Title: Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty Volume Two
Series: Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords
Author: Gregory Ashe
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 178 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
At a Glance: Ashe throws Emery and John-Henry into heartwarming scenes with their daughter, into sexier moments when they’re alone together, into times when the romantic gestures are so carefully crafted and sweepingly beautiful that it hurts in only the best way to play witness to them. The final story, alone, is worth the price of the book.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty Volume 2 is a collection of short stories. It includes the following:
“John-Henry Somerset: Sold!”
Somers enters a charity bachelor’s auction without telling his boyfriend. This story takes place before The Rational Faculty.
“Pretty and Pink and Perfect”
Hazard plans a toddler’s birthday party. This story takes place before The Rational Faculty.
“Pride Slays Thanksgiving”
Hazard and Somers prepare for their first Thanksgiving as a couple. This story takes place before Police Brutality.
“Santa: A Cultural Hegemony”
Hazard is volun-told to dress up as Santa. This story takes place before Transactional Dynamics.
“Valentine’s in Six Beats”
Hazard executes his do-over for Valentine’s. This story takes place before Wayward.
“Emery’s Birthday Scavenger Hunt”
Somers plans the perfect birthday for Hazard . . . or so he thinks. This story takes place before The Keeper of Bees.
“Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty”
A series of six vignettes featuring Hazard and Somers on a Caribbean vacation. This story takes place after The Keeper of Bees.
Review Contains Minor Spoiler from The Keeper of Bees
Review: There are a number of benefits to subscribing to author Gregory Ashe’s newsletter, one of which is getting a first glimpse of the short stories he makes available to readers there. These vignettes are like being treated to a peek behind the curtain into a variety of sweet, intimate, everyday moments his characters indulge in that are almost too personal to be included amongst the grind of solving mysteries and fighting for ground in the more turbulent stages of a developing relationship. A prime example of this is that Hazard and Somerset are typically involved in situations so fraught with tension and so weighted with friction that it’s easy to forget they don’t exist in those agitated states on a minute-to-minute basis. These stories are the articulation of the softer, quieter, romantic, absurd, affable, and sometimes hilarious episodes that make up a life full of family, friends, and the more prosaic routines we all experience.
Ashe throws Emery and John-Henry into heartwarming scenes with their daughter, into sexier moments when they’re alone together, into times when the romantic gestures are so carefully crafted and sweepingly beautiful that it hurts in only the best way to play witness to them. For those who have read The Keeper of Bees and know that John and Emery finally got their wedding and the happy beginning of their life together, this anthology offers readers their honeymoon, and some laugh out loud bits along with the romance of watching these guys finally be at peace together and committed to each other and loving each other on a higher level. This wouldn’t be a Gregory Ashe book, though, if he didn’t bait his readers with a shocking revelation at the end. The one included here is substantial, and it promises a wealth of truths to reveal when the next generation of Hazard and Somerset novels are written into existence.
The first six of the stories included in this compilation of vignettes were made available to readers in the author’s newsletter, but the seventh is a previously unpublished short that, alone, is more than worth the price of the book.
You can buy Hazard and Somerset: Off Duty (Vol. Two) here:
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