This is a fun, well paced story.
That one of our leads is a glamorous drag queen is a pretty unusual slant, and it makes for a better story because of it.
Adrian is bullied, but finds strength in the things other saw as a weakness. He’s a pretty inspirational character.
Marty was in the gang of bullies that tormented Adrian in high school, although he mostly just hung out in the background, trying to go unnoticed with his own problems.
Adrian, years later, has reinvented himself as Adrienne, a glamorous and successful drag performer.
Marty is living a life of quiet desperation, whose only release is quickies with Adrienne’s fellow drag queens. Marty becomes infatuated with Adrienne without recognizing their shared past, but Adrienne does recognize Marty, and sets out to give him a taste of the humiliation Adrienne felt.
But being a kind and sensitive person, Adrian quickly feels bad for what he does to Marty and out of that a new bond begins forming between them.
I felt like there were a few issues that didn’t gel with me emotionally. Adrian was crazy in love with Marty in high school without them ever really spending time together, and their only interactions centered around Marty being part of the crowd that bullied Adrian. I know teenagers’s hormones can get a little crazy, but I found it hard to swallow that those feelings lingered for so many years.
My second issue was that the heart of Marty’s fear of coming out was his blowhard father, who he spoke to on the phone once a week and saw once a month. His presence in Marty’s life was just pretty distant to be such a dominant force in how he lived. The consequences of Marty coming out were a little too easy breezy, but maybe I just like angst too much.
This is a lighthearted feel good romance. The sex is hot and it’s a nice subversion that Adrian seems to be more sexually dominant. Marty is turned on by Adrianne including drag in their sex play, which isn’t something you see everyday in romance novels.
Joel Leslie’s excellent narration enhances the story. I particularly loved the colorful voices he gave to Adrienne’s drag friends.