Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  Fish Stick Fridays

SERIES:  Half Moon Bay #1

AUTHOR:  Rhys Ford

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  204 pages

BLURB:  

Deacon Reid was born bad to the bone with no intention of changing. A lifetime of law-bending and living on the edge suited him just fine—until his baby sister died and he found himself raising her little girl.

Staring down a family history of bad decisions and reaped consequences, Deacon cashes in everything he owns, purchases an auto shop in Half Moon Bay, and takes his niece, Zig, far away from the drug dens and murderous streets they grew up on. Zig deserves a better life than what he had, and Deacon is determined to give it to her.

Lang Harris is stunned when Zig, a little girl in combat boots and a purple tutu blows into his bookstore, and then he’s left speechless when her uncle, Deacon Reid walks in, hot on her heels. Lang always played it safe but Deacon tempts him to step over the line… just a little bit.

More than a little bit. And Lang is willing to be tempted.

Unfortunately, Zig isn’t the only bit of chaos dropped into Half Moon Bay. Violence and death strikes leaving Deacon scrambling to fight off a killer before he loses not only Zig but Lang too.

REVIEW:  

Deacon Reid doesn’t have a clue what to do with Zig, his niece. Neither of them had nice childhoods, but even he has to admit finding the body of her mother and then spending the next year and a half in the foster system is bound to leave a few scars. Scars he only has hope to help heal. For now, though, he’d settle for a safe place to live, work to keep food in their stomachs, and maybe cutting Zig’s cursing down by at least half. Ok, a quarter. By anything really.

Half Moon Bay was supposed to be the answer to at least two of those problems. That, along with a garage to run and a home to sleep in, it also boasts one Lang Harris –a rich, cute, bookstore clerk so out of his league it might as well be cricket–is only a bonus.

But like most things in his life, nothing is ever that simple. Now he has to deal with gun-toating, arsonist, psychopaths; inquisitive coppers; and falling in love in the most dangerous way possible.

I saw this book coming out and I was thrilled. Haven’t read a book by Rhys Ford yet that hasn’t been great. And this seemed a bit different from her usual mystery mayhem so I was intrigued.

To be honest I was kinda expecting a pretty low-key book (yes, yes, go ahead and mock me) from what I read of the blurb (I’m going with B for intention, D for reading comprehension, on that one). Guess I totally forgot that if it doesn’t explode, shoot, or burn to ash…then it sure isn’t Rhys Ford. Probably one of the reasons she is my go-to author for action and chaos. But under the blood and the death-defying acts was a very real story that pulled me under from nearly the first chapter.

I adored Deacon and Zig. I loved how they only had each other, before Lang, and they were willing to do anything to hold each other together. Deacon might be Zig’s uncle, but he does some real A+ parenting in this book. Sure he had to choose his battles when it comes to certain things, but he loves Zig. You can tell he’d do anything to protect her. Fish Stick Fridays might be about the romance of Lang and Deacon, but it is also, in large, about the love of Deacon and Zig. And when you add in Lang to that, it only gets better.

Sometimes the families you make are better. Sometimes the puzzle pieces you end up super-glueing together make a much more interesting picture than the one predestined by some boring box.

There is just so much to love about this book. When *mumblemumble* got [REDACTED] I nearly had a fit. And I’d only known them for like an hour! And when we found out that *loud jackhammering* was the one who was behind the thingamajig, I was bloody well shocked. It was AWESOME. I lost count of how many times I was convinced I KNEW who was behind it all. I was both right and wrong, at various times. I adore when that happens. Makes me never want to stop reading.

I was so freaking happy to see that Rhys Ford was a bit kinder to her automobiles in this book, than she was in the last book of her’s I read. Not so much to the windows (one has to wonder if in a previous life she had died by walking thru a window or something. Her rage at glass seems endless), but the bike seems to have come thru just fine. Was half expecting Rhys to write in the bad guy stealing the thing and driving it off a cliff as one last attempt at revenge or something.

If you love Rhys Ford you are going to love this. If you love action you are going to love this. If you think a kick-ass biker wearing tutus in solidarity with their kick-ass niece is awesome, you will really like this. Mostly, if you just like really great books then this is the story for you.

(I’m kinda relieved I don’t have to pay any quarters to the swear-jar for my cussing in this…cause I be broke and swearing is fun!)

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner

Amazon

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