In His Sights by K.C. Wells

Title: ⟫ In His Sights

Author: ⟫ K.C. Wells

Rating: ⟫ 4.5/5

Blurb: ⟫ Random letters belong on Scrabble tiles, not dead bodies. But when a demented serial killer targets Boston’s gay population, leaving cryptic messages carved into his victims, lead detective Gary Mitchell has no choice but to play along.

As the body count rises, Gary gets desperate enough to push aside his skepticism and accept the help of a psychic. Dan Porter says he can offer new clues, and Gary needs all the insight into the killer’s mind he can get.

Dan has lived with his gift–sometimes his curse–his entire life. He feels compelled to help, but only if he can keep his involvement secret. Experience has taught him to be cautious of the police and the press, but his growing connection to Gary distracts him from the real danger. As they edge closer to solving the puzzle, Dan finds himself in the killer’s sights….

Review: ⟫ This was a very good read. Police procedural, with a touch of the paranormal and romance, and engrossing – I read it in just a few hours. The story pulls you along at a swift pace, throwing clues at you whilst the relationship between Gary and Dan grows before your eyes.

It definitely reminded me of an episode of maybe Bones or Criminal Minds, the characters bouncing off each other as they try to solve the mystery of the serial killer. As such, I was really pleased to learn that this is going to be a series – I greatly look forward to reading more about Dan and Gary, as well as Ritchie and the other team members who were in the background.

I received an ARC from GRR.

STR8 B8 by K.C. Wells

Title: ⟫ STR8 B8

Author: ⟫ K.C. Wells

Rating: ⟫ 4/5

Blurb: ⟫ Work has been a little hard to come by recently for builder Tom Ryder. When a friend tells him about the wad of cash he got for starring in an adult video, Tom seizes the opportunity. Besides, his friend said his co-star was really hot, so Tom is definitely not seeing a downside.

Until he arrives for the shoot and finds out his friend glossed over one important detail—Tom’s co-star is a guy.

Denny Bailey is only a few months away from finishing the dissertation for his master’s, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find time for his ‘other’ career, especially when it helps him pay off his student loans and keep body and soul together. Life as an adult performer is fun, there are no strings... What could be more perfect? And this latest arrival is definitely ticking most of Denny’s boxes, even if he is a skittish straight guy. That’s fine. Denny can handle that.

Until the next day when Tom Ryder walks into Denny’s favourite coffee shop—and he isn’t smiling.

All it takes is one afternoon to change both their lives, in ways neither of them could ever have imagined...

Review: ⟫ I grabbed this book because I read two chapters of a new KC Wells book that is due out at the end of April and I wanted to get an idea of how they wrote.

The story is set in the UK – Tom is a builder and suffering from big businesses coming in and taking all of the work. He wants to help support his ex-wife and her new wife in their attempts to do IVF but money is proving to be a sticking point until his friend, Andy, makes a suggestion. Porn.

Denny is a student finishing his Masters degree, who does Porn and OF for the money and because he likes/enjoys it. He turns out to be Tom’s partner in his first attempts to do porn – he and the owner of the business have a habit of ‘tricking’ straight guys by saying that it’s going to be a threesome before telling them that the woman has dropped out and offering them money to do a gay scene. Obviously, the straight guy can say no and there’s no pressure, but still it seems like a pretty icky practice.

Tom accidentally runs into Denny at a later point in time and they talk things through, whereby Tom admits that he could have said no, and somehow from this a kind of friendship builds.

The relationship between Tom and Denny moved at an interesting pace – Tom is coming to terms with the fact that not only did he enjoy his scene with Denny, but that he might just be interested in something more. Denny is determined not to fall into the trap of falling for a straight friend – he’s been there before and got hurt, and he’s not going to do it again. But in the meantime, the attraction/chemistry between the two of them is hard to resist.

This was a nice, easy read with the miscommunication between the two men being completely understandable. The sex scenes were good, the writing style was relaxing, and I did enjoy reading the story. I found the ending a bit rushed: we went from declarations of love to graduation to babies very quickly. However, I couldn’t seem to get past the whole trick that Ari and Denny played on Tom at the beginning. It just felt – wrong, and stuck with me as I read the rest of the book. I can imagine that someone who is desperate for money might end up doing something that they wouldn’t normally do and it causing them some stress/anxiety afterwards and that seemed cruel. It was slightly addressed in the book – Denny told Tom that there had been at least one occasion where someone realised that they had been tricked and retaliated, but other than that it wasn’t really talked about.

For that reason, I gave the book a 3.5/5. I will be looking for more books by the author but I think there should, perhaps, have been a bit more warning about this before people go into reading the book.