Jeff talks about the cover reveal for his forthcoming book, Keeping Kyle. He also highlights a new fundraiser for Pro Literacy. The guys also recap their recent TV watching including Netflix’s Toy Boy, Freeform’s Good Trouble and the CW’s Katy Keene.
Jeff reviews Xio Axelrod’s Frankie and Johnny: Let the Music Play. Then it’s a K.M. Nuehold double feature as Will reviews Caulky and Jeff looks at Rocket Science.
Tammy Middleton, who writes as TM Smith, shares the upcoming re-release of Gay for Pay, under the new series title Stories from the Sound. She discusses the works she’s done not only on Gay for Pay but the rest of the series along with news of two brand new books to come. She also has details on her new Chaos Magician series.
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Show Notes
Here are the things we talk about in this episode. Please note, these links include affiliate links for which we may make a small commission at no extra cost to you should you make a purchase.
- JeffAdamsWrites.com
- WillKnauss.com
- Cover Reveal: “Keeping Kyle (Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid Book 3)” by Jeff Adams on JeffAdamsWrites.com
- Queer Romance for Literacy ProLiteracy Fundraiser website
- Toy Boy on Netflix
- Good Trouble on Hulu
- Katy Keene on the CW
- The Hockey Player’s Heart by Jeff Adams & Will Knauss on Amazon
- Frankie and Johnny: Let the Music Play by Xio Axelrod on Amazon
- Caulky by K.M. Neuhold on Amazon
- Rocket Science by K.M. Neuhold on Amazon
- Tammy Middleton/TM Smith Interview
- Tammy Middleton/TM Smith: website | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Twitter | Instagram
- Gay for Pay by TM Smith on Amazon (pre-order through April 1)
- Sandrine Gasq-Dion on Amazon
- A.E. Via on Amazon
- Joel Leslie on Audible
- Big Gay Fiction Podcast on Patreon.com
- Big Gay Fiction Podcast patrons on BGFP website
- Frolic Podcast Network website
Interview Transcript – Tammy Middelton / TM Smith
This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.
Jeff: Tammy, welcome back to the podcast. It is so good to have you here.
Tammy: It’s good to be here.
Jeff: We figured out just as we started recording, it has been exactly 100 episodes since you were here last cause you were here in 131.
Tammy: I know. That’s amazing. I like that.
Jeff: I like that. That century mark.
Tammy: Yes.
Jeff: So you’re here today to tell us about the relaunch of the “All Cocks Series,” and it’s going to shift over now to be called “Stories from the Sound.” Tell us all about what’s happening with this. I’ve seen the incredibly sexy cover for the first book. I’m excited to hear about all of the plans.
Tammy: Yes, I’m going back, of course, it started with book one “Gay for Pay.” So the series title is changed “Stories from the Sound” and anyone that’s read the books would realize why, because that the Lake, the river, whatever it is, it plays heavily into the stories. So, I’m going back and rewriting… the first book is really going through a lot of changes. My editor and I are realizing more and more as we go through it. This book is, I would probably say half of it has changed, so much more new content. Things that I did back then, little ticks and repetition and things that we’re changing. Now that we’re like six years in, she and I both are so much better with our crafts, her editing in my writing, you know, so I’m going to go back in and we do each one and add some new content and just bring these characters back to life.
Hopefully pull in some new readers. So I’m excited. And there’s going to be a new book releasing almost every month. The first three books are going to release one month apart, starting April the first for, “Gay for Pay” and then you’ll have three months, and then it pushes out to six weeks from there for the books.
Pretty much every four to six weeks for the rest of the year the rereleases are going to come out and for each book, the preorder for the new book will be in the back of that book. So you’ll be able to just click on that and have that other one ready for you when it, when it releases.
Jeff: For those who it’ll be new for, tell us what this series was about and specifically what we get to read in “Gay for Pay.”
Tammy: Oh my, yeah, it’s been forever ago. And that makes me think about Sandrine [Gasq-Dion]. So “Gay for Pay” was born from a conversation that I had at the first GRIL I went to in Chicago, I think it was.
