Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel

After a life changing event, Alfie finds himself the legal guardian to his step-brother and sister that he never knew existed. Uprooting his life, he heads to the United States to care for them. Getting the rare night out when the children were sleeping over a friend’s house, Alfie realizes after a bit of alcohol that he is questioning his sexuality after meeting Fear.

Fear is content with one night stands and occasional hookups…until he meets Alfie and his siblings. Content with having Alfie and the kids in his life, Fear wasn’t expecting to find himself the main suspect in a murder case. Even more, Fear wasn’t expecting Alfie to stand by his man when everything is thrown into turmoil. Can the two of them survive the collateral damage, or will they lose everything?

Figuring this was just a new to me author that I had somehow overlooked, I was stunned when I went looking for more of the author’s work and didn’t find anything. I was blown away that this was the author’s debut novel!

This is an insta-love story with an out for you theme told in a dual POV. Add in a helping of suspense and humor, and this book had me hooked from the start.

Alfie is a hot mess. He suffers from panic attacks and tends to have a penchant for cracking jokes when he’s nervous. When his father, whom he barely remembers, passes away, Alfie finds his life uprooted when he is given custody of his two step-siblings he never knew he had. I am not a fan of children in my romance stories, but even those “nuggets” managed to worm their way into my heart – so a softie like Alfie never had a chance! On a rare night out, Alfie has a bit too much to drink and finds himself waking up in bed with a stranger…

Fear resembles his name. A giant of a man, who happens to be a tattoo artist, he doesn’t do relationships. Or at least he didn’t think he did. When he meets Alfie and the kids, Fear finds himself wanting to be with them…except fate has other ideas in store for Fear and he finds himself being torn away from Alfie before they can even get their new relationship off the  ground.

Once these two manage to get a little alone time together, they raise the mercury into the triple digits! While I expected Alfie to be a bit more reluctant to get involved in a relationship with a man, Alfie is true to his nature of jumping headfirst into everything he does!

The secondary characters in this story include Fear’s pregnant sister, the guys from the tattoo shop, and Alfie’s mother and step-father. I will just tell you that Alfie’s mom is a riot and everyone should have a mom like her! I will warn you that when Alfie’s mom is around, you are in for a treat! She will have you in stitches!

Despite my love of Alfie and Fear together, this book was not perfect. The plot of the story is an insta-love/out for you before it jumps into a murder mystery/suspense. While I was engaged in Alfie and Fear’s new relationship, I thought the mystery/suspense portion of the story needed a bit more polish as much of the details about this happen off the page. Instead, the story tends to focus primarily on Alfie’s and Fear’s relationship with the suspense portion playing a backseat role, despite it taking up more than half the story.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this story…and the cover itself is worth the price! I anxiously await the next book, which will feature one of the secondary characters in this story. If you are looking for a new author, you might want to check this one out. Highly recommend!