Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  The Champion’s Secret

SERIES:  Red Dragon #4

AUTHOR:  Becky Black

PUBLISHER:  Loose Id

LENGTH:  130 pages

BLURB:  

Lawyer Will Garrett took a job with the Outer Spiral Trading Company for one reason only—to keep his ex out of jail. Now his ex is free, but with someone else. This leaves Will seeing out the final months of his contract on assignment as the legal counsel for a sports team of Modern Gladiators on a Company sponsored tour.

Jimmy Campbell, mighty Highland warrior, is the champion and captain of Team Spartacus. But really he’s James De Villiers, half-Scottish, half-South-African, ex-soldier. He’s only in this for the money. One more season then he’s gone. He’s already older than most of the team, with a nagging shoulder injury.

Will and James get together thinking only of killing time in bed during the trips between tour stops. But as they grow closer and Will makes friends with the team, trouble starts with team manager Lenny Sheridan. Lenny doesn’t want anyone to know James is gay. A hostage crisis focuses all the media in the sector on the team and forces James to decide if keeping his secret and his career is more important to him than acknowledging his relationship with Will, whatever that costs him.

REVIEW:  

After somewhat succeeding in getting his friend off that whole kidnapping charge, Will Garrett is in a bit of a pickle. His friend’s safe, but in order to get him there Will had to sign a one-year contract with the Outer Spiral Trading Company…and that contract’s not up. And won’t be up for months. So the Company sends him to do the legal work for the Modern Gladiators, in the tour that they are putting on. It probably won’t be the most exiting legal work he has ever done, but at least he’ll get some traveling in.

Then he meets the Champion of Team Spartacus, Jimmy Campbell–or, as he prefers, James De Villiers. Sparks fly and the two men find themselves quite willing bed partners. Unfortunately James has been ordered into the closet, and while Will might be willing to put up with keeping their relationship secret for some time, he won’t do it forever. Even for the perfection that is James De Villiers.

There is nothing I love more than when a character I HATED in a previous book comes back to have their own story. Mostly because I am a real sucker for redeemed assholes–or maybe just realizing that we are all asses in our own ways, it just differs on how large a stick can be shoved up our holes. So, yeah, I was not a big fan of Will in the Too Good A Man (book 2 in the Red Dragon series). He was not an evil man. He wasn’t even a bad man. He was, however, trying to move in (or back in) on his friend Alyn, and yeah. No. So I wasn’t his biggest fan.

Which made me really happy to see he had his own book. Because I’m weird like that.

This is very much like the other books in the series, in that there is not a lot of global (or universal) drama to guide the story. What it has instead is a cast of really finally written characters and a story that is just plain fun to read. There are moments of tension, and certainly times where danger is posed, but for the most part this is a story about two guys falling in love. In space. I love it.

I did miss Alyn and Jarvez, though. But there are so many characters in this book that I enjoyed, that it was a fond wish that they would pop up, not a need. Plus, I think according to the timeline they might currently be dealing with diamond issues of their own at the moment. So, they’re a bit busy. *sigh*

I’m not a huge fan of…hmm, I guess you would call this mixed martial arts? I think. Anyways, yeah, not a huge fan of watching two people beat the crap out of each other (at least not w/o a puck and some ice in the near vicinity), so those sections were kinda boring for me, but there really were not many of them, so I didn’t mind. It was the whole Team Spartacus–even those w/ larger than normal assholes–who made the book so fun. And even if Will would totally get killed in a real match with them, it was entertaining to see him give training with them a try.

I highly recommend this book for fans of scifi who just want to relax and watch two dudes fall in love–and not, you know, worry about the fate of the galaxy in the mean time. There are some interesting aliens in this, but for the most part, it is a very down-to-earth story. Without the, you know, Earth bit. Lots of fun and a great addition to this series.

Lets hope it is not the last.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Loose Id

Amazon 

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