So it was me and Sandrine and a couple of her models, Jordan and Caleb, and we were having conversations over drinks. So they definitely evolved into inappropriate, you know, one of the questions that I had asked them, you know, it had been a couple of years since I had been writing. And so I asked Jordan and Caleb, you know, so what are you straight or are you bi? And so Jordan’s like, well, I’m straight.
So we got into the long drawn out conversation of how that works, and if you want to know how that works, you have to read the book. There are literally three or four different conversations in the book that I had with him. So that’s how the whole series was born and it was actually only supposed to be one book.
I was just going to do the one and done, but as soon as the book released, reviewers started emailing me and asking, well, what about these guys that run this online porn company? I want their story. And what about this one guy over here that’s a total asshole, Corey? I want his story. You know? So one book became two and two became three, and now we’re at seven books and starting over and cleaning them up, and there’s going to be nine books total.
So there’s two more new ones coming at the end of this year, in the beginning of next year.
Jeff: What’s it been like revisiting these books after the six and seven years since you first wrote them?
Tammy: Oh yeah. The first, when I first started going back over “Gay for Pay” and reading over everything and cleaning all that up I was reminded a lot of Sandrine. So early on it was very tearful. She was very instrumental in me, even beginning as a writer because I was just throwing things on a page. She and I were friends online and so I started sending things to her. So going back and starting over with “Gay for Pay” was revisiting that relationship and then remembering that loss. So that was kind of hard. But the rest of it is amazing. I’ll look at some things that I’ve written and I’m as an author, maybe you’ve done this too, when you go back and look at things and you’re like, oh my God, this is horrible.
Why did anybody buy this?
So getting to go back now, later, whenever I’ve grown so much as an author and learned so many things to get to go back and really flesh these characters out even more and give them more depth to their story, it’s amazing and it’s fun and I’m excited to see what the readers think about it when it re-releases.
Jeff: How fundamental would you say the stories have changed? Obviously it’s a romance, so everybody’s still going to get to their HEA, but is it just adding to that, or have you changed character trajectories or how’s that worked?
Tammy: So far, I haven’t changed any character trajectories. With this book in particular I would say the bones of the story are still the same. That’s not changing. You know what Chris dealt with in his past and how he came to find the these men and go to work for All Cocks and everything that happened after that. That all stayed the same, but it was more like, when I first wrote that book, I wasn’t as good with putting the emotions that I was seeing the characters feeling in my head on paper.
So it was more like wooden, one dimensional. So now being able to go back and really pour that emotion onto paper, I think that it has just made it even more realistic and make characters even more lovable. So we’ll see.
Jeff: Tell us about the characters we’re meeting in Gay for Pay and what the gist of their story is as we meet them on the page.
Tammy: So the first one that is, Chris, he’s a former football star from his little Alabama hometown, and he makes a really bad choice that has irrevocable consequences and ruined some lives. And he winds up in New York with his best friend who’s going to college. And then down on his luck, he runs across a flyer for All Cocks one day where they’re calling for models and he decides, you know what, nobody wants to hire me for a job because I have a felony on my record.
He goes in and there you go. He meets this group of men. They’re all different, they’re all unique, they’re all fun and lovable and crazy, and he basically finds the family that he lost and falls in love.
Jeff: You make it sound so simple.
Tammy: If only.
Jeff: What has surprised you the most in revisiting the series in general as you’ve been rewriting and updating?
Tammy: That’s a good question. I don’t know if I would say surprised, but, so went back in when I wrote the first book it was solely from Chris’s perspective. Everything was, you’re mostly seeing it from his eyes when he’s seeing, so when I went back in and decided that I wanted to put his love interest, Link, in there, he’s not in there a lot because I didn’t want to change the book that drastically.
So, but he has, I think I added two or three chapters for him. So it was nice and maybe a little bit surprising to get in there and you start writing these chapters and then the character takes on a life of his own. So that was fun. That was fun to get into.
Jeff: Did you have a hard time keeping Link constrained to just two or three chapters, or did he give him some more?
Tammy: Yes. Well, no. What I did was in the middle of a couple of other chapters in my head while I’m writing, I changed POV. So of course the editor sends that back outlined. Wrong POV. So I had to go back in and fix that, but I did. There were some good lines to know that I’m moved over to his chapters. So I hope that the readers like that aspect, getting to see some of that story from Link’s perspective.
