The hardest thing a rebel can do isn’t standing up for something—it’s standing up for himself.
Life takes delight in stabbing Gus Scott in the back when he least expects it. After Gus spends years running from his past, present, and the dismal future every social worker predicted for him, karma delivers the one thing Gus could never—would never—turn his back on: a son from a one-night stand he’d had after a devastating breakup a few years ago.
Returning to San Francisco and to 415 Ink, his family’s tattoo shop, gave him the perfect shelter to battle his personal demons and get himself together… until the firefighter who’d broken him walked back into Gus’s life.
For Rey Montenegro, tattoo artist Gus Scott was an elusive brass ring, a glittering prize he hadn’t the strength or flexibility to hold on to. Severing his relationship with the mercurial tattoo artist hurt, but Gus hadn’t wanted the kind of domestic life Rey craved, leaving Rey with an aching chasm in his soul. When Gus’s life and world starts to unravel, Rey helps him pick up the pieces, and Gus wonders if that forever Rey wants is more than just a dream.
Buy links: Dreamspinner |
Amazon US | Amazon UK
Cat gives this one 5 Meows with a 2 Purr heat index and also issues a "tissues warning"...
Oh. My. I loved Rebel and I can't wait for more in this series! I love character-driven stories, and Rys Ford knows how to create awesome characters. From Gus and Rey to the merry band of brothers by choice and blood, to extended family, cute kids, and a dog. There is angst by the bucket load and several storylines that keep you riveted. The romance is second chance which I love, Gus is a bad boy again I love, Rey a sexy firefighter again I love. So yeah there is lots to love!
There are a couple places I cried so tissues alert! If you like second chances, angst, deep stories, broken men, quirky characters ( I can't wait for more) a little heat and a lot of love this is for you!
Excerpt...
SCREAMS SPLINTERED the night, pulling Rey from his sleep.
He was sleepy, and the last thing he wanted was to deal with his dad, especially since there was school to go to in the morning, a high school nightmare of numbers and words jumbled into a mess he struggled to make sense out of. But the screams, they were… unsettling… different… a high-pitched whine, then a rough, raw malevolent crinkle.
So very different from how his mother usually sounded.
Then he began to cough.
He couldn’t stop, not long enough to catch a full breath. Then Rey caught the smell of charred something in his lungs and worked to clear what felt like sandpaper in his throat and nose. There were more screeches, loud, horrific shrieks coming from somewhere, and the noise sent him trembling beneath his blankets. His chest hurt where his father struck it that evening, a lash of anger he didn’t see coming, but it was a day like any other, a tightrope walk between time dripping slowly in anticipation of his dad’s temper flaring and the tick-tick-tick of the seconds hurriedly falling off of the clock toward his bedtime.
Tonight had been bad, and he’d stepped in between the terrifying hail of fists and his mother, taking the brunt of his father’s rage. His eye was tight, lashes gummy and sticking, and he’d played with the cut on his lip long enough to make it taste like silver whenever he ran his tongue over it. Now he’d begun coughing again, massive wretched spasms long and hard enough to make his ribs hurt even more than they already did.
The burning smell had to be coming from the kitchen, probably his mother leaving a plastic dish in the oven and turning it on to heat up food for his father’s breakfast. It was something thoughtless she’d done a lot, stumbling from her bedroom down the hall, tired from working a double shift but awake enough to preheat the oven.
His eye wouldn’t open enough to see the clock, so all Rey could make out was a thin slice of red light, a blur of numbers through the dark. He’d lived in the room for ten years, and even after all that time, the space was hard to maneuver at night. Without an outside window, the only ambient light he had was from under the door, a sliver of orange-gold leaking out around the ill-fitting wood.
The hacking hit again, and he thumped his chest to stop it. He rattled on, caught in a vicious cycle of trying to breathe around the soreness in his nose and the need to relieve the heaviness under his sternum. His tongue felt swollen, and he couldn’t seem to pull up any moisture, no matter how hard he tried to hawk through the thickness in his mouth. His throat was raw, a scraped-open tenderness he wasn’t able to clear with what little spit he could get out.
Blinking with his one eye, he hunted around for his glasses, knocking over everything on his nightstand, but they weren’t where he could find them. The smell from the oven clung to the inside of his nose, and Rey stumbled off of his bed and straight into hell.
The light was stronger now, uneven and thick, clotted with gray puffs. Horror edged into Rey’s growing concern when the switch he’d hit didn’t turn on the lamp hanging in a corner of his bedroom. Rubbing at his face, he winced at the pain in his swollen eye.
It was hard to miss the roaring crackle now, and there was smoke pouring under his door, or at least he thought it was smoke. It was hard to tell… too hard to see, but the smell of it—the putrid rankness he’d come to associate with his mother’s forgetfulness—permeated his closed-in room, stealing the air from his lungs. It was difficult to breathe, and Rey struggled to catch a whiff of fresh air, trying to remember what he’d been taught in school, but nothing was coming to him. His brain was shutting down into a ripe panic, and he shuffled along the wall, trying to find the door.
