Reviewed by Jess

TITLE: A Higher Flame

SERIES: Assured Elites #2

AUTHOR: Parker Avrile

PUBLISHER: Paris April Press (Self-published)

LENGTH: 204 pages

RELEASE DATE:  January 2, 2018

BLURB:

A celebrity matchmaking service pairs a lonely billionaire with a playboy actor. Are they nuts?

“Just be nice, and don’t break his heart too fast. Wait until after the Oscars.”

Bad boy Trent has been nominated for Best Actor, and now the rising star needs to clean up his act. A steady man at his side will make him seem more authentic to the Academy voters.

“There are so many ways this could blow up into you screwing up and having fun.”

Ben isn’t quite sure why Gran volunteered him for a blind date with a Hollywood actor. The spotlight is for other billionaires. Ben chooses to be alone in the shadows.

Assured Elites never fails to put together the dreamiest matches. Will Trent and Ben break their perfect record?

A Higher Flame is a steamy gay romance novel that features a bashful billionaire, a secret beach, and a bad boy who needs to clean up his act. Always a guaranteed happy ending, and absolutely no cheating or cliffhangers.

REVIEW:

This is the second book in the Assured Elites trilogy, but so far, we don’t really know anything about the men behind the titular matchmaking agency or why they do what they do. We only know that they make perfect matches. And true to the theme, Ben and Trent have amazing chemistry and their coming together feels as organic as possible under the circumstances. It isn’t a perfect series so far, but it has some high points.

I loved how Ben and Trent met for the first time. It’s the perfect depiction of two people who find each other attractive right away but still need to be cautious and feel each other out for tricks or insincerity. Trent’s naturally flirty personality and Ben’s quiet stoicism work shockingly well together, making their entire gym introduction a delight to read. I think Avrile is better at writing the build-up than the main event, so to speak—her erotica is a little repetitive, and in both books of the series so far, the sexual dynamics seem to be nearly identical (light bondage, edging, etc.). But the romantic zing between the two men is certainly present.

At about the halfway mark, this story started feeling…familiar. In fact, it bears such a strong resemblance to the first book that I could hardly keep some of the characters apart. The meddling managers, sad family backstory, cute dog interventions, and paparazzi posturing all happened in the first book, and they’re insignificant enough details to not be necessary to this book. However, the plotting in this book is kept tighter and simpler, which I think works for a pretty fluffy story.

We get only a tenuous, slippery grip on these characters right up until the end. They remain undefined and scattered throughout the whole story. Take Trent, for instance—he’s an Oscar-nominated actor and apparently a multimillionaire, but we know nothing about his career, the types of movies he’s in, his acting history, or anything else. And one of the most interesting bits of backstory for Ben was completely discarded after it was mentioned once or twice. Apparently, he was kidnapped as a child and it was enough of a media sensation to make him a minor celebrity, yet we never know any interesting details about that! What happened? Who did it? How did the family react? What are the lasting effects on Ben? It was just never discussed again.

Parker Avrile is a good romance writer who knows how to get the sparks flying, but she really loses the thread on plot details sometimes. Both books in this series so far need major editing to keep track of character details, backstory, pacing, and structure. They are decent romances that could be great with a lot of tweaking.

There’s one book left in the trilogy, so I hope we’ll finally get to actually meet the Assured Elites dynamic duo!

RATING: 

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