T.C. Blue

This is not the typical case of "enemies to lovers", but the variation and twists made it better. Chance and Shane used to be lovers as teenagers, but neither of them was out. Then Chance's friends suspected, and Chance threw Shane in front of the bus, so to speak. All kinds of unpleasantness followed, then years of hate , until they meet again in college - and still hate each other. But some things have changed as well, and slowly slowly they begin to work through their problems.

Honestly? show more One was more stupid than the other.I wanted to smack both of them because they were immature, dishonest, and hateful. But they were also college-age and, yeah, I guess I have to give them some slack for that. As stupid as some of their moves were, they seemed realistic.

If you like enemies behaving badly, if an emotional roller coaster of mostly backward then a few forward steps are your thing, and if you're looking for an emotional read with passion (both hate and love) out the gazoo, then you might like this free novella. show less

I didn't know what to expect when I read the author's warnings after the blurb. The pedophilia and rape turned out to be all in the past and were mentioned as part of an investigation and only in the broadest sense. The FGC is quite the set up and can tackle much of what the FBI, CIA and other letter named groups cannot. I liked Marcus and Tanner immensely and they made a great couple. Patty was a wonderful assistant director and was a strong, tough female lead character. The story is all show more action with a good dose of angst. Plot twists and turns kept the story moving right until the end. Highly recommended. show less

Well done story with a difficult theme, namely coming to terms with finding love too soon after losing a loved and cherished partner. The beginning of the story is extremely emotional as we see Evan coming to terms with his loss and grief. It certainly made me cry. I loved that Gray was willing to wait until Evan was ready. Yeah, *sigh* lovely! Definitely better than I anticipated...don't know why I thought that! ;)

I was actually surprised at how much I liked this story. I judge books by their covers, and the one on this one is not the kind I go for. But the story itself was good: boy and boy meet, boy and boy are attracted to each other, boy and boy become a couple and fall in love.

There was a lot of humor which I always appreciate. The writing was easy if sometimes read a bit funny but I put it down to formatting/editing: sentences that should end with an ellipse ended in full stop, there was no show more spacing (not even to indicate chapters which SUCKS! Why wouldn't you press Enter at least once after the last line of a chapter, typing in Chapter X, and then starting a new chapter? This is just not good formatting to me.), inner dialog was just part of narration without italics or any other kind of indicator, etc. So at times it was also frustrating to read for someone as particular about details as I am.

Back to the story. I kind of loved how easy Troy and Jeremy ended up together. There was the awkward back and forth dance they did for a few weeks, neither wanting to give in to their mutual attraction. When they finally did, everything happened very rapidly. And it was good, there was no unnecessary drama besides the one thing even that was dealt with promptly and not stretched until forever.

As much as I liked the story, something kept rubbing me the wrong way throughout reading. I guess I got a somewhat impersonal feeling from it, I just never really connected with neither of the main characters. They always seemed to keep me at an arm's length. And I don't really care for books that fade sex out. If it starts on the pages, have it on the pages. In full detail. Plus, toward the end, after Jeremy and Troy become a couple, the story suddenly jumped 6 months forward. It felt like there wasn't enough of the "settled down couple" stuff before the leap.

I skipped the first book in the series, [b:Lemon Yellow: Making Lemonade|6924643|Lemon Yellow Making Lemonade (Fruit Basket, #1)|T.C. Blue|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1254287108s/6924643.jpg|16405452], because I didn't expect to actually like this one and figured I'd just give it a twirl, no harm no foul. I might need to pick it up at some point. But I am definitely reading the next book, [b:Mandarin Orange: Sweet and Sour|10792933|Mandarin Orange Sweet and Sour (Fruit Basket, #3)|T.C. Blue|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1300163295s/10792933.jpg|15705344]. I met Riley in this book and he. Is. A. Riot. I can't believe he got away with even half the stuff he said. show less