Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Hookup at the Library
SERIES: Shelby Beach
AUTHOR: Skylar M. Cates
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 268 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 23, 2020
BLURB:
Longing to escape a terrible workday, when the opportunity for a hookup with a stranger arrives, Matteo goes for it. Unfortunately, it ends badly…really badly. Worse, when Matteo confronts the hookup a few months later, he challenges the wrong guy. Oops. Levi is determined to find his no-good brother, but he never expects to need the help of one flabbergasted and adorable small-town librarian in a bow tie. As the two embark on a friendship, Levi slowly lets go of past hurts and opens his heart to Matteo, and the intensity between them builds. Matteo isn’t usually assertive, but he finds his voice with Levi. Finally free to be himself, Levi welcomes this new feeling of being desired. When Levi’s brother resurfaces, Matteo and Levi must fight for what they want. But can two shy men who have always been about others, learn to risk it all, putting love—and themselves—first?
Note: All the books in the Shelby Beach series can be read together or alone
REVIEW:
Note: While technically book 3 in this series, it works perfectly well as a standalone. There are spoilers for books 1 and 2 however 🙂
Longing to escape a terrible workday, when the opportunity for a hookup with a stranger arrives, Matteo goes for it. Unfortunately, it ends badly…really badly. Worse, when Matteo confronts the hookup a few months later, he challenges the wrong guy. Oops. Levi is determined to find his no-good brother, but he never expects to need the help of one flabbergasted and adorable small-town librarian in a bow tie. As the two embark on a friendship, Levi slowly lets go of past hurts and opens his heart to Matteo, and the intensity between them builds. Matteo isn’t usually assertive, but he finds his voice with Levi. Finally free to be himself, Levi welcomes this new feeling of being desired. When Levi’s brother resurfaces, Matteo and Levi must fight for what they want. But can two shy men who have always been about others, learn to risk it all, putting love—and themselves—first?
Note: All the books in the Shelby Beach series can be read together or alone
REVIEW:
Matteo is having a night out and he’s looking for a hookup 🙂 He finds a guy at the local gay bar – and while he doesn’t exactly like the guy, he’s just there to scratch an itch. But the hookup goes a bit sideways because Matteo drinks too much and so he get sick and Spence, the hookup runs out. Matteo has to go to his job at the library hungover and deal with his boss who seem to have it in for him anyway. Matteo is burning the candle at both ends as it is working at his family bakery, his family B&B and the library – but that’s what family does, right?
The next week, the guy shows up at the library! Matteo isn’t interested in seeing him and asks him to leave, going so far as to punch him in the shoulder. Then he discovers it’s not the guy but it is his twin, Levi. Levi is in Shelby Beach to find his brother – the aforementioned Spence who has gone off-grid and left a mess in his wake. Matteo feels bad so he offers Levi food at the bakery and invites him to stay over instead of staying at the fleabag motel he’s been at.
Spence and Levi come from a different kind of family. Their mother is a politician with big ambition. Their father left and the have had issues during their growing up. Spence and Levi are nothing alike and Levi has always taken responsibility for Spence at the expense of his own happiness. But this time Spence has gone too far. The consequences of his actions cannot be ignored.
Levi and Matteo really hit it off but there is the little issue of Spence that at first keeps them apart. Eventually though, they are able to get past it and the chemistry between them is strong. Matteo has never gotten what we wants from any guy he’s been with but he feels like maybe he can with Levi. Levi has never let go with anyone, but he feels he can with Matteo.
There is a lot of family drama with Levi and Spence’s family. As Spence continues to hide from everyone, this puts more pressure on Levi to find him and get him to do the right thing – on a number of fronts. But Spence is over his head this time and the chickens come home to roost in the worst possible way – with more mistaken identities.
This is a very slow burn romance that has a lot of moving parts 🙂 I did like Matteo and Levi together. They both had a LOT of baggage and the majority of the story concerned them dealing with it and learning how to be together. There are a LOT of smexy times. There is a lot of family drama for Spence and Levi that takes a bit to get resolved. My only complaint was the at the pacing was a little slow in the first 40% for me, but then things really got going. I was happy to see these two figure out themselves and get their happy ending 🙂 Recommended for slow burn romances.
RATING: 
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