Release Day Review: Hepple Ever After by Con Riley

31 August of 2022 by ButtonsMom2003

Hepple Ever After By Con Riley

Genre: Contemporary Romance, GLBTQ, MM

Tropes: Hurt/comfort, opposites attract

Released: August 31, 2022

Publisher: Self-Published

Series: Learning to Love, Book 5

Length: 72,000 words aprox

Cover Design: Natasha Snow

Synopsis

Because every epic romance deserves an epic happy ending…

All Charles Heppel wants is a wedding. It’s not much to ask now that he’s set his playboy days aside for his almost-ordained fiancé. He can’t wait for a lovely, lazy beach honeymoon with His Holy Hotness to continue Hugo’s education in the bedroom.

Surely this third wedding date will be the charm and won’t get cancelled, will it? After all, Hugo’s followed his calling almost to the end of his path to ordination. Nothing should keep him from gaining his own parish with Charles as his husband.

Hugo’s calling thinks differently, demanding he leaves for the remote island of Kara-Enys without Charles.

That news should be shattering, but if Charles Heppel has one thing going for him, it’s that he’s relentlessly optimistic. And romantic. Most islands have beaches, don’t they? He’ll join Hugo to have the honeymoon first on their own version of Love Island. They can get married later!

All he needs to do is find him…

♥ This conclusion to the Learning to Love series features a host of heartfelt cameos, an embarrassment of romance, and in no way should be used as a guide to the ordination process, which likely involves much less kissing. ♥

(A content advisory can be viewed on the copyright page.)

Teaser Graphic

Review

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

I love Hugo and Charles!

I wrote a long and detailed review of this story but then I realized that nobody would really want to read all of that so I’m going to try and pare it down – a lot. 😊 First off, I don’t think you should read this book without at least reading book one in this Learning to Love series which is aptly named Charles. That book told Charles and Hugo’s story and it had a very satisfying ending. It would be even better if you read the whole series because every single book is absolutely wonderful.

Hepple Ever After is kind of like your favorite icing on top of your favorite cake. I can’t think of a better way for Con Riley to have ended this series – other than to not have ended it at all. 🥰 There are many happy and poignant moments in this story and my eyes leaked more than once. This is a sure sign of how much I loved the book, not an indication of a book that will make you sad. Indeed, I am much more likely to tear up when something happy happens.

I don’t often mark quotes in a book while reading but I marked two of them I loved in this one. Both of these are Hugo talking to Charles:

“You want to know how many reasons I have to love you?” He touched Charles, sweeping hair from his forehead, Charles leaning into his hand as Hugo finished. “All of those heavenly bodies added together still don’t come close to my number of reasons.”

“Make or break. You wrote that in a margin as if you might make or break my future.” His expression shifted, twisting. “Don’t you know that’s you?” Hugo let go of his hand to cup his face, not letting go until Charles made eye contact with him. “My future is always going to be you.”

Those two quotes really got to me. Hepple Ever After is another fantastic example of Con Riley’s beautiful and descriptive writing. She makes me wish that all of her characters in this series were real people that I could meet and become friends with. I hope we haven’t seen the end of them, I can only hope for a spin-off series where they show up from time-to-time.

♥♥♥♥♥

O Factor: Spicy

Learning to Love Series

♥ Amazon US ♥ Amazon CA ♥ Amazon UK ♥

About Author

CON RILEY lives on the wild and wonderful Welsh coast, with her head in the clouds and her feet in the ocean.

Injury curtailed her enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, so writing fiction now fills her free time. Love, loss, and redemption shape her romance stories, and her characters are flawed in ways that make them live and breathe.

When not people-watching or reading, she spends time staring at the sea from her kitchen window. If you see her, don’t disturb her — she’s probably thinking up new plots.

Author Links