Reviewed by Valerie 

TITLE:  The Loner

SERIES:  The Vers Podcast #1

AUTHOR:  Riley Hart

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:  257 pages   

RELEASE DATE:  January 23, 2023 

BLURB:   

Declan
As a founding member of The Vers, a queer podcast I host with my three best friends, I’m The Loner—quieter than the others, and except for them, I don’t let myself get too close to people. Most of them just let you down anyway, or maybe it’s just that something about me chases people away.

Infrequent, no-strings-attached hookups have always worked for me. Who knew my favorite one would become such a popular movie star? But Sebastian Cole and I made it work, meeting up whenever he was in Santa Monica and in the mood—until he called it off when he got a serious boyfriend. A boyfriend he later found in bed with another man.

Now Sebastian is back in California, taking a break from acting. He needs a friend, and for whatever reason, he decides that should be me. We’ve known each other intimately for years, and yet we’ve never spent much time together with our clothes on. When he starts taking me places, it feels suspiciously like dates…and surprisingly, I like it.

Despite our differences, Sebastian’s lonely, like me. The more we hang out, the more I realize I’ll never get enough of him.

A loner dating a celebrity doesn’t make much sense. I don’t know how to be someone’s boyfriend, let alone be in the public eye. But to call him mine, I’ll need to leave the past behind and finally allow myself to move forward with him.

The Loner is an opposites attract romance about a movie star rethinking his career and a bar owner/podcast host who isn’t fond of most people. Expect Southern California sun, swoon, found family and once-in-a-lifetime friendships.

REVIEW:   

The Vers Podcast is going to be an outstanding series. You’d be hard pressed to find better friends than the Fantastic Four. Riley Hart has created enticing characters with wildly different personalities who prove that chosen family is many times closer, stronger, and more important than biological family. Book one, The Loner. is an outstanding, opposites attract tale about two men – a bar owner and a movie star – who take more than a decade to fall in love. They morph from strangers hooking up, to friends-with-benefits, to something more over the course of those years.

The titular loner is Declan, one of four, lifelong best friends who host a podcast about “love, sex, friends, queer life and culture.” Along with Declan, The Loner, it also stars Corbin, The Charmer; Parker, The Romantic; and Marcus, The Realist.

Declan meets closeted, virgin Sebastian, an up and coming actor who picks him up at the bar Declan tends. They continue to hookup several times a year for a number of years, in which time Sebastian becomes a bona fide movie star. He loves that Declan doesn’t treat him any differently and isn’t impressed by his stardom. He eventually comes out but is pressured by his agent and movie studios to be the right kind of super masculine gay man.

Life is lonely for Sebastian. He doesn’t have any friends, only acquaintances, no one he can talk to or trust. He asks Declan to be his friend and they begin to go out on a series of non-dates that feel a lot like real dates to Declan. Sebastian starts stressing out that his planned outings feel too much like real dates to Declan and indeed they do start to worry Declan. Sebastian finally admits to himself that he wants more than friendship, and Declan finds himself caring that Sebastian doesn’t walk away. But he’s not a guy who will allow himself to fall in love. He doesn’t feel lovable and doesn’t trust anyone enough to let them in.

This wonderful book is a great combination of romance, humor, friendship, and camaraderie. I can’t wait for the subsequent books. It’s going to be so much fun getting to know these men better as the group of four grows to be a family of eight when they’re all partnered up. Congrats to Riley for another fantastic book!

RATING:

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