My Chaos, His Calm

Men of Fairlake

De: Romeo Alexander

Narrado por: Michael Dean

My world is chaos, and he’s my only peace—but at what cost?

My scars are both visible and hidden. I’m lonely, but I do okay…I think. I’m still a bit of a disaster, but I have a job and a roof over my head, and the medication keeps my demons at bay. What I don’t need is a babysitter, but try telling my overprotective brother that.

When I first saw Luke, I couldn’t stop staring—his beauty and strength captivated me. As I get to know him, I realize he’s the calm to my chaos—the light to my darkness. Of course, he’s straight, so I can’t have him. But all it takes is what I thought was a hot dream, and it appears we’re both open to change. The lines are blurred, and he doesn’t have a problem with that…or me. I don’t deserve him, but he doesn’t see it that way. He’s perfect.

But he doesn’t know what I did. If he knew the ugly truth, I’d lose him. Luke and I can only ever be temporary, so I keep my secrets.

When the past threatens to catch up with me, I have a choice…keep the secret for the sake of me and my brother…or take a chance and tell Luke everything. But damn it, I can’t even get that right.

Is it too much to ask to love and be loved and have a chance at the future I desperately want…with Luke? The past is dead. So why won’t it stay buried?

©2023 Romeo Alexander (P)2023 Books Unite People, LLC

Great, relatable story! Awesome audio book.

Great, relatable story! Awesome audio book. I was hooked immediately and instead of just having it play in the background, I stopped what I was doing to listen immediately!

Prefect puzzle picked men with spice!

Felix used to be a bit of a mess. Working hard to get his life together he realizes he is a work in progress and he is okay with that. Stumbling onto a friendship with straight guy Luke ,who accepts him just as he is, Felix finds himself falling into a deep friendship fast.
Luke is bored. Brought to a small town by his boss (who no longer needs him as much) his life is becoming stale. But by attending a party everything changes when a new friendship blossoms. With this close friendship also brings new thoughts and ideas. Luke can’t stay away from Felix.
Soon the two cross a line and don’t look back. Book 7 in the ‘Men of Fairlake’ series hit the spice level of 5 outta 5 peppers for this MM, HEA, POV book. You do not have to read the books before this one for this couple’s story to be understood. But I would recommend you do as they are all fantastic and past characters do appear again.

Audiobook is narrated by Michael Deen. Michael has a very pleasant voice to listen to overall. I should say first I do not often listen to Audiobooks, maybe like 2-3 a year, when I read al little over 100 books.
What I did like is Michael is not monotone at all. There is a good, varied range of pace, pitch, and tone. I liked it when things seemed to be getting more exciting Michael’s reading would speed in pace.
What I had a hard time with, and this might be normal for audiobooks (and I’ll do my best to explain it), is there seemed to be about 3 MAIN tones used for Main Characters. One deeper one when the main character was talking, a 2nd slightly deeper for inner monologue, another lighter voice for the second main character talking. This tone seemed to fluctuate and at times It was hard to follow who was speaking (which might be by I only picked up the main three).
I think it would have helped to stay constant with one charter always having a “lighter” tone throughout while another had a “deeper’ tone throughout (no mater who’s POV is was).
Overall, I enjoyed this audiobook very much and do recommend you check it out!.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Gradual Building of Love!

I have loved every single romance in this series, and I knew Felix finding love and accepting himself again was going to be beautiful. Luke was absolutely perfect for him because it was such a nice slow and gradual building of their relationship since Luke has always thought he was straight. A bit of a GFY here, and I liked that once they became intimately involved it was only outside drama they had to deal with. I am sad to see this series end, but this was the perfect way to finalize all our men. Michael Dean was perfection in his narration as always! He is so good at bringing out the different personalities and distinguishing traits.

All the Stars

This is another book which I read a few months ago before the audiobook was available, and I LOVED IT, but the audiobook has definitely put me firmly in the fan category for narrator Michael Dean. A few weeks ago when I finished the audio version of "Cake and Comfort," I was enthralled with his performance, and again, he's delivered such an excellent presentation of these characters; everyone has a distinctive tone and you can easily tell whose is speaking. He brings the characters to life in a way that makes me feel like I'm involved personally in the conversations, and I Love it!

As far as the story itself... Romeo Alexander is just brilliant at breaking your heart and piecing it back together with these tragically flawed and loveable characters, and I'm in awe of his talent as well.

You could conceivably read this separately from the other stories in the series, and still love it just as much, but I definitely recommend that you read Cake & Comfort first because that was such a beautiful book and builds these characters and their backstory and it will make your enjoyment and immersion in this story of Felix and Luke's relationship that much more rich and engaging.

The thing that this author does, which I admire immensely is to write realistic, relatable, and believable struggles and conversations and reasons and healing for mental health issues and trauma responses. The author isn't simply using these things to further the plot or create manufactured drama or force characters into situations to get from point a-to-b in the story; the issues are handled well and with grace and it's refreshing to see that an author is willing to show a realistic portrayal of these issues in a story which complicates the relationships and that just because it's fiction doesn't mean it should always be rainbows and kittens. Nothing about Felix's life is or likely will ever be easy, but he's a character you have to root for. I love the way these characters grew into their friendship and how Luke was so compassionate and supportive and understanding and openminded; and I love how the friendship grew into a realistic relationship with a believable HEA because they were both on the same page and willing to do the work, together. I cannot wait to read all the books by Romeo Alexander; he's a definite automatic read for me from now on.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

I have loved all the books in the series 

I have loved all the books in the series this book matches all the others and then it’s just a nice romance. Very little drama. I loved the narration. It was fantastic throughout. Looking forward to other books by this author. I would recommend the whole series.