Rating: 3.5 Stars

Publisher: K.M. Neuhold

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap, Daddy Kink, Romance, Small Town Bullying, Series, Virgin

Length: 164 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Once upon a time, in a little Texas town in the middle of nowhere, there lived a boy who everyone called ugly…

When half your face is covered in a big, blotchy birthmark, you get used to the staring and the whispers. You get used to feeling unwanted.

Until he walks into my bar…

Tall, gorgeous, and all kinds of out of place. And the way he looks at me ain’t like no way I ever seen before.

Does he mean it when he says he wants to take me away from here? Nobody’s ever wanted me around for long. Can I believe Barrett when he says that’s what he wants?

Something about the word Daddy on my lips makes it all seem possible. Even if I don’t really believe anyone would want to keep an ugly boy like me forever…

*** Pretty Boy is a low-ish angst, steamy, sweet Daddy story with NO age play.

Review –

Sterling, twenty-five, lives in the tiny town of Billow, Texas. He’s been bullied and made fun of his entire life because he was born with a large birthmark on his face. His dad took off when he was born and his mother cares more about her alcohol than she does her own son. He makes ends meet (barely) by working at the only bar in town. His mother doesn’t do much more than drink and take off every few months with the latest guy who ‘sweeps her off her feet’. They obviously don’t or she wouldn’t keep coming back. They get by with Sterling’s meager salary.

Sterling’s working one night at the bar when this gorgeous man walks in and orders a beer. For Sterling it’s a habit to always try to hide his face.

He totally broke my heart.

The gorgeous man in the bar is thirty-six-year-old Barrett. Barrett was born into money. Years ago, he, his sister, and two of his friends went into business together, using their fortunes for good causes. Oh, he has no problem spending money. He’s just devoted his life to using what he has to help others.

Barrett doesn’t know what makes him pull into the almost empty parking lot and walk into the bar of the tiny town of Billow. All he knows is that something is pushing him to do it. As soon as he sees the shy man behind the bar he knows exactly why he’s there. When he tries to leave Sterling a big tip, he gets put in his place. Sterling has no desire to take charity.

He goes on to Dallas for his business meeting and stops back in Billow, knowing he has to see Sterling again. Everything kind of happens fast from there. Sterling makes it clear he’s interested in being Sterling’s Daddy. Sterling is so down on himself that he doesn’t truly believe anybody would want him, much less somebody like Barrett. He agrees to go to home with Barrett to Vegas. He has nothing keeping him in Billow. His mother has gone off with her latest ‘man of her dreams’ and the town treats him horribly, so why not?

Yes, Sterling is naive and doesn’t know Barrett from anybody, but it’s fiction so I went with it. 😉

This is a classic Cinderella-esque story. The poor character gets swept off his feet by the rich one. They go on to live happily-ever-after. That’s pretty much what happens in this book. Barrett is perfect – a little too perfect.

What’s the catch I’m missing? Because last I checked, handsome billionaires don’t often waltz into backwoods towns and sweep ugly bartenders off their feet.

Sterling has to overcome two and a half decades of being knocked down and made to feel worthless. Thankfully, Barrett is patient and spends every day showing his boy that’s he’s not what the horrible town he grew up in convinced him he was.

There’s a little spanking, a cock ring that I think Sterling wore WAY too long, and a few nice sex scenes. There’s not a whole lot of angst, though the reader will find themselves feeling sad for Sterling.

A nice Daddy/boy story, though I did have a few issues with it.

1. Southern speak. I live in the deep South, in lower Alabama. One of my biggest pet peeves in books is southern speak. It’s always been on my bio on this site and on Goodreads. While I get where the author was going with Sterling and way he spoke, it seemed off. I’ve always said that southern speak sounds nice in the real world but it doesn’t really carry over to print. Another thing that bugs me is that some authors write southerners as slow or unintelligent. I kind of felt that here. As a southerner myself, it bugged me a bit.
2. Barrett’s sister and two friends. The friends sort of made good later, but I couldn’t get a good feel for Lorna. She seemed like a judgmental snob. She says something hurtful that Sterling overhears early on. I think Barrett and Sterling both were too forgiving there.
3. Sterling’s mother. There’s an epilogue with her that I guess was necessary in a way. Or maybe it would’ve been necessary had the woman been that big of a deal in the story to begin with.

I did love Em, Sterling’s boss in Vegas who I’m assuming (hoping) will be getting his own story. I liked Barrett a lot, even if he was a bit too perfect all the time. I liked Sterling, though his southern speak grated on me. The thing I liked the most about him is that he was proud and he didn’t give a damn about Barrett’s money. He had a job less than a day after arriving in Vegas, though he didn’t have to work because Sterling was all about taking care of him in every way.

I’ve read a couple of others by this author, Caulky and Rocket Science.  I loved one and liked the other. I’m kind of in the middle with Pretty Boy. I will read the next one in the series.

I love the cover.