BOOK REVIEW: Top Secret

I’ve been breathlessly waiting for this book from the moment I got whiff of the news that two of my favourite authors were collaborating again on a male/male romance, but it only took a few pages for me to become utterly obsessed with it. Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy’s latest offering is a wonderfully delicious romp that grabs you from the start and leaves you torn between wanting to devour the whole book in a single sitting and not wanting it to end, ever. A sizzling tale of sexual adventure and discovery, with the added bonus of an enemies-turned-lovers subplot, this is the kind of intoxicating reading experience that I’d recommend savouring for as long as you can. Preferably uninterrupted.

SinnerThree: … Tell me more about lobster sex, if you want. I’m not picky about sex talk as long as someone’s fucking.
I laugh softly. This guy’s funny, I’ll give him that.
LobsterShorts: I’m fresh out of lobster sex facts atm. BUT…lemme tell you about sea slugs.
SinnerThree: Omg yes. I can’t wait for this. Hold on. Let me undo my pants.

When Keaton Hayworth III’s girlfriend asks for a threesome for her birthday, a hookup app becomes the catalyst for something he never expected to learn about himself. For weeks on end, he finds himself talking to, confiding in, flirting with, becoming more and more attracted to, and eventually even enamoured with a man he only knows by his online handle— SinnerThree—but when they finally meet in real life, two strangers discover they were never strangers at all.

This entire time, I’ve been sexting with my goddamn frat brother. Worse, the frat brother who’s running against me in the presidential election. The frat brother I can’t stand.

The only reason Luke Bailey ever joined a fraternity full of preppy trust-fund babies he’s never had anything in common with is because of the cheap housing costs, and there is no one who embodies unearned privilege in his eyes more than Keaton Hayworth III—jocky frat boy and Luke’s only opponent in the race for frat president. So when Luke realises that the man he’s been planning to hook up with is the very man he detests in real life, every single thing they both thought they knew of each other is suddenly put into question.

Usually I’m good at keeping my armor on. I don’t let anyone see what I don’t want them to see. But it’s getting harder to do that with Keaton.

They don’t even try to fight the undeniable attraction between them, slipping into each other’s bed any chance they get, but while Luke continues to believe that theirs is a fling that could never turn into anything more serious, Keaton begins to not only embrace his newly found sexual identity and desires unabashedly, but also to have feelings for a man whose tough upbringing has taught him to guard his heart fiercely. Because no matter how much Luke yearns to be loved and accepted by someone like Keaton, a lifetime of emotional neglect and manipulation at the hands of those who should have loved him unconditionally makes it hard for him to believe in the very things he craves the most, causing him to ultimately push away the only person who’s ever put him first.

One day soon he’ll wake up and wonder what the hell he’s doing with a punk who nobody else ever bothered to love.

Both Kennedy and Bowen are masters at creating characters that are instantly relatable and endearing, thus engaging the reader from the get-go, yet there were moments in this story when I did not feel equal emotion coming from both leads. We get to feel Keaton’s journey in this book a lot more than Luke’s, even though it is Luke who needs to make peace with his past in order for them to find their happily-ever-after. But even with the character development faltering at times, this story hit all the right spots with me, and the only thing I felt like doing when I reached the last page was to immediately flip back to the beginning to start again.

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