gangster countryRating: 4.5 stars
Buy Links: 
 Amazon | All Romance
Length: Novel


A chance meeting. A bright-eyed cowboy turned social worker. A hardened gang member. A year of secrets and half-truths.

Gianni Rodriguez knows the streets. From a young age, he was taken under his older brother’s wing as a member of the Los Cuervos gang. He doesn’t know much else. And for that reason, Gianni can never tell anyone that he’s gay. When he ventured to a party in Manhattan, he had thoughts of a one-nighter, but what he found was much more. A year later, he still can’t seem to walk away from Logan, but he’s yet to tell Logan, one of the good guys, that he’s one of the bad ones. So for a year, he’s lived a double life, keeping his personal life close to the vest and refusing to think of Logan as more than a regular bed warmer.

Country boy Logan Marshall moved to New York City for a fresh start in a city he was certain needed him. He loves his job. He loves the city. And most of all, he loves the man who has shared his bed for the past year. He knows Gianni is keeping secrets and, if he’s honest with himself, he knows his lover is not an upstanding citizen. It’s frustrating, but Logan gives Gianni his space in hopes that someday his lover will trust him enough to open up.

When one of Logan’s more persistent cases puts him on a known drug dealer’s radar, Logan is whisked away to a NYPD safehouse. Only then does he see the truth about Gianni. When their worlds collide, fear and confusion lead to broken hearts and blurred lines. Will Logan ever be able to move past seeing the man he loves as a monster? Will Gianni ever find a way to be the man Logan respects and loves?

This book. Wow. So good. I’ve always been a fan of bad boys. Earlier this year, I discovered a series involving New York gang members and good guys. It showed me a whole new world of sexy bad boys and the men that love them. Gangster Country is right up there on the whole sexy bad boy and loving good guy scale. The story is good. It’s one of those that you see the disaster coming, but you can’t look away. You just hope the hero will make it through the heartbreak in one piece. It’s angsty and painful and heartbreatking, but it’s also sweet and has its definite “aww” moments. And the twist, the whole revelation of who Gianni is…just wow.

Boehme has a way of drawing me to his characters. The beauty, the real emotions, and the conflict all come together to create two explosive characters. Logan is a sweet downhome boy who is in love. He doesn’t necessarily wear rose-colored glasses where Gianni is concerned, but he doesn’t want to see the bad. Logan’s heart is what makes him amazing – so giving, so loving, so open. Then there’s Gianni who wants to be the man Logan thinks him to be, but has no way of achieving that. He’s conflicted. He’s a man who didn’t know he had feelings, didn’t know he had a heart until Logan came along. These men together shouldn’t work, but they do and that’s what makes this story.

And the smex. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are looking for steamy, sexy, sweaty love, you have come to the right place. Geez. These two know how to set the sheets on fire. And this author definitely knows all the right buttons to push. I’m getting all flushed thinking about it.

So you may be asking yourself, “Crissy, if you loved this story so much, why the 4.5 rating and not a 5?” Well, I’ll tell you. I did love this story…a lot. But I have expectations when it comes to self-published works. And one of those expectations is for a self-pubbed piece to be on publishing house level. By that I mean the editing, proofreading, etc. I don’t like being distracted by so many misspelled words, incorrect punctuation, and sentences I have to read and re-read in order to piece the meaning together. Gangster Country is an amazing story that could have done with some more editing and maybe a good proofread before it was set to publish.

My other quibble comes with the time between Gianni leaving parent’s house and turning up at the end of the book. What happened to him that he was in such bad shape? How did Hennessey find him? What happened to Miguel? There’s a whole six months of Gianni’s life unaccounted for, and I’m dying to know what happened.

So, yeah, I had a couple issues with this book, but nothing to make me greatly dislike it. I am head over heels for the characters and I absolutely love the story. I’m hoping that someday soon Gabe will get a story, or even Marco. Hey…maybe even Hennessey. What I’m saying is I hope there is more bad boy/good boy smex in the future. I definitely recommend Gangster Country by Kade Boehme.

Cover: I absolutely LOVE this cover by Dar Albert. It’s dark and sexy and completely perfect for this story. If I’m being honest (because I’m a bit of a cover slut) this cover is the first thing that attracted me to this book.

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