Book safety, content warnings, and tropes down below.

“I’m not sure what I am. I don’t think I care. Do I need a label? I do know that I want you. I do and yet don’t understand it, but so what?”

Barbara Elsborg is really, really good at writing crime/action stories, and I enjoyed this so much. It felt original, and kept me interested from start to finish. I finished it pretty quickly.

Barbara’s books often has one sunshine-y and chatty character and one quiet and grumpy character, and while this is still the case in this one, Julien isn’t all that grumpy. He’s kind and sweet, and trying to do good in a shit situation. I liked him a lot.

Ilya was a very entertaining and fun character. The book starts off with him experiencing a lot of abuse and trauma in forced conversion ‘therapy’, and I wish this was touched on more later in the book. That kind of trauma and abuse would presumably affect a person a lot. To be fair there isn’t all that much time for therapy left because of all the suspense and action (which I loved), but would’ve also loved to see a mention of it. Even if just a quick mention in the epilogue.

“I’ve never rolled my eyes as much as I have since I met you. It’s a wonder they’ve not fallen out.”

This author has a way of telling stories that just really works for me and I wish more people would join the Barbara fan club.

I do worry a bit about how much Ilya felt like Jonty from The Making of Jonty Bloom. With the level or snark, banter and constant jokes, there honestly isn’t a lot separating the characters in my head. I loved Jonty, but I only want Jonty to be Jonty.

A couple important side characters got off way too easy, unfortunately. I expected some consequences for their actions.

Still recommend this, though.

Ilya didn’t like being cold, didn’t like breaking anything, worried too much about things he could do nothing about, found joy when Julien couldn’t see it, saw beauty and showed it to Julien, made him see it too.

⬇️ Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️

⚠️ Tropes & content tags ⚠️
Strangers to lovers
Size difference
Unconventional heist
Sexual awakening
Age gap
Action & suspense
Humor and banter
Coming in pants
Hands-free orgasms
First times

⚠️ Content warning ⚠️
Conversion therapy (on page)
Homophobic family and SCs
Use of homophobic slurs
Physical violence against MC
MC tortured - past and present (sensory deprevation, humiliation, physical, etc.)
Death of parent (past)
Alcohol consumption
MC cutting himself on page to remove object (not self harm)
Injured and ill MC (hospitalized)
Vomiting
Death of brother (traumatic, on page, past)
Gun violence
Injured MC (gunshot wound)
On-page murder of bad guy
MC drugged on page (syringe, ketamine)
Face-fucking
Explicit sexual content

⚠️Book safety ⚠️
Cheating: No
Other person drama: Julien meets up with a lady friend (regular hookup) intending to sleep with her but does not want to and does not go through with it. This goes down before anything happens between Julien and Ilya.
Breakup: No
POV: 3rd person, dual
Genre: Romantic suspense
Pairing: M/M
Strict roles or versatile: Versatile
Main characters’ age: 24 and 34
Series: Standalone
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Pages: 341
Happy ending: Yes


He’d always had a tendency to pretend he was fine when he wasn’t. Pretend he didn’t need a hug when a hug was all he needed.

Now he was tempted by a mouthy skinny twink with big brown eyes who made him laugh when he thought he’d forgotten how.

“I’m not sure what I hope happens after we die, but to leave this world holding the hand of someone I loved, that would be everything. […]”



You can find most of my reviews on Instagram as well: https://www.instagram.com/booksafety?igsh=MWZ3azhkdDc2Y2ludg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr