Reviewed by Vicki
SERIES: Bluewater Bay #16
AUTHOR: Ally Blue
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 200 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 19th, 2016
BLURB:
Nat Horn is almost living the dream. His part as a werewolf extra on the hit show Wolf’s Landing has somehow turned into a regular role. Beautiful rising star Solari Praveen has taken an interest in him. He’s even making enough money to think about getting out of Bluewater Bay someday. Except his retired dad’s dependence on pain medications seems to be getting worse, and Nat’s the only one around to take care of him.
When Nat learns that Solari’s interest isn’t romantic, his disappointment is surprisingly short-lived, because in getting to know her, he also got to know her assistant, Rafael. And Rafael turns out to be the kind of friend—and potential boyfriend—Nat never dared to dream about.
Distracted by his astonishing new life, new friends, and new possibilities, Nat lets his guard down, and suddenly his life goes careening out of control. Racked by guilt, he tries to push his new friends away, but the bonds he’s formed are already too strong. In fact, they’re strong enough to pull him forward, into the future he’s been longing for—but to get there, he’ll have to let go of the past.
REVIEW:
Yes yes yes! I love this series, and I LOVED this book! I imagine it would be a challenge to write a book in an exisiting world and make it fit in with the other books in the series, but Ally Blue did a fantastic job. No Small Parts is a fantastic book on its own, but as part of the Bluewater Bay world it is a perfect. Ally includes existing characters like Anna, Carter, and Levi, floating them in and out, just enough to remind us who they are. She includes bits we know about Bluewater Bay, the local coffee shop, the views, the weather, things like that, to set the stage and remind us where we are. Then she sets her two main characters right in the middle of the television show, Wolf’s Landing, in such a seamless way, that I am surprised we haven’t run across these guys before!
As we know, Wolf’s Landing is the epic TV series being filmed in Bluewater Bay Washington. Most of these books, but not all, somehow work around the crew of the show. In this case, we have both characters working on the set. Nat is just touching on an acting career, at the beginning of the book he has only a recurring non-speaking part as a werewolf. Rafael is a personal assistant to two cast members, Carter who we know, and a new one, Solari.
Nat (who I wanted to call Nate so bad!) is a great character. He’s got issues, his mother died when he was little, his sister took off, and left him with his dad. Who was in a logging accident and permanently injured. And is now addicted to pain medication. And refuses treatment, but continues to drink beers snuck to him by his friends. Nat can barely leave him alone long enough to work. They live in a crappy house, and Nat drives a crappy car. He works on the Wolf’s Landing set, and helps his uncle with fishing trips. He’s bisexual, but his dad doesn’t approve of the gay part, so he keeps it to himself. He’s got a huge crush on Solari, and is very disappointed to find out she’s got a girlfriend. But then he notices Rafael, Solari’s personal assistant.
Rafael is bright, happy, energetic, a Hollywood man. He’s happy as a personal assistant, but he really wants to be a director. He takes the job mostly to be near Anna, one of the Wolf’s Landing directors. He’s been working on a movie scrip of his own and wants to do a little filming and get it up on Kickstarter and get some money going. He’s noticed the hot man acting as a werewolf, and is somewhat annoyed when he starts to crush on Solari. Then annoyed at her for not being clear with Nat. Then they start to flirt!
This leads us to the story of Nat and Rafael. It’s a sweet romance, with a decent amount of the drama with Nat’s dad. They go through ups and downs, have some lovely sex, and both end in a very happy place. I loved it! It’s not overly complex, it’s really all about the two men. We get to know them very well, with lots of time to build up their characters. We get to know a few side characters too, Solari and her drama, Nat’s dad and his drama, and glimpses of Nat’s sister and uncle.
I’m not overly familiar with Ally Blue’s books, I think I’ve read one or two over the years, but I’m thinking I need to go find some more! This was a very well written book. She fit her story in the existing framework of the Bluewater Bay books, yet made it unique and exciting. Her characters are deep, with lots of details and history. The drama was interesting and realistic, and the outcome was expected but fitting. There were just a couple of sex scenes, and they were perfect. The relationship between Nat and Rafael was sweet, caring, funny, needy, and sexy. Basically it was a fantastic book!
You could read this as a stand alone book, it is a complete story on its own. If you have read the other books in this series, this one will make you very happy. If you haven’t, I’d start with this one, then go check out some of the others.
I loved it!
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[…] No Small Parts (Bluewater Bay #16) by Ally Blue […]