Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: Head Rush
SERIES: A Haven Hart Novel
AUTHOR: Davidson King
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 204 Pages
RELEASE DATE: March 16 2022
BLURB:
Rush
All I want is to finish college, live life as a musician, and love the man of my dreams. That man, however, is Simon Manos, nephew of crime boss Christopher Manos, and there’s a war brewing on the streets of Haven Hart. Achieving my dreams has to be done while ducking bullets, trying not to get blown up, and hoping enemies don’t kill me.
Simon
I love Rush and want him to have everything he could ever hope for—all that his father denied him. As the heir to the Manos family business, it’s not quite that simple; I have responsibilities to fulfill. Haven Hart is getting dangerous, enemies need to be dealt with, and unfortunately, our dreams of the future must be put on hold.
We call on old friends and band together to face a common threat. When we’re forced into hiding, the situation escalates and the odds don’t seem to be in our favor. We do the only thing we can…stand our ground to the bitter end. As our lives start to fall apart, the unasked question is posed: Will someone have to make the ultimate sacrifice to save everyone?
REVIEW:
This is the second book of the second generation of the Haven Hart folk. In the first book, we met a grown up Simon and followed his adventures at university where he met Rush.
All Rush wanted was a quiet life, out of the shadow of his overbearing father – who turned out to be a real bad guy. He fell for Simon and was saved by him in more ways than one. Now, he’s left with an aftermath where he is coming to realise that being with Simon has more strings than he’d expected.
The Manos family has gone from one of the biggest crime families in Haven Hart to one of the ruling bodies of the city. Along with Black and his assasins agency, they work alongside Poe and Phin Hart/Edgars to keep the citizens in line and safe, although safe is never a word they would ascribe to themselves.
Rush finds out very quickly that to be part of the Manos institution is to be as far from safe as he has ever been. The big question for Rush is whether loving Simon is worth killing and dying for. As always, he has some help in this from Snow Manos, who is my absolute hero and wifu and could charm the feathers off a bird. Like Rush, Snow was an innocent, sucked into the underworld by a series of unfortunate events and having to unify the two very different sides of his life.
And Rush is not the only one who has some adjusting to do. Simon has to learn to accept that Rush is not yet part of his world, that he has no stable ground to stand on unless Simon is there to stabilize him, and that’s the Simon he fell in love with and not the Simon who is heir to the Manos legacy. They both have their challenges and the author doesn’t pull punches in providing those challenges.
The book mainly follows the formula of the other Haven Hart books with intense emotional drama interspersed with light-hearted moments and fun scenes, which built dramatic tension as events around them spiral out of control to a dramatic conclusion. It’s a winning combination and I was as thrilled with this installment of the ongoing drama that is the Manos family, and Haven Hart, as I have with all the ones that went before.
Technically this book can be read as a standalone, although it would be best to read it after Secret Simon and ideally should come in sequence after the previous Haven Hart series. It would be well worth a binge, if only to get to know Snow better
RATING: 
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