Release Blitz including Excerpt & Review – Against the Grain by Jay Hogan

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Title: Against the Grain

Series: Auckland Med #4

Author: Jay Hogan

Genre: MM Romance

Tropes: Opposites attract | Overcoming obstacles | Workplace romance | Jock/nerd | Found family | Humour | Suspense and suspenders

Release date: December 8, 2020

Amazon Universal

 

Synopsis

I don’t like labels and I’m happy that way, but it’s taken a long time to get here. A jerk of a father, too many bullies to name, and a string of dipshit boyfriends whose interest in me rarely made it past the skirts I sometimes wear. Suffice to say, my faith in men runs a little thin.

The last thing I need is a gruff, opinionated, fiery, closeted, Paralympian jock messing with my hard-won peace. Miller Harrison is a wrinkle in my life I could definitely do without. I have a job that I love at Auckland Med., a boss who understands me, and a group of friends who accept me as I am.

I should walk away.

But Miller knows a thing or two about living life against the grain, and that hope I thought I’d buried a long time ago, is threatening to surface.

 

 

Excerpt

Two hours, one fried rice, a chicken foo yung, a tasty teriyaki beef, an epic blow job, and a right royal fucking from Miller later, and Sandy lay sprawled, almost comatose on Miller’s bed. His finger drew lazy circles in the puddle of spill in Miller’s belly button as he waited for his arse to recover so he could think about maybe moving. Next year should do it.

“Damn, that was good.” He lifted his finger to his lips and licked it clean.

Miller snorted. “Are you talking the chicken foo yung or my dick in your arse?”

“The chicken foo yung, of course. Although I have to say that fried rice came a close sec—ow!” He leapt sideways off the bed as Miller’s finger wrapped around his knee in a vicious horse bite. The man had sasquatch-sized hands, which was pretty damned fantastic, ordinarily. His good hand could wrap around both their cocks with a knuckle to spare.

He hopped on one foot to keep his balance and glared down at Miller who barely blinked an eye before scooting to the middle of the bed and lifting the duvet. “Get back in here. I’m getting cold.”

“And whose fault is that?” Sandy grumbled, crawling under the covers and snuggling against Miller whose body heat could give an iron smelter a run for its money. “And how the hell can you be cold? You have a core temperature of at least 800 degrees.”

Miller wiped the come from Sandy’s belly, and then wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled Sandy close. “Unlike you, whose fingers and toes give new meaning to the expression frozen most days.”

“I can’t help having long arms and legs. It’s like trying to warm the last bedroom furthest from the lounge fire. I’ve always felt the cold.”

Miller kissed his forehead. “I like that you feel the cold. It means you’re always up for a cuddle.”

Sandy tipped his head back to stare at him. “Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend? The Miller Harrison I first met was not a hugger. He was the tree to my hug. Stiff and immovable.”

“You’ve turned me to the dark side.” Miller’s hand sneaked down to fondle Sandy’s soft cock and balls. “Speaking of stiff . . .”

Sandy wriggled under the onslaught of Miller’s wandering fingers. “Mmm. Yeah, well don’t think you’re going to get another round out of me, there’s nothing left in the tank.” His cock twitched.

“Mmm.” Miller chuckled against the back of his neck.

“Don’t get excited,” Sandy warned. “I merely hiccupped.”

“Riiiight.” Miller added a slow stroke.

Sandy nuzzled into Miller’s neck with an embarrassing whimper, but he knew Miller wasn’t really going anywhere with it. They were both exhausted and Sandy’s cock had very little oomph remaining to back up its interest. Still, Miller’s hands on him always felt good, and Sandy was all for that at the moment.

 

3.5 of 5 Stars

So, I can normally read a book in a couple of days.  Even when I’m as busy as I am now…but this one took me 5 days to get through.  And it’s not that I didn’t like the book, more that it was just long and a bit slow for me.  There are some parts of it I loved and some parts I just skimmed because it felt so long.  I do usually really like this author’s books and I like her writing, this just was weird for me…not sure if it’s this year or just me.

I think it might be best to just talk about what I like and didn’t care for instead of trying to get my feelings on paper.  I’m going to list what I liked first.

I liked Sandy and Miller together.  I liked their differences and how they complemented each other.

While I hated what happened with Geo I loved how Sandy and Miller reacted.

I loved seeing all the characters from previous books.  Every one of them fit into this book organically and added to the depth of the story.  (sidebar – if you haven’t read the other books in this series you might get confused by the characters because there are a few of them and keeping them straight could be a problem)

I appreciated that the relationship drama didn’t carry on for more than a day.  If it had, I probably would have abandoned the book because it already felt really long.

The following sums up why I’m not 100% feeling this book even though I did really like a lot of it.

I honestly can’t even imagine watching chair rugby and enjoying it.

The plotline with Sandy’s father felt unfinished or abandoned.

As stated above, the story just felt too long.

I’m not sure where this series goes from here…there are a few things to wrap up I think, but there isn’t much left after that I don’t imagine.

 

Read the Series

Auckland Med

 

About Jay

I​ am a New Zealand author writing in m/m romance, and romantic suspense. I have traveled extensively and  lived in the US, Canada, France, Australia and South Korea. In a past life I  have been an  Intensive Care Nurse, Counselor, and a Nursing Lecturer.

I’m a cat aficionado especially of Maine Coons, and an avid dog lover (but don’t tell the cat). I love to cook, pretty damn good, love to sing, pretty damn average, and as for loving full-time writing, absolutely… depending of course on the day, the word count, the deadline, how obliging my characters are, the ambient temperature in the Western Sahara, whether Jupiter is rising, the size of the ozone hole over New Zealand and how much coffee I’ve had.

Welcome to my world.

Find Jay in all the places: https://jayhoganauthor.contactin.bio/

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