Guest Review: A Sniper's Devotion (Cuffs, Collars, and Love #4) by Christa Tomlinson

Officer Hector Castillo, a sniper on Houston’s elite SWAT team, is content living alone as a perpetual bachelor. But when he opens up his small apartment to a friend in need, their close quarters awaken long suppressed desires Hector can’t help but acknowledge.

Miguel Delgado’s unfortunate detour down a road he never intended to travel ends in a big wake up call, but he vows to get himself back on track. Though he’s always looked up to Hector, Miguel isn’t a kid with hero-worship anymore, and his schoolyard protector has matured into a strong and caring man – who happens to look damn sexy in his SWAT uniform.

Though their physical attraction to each other is undeniable, Hector and Miguel try hard to resist and protect their friendship. Until one night changes everything…

A Sniper’s Devotion is a loving and sexy, friends to lovers erotic romance. Hector and Miguel’s story is part of the Cuffs, Collars and Love series, but it is a stand-alone novel.

Tags: Friends to Lovers, Multicultural Romance, Hispanic Main Characters, Spanking, Stand Alone

Warning: Mentions of domestic violence

Reviewer: NeRdyWYRM

Easy On The Heart

This installment of the series was one of my favorites. This book can be read as a standalone, but you won't get the full experience if you go that route. Mostly because we already got to know most of Hector's team as MCs in the preceding books so ... there are stories that come before that provide some of the context. You don't necessarily need it to get into this one individually, but it helps kind of set the scene for the ease of the relationship-building between Hector and Miguel and the lack of angst you would expect a cop to have in a LGBTQ+ romance.

Which brings me to my next point. One of the things I love about this series (and this book in particular) is the fact that it is surprisingly low angst. The themes present don't drive the stories themselves down the usual predictable plotlines. I've said it before about the first book in the series, but it deserves to be said again. Instead of drowning in identity confusion and fears of being 'outed' amongst law enforcement peers—which is almost obligatory for a law enforcement theme in this genre, right?—the focus is, instead, on the MCs and their individual relationship(s) and other, more titillating dynamics. Yum.

Hector and Miguel were sweet, funny, hot, and all the good things that happen when you're friends first and lovers later. It was a little hair-raising to be waiting the whole time for the other shoe to drop, for a certain jackass to come tripping in with something nefarious in mind, but the fact that it didn't overtake everything else the story had going on was almost better than the story itself. I hate predictability and I know I've said it already, but this read and this series were thankfully not predictable in the way you'd expect.

This read is one for you when you want something with believable character- and relationship-development, relatively low angst, no typically theme-specific crises, acceptable resolutions and possible-in-real-life HFNs that are arguably HEAs although not necessarily formulaic enough to call them that.

Me likey. Me likey. Me likey.


More reviews by NeRdyWYRM can be found on Goodreads here.

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An ARC copy of this title was provided for an honest review.