Title: Hollywood Bound
Series: Gin & Jazz book #1
Author: Morticia Knight
Genre: HistoricalRomance
Length: Novel, 189 pages
Publisher: Totally Bound, November 1st 2013
Heat Level: Moderate to Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥3.5Hearts
Blurb: Jack and Nick seek fortune and adventure in the silent film era of Hollywood. But their newly expressed love is threatened by the heady allure of fame, gin, and easy money.
Sweet and innocent nineteen year-old Jack has loved the older and more streetwise Nick from almost the first time he met him. Nick has taken care of him ever since Jack arrived in New York after he was beaten and thrown out of the boy’s orphanage for messing around with one of the guys there. They share a passion for silent films and have dreams of heading west to make their fortunes building sets for the studios. If only Nick felt the same passion for Jack, and wasn’t already engaged to a gal back in Philly.
Nick’s temper sometimes gets the best of him, but that’s only because he worries about Jack – Nick is all the poor kid has. But he’s also terrified about the way he’s been feeling towards Jack lately. They’re the kinds of feelings he should be having for his fiancé—Penelope—and never for a man. His only goal is to get them both to Hollywood, where he’s sure they’ll be rolling in the dough in no time, and where everything will all work out the way, it should.
Hollywood isn’t exactly what they’d thought it would be. There are plenty of gin joints, jazz, money, parties and sex—but everything comes with a hefty price. Everyone they meet—from Trixie Fox, the ditzy up and coming starlet, to Bernie, the foreman who gets them their first studio job—seems to have a hidden agenda. Can the newfound love between Jack and Nick survive the tawdry mess that makes up the glitz and glamour of the celluloid kingdom, or will their own secrets tear them apart forever?
Reader Advisory: This book contains mild BDSM elements, drug use, and sex-for-hire scenes.
Product Link: https://www.totallybound.com/hollywood-bound
Reviewer: Tams
Review: Jack and Nick are two friends that seek fortune and fame in the glamorous world of Hollywood. Soon enough they learn that it’s not so glamorous, there is a dark and dangerous side to the fame they seek. Can an already fragile relationship survive the grittier side of the life they want to live?
Jack is young, innocent, and naïve. To spite the abuse he’s suffered in his young life, he still has a purity about him that is endearing. Nick is shady and more aloof. There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, that he won’t do to protect Jack’s innocence. The two form a friendship and bond while traveling from New York to Hollywood that quickly becomes much more. Nick is determined to protect Jack from the reality of their situation. So he makes some very bad choices, the consequences of which may be more than either man can handle.
The first half of this book was laying the foundation for the story. It’s a little slow and scattered. But the last half brings all the randomness together. And although the choices Nick makes threaten to make him an unlikeable character, the reasoning behind them will keep the reader in his corner. I loved the fact that Knight stayed true to the innocence of the character Jack. More often than not in gay fiction, these characters have been written this way, but have been completely violated. Not Jack. He has suffered abuse, but not in that way. I think that aspect makes the decisions that Nick makes more believable and sufferable because you can see the validity in it all.
This is the first book I’ve read by this author, but it won’t be my last! I don’t usually like stories from this old Hollywood era, but the picture Knight painted of the darker side of this time period just pulled me in. And when the personalities of Jack and Nick came together in the bedroom, oh my, it was sexy. Nick brings out the passionate and kinky side of Jack, while Jack brings out the tender and loving side of Nick. It’s a perfect balance. *Warning* there is a son of a bitch of a cliffhanger! Thankfully, book two is on Nov 30th!!
*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through MM Good Book Reviews*
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