READING: The Foxhole Court (All for the Game #1) by Nora Sakavic

Publication date: January 15 2013
Published by: Nora Sakavic
Genre: Contemporary, Advertised as YA BUT IT'S NOT!, Adult, Sports, College
Rating:

Neil Josten is the newest addition to the Palmetto State University Exy team. He's short, he's fast, he's got a ton of potential—and he's the runaway son of the murderous crime lord known as The Butcher.

Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn't need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed.

But Neil's not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil's new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can't walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he's finally found someone and something worth fighting for.

I didn't like this book 😕 I found it weird and off-putting.

Let's go through the GOOD parts first: I found the story interesting enough to offset the bad parts, and what ultimately made me continue reading. I liked Neil's background story in particular, with all his history of abuse and very dark past (I'm a sucker for a tormented soul, what can I do?) I found his difficulty to trust people and his struggle for survival genuine and well presented through his POV. A lot of readers were put off by mafia stuff being thrown in an NA sports book, but it didn't really bother me. I guess when you put it in actual words it does sound ridiculous but trust me, that was the least of this book's problem!

And now the BAD: the characters. All of them! They were impossible to like. Nicky, Andrew, Aaron and Seth in particular. Not that everyone else was great and they stood out, they were all bad. But those four really took the cake.
Where do I begin? The casual jokes about rape? The roofying? The obvious threats to someone's life? The constant mocking and derogatory comments? The homophobic slurs? ... among others. I don't like to use the word "psychotic" because psychosis is actually a serious mental illness. These guys were, simply put, major assholes. Freaking spoiled brats who happen to play a sport, and they think they're all that. Ugh, I hated them so much. I found no redeeming quality in any of them. They were all scum, and I can't think of a reason other readers might like them. It doesn't matter to me if their behaviours are going to be explained away in the next books. I read this one, and in this one, there was no explanation and no excuses. They were just disgusting human beings-end of story. And also, I highly doubt Sakavic would find an explanation that is convincing enough. Neil had an abusive and sad past, he didn't act this way.
The team's Coach was a full-on enabler, giving them drugs and alcohol and talking to them like they were delinquents, which ok, fair enough.

I still don't know what the point of Kevin was. His story and what happened with the Ravens could get someone to read the second book (not me), but he, again, was all fake machismo and toxic masculinity. I thought that had died with Twilight and the whole NA genre, no? I guess I'm too old for this shit, because I seriously can't stand it.

I have no idea why this book is advertised and marketed as an MM romance, because it's not. There is not even a slight hint of romance in this and to be quite frank, I found it refreshing. Imagine if on top of all this verbal and physical abuse, there was a romance out of nowhere? No, thank you.

Braver people than me have read the next two books. I think I might skip them. I have no time in my life for books that bring me down, and this one was a huge bummer for all the wrong reasons.
If the second book is so miraculously amazing as the ratings seem to show, I'll just have to take your word for it. 🤷

READING: Part & Parcel (Sidewinder #3) by Abigail Roux

Publication date: December 19 2015

Published by: Riptide

Genre: MM, Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense  

Rating:

Nick O'Flaherty and Kelly Abbott had their happy ending in sight when a friend’s call for help almost ended with them losing it to the blade of a knife. Now, in the aftermath of near-disaster, both men are trying to heal and move on.

Moving on together, though, is harder than either of them realized it would be. Kelly struggles with simply being a lover instead of the Doc, while Nick is mired in his recovery. The distance between them inches along in stilted silence.

Desperately seeking solace, Nick finally gathers the courage to sort through the possessions his dear friend and fellow Sidewinder teammate Elias Sanchez left him when he died. Instead of comforting memories, Nick and Kelly find a stack of letters and strict instructions from Eli that prompt them to send out a call for assistance. With Eli’s letters in hand, Sidewinder sets out on one last mission together, seeking peace and absolution from beyond the grave—and from each other.

