Title: Sweet Young Thang
Series: Theta Alpha Gamma, #3
Author: Anne Tenino
Genre: Romance / Humor
Length: Novel (419 pages)
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (July 22nd, 2013)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥4 Hearts
Reviewer: Thommie
Blurb: When Plan A fails, turn to Man A.
Thanks to Collin Montes, Theta Alpha Gamma now welcomes gay and bisexual students. Persuading his Uncle Monty, president of the TAG Alumni Association, that the open approach won’t adversely affect TAG’s reputation is Collin’s own first step toward coming out. As long as there are no repercussions, he’ll escape the closet by graduation.
Enter repercussions, stage left: someone rigs the TAG House water heater to launch through the ceiling, and then plants a bomb—thankfully unsuccessful—in the fraternity’s basement. Now Collin has his hands full not only trying to convince his uncle that this might not be the work of homophobes, but also dealing with a fratful of brothers worried about their kegger fridge.
Paramedic Eric Dixon can’t stop thinking about the kid he met during a call at his former college fraternity house. The age gap between them is trumped by sexy eyes, so when Eric sees Collin again at the bomb scene, he pursues him. Soon, Eric is dreaming of being a househusband, fighting to keep Collin safe from whoever’s trying to destroy the fraternity, and helping his sweet young thang realize that repercussions sometimes have silver linings.
Product Link: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/sweet-young-thang-theta-alpha-gamma-3
Review: Well, it’s official; the moment I hear Anne Tenino I immediately think humor, laughs, and hot males.
This book is no different from what I have come to expect from this author. It was fast paced, with an easy plot that didn’t bore you, sweet and hot, and it had great amounts of humor in it making me gasp at time for air.
The characters are charming.
Collin is a young man who’s been under his uncle’s influence for far too long, and the expectations are finally becoming too much to bear. His uncle’s obsession with Collin being an influence during his college years, accumulating contacts for his future in their family business, and being alumni liaison for Theta Alpha Gamma is starting to make Collin fragile around the edges and barely holding it together. Everything starts falling apart though when the pressure to change the membership policy of their fraternity comes with the added bonus of a bomb in their frat house. Trying to convince his uncle that one is not associated with the other is not easy, but when added to that is the fact that Collin gets into a relationship with a much older man who incidentally was at the same frat the time his uncle was… well, let’s just say the anxiety levels skyrocket and Collin has to make his hardest decisions during the turmoil. Let it not be said he doesn’t function well under pressure.
This character was indeed amazing. No common frat boy here. He’s composed and mature beyond his years and that has a different kind of appeal, one I didn’t expect really. I fell in trance reading about all the pressuring things happening to him one after the other, waiting to see when this character would break and how the story would go from then on. However, he never broke, or if he had his lashing, it was quite mild and yet again composed. It was his interaction with Eric that actually gave him the proper setting to shine and made me fond with him.
Eric on the other hand I believe was the reason or the main factor for me liking this story so much. As good as this pair looked together, and as hot as they were, I think for me Eric has his own light above that makes him stand out. I loved the age gap, I loved the silver fox profile, I loved his character, I loved his body, and how he often used it. I loved most of all his chicken. The entire picture Eric presented was beyond alluring, even if it came as soft and sweet. Now if I had an issue with the instant love and insecurities that came with being older and his fears of Collin dumping him, they didn’t overwhelm me at all during this read and I managed not only to bear that sappy/sweet I love you and corny pet names, but also to actually laugh with it and enjoy them immensely. It helped a lot that when those two came together it was incredibly erotic for me. They were plain old hot and every single time a scene came around it was different and unique, making you want to read it all the more for it. On top of it Eric was such a romantic character that everything he did with Collin had that quality, even the frantic first time was brilliant and made you want to say awww.
As for the plot itself, I found it interesting that the author didn’t take the suspense way here. We knew who did it from the beginning. We might have not known motives, but as the Marshall said, they didn’t really matter till the very end. So the suspense was taken from our hands and let us focus on the aftermath of the bombing. The romance that was born in the very ashes of the frat house, the hilarious events that followed the frat boys to their new dwellings, and the growth that necessarily came after the drama and the effect it had for Collin’s whole life from then on.
Was it realistic? I don’t know, never been in dorms or sorority myself so that concept is alien to me. Did I enjoy it though? Yes, very much so and found the entire book an effortless, easy and fun ride. This is the kind of novel one reads to really get entertained and put a smile on your face. Strongly recommended!