ARC Review: Outsider by Olivia Cunning

“Get the ice cubes ready and keep them handy because you’ll need to cool off.”
~ Under the Covers

Here’s my confession.  I was as scared as I was excited to read this book.  Scared because I was scared to see what would happened with Trey/Ethan/Reagan that would need another full length novel.  Once everything unfolded in OUTSIDER it was clear that it was the right choice.  Cramming all these feelings that were not dealt with before in a novella wouldn’t have been easy and it would’ve felt like an easy fix to make them go away.  So I am overall please with how this book turned out.  Really.

The three of them are very much in a loving and happy triad, but for the most part that’s only kept private.  This book starts off during INSIDER so we are going back a bit in time and re-experiencing some of those moments from different perspectives.  They are all difficult issues.  Ethan is not out as a bisexual man.  To anyone.  Nor does he want to be.  Reagan is not comfortable being out as a sexual deviant in her mind that would need to be with two men to be satisfied.  And Trey gets to suffer through the denial of his true feelings in public.  Things would just be simple if the truth could come out.  And instead, we see the toll that lies and unaddressed feelings can have on a relationship that we thought was strong.

I think the author did a really good job at dealing with those issues for the most part.  Maybe the resolutions were a bit easy in the end, and I would’ve liked to see maybe more of a struggle than an all around happy ending.  I know, that’s terrible of me.  But would’ve been more believable.  However, overall, I think the author did this conflict enough justice.

Then there’s the sex.  Get the ice cubes ready and keep them handy because you’ll need to cool off.  There’s a lot of it, and it’s all hot.  These three never have any problems in the bedroom and Trey and Ethan are blistering hot.  I wouldn’t even mind if Reagan could just go away sometimes and leave the two of them be.

And that brings me to Reagan.  She’s a big part of why I didn’t like this book more.  She’s so insecure, it felt like every time Trey and Ethan said something to each other or had a moment she would just jump in with a “what about me?”.  She got on my nerves quite a bit during this book and I have to admit that has been one of my issues with several heroines in these interconnected series.  So nothing new there with Reagan.  The moments where I liked her where definitely less than when I wanted to throttle her.  But she didn’t ruin the book for me!

And for us that still needed something to close out the Brian/Trey chapter… this was addressed beautifully.  We find out more about their past, and we see them dealing with their present.  I thought this was a big element needed to believe an HEA could be possible for Trey and that he didn’t settle for second best.  I’m glad this was there as well.

OUTSIDER leaves the three of them in a much stronger position and with the promise of an HEA that can stand the test of time.  That’s what was missing from their first book and I’m glad they got this second shot.

[about-author author=”Olivia Cunning”]

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