Saturday, March 2, 2019

New Release-Review, Excerpt & Giveaway: RAPID RESPONSE by DJ Jamison (Hearts & Health #8)



Buy Links: 

Exclusive to Amazon and Available to Borrow with Kindle Unlimited

Cover Design: Garrett Leigh @ Black Jazz Design
Length: 92,000 words approx.

Hearts & Health Series

Book #1 - Heart Trouble - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #2 - Bedside Manner - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #3 - Urgent Care - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #4 - Room For Recovery - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #5 - Surprise Delivery - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #6 - Orderly Affair - Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #7 - Operation Makeover - Amazon US | Amazon UK


Blurb

A confused straight guy and a gay hookup artist walk into a bar ...

Firefighter Sean Connolly is straight -- until one impulsive night changes everything. He tries to dismiss it as a fluke, but when a fire rescue leads him back to the guy who blew his mind, he's thrown into a chaos of confusion and want. He gives in to curiosity, exploring a new side to himself -- not just his attraction to a man, but his desperate need to please.

Paramedic Jace Gillespie is a hookup pro, never letting anyone get too close. When he meets Sean, though, he feels a connection right away. An ill-advised threesome seems to kill a friendship in the making, but when they're thrown together by work, it doesn't take long for passion to reignite. Sean calls to something in Jace he never knew was there, and together, they explore a dynamic that fulfills them both.

But as feelings deepen, doubts surface. Sean is in the closet, and Jace struggles to trust his promise that it won't last forever. With family conflict and his career in the balance, Sean finds it difficult to picture his life without secrecy, but if he doesn't find a way, he may lose the one person he most wants to please.

Rapid Response is the longest novel of the Hearts and Health series at approximately 92,000 words! It can be read as a standalone.


Excerpt

Sean glanced into the mirror, and though he looked like the same guy on the outside — dark hair, dark eyes, unremarkable face — he didn’t recognize the one on the inside. And that was scary.

“I’m sorry,” he scraped out.

“For what? Staring at my mouth, or for hiding from yourself?” Jace asked caustically.

Sean swallowed hard. His traitorous eyes found Jace in the mirror, locking on the mouth in question. Pink, full lips. Jace had been a good kisser. A good … sucker.

“Yeah, just like that,” Jace said.

Sean jerked his gaze to Jace’s eyes, which bored into him, their power not diluted in the slightest by the mirror acting as their go-between. Could Jace see what was inside? If he could...

“Sorry,” Sean whispered. “I didn’t realize I...”

“What, Sean? What didn’t you realize?”

“That I, um. That I...” He couldn’t get the words out.

“That you like my mouth? That you want it on you again? That you—”

Sean spun around. “Shut up.”

“Make me.”

His breath caught. “What?”

“You heard me,” Jace said. “Make me shut up. You know exactly how to do it.”

Sean hesitated, and Jace smirked. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Frustrated and frazzled, Sean acted on instinct, doing exactly what Jace had asked. He grabbed the front of Jace’s shirt, spun him around, and shoved him against the counter containing the row of sinks.

Then he kissed him.

Hard.

To make him shut up.

It was the only way to get him to stop talking. Gloating. Jace had practically ordered him to do it, the bastard. And Sean needed to shut up the doubts in his head, too.

He closed his eyes, blocking out all thought, and sank into the feeling of Jace’s perfect, hot mouth on his again.


Carra's Review

I’m going to admit up front that the way this story started, and Jace’s friend Lena and the role she played in that start had me wondering how things were going to go.  I was not a fan of Lena at all, and frankly I was really glad she didn’t really play a role in the rest of the story.  Thankfully, once I overlooked the inauspicious start, things did get much better from there.

You might be thinking, how can someone who is out and someone who is beyond closeted get “much better”, but I can put that down to the excellent chemistry Jace and Sean have together.  Are there points where Sean’s closeted status became tiresome?  Yes—I’ve yet to find a book with a closeted character where that was not the case.  Did he do some inadvisable things that caused me frustration?  Oh, hell yes.  At times it felt like he was a bit clueless and didn’t really think about how his decisions would seem to Jace.


In the end though, it was Jace and Sean’s chemistry that made this book enjoyable for me.  I felt like the story was a bit drawn out—something that aggravates me in any book—so for me, the fact that their connection overrode my irritations enough to put Rapid Response at 4 stars says a lot about how I enjoyed the characters and their relationship.  This book is a good addition to this series, and it’s meant for readers 18+ for adult language and sexual content.


Author Bio

DJ Jamison is the author of more than a dozen m/m romances, including the Ashe Sentinel series and the Hearts and Health series. She writes a variety of queer characters, from gay to bisexual to asexual, with a focus on telling love stories that are more about common ground than lust at first sight. DJ grew up in the Midwest in a working-class family, and those influences can be found in her writing through characters coping with real-life problems: money troubles, workplace drama, family conflicts and, of course, falling in love. DJ spent more than a decade in the newspaper industry before chasing her first dream to write fiction. She spent a lifetime reading before that, and continues to avidly devour her fellow authors' books each night. She lives in Kansas with her husband, two sons, two fish and, regrettably, one snake.




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