Tentacles & Triathlons

Leviathan Fitness, Book 2

By: Ashley Bennett

Narrated by: Jack Calihan, Liam Price

Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Leviathan Fitness is the favorite place of monsters, muscles, and a tentacled creature who can seduce even the hardest-to-win-over human.

When parks department supervisor Reece Rollins decides to sign up for a triathlon, there are two things holding him back. One, his fear of monsters. Two, his sub-par swimming skills.

At the urging of his sister's wolven mate, Reece joins Leviathan Fitness to train in the gym's Olympic-size swimming pool. After running into Reece at the pool, Cyrus offers to help Reece get ready to win the race.

New feelings arise from the depths as Reece and Cyrus learn that monsters and humans go together, tentacle in hand. The only question is, can these two hold on to their newfound love despite their differences?

Contains mature themes.

©2022 Ashley Bennett Author (P)2023 Tantor

So Much Improvement!

Oh, my, gosh, this book was so good! I'm am extremely impressed with Ashley's improved writing. I was a little scared to continue with this series after the first book (cringe city), but I'm so glad I stuck with it as Ashley has improved her characters immensely. I loved to see how Reece slowly progressed throughout this book and Cyrus is my new favorite character, he was so understanding and gentlemanly, and cute! And don't even get me started on how well the voice actors did, music to my ears those voices were. I can't wait to see what else the Ashley Bennett factory will churn out! Enjoy another day of reading, A.

such a cute story

love it. read it first. love the narrators and the emotion was so cute.

Stunning

It was gods but I didn’t make the choice the voice for plehan otherwise it’s good most part

Loved it!!!

I will love anything Liam Price narrates, and now I’ll have to look Jack up! They did perfect bringing these characters to life.

So fricken cute

I loved this. A beautiful slice of life with lovely characters and delightful spicy scenes. Ashley Bennett is quickly becoming a favorite author.

Very cute, lighthearted love story

I'm not sure if this is a long novella or a short novel, but either way, it's exactly as long as it should be. T&T takes place in a world where mythical monsters are real and have integrated into human society, mostly successfully. The novel earns points from me for not going with the obvious trope of "all humans are intolerant and awful," which has been done to death. Most humans accept the monsters just fine, or at least as far as we can tell from this one book (I haven't listened to the first one).

The protagonists of this romance are Reece, a handsome, masculine, monster-wary human, and Cyrus, a "kraken" by name but in reality just a sort of octopus dude, not the island-sized legendary monster. The cover, which is WONDERFUL, depicts our two heroes in almost perfect detail, so if you want to know what Cyrus looks like, just take a look there. Cyrus recognizes Reece as his mate early on, but allows the relationship to develop naturally, and Reece has to get over his fear of monsters that has driven a wedge between himself and his sister, who is marrying one. Cyrus is very old (though... young? middle aged? for a monster, we're not entirely sure which), and is a painter of some reknown who has been in a funk but is inspired by his new human love, and Reece is competing in a triathlon that Cyrus is helping him train for.

It's all very cute and angst-free, which is definitely nice sometimes if you're looking for something light. I liked both protagonists, and indeed all the characters, very much. The sex is... a little odd, not really my thing but not distasteful or gross. I did find myself skimming some of the sex scenes, but then I do that with a lot of romance novels, so that isn't anything new. Cyrus is a bit of a dom in the bedroom, though everywhere else they see each other as equals. I don't love the way female authors seem to think gay relationships are inherently imbalanced in favor of the top, but I've seen worse. Altogether I very much enjoyed the romance, which is good because it comprises the entire book.

There really isn't anything resembling an antagonist or even really much of a conflict in the books, and that would be fine, except it leads to a sort of weird situation where I suspect the author felt like she needed to add some. This results in everyone talking about how much Reece has changed, for the better, throughout the book. They say it so frequently that I think a lot of people may be fooled into thinking that it's true. However, I object to the idea that Reece was ever all that bad to begin with; he starts out as sort of a sweetheart with a slight fear of monsters and ends up as the same sweetheart without the fear. He does something marginally rude at the beginning of the book, in response to something Cyrus did that was also marginally rude, and for some reason it brands him as "an ***hole" from all the other characters for the entire first half of the book. Even Cyrus says it at one point, and it just isn't justified based on Reece's behavior. Maybe he was in the first book and was worse, I don't know. But don't try to convince me that he needed to change all that much, because he was pretty outwardly understanding even at the point where he was wary of monsters.

Anyway, that's pretty minor (though enough to knock my review from five stars down to four). In general it's a great book. The narrators are fantastic, though I'll be honest, when Liam Price has to do an American accent (for when Reece is speaking during the Cyrus chapters) it's not great, and neither is Jack Calihan's British accent. Again, super minor complaint. It's a fun, light, cute romance that I enjoyed.

So cute…

Refreshing and sexy. This series is not to be missed. I loved every minute of this gem. I will be listening to this again. I’d love a Cyrus in my life.

Character development

I loved this book! I love the story. I loved listening to how the characters change and grow. this book is funny and flirty and fantastic. It's the tentacles 😊

Loved it! These two are endgame 😍

I went from book 1 right into book 2 and was so happy to see it was M/M and Tegan’s monster-phobic brother was the one who got his story this time! I love M/M so I was interested to see how this would go with a water creature and a man and boy the author did not disappoint! The warming part IYKYK....so hot!!

I loved Cyrus and he being a kraken was so refreshing because that creature is not in a lot of books as a love interest, usually if they are included they are a villain/creature to take out. I loved his tentacles and how they had different purposes. I appreciated he wasnt embarrassed, I mean when you are that old he has seen enough and knows not to be ashamed of himself (except we see a little bit with his paintings). I loved the steamy scenes as much as the cute, adorable, and swoonworthy scenes. I did wish the author went a little further with Reece’s kink and Cyrus as a Daddy because of how he took care of his man. I love Daddy kinks in M/M so that made me smile (again just wished we got another steamy scene with that being played up more). I wished Cyrus had bought Reece some more items for his sexy collection and made him model them for him. Again those are my only critique because I enjoyed this love story so much!

I actually enjoyed the training and painting part of the story too. I liked that we didnt have a 3rd act breakup because I would have been so sad for Cyrus being rejected by his mate and maybe dying. I loved the painting and how he changed one at the end, so cute and love the mushiness. The triathlon training was funny with how Cyrus became a drill master. I did like that Reece finally told Cyrus about his dad so the helped fix some miscommunication going on. The actually was so funny and amazing. I won’t give it away but the shirts haha. Also loved what Reece did at the end....so good 🥵🤤.

I felt this story wasnt as rushed, we got to see their friendship grow into something more. They didnt rush into things, it developed until Reece couldn’t take it anymore haha. I liked that Cyrus never rushed Reece, he went at his own pace. I liked the different kinks/steamy scenes that weren’t repetitive. And the narration was good in this one too! I think for me the only hang-up was sometimes Cyrus’ accent was off (when it wasnt his normal narrator talking) or Reece somehow got an accent when he didnt before. I would give the story for this 5 stars easily and 4 stars for the narration. Overall I made it 5 because I smiled so much and liked the little twists we got from the author. This is a feel good read, just like book one and I cannot wait for the rest to come out on audio!!!

The story was good but kinda left me wanting

The story wasn’t bad but much like the first book in this series it was rushed and it made the characters development seem lacking some of the dialogue was also seemed forced like don’t get me wrong I’m interested in seeing where the series goes