Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  Thick as Thieves

SERIES:  Aster Valley #4

AUTHOR:  Lucy Lennox

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:  278 pages

RELEASE DATE:  March 1, 2022

BLURB:

Julian:
I’ve been in love with my best friend since forever. Okay, fine. Like, kindergarten. It started out platonic, obviously, but then became… nope. Still platonic. The problem is that Parker Ellis has been straight since forever. And that makes it difficult to convince him the two of us are meant to be together.

And now there’s no point. All is lost. He’s gone and gotten engaged to his high-school sweetheart which means I have to grin and bear it while pretending to be the happy, supportive best man while he prepares to commit his life to a woman I can’t even fault. She’s great. We’ve all been friends forever. I know he’ll be happy with Erin, just not… just not as happy as he could be with me.

Parker:

I’ll admit. Sometimes I press the easy button. Like when Julian Thick had offered me half his sandwich back in grade school after noticing I didn’t have any food. Or when I’d needed a date to homecoming in tenth grade and Erin told me she was it. Or when I’d used the one thing that came easy to me, skiing, to get my college tuition paid for. Or when Erin had showed back up in my life six months ago and told it was time to marry and start a family…

But for the first time in my life I’m facing something that’s not at all easy. It’s my wedding weekend and I’ve just been left at the altar. Not only that, but when my best friend whisks me away to drown my sorrows in a snowy cabin in Aster Valley, I accidentally discover Julian’s been keeping secrets. Big secrets.

The kind of secrets that lead to hot experimental kisses in front of a blazing fire, tenative physical exploration in a way I’d never imagined before, and the kind of intimate, true confessions I’d never even dreamed of between me and the one person who’s always been my true home.

But after twenty-plus years of thinking of Jules as my friend without benefits, is it truly possible to change who we are to each other? There’s no easy button this time, but I’m willing to do the work. I only wonder if Julian is ready to trust I really mean it.

REVIEW:

Who would ever believe I’d be satisfied with a book that has no epilogue? Satisfied, you ask? Hardly. How about head over heels in love with this scrumptious, magnificent romance? Gah, it’s everything and contains my two favorite tropes – childhood best friends-to-lovers and a demisexual awakening. I love when a man discovers the joy of gay sex for the first time.

Everyone loves Parker. He’s welcoming, kind, loyal, and goes out of his way to help others and make them happy. But no one loves him more than Julian.

If there was a record for how long you could carry a torch for the wrong person, I thought for sure I’d be appearing in the Guinness Book any day now.

They’ve been BFFs since they were six, and two decades later, he loves him more than ever. They would do anything for each other, anything to save the other from pain. Parker was badly neglected by his parents and sought comfort from Julian and his family. His childhood informs his future relationship with Erin – he likes the idea of a nice, stable, comfortable life. Erin, unfortunately, has a decade long history of breaking up with Parker, moving on to other men, and then returning to Parker over and over again. His abandonment issues skew his perception of love. It’s now the eve of their wedding – six months after Erin told Parker they should get married – and Julian must accept he will no longer be the most important thing in Parker’s life. He’ll be the third wheel and his fantasies about a future with the man he says loves harder than anyone he knows is now just a pipe dream. Parker’s straight, after all, and that’s not going to change. But then Erin leaves Parker on their wedding day to seek a more adventurous, exciting life.

After being jilted, Parker goes with Julian to his cabin in Aster Valley to recover. He’s not sad, though, just…relieved. Julian can’t accept that his friend isn’t devastated, that he doesn’t want to drown his sorrows in whiskey. What it turns out he wants is Julian, naked and up against a wall. Even after they kiss and share the best hand jobs of Parker’s life, though, Julian knows in his heart Erin will eventually come running back to Parker and he’ll accept her with open arms. He keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. He can’t trust Parker’s feelings and doesn’t want to be his second choice. But Parker knows Julian is it, his forever. He never knew true love before.

He reached out and cupped the side of my face. “I never knew it could be like that…Possessive. Dominant. Overwhelming. Hot as fuck.” He met my eyes. “Unrestrained and fearless.”

It’s so beautiful when Parker and Julian get together, when they comprehend their feelings for each other, and understand they’re a thing, made for each other. Lucy Lennox does a wonderful job of simultaneously injecting passion, tenderness, reverence, excitement, and fun into their intimacy. This book is smoking hot! My favorite thing about childhood best friends-to-lovers is the depth of emotions that already exist. It just shifts to something passionate.

I want to move to Aster Valley and be embraced by the caring residents, new and old. The whole Aster Valley gang turns up in this book, but none more than Tiller and Sam (who were both childhood friends with Parker and Julian) and Mikey. Mikey’s antics trying to set up Julian are hilarious. At one point, Parker seeks advice from a guy meant to be a Grindr hookup. Julian’s sister, Hazel, is another great character.

So, no epilogue. They’re the icing on the cake. Normally, I deduct from a rating when a book has no epilogue, that’s how important it is for me to see the couple’s happiness carry on into the future. Thick as Thieves is such a complete story – the perfect HEA – I daresay an epilogue would have been detrimental to its impact. Ms. Lennox had outdone herself; this is among my top four of her solo books, and with an author this prolific, that’s saying something. I give my highest recommendation.

RATING: 

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