Book 992: The New Next One (Bethesda Barracudas #1.5) – Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood

If there is one book in this series that I am not happy with, it’s this one. Not because it’s poorly written or anything, it’s the same as all the others. I’m grumpy that Amazon doesn’t allow for half-books in their series listing resulting in me reading this thinking it was book two of the series when in reality it’s book 0.5 of the series that tells us Nick’s backstory.

Some of that is on me because I could’ve (and should’ve) looked at Goodreads to see the series’ order, but I didn’t. So, I just blazed into this one and then immediately was like wait WTF is happening?

After figuring out what was going on I was able to step back and then enjoy the story for what it was: a friends-to-lovers, first love, coming-of-age romance novel.

The novel takes place at Nick’s boarding school where he and his best friend, Tyler, have played hockey together for four years. Nick has had a crush on Tyler the entire four years and unbeknownst to Nick, Tyler has had a crush on him. After a big win and a party, they end up hooking up in the library and falling madly in love.

It’s young love and they have sex all over the campus and they are insatiable. Two things bothered me about the sex scenes: they were in high school and they named their dicks. I forgot to mention this in the last review because Nick’s was named the same and he named Jacob’s dick Jake Junior.” And frankly, it’s just weird. I really hope it doesn’t happen throughout the series because nobody wants that. It’s almost more understandable in this novel because they’re ridiculous teenagers, but seriously don’t.

Once again, the crisis of this novella is whether Nick should come out. He’s all in on this relationship, just like he’ll eventually be with Jacob. I’ll give him that at least, when he loves he really does with his entire being and he is not willing to hide it. That being said, it leads to the crisis where they win the school championship, but Nick’s been turned down by the big hockey schools. An alum (Drew from book 3) comes back to campus and tells Nick he did an awesome job and connects him with the college he ends up going to ruining his and Tyler’s plans to be together in college.

My favorite part of this one, looking back is the guest appearances of protagonists from other books. Not only do we get to see Tyler (and Kevin, briefly) from book two, but also drew from book three! There may have been other mentions but those three stand out because they had pretty big roles to play in this prequel.

Recommendation: For a Kindle Unlimited novel, it’s a decent read. It’s definitely been edited and proofread which is a pretty low bar. When you add in that the story kept me engaged, the sex scenes were well written, and Nick’s character only grew in depth, it’s worth the read. I’m not sure I would’ve liked it as much if I’d read it first not knowing Nick’s future, but I might’ve. I will say I did not sign up for their email list to get book 2.5. I honestly HATE when authors do that.

Opening Line: “Thunderous noise swept the arena, and my heart almost leaped out of my chest.”

Closing Line: “I’m sure I’m destined to meet him one day, and when I do, I’ll never let him go.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)