Review: Succumbing to His Fear by River Mitchell

Succumbing to His Fear by River Mitchell

Succumbing to His Fear by River Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some people may not like insta-love or gay-for-you, but I think they're cute, and we're reading romance novels, not reality, so I'm fine with things that stretch my beliefs a little like HEAs.

Add some humor and mystery / suspense to that sucker and it makes for a super fun read.

Succumbing to His Fear is the first book in the Living Art series.

Alfie hasn't seen his father since him and his mother split up when he was 5. One day he's contacted and told that his father and new wife are dead, so Alfie has been appointed guardians to their two kids - Griffin, 7 and Lily, 3. Yikes!

A young guy prone to panic attacks, Alfie is a little freaked out about the situation. He also has some anger issues with the man who abandoned him and then got a new family. Now Alfie has to move to America and take custody or the kids will go into foster care. He knows he can't do anything else though, the kids need someone and apparently that's him.

So, Alfie and his crazy / wonderful mother and stepfather take off for America and jump through hoops until finally after months he gets custody of the kids that he falls in love with at first sight.

On Alfie's first day on his own with the kids he is feeling a bit overwhelmed, then very overwhelmed when Griffin bumps into the hugest guys on the planet. The big, angry looking guys.(One of whom is named Fear!)

Fear is like a mile tall and built like a brick shithouse, and he makes Alfie feel funny. Scared, yes, but also a little like butterflies in the tummy. As a straight guy, Alfie is a bit thrown off by this but he's semi-pressured into having lunch with the group of guys and he has a pretty good time for awhile even if he can't help but keep looking at the big guy the entire time. The big guy that doesn't take his eyes off of him. Sparks fly from the beginning.

After a bit of panic Alfie realizes he's attracted to Fear and because he was raised in a sex-positive family he has less trouble coming to terms with finding out his soul mate is male than those people who are taught you are only straight or only gay. Apparently Alfie is not so straight and narrow, maybe he's a Kinsey Scale 1. Cue the cutest couple on the planet.

Everything is going great until Fear's mother is murdered and suddenly there's trouble for the new couple.

I really liked this book. Tatted big guys who are teddy bears at heart is my greatest weakness, and adding a smart-mouthed boyfriend and his equally snarky mummy, makes for a good giggle.

All of the characters, even the supporting ones are pretty awesome and well-thought out. The story flows extremely well, fast-paced, but it fits. We don't have to page over a bunch of junk to get to the actual story, the story doesn't really stop for filler crap like a lot of books.

After the last book series I read, it was a relief to see almost no misspelled words or writing errors. Damn, it felt good. Especially in this day and age when nearly every book has a multitude of errors. And the writer is dyslexic, which means they worked their bottom off and probably had their friends do the same so they could share this awesome book with us. It's so cool when someone doesn't let their disability stop them and produces something better than most without the disability.

I'm really a fan of this book and the sequels.