I’m a relative newcomer to Jay Hogan’s writing. Just about a year ago, the first book in this series, Off Balance, was my introduction to her writing and I’ve been catching up on her back list ever since. The MCs in On Board were introduced in Off Balance so I think you’d enjoy On Board more if you read it first but I’m not sure you really have to.

I loved everything about this book. Leroy is worse than grumpy; he can be downright nasty, not only to Fox but to most of the people around him. He’s dealing with a lot: his business is in trouble; his mom recently came out as bi-sexual and he’s got a lot of guilt that he didn’t support his younger brother better when they were younger.

Fox is in the middle of a divorce from his cheating husband, whom he really loved. The jerk took so much from him in the divorce settlement that he had to sell his business and now he wants joint custody of the dog that Fox owned before they even got together. Mack, the female dog, was just one of the highlights of the book for me.

Leroy has been off balance since he and Fox clashed a year ago. He hasn’t been able to get him out of his mind and that scares Leroy who has always believe himself to be completely straight. Fox has sworn off relationships but he can’t help being drawn to Leroy.

On Board is a story with a lot of depth and ups and downs for the MCs, it’s also humorous in places and the animals featured are just precious. Jay Hogan’s descriptive writing makes me want to visit all of the places she writes about (even though this US resident gets confused when she talks about south New Zealand being cold and north being warm-LOL).

I love it when a story makes me feel things deeply and On Board certainly did that. I laughed and I cried and in the end was so happy for Leroy and Fox. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series, In Step, coming in February 2022.

Reviews for Jay Hogan

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I stole a sideways glance to where Fox lounged in the passenger seat of my Hilux, his interested gaze soaking up the countryside. The worst of the Monday morning traffic was behind us and the driving was easy, not that you’d know it by my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

Sister Sledge streamed through the speakers, Fox’s fingers tapping away on one thickly muscled thigh wrapped in tight stonewashed denim. A fashionable rip mocked me from just above the knee, revealing the faintest glimpse of tanned skin and short dark hair, not that I was looking.

Yeah, right. I was soaking that shit up like sugar in hot coffee.

The universe was definitely fucking with me. Well, that and my mother who’d arrived for Sunday lunch with a surprisingly edible peach cobbler and what she called the ‘best idea ever’ for me to give Fox a lift into Whangarei the next day since I was already going. He wanted to check out some boats, but his car was still waiting on parts.

Fucking wonderful. Why he couldn’t wait for his own vehicle to be fixed wasn’t a question I was prepared to ask based on my mother’s I-dare-you look. I’d caved and agreed.

I could’ve killed her. And by the constipated look on Fox’s face at her suggestion, I was pretty sure he felt the same. It had been a long, long weekend and entirely my own damn fault. Other than forced interaction at work, rugby training, and Sunday lunch, I’d avoided Fox at all costs, and he’d been good enough to play along and pretend he hadn’t noticed, other than a notable drop in temperature whenever he looked my way. I could hardly blame him for that. If only he knew that my epic arseholery stemmed from lust and not disgust.

And the Academy Award for epically fucking yourself goes to . . . yeah. Enough said.

Note to self: don’t get tipsy around the guy. Without the benefit of way too many beers, we wouldn’t have talked and got all chummy on the deck, and I wouldn’t have realised that I maybe, actually liked the bastard, not just wanted to kiss him, or touch him, or have him touch me, or . . . goddammit, wait for the drum roll—fuck me.

I swallowed hard. Me fucking him would, of course, be marginally more acceptable to my brain, but who was I kidding? I’d spent the entire weekend thinking, fantasising, googling, watching, and yep, definitely him fucking me. Good God, the sooner he was out of my house the better. Still, it sounded like it wouldn’t take much to get him to shift back down south, so I could only hope.

“You okay, Leroy?”

My gaze jerked his way. “Fine. I’m absolutely fine,” I lied, because no, I didn’t want to go there, or talk about it, or think about it, or do anything other than bury it as unsuccessfully as I’d done for the last five days, make that a year—my, doesn’t time fly—because I’m chickenshit as all hell and my life is a fucking shitshow of irony.

Why now?

Why him?

Why . . . this?

Bisexual. I’d even practised saying it in front of the mirror, barely able to spit the word out as it sat huge and sour on my tongue. It wasn’t that I hated the man-on-man part, because I was clearly on board with that in so very many, many Fox-shaped, lickable ways. It was more that the admission held an extremely unflattering mirror up to the jerk hypocrite that I’d been, and very likely still was, my entire life.

Whoever said sexuality was a choice, I needed that fucker’s address and a suitably sized cactus to shove where the sun don’t shine.

My head had been buried so far in the sand for so long that I had grit coming out my arse, and that shit had to stop. After my appalling behaviour in the kitchen, I’d sulked and pondered long and hard over the weekend and gotten more than my money’s worth from my broadband provider. It all came with an uncomfortable realisation. The infatuation I had with Fox wasn’t going anywhere, and that meant either making myself and everyone around me miserable or pulling it into the light and stop running. How had I completely missed this rather critical aspect of my nature?
And then it occurred to me, maybe I hadn’t. I had the pieces, but nothing or no one had caused them to fall into place, until Fox.

Painted Bay Series

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