Reviewed by True

TITLE: Strays: Angsty Gay Romance

SERIES: Urban Souls #2

AUTHOR: Garrett Leigh

PUBLISHER: Self-Published

LENGTH: 263 pages

RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2023

BLURB:

!! SECOND EDITION WITH EXTENDED CONTENT !!

Award winning MM romance. Expect: A grumpy hero with the sweetest heart as forced proximity and found family give two damaged men the HEA they deserve.

Work, sleep, work, repeat. Nero’s lonely life suits him just fine until his best friend, Cass, asks him to take on a new apprentice—a beautiful young man who’s never set foot in a professional kitchen.

Despite his irritation and his lifelong ability to shut the world out, Nero is mesmerized by the vibrant stray, especially when he learns what drove him to seek sanctuary on Nero’s battered old couch.

Lenny Mitchell is living under a cloud of fear. Pursued by a stalker, he has nowhere left to run until Nero offers him a port in a storm—a job at the hottest restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. Kitchen life proves heady and addictive, and it’s not long before he finds himself falling hard and fast for the man who has taken him in.

Fast-forward a month and a neither man can imagine life without the other, but one thing stands in their way: a lifetime of horrors Nero can’t bring himself to share with Lenny. Or can he? For the first time ever, happiness is there for the taking, and Nero must learn to embrace it before fate steps in and rips it away.

REVIEW:

Grumpy big mouthed Nero doesn’t know what happens to him when he meets Lenny.
Smart mouthed Lenny finds the shelter he desperately needs, in Nero’s home and kitchen.
Nero doesn’t ask why and Lenny hesitates to share.
Their interaction is raw and rude but underneath all the sturdy behavior lies a sea of emotions.

Briefly now and then they can laugh and Nero gets softer. Lenny is soft only holding back because Nero is almost impermeable. Lenny just gives Nero some light on his lonely life and it is addictive.
Working for the three men who are living together, is the best thing that happened to Nero. He works hard for them.

Nero and Lenny work and live together they get used to each other and after a while, both are desperate to be in the other’s company. Nero educates Lenny in the kitchen and restaurant.
He feels safe in the kitchen and four walls of Nero’s apartment and knows Neto will protect him at all costs from his stalker.
Their feelings for each other are quickly growing, and only Nero can’t open himself. There is a lock on his mouth and Lenny tries to find the right key.
Sometimes Nero talks a whole other ‘language’ and simply doesn’t understand what Lenny wants.

Finally, he understands he has to open up to keep Lenny, and when he does the chills are running down my back. The intimacy when he opens up is emotional.
Nero looks and talks tough and he is, but also not.

“I didn’t know I needed you until you found me, but I do need you, so much”

This story is intriguingly written, it was super captivating and emotional.
With complicated personalities, and complicated circumstances, real and genuine.
You could feel the desperation, the powerlessness, the confusion, the resistance the contradiction and the attraction, the positive tension, the unraveling.

Excellent read,  part of a series that can easily be read as a stand-alone.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Amazon