I know there is no way that this review can do justice to this story. I really just want to tell people to READ IT 😊. In Step is book 3 in the Painted Bay series and can be read as a standalone but you will understand the progression of the characters better if you read books 1 and 2 first. It really is hard for me to explain how much this book got to me. I love stories about redeemed characters and Kane Martin badly needed redemption after the things we learned about him in the previous books.

At 30-years-old Kane is deep in the closet (and he has good reason to be) but there is something about Abe Tyler that he just can’t resist. Abe is 14 years older than Kane but neither of them care about that. It’s also true that neither of them is looking for any kind of long-term relationship but life has a way of handing you things you least expect.

When I learned the reason why Kane did the things he did when he was much younger, I couldn’t stop my tears. He is a better person now, and Abe keeps telling him this, but not everyone is willing to believe that he’s changed.

I suppose every good story requires some conflict and Kane’s horrible, homophobic father provides more than enough for this story. His threats to Kane and Kane’s pets are appalling. Like previous books in this series, animals provide some levity when needed and Kane’s caring nature just made me want to hug him when humans didn’t always show him the same care.

Jay Hogan’s writing flowed so smoothly for me that I finished this 373-page book much faster than I normally would one of this length. Her beautiful descriptions of the locations where her books are set really make me want to visit New Zealand someday. I don’t know if that will ever happen but at least I can visit there in my mind while reading her wonderful stories.

Reviews for Jay Hogan

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The pattering rain grew heavy on the iron roof and my thoughts ran to the beautiful guy I’d glimpsed in the window above the garage the night before. His name was Kane, apparently. He worked with Fox and Leroy and rented the bedsit, and I wondered why Judah had made no mention of him when he’d given me a rundown on virtually the entire town.

Even in the gloom and lit only by the reflected porch light, Kane’s stunning good looks and shoulder-length sun-bleached locks belonged on the cover of a surfing magazine, not manning a boat on a mussel farm. Just the memory had my cock thickening in my hand. Nope. I dropped it with a groan. Way too creepy since I was surely gonna have to talk to the guy at some point.

Get a life, Abraham.

The click of claws on wood made their way up the hall and a black nose pushed my door open. I scooted back and patted the bed. “Come on, gorgeous.”

Mack pushed through and jumped on the bed, quickly settling in a big lump behind my knees. Prue followed soon after, curling her small feline body into a ball between Mack’s front paws.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” I scratched Mack behind the ears. “Why do I sense I’m being played here? Are you normally allowed on the bed?”

They both ignored me.

“Okay, you get a free pass this time, but I’m taking it under advisement. One word from your daddies and this is all over. Now move over, you’re hogging the blankets and there’s a dirty paw print on my damn sheet. I th—” I jumped at the loud knock on the front door right outside my bedroom.

At this hour? I got up on one elbow to peek through the window. Huh. Surfer boy himself. But with no answering footsteps from Leroy and Fox’s bedroom, I figured they were still . . . occupied.

“Guess I’m it.” I threw back the covers and bounced out of bed, shivering with the sudden wash of cold over my bed-warm skin. “Shit.” I glanced down at my black briefs, then briefly considered my still-unpacked bag before pulling the spare blanket around my waist instead and hotfooting it to the front door. The glacial blast when I hauled it open almost knocked me sideways and instantly pebbled my skin.

“Damn, that’s cold.” I fumbled the blanket up under my armpits but not before I noticed Kane’s eyes bug out of their sockets. “Sorry.” I motioned back down the hall. “It’s just me. Leroy and Fox are . . .” I snorted in amusement. “Well, they’re likely having a lot more fun than either of us and getting a damn sight warmer in the process. How can I help you? It’s Kane, right?”

Kane nodded, still staring at my naked chest, and for some ridiculous reason, my cheeks warmed. Oh, for fuck’s sake. I was far too old and comfortable in my own skin for that rubbish. I danced for a living and there wasn’t a square inch of my skin that hadn’t come under intense scrutiny at one time or another. Age might’ve frayed me around the edges a bit—I wasn’t as tight or streamlined as I used to be—but I didn’t suck for a forty-two-year-old who was pushing middle age and with a perilous fondness for pasta.

“Kane? Hello?” I sucked in a breath laced with a strong hit of ocean salt.

“Um.” He licked his lips and his gaze shot up as if suddenly aware he’d been staring, and I got a good look at his eyes for the first time. They were the clearest, deepest blue, like those tropical lagoons you drooled over in tourist brochures. Although that’s where the similarity ended as they jackrabbited nervously across my face, making me wonder what the hell I’d done to unnerve the guy.

“I, um, came to drop off the food,” he muttered, still not meeting my eyes. “For Mack.” He dropped the weighty bag of dog food on the deck at my feet, pulled up the waistband of his jeans, and turned to leave.

“Wait.” My hand shot out. “We haven’t met. I’m Abe Tyler. I’m staying with Leroy and Fox while I help Judah out with his class recital.”

Kane stared at my hand for a second like it might bite him, and his grasp when it came was cool, dry, and very short. “Hi. I’m Kane Martin.” He blushed prettily. “But then . . . you obviously know that.” Once again, those magnetic-blue eyes flitted away, and I realised Kane was older than the whole surfer vibe indicated—closer to thirty than twenty.

“Yeah, Leroy mentioned your name and that you worked with them. It was you at the window last night, right?” I inclined my head toward the bedsit, prolonging an unnecessary conversation that was turning me into a human popsicle. But the man in front of me was as gorgeous as I remembered, and a man’s balls worked strange magic on his brain that way. “We, ah, waved.” I bit back a smile and he blushed. He fucking blushed.

Kane tugged at his jeans, then glanced up at the bedsit and sighed. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be nosy—” He hesitated and the flush deepened. “Yeah, total lie. It’s a small town, you know?” He dropped his gaze and scuffed the sole of his boot on the old plank deck worn smooth with age.

I chuckled. “I get it. I came from a small town too.” I willed him to look at me, wanting another moment with those cobalt eyes and the cut-glass cheekbones with a spray of freckles like someone had thrown chocolate hail and only a few had stuck—a darkly sweet and all-too-inviting constellation.

“Really?” He finally met my gaze. “I thought you hailed from Wellington?”

I shook my head. “We moved to Wellington when I was eight. But I was actually born in Reefton on the South Island. You don’t get much more small-town New Zealand than that. Couldn’t wait to leave, to be honest.”

His lips quirked up, soft and red and . . . fuck me, I wanted nothing more than to kiss them. They were the only soft thing about Kane. Like his cheekbones and the hollow beneath them, everything else seemed a little too sharp, a little too thin, a little too . . . hungry. Like the tips of his shoulders that poked through his sweater and the outline of his clavicle at its neck. The bulky knit hung loose on a narrow frame over a pair of jeans that seemed perilously close to falling from his hips, judging by the number of times he hauled them up. I felt the ridiculous urge to sit him down and feed some meat onto those bones.

Painted Bay Series

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