Reviewed by Kat

TITLE: Pumped

SERIES: Mars Fitness #3

AUTHOR: Linden Bell

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 316 pages

RELEASE DATE: February 23, 2025

BLURB:

Love is co-parenting with my worst enemy.

Owen
Everest is an irresponsible, delinquent, attention-hungry man-child.

Ever since my brother married his sister, we’ve hated each other with an unrelenting passion. It was bad enough when I had to see him at occasional family gatherings, but now I’m living in a nightmare and he’s right here with me.

Everest
Owen is arrogant, uptight, snobby, and cold-hearted.

I don’t want to have anything to do with him, but I don’t have a choice. After a tragic accident, we’re forced to raise our niece together, but our grief and mutual animosity is turning the house into a pressure cooker. We have to make peace and learn to work together, if not for our sake, then for the little girl who’s already lost everything.

PUMPED is an enemies to lovers, forced proximity, grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract MM romance between a free-spirited personal trainer and his overbearing veterinarian brother-in-law. Expect reluctant cuddling, teasing as a love language, annoyingly hot backwards caps, pillow chastity barriers, pool wrestling, begrudging I love yous, and a little girl who has them both wrapped around her little finger. PUMPED is the third and last book in the Mars Fitness series, but can be read as a standalone.

REVIEW:

This is a very angsty book for this series. Actually, for any series. Be prepared that it has the death of both men’s siblings and they becoming instant guardians of their precious only niece. It’s a very hard and bitter pill to swallow.

Everest Wheeler is a former surfer turned personal trainer and fitness instructor at Mars Fitness. He’s one of the gang and a free-spirit. He loves to go out with the guys after work and party. And he’s drop dead gorgeous, totally built and has no trouble finding a willing guy to wet his whistle. He’s the epitome of easy going man-child except when it comes to fitness and then it’s all no nonsense.  That and his love for his sister Eden, her husband Jeremy and their precious daughter, his niece he loves with all his heart, Ivy!  Dr. Owen Lambert is a professional! He is a very successful veterinary surgeon. He likes his life neat and organized. He enjoys the finer things in life. Some might even find him a bit uptight, arrogant, snobby and a touch cold-hearted. But he love his family. His brother Jeremy isn’t just his brother, he’s his best friend. And his niece Ivy lights up his world. So why does Jeremy, and his wife Eden, insist on inviting her man-child of a brother Everett to their dinners. That man may be fine looking but he is as irresponsible as they get! When Eden and Jeremy’s tragic automobile accident leaves Everest and Owen suddenly co-parenting the sweet and grief-stricken Ivy, they have to man up for her sake. But what were they thinking when they left both men as her co-guardians to live together for the next 12+ years!

This book was a lot more darker and angsty than I expected for the finale of this series. I hate to lose a character in a book that we have got to know. I was anticipating that Eden and Jeremy were trying to set their brothers up. I didn’t expect their departure so fast when I was just getting to know them. It made it even harder to accept that they were gone from that sweet little girl’s life forever. It was bad enough that Everett and Owen and  their parents lost two very important members of their small, close knit family but Ivy was only 6! She was in first grade and now she’s orphaned to her two gay uncles that love her with their whole heart but hate each other with a burning passion. But hate and love are two very strong emotions that are very closely tied to each other!

I couldn’t tell if I liked Owen at first. He was so stuffy and set in his ways at too young of an age. If someone told me her was 45 I would have believed them from the character being told. Everest, on the other hand, was a burst of sunshine after a week long gray and dreary Pacific Northwest rain storm. You couldn’t help but be attracted to him and want to hang out with him. And not only because he was Sports Illustrated worth in beauty and body. He had that sparkling personality that drew you in and he was fun. No wonder his Ivy-Bear was so drawn to her fun uncle. But even I couldn’t see leaver her with either of her two uncles. They turned out to be great parents. Yes, they worried a lot that they were blowing it or only one step away from disaster. But them worrying about everything so much was what actually relaxed me on their roles. They were cautious and concerned about everything Ivy. If a child had to go through so much grief and trauma at such a tender age, I would hope and pray that they got someone as loving and concerned. Ivy was lucky in that she not only got one but two uncles that adored her and found it so unfair that she was dealt this hand in life. They gave up literally their own lives to make sure she got hers.

I was pleased that we had so many visits with the Mars Fitness gym guys. They have grown so much on me and I will miss them.

This is a great book from a wonderful series that I will be sad to see go.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

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