No...this can't be how the series ends...I refuse to believe that after 12 books, this is how Abigail Roux decides to send off my favourite characters.
How sad. 😢
Granted, Part & Parcel was better than Cross&Crown, but not as good as it should be, and definitely not as good as I expected.

I appreciated the sentiment behind it, it was indeed a very moving story. Having all Sidewinder go on a spiritual journey of sorts while saying goodbye to their fallen brother in arms; it was the tear-jerker story suited to close the series. Why was Zane there, though? I get it, he is part of the gang blah blah but he is not Sidewinder, and his presence there undercut the tone of the story. He stuck out like a shore thumb, something that he even acknowledged himself in the book!
It wasn't a deal breaker though, I could easily have looked passed it if the rest of the book was OK.
It wasn't.

Part&Parcel belongs in the Sidewinder series, so I naturally expected that it would be primarily focused on Nick and Kelly. I didn't mind the other Sidewinder members being there, not at all, but I realised very early in the book that Roux didn't actually know what to do with all these characters so it was very unclear what was the point of the book : was it Nick and Kelly's relationship? Was it saying goodbye to Eli? Was it Nick dealing with his issues? Was it Nick's suddenly revealed past? Was it Ty and Zane? It was none of these things and yet all of it at once, and it didn't make for good storytelling. It was a hot mess, actually.

Nick was not the Nick I got to know and root for in Divide&Conquer and definitely not the Nick I fell in love with in Shock&Awe. To put it bluntly, we was a sad sack throughout the whole book, constantly moping and brooding. And while I completely get why (he almost died and lost a friend) and while I generally like brooding men, Nick seemed to sulk about Kelly, and how he is not worthy of him, and all this nonsense. What happened to the confident Nick? The Nick who inspired all the others with his assertiveness? Yes, he lied to them in Crush&Burn, but come on! He is Nick! His team knows him and has been trusting him blindly for years. Plus, everything Nick had to do for Bell was explained in the end, and all his friends stood by him when he was in the hospital. If Kelly decided he didn't want to be with him after this, it's his decision to make. He is a mature man who has been through wars (!) Nick telling him he is not worthy of his love, is just ridiculous and just drama for the sake of drama. No need for all that. Just a nice, heartwarming story about saying goodbye to a friend concluding the series, would have been more than enough. It reminded me of Touch&Geaux so much, the "I have to create drama out of nowhere to keep the readers interested". No. No need. Yes, feel free to create drama when it's appropriate and suits the story, but when it's out of the blue just to fill the pages with something? Nah, I don't accept that.

Kelly was no better. He was actually the queen of drama, and I wasn't digging that at all. Making a whole thing about seeing an old sex tape of Nick's? Yeah, and? So what? Was he not allowed to have a life before Kelly? And all the back and forth of fighting and making up, and fighting again and then making up again, ugh. Very annoying and didn't serve any purpose.
The way both Nick and Kelly acted, I honestly believed they shouldn't be together. Gone was the sizzling chemistry they had in Sock&Awe. Reading Part&Parcel, you'd think they were this very old couple who got tired of each other and are just looking for a way out. That is how Roux's writing felt like to me-I sensed that by the end of it all, she was exhausted and just wanted to finally finish the book (repeating patterns, phrases, jokes etc.) Also, throwing some LGBTQ+ reps in the last 10 pages, doesn't compensate for the complete character destruction and lack of story.

Finally, the sex scenes, the one potentially redeeming quality of the book, were not great. It felt like Nick and Kelly's sexual chemistry and connection were completely gone, and I personally didn't feel anything going through those scenes. We're talking about the same two people who were hotness personified at the start of their relationship in Shock&Awe. What happened??

