Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  Tough Luck

SERIES:  A-List Security #1

AUTHOR:  Annabeth Albert

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:  286 pages

RELEASE:  March 24, 2022

BLURB:

My best friend’s little brother needs a bodyguard. Now I’m the one in danger…

I’m a SEAL. Or rather, I was. Retired at the grand old age of thirty-eight, I’m at loose ends. My best friend wants me to join his security team. I’m not sure I’m bodyguard material, but he needs someone to protect his kid brother. How hard can spoiled brat duty be?

Somehow, I missed the part where former child star Danny Love went from dorky TV darling to all grown up and disturbingly attractive. All the gossip about his wild ways fails to mention that he’s trying hard to clean up his act. But now he’s got a stalker.

Hiding out together in a remote mountain cabin, alone, the temptation keeps building. I’m feeling things I never have before. Secrets I’ve kept even from myself bubble to the surface every time Danny looks my way with those puppy dog eyes.

I’m a SEAL. We leap into danger. So why is it so terrifying when that danger comes with the softest pair of lips I’ve ever known? At some point we’re going to have to return to Hollywood and our vastly different lives. Will Danny still want me around when he doesn’t need me for protection? Can I be brave enough to give him a reason to?

TOUGH LUCK is book one in a brand-new SEAL bodyguard series. It features an age gap, steamy first times, and all the high heat, big emotions, and found family feels readers expect from this fan-favorite military romance author. Join A-List security for this lower-angst series featuring former SEALs and the celebrity clients who win their hearts. Happy endings and no cliffhangers guaranteed!

REVIEW:

The new A-List Security series is all about former Navy SEALs forming a celebrity personal protection/bodyguard agency in the Los Angeles area. Up first is Tough Luck, a story chock full of fun tropes: best friend’s brother, age gap, opposites attract, gay awakening, and forced proximity. This book stars Cash and his protectee, Danny. 

Cash served with the SEALs with Duncan and Harley, business partners in A-List Security. As with any special forces team, its members are as close as brothers. Cash is floundering after leaving the service and is staying with his best friend Duncan while figuring out what to do with his life. He feels understood, appreciated, and supported by Duncan, so when Duncan needs a favor, Cash doesn’t hesitate to help. Duncan’s twenty-five-year-old brother, Danny, is being stalked and needs a bodyguard ASAP, but Duncan and Harley have other commitments. 

Danny Love – former childhood actor and addict (now sober) – missed out on all the normal aspects of childhood. Like Cash, he also has lousy parents. He’s a sweetie but is insecure and has few friends. No one ever chose Danny as a friend or lover because of himself but rather for what he could do for them as a celebrity: partying, photo ops, gifts, and the sort. Even his relationship with Duncan is flawed. Duncan still regards him as a kid who doesn’t have his life in order, rather than as a man who’s successfully beaten an addiction and put his troubling past behind him. Now he’s being stalked…cue Cash’s entrance into his life. 

Cash is the first person who sees the real Danny and appreciates him for the sweet, kind man he is. He’s thirteen years older but regards Danny as an equal. He picks up on Danny’s ADHD and inability to make decisions and modifies his behavior to best accommodate Danny’s needs within those constraints. As a result, Danny feels seen, probably for the first time in his life. He allows himself to be vulnerable with Cash, talking candidly about his addiction and childhood.  

As the danger ramps up, Cash and Danny escape to a remote cabin to hideout while the police work to find Danny’s deranged fan. There’s an undercurrent of attraction between the men but Cash has never been with a man. He’s had no motivation to date and has never had satisfying sex with a woman. Somewhere buried deep he knows he’s gay, and he now realizes he’s been in denial for decades. 

I love sexual awakening themes for their beauty and the peace it eventually brings to the man who’s discovering his sexuality and finally becoming his true self. Cash feels a little lost, like he’s wasted so much time. He’s safe with Danny who appreciates his struggle. Although he’s perhaps unworldly and innocent, Danny’s nonetheless mature. He’s so patient, recognizing that Cash needs time to think and reconcile who he is now with who he thought he was for thirty-eight years. Danny’s patient on the sexual front, as well. He’s a great teacher, empathetic to Cash’s worries about his inexperience 

The pace of the book lags a bit in the middle when the men are at the cabin discovering each other, but the beginning and end back in L.A. are more exciting. The mystery of the stalker stays under wraps until the end. 

I adored Annabeth Albert’s Out of Uniform series about SEALs. I have great hope for this new series to follow in its footsteps. Tough Luck is an enjoyable kick-off. Recommended. 

RATING: 

BUY LINK:

Amazon