Rating: 5 ‘Reed’ Stars

Publisher: May Archer

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap (10 Years), Fake Relationship, Humor, Opposites Attract, Romance, Series, Small Town, Virgin

Length: 348 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

It was supposed to be a straightforward protection job. Remove the target from Vermont, get him to the safehouse, keep him there until his mafia uncle testifies, get back in my employer’s good graces.
Boom, done. Easy.

But it turns out things get complicated real fast when your target is an adorkable, accident-prone cutie with a shockingly low sense of self-preservation, zero clue that he’s related to the Fromadgio crime boss, and 100% too much inclination to chat happily with strangers.

When Chris compromises our safehouse (and accidentally starts a “lowkey, unavoidable” bar fight), our only option is to go undercover… pretending to be campground hosts in Copper County, New York.

Make that married campground hosts. (Long story.)

Now I’m hiding out with a guy who’s obsessed with action-adventure shows and hand-knit sweaters, and whose most fearsome talent is arranging charcuterie boards, all of which is far less helpful in a gunfight than you might think.

And worst of all… the sweet little virgin I rescued is growing on me.

Somehow I find myself listening to his happy chatter when I should be watching the woods, trying to figure out how his mind works when I should be getting us out of this predicament, and appreciating the way he looks in my shirts when I should be focused on getting my career back on track.

But when the Fromadgios’ enemies finally find us, protecting Chris is no longer just a job. I’ll do anything to protect what’s mine… and there’s nothing pretend about it.

Review –

“I don’t mind fresh language at all. I’m used to it. You should hear Reed. He’s all eff this and eff that. He effs everything.” He paused and added darkly. “Well, almost everything.”

There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t have loved this book, the main one being Chris, 25. I’ve never read a book with a character who was as naive and so innocent as he is. He sees the good in literally everybody, no matter who they are. I’m also over the fake relationship trope.

Then there’s Reed. To be some type of agent, he did a pretty shabby job of keeping his protectee protected and hidden.

Even with all that, I loved the book.

Chris’ Uncle Danny ships him off from New Jersey to a small town in Vermont because Danny will be on an extended ‘fishing trip’ in Alaska.

Yeah, he wasn’t in Alaska, and there was no fishing. He’s in the mafia, and he’s in custody. He’ll be signing a plea deal to keep him out of prison. Worse, that plea deal means he’ll be naming names. This puts his family in danger, mainly Chris. There’s another nephew of Danny’s, Nicky, who’s a bad guy.

Chris is working in a bar when his boss encourages him to take a couple of weeks off. He’s a bit of a klutz, so his being given the time off wasn’t much of a stretch. He’s encouraged to do something for himself, maybe sow a few oats. The boss and almost everybody Chris comes in contact with adores him, so it’s not a matter of just trying to get rid of him for a while.

Okay, maybe it is because, again, he’s a klutz… but anyway.

Reed, 35, has been tasked to protect Chris until Danny’s deal is signed. Chris is supposedly this gun expert and knows what’s going on with his criminal family. Only he’s not. The only thing Chris knows are charcuterie boards, which was downright adorable. Hell, he was downright adorable. Watching him be so hilariously naive as Reed was trying to save him was funny while being frustrating at the same time.

I was being kidnapped.

That was the only possible explanation.

Admittedly, it was a slow and most uneventful kidnapping, but even that made sense in a way.

It was my kidnapping, after all.

Their first safe house – flamingo and duck city – is compromised thanks to Chris trying to get away from his ‘kidnapper’. They end up having to go to Copper County where the brother of a friend of Reed’s lives. Well, that friend’s brother is told that Chris and Reed are newly married, which was hilarious. The two guys are as different as night and day. Chris makes friends everywhere. Reed grunts a lot, and not always in a good way. 😉

Chris is a problem from day one, the main issue is that he flat out refuses to believe that his family has done anything wrong. Wouldn’t he know if his uncle and cousin were involved in a criminal empire?

he answer to that is a big fat no. Danny spent Chris’ entire life protecting him, and keeping him away from the family business. That mostly included his cousin, Nicky.

Before even starting to play married, Reed is seeing something in Chris that scares him. He’s starting to fall for the way-too-naive-for-words protectee. It starts in a motel room their first night together, and it grows the more he gets to know him.

Between a shoot out next door of the flamingo/duck house, a not-quite-minor bar brawl when Chris gives relationship advice to a biker dude, and Chris constantly sharing his charcuterie expertise (snort), Reed’s about to pull his hair out while at the same time wanting to strip him naked and spend hours in bed with him.

Chris didn’t just see the best in people; he saw people, period. And he treated them as if they were worthy of his kindness and his time, whether they were weed-smoking gardeners in blanket capes, or angry biker-girlfriends, or an orchard owner in love with his land, or… or a grumpy, bossy Division agent who absolutely did not butcher song lyrics, no matter what Chris said. 

Chris is extremely naive, but he has a really good heart. Nobody has never seen him like Reed does. Their relationship crosses over from protector/protectee to something personal pretty quick. Chris has never been with anyone, and had never even been kissed until the first time Reed kissed him. It was really sweet watching Reed take his time to ensure that Chris got as much out of their experiences as he did.

Chris has Copper County absolutely charmed in no time at all. And you how small towns are, one little incident with Chris getting a cold and the story is retold dozens of times and suddenly sweet Chris has a fatal lung infection, not a mere cold. 😉

“He also doesn’t stop talking, which is annoying as fuck, and he couldn’t walk across an open field without triggering a groundhog rebellion and compelling the bumblebees to fight for him to the death. A total trouble magnet.”

Everything is going good for these guys. They’re safe, even if they are out in the open. They’re playing the part of married couple well, as they help fix up cabins for the owner of the property.

All is going great… until it’s not.

This is where I really got frustrated with Chris. There’s not trusting that everything you ever thought you knew about your family was wrong, and there’s being careless and bringing the danger to your front door. He did this more than once. Everything works out in the end – it is a romance book after all – but Chris never really got beyond the too-naive-for-words thing I mention above.

I truly loved these two guys together. Reed is simply perfect, in my opinion. Chris is adorable, but I doubt there are many people in the world as sheltered as he was before Reed. I know that Reed comes from another series, as well as a few others mentioned in The Pretenders of Copper County. I’ll be going back to those books soon. I’ve read several by this author. I enjoy how she writes the couples, and I especially love the humor that she throws in throughout.

A really good book. I’m eager to read Watt’s story.