glad I picked you, ”
“My family could accept me being gay, but not trans, ”
James is in trouble, His family turned their back on him after he transitioned, and he was forced to start his new life without them, but now he's paying the price, Buried in debt, his last chance is to start a business with hunky carpenter Ryan and hope that they succeed, The one thing he can't afford is a distraction, but what if Ryan is the only one to see past it all and love him inside and out
“Strictlybusiness is hard around you.
"
Ryan Hart doesn't rattle easy, From lazy contractors to being the last single friend, nothing bothers him until he meets James, Ryan's new business partner pushes him to follow his dreams, even though he faces problems Ryan's never considered, Ryan doesn't back down from a challenge or from threats to his business, James's hardwon privacy, and their future together, As business partners, of course, Nothing more.
“I can't believe they don't see you as the man I love, ”
They both know mixing business with pleasure is a bad idea, but the pull between them is too hard to resist, Can Ryan have it all with the clever, caring, bossy guy who's won his heart
Grind is a steamy, standalone gay romance novel with a HEA ending and no cliffhanger.
An absolutely excellent finish to the Riley Brothers series, with Ryan finding a business partner and lover with James, I loved the pairing, as Ryan was a gentle and shy carpenter who was enchanted by the smart and resourcefulness of James but James finds easy acceptance with Ryan as he has struggled with his family and previous places of employment not respecting that he has transitioned and recognizes himself as a man.
Super cute! I loved this book, My favorite of the series, The characters were very well written, The way the author got important information out while telling such an emotional story was amazing, Please let there be more in this series, Great end to this series
I've enjoyed the Riley Brothers and their love lives and those of their friends so it's sad this is the final book in the series as I understand it.
This is also the second FtM trans MC romance I've read recently and like the previous I think they've been written with a sympathetic and educating touch which has made me more informed about that sphere of the LGBT community.
James was a sweetie and Ryan's long been on the edge of the other books so to see him get his HEA was overdue,
This is a gentle romance with a little heat, sex isn't shied away from with a fade to black off page encounter but is instead given the same level of care as any other pairing in this series has been.
Although there were things I enjoyed about this novel, the few issues that I had with it were strong enough to give it a middle of the road rating.
What I liked
James
By the time that we meet him, James has already transitioned and come out to his family.
He's basically the guy he's always been, I thought it was cool that the transgender angle wasn't written in a clinical or fetishy way, Worthy of note is that James had a friend a secondary character who is genderqueer, Thumbsup
As soon as Ryan figured out that he was interested in James, he did some research about transguys, But that didn't mean that, all of the sudden, he knew everything there was to know about transgender people,
There were certain moments where he stumbled without coming off as a creep or mocking, It was just someone trying to connect with someone else, After all, this is the first time that Ryan was interested in a transguy so, yeah, he stepped on things a couple of times, but he wasn't meanspirited about it.
FTR, I thought Ryan was OK, but his storyarcaside of dating and falling in love with Jameswasn't anything that would shake anyone up, He was, imo, an average character,
Most of the sex
You could feel the chemistry between James and Ryan, Even if all they were doing was making out, Once they got to the sexin', things got steamy af, gt:
It bears mention that one scene was a tad wonky and I discuss it a length in the negative part,
A few female characters
Some of them were nice and the one character who was rude didn't do it out sheer villainy,
What I didn't like
Chapter
So, the Grind's told from James and Ryan's POVs alternating from chapter to chapter.
Chapterbegins on James' POV while he's hanging out with some friends, About a third into that chapter, however, the POV switches over to another character who's not Ryan and it stays like so til the end of the chapter.
I don't quite get the reason for that,
That one sex scene
Ryan and James get in bed, One of them gets flipped around so that he's on his belly,
HOWEVER, there's a SEVERE lack of positioning awareness for the entire scene, It sounds like the character is flipped to his back and then on his belly again back and forth even though that's not what's actually happening.
I mean, unless that character's knees can go backward or something,
I dunno. The logistics took me out of what had been a really great and intimate scene between them,
The ending
The firstof the novel is pretty solid, This is romance on the fluffier side of the scale, There are a couple of ups and down but nothing, you know, earthshattering, Then a confrontation between the MCs and another character happens, I think that the author decided to make up for that moment of angst by taking the plot to such a sugar high that it left me dizzy.
It got to the point that I was reminded of the Hallmark Movie Channel or Lifetime Movie Channel Christmas movies Ch,and the epilogue take place in December,
I really wish that the author hadn't given into that urge to make everything so syrupy and instead had pulled back or added a bit of grit.
HAVING SAID THAT, there is a possibility that the ending was so OTT with the fluff because it was the literal ending to the series, I've yet to read the previous five books so I could be wrong about the need for the overwhelming sweetness, ThoImprettysureImnotwrong IJS
It lacked emotional payoff for me because the actual story had ended around Ch,.
TLDR: I'd say that this book is a beach read or a lazy afternoon novel, This is not a challenging story and that's
OK, Sometimes, you might be in the mood for something mellow to chill out with, It can be read as a standalone,
And I'm thinking I'll check out some of this author's other books,
I don't know, but something about the writing style was off for me,
Many times I had to reread a sentence or a chapters because I couldn't get the context, Some conversations were more like realtime talking, so to say like a script for a movie,
I might be wrong, but in my opinion Ryan was a little bit too unquestioning, too quick in accepting, Doesn't it take a bit more curiosity or struggle,