Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Mr. Uptight
AUTHOR: Felice Stevens
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 314 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 18, 2021
BLURB:
Jude:
What do you do when you wake up with a hangover and find yourself in bed with your best friend’s younger brother?
Who happens to be your new brother-in-law?
The man who drives you crazy.
The man who always skated by on fast-talk, good looks, and a bright smile.
The one who makes you want to break all the rules.
You hire him as your assistant, of course.
And pray you can keep your sanity.
And your hands off him.
Mason:
How do you prove you’ve changed?
That you’re no longer the party-boy who always needed rescuing from his own mistakes—and boy you’ve made some big ones.
But no one needs to know your secrets.
You take a job with the one man who doesn’t trust you.
Who’s waiting for you to screw up.
You try and forget that one explosive night together.
Except you can’t.
And to your shock…neither can he.
What do you do when the one man you can’t imagine living with is the one you can’t live without?
REVIEW:
Felice Stevens doesn’t break new ground with the premise of this grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract, best friend’s brother romance, Mr. Uptight. Her execution of the premise, however, is novel and notable.
Jude – aka Mr. Uptight – is your prototypical workaholic. He’s all business and locked-down emotions, and he holds everything, including his true self, very close to the vest. He’s stoic, seemingly unflappable, closed-off and lives by the book.
“Rules are there for a reason.”
Due to Jude’s absent father, Jude became the caregiver for his ailing (now deceased) mother and his younger sister Ilana. He took up the mantle as her parent and as man of the house. His whole life narrowed to that duty and he took it very seriously. Consequently, he sacrificed himself and his happiness in the process. To survive the enormous responsibility, the loneliness and the grief, Jude closed himself off and now doesn’t know how to let anyone in.
In contrast, Mason, the younger brother of Jude’s best friend and business partner, Doug, is the antithesis of Jude. He’s all exuberance and sunshine, beauty and charm, friendly and likeable. Everything comes easy for Mason (or so it appears). Mason has lived his life breaking all the rules, flying by the seat of his pants, willing to take risks without a safety net. Where Jude couldn’t take risks because he could never afford to fall, Mason explored life with freedom and without a plan.
Jude and Mason’s history is long, but they haven’t seen each other in years. Mason has been away, cruising the world with an uber-wealthy, older benefactor/employer, but now he’s back home and looking for a fresh start. He’s hoping to establish roots with his family and show he’s no longer that stereotypical party-boy screw-up. That’s a tough sell for Jude, though, who lets his prejudice and resentment toward Mason rule him. Jude struggles and mostly fails at giving Mason a chance to prove that he’s changed. All of these complex emotions run concurrent with Jude’s deepest secret: his deep seated desire for Mason despite all of their differences.
The setup here is not unfamiliar. But Ms. Stevens deftly crafts a different story from it. It’s not the simple opposites attract, misunderstanding based conflict you’d expect. Rather, she weaves a story of a pseudo-parent who’s dedicated his whole life and whole self to his “child”/sister and has lost himself in the process.
When the book opens, Ilana has just gotten married to Doug. Jude is thrilled for his sister and best friend, but is left reeling in the wake of the wedding. Who is he now that his role as a parent is done? He gave everything up so long ago, he’s terrified that he reduced himself to only that role.
“What if that’s all I am?”
Jude is Mr. Uptight for a very good reason, and your heart will just break for him. Ms. Stevens adroitly communicates all of Jude and Mason’s nuanced and complex emotions through exceptionally written prose. You’ll feel its impact in the gut, and the heart. There’s plenty of sexual tension and the ensuing, inevitable breaking of the dam, unleashing the wild desire, deep wanting and emotional desperation that’s been building between them. Ms. Stevens strikes just the right balance of all of these elements. The angst has meaning, the sex has emotion and the verbal – and nonverbal – communication between Jude and Mason is mature, authentic and completely believable.
The only reason I gave this book 4.5 Hearts instead of 5 Hearts is because of pacing. While the pace of this book is, for the most part, perfect, the fluidity of the storyline and the effortless way it carries the reader along shifts in the latter portions of the book. The scenes become long, laden with introspective dialogue with little to no action, yet at the same time, the information provided to the reader accelerates. The story almost comes to a complete halt, and in place of plot, the reader gets an information dump of emotional baggage, declarations and catharsis.
Ms. Stevens’ writing is terrific, with heartfelt dialogue between two vulnerable, endearing men. Through that dialogue, she delivers important, meaningful, emotional content. But in these latter sections of the book, the delivery of the content somehow went awry. It is difficult to engage with and understand the meaning of the important, emotional content being shared between Jude and Mason because of the uneven pacing.
Notwithstanding the pacing issue, I wholeheartedly recommend Mr. Uptight. It’s got everything you’d want in a romance and then some, including a well-deserved HEA, although I do wish there was a little bit more to the epilogue. (Call me greedy; I love Jude and Mason.) Mason’s “Mission Remove Stick from Jude’s Ass” is a resounding success and you’ll join in celebrating with him and Jude on their newfound happiness together.
RATING: 
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