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Cover Design: Garrett Leigh @ Black Jazz Design
Length: 92,000 words approx.
Hearts & Health Series
Blurb
A confused straight guy and a gay hookup artist walk into a bar ...
Firefighter Sean Connolly is straight -- until one impulsive night changes everything. He tries to dismiss it as a fluke, but when a fire rescue leads him back to the guy who blew his mind, he's thrown into a chaos of confusion and want. He gives in to curiosity, exploring a new side to himself -- not just his attraction to a man, but his desperate need to please.
Paramedic Jace Gillespie is a hookup pro, never letting anyone get too close. When he meets Sean, though, he feels a connection right away. An ill-advised threesome seems to kill a friendship in the making, but when they're thrown together by work, it doesn't take long for passion to reignite. Sean calls to something in Jace he never knew was there, and together, they explore a dynamic that fulfills them both.
But as feelings deepen, doubts surface. Sean is in the closet, and Jace struggles to trust his promise that it won't last forever. With family conflict and his career in the balance, Sean finds it difficult to picture his life without secrecy, but if he doesn't find a way, he may lose the one person he most wants to please.
Rapid Response is the longest novel of the Hearts and Health series at approximately 92,000 words! It can be read as a standalone.
I have enjoyed this series from the very beginning with its many wonderful characters and the chemistry between the couples. That said, I had a hard time getting behind this couple. Not that they don't have great chemistry, they do. My problem lay in a scene involving Lena. Now, maybe the intention was to paint Lena in a negative light, which it did for me, but it also turned me off of Jace. However, I did keep going, and the more I read, the more I warmed up to Jace. By the end, I was rooting for this couple, especially since I loved Sean from the beginning. What bothered me about this one may not bother others, and the story is full of the emotional ups and downs and relationship angst that Jamison does so well. Sean's struggles with his family and figuring out how to balance who he is with the person people see on the outside tugs at the heartstrings, while at the same time, I sympathized with Jace's feelings about a closeted relationship. At the end of the day, Sean and Jace do make a good addition to the series, and I love that past characters pop in and out throughout the books while each one still works as a standalone.
Excerpt
“I’m sorry,” he scraped out.
“For what? Staring at my mouth, or for hiding from yourself?” Jace asked caustically.
Sean swallowed hard. His traitorous eyes found Jace in the mirror, locking on the mouth in question. Pink, full lips. Jace had been a good kisser. A good … sucker.
“Yeah, just like that,” Jace said.
Sean jerked his gaze to Jace’s eyes, which bored into him, their power not diluted in the slightest by the mirror acting as their go-between. Could Jace see what was inside? If he could...
“Sorry,” Sean whispered. “I didn’t realize I...”
“What, Sean? What didn’t you realize?”
“That I, um. That I...” He couldn’t get the words out.
“That you like my mouth? That you want it on you again? That you—”
Sean spun around. “Shut up.”
“Make me.”
His breath caught. “What?”
“You heard me,” Jace said. “Make me shut up. You know exactly how to do it.”
Sean hesitated, and Jace smirked. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
Frustrated and frazzled, Sean acted on instinct, doing exactly what Jace had asked. He grabbed the front of Jace’s shirt, spun him around, and shoved him against the counter containing the row of sinks.
Then he kissed him.
Hard.
To make him shut up.
It was the only way to get him to stop talking. Gloating. Jace had practically ordered him to do it, the bastard. And Sean needed to shut up the doubts in his head, too.
He closed his eyes, blocking out all thought, and sank into the feeling of Jace’s perfect, hot mouth on his again.
DJ Jamison is the author of more than a dozen m/m romances, including the Ashe Sentinel series and the Hearts and Health series. She writes a variety of queer characters, from gay to bisexual to asexual, with a focus on telling love stories that are more about common ground than lust at first sight. DJ grew up in the Midwest in a working-class family, and those influences can be found in her writing through characters coping with real-life problems: money troubles, workplace drama, family conflicts and, of course, falling in love. DJ spent more than a decade in the newspaper industry before chasing her first dream to write fiction. She spent a lifetime reading before that, and continues to avidly devour her fellow authors' books each night. She lives in Kansas with her husband, two sons, two fish and, regrettably, one snake.
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