Hard Press is the 5th book in the Ashe Sentinel Connections series but it can be read as a standalone with no problem. I haven’t read the first four books yet and I didn’t feel like I missed anything. (The first four books are on my to-be-read (TBR) list, though, because I liked this one so much.)Julian needs to grow up. His ego is huge. He can’t believe it when his girlfriend dumps him after she finds gay porn in his browser history. Julian isn’t gay – he just wants to experiment a bit with a threesome. He works for his father who is pretty much a jerk to Julian even though Julian knows their car sales business inside and out. He’s also great with the marketing but he can’t keep his father from doing crazy expensive things that don’t yield enough return to justify the expense.

Elliott “Tripp” Young has his hands full. He’s responsible for the care of his younger brother who is autistic. After their parents died he wasn’t able to care for Eric at home but he visits him frequently and he’s doing everything he can to try and bring Eric home.

Julian and Elliott meet when Julian knocks Elliott’s motorcycle over and it gets scratched. He doesn’t realize that Elliott has seen what happened and is shaken when Elliott confronts him. He gives Elliott his contact information but it’s outdated and Elliott has no way to get in touch with him. Three months later they run into each other in a gay bar and Elliott decides to get Julian to pay for his mistake one way or another. Once Elliott realizes that Julian is not experienced he asks him what he was doing at a gay bar and Julian tells him he was just curious.

This is a complex story with great characters and fantastic writing. The author stated in a blog post that Hard Press is different from her other books in that the characters are more demanding and the story contains light elements of submission (there are also some pretty hot, sexy scenes). I loved the story, and while it is quite different from the one other book I’ve read by Ms. Jamison (Catching Jaime) I found the writing to be just as compelling and the characters extremely interesting. Once I started reading this book I didn’t want to put it down.

For me this was so much more than just a romance story, it’s a story about family. Elliott is so protective of his brother and will do almost anything to take care of him. Julian’s family relationships are also a big part of the story. I feel like my review doesn’t really do this story justice because I’m having trouble conveying how much I loved it.

I especially loved the epilogue. It gives us an update on where Julian and Elliott are around a year later. I won’t give anything away but there’s also a bit of a surprise in that a hateful character in the main story, redeems himself quite nicely in the epilogue.

I think Ms. Jamison is an author to watch; she’s relatively new, with her first published works on Amazon listed around a year ago. She is one of my favorite new-to-me authors in the M/M romance genre and I look forward to reading many more of her books.

Reviews for D.J. Jamison

Ashe Sentinel Connections Series

Changing Focus, Book 1

Source of Protection, Book 2

Rewriting His Love, Book 3

Winter Blom, Book 4