Title: ⟫ Paladin (Jericho’s Boys #1)
Author: ⟫ Onley James
Rating: ⟫ 4.5/5
Blurb: ⟫ Arseny Lebedev lives a normal life. During the day, he’s a mechanic. At night, he livestreams a fairy tale video game called Paladin. And sometimes—only sometimes—he kills people. But they all deserve it.
Ever doesn’t know his last name. He doesn’t know much of anything. Most of his life has been torture, bought and sold by a woman who calls herself his mother. He’s resigned himself to a life of servitude, until he meets Arsen.
The moment Arsen sees Ever, they’re bonded. Ever is both fragile and feral, willing to defend himself with any tool at his disposal, even teeth. Arsen is color and light, a beacon in Ever’s darkness, as brave as the knight in the game he plays.
Arsen protects Ever fiercely, but just when he feels safe, someone attempts to drag him back to his old life, reminding him that reality isn’t fairy tales or video games. He knows staying puts Arsen in danger. But Arsen insists they’re safer together. Can Ever truly have his happily ever after or is it game over?
Paladin is a hurt-comfort, dark romance with an HEA and no cliffhangers. It features a vigilante twitch-streamer and the beautiful but feral gremlin he saves from a life of misery. As with any Onley book, you’ll find dark humor, steamy sexy times, and gratuitous violence against people who totally deserve it. This is book 1 in the Jericho’s Boys series. Each book follows a different couple.
Review: ⟫ There are so many reasons that I love this book: Arsen with his blue hair; Ever with his baby-faced innocence and inner feral beastie; Levi and the bite; the Mulvaney twins coming to play; Jericho and Freckles – the list is darned near endless.
But the main reason I loved this was how it handled trauma. Therapy was there – which, awesome – but also an understanding that everyone handles trauma in different ways. Some people are talkers, some repress, and some find something that makes them feel safe – there is no template for trauma and handling it, and that is what shone through for me in this book. A deep understanding that whatever you need to do to handle what you’ve been through, as long as it’s not hurting you or other people – do what you gotta do. And that, for me, was priceless to read.
We have the normal madcap run of adventures in this story, with Jericho’s Boys somehow adopting a new person and helping them figure out a whole heap of firsts; we have the steaming hot sex – like, holy moly, these two were determined to burn up the page; some murder and mayhem which included Felix getting to flex his claws, a screwdriver and a live-action mission from Call of Duty – this book was a fun read, which sounds odd when you think of the subject matter.
I rejigged my budget so that I can afford to join Patreon again so that I could read this as it was written, but as per normal, I stopped myself about halfway through so that I could experience Arsen and Ever in full, and I’m so glad I did. I was sad after I read Maniac because I knew it was the end of the Necessary Evils series, but Jericho’s Boys have steamed in and filled that gap and I cannot wait to read more!
I received an ARC from the author.
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