The knob was hot, and he screamed when it seared his palm. His cry came out weak, a watery croak of flecked spit and sand; then the wall behind him crumbled, falling forward to strike his back.
Rey didn’t know how long he lay under the heavy debris. Time wasn’t something he could count anymore, and what little he saw was filled with stinging ash, followed by the flash of flames eating through the rest of the room. There was a voice—somewhere—and he tried to call out, screaming at the top of his lungs, but the fetid air in his chest choked out any sound he could make, and he ended up coughing, sucking in more smoke.
He was sleepy, and the last thing he wanted was to deal with his dad, especially since there was school to go to in the morning, a high school nightmare of numbers and words jumbled into a mess he struggled to make sense out of. But the screams, they were… unsettling… different… a high-pitched whine, then a rough, raw malevolent crinkle.
So very different from how his mother usually sounded.
Then he began to cough.
He couldn’t stop, not long enough to catch a full breath. Then Rey caught the smell of charred something in his lungs and worked to clear what felt like sandpaper in his throat and nose. There were more screeches, loud, horrific shrieks coming from somewhere, and the noise sent him trembling beneath his blankets. His chest hurt where his father struck it that evening, a lash of anger he didn’t see coming, but it was a day like any other, a tightrope walk between time dripping slowly in anticipation of his dad’s temper flaring and the tick-tick-tick of the seconds hurriedly falling off of the clock toward his bedtime.
Tonight had been bad, and he’d stepped in between the terrifying hail of fists and his mother, taking the brunt of his father’s rage. His eye was tight, lashes gummy and sticking, and he’d played with the cut on his lip long enough to make it taste like silver whenever he ran his tongue over it. Now he’d begun coughing again, massive wretched spasms long and hard enough to make his ribs hurt even more than they already did.
The burning smell had to be coming from the kitchen, probably his mother leaving a plastic dish in the oven and turning it on to heat up food for his father’s breakfast. It was something thoughtless she’d done a lot, stumbling from her bedroom down the hall, tired from working a double shift but awake enough to preheat the oven.
His eye wouldn’t open enough to see the clock, so all Rey could make out was a thin slice of red light, a blur of numbers through the dark. He’d lived in the room for ten years, and even after all that time, the space was hard to maneuver at night. Without an outside window, the only ambient light he had was from under the door, a sliver of orange-gold leaking out around the ill-fitting wood.
The hacking hit again, and he thumped his chest to stop it. He rattled on, caught in a vicious cycle of trying to breathe around the soreness in his nose and the need to relieve the heaviness under his sternum. His tongue felt swollen, and he couldn’t seem to pull up any moisture, no matter how hard he tried to hawk through the thickness in his mouth. His throat was raw, a scraped-open tenderness he wasn’t able to clear with what little spit he could get out.
Blinking with his one eye, he hunted around for his glasses, knocking over everything on his nightstand, but they weren’t where he could find them. The smell from the oven clung to the inside of his nose, and Rey stumbled off of his bed and straight into hell.
The light was stronger now, uneven and thick, clotted with gray puffs. Horror edged into Rey’s growing concern when the switch he’d hit didn’t turn on the lamp hanging in a corner of his bedroom. Rubbing at his face, he winced at the pain in his swollen eye.
It was hard to miss the roaring crackle now, and there was smoke pouring under his door, or at least he thought it was smoke. It was hard to tell… too hard to see, but the smell of it—the putrid rankness he’d come to associate with his mother’s forgetfulness—permeated his closed-in room, stealing the air from his lungs. It was difficult to breathe, and Rey struggled to catch a whiff of fresh air, trying to remember what he’d been taught in school, but nothing was coming to him. His brain was shutting down into a ripe panic, and he shuffled along the wall, trying to find the door.
The knob was hot, and he screamed when it seared his palm. His cry came out weak, a watery croak of flecked spit and sand; then the wall behind him crumbled, falling forward to strike his back.
Rey didn’t know how long he lay under the heavy debris. Time wasn’t something he could count anymore, and what little he saw was filled with stinging ash, followed by the flash of flames eating through the rest of the room. There was a voice—somewhere—and he tried to call out, screaming at the top of his lungs, but the fetid air in his chest choked out any sound he could make, and he ended up coughing, sucking in more smoke.
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and was a 2016 LAMBDA finalist with her novel, Murder and Mayhem. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.
She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Yoshi, a grumpy tuxedo cat and Tam, a diabetic black pygmy panther, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.
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I just finished this book by Rhys and loved it...cant wait for the next one..congrats
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review and tissue warning!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great review, Cat. Sounds like a good story. - Purple Reader,
ReplyDeleteTheWrote [at] aol [dot] com