This had the potential to be something great but unfortunately it ended up being underdeveloped.

Elias started off as a hard-boiled homeless guy, then as soon as he returned home he regressed to a whiney teenager and his character never really recovered. I felt as if the author never really had a true grip on Elias' personality or his history. Also there were points where I almost felt she was hinting that Elias was a synth himself, but that line of thought was either a red herring or me reading too much into certain phrases. 

I never really felt the romance between the leads and since Ario was a sex robot it would have helped to know he wasn't just following his programming. There were hints but it wasn't a strong enough connection for me to be sure.

The plot kind of went haywire for me towards the end, things reaching a crescendo and being wrapped up too quickly.

Had some interesting ideas on humanity and what makes us human but failed to deliver on the romance front and a solid end to the plot.

Isaiah & Victor have a flash of sexy in their past that may come back to bite them.  Isaiah is offering to help Victor stay here in America.  To go home for him would be death.  Isaiah struggles with this, since he is very attracted to Victor and has a hard time staying hands off.

Victor is starting to have real feelings for Isaiah.  He finds the many parts of his personality very attractive and knows he is falling for him.  How do you find love when the person you care for has no interest in falling?

This book was really sexy.  I loved the interaction with the characters.  The pages sizzle with electricity from the main characters chemistry.  I love that the backstories of both are varied, diverse, and very real and easy to understand.  Really good read.  I give this book a 3/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

***This early copy was given in exchange for an honest review by Netgalley and its publisher.

Unfortunately I had to call time on this one at about 40%. I actually started skimming at 33% and then finally had to give up. 

I felt like I was reading this book forever. The narrative would jump from one event to another, past to present, until I lost the thread. It seemed to meander along. It took forever for the MC, Quinn, to meet the love/sex interest (both of them). And that's when things went from bad to worse for me. There was no connection between the MCs before the 'relationships' started, and because of the way the story was written I never got any sense of relationship. One relationship was almost dub-con, and was definitely abusive. And then Quinn started a relationship with another character (who also had history with the abusive character), a character he thought himself in love with, but chose not to say anything. I got to the point where I couldn't stomach anymore.

On a positive note, I did like the cover.

When I started reading this book the whole set up with the pirate play sounded familiar. Checking the blurb I realised that I had read the previous book, True Luck, back when it had been called Bottle Boys. And even in my review back then I had wondered, what's the deal with Marco. Well, this is Marco's story and it is told purely from his pov. It also runs in tandem with the events in True Luck. 

Marco and Oskar had been best friends until something happened to tear them apart. What this thing is we the reader don't really know and we find out in fits and starts as the two friends turned enemies try to come to terms with Oskar's return to the neighbourhood.

The forgiveness Oskar seeks is a hard won battle and the romance is slow-burn, more so because Oskar is already in a relationship when he returns. The secondary characters have a lot of page time as their families still live next door to each other and Marco's family is Oskar's family and vice versa. 

Not only must they overcome what happened in the past, but Marco also needs to address his own body issues due to the scarring he received in an accident when he was a teenager. This also means we get a virgin MC, and the deliciousness that goes with this.

There were a number of missing/wrong word issues, but not enough to drag the reader from the story.

Overall this was a lovely, hard fought love story which managed to break my heart in places. 

The cover had nothing to do with the story that I could see, although it did make me hungry.

This is the second story in the Anchors' series. I haven't read the first story as it is M/F and not a genre I read.

This was a 2 to 3 hour read but I have to admit that it felt longer, I think this is because the story got bogged down in unnecessary parts of the story.

I enjoyed parts of the story more than others and I think the author missed an important focus of for story, and one that she had set up at the beginning of the story.

Pros:

Dante - come on, he owns a comic book shop, he needs a 'hobby' so decides to open a drop in place for trans/queer teens, he's respectful and considerate to his partners. What's not to like?

Did I mention the drop in centre for trans/queer teens?

The relationship between Dante and Kit. Very sweet. Respectful.

The relationship between Dante and Con (his brother, who is trans) and the support given between the two. 

The 'family' dynamic was perfect. 

Cons: 

Story got bogged down in too much information when it came to the law suit. I skimmed a lot of the law suit information. It had no bearing on the relationship and added nothing to the story.

The teen centre idea was introduced early on but wasn't given full rein until the end. I would have liked this to be a partial focus of the story rather than the law suit.

Not enough on-page relationship development. This links into my next point...

Time jumps. There were several annoying time jumps where you would expect important relationship developments to take place. In fact after one of the most important events there was then a 4 week time jump, which was disappointing.

Overall I enjoyed this story but it could have benefited from a deeper/stricter edit.