Advance Review by Rafa: Rhythm & Blues, by Shae Connor

Rhythm & Blues, by Shae Connor (Novella)
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: June 20, 2016

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

When life tears apart your dream, build a new one.

After a knee injury ended his career, Broadway dancer Pate Hawkins limped his way back from New York to Atlanta to implement Plan B: open a dance academy to train the next generation of song-and-dance dreamers. When model-gorgeous contractor Ace Samson answers his request for an estimate on renovating his studio space, Pate hits pay dirt in more ways than one. As construction gets underway, the red-hot attraction between the two men flares, and soon they develop a fledgling relationship. Then the siren song of the stage calls Pate back, and he has to choose between the dream he left behind and the new life he’s building—with his studio, and with Ace.

M/M Pairing
Gay Characters
Contemporary
Novella

MANBUN ALERT!

If those two words aren’t quite enough to convince you to pick up this novella, I should probably add that said manbun is attached to a hunky contractor named Ace who has a big truck and undoubtedly big… boots.

Manbun aside, I found Rhythm & Blues to be a short and sweet read with two hotties as the main characters.

It’s pretty common in novellas for the MCs to get hot and heavy from the word Go and forego getting to know one another. Either that or the MCs don’t hook up until the very end, and you’re lucky if any sex makes it onto the page at all. For me, Rhythm & Blues was a great balance of romantic and sexy. While the attraction between Pate and Ace was palpable from the beginning, I liked that they both focused on the project at hand and got to know each other before taking things further. And taking things further definitely included some pretty hot sex.

The conflict was predictable and nothing more than a simple misunderstanding. I thought Ace’s reaction was a bit overblown (I personally think most guys would have played it cool in his shoes). But overall, it made for a sweet ending and a light romantic read. This novella is perfect if you have a few hours to kill on summer vacation.

Shae Connor lives in Atlanta, where she works for the government by day and reads and writes about people falling in love by night. She’s been making up stories for as long as she can remember, but it took her a long time to figure out that maybe she should start writing them down. Now, she usually has far too many stories in progress, but when she does manage to tear herself away from her laptop, she enjoys running, hiking, cooking, and traveling, not necessarily in that order.

Website: http://shaeconnorwrites.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shaeconnor