Austin By Con Riley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, GLBTQ, MM
Tropes: Hurt/comfort, opposites attract
Released: May 25, 2022
Publisher: Self-Published
Series: Learning to Love, Book 4
Length: 303 pages
Cover Design: Natasha Snow
Can Austin learn to love the opposite who attracts him?
Austin Russell doesn’t belong at a small school like Glynn Harber. He’s meant to be a high flyer in finance not a book-keeping bursar. Now there’s only one renovation project left to budget, it’s time he toughened his soft heart and got back to climbing the corporate ladder.
The truth is he’d rather climb Maisie Dymond’s father.
That urge doesn’t add up—Dom Dymond is his polar opposite—but when a near-miss brings them together, Austin discovers there’s more below his laid-back surface, especially as Dom’s determined to win the bid for the school’s last rebuilding project.
Working in proximity means Austin can’t deny that they’re opposites who don’t only attract, they combust whenever they’re close. Telling himself it’s only a fling doesn’t ring true when Dom opens up about what keeps him in Cornwall. He’s there to heal his fractured family, and he wants Austin as part of it.
That openness makes Austin want to share too, but will Dom still feel the same attraction once he knows what drives Austin to keep climbing his ladder?
♥ Austin is the fourth standalone novel in the Learning to Love series. Set in England’s glorious county of Cornwall, each book has a fulfilling happily ever after. ♥
Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003
Tore me up and put me back together again.
One of my favorite things in books is when a “bad” character gets redeemed and Austin, a secondary character in Luke, was a perfect candidate. Con Riley did a wonderful job redeeming him and giving him a wonderful story. I recently described another writer’s writing as lyrical and while reading Austin I realized that it also applies to Con Riley’s writing. What I mean by lyrical is that the words flow so smoothly it’s kind of like listening to a favorite, comforting song and I didn’t want it to end.
Austin didn’t think very highly of Dom at first because he felt that Dom was negligent of his daughter, Maisie, by failing to pick her up from school on time. Over the course of the story Austin learns what is really going on and why Dom was late getting Maisie. We also gradually learn why Austin is so prickly and driven to excel at earning money even though he doesn’t like doing the kind of work he’s done in the past.
Dom has been attracted to Austin for a while, his prickly nature didn’t put Dom off, and when Austin becomes a hero Dom can no longer keep from expressing how he feels. Austin doesn’t want to form any emotional attachments, especially to someone with a child to raise, but Dom and Maisie both make their way into his heart and won’t let go.
Con Riley’s writing always gets my emotions involved and Austin was no exception. I loved visiting with other characters from this series. While you can read this as a standalone the story will probably have more impact if you read the other books in the series first; they are all wonderful stories.
Epilogues are often my favorite part of a book and the one for Austin is so good! Be sure to sign up for Con’s newsletter to get a bonus scene for Austin. I was very happy to learn that there will be another story in this series, Heppel Ever After, coming in late September.
♥♥♥♥♥
O Factor: Spicy
Available to borrow with Kindle Unlimited.
CON RILEY lives on the wild and wonderful Welsh coast, with her head in the clouds and her feet in the ocean.
Injury curtailed her enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, so writing fiction now fills her free time. Love, loss, and redemption shape her romance stories, and her characters are flawed in ways that make them live and breathe.
When not people-watching or reading, she spends time staring at the sea from her kitchen window. If you see her, don’t disturb her — she’s probably thinking up new plots.
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