Books

Book 1,014: Find Me Worthy (Safe Harbor #3) – Annabeth Albert

Of the three books in Annabeth Albert’s Safe Harbor trilogy, this one was by far my favorite. I won’t say it’s unfortunate that you need to read the other two to get to this one, because they’re still well written books, but you do have to read the two of them to truly appreciate this book due to the underlying murder mystery that ties them together.

Find Me Worthy is the story of Sam, the slightly younger (I imagine slightly nerdy) do-gooder that idolized Monroe (from Bring Me Home), Holden (from Make Me Stay), and Worth, the other protagonist of this novel who fled as soon as he could after his mother disappeared and buried himself in first an MBA and then a high-stakes finance job that’s come crashing down around him.

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Books

Book 1,013: Make Me Stay (Safe Harbor #2) – Annabeth Albert

If there is a theme to Albert’s Safe Harbor series it is a little bit too much. Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad books, each one just has one or two too many elements for me. They’re still very well written character driven stories, there’s just too much going on for my personal tastes.

I’m not sure if this falls under the hurt/comfort or maybe (hurt/comfort)2, but it is somewhere in that category. Both main characters have trauma they start to overcome in this novel. Then you throw in the murder mystery and the kinky sex, it’s a lot.

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Books

Book 935: Dream Boy – Jim Grimsley

Bare with me for a moment as I go on a tangent. Recently, I’ve been obsessed with re-watching the Netflix adaptation of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper series and I  couldn’t realize why other than it’s a fantastic series and adaptation, but then I read this book and it all clicked into place: queer joy.

Growing up in the 1990s/early-2000s I’d say 85%+ of all depictions of LGBT characters were tragic or left to interpretation and this is a prime example of that. Having the opportunity to watch Charlie and Nick in Heartstopper as they discover happiness and joy, even with setbacks, mental health issues, and added TV drama, is just such a wonderful feeling of relief and joy that I float along every time I watch it or listen to the soundtrack or think about it. And this is in stark contrast to Roy and Nathan, the protagonists of Grimsley’s second foray into the novel.

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Books

Book 808: Galaxies and Oceans – N.R. Walker

I grabbed this after seeing Annabeth Albert talk about it in either her Facebook group or on her email list. I’ve read quite a bit of Walker and enjoyed her for the most part, but to hear Albert rave about this one I was like “uhhhh, duh I’m going to read it.”

Thankfully Kindle Unlimited had it and I was able to read it sooner rather than later 😀

Galaxies and Oceans starts off with the harrowing journey of Aubrey, running away from his past life  carrying only his grandfather’s telescope and staging his own death in a brush fire, and eventually running into Patrick, a lonely lighthouse keeper dealing with the death of his partner in a storm on a fishing boat a few years prior.

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ARC, Books

Book 795: Keeping Casey (Keeping Him #1) – Amy Aislin

I said yes to this one when Gay Romance Reviews offered it because I love a MM Sports Romance and hockey in particular thanks to Ngozi Ukazu.* And it didn’t hurt that the last book I read by Aislin was a hockey romance and it was a decent read.

Keeping Casey introduces us to Ethan, a demisexual gay man who has a medical condition that will one day prematurely end his hockey career who is in love with his best friend, Casey, an archaeology nerd who has been avoiding the grief of his father’s death for years and happens to also be in love with Ethan. They just don’t talk about it until after Casey volunteers as Ethan’s fake boyfriend because of a homophobic teammate. Love a fake boyfriend story!

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