The Luckiest, by Piper Vaughn and MJ O'Shea

The Luckiest (Lucky Moon #2)

by Piper Vaughn and MJ O'Shea

Published by Loose-ID

Word Count: 91.000

Blurb:

Rock star Nick Ventura has finally hit rock bottom. Jealous of his brother’s new love, he starts overindulging in his usual vices and winds up crashing his car into a department store in a drunken haze. Publicly humiliated and on the verge of jail time, he enters into a court-ordered rehabilitation program.

Nutritionist Luka Novak is flamboyant, effeminate, the type of gay man that bisexual Nick would normally sneer at. His sunny nature hides a deep hurt from a previous relationship. Luka knows he should be wary of Nick’s reputation, but he’s drawn to Nick despite himself. Their tentative friendship turns into romance, but Luka soon comes to realize that Nick's fear of losing his bad boy reputation means he'll probably never go public with their relationship.

Nick never thought he needed anyone, until Luka Novak came into his life. Now he has to reconcile his carefree past with the future he suddenly wants more than anything. And the first lesson he has to learn is how to become the man that both he and Luka need him to be, rather than stay the boy he always was. Alone.

The beginning was just continuous cussing and ramblings of Nicky and I thought I'd never get through it. I've become a fan of Piper Vaughn and MJ O'Shea, so I pushed through, and I didn't regret it. While Nick's grumpily adjusting to rehab life, he's sat in a room where he has to answer questions about himself. Those answers were very funny.

Review:

My first five star review at Gayrotic Reviews!

I loved the first Lucky Moon book, Moonlight Becomes You, but this one was even better. I struggled through the beginning, because Nicky was very grumpy and cursed in every single sentence (it seemed). It went on and on, but I pushed on and I'm glad I did.

Nick behaved like a spoiled brat throughout the book, but the reason for this character trait becomes obvious. Nick was practically raised by his brother, who is only a couple of years older, and grew up in an abusive household. At 30, it was time for him to grow up. I didn't really think he grew up by the end of the book, but he stopped behaving like the jerk he was at the beginning.

Luca was a very realistic character and there's nothing about that man I didn't love. His friend Jeana was also great and their friendship was realistic. Luca was very patient with Nick, but also showed "correct" behavior whenever Nick hurt him with his immaturity.

I loved the interactions between Nick and Luca after Nick got out of rehab. They were sweet and fun. They were also hot, but it wasn't all about the sex. The authors did a great job of building the romance. It wasn't all bubbles and hearts either, because there were many small conflicts in between.

The pace was good. I did think the book was a little too long and there were bits that seemed to stretch on a little without much happening, but it was okay. The plot was very nicely done. If there was one thing that baffled me about the subplot was what happened at Jeana's birthday party. I would have liked to know who mixed that drink that Luca drank (don't want to spoil things here), because something like that is a huge deal and shouldn't have been dismissed that easily. I'm not saying that Luca should have spent emotional drama on it, just that I think it should have been mentioned who mixed that drink and if the person had been caught or not. It wasn't clear if that drink was intended for Luca, though I suspect it was...but then why wasn't the person there when he drank it? Luca's ex, Brent, also just disappeared.

The writing was superb as always. The voice is strong and consistent, and different between the two characters. There's nice and slow character development and the main characters have beautiful and heart wrenching moments together. I think this book is safe for anyone to read and I don't think many would regret reading it.

Writing/Voice: 5/5
Characters/Development: 5/5
Plot/Pace: 5/4
Heat: 5 (Perfect, just the right amount)

Stars: 5