I received an ARC edition of this book  in exchange for an honest review. The novel will be available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited on February 6, 2025. You can also visit RileyHartWrites.com for more products.

Disclaimer! This is not your normal Riley Hart novel. She really took a chance on branching out into a kink that wasn’t just playing around or a minor detail in the plot. She dove into it. However, being Ms. Riley, she didn’t lose herself in her writing style and still kept the tone she normally emits well rounded. I have read other books in this genre that really dived into this DOM/sub environment so heavily that the writer gets lost and it becomes overbearing and comes across abusive. 

--“Too many people look at the world as black or white, like everything has to be one or the other, but really, life is lived in the grays.”--

This fast-paced 251-page MM Dom/sub, Father's Best Friend Romance, was a spankin' good time! Written in an alternating chapter duel POV, this Possessive Age-Gapped Forbidden Romance novel shows that you don’t have to understand someone or their relationship to respect and accept them with love as long as you try to learn that you shouldn’t fear someone’s differences. 

Marsh grew up leaning on his best friend John and his wife.  Them and their son JT are the only family he ever truly had. His neglectful childhood really set the stage of how he approaches his noncommittal relationships and why he needs control and seclusion. At 22, JT’s parents are constantly putting pressure on him to batten down and get serious about life and schooling when he just wants to live a simple life serving in a restaurant and leave the pressure of school and careers off the table knowing it would make him miserable. They don’t understand why he doesn’t want to achieve what they had and why he's so picky and unsatisfied in relationships. 

--I’ll f*ck you with my words just as passionately as I’ll f*ck you with my body.—

When JT & Marsh unknowingly start messaging each other on a Dom/sub forum, they find a connection and after a period of time and they realize, their world turns upside down for the good and the bad. 

--"Thank you, Sir, for giving me an escape and helping me be myself.”--

It was written spice forward and moved very fast with time jumps. It didn’t go into detail on normal relationship building detail and dates since their relationship is built on Control and Submitting to the trust in you that you will be taken care of at home at all times by staying in this head space. Because of this, it feels like it skips important details that would move the character development forward. However, it doesn’t because if you really pay attention to the dialogue in their Scenes, their relationship grows fluidly and organically in their natural setting. 

--"You don’t have to completely understand others to respect them, to support them and to want them to live authentically as themselves.”--

When the moral of the plot clicked in my mind, my brain exploded. Whether it was intentional or not, the symbolism of today’s judgmental society as a learning lesson in a steamy mm romance was crushing. So much misunderstanding judgments and hatred can have simple solutions if others just go in with an open mind and heart. 

--The way he gets me, ties me up and makes me want more, is intoxicating.--

There was soooo much SPICE! 6/5🌶! I can't even list or write about it because the social media and Amazon sensors would get triggered and I'd get a lifetime ban. One scenario was a little ick, but it was all laid out and described in a respectfully detailed manner. Please read the Trigger & Content Warnings and Tropes before you read this book or instead of saying GREEN, you'll be screaming RED!

There wasn’t much of an ensemble other than JT's parents and Reggie, his roommate whom he has an amazing and supportive connection with and Marsh respects dearly. So much so…. -smirk- .

I really enjoyed this book! The Dom/sub genre isn’t my cup of tea. They normally get a low star rating from me but I took this ARC because I had faith and trust in Riley Hart that she would deliver the correct amount of Dominance and pain as well as the same amount of love she normally emotes. I can’t wait to see what she Unleashes with next in this Desired World.

--But the world will always be full of judgmental people, those who just can’t live and let live, wanting everyone to spend their lives the way someone else seems it best. It's exhausting sometime.--