Title: His Haven
Series: His: Book Three
Author: Con Riley
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 322 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Con Riley has a tendency to write characters who are disarmingly charming, characters whose personalities are larger-than-life, and that stands true in this third novel in the His series. His Haven is precisely as lush and romantic as I expected it would be.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Opposites attract when Kier is once jilted, twice shy…
Keir Brodie is a lawyer with good reason for his trust issues. A year after his groom didn’t show up at their wedding, he’s still heartsore and hurting. Work has been his saviour, but a new project sets alarm bells ringing — his favourite client wants to buy a house for someone Keir thinks is a liar.
Mitch’s nice-guy act doesn’t fool Keir, and he can’t let sparks flying when they’re together distract him. That’s just the flare of opposites attracting, not the lifelong connection he misses. Besides, no amount of passion is worth risking his heart, especially with someone only down for onetime hook-ups.
Their shared project chips away at Keir’s first impressions. As the truth, and Keir, unravel, Mitch pieces him back together in ways Keir couldn’t have predicted. Trusting Mitch with more than his client’s money will take a leap of faith, in himself, and in a man Keir hopes won’t leave him waiting.
Review: “First impressions are lasting impressions” is an aphorism that sits familiar in Con Riley’s His Haven, and while those first impressions are indeed eventually overcome, it’s the work that goes into proving them all wrong that’s so, so beautiful.
Mitch and Keir were significant contributors in His Compass—Mitch being the nurse and caretaker for Tom’s brother Justin, and Keir as Nick’s attorney, who vigilantly looks out for Nick’s best interests. The various things Mitch and Keir don’t have in common are significant, but the one thing they do have in common is equally so, in that neither of them is looking for a relationship; though, for vastly different reasons. Mitch is a no-strings-attached, in it for the fun kind of guy, while Keir is the once-burned-twice-shy, no time for a personal life workaholic sort. Trust is a tough thing for Keir to come by, after all, since he was left standing humiliated at the altar waiting for the man he was about to vow to love forever, on what was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. The things Keir believes are true about Mitch are the very things Keir abhors the most—that Mitch is a hopelessly unrepentant, serial philander who doesn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty, and that he appears to be out to profit personally from Nick’s wealth. When Nick himself gives Keir an assignment that means he and Mitch will be working closely together, Keir is determined to out Mitch for the snake he most certainly is.
Con Riley has a tendency to write characters who are disarmingly charming, characters whose personalities are larger-than-life, and that stands true in this third novel in the His series. Mitch’s sweet and cheeky incandescence fairly leaps off the page, matched only by the depths of his kindness and the size of his great big gentle heart, and it’s when Keir slowly but most surely begins to realize he’s jumped to some wrong conclusions about Mitch and his motives that this lush romantic story blossoms. It’s when Keir finally allows himself to not only admit some painful truths but then confronts them that everything flourishes.
Keir learning to trust is a hard-fought battle—both in himself and in Mitch—and Riley lays it all out beautifully, as always, in sweepingly heartfelt and emotional ways. What began as sex, and only sex, slow-burns its way into something much deeper and more profound, an emotional alchemy that delivers these two very different men to a place where falling in love with each other is the only answer. From the smallest of gestures to the grandest, in the willingness to meet each other halfway, there is no doubt that Mitch and Keir belong with and to each other.
Cameo appearances by Rob and Jude, and a bit more page time with Tom and Nick and Justin, as well as an introduction to Keir’s best friend/brother Charles—whom I adored—adds another layer of richness to the story. There’s always a certain warmth to Con Riley’s romance that comes with the friends and family who surround her couples (the de Luca connