Hair Balls is the sixth book in the ‘Balls to the Wall’ series. It stars one of the characters from the previous stories, Jimothy Castlemane, a talented stylist, and Rick Ronconi, a contractor. It’s told in third person through both Jimothy and Rick’s pov.

4.5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve read all but one of the stories in the 'Balls to the Wall' series and I think this one is the best. Best written, best plot and best characters. This is a character driven plot with Rick’s sister being a background motivator that helps start the changes in Rick’s life because of her impending wedding. Rick has helped raised her and would do just about anything for her. This sets him up to change his looks, which end up changing his life.

The author did a terrific job with the characters. Jimothy appeared in one of the previous books in the series. He’s gorgeous, flamboyant and not afraid what other people think of him. Rick on the other hand is very much in the closet. A lot of that has to do with his homophobic father who owns most of the construction company Rick works for. Rick doesn’t want to jeopardize his job, it’s the only sort of stability he knows and it pays the bills that sent his sister to college and for her wedding. But now his sister is getting married and Rick needs to get on with his life. The author conveyed Rick’s fear, his desire for Jimothy and how conflicted Rick was in wanting to come out and his fear to do so. His growth from hiding in the closet to outing himself was a well written journey that I found believable. I was also thoroughly convinced of Jimothy and Rick as a couple, even though they were opposite personalities.

The pace of story was good. I didn’t feel like it bogged down at any point. There was always action of some sort happening because of the wedding preparations playing out in the background.

There were a couple items that didn’t work for me in the story because they weren’t factual and I wish they had been fact checked. First, more than once it’s mentioned that Rick lives in an apartment. He even calls it an apartment. But he plants flowers in the yard like it’s a townhome or condominium. He and his friends also paint and tile the inside of the apartment without asking permission from the apartment management. Do you know of an apartment complex that will allow residents to interior design their homes with permanent changes without asking the apartment management for permission? I have never heard of such a thing. If Rick lived in a condo or townhome, yes, it’s his property so he could do that. But not an apartment. This is what I consider a big, and obvious error in the story that should have been caught. Adding a line in a future edition that Rick asked the management and got the okay would fix this error, especially since Rick is a cautious man and knows about rules and regulations because of the business he’s in. I can't imagine he wouldn't check to see if it was okay for him to make those changes.

The second error I found was with the kitten Rick found. Let’s speculate the kitten has been wandering around for a day or so. Rick doesn’t know if it's come in contact with other feral cats, possibly feral cats with feline leukemia. Feline leukemia is very contagious. I know a little about it because I have a friend with multiple cats. The new cats are always tested for the disease before they are introduced to the healthy cats. Never does Rick take the kitten to a vet, nor is Jimothy concerned that he’s introducing a new cat to his healthy cats without the kitten having had a health check. That is very risky. This is another error that someone should have pointed out to the author, but clearly skipped past the betas, proofers and editors. I’m hoping if the author runs a second edition, she’ll insert a line or two that Rick took the kitten to a quick vet visit before he took it to Jimothy’s, and it was given a clean bill of health. Because, otherwise, this is unrealistic unless he doesn’t care about the new kitten or the other cats’ health.

One final thing that is more trivial, is I'd like to know how Rick solves the issue of moving out of his apartment into Jimothy's place after Rick just spent, I'm sure quite a bit of money, to redo all the furnishings in his home? He even thought about it at one point of having to move out because of the kitten, but what about all the home furnishings. This is never addressed in the story, because he'll never need the furniture at Jimothy's. I don't care for dropped lines like this. Ideas brought up and talked about but never completed. It makes the story seem unfinished and the writing sloppy with dangling subplots. This issue is also easily solved with a possible line of maybe one of his crew wanting the furniture or someone they know.

To summarize, I think Hair Balls is the best book in the ‘Balls to the Wall’ series. The characters are well-formed and have distinct personalities. There’s also good character growth. However, the errors I noticed are pretty obvious to me and I have to deduct for that. But the rest of the story is so good, it’s able to pull the star rating up, and I give this book, 5 Stars. I’d recommend this book to others. Just please, fix the errors, they really are annoying and create a sense of misinformation.



I received a copy of this book from the author for an honest and unbiased review. ( )