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Carlton Monroe is finally getting his groove back. After a year playing dad to his nephew and sending him safely off to college, it’s back to his bachelor ways. But when his teenaged niece shows up on his doorstep looking for a permanent home, his plan comes to a screeching halt. Family is everything, and in the eyes of social services, a couple makes a better adoptive family than an overworked bachelor father. A fake relationship with his closest friend is the best way to keep his family together.
If things between him and Deion are complicated, well, it only needs to last until the end of the semester.
Living with Carlton is a heartbreak waiting to happen, and once the adoption goes through, Deion’s out. He’s waited two decades for Carlton to realize they’re meant for each other, and he’s done. It’s time to make a clean break. But it’s hard to think of moving away when keeping up the act includes some very real perks like kissing, cuddling and sharing a bed.
Even the best charades must come to an end, though. As the holidays and Deion’s departure date loom, the two men must decide whether playing house is enough for them—or if there’s any chance they could be a family for real.
Review:
I read the first installment of this series, Learned Behaviors, as well as Andre and quickly became addicted to Jayce Ellis’s writing. She gives such a beautiful and nuanced depiction of the lives and loves of queer men of color.
Learned Reactions overlaps a bit with Learned Behaviors, which is a great way to prime readers for the couples to come. Carlton and Deion are the slow burn to end all slow-burns. They’ve been pining, unaware of the feelings the one has for the other for twenty years. A combination of insecurity and the confusion at having real feelings when they should be a pretend family leads to a denouement that is so poignant, I still get emotional thinking about it.
Olivia, or Ollie, as the fourteen-year-old girl they are trying to raise is a wonderful character, and steals the scenes she is in. She is the perfect depiction of a beautiful, brilliant, and somewhat tremendous teenager.
Ellis is such a fine writer and so far have enjoyed every book she’s written. Now on to book 3!
ARC received from the publisher Carina Press via NetGalley in return for an honest and unbiased review.
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