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US (HIM #2) by SARINA BOWEN and ELLE KENNEDY

March 7, 2016

Profile portrait of businessman working on laptop in black suit at studio

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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amazon

4 and a half Stars

“Love is friendship set on fire. I get it now.”

AHHHHHH!!!! Smoking hot, sweet, SEXXXXY and emotional!! This book has it all!! Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy write some of the best new adult romance today and they hit it out of park again (or made a goal??) with US. I fell in love all over again with Jamie Canning and Ryan Wesley. If you are looking to try a MM story, I highly recommend this series. It is pure romance!

Wes and Jamie are faced with the real-life pressures of a modern couple when Wes travels with his pro team and Jamie begins a job coaching. Added to the stress of their relationship is that fact that Wes is still hiding his relationship with Jamie. It pained me to suffer alongside both Wes and Jamie when they could not go public with their relationship. A sudden, devastating illness makes everything very clear to Wes and finally gives these two some of the normalcy that other couples enjoy. Leave it to these two authors to write an engaging, hot, funny and very sentimental story that shows the reader that love is for everyone.

I also adored Blake, who was funny and a true friend. Hello, he deserves his own book!! US is a wonderfully romantic and incredibly sexy story about two people in love. This book will have you cheering, laughing, clutching your heart and fanning yourself. What more can you ask for? Kudos to Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy for another beautiful story in this series.

(ARC provided by the authors in return for an honest review.)

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EXCERPT:

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.

PURCHASE HIM (HIM #1):

amazon

Categories : 4.5 Stars, Contemporary M/M Romance, Sports Tagged : Elle Kennedy, Excerpt, Him, Sarina Bowen, Us

HIM by SARINA BOWEN and ELLE KENNEDY

July 27, 2015

Profile portrait of businessman working on laptop  in black suit at studio

They don’t play for the same team. Or do they?

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Ryan Wesley’s biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he’ll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend…and a big one to learn about himself.

Warning: contains sexual situations, skinnydipping, shenanigans in an SUV and proof that coming out to your family on social media is a dicey proposition

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4.5 STARS!!

HIM is a totally sexy story mixed with the perfect amount of sweet, passionate romance. Wes and Jamie are absolutely delicious together. Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy have become two of my favorite authors!!

I read a fair amount of M/M romance books, so I approached HIM with a wary eye. Would it have enough steam for me? Would the two heroes only dance around their attraction for each other, but never really get down to business? Would the dialogue be witty enough to hold my pathetically short attention span?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding YES!!

Because I adored Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus series and loved Sarina Bowen’s The Shameless Hour, I was thrilled to be able to read their collaboration together. And once I started reading HIM, I literally could NOT put this book down! Jamie Canning and Ryan ‘Wes’ Wesley were perfectly real characters to me and the writing style so seamless, that I could not tell which author wrote which chapter, scene or verse. Even if you’re new to the M/M genre, I highly recommend this book for the witty banter, sexy times and catchy plot. Two hot hockey players? Yes please!!

Jamie and Wes were childhood friends who lost touch after a youthful incident that caused an unfortunate miscommunication. Lo and behold, they run into each other years later and both realize that they have been the “missing link” in each other’s lives. But does Jamie just want to be friends with Wes? Set among the world of college hockey, HIM delivers the perfect amount of hot, dirty, sweet emotion as both Wes and Jamie learn to come to terms with their true feelings. Wes has always loved Jamie and finds it difficult to keep their relationship platonic.

“As I watch Jamie Canning stop another dizzying slap shot. As I admire the grace and deadly precision with which he moves.

My weakness is him.”

I absolutely LOVED how the authors wrote a seamless story that perfectly illustrated the difficulties that gay sports players must face. Wes and Jamie were perfectly suited for each other, even if Jamie at first was reluctant to admit his true feelings for Wes. And Wes, on the other hand, is a total commitment-phone, never allowing anyone to get too close, and hopping from meaningless encounter to another.

“The fact that he’d been the first guy I ever loved and the one who made me face some terrifying things about myself…well, all that will go unsaid.”

HIM is a feel-good sports romance that happens to feature two fabulously sexy male protagonists. It is perfect for die-hard readers of M/M romance as well as for readers who are new to the genre. I adored this book and hope that Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy collaborate on many more books in the future!

(I received an ARC in return for an honest review.)

HIM1

Connect with Sarina:


https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7737308.Sarina_Bowen
http://www.sarinabowen.com
www.twitter.com/sarinabowen
www.facebook.com/authorsarinabowen

Connect with Elle:


ttps://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1935000.Elle_Kennedy​
http://ellekennedy.com
http://www.twitter.com/ellekennedy
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorElleKennedy

Buy the book:

Categories : 4.5 Stars, Contemporary M/M Romance, M/M Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Sports-Hockey Tagged : Elle Kennedy, Him, Sarina Bowen

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