bookish devices

As anyone who has read any of my reviews over the last few months knows – I love Avon Gale! She writes amazing hockey m/m books, co-wrote a great m/m book with Roan Parrish just last month, and now is co-writing with Piper Vaughn here. I hadn’t read any Piper Vaughn books before but this features a LOT of tattooing and art and those are things I love so YES please!

Book Blurb:

At twenty-three, Poe Montgomery is going nowhere. He still lives in his father’s basement and spends most of his time tagging with his friends. When an arrest lands him in debt, Poe accepts the front desk job at Permanent Ink, the tattoo shop owned by his father’s best friend, Jericho McAslan. Jericho is nearly twice Poe’s age, but with his ink and prematurely graying hair, he quickly takes the starring role in Poe’s hottest fantasies.

Jericho is known for his ability to transform poorly designed tattoos into works of art, but he was once as aimless and misdirected as Poe. Wanting to pay it forward the way someone once did for him, Jericho makes Poe his apprentice and is determined to keep things strictly professional. Easier said than done when Poe makes his interest—and his daddy kink—abundantly clear.

Jericho can’t resist Poe or their intense chemistry for long. But between the age gap, tension with Poe’s father, and Poe’s best friend calling him a sellout, they’ll need to ensure they’re both on the same page before they can rewrite their rocky start into something permanent.

“Look at me.” I waited for him to do it, and took a bit of pleasure in the way his eyes finally darted to mine, like he couldn’t help but do what I said. Good. It made me a lot happier when people did that, especially when I was in charge of them.

That gave me a thought I definitely didn’t need to be having—either at work, or about my best friend’s punk-ass son. But Poe’s sulky mouth, the way he was looking up at me . . . sue me, I was gay, he was hot, and I bet my dick would shut him up nice and—

The fuck, man? Landon’s kid. Keep your brain out of your pants.

Avon Gale

Avon Gale was once the mayor on Foursquare of Jazzercise and Lollicup, which should tell you all you need to know about her as a person. She likes road trips, rock concerts, drinking Kentucky bourbon and yelling at hockey. She’s a displaced southerner living in a liberal midwestern college town, and she never gets tired of people and their stories—either real or the ones she makes up in her head.

Avon is represented by Courtney Miller-Callihan at Handspun Literary Agency.

Piper Vaughn

Piper Vaughn wrote her first love story at eleven and never looked back. Since then, she’s known that writing in some form was exactly what she wanted to do. A reader at the core, Piper loves nothing more than getting lost in a great book—fantasy, young adult, romance, sci-fi, she loves them all (and has a three-thousand-book library to prove it!).

As a bisexual and Latinx person, Piper takes great pride in her heritage. She grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and strives to put faces and characters of every ethnicity in her stories, so her fictional worlds are as colorful as the real one. Above all, she believes that everyone needs a little true love in their life … even if it’s only in a book.