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Book 959: The Dove in the Belly – Jim Grimsley

When I finished re-reading Dream Boy back in May, I did a quick search to see what Jim Grimsley was up to these days and stumbled across this upcoming release. I reached out to the publisher for a copy and crossed my fingers it wasn’t going to be as traumatic or emotionally draining as the others I’ve read.*

The Dove in the Belly is the story of Ronny and Ben. It takes place on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in the 1970s and that’s the main reason I wanted to read this, Grimsley went to UNC and having it set on the UNC campus intrigued me as I also went to UNC and remember some of the history around the early LGBT organizations and experiences on campus.

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Book 954: Heat Wave (The Extraordinaries #3) – T.J. Klune

After the cliffhanger of Flash Fire, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I was approved for a copy a few months ago and of course, sat on it for too long and missed the archive date.* Thankfully, I had downloaded a copy so was able to finish it up on the plane flying out to Chicago earlier this week.

The beginning was a little bit rough as there seemed to be a key piece of information missing from the story, but I figured out pretty quickly what was going on. It was all connected to the cliffhanger of Flash Fire so spoiler warning for after the jump.

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Book 953: Stronger Than Passion (Chesapeake Days #2) – Katherine McIntyre

Coming off Stronger Than Hope, I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to read the next one in the series. There were just enough little annoyances in it that I wasn’t convinced. However, when this landed in my inbox I thought why not give McIntyre another chance, see if the same issues showed up again.*

I called Nico being one of the protagonists of this book but had no clue who the second would be. We find ourselves with a classic enemies-to-lovers trope. Nico Shah, the owner and proprietor of the local town bar who is a one-night-stand only kind of guy, is forced to work with Hudson West, the pretty boy with a presumed-trust fund who runs the high-end classy restaurant of the town. They don’t get on because of numerous misunderstandings, but they slowly fall for each other as they work together.

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Book 947: Hot Pursuit (The Hot Cannolis #3) – Eli Easton

It was a little surprising to see that this one was only written by Eli Easton but I found out that what I  believe will be the final book in the series, Hot Lips, will be authored by Tara Lain. That being said, it didn’t stop me from requesting this one when it landed in my inbox!* I knew Rick’s story would be good and it was definitely good.

Hot Pursuit is the story of Rick and John. Rick is Mike (from Hot Seat) and Donny’s (from Hot Wings) uncle and is a homicide detective and recently came out to some of his family in support of Donny. He’s assigned a new partner, John, who has a chip on his shoulder for some reason and caught Rick’s attention even before he was assigned as his partner.

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Book 946: Just by Looking at Him – Ryan O’Connell

If I’m 100% honest I first was drawn to this book because of the cover art, a cropped version of Henry Scott Tuke’s The Critics (Wikiart link). Tuke does water like no one else and they pumped up the blues and greens on the cover.

Then when you add the title of the painting to what the main character does for a living: mind blown. So THEN I realized this was the same Ryan O’Connell who created, wrote, and starred in Special on Netflix, and of course, I requested a copy.*

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