their relationship. It’s not a crazy amount of age difference (12 years), but Chris has a major hang up on it.

Albert toed the line with whether or not it annoyed me on how much Chris harped on about the age difference. Thankfully a lot of it was internal or else I feel so many characters would’ve been annoyed as hell about Chris and his whinging constantly about the age difference between him and Lance. Maybe it also just got to me as I feel like Chris is roughly my age and I’m an crotchety old 34, but come on I’m not even this bad.

There were some great one liners in this book as well and I may have found my life mantra in the first one 😀

“Thou shalt not Google the hot twink, I lectured myself before that idea could take hold.” (Loc. 183)

“Maybe I wouldn’t end up with the shiny chrome model, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go out, kick the tires, maybe find a serviceable Yamaha to spend a few forgettable hours with.” (Loc. 240)

That line was perfectly hilarious—I mean it’s not just hot twinks, it’s everyone really. And then the way Chris talked about going out to pick up a guy on a night out was just too funny.

We also got a bit more connection to the other books in this novel in that Vic from Baked Fresh actually made an appearance in this novel and Brady from the next book, Knit Close, plays a decent part in these books:

“Brady was my longest current employee, but before him, my best employee had been my friend Robby. He had his own coffee cart now, a bustling business in a downtown office building. I hadn’t seen him in forever, though, other than in passing on Sunday mornings. He had a boyfriend now: a nerdy, bookish type who made him sickeningly happy. No way on earth was I dragging my relationship problems over to him.” (Loc. 1,562)

Now on to what I think may be Albert’s tell, is that in every book she has at least one of her characters really puzzle over how sex isn’t just sex with the other main character. She actually has them say it’s making love and that’s in EVERY. SINGLE. BOOK. I wish I would’ve highlighted it, but I realized it when I read the last book in this series and then another stand alone book she wrote with Wendy Qualls.

There’s nothing wrong with this and it’s actually quite sweet when they happen, but it was like uh they could just have mind boggling intimate sex without calling it making love. I mean is there an alternative name? Who knows but it really stood out to me for some reason.

Recommendation: Series is getting better. There was a bit more walking-the-walk in this book in that the characters said they wanted to do something and they did it (switching up their sexual positions) and I always appreciate that. I was annoyed with Chris, but it wasn’t so much that I couldn’t finish the book.

Opening Line: “The delivery boy had sweet buns.”

Closing Line: “I wanted pictures of all these little moments that added up to a life together. An adventure.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Other Books in the Portland Heat Series

Additional Quotes from Delivered Fast
“Lord, that boy was trouble, but I was too old and jaded to get distracted by a nice ass and full pink lips. I hoped.” (Loc. 96)

“If Lance were simply a pretty boy, he’d be easy to resist. But add in intelligent smart-ass to the mix and my whole body perked up like someone had parked a Ducati out back and invited me to take a test-drive.” (Loc. 214)

“Every time his thick thighs brushed mine or his muscular back rubbed against my front, little drops of sunshine rained down on me. He was a disco ball in human form, and I was happy to let him hypnotize me.” (Loc. 276)

“He was like my favorite quilt—cuddly yet substantial, with all sorts of interesting layers and textures, and I wanted to sink into him.” (Loc. 732)

“We weren’t dating. We weren’t lovers. We weren’t falling for each other. This wasn’t a fairy tale. We were just two dudes who happened to mesh really well together, getting our rocks off.” (Loc. 1,065)

“…it’s not how much you want something, it’s how much you work for your wants.” (Loc. 1,161)

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