Cruisin’ for A Bruisin’ is the eighth book in ‘Beat the Heat’, a multi-author, BDSM series. This stars Ricky Alvarez, a boy, and Gabe Monroe, a Daddy. This is told in third person from both Ricky and Gabe’s pov.

3.5 Stars



I’ll start my review with the cover. I like the image. I think that’s supposed to be Ricky because it’s not Gabe from the book description. It’s mentioned in the story that Ricky isn’t exactly a typical looking boy. I don’t remember him having facial hair though.

Quick run-down of the plot. Ricky desperately needs money and so applies to be a service sub for the cruise. Only he knows nothing about being a service sub, he’s a boy. He also feels terrible about lying so his ruse doesn’t last long. Ricky is assigned to Gabe, who was convinced to come on the cruise by his friend Mal. Mal is the director of the BDSM cruise and he also hired Ricky. Gabe is kind and thoughtful and his Daddy urges are strong. There’s instant lust between Gabe and Ricky which quickly grows to love by the end of the week. They really are a great fit for each other and I could believe in them as a couple.

The plot moves along quickly and is an easy read. Since I received an ARC, I won’t rate on any grammar errors because I figure they will be fixed by the time the book gets published. However, I do want to point out two inconsistencies that I’m not sure will get picked up and fixed. First, for over half the book Ricky agonizes over his deception of telling Mal he was a service sub. He told his roommate and also Gabe, and he wanted to confess and apologize to Mal. By the end of the book, there was no mention of Ricky ever speaking to Mal, even as a passing thought as something he had done. Considering it was a reoccurring topic the author had Ricky bring up, it should be important enough to finish that subplot. Instead, it was dropped. The last issue cropped up in the epilogue. During one previous scene, Gabe and Ricky are going to sun themselves on deck, but Ricky forgets his sunglasses and he explains to Gabe that he forgets or loses them. In the epilogue, Ricky doesn’t have the sunglasses again but we are privy to his feelings about them because he says he ‘hates’ wearing them and wonders if his Daddy will notice him not wearing sunglasses. Ricky doesn’t lose or forget; he actively chooses not to wear them. So even after Gabe and Ricky have been together for a year, and Gabe trusts Ricky since they are in a very close BDSM relationship, Ricky has been lying all the time about a simple thing like the sunglasses. That one line in the epilogue had me disliking Ricky. He was no longer the sweet boy he appeared to be throughout the book, but a lying boy, who wouldn’t tell the truth to Gabe after a year together. What else has he been lying to Gabe about? The discrepancy between the two scenes destroyed whatever good feelings I had about Ricky being sweet. With that one line, I disliked him. I really hope an editor or proofer caught the difference in Ricky’s behavior and pointed it out to the author because there was no benefit to Ricky’s thought. A different line could have been used that was consistent with Ricky’s previous reasons about forgetting the sunglasses, but wasn’t.

Overall, this is a fast, easy, fun read but I didn’t like the dropped subplot of Ricky’s confession to Mal, nor the sudden appearance of Ricky’s lie about the sunglasses. The lie showed a totally different side to Ricky that maybe he wasn’t all sweet and good as the rest of the book had readers believing. For the reason of lack of consistency, I give Crusin’ For A Bruisin’, 3 Stars.



I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review. ( )