Title: ⟫ Sean’s Sunshine (A Flophouse Story #3)
Author: ⟫ Amy Lane
Rating: ⟫ 5/5
Blurb: ⟫ As a young detective, Sean Kryzynski expected violence on the job, not to get stabbed coming back from lunch. Add an angsty bedside breakup, and by the time he gets home from the hospital, he’s over everything, including his irritating, hot-as-balls nurse, Billy No-Last-Name with the big, cynical brown eyes.
Billy’s whole porn-model flophouse is experiencing a wave of altruism and adulting—people getting real jobs and going to shrinks and doing good works. Billy opts in too—he wants to be a good guy—but his assignment is taking care of the world’s most exasperating, headstrong patient. At least bunking with Sean means Billy has his own spare bedroom and some peace and quiet to do classwork.
The porn model and the policeman seem to have no common ground, but Billy's experience herding his younger siblings helps him manage Sean with unexpected empathy—a skill Sean has been working on too, because he wants to be a good cop. Eventually they chip away at the walls around each other’s hearts and discover a real connection. If not for their incompatible day jobs and inconvenient pasts, they might even be falling in love….
Review: ⟫ Do you know that feeling when you’ve read a really satisfying book and your heroes have got their HEA? But sometimes you just want to see a few slice of life things – domesticity and how they live together? Well Sean and Billy did this kinda backwards because to begin with we get the slice of life.
Recovering from a stab wound that almost cost him his life, Sean has been ‘assigned’ a nurse from none other than the Flophouse full of Johnnie’s boys and he’s really not sure how he feels about it. He appreciates the offer, but really, just how long is it going to take him to recover and what’s a porn star going to do to help him get around until he’s back on his feet?
This story is full of the frenetic insanity that always surrounds Ellery and Jackson from the Fish Out of Water series, but Sean and Billy are on the sidelines. They somehow wind up with a case of their own, that leads to some shenanigan in the dog park (seriously hilarious), as well as the normal gut-wrenching, angsty family stuff that Amy Lane is infamous for.
We get to see what Ellery, Jackson and their crew appear like from the outside – avenging angels of chaotic good come to mind – as well as catch up with some of the other guys from the Flophouse. But what I enjoyed the absolute most about this story was the love that grew between Billy and Sean – how they got to know each other in embarrassing and touching situations; how they moved around each other as they tried to navigate something that they could never really have expected to happen; and how the cop and the porn star fell in love.
This one had me in tears a couple of times (some of them happy, some of them sad), and there were no quick fixes for any of the things that went on. I really enjoyed the glimpses into the other series (this slots in with the other Flophouse books as it falls into the same timelines), and there was an appearance from Dex and Tango who are a couple of my favourites from the Johnnies books.
This was a real pleasure to read and when I finished the story, I gave a happy sigh because not only was it full of epic adventure, family, porn stars and our favourite Fish duo, but the slices of domesticity and happiness were so good for the soul.
An easy 5/5 from me and I really can’t wait to read further books in this series.
I received an ARC from the author.
