When unlikely attraction blossoms between a twentysomething genderqueer tattoo artist and an older, small-town veterinarian, both are forced to face their pasts for a chance at a loving future.
Four years ago Padraig Donovan lost his husband, the only man he’d ever been with. Now his life consists of the work he loves, a big empty house, and the possibility of a lonely future.
Kaos’s experiments with makeup landed him in the hospital at the hands of his disapproving ex. With nowhere else to turn, he flees to Acker, Wisconsin… and runs into a sexy widower and the kindest man he’s ever met.
Padraig and Kaos know there’s something worth exploring between them, and as they raise a puppy and deal with the ups and downs of their respective jobs, they fit into each other’s lives in ways they never expected. Being with Kaos—who is so different than the guys he’s always been attracted to—opens up an exciting new world for Padraig. But can he convince Kaos to trust another man with his body… let alone his heart?
While I enjoyed reading Four and getting to know Kaos and Padraig very much I will say that the book is really not a standalone and I would say you should read book one first to get the full layout of character dynamics. I didn’t read book one first and that’s my bad. There was enough info to be able to get a good gist of what was going on when characters would refer to their histories, but I know I was missing chunks of material that would have made the story more fully fleshed out for me.
Individually I liked Kaos and Padraig a lot and as they spent more time together I liked reading about their impending couple-hood. They were an unlikely paid and those couplings are usually my favorite. The differences have a tendency to bring out hidden treasures in each character and reading about them exploring and being true to themselves is a treat. That was especially true for these guys. Kaos is escaping an abusive relationship and struggling to honor his true self. Padraig is coping with grief and that almost always leads to feelings of guilt. So, these two had a lot to work on both separately and together.
The thing that threw me off a bit was the secondary characters. I’m going to chalk some of that up to not reading book one, but even if I had backstory, I think the supporting characters were just, a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. Everything felt incredibly dramatic and over the top and it’s slightly shitty of me to say that considering basically EVERYONE has some serious trauma but honestly it became exhausting. The distractions of meltdowns would drag me out of the burgeoning relationship between Kaos and Padraig so I felt like was losing their momentum more than once.
An HEA was inevitable, but man, they had to earn it. Both Kaos and Padraig got in their own way of their happiness multiple times and I believe that there was just too much for one story to be able to resolve it all organically and with enough balance so that I could really feel the happy ending. I totally bought into it, don’t get me wrong, I was just hoping it would feel more satisfying when it finally came around.
**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**
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