Jeff: Is that something that’ll change in the future books or were the future books already dual POV?
Tammy: Some as I got further in, yes. I don’t know why I did with that first one. I did it just from Chris’s POV, but whenever I got into the second book, which is kind of sorta a prequel because it goes back before, “Gay for Pay,” and it’s the story of the three men that run the online porn company.
So it goes back and tells the story of how the initial two met and they were a longterm couple, and then this other guy comes into their life and then working him in. So that book shows all three of their perspectives and then going forward, it shows the different couples. But for whatever reason, when I first wrote “Gay for Pay,” I just wrote it from Chris’s POV, maybe because it was supposed to just be one book and be done.
Jeff: Maybe that would make sense. Yeah.
Tammy: Yeah. So it definitely took on a life of its own.
Jeff: And now you’ve got two additional books planned, had it always been planned to be a nine book series, or as you’ve revisited, did it expand to that?
Tammy: You know, I had never put a number on it before. I just feel like, so I was sitting down whenever I was going through and mapping out what changes I wanted to make and what I wanted to add to each one of these stories.
Because, back about September, October of last year, I’d downloaded all the audiobooks and went and listened to the audiobooks because I didn’t have the time with everything else going on to read back through them. So I listened through book five and then read the others and outlining the story.
It was like, okay, so there’s this one storyline that I have to tell because so many readers have asked for these two character’s book, and then I need a wrap up. It sounds odd, but almost like Harry Potter at the end, you got that 19 years later chapter. So the last book, it’s not, it’s going to kind of go over several decades with all of the characters showing over time where they ended up, what they ended up doing, who they ended up with, et cetera.
Who’s now married, who has kids, you know? So that last book is going to be… my editor is fighting me on the title tentatively. I’ve named it “Happy Ever After” and she’s like, no, no. So we can, we’ll figure it out.
Jeff: Well, at least we know now. It will be locked in here on the podcast, what it was going to be. If it doesn’t get to be that later. But it sounds like a nice, fun, almost reunion type movie almost. You know, if you were talking TV that everybody got back together to make the reunion.
Tammy: Yes, I was thinking about making it like over the holidays of different, over 10 15 years making it so it’s this couple’s chapter, and this is happening over Thanksgiving, and then you’ve got this couple’s chapter and it’s happening over the next Easter if jumping with each one through over the years.
So you’re not only seeing their story and how it ended up, but you’re seeing their perspective of this other part of their world.
Jeff: That’s going to be very fun for the fans of the series to get to that book.
Tammy: Yes. I hope so.
Jeff: Should people who have already read these books and love these books, pick up these new versions?
Tammy: Definitely. Especially early on because like I said, “Gay for Pay” is probably, it’s got, I think over 10K new words added for the word count, new chapters, new content. It’s been heavily re-edited, and like I said, the core of the story is still there. That’s not changing. But the curtains are changing.
So I would most definitely suggest anybody to read it, to pick, to grab this one.
Jeff: You mentioned the 10k-ish in “Gay for Pay.” Do you think the other books are going to have similar changes to that level or is it going to be book to book just seeing what you, what you want to do with them?
Tammy: I’m pretty sure that the next book, “Fame and Fortune- will also have a good bit of new content just because in the past, when readers read that book, they always said that there were certain parts of the story that they wanted to see more of.
So I will go back in and give them that more that they want. So that one will probably change significantly as well. And then when we have book three, I’m not sure, They all do, honestly need seriously cleaning up and re editing and stuff. Cause like I said, Hope and I both have just gotten so much better over the years individually and as a team.
So there’s some changes and stuff that needs to be made. But definitely book two, we’ll have a decent amount of changes. And then book six will change a lot as well because I kind of screwed up and put in nicknames for the two main characters that were so similar that readers often commented in their reviews.
I had a hard time figuring out who is who, so that has to be changed as well. But the other books definitely, we edited, cleaned up, there’s going to be some new content in every one of the books, I mean, that wouldn’t be fair to anybody to rerelease the books and it just be the same thing, you know, just changing words here and there.
So every book is going to have some new content. How much, I won’t know until I actually dive into that book.
Jeff: Now coming this summer after you started getting some of these new books out in “Stories from the Sound,” you’ve got a brand new project that’s going to launch too. What can you tease us about that?
