“Bell writes a meaty romance that you can’t put down, and it’s a worthy addition to the M/M contemporary romance genre.” –RT Book Reviews on Loose Cannon (Woodbury Boys #1) Premed student Tobias Benton is making amends for his past. He keeps his head down, mouth shut and colors within the lines. But when his close friend Ghost goes missing, Tobias will do whatever it takes to get … answers–including using blackmail to enlist some help. The last thing he’s looking for is romance.
Private investigator Sullivan Tate isn’t above a little breaking and entering to solve a case, but when Tobias catches him in the act, it’s almost game over. Their uneasy alliance only gets more complicated when Sullivan learns that Tobias shares his interest in kink. Mixing sex and work could kill Sullivan’s career, but Tobias’s acceptance of Sullivan’s darkest urges is nearly impossible to resist.
Side by side, Tobias and Sullivan spend their days searching for the truth and their nights fulfilling their respective fantasies. But the answers they seek are far more dangerous than they realize, and soon they find themselves fighting for more than just each other.
This book is approximately 120,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!
Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Deborah Nemeth
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Can I say first that I love all three books in this trilogy? This was the first one I read and it did stand alone; but obviously you’ll have more backstory if you start with Loose Cannon. This one is my favourite out of the three though. It’s about two misfits who are struggling to come to terms with themselves. Tobias is weighed down with his family obligations and has no head-space to work out what he really wants from life. Sullivan has shut down the part of his life that is open to relationships because he got burned really badly by someone who was frankly an arse to him about his kink. Combine the two likeable, well drawn characters with the realistic dom/sub relationship and a rollicking suspense plot and I couldn’t put the book down. The kink was really well done—on a par with Alexis Hall’s For Real. It’s a comfort re-read for me.
Loved this book. Sullivan and Tobias were so complimentary. I won’t speak to the BDSM angle of this story–I don’t know enough about it to tell if the way it was done in this novel was right or wrong. But it seemed to work well for Sullivan and Tobias’s relationship.
I wasn’t a fan of the blackmail aspect of this book, but Tobias’s characterization is so well done that you can’t help being on his side even though he’s blackmailing someone. I liked how smart Sullivan was, I liked how Tobias wasn’t so stubborn that he couldn’t admit his mistakes. Everything just worked so well in this book, from the various plot threads to the 3-dimensional characters to the BDSM to the secondary cast of characters. It all came together so smoothly and fluidly.
Great writing, and highly recommended
Well I adored book 1 in the Woodbury Boys series, I didn’t think that book 2 would surpass it, how wrong was I. Although I’m sure this can be read as a standalone, it does continue the story of the three friends, Church, Tobias and Ghost, and book 1, Lose Cannon, does set the scene for this unlikely trio. . Book 2 focusses on Tobias Benton as he searches for Ghost, who it appears has gone off the grid, the question is, does Ghost want to be found? Tobias teams up with a reluctant Private Investigator, Sullivan Tate in his quest to find Ghost. Both Tobias and Sullivan get way more than they bargained for, and I must say they make a cute couple. To be fair the only experience I have of BDSM is reading Fifty Shades of Grey, and to be honest, it’s not really my jam, I’ve managed to avoid it, until now. That said the scenes are quite tastefully done and it amazed me how affected I was by them, I really did get all the feels. Wonderful characters, lots of emotions and an addictive storyline with a good few plot twists. I am so impatient for Ghost’s story right now.
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Sarah –
I love the complex characters in this book. Tobias is a star pupil struggling with his adoptive parents’ high expectations. Sullivan is an ambitious private investigator with unconventional methods. They shouldn’t work at all – but these two are fabulous together.
As with the first book, the Russian storyline doesn’t completely work for me. We get more background information and less mafia action in this second book, but the storyline doesn’t really conclude. The book starts when Tobias and Sullivan team up to look for Ghost – but after a complicated investigation, the ending left me with more questions than answers. I found this book slightly more plausible and I’m glad there is less time spent with the caricature-like Russian baddies.
This story’s strength is its characters and I especially loved the way Tobias finds the confidence he needs to assert himself and make choices for himself. I loved the culture clash between affluent Tobias and blue-collar Sullivan, and I really enjoyed some of the reflections on adoption race and family relationships. I enjoyed this story more than I did the first one and I’m looking forward to the next book.
Reviewers received a free copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads.
Sometimes you can tell when a book is carefully crafted with superb attention to details. I’ve seen it in this author’s other books, but the nuances are especially apparent in this title. Hard Line is the second book in Miss Bell’s Woodbury Boys series. Although it does feature a new main couple and could be read as a standalone, the continued story arcs from the previous book would make it difficult to follow some of the plotlines. Hard Line picks up 8 months after the end of Loose Cannon and details Tobias’s story. Once again I was bowled over by the depth of the characters, backstories, and current plots and conflicts. There were a lot of details to follow but I was glued to my e-reader and I really appreciated how the books tied together.
Miss Bell always does complex characters well, but Tobias and Sullivan surprised me a few times with their depth and some hidden aspects to their personalities and histories. The romance between these two ignited fairly quickly, but the substantial amount of development within the relationship and for Tobias as an individual ensured it never felt rushed, shallow, or hinted at insta-love. I definitely hadn’t anticipated the BDSM element, and while I generally don’t read within that trope, the author wrote those scenes with such emphasis on the characters that I never felt a tinge of disinterest or out of my depth. In fact, the chemistry between Tobias and Sullivan ignited my e-reader more than a couple times.
Beyond the romance, Hard Line is a complex, suspense-driven plot involving the enigmatic secondary character, Ghost. There were multiple twists that kept me guessing and trying to connect the dots, good action scenes, and a satisfying resolution. Featuring a measured, but intense pace, this book made for a great read that was incredibly addicting. I think fans of hurt-comfort or slow-build romantic suspense books will really enjoy this title and series. And after the few more glimpses we got of Ghost in this story, I’m definitely eager to see what the author has in store for the Woodbury Boys next.