Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  A Guy Walks Into My Bar

AUTHOR: Lauren Blakely

PUBLISHER:  Little Dog Press

LENGTH:  434 pages

RELEASE DATE:  August 19, 2020

BLURB:

Every bartender should follow one simple rule—don’t go home with the customers.

That’s been easy for me to stick to, until the night a cocky, confident, and sinfully charming hockey star walks into my bar. This sexy athlete is too hard to resist, especially when he makes it clear how much he wants the “sarcastic, witty, hot AF” guy behind the bar—also known as me. Still, I’m not keen on breaking my own rules since I know where that can lead—no place good. But when that man makes his case with one bone-searing kiss on the streets of London, I throw resistance out the window.

What could go wrong with a hot, no-strings-attached fling before he leaves town in five days? Trouble is, soon our nights together lead to days, to long conversations, to getting to know each other, and to something I never expected—falling ridiculously hard for a man who’s getting on a plane to America when I live a world away. My life is here. His is there. And no amount of falling or feeling will change that one big problem.

REVIEW:

Passion (noun): a strong and barely controllable emotion 

A Guy Walks Into My Bar is an extraordinary study in passion – a desperate, lust-driven, all-consuming palpable passion that rises off the page. For Dean and Fitz, it’s a need to be together, both in and out of bed. 

Dean and Fitz, an American pro-hockey player on vacation in London, meet when Fitz walks into the bar Dean owns. He saunters right over to him and makes it clear he wants to take Dean back to his hotel that night. Dean has a policy – and a pact with the bar’s co-owner – to never get involved with customers, so he turns Fitz down. But both feel the crazy chemistry so Fitz doesn’t back down. Dean caves but they both insist on a fling only. Just a brief love affair. This fits the bill for Fitz because he’s only in the UK for another five days and he needs no distractions from his career on the ice. Dean suffered a bad experience with his last boyfriend who suddenly became clingy and wanted something more than casual. Dean doesn’t want distractions in his professional life, either. 

Flings have a beginning, a middle, and most importantly, an end. You can enjoy the hell out of them because that immutable fail-safe known as an expiration date. 

But soon they’re both yearning for more time, more than just a fling. They spend time together out of bed. They get to know each other: their likes and dislikes, dreams and fears. They meet friends and family. They try not to fall in love, but it’s too strong. They fall hard and fast but I implore you NOT to pass this book by if you don’t like instalove. Everything about this book is believable.  

They’re wishing for more time together as Fitz’s departure date closes in. It’s no longer an issue of distraction – that ship sailed – but of logistics. They live more than three thousand miles apart, tied to either side of the Atlantic, both well-entrenched in their individual, long-held and hard-worked for dreams they can’t and won’t sacrifice. The inevitable happens and Fitz returns to American after just five days spent with Dean. I could feel the heartache and pain these two devastated men experienced. It made my eyes well up. I truly couldn’t figure out how this story would end. Obviously, they’d be together, but how they’d get there I had no clue. They are both tied to their city and country by career, family, and priceless friends. 

Lauren Blakely is an experienced writer with dozens of M/F novels to her name, and it shows. This is, however, her first foray into M/M romance and it shines. 

This book is very sexual. There is so much sex but never too much, never gratuitous. It’s just perfect. Ms. Blakely could instruct a master class in writing steamy sex scenes. I’m stunned these are her first (graphic) M/M scenes. They’re full of raw emotion – need, longing, and yes, passion. It’s “hot, hard, hungry sex,” “carnal and obscene.” 

I want Fitz so much I can feel it in my lungs.  I want him ferociously, with a desperation I haven’t known in ages. Or maybe I’ve never known it could be like  this. This intense. This … devouring. And my god, I want to devour him.

A Guy Walks Into My Bar rocked me. It’s so powerful with the kind of sexy borne of two strong alpha males falling in love (I love this dynamic!) In this case, these men are equals and they don’t grapple for power or control because they’re always on the same page. The ending is fabulous – one of the best I’ve read – and the epilogue reaches several years out – something I love because we get to see peeks into the future. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have. It gets my highest recommendation. 

RATING:  

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