Aaron Hall has never been able to remain faithful to a single woman, and for most of his life, he’s dated two women at once. Recently his girlfriend tracked him down and knocked on his door—and his live-in girlfriend answered. Now he has no girlfriend and a mortgage he can’t pay by himself.
Vinnie Rosello needs to change his life—get a better job, stop drinking all his money away, find himself a serious boyfriend… and move out of his parents’ house. Aaron needs help with his expenses, so they become housemates.
Even though Aaron harbors some misconceptions about gay men and Vinnie misses his large Italian family, both men find comfort in their friendship. It’s a good arrangement until everything between them changes.
Vinnie falls in love with Aaron, and Aaron is shocked to realize he feels the same. There’s only one problem—he’s still straight. He’ll have to overcome his fear of labels in order to love the man who’s captured his heart.
Review
I have lots of conflicting feelings about this one. There are a number of pros.
We get to seeing Jay and Liam who are in the first book in this series and who I adore. They are wonderful here. The whole circle of friends are great.
Vinnie's family is wonderful and it is a great look at a non traditional family from a child of one's perspective. I love how much a part of his family Vinnie is and who much they love him.
Aaron has a great family as well though we see less of them and he is a all around great guy.
The banter, friendship and love between Vinnie and Aaron is great. Christmas is very well done.
Rene Kaye is thinking a lot about the spectrum of sexualities in this book Aaron though slowing in love with Vinnie and sexaully attracted to him identifies as straight. He is not attract to any other men but Vinnie and is attracted to women from porn to really life.
Vinnie is a gold star gay having never been with a woman or been interested.
Part of this romance is achey because Vinnie just makes himself so vulnerable as he flat out loves Aaron and will take what he can get. As you can imagine, it takes Aaron a while to get his head around where he is at with Vinnie.
I believe in their HEA (though I am a bit confused but something in the epilogue though I think it just means they married and had a child way down the road) and this speaks to good writing on Kaye's part.
But like the first book in the series, I wanted a little more. I wanted more exploration of Aaron's habit of dating two women at the same time beyond a high sex drive or if that was it, I wanted more time devoted to talking about it than we get.
I wanted more thinking inside the book on the range of sexualities and more time with them after they become an out couple.
I read that there was a lot of grrrrrr about this book and author antics. I can see why. If I didn't like the first book in the series so much, I wouldn't have picked it up and wouldn't advice anyone to do so without having read the other books.