Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Too Good to be True
SERIES: Blue Moon
AUTHOR: A.E. Via
NARRATOR: Tim Paige
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 8 hours and 32 minutes
RELEASE DATE; August 25, 2020
BLURB:
Angel DeLucca is one of the most sought after gay bachelors in Virginia Beach. He’s smart, successful, lethal, and more than anything he’s drop dead gorgeous. When a one night hook-up goes terribly wrong, Angel comes into contact with the breathtaking Maximus “Max” Strong.
Max is a firefighter for the Virginia Beach Fire Department. Max is beautiful, charming, and also very straight. One meeting with the mysteriously sexy Angel DeLucca and a whiff of that silky, jet black hair, Max finds himself questioning everything he’s known to be true about himself. Max tries desperately to understand the new feelings he has for another man and turns to his gay, older brother…Ryker.
Ryker has always been Max’s protector and his guide their entire lives, which has left him feeling uncared for and alone to handle his own life’s problems. Ryker craves to be taken care of, he craves the attention and praise of a Master. No one knows the dark desires within him until Angel’s Chief of Security, Sebastian “Bass” Bagatelli, shatters that secret with their first intense encounter.
REVIEW:
In the first part of this story, we meet Angel who owns a very successful nightclub. He’s tired of hooking up and one night stands and he’d really like to find someone to settle down with. On a particularly bad night, the fire department ends up at his place and he meets Max Strong – a newly promoted Sargent of the local department. He’s drawn to the man and he can tell that Max is also drawn to him. When Max comes back to the club a few nights later, they get off on the wrong foot with a misunderstanding about Angel’s relationship with hist best friends who help him run his club. Max is jealous but Angel talks him down and they agree to go on a date. The date goes beyond well and that’s that.
Meanwhile, Ryker, Max’s older brother, goes to the club with Max and meets Bass, Angel’s Chief of Security, who also happens to be a Dom. Ryker is gay and Max’s biggest supporter. They’ve overcome an abusive family situation and Ryker has always felt responsible for Max. He has heard Angel’s reputation and he wants to make sure that his baby brother is getting jerked around. Bass senses that Ryker is definitely a sub – and more than that, he’s the perfect sub for him. When Max is hurt on the job, Ryker is freaking out and only Bass can talk him down. They agree to spend some time together and once they do, that’s it. They are together and Ryker is Bass’s.
Things are going along well and then there is an incident at Angel’s club. It results in a kidnapping and a daring rescue that will take a lot of cooperation from multiple factions to get the victim back alive. The well-coordinated planning, execution, and aftermath have far reaching consequences for Max and Ryker.
This is actually the first book by A.E. Via that I’ve listened too. And boy, was there a lot going on. In fact, there was too much going on. This book really tells three stories and because of that, we stay too much on the surface of each of them. The first story, between Angel and Max is one of instalust of a formerly straight guy and a gay guy that becomes instalove as of their first date. I’m not saying it can’t happen – I’ve met people who knew in one date and were married within weeks who were together the rest of their lives. But to go from straight to “the one” being a guy you don’t know but are attracted to and then in love seemed somewhat far fetched. Not saying they weren’t hot together, just that I would have liked to have more relationship development. The second story, between Max’s brother Ryker and Bass, Angel’s Chief of Security also is D/s instalust to instalove/collared in a matter of days. The issue I have with that story was that Ryker’s only other experimentation with a Dom led to physical abuse. So to hop back in with someone this quickly just didn’t ring true to me. Then the third story, which involved the kidnapping of one of the key characters brings in another whole host of characters and takes off in another direction entirely with a former military squad led by the victim’s father. There is a lot of action and complete blind trust of people that have barely met, so again the credibility was a bit strained. I would actually have preferred this story to be told in three different books that took the time to set the foundation and let us know who these guys really were and why they fit together and found such compatibility and love. It is a case of trying to fit 10 lbs of sugar into a 5 lb sack. That being said, the narrator did a great job of bringing to life all of these characters – and there are a lot of them! I appreciated his voice selections and he added a lot of life and vitality to the telling of these stories. If you’re looking for a really fast-paced immediate connection leading to an HEA, then this book might be for you.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Audible