Candy Boys
I was pleasantly surprised by Candy Boys, and the bonus story, Riot, that was included along with the main book. I love me some lady-porn, and whenever I get an MMF or MFM story in my hot little hands, that's what I'm prepared for. It's fairly rare when one of them goes deeper than a puddle (10%ish?), so imagine my surprise when I find this book, by an author I've never read before, and I'm enthralled from the first chapter.
Now I'm not saying it was perfect - I mean some of the dialogue was weird, sometimes the characters acted a little OOC, and I kinda wondered why some of the side characters were there at all. Were they meant to be red herrings in the B-Stories? But I can hand-wave that for the sake of the larger picture.
Candy was pretty adorable. Jet's broody tortured angsty guy thing was hot, and Joel was just the HS hotty that hadn't worked out how to be his own man. Some of the reviews have said how Candy was their beard, but I didn't see it that way. To me, it seemed like she was the catalyst that pulled the Js together - and then she completed them.
On to Riot. I don't usually dig sex worker stories, but since this came right on the heels of a great story by the same author, I went ahead and dove in. Again, we go pretty deep with the two leads, and learn about them gradually as the story unwinds.
I like how things get revealed over the course of the book, like they would in real life. Both of these books are like that, and they also don't go with the "Miscommunication" trope to the nth degree in order to push the narrative.
I'm going to track down more of Jo's books because I really loved these two works. Writing was fantastic - except "touch my kitty"... okay, that one had me cringing a bit. But then, maybe it's how Candy would talk, amirite?