Straight Shooter by Heidi Belleau

Title: Straight Shooter

Series: Rear Entrance Video #3

Author: Heidi Belleau

Genre: Contemporary Romance / Kinks & Fetish

Length: Novel (277 pages)

ISBN: 978-1-62649-089-5

Publisher: Riptide Publishing (April 7th 2014)

Heat Level: Explicit

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥ 5 Hearts

Reviewer: Thommie

Blurb: This macho jock has a crooked little secret.

College hockey player Austin Puett is in trouble. Unless he starts treating his flamboyantly gay roommate with respect, he’ll lose his room and his job at Rear Entrance Video. But Austin’s got a not-so-straight secret of his own: nothing turns him on more than insults implying he’s gay—even though he’s definitely not!—and all his old coping methods have stopped working.

Pure desperation drives him to rent a Mischievous Pictures porn flick about straight men tricked into servicing Puck, a male dominant. Instead of letting off steam, though, it just leaves him craving more, more, more, and suddenly, Austin finds himself at Mischievous Pictures Studios for an audition. After all, you can be Gay for Pay and still be straight . . . right?

But meeting Liam Williams, the real person behind Puck, confuses Austin even more. Liam really seems to like him as a person, and Austin likes him back. And while Gay for Pay’s okay, what does it make Austin if he still wants Liam when the cameras aren’t rolling?
Warnings: This title contains heavy kink & self-harm.

Purchase Link: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/straight-shooter 

Review: First of all, let me start by saying that this was one hell of a book, exquisitely written, extremely well thought of, with a great development of character and romance right in the middle of one hell of a kink. And to top it all it made me laugh and laugh with an amazing humoristic streak that came from between the lines and colored a read that would otherwise have been a bit heavy and/or uncomfortable.

Right after that I’d like to state that I really, really dislike the whole humiliation kink – yes, this story’s theme is humiliation as a kink – to the point I avoid books with such theme as much as I can. It makes me feel uncomfortable and it’s simply non-appealing to me. And you may well wonder how on Earth I gave this book a 5 Hearts rating since this is the case. Well, there exactly is my point. That despite me harboring a true dislike for this particular kink, the writing of this book was so brilliant that not once, not even one time did I feel the need to skim pages, or feel slightly unnerved by what I was reading. Just brilliant!

Now I’ve been following the Rear Entrance Video books since the first one and I’ve been enchanted by them. One character that had my absolute attention has always been Austin and I’ve been patiently waiting for his story. I’m so freaking glad to admit that Austin surprised and shocked the Hell out of me. I would’ve never thought the author would think of such a story for him and I seriously admire her capability of not only writing it and daring this peculiar kink, but the way it was narrated, the storytelling itself is commendable and worthy of a damn prize.

Normally I would have expected the angst and utter confusion Bobby suffered in Wallflower. Yes, Austin was seriously out of depth in everything he did or thought through 70% of the book, but the fact that this was narrated with a heavy dose of humor balanced the angst and the heaviness that would have drowned the story otherwise, without diminishing the importance of his issues.

What I also went crazy overboard with was the development between Austin and Liam; their dynamic was fascinating. There were times I expected the story to go down one path only for it to make a 180 and totally surprise me with the twists the author brilliant imagination thought off. If anyone had told me that Austin and Liam would have that “break” between them or the way they would manage to overcome issues I was blind to see before they were revealed, I’d have called them crazy. I could not imagine how things would possibly turn for the better once they took the down path. But it happened. The characters were blessed with many layers and their depth went beyond the surface, so beyond what I expected, only to charm the hell out of us with the way they overcame some seriously heavy social obstacles in their path.

So, bottom end this story was the best of them for me because the way I saw it, it was a Hell of a challenge to write it down and make it appealing in the same time. It was fantastic, well written and so much fun. It was also the last one in this “universe” according to the dedication page and I can’t say how sorry I am that Rear Entrance Video is over. This was definitely a very worth reading stand-alone series, one I don’t even hesitate to recommend. The quality of all three books is excellent and Straight Shooter in my opinion is a must read. Enjoy!