Reviewed by Roberta

TITLE: Straight Shooter

SERIES: Rear Entrance Video

AUTHOR: Heidi Belleau

PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing

LENGTH: 277 pages

BLURB: This macho jock has a crooked little secret.

College hockey player Austin Puett is in trouble. Unless he starts treating his flamboyantly gay roommate with respect, he’ll lose his room and his job at Rear Entrance Video. But Austin’s got a not-so-straight secret of his own: nothing turns him on more than insults implying he’s gay—even though he’s definitely not!—and all his old coping methods have stopped working.

Pure desperation drives him to rent a Mischievous Pictures porn flick about straight men tricked into servicing Puck, a male dominant. Instead of letting off steam, though, it just leaves him craving more, more, more, and suddenly, Austin finds himself at Mischievous Pictures Studios for an audition. After all, you can be Gay For Pay and still be straight . . . right?

But meeting Liam Williams, the real person behind Puck, confuses Austin even more. Liam really seems to like him as a person, and Austin likes him back. And while Gay For Pay’s okay, what does it make Austin if he still wants Liam when the cameras aren’t rolling?

REVIEW: I saw the blurb for this story and I thought to myself, “Self, this sounds fun.  Let’s read it.”  I’m really glad that I did.

Austin is a hoot and I’m pretty sure he’s not trying to be.  Poor Austin.  He’s got this issue of liking to be called degrading names.  It’s a fetish that he’s very uncomfortable with.  He’s had this for years and now it’s getting out of control.  He’s also in hot water because he’s not acting right to one of his roomies.  He’s got problems with his hockey teammates as well.  Life isn’t going Austin’s way at all right now.  But he’s got a plan and only Master Puck can help him.

Liam is this wonderfully sweet guy.  He is part owner of Mischievous Films.  His stage name is Master Puck and he’s wonderful at what he does.  He is Bi-Sexual and he’s pretty open about that.  He doesn’t like to limit himself in what cranks his wheel.  I like that Liam is not that stereotypical Master.  Liam is this normal guy.  He’s got this business that he runs.  He has a roommate.  He’s just trying to make his life work for him.  He’s patient, kind, sweet and yet, he’s also a Master.  I love when he mixes the two while being with Austin.

The secondary characters in this story had me all over the board.  I liked Austin’s roomies.  I liked that they put their collective foot down and made him own up to the way that he’s been acting.  His teammates on the other hand, well, I guess their young guys.  They are not the smartest nor are they the most compassionate people.  I liked that each group made Austin grow up.  He needed to find his compassion and acceptance.  But he also needed to stand up for himself.  He needed to own who he is and not allow others to make him feel bad about himself.

I liked how Austin and Liam behaved with each other.  Not all the time.  Most of the time, I wanted to smack Austin. I got tired of his back and forth brand of crazy, but that very thing made me like him also.  I loved that he tried to porn his fetish away.  The way that Liam both sheltered and yet the way he gave Austin what he needed at the same time, it was really beautiful to see.

Now, I will say that there were lots of sexy times in this book. It is about a young man who explores his kink and watches lots of porn.  However, the sex wasn’t gratuitous.  It was Austin exploring his own sexuality.  I liked the scenes with Liam the best though.  It was the power play that they had together that was pretty damn sexy.  It was watching them fall for each other.  The way that they didn’t even realize until it had already happened.

I will say that I really liked this story.  I laughed quite a bit while reading it.  I’m not sure if that speaks more of the author or my odd sense of humor.  Anywhoo, this book was a fun read.  I enjoyed it.  It also made me want to go back and read the two previous books.  That actually rarely happens, but I’d like to see who Austin was in those previous books.  I’d also like to see what his roomies went through to become the characters that they were in this story.

All in all, a pretty good read.  It was a fun, sexy story that if you have a couple of hours and would like to immerse yourself in a cute story about a guy figuring out who he is and what he truly wants….this would be a good one.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: Riptide Publishing