Reviewed by Lesley
TITLE: Restoring Felix
SERIES: Black Dog Inn Book 3
AUTHOR: Kris T. Bethke & Tia Fielding
PUBLISHER: Self published
LENGTH: 267 Pages
RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2025
BLURB:
When it inevitably got too much and he left, I’d be crushed. Maybe even devastated. But I’d be vindicated too, and that was a powerful enough emotion to get me through.
One bad decision five years ago means Felix Decker lives with chronic pain. It’s a challenge he’s learned to deal with and he’s content with his life. And more importantly, resigned to being alone. But all that gets turned upside down when a favor to a friend leads to Kellan Huntley entering his inner circle. Kellan is tall, beautiful, and sassy…and someone Felix thought he’d never see again. It’s all he can do to keep Kellan at arms length. Felix doesn’t need, or want, the reminder of who he used to be. Someone he can never be again.
Kellan chose to teach in Fairville on a whim and never expected to come face to face with the weekend hookup he can’t forget. Felix isn’t who he remembers and the new, grumpy jerk is upsetting to say the least. But that doesn’t stop Kellan from wanting to help the man who so clearly needs it.
The attraction between them is still as strong as ever. Kellan is determined to show Felix that his disability doesn’t diminish him in any way. Felix, for all that he craves Kellan’s touch, is just as determined to push Kellan away. But Kellan’s gentle persistence breaks through Felix’s walls, and what started as animosity soon gives way to affection. It takes time and communication, and a few bumps along the way, until Kellan can help Felix restore his belief in happily ever after.
Please check out the preview for content warnings.
REVIEW:
This has been my favourite book in the series so far. In this we finally find out what happened to Felix. Felix is friends with Teague, Charlie, Law and Oakley, so we have met him throughout the first two books. That being said, you do not need to have read the previous two books to read this book.
Felix was injured in an accident five years ago and he’s found himself back in his old hometown running Nostalgia Nook, his antique shop, with help from his mum. He has tried very hard to isolate himself since his injury due to the constant pain he is in. Fortunately, he has friends that don’t allow him to entirely shut himself off. Before his accident Felix used to love living life to the full, never committing to one man, enjoying a string of hookups. He cannot believe it but his last hookup before his accident, a man he potentially would have wanted to see again, is now teaching in Fairville his hometown .
Kellan Huntley needed a change so when he was offered a teaching job in a small town called Fairville , not a place he knew but one that sounded vaguely familiar he leapt at it. He did not remember it was where Felix, a hook up , but one he would have liked more with, who had ghosted him came from. What Kellan didn’t know is that Felix was injured before he could get back in touch with him and see him again.
Kellan and Felix have been successfully avoiding each other until Teague, Felix’s best friend from school asks Felix to cover the reception desk at The Black Dog Inn so he can whisk Charlie, his partner, away on a holiday. Kellan is so excited to be running his annual summer school camp at the Black Dog Inn this year, Unavoidably it’s at the same time as Felix is manning the reception desk.
This is a grumpy/ sunshine second chance romance That is a very sweet love story that Felix really deserves, and you will never guess how he got injured.
The reason I have rated this the highest of the three books so far is because it deals with a difficult medical situation and mental health situation in a less rushed way and what felt more realistic way then Charlie’s book whilst being a smooth read like Law’s book was.
RATING: 
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