A review by ladymacbeth2024
Hot Doggin' by Raquel Riley

4.0

4 stars
Very very nice story about two best friends falling in love.
Both Stiles and McCormick are Veterans who got injured during their missions abroad. Stiles lost his short term memory, while Mac lost his leg. They met during their recovery, 4 years before the start of the story, and became the best friends ever.

I really really loved their dynamic: they help, support, complement, understand each other, they're act like idiots sometimes, but their love runs deep. They are well aware of one another's struggles and they do everything they can to ease their own internal demons.
Mac is easygoing and loud, he wears his heart on his sleeves, but he's also been burned by too many rejections and he feels lonely.
Stiles is more successful with women, but the everyday life is harder for him, since he often forgets important dates, appointments and such and he gets frustrated because of that.
During one attempt to help Mac get laid, Stiles agrees to a threesome that will fail but that also will open his eyes about his best friend.
Their bi (or pan) awakening is a mess just like them, but even if they often put the physical part off because they get sidetracked and because they take their time figuring things out, they're still very close emotionally.
I adored that they could go from being very romantic to arguing over how many hot dogs to buy. They were maybe too codependent, but they never let outside noises get in the middle of their relationship.

What prevented me from giving a higher rate:
Sometimes it felt like both Stiles and Mac had a bit too much of going back and forth.
I know that some of the Bitches are MCs in the author's previous books, but I haven't read them yet and I struggled a little with keeping up with their stories.

The found family is amazing and one particular scene had me in tears. Next book will be Jax and Pharo and I'm surely going to read it.