Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: Hazardous Things
SERIES: Star Shadow #3
AUTHOR: Beth Bolden
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 357 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 29, 2020
BLURB:
Felix Humphries can’t even remember the first time he crushed on Star Shadow’s drummer, Max McCloud.
It’s been an embarrassingly long time, but he’s still never acted on his feelings. One, because Max is his older brother’s best friend. Two, because Max is also his friend. Three, Max is technically his boss. And four, worst of all, Max is straight.
But when Max unexpectedly needs a caretaker for a few weeks, Felix can’t leave his friend in the lurch. He’s all ready to suffer through being so close but not close enough, when the unexpected happens.
Max isn’t straight after all, and what Max wants is Felix—but only in his bed, not in his heart.
Hazardous Things is the third book in the Star Shadow series and should not be read as a standalone.
REVIEW:
This is the least angsty book so far, I think. That’s not to say there isn’t tension, but somehow it’s not as intense. Maybe it’s the characters’ personalities. Max, for certain, seems to be the most stable of his friends, and Felix, although he’s feisty and sometimes mischievous, is steadier than his brother in many ways.
It was so sad to see Felix struggle with trying to take care of Max while keeping his heart safe. He was never going to succeed. I have to admit to being a little disappointed in Max. This wasn’t a stranger he met in a bar, or even just a friend. He’d lived with Felix in close quarters for years. To some extent, he watched Felix grow up. There is no way, while living that closely together for so long, Max could have been clueless about how Felix felt. He knew Felix and what kind of a person he was. Many of his reactions frustrated me. That’s not to say the author wrote out of character per se. I just didn’t like some of the things Max did, especially when Felix was looking after him.
Even though Felix was struggling, he was no pushover. I have always liked Felix’ sparky personality even though I had not seen much of him in previous books. The attraction between him and Max had always been clear, and they had become inseparable. My first disappointment in Max was that he didn’t even try to talk things through with Felix when he started to pull away in he first place.
Apart from my frustration with Max, this book was just as easy to read as the last one and seems to have got into an easy stride. I liked Max and Felix wo were mainly true to how they had been set up through the previous books. As always, the authors characterisation is spot on and the situations she places the characters into are real and believable
This is not my favourite of the three books and it’s hard to put my finger on why. There is no fault in the writing but I think I just didn’t invest in Mad and Felix as I had with Caleb and Leo, and Benji and Diego. I think it’s mainly a matter of personal taste, but there seemed to be something lacking between them, There wasn’t the sense of urgency and drive as there was in te previous two.
That being said. I still very much enjoyed the book and would recommend it to fans of the Star Shadow series. If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, then go back and do that because I’m not sure this one will entirely make sense without the background.
RATING: 
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