Reviewed by Lesley
TITLE: Bear
SERIES: The Daddies of River Gorge #2
AUTHOR: Jacki James
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 262 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2023
BLURB:
When two big, strong men who are both accustomed to being in charge fall in love, you have to wonder… Who’s the Daddy?
One thing Ty Ingalls knows is when you’re six-foot-three and two hundred and twenty-five pounds, people make assumptions about you. And Ty doesn’t like to disappoint people. He has been the go-to guy for everyone’s problems for as long as he can remember. His family, his friends, and even his former partners all look to him to be Large and in Charge whether that is what he wants or not. No one has ever wanted to take care of him. Until Bear.
Bear needs to be in control. That need, coupled with his care-taking tendencies, led him to the Daddy lifestyle. A lifestyle he isn’t about to give up anytime soon. When he first meets Ty, he makes the same assumptions everyone else does, and he thinks he will have to settle for friendship, even if he finds the man distractingly attractive.
But the more time they spend together, the more he sees that being the person everyone else relies on is weighing the big man down. And then all Bear wants to do is help carry some of that load.
Ty is caught up in what the world expects from him and can’t see himself as a boy… but Bear can. Will he be able to help Ty realize that the way everyone else sees him isn’t as important as the way he sees himself?
REVIEW:
In book two of this series, we meet Ty, a big guy, a welder by trade, and always the one that everyone turns to when they need someone to help them. His family, unconsciously take complete advantage of him, because he will never say no. He grew up taking responsibility for his younger siblings and they still see him in that role even though they are all grownups. He is also an artist on the side with a great new commission for the town of River Gorge’s new park.
Bear is a Daddy through and through. previous relationships have failed, even ones with boys, because of his care-taking tendencies that some find overbearing. He finds himself drawn to Ty but cannot give in to his desires because he knows he cannot switch off his need to be a Daddy.
But what if Bear doesn’t need to turn off his Daddy instincts though? Can he be the one person that Ty finally leans on?
Ty & Bear aren’t even friends at the start of this book and the slow burn as their friendship and then relationship develops is delicious to read. I also really enjoyed the fact the guys in this book weren’t youngsters and WERE both established in their day jobs and lives. It lends a different, equally enjoyable, dynamic to a Daddy/boy book. What also really appealed in this book is the fact that Ty is bigger than Bear. Jacki James has written a few books with the boy is bigger than the Daddy and in all of them, including this one, the fact is acknowledged and impacts how the boy sees himself initially but is not a major problem.
In this book we do have some cameos from the other characters we have previously met in both The Men of River Gorge series and Cruz book 1 in the Daddies of River Gorge series. It felt like there was fewer of them though than at the start of Cruz and it really didn’t feel like I was missing anything by not remembering their back stories . This can definitely be read as a standalone, but why would you want to?
RATING: 
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