I don't know what else to say, I am deeply disappointed in this very weak ending of one of my favorite MM series.
That being said, I will always remember its good moments, and all the reasons that made me fall in love with its characters 🌟

*** 🥇 1st place - 3 way tie between Sticks&Stones, Stars&Stripes and Shock&Awe: these books give me life, I adore them ❤️
*** 🥈 2nd place - very close second is Fish&Chips (nothing better than a submissive Ty 😏)
*** 🥉3rd place - Divide&Conquer (hello Nick :)

READING: Cross & Crown (Sidewinder #2) by Abigail Roux

Publication date: June 9 2014

Published by: Riptide

Genre: MM, Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense

Rating:

When Nick O'Flaherty arrives at the scene of a double homicide to find he has a witness to the crime, he thinks it’s his lucky day. But when he realizes his witness is suffering from amnesia and can’t even remember his own name, Nick wishes he’d gone with his gut and put in for vacation time.

Then Nick’s boyfriend and former Recon teammate, Kelly Abbott, joins him in Boston, and Nick finds his hands a little too full as the case and his personal life collide. The witness he’s dubbed “JD” is being tailed by Julian Cross, a retired CIA hitman. To complicate matters further, JD forms an attachment to Nick that Nick struggles not to respond to as they search for the key to JD’s identity.

Trying to determine whether JD is friend or foe as they investigate the crime puts them on the trail of a much older mystery. When multiple attempts are made on their lives, Nick is forced to turn to old enemies and new allies to solve a centuries-old crime before he and Kelly get added to the history books.

 

Very disappointed 😕
I don’t think I have ever rated an Abigail Roux book below 3 stars-not even Ball & Chain which is my least favorite of the C&R series-so you can imagine my dislike for this book. And after Shock & Awe, which I absolutely adore? Ts ts how could you do this to me Mrs. Roux??

I feel like every beautiful and loving aspect of Nick and Kelly’s relationship built in just 125 pages in Sock & Awe, was torn apart in the 225 pages of Cross and Crown, and quite easily actually. I have to admit, I am not a Julian fan. I don’t know what it is. Maybe because I don’t get his relationship with Cameron (like at all), or maybe because he just blends together with all the other alpha, macho males in every Abigail Roux book. He is not something that I have not seen before, therefore he is boring to me.
That being said, Julian is the least of this book’s problems, he didn’t even register.

My issue is: what happened to Nick and Kelly’s chemistry??? And I am not even talking about the sizzling hot connection they shared in S&A. I am talking about their genuine close friendship and comradery. Their scenes felt real forced, and it felt like reading about two strangers. They lost that familiarity and ease they had in S&A and all the previous C&R books, and I never really got why. Granted, they were still trying to figure out their relationship, but they seemed to had it all figured out at the start, but now all of a sudden not so much. There was always something not quite right between them and their scenes were even awkward sometimes.
Yes, and the sex ones. 😟 Not much joy there, as I personally thought their sex scenes were cringey, and they made things even worse.

Kelly seemed to suddenly be on the fence about his relationship with Nick, even though he kept insisting he was in love with him. There always seemed to be doubt in his mind and he, more than Nick, would find a million excuses, like Nick’s work (super unfair to Nick) him living far away, to name a few, to try and justify his uncertainty. He never stopped to think that the only problem was that he was scared shitless to commit to Nick! I would much rather he admitted it, than being a whingey sook for the whole book. Again – this is not the Kelly I knew! I don’t know what came over him in Cross & Crown. Personally, I believe Roux created too much drama over absolutely nothing (or at least issues that could very easily been discussed and resolved) thus weakening the characters, and losing focus of what really mattered.

Nick was pretty much the same, but he too lost his strong and confident personality. He allowed himself to be led by Kelly’s whims, no matter how irrational. I completely disagree with other readers claiming that Nick is turning into Superman like Ty, not at all. I think the opposite, if anything. It gave me the impression that Nick was way more in love and committed to Kelly than Kelly, and that was so not the case in Shock and Awe.
Sigh.

The story was not notable, in my opinion. There was nothing engaging or interesting about the mystery and that made me not really care about any of the secondary characters who were just decorative.
I adore Nick. I loved him since the beginning – getting flashbacks from Divide & Conquer now ❤️ Where is THAT Nick? Bring him back! Or at least naturally change him for the better.

I am warning you know 👉
If you ruin Nick for me on what looks like the last book in the series, I will never forgive you 😭