Tammy: Anybody that’s in my reader group will already know about, “Chaos Magician.” It’s a new series that I’m working on that is paranormal with, well, it’s kind of a cross between paranormal and supernatural. It’s got witches and mediums and psychics and all that different kind of stuff. It’s going to be at least a couple of books.
I’m not sure exactly how many yet. I’ll have to get writing on it. I’ve got probably 15 K written. It was starting to get hard to write it and I was starting to try to force it, so I decided to just move it aside for a little while, but I’m definitely going back to it. The cover for that one is amazing too.
I was shocked. It was actually a premade. I was just rolling through some sites because this was about a year ago whenever I was first toying around with the idea of redoing all the “All Cocks” and then the very first series, I wrote the “Opposite” series.
I pulled that a year ago, and I’m going to go back and do the same thing that I’m doing with the “All Cocks” stories for that series next year. Because that was the first book I wrote. Oh gosh. They’re horrible. But anyway, so I was going through all of these different Facebook groups with cover artists and stuff and going through all the different covers, trying to see, okay, would this one work for this one, this one for that?
And I stumbled upon this cover and when I saw this image, I was just like, I have to have that and I have to write a book for it. And I had been jotting down notes for “Chaos Magician,” not knowing yet what the title was going to be, not knowing exactly what the core of the series was going to be. Nothing.
You know, the models, nothing. Just jotting down these ideas. And as soon as I saw that cover, I was like, there we go. That’s it. I’ve got it. So I’ve had the cover for like nine months. I’ve had it for a while. It’s an amazing cover. So that one, that wouldn’t be done sometime this summer.
Yeah, I want, I want to have that one in paperback when we get to GRL this year. Definitely.
Jeff: What was the inspiration behind that series that you’ve been taking the notes on it for so long now and then the cover kind of coalesced for you?
Tammy: That was kind of twofold. The genre I love, you know, like the “Conjuring” movies. All of the different shows, “Ghost Adventures,” “Dead Files.” I love that whole supernatural and paranormal aspect to things. Where is your house haunted? Do you have a spirit, angels and demons? All of that stuff. And then my, one of my best friends that passed away, October of 2018 he was, he was very nearly a chaos magician.
So when you hear the term, you’re probably thinking, David Copperfield magic, but a chaos magician is actually more like someone who is trained in Reiki, someone who’s a psychic medium and a psychic knower. They possess several different gifts in several different talents, and whenever they’re working with someone.
They pull off what that person needs. So if this person needs a psychic medium, then they work with that. If this person needs another aspect, they work with that. So they work within the chaos of whatever the situation calls for that sort of chaos magician is. So that’s the base for that main character is Luce.
Jeff: He’s going to, in my mind, offer you so many things to do through the series because he can do so much.
Tammy: Yeah. And his love interest is a voodoo priest
Jeff: Together they might be pretty unstoppable.
Tammy: Yeah. So that’s been, that was fun to research voodoo and figuring out that a lot of people just assume it’s black magic and it’s dark and foreboding and, but it’s really not.
It’s not as bad if that someone has taken it to the wrong place. So that’s been a lot of fun to work with and pull stuff. I’m writing an African American character for him. Of course, he’s a Voodoo priest, so I’m, Adrienne is helping me a lot with that because there’s a lot of aspects of that culture that I don’t know, and with a lot of issues in the running community in the past few years about interracial relationships and writing people of color, and when you do, a lot of people do right, then they get it wrong.
So I want to make sure that I get it right. So she’s going to help me with that aspect of the story.
Jeff: And for people who don’t know, Adrienne is A.E. Via, who everyone knows from her multiple books out in the genre.
It’s very different from the contemporary you’re writing in “Stories from the Sound.” Do you like going back and forth between like contemporary and more paranormal?
Tammy: Yes, I do. At some point, I already have a pen name earmarked. At some point I’m going to, I have a male/female story in my brain that needs to be put out there, so at some point I’m going to go back and write that.
So it is, for my brain at least, it’s fun to go back and forth and do different things instead of just doing the same thing repetitively. But I can’t do them at the same time that are writing like, okay, so I’m writing three different books. You know, I’ve got this one, this one, and this one going.
