Heat of the Storm

2.5 Stars. The story had a good start and a good ending, but somewhere along 50-75% the story started slipping for me. Lots of emotional interaction between the two main characters. Overall a good story.

The beat goes on and I feel fine.

Ugh. Okay, so there is a reason I read this one on the heels of the first Out of Uniform book: because I was getting the feeling Albert is not an author for me. (Only took me six books to start coming to that conclusion, but more on that later.) That being said, I thought I would like this book. I mean, friends to lovers is probably my favorite romance trope and added to that is the fact that I've been looking for a good military tinged (or straight up military) gay romance. (Basically, I've been wanting something where people that have to save each others lives and have their backs start feeling things for each other.) I thought this book would, if not be perfect, at least be a solid read.

Well, friends to lovers? Sort of. I mean, they were already in severe lust with each other before the start of the story and had already been lovers twice (maybe, I'd count the first one but YMMV depending on what you consider ‘having sex') in a threesome before the start of the story - which we get to see in flashbacks. So...I guess this could be lovers getting their heads out of their collectives asses and realizing they're in love with each other - but it's not friends to lovers. Especially not the friends to lovers I like considering that one of the two had been attracted for all 12 years of their friendship and the other one for the last couple years.

Sigh.

The military out-in-the-field stuff that I've been wanting? I mean, it was there - at the very beginning. Broken up with flashbacks. Flashbacks that mostly seemed to revolve around how hot for each other they are. Because the first part of the story doesn't offer a chance for the characters to start having sex, we have to shoehorn it in (I meant to say that) because heaven knows us readers don't have the patience to actually wait for the sex to happen and while I was mentally complaining that I'd rather have the guys slowly realizing their attraction while only being able to rely on each other instead of the sexbacks, I realized that this author focuses way too much on the sex in the romance for me and I will be much happier if I quit reading her books.

Besides, since I read her #gaymers series, I haven't really liked any of them anyway. (And I've read four since then...)