Reviewed by Amber

TITLE: Training Complex

SERIES: Training Season #2

AUTHOR: Leta Blake

PUBLISHER: Self Pub

LENGTH: 345 pages

BLURB:

Buckle up – Matty’s back!

Figure skater Matty Marcus didn’t capture Olympic gold, but he won rancher Rob Lovely’s heart.

After Rob sold his ranch and Matty hung up his skates, they started a new life together in New York City. Now Matty has taken on a fresh challenge as a figure skating coach, and Rob’s second career as a physical therapist should be everything he’s dreamed of. But in the brutal heat of their third summer in the city, Rob yearns for the wide-open country, and the intensity of city life awakens Matty’s demons.

Matty asks for increasingly intense BDSM scenes, and his disordered eating and erratic behavior ramp up the stakes. Rob struggles to stay in control, and after a well-intentioned anniversary gift goes awry, he still thinks he can handle the fallout. But the concrete jungle is closing in and his coping skills are unraveling.

Their love is deep, but Rob will have to admit the truth about what he really wants before they both tumble into chaos.

REVIEW:

Oh my Jesus I was so excited to see that Training Season book 2 came out. I am a huge Leta Blake fan and I thoroughly enjoyed book 1 so this had me squealing with immense delight. With that said, I did like this book but, I found myself being so unbelievably annoyed by Matty that it almost ruined it for me. He was so much more selfish, manipulative, egotistical, narcissistic, inattentive, insensitive, and insensible. It was driving me crazy. I guess in book 1 his outlet was the Olympics so we didn’t see a lot of these compulsive behaviors. In this one it is no holds barred, all out, Matty at his absolute worst.

Training Complex picks up not long after Training Season. Rob and Matty are settled, in the city and starting their real beginning. Rob is still doing Physical Training at a local clinic and for the most part he enjoys his work. Matty is coaching some youth skaters with his old coach Valentina.

It becomes apparent early on that even though Matty doesn’t compete anymore he still is very much controlled by his body image. It’s exhausting going through his internal battles of whether or not he should eat. You know it’s wrong and to see him continually make the wrong choices hurts your heart so you can only imagine what Rob is going through.

Rob also is struggling with things. Reacquainted with an old Dom friend sheds new light on Matty’s disorder. He’s also becoming increasingly more edgy about their scene because nothing ever seems like enough for Matty.

This book was a rollercoaster ride through disordered eating, BDSM, compromise, and manipulation. Like all Leta Blake books, this one is beautifully written. Even when you think she can’t build out a character even more than she has in the first book, she goes and adds more layers to already such throughout characters.

Like I mentioned earlier, I really liked this book. You don’t really read too many figure skating romances but this one was special. Definitely recommend!

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

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