Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Stick Shift

SERIES:  Big Bull Mechanics, Book 3

AUTHOR: K.M. Neuhold

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH:  276 pages

RELEASE DATE:  January 6, 2023

BLURB: 

Is it possible my straight best friend had a sudden stick shift?

I made peace with my hopeless crush on my straight best friend, Journey, years ago. It helps that he’s never in the country long and our relationship consists of sporadic texts and video chats at odd hours.

Now Journey is back. Back in the country, in my space, sharing my bed, and something is changing between us.

Neither of us has a clue how to run the small farm his uncle left him, but I’m willing to be the idiot standing next to him, figuring it out. Learning how to shear an alpaca or keep a rogue mini cow out of the kitchen looks easy compared to navigating the sudden change in Journey.

Is he looking at me differently? Is he touching me more? Straight guys don’t normally kiss other men, right? I don’t know what’s happening between us, but I’ll put things in gear and floor it all the way.

***Stick Shift is a bi-awakening, best friends to lovers story with farm animal shenanigans, nosy mechanics, and all the steam and sweetness you can handle.

REVIEW: 

When needing a low-key, irreverent MM rom-com, K.M. Neuhold is a sure bet. Stick Shift continues her penchant for marshmallow tough guys hiding behind a plethora of tattoos and flinty macho attitude. Her Big Bull Mechanics crew of love-starved softies are as humorous as they are huggable, so Neuhold’s rewarding them with solid HEAs with their perfect life partners is a fait accompli. The question is not if or even when, but rather how.

Stick Shift capitalizes on a robust lifelong friendship between Big Bull mechanic Red and Journey, his childhood BFF. Neuhold takes these two sexy dudes, throws them into a fish-out-of-water scenario (a mechanic and a travel blogger singlehandedly running a farm with Google as their guide), and then isolates them in close proximity, and voila! – hilarity and sheet-burning sexy times. It takes a minute to get to the heat; Journey first needs to recognize his attraction to Red (no Journey, you are not straight), and Red needs to get his head out of his ass and show Journey, “I’m your guy.” 

The underlying premise of Stick Shift is “two idiots in love”,  and it works well in Neuhold’s capable hands. She seamlessly and unobtrusively conveys the depth and texture of Red and Journey’s lifelong bond, not through the sex, but through all the other little moments that come before they find themselves as farm owners and, for all intents and purposes, domestic partners, and all the moments after. Throw some chickens, alpacas and other farmyard animals at them, and we giddily watch as things get messy.  Add in a found family of unique friends and coworkers and you just cracked the code for Neuhold’s success with this story.

Stick Shift is a classic MM rom-com – it’s two ordinary people mucking things up but finding their way through it together.  It’s romance we can relate to, or at least relish that someone else is screwing things up worse than we are. 🤣 The story is Red and Journey – how they bridge the gap and slowly find their way to each other as lovers and friends. All the rest is window dressing.

The journey here is mild and not particularly novel, but it is certainly enjoyable.  An irreverent Neuhold rom-com romp rarely disappoints and Stick Shift delivers with a no-angst, feel-good love story full of shenanigans and a group of guys we now think of as friends. 

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon