Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Up in the Air 2: West Coast
SERIES: Up in the Air #2
AUTHOR: George Loveland
PUBLISHER: LoveBow Publishing
LENGTH: 203 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 11, 2018
BLURB:
Max Cooper has never known love and uses drink to numb the feelings of rejection he’s faced with. It doesn’t help him in his career as an air steward when after a very drunken night his best friend swaps their flights over so Max can keep his job.
When Max flies out to Los Angeles, his patience is tested when he offers to help fellow air steward and rising drag queen, Dai Zee, with her costume changes at the best drag club in LA, Flamingos. While he watches Dai Zee perform, he catches the eye of a guy in the corner, but fails to find him when the performance ends. An ill-timed text message sends Max back to the bottle, and into the bed of a man he doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to be with.
The next night at Flamingos he finds the man he was searching for, but it’s not as easy as he’d hoped. Antonio Baldini isn’t interested in a drunken Max and rejects his advances until another drag queen, Miss Crystal, plays a hand in getting the two of them together. As Max and Antonio step past the initial confusion, they tread carefully with each other, neither one wanting to get hurt.
Even when Max is back in London, the late-night video calls don’t stop, but it’s when they are reunited in Las Vegas that things turn serious.
Max can’t shake his past, and someone is out for him and his job – trying to stop him from flying altogether. He’s worried about what it will mean for his new relationship if he can’t fly; and whether he can stay away from the drink long enough to be with a man who seems to care for him.
REVIEW:
We first met Max in book one, when his roommate and fellow air steward, James traded flights with him after he came back to their flat drunk again! James let him know that he was on thin ice with the Airlines they both worked for. Max agreed to take the London/Los Angeles flight and even help a fellow steward get ready for his big break as a Drag Queen at the Famous Flamingos Club. There, following a night of indiscretion fueled by a text from his mom, he met the gorgeous Antonio the next evening. Antonio was as close to the man of his dreams as he could get. After a pretty rough start, Antonio and Max seem to hit it off. All was going good until his supervisor, Graham, showed his true colors and that he was indeed out of get him fired. How will the two of them work when Antonio is based in LA and Max in London with his job “Up in the Air”?
I had really enjoyed James and Darren’s story and was looking forward to what the deal was with Max. Max surprised me a bit. At first I was a little leery of him and his excessive lifestyle but soon realized it was all his insecurities and past that drove him to act so irresponsibly. He literally had no self worth and felt that he was unlovable. That’s what I liked about Antonio. He was justifiably cautious and moved slow at first, after witnessing Max the evening before. Antonio needed to test the waters and get to know him before he could trust him.
This book was written from Max’s point of view and I would have loved to have heard things from Antonio’s side too. It was a little to quick to the sack for me but I liked how these two meshed and how Max’s fellow employees rallied around him in support when Graham started in on him. I don’t know if we will get to the bottom of Graham and why he is so nasty to everyone in the next story or not. I felt like the author left me hanging in the air with that whole storyline.
I have seen that the next story in the series is back to James and Darren, which I look forward to, but feel that Max and Antonio’s story is also just left hanging so I don’t know if we return to them after it. I also feel like we need Danny (Dai Zee) and Brandon’s story.
RATING: 
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