Review: Hot Head

Hot Head by Damon Suede

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


4.5

So this was powerful, an engrossing read with very likeable characters. I loved big, softhearted bear Griff - although he was so dense at times I wanted to smack him over the head and shout at him, Brains, much? And of course spitfire-loose cannon-Dante was adorable and über-sexy. Actually they both were acting - and especially not-talking - as if they were a little... slow. not dumb, mind you, just not that accustomed to talking, rather than acting. Which fits their characters. And set in my beloved dream city of New York - I felt like sitting in a cafe right there in Brooklyn, watching them over a latte or something.

I loved the writing, could myself lose totally in those wonderful word pictures, and the clever wordgames had me laughing out loud more than once. Didn't know there were so many synonyms for "masturbate", I'd swear the author made some of them up. More power to that!



The story in itself... well, this is fiction, isn't it? Others have complained about how unrealistic it is, and I won't argue that. I liked it nevertheless.

The porn plot is not THAT new, but here, I found it was approached in a fresh, and engaging way, adding firemen in the mix. It worked, even though it demanded quite a lot of suspension of disbelief. Especially Alek...ouch. He won't make a lot of cash that way, being this sympathetic whenever one of his actors gets postcoital freakout cold feet. For Dante and Griff, I'm glad he was. Is Dante thinking about a career change, given how well he came to get along with Beth?

Oh yes, the women. From Nonna to grandchild, the Anastagio women were some of the most positively portrayed female characters I've found so far in m/m. And Beth? Please, please send her my way, i hope she digs redheads... joking.

One niggle: The last thirty pages or so felt tacked-on,more like an appetizer for the next book than a necessary part to this. Nice to see them all in happy-happy-joy-joy, but it was kind of a let-down after the high of explosions and fireworks with Griff and Dante.

Still, this book lives up to the hype around it. A truely fine read and a great opening to a series.



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