Reviewed by Vicki

TITLE: Lonely Hearts 

SERIES: Love Lessons #3

AUTHOR: Heidi Cullinan

PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing

LENGTH: 325 pages

BLURB:

With the quiet help of his wealthy family, Sebastian “Baz” Acker has successfully kept his painful past at bay. But as the end of college draws near, his friends—his buffer zone—are preparing to move on, while his own life is at a crippling standstill.With loneliness bearing down on him, Baz hooks up—then opens up—with Elijah Prince, the guy Baz took a bullet for last year. The aftershocks of their one-night stand leave giant cracks in Baz’s carefully constructed armor. For the first time, the prospect isn’t terrifying.

Accustomed to escaping his demons by withdrawing into his imagination, Elijah isn’t used to having a happy herd of friends. He’s even less comfortable as the object of a notorious playboy’s affections. Yet all signs seem to indicate this time happiness might be within his grasp. When Baz’s mother runs for a highly sought-after public office, the media hounds drag Baz’s and Elijah’s pasts into the light. In the blinding glare, Baz and Elijah face the ultimate test: discovering if they’re stronger together…or apart.

Warning: Contains sex in a Tesla, sex in a cupboard, sex under a piano, kinky role play, and a cappella RuPaul songs. Just a couple of boys groping, battling, then finally loving their way to becoming men.

REVIEW:

I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! I loved the first one, I loved the second one, and damn…. I love this third one. Seriously loved it.

Let’s do a quick recap. Conveniently I just listed to the audio versions of Love Lessons and Fever Pitch, in anticipation of this new one. Love Lessons is about Walter and Kelly meeting at Hope College, becoming roommates, friends, lovers, then boyfriends. It’s a very sweet Disney story, with mild angst. After leaving Hope they settle in together, Walter gets an internship at a law firm. He meets Aaron, half of the couple featured in Fever Pitch. Here’s my review of Love Lessons.

Aaron and Giles meet very briefly at home, then end up at Saint Timothy’s together. Aaron heading toward a law degree against his will, Giles in music but not sure how he can make a living at that. They both end up in the music department, and have quite the dramatic story. Aaron’s roommate at Timothy is Elijah, who has some serious issues with his family. Baz, a big participant in the drama of Aaron and Giles, seems to maybe have some drama of his own. Here is my review of Fever Pitch.

Now we come to Lonely Hearts. This is some serious Drama, with a capital D. It’s interesting, the drama level had been increasing with each book! This is the book I have been waiting for…. Elijah and Baz. Elijah is a totally ASSHOLE in the last book, he is Aaron’s roommate and they hate each other. Elijah is weird, dark, creepy, and from a very fundamental family. They visit him every weekend and pray over him, he is followed and stalked by a couple of fundamentalist kids at the same college. But it’s all an act on Elijah’s part, he’s just a scared, lonely, messed up kid trying to get what he can out of a total crap situation. Baz is from a rich, powerful family, but has his own issues. He and his boyfriend were attacked and beaten on his sixteen birthday, his boyfriend dying, Baz suffering serious injuries, leaving him scarred and damaged for life. He’s been in college for much longer than he needs to be, finding a home and a circle of friends he doesn’t want to leave. He’s also a player, fucking around as much as he can. He plays with Aaron a bit, before settling in to a friendship with him. He meets Elijah through Aaron and realizes he knows him. He ran in to him in an alley and sent him on his way home with a pocket full of money. Big major drama happens at the end of the last book, bringing Elijah and Baz together for this book.

There is just so much going on with this plot, I’m not really going to get in to it much. What I really got out of this book is that this group of kids creates a family and support system for themselves. Walter and Kelly, Aaron and Giles, Elijah and Baz, plus a circle of friends, are a family, and love each other unconditionally. Elijah is a reluctant part of this group at first, being forced in to the circle, he tries to escape and gets drug back in. He brings Lewis in, who I dearly loved. They all fight for Elijah and Baz over and over again, both physically and emotionally. Baz and Elijah are seriously amazing characters. Elijah is so dark and fucked up, Baz is surprisingly bright and light, at least compared to Elijah. The contrast between them was fascinating. Rich and poor, Dark and light, but damn, they were perfect together. Oh man, were they.

This is a deep plot, lots of angst and drama, I cried a couple of times, I laughed a couple of times, and there was some hot and kinky sex. The writing is as good as I’ve ever seen, Heidi is at the top of her game with this book. I loved the participation of characters from past books, but she introduces new ones to keep us interested. The dialogue was sharp, the storyline tight, no dragging, no slow spots, yet nothing felt rushed. It’s a nice long book, plenty of time to get in to a good story. I loved the addition of music and pop culture. I loved the bond between all of the characters, but between Elijah and Baz specifically. Some new adult books can drive me nuts, too often the characters are one-dimensional and cutesy, this one is not like that. None of the books in this series is like that. Heidi shows us that young people in college can have just as much drama as older characters.

Damn, I really loved this book. If you have read the others, this one will blow you away. If you haven’t, you need to go read them in order before this one. This is not a standalone novel, you’d need to know what happened and who is who before you read it. But seriously go read them all.

Oh yeah, sex in a Tesla is apparently possible!

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Samhain

Amazon

ARe