It’s like, Oh no, I can’t. I can barely keep up with one at a time.
Jeff: I’m very much in the same boat. I can only really focus on one project at a time.
Tammy: Yes,.
Jeff: Maybe write one and work on edits for another, but that’s, that’s the extent of my ability.
Tammy: Yes. Cause we’re working on edits for, “Gay for Pay” right now and tomorrow I’m actually going to start outlining some of the stuff for the next book, so I’ll be working on both of those at the same time, but it’s two different things and it’s in the same series,
Jeff: Anything else you can kind of tease out for us to what might be coming. After all of this, I mean, you’ve already teased also that of course at the “Opposites” series is going to be re rereleasing in 2021. Anything else going on we should know about?
Tammy: Well, for audible listeners, when I first released, “Gay for Pay” on Audible, I used a narrator that I found, he did a decent job, for the book.
And it’s actually still my highest selling audiobook is that one. My goal is with all of these changes and that contract almost being up that Joel Leslie, who narrated the other books that are out on audible to have him go back and record that one. So then readers and listeners will be able to start their journey with the same narrator going through.
So that’s a little tease.
Jeff: Are you going to have Joel do the updates as you’re reworking the books so that the Audible files update to those as well?
Tammy: That is our goal. We’ve, we’ve actually been chatting about that, trying to figure out exactly how to do it because, and you wouldn’t even know. It’s just like he sends me back this email with all this stuff in it. So when he initially recorded these books, he was in a different sound studio. Now he has a new studio with a different sound. So he’s like, we need to figure out how I would go and record this chapter. And then you’re going to stick it in the middle of the book and they’re going to sound completely different.
So just a little, little things like that that we have to think about.
Jeff: Interesting problem on the technical side. I’m sure Joel will get it solved. I have absolute faith in him.
Tammy: Oh, yes. Yeah. Him and Rich are like unstoppable. They’re amazing. And then the series title again is going to be a little bit of a hiccup for Audible, so I’ve got to figure that out as far as whisper sync.
But that’s something that we want to get ironed out, and I hope to have that out. And of course it will be later, much later in the year because Joel is crazy busy and he’s got a schedule that’s booked months and months and months in advance, so it’ll be later in the year before that happens.
Jeff: Cool. But great to know that reworking the Audible titles is right up there on the list to do also. And what’s the best way or ways for people to keep up with you so they know what all this stuff is happening.
Tammy: I say my website, authortmsmith.com. I do have my Facebook page, Author TM Smith, and then my group on Facebook TM Smith’s Tribe.
That is a really good one to follow, to come and join. I do exclusive excerpts. I share my schedule there. I do polls there. What kind of books would you like to see? What kind of storylines. I do exclusive giveaways, a lot of, I’ve moved a lot of what I do over to that group and taking it off of the blog because the blog was so broad spectrum and I wanted, I wanted to be able to reach most of my readers.
So if you go to Facebook and just type in TM Smith’s Tribe, and then come join. Twitter, tTC books and More, I think is Twitter and then Instagram. I try to keep those updated at least weekly, so, but the most current you’re going to get is on Facebook.
Jeff: Fantastic. We will link up to all of that, and of course we’ll have the preorder for the all new version of “Gay for Pay” in the show notes as well.
Thank you so much for coming and telling us all about this great stuff that you’re working on.
Tammy: Of course. Thanks for having me.
Book Reviews
Here’s the text of this week’s reviews:
Frankie and Johnny: Let the Music Play by Xio Axlerod. Reviewed by Jeff.
If you heard my interview with Xio Axelrod in ep 229, you know I was already loving Frankie and Johnny: Let the Music Play. As I finished the book, my enjoyment didn’t diminish. I adore these two.
Let the Music Play picks up shortly after the first book ended. Frankie and Johnny are together and feeling out the relationship and their place in each other’s lives. We open with Johnny visiting Frankie at the radio station where Frankie works. Johnny likes hanging out during the overnight shifts and Frankie’s into it too, even though Johnny is a major distraction as they tend to make out, which can cause Frankie to miss some of his cues — I love how into the music Frankie is and that he doesn’t want to put the station on autopilot but wants to run every aspect of the show himself…even when Johnny’s around.
They finally go on an actual date–as in they put that label on this outing instead of just hanging out together. For Johnny this is the first time he’s dated a man and hearing Johnny call Frankie his “date” nearly unhinges Frankie because of how important that is–it’s totally cute.
The newly dating a man thing though is perhaps more than Johnny can handle. We know from the previous book that there’s a lot going on with Johnny, more than he’s told Frankie. After their wonderful date, they talk more about what it means to be a couple and how Johnny for the first time is embracing who he really is…and that includes talking about the man he became friends with back when he was teaching school in a small conservative town. Johnny’s had such a complicated life and Frankie does his best to take all that in–including the fact that he’s going to be Johnny’s first man…and not just to date. Many other talks about past happen too because Frankie also tells the story of why he and his ex, Garrett broke up.
As Frankie and Johnny prepare for a trip to a record show so Frankie can pick up some vinyl, they get some homophobic slurs thrown at them on the street and it freaks Johnny out while Frankie mostly shrugs it off. This does cast a cloud over the day.
A weekend, their first together, at Johnny’s is amazing with lots of sex. Xio writes sizzling sex scenes. Frankie is incredibly sweet, passionate and hot as he introduces Johnny to things he’s never done before. All of this is only made sweeter and hotter by the clean up afterward.
Unfortunately, shortly after all the sexy times Johnny gets a call and he has to go, leaving Frankie alone. No longer satisfied with not knowing why Johnny sometimes shuts down and disappears, he takes to Google and finds every sorted detail about Johnny.. I could never have conceived what was lurking in Johnny’s past and neither could Frankie. Xio spun a pretty incredible dark turn. I had all the feels for Frankie as he retreated to sort out everything–not to mention the help and advice he got from friends, including Garrett. Frankie and Johnny’s resolution to achieve their HEA was incredibly satisfying. These character’s journeys ticked so many boxes for me.
Xio mentioned in her interview that we’ve got Dyer’s story to come and I’m looking forward to that as a way to get back into this universe. If you haven’t read the two Frankie and Johnny books, I highly recommend you add them to your TBR.
Caulky by K.M. Neuhold. Reviewed by Will.
Caulky is super duper sexy. It focuses on a guy named Ren who has just gotten out of a longterm relationship, is looking to shake things up.
So he goes out on the town with his best friend. They go to the nearest gay bar, and he’s looking to get back on the proverbial horse, or in this particular case, it’s a hot muscle bear. A guy named Cole. They hook up for the evening, and it is amazing. Although the next day, Cole ends up being the contractor that Ren has hired to remodel his kitchen.
After a slightly awkward beginning, they become friends with benefits. At the same time, they end up corresponding via an online app. Now, this is a traditional romantic setup, and we’ve seen many times before, primarily in classics like Shop Around the Corner or the Judy Garland movie In the Good Old Summertime, or probably as most of you might remember, and You’ve Got Mail where our two characters interact in one capacity during the daytime, and then at night unknowingly correspond with one another.
But in this case, it’s reversed. During the day, they have an emotional and funny text correspondence, but at night, things get a whole lot hotter with their friends with benefits situation. Our two main characters continue on going pretty hot and heavy until about the midpoint of the book where Ren really starts to catch feelings for Cole. And he decides to put the brakes on his relationship with his contractor, so he ends up pouring his heart out to his friend that he’s been texting to and they finally decide to meet…
And then discover that they’ve known each other in this capacity all along, and it’s not particularly awkward. It’s at this point that the book takes a kind of a sweet turn where our two main characters decide to actually start going out on dates and kind of integrate the ways that they know each other. The sort of hot and heavy carnal way and the friendly emotionally supportive way.
The rest of the book is about bringing those two sides of their relationships together. Cole eventually comes to realize that Ren is not just a one night stand. He is worthy of trust and someone building a longterm relationship with while at the same time Ren, who is also a parttime beekeeper, realizes that Cole is the kind of guy who’s going to stick around for the long term primarily because he’s a nice guy. An also because he does things like build a shed out in the back so Ren can put all of his beekeeping supplies away. It’s really cute and it’s charming. Our two main characters are adorable, really kind funny and interesting.
The only critique I might have of the book is that the narrative uses alternating first-person viewpoint, but it does it in the present tense, which is not my favorite thing. I think longtime listeners know I have very strong opinions about this. But author K.M. Neuhold pulls it off with flair and panache,
Ren and Cole are really likable main characters. And I enjoyed this book an awful lot as well as with a lot of other people. This book hit it out of the park when it was released a few weeks ago and it is still riding high on the bestseller lists. So if you haven’t given Caulky by K.M. Neuhold a try, I highly recommend that you do.
Rocket Science by K.M. Neuhold. Reviewed by Jeff.
I’ve been on a K.M. Neuhold kick over the past few months. Rocket Science is my third book of her’s and it was over the top amazing. Pax and Elijah… oh my. I got pulled into this story so quick. Elijah was the perfect nerdy, geeky, grad student and Pax was the perfect workaholic, hookup with anyone guy who was truly ready to settle down. The fact these two already knew each other made the whole thing all the better.
We meet Pax as he’s about to approach a potential hookup when his younger brother, Theo, calls. Theo’s best friend Elijah has moved out to L.A. for grad school and he’s worried his socially awkward friend isn’t going to get out of his apartment much to make a life. He asks Pax to check up on him and Pax reluctantly agrees, saving Elijah’s number in his phone as “Einstein.” Elijah indeed has thrown himself into school and when Theo calls to tell him that Pax will be in touch he’s not looking forward to it. Although he does remember his teen crush on Pax.
Theo has no idea what he’s set into motion!
Their first meeting is everything you’d want in a meet cute–or in their case a re-meet cute. Pax isn’t prepared for the adult that greets him–at first not even recognizing Elijah for he’s not the nerdlet he remembers. He thinks the guy approaching him might be a good hookup–until the introduction actually happens. Elijah meanwhile is reserved, a bit awkward and isn’t sure if Pax is making fun of him or what’s happening because he’s just not good at social cues. What’s even cuter than the night out getting reacquainted is Pax coming over the next morning to help Elijah with his hangover.
From here it’s a slow but sure progression as Pax wants to spend more time with Elijah and even finds himself questioning the way he lives his life with all the travel and hookups because maybe there’s something more. Elijah finds a life outside of school too. Theo had helped him navigate high school and undergrad, but Pax shows him even more as they not only go out and meet Pax’s friends but they also have plenty of alone together moments talking about everything from Star Wars to their lives and just about everything in between. K.M. takes what could be dull conversational times and turns it into its own brand of flirting and it’s swooningly spectacular.
It’s not, of course, smooth sailing, neither guy feels they’re right for the other. There’s bits of self-sabotaging that are both kind of adorable and sad. One of the cutest of all things is when Pax teaches Elijah to flirt–even though it’s not really what either of them wants. Of course, all this ends up meaning they flirt with each other all the more. Pax takes the teaching a step further as they end up in bed together. In the aftermath, Pax leaves once Elijah’s asleep…only to call him the next morning to meet for pancakes. Yes, it’s weird but it just shows how drawn to each other they are.
I can’t properly describe how this push and pull is so wonderfully played out. I eagerly kept reading to see not only how Pax and Elijah would keep up this dance but, of course to see how they’d arrive to the happily ever after too. K.M. pulled me into this story and wouldn’t let me go.
Two centerpieces of the story are the holidays. Theo throws a wrench into Thanksgiving when he comes to LA. Since Elijah and Pax haven’t told Theo, they have to try to be “just friends,” which is an increasingly difficult thing to do. This includes Elijah ending up at a hilarious attempt at speed dating, which Pax witnesses making him into one super jealous guy who might want to move things up to the next level–maybe. All of this escalates when they’re all home for Christmas, still trying to keep secrets.
Of course, everything becomes too much. K.M. puts the guys through a difficult but smart black moment–it’s all perfectly angsty but at the same time it wasn’t one where I’m screaming at the book for the guys to get their act together. If anything it was one of those where I wondered if they’d really make it–and of course they do! How they did it made me swoon more for Pax and Elijah
Rocket Science was wonderful and I look forward to what K.M. brings out next in the Love Logic series…which will be Four Letter Word, an m/m/m/m book–yes four Ms. I haven’t seen a date yet, but I can’t wait.