Reviewed by Taylin
TITLE: Fling 
SERIES: Nothing Serious #1
AUTHOR: Baylin Crow
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 275 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 15, 2018
BLURB:
Our time together has an expiration date.
HAYDEN: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love him.
The only guy I’ve ever wanted sees me as nothing more than the kid next door and his younger sister’s best friend. But when Dean comes home after college graduation, things are different. I’ve grown up, and the way his golden-brown gaze scorches a path over my body tells me he’s noticed. When he makes me an offer I should refuse, I’m caught between my feelings for him and logic screaming that this idea is doomed to end in heartbreak.
DEAN: I’m not interested in anything serious but I need to have him.
I plan on spending a few months at home relaxing before beginning my dream internship. What I don’t count on is my little sister’s best friend sending me for a loop. He should be off-limits, but the pull I feel toward him is too strong to ignore. When I come up with a solution to spend the summer together in secret, I’m sure I have it all figured out. I just need to work him out of my system.
It’s supposed to be free of complications…a fling. By the end of summer, it’s anything but simple.
REVIEW:
Dean is a player. Hayden is young and has been in love with Dean since….forever. A summer fling seems to be the perfect way for each to get the other out of their systems. Fate doesn’t agree with them. Add to the mix that they live next door to each other and that Dean is his best friends’ older brother, and things could get messy.
The storyline is one of those classics of love from afar becoming real, with the proverbial, shit hitting the fan moments. It’s timeless and always a pleasure to read.
The story is told in the first person from Dean and Hayden’s pov’s. There were complete named chapters dedicated to one or the other. I’ve recently read quite a few stories using this style. I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to get a good grip on this type of layout. I find myself getting confused when I forget whose name was at the start of the chapter.
Onto the technical side. There’s a lot of my eyes did this, or my fingers did that. Autonomous body parts are acceptable providing there are qualifiers like ‘as if my eyes had a will of their own’ etc. Sadly, there are none here. And some sentences could do with rephrasing such as – ‘my feet crunched in the gravel’- I understand what is trying to be said, but it reads as though his feet are crunching rather than the gravel under them. A possible version could have been – the gravel crunched under my feet. They’re only small things, but to some, they make a world of difference. Similarly, one line states – His parents were both professors – The word, parents, is already in the plural, so the word, both, is superfluous
Anyhow, back to the boys.
The story is set in the summer holidays. Some of the main cast have just finished college, others are enjoying life before they go to college. Kudos to the author for not straying from the main arc – it can be temping when creating a world to sink into.
Although Dean is the more dominant of the two, Hayden is no wilting flower – he has a super strength of mind and fairness of soul that I liked a lot. Dean has reasons for his issues, and no matter what he does, I couldn’t help rooting for him and loved the antics he came up with to keep Hayden to himself. The intimate times are hot. Their sneaking around is entertaining, and the angst ticked all my boxes.
The overall story I really enjoyed, I just got hung up on a few technicalities. So, if that sort of thing doesn’t bother you, this is a story worth adding to your library.
RATING: 
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