My taste in Gay Romance novels made me wonder, why no one has ever done any reviews of well-known and established Male/Male novels on GA. Well, I'll break that mold.

I have a lot of respect for Sarina Bowen, especially after reading her 2.5 novel series about these 2 guys, who are given a second chance at love. She writes it with a bit of integrity, a bit of nuance, and believable realism. Also, the Hockey being played in the background is very good, (I was one of GA's last NHL bracket champs, when we had those So it helped get me into the action ).

Goodreads has a description of these books

https://www.goodreads.com/series/166433-him

Anyway, let me get to my brief reviews of the books:

Him Book 1

Ryan and Jamie are adorable couple for guys, who can double as hockey players. They were best friends as teenagers in hockey camp over the years, then one night Ryan coaxed Jamie into exploring sexually, but both were scared of what happened to admit their true feelings and drifted apart. Now after college, they are both back in each other's orbit coaching a summer hockey camp again as counselors and are rooming together. I know the set up is formulaic, but formulaic stories aren't bad if the details within the story are believable and logical, which Sarina Bowen handled with very adept plotting.

Jamie's development in the first novel from the oblivious former best friend to lover felt very organic. I don't know how bisexual guys feel, I never had really felt the way about women as I do about men; though, I have tried. I can't imagine how it must feel to go from thinking you are completely straight to realizing you actually can like guys. The sexual undercurrents of Jamie's evolution is contrasted with the meaningless sex of Ryan, who is very much gay though not open about it. It added another layer of complexity to the relationship, I think Ryan had a tough situation as well; he wants to be a professional hockey player and was good enough to do this, but sexual orientation hang ups are still very much a prevailing issue in professional sports. With all of that twisting and churning, the two young men find themselves inextricably drawn together, realizing that their one night of teenage exploration years ago was not just a simple encounter; it opens up a lot more cans of worms.

Seriously, I loved the story and I would recommend it to anyone on GA. It is fun for people who love reading about logical progression the different levels of sports from summer camps for teens with ability leading to professional level athletes. It is also a good romance story about two best friends, who found one another and sexually developed a connection, but due to their perceived fears, they abandoned what could have been fulfilling experience. Sarina Bowen as I have read this female author's work over the years has developed a very good writing style. She also has a penchant for using a particular kind of perspective storytelling that I find myself to be growing attached to, Dual Protagonist story, which is basically a story that follow two main character 1st person perspectives. It's basically 1st person, but grants the reader insights into 2 minds, perfect for romance fiction in my view.

Rating: 5 out 5

US Book 2

Ah, the honeymoon period after accepting you love one another and you are living together, this is a complex topic to tackle. For me, this book felt a little draggy in certain areas due to Jamie's character. He internalizes his issues far too much, Ryan on the other hand doesn't talk to his boyfriend/partner like he should and he knows it throughout the book. At the end of HIM, Ryan commits to playing professional hockey, in the closet as a gay man with Jamie in tow. Being your boyfriend/partners dirty little secret can't be easy and I get that Jamie is suffering in this kind of closet, I also get that he loved Ryan and only wants the best for him. However, I hate what all these secrets are doing to these guys, there's no good reason for 2 consenting adults not be open about the ones they love. The addition of Blake, a noisy and very big "bro"-tastic character, who happens to be Ryan's teammate on their professional hockey team just makes this worse as the threat of exposure and fear of people evaluating Ryan for his sexuality rather than his talent kept Ryan on edge to the point of suffering a panic attack.

I like this story and it's complex dynamics about people in the bright lights trying to find a way to be both themselves and be true to themselves. It's hard to be gay, it's hard to find a balance of expectations, and ultimately the ending felt a little too tidy for me personally. I do concede I think Canadian team was probably the best choice for Ryan to come out, it makes the dialogue and relative lack of homophobia more realistic. However, Jamie's runaway bride moment felt a little too contrived as a plot device, I think ultimately the issues in the story could have easily been avoided if the two guys just talked, plus given Blake a strong "We're kind of busy being gay here" message even after Ryan came out. I like happy endings, but I felt the problem here wasn't the message of the story, but how Sarina Bowen reached it in the end.

It's still a good story and anyone who loves HIM should read it

Rating: 4 out of 5

EPIC book 2.5

After 2 novels, there came a baby Novella in the series called EPIC, which was really straightforward story about Jamie primarily trying to find professional fulfillment. He gets a chance to play backup hockey goaltender professionally for one of Ryan's games. It's not unheard of to have non-professional goaltenders and for fans of Hockey, we've seen this happen in real life, it's a one in a hundred thousand chance that a local would be called up to play relief due to injury in the middle of a game. Sarina Bowen knowledge of Hockey deserves praise here, it's a magical moment. Now, Ryan is facing off against Jamie, his partner, like they used to as teenagers. Jamie's success seemed to imply he has a chance at Professional levels, which could imperil Ryan and his relationship due to the distances between the teams.

This is a cute story, it has none of the emotional depth of energy that either HIM or US did, but it was fun to see how these guys squared off. Also, as a reader who enjoy the sport the plot is set in, it is nice to see that Sarina Bowen paid homage to her plot device. A simple story can easily be derailed by complicated structure or plot elements. There was no lack of communication in this story and the two main characters felt like they had grown through all these books into responsible adults, who had bright futures ahead of them.

Rating 4.25 out of 5

Overall Rating: 13.50 out 15.00 or 90% score, pretty good series overall.

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What do other readers think? Feel free to disagree with my reviews on these books if you want, I won't take offense as I am just an avid reader. However, I hope other people share their own opinions and reviews of stories they read from the published fiction world.

PS: I just found the wiki for the non-professional Hockey Player who played a perfect game in 2017-2018 season when he was called up in emergency backup after the Chicago Blackhawk's back up went down, I was not joking (Also the fact that he's in the same profession as me does mean I am bias to this kind of story line )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Foster_(ice_hockey)#Chicago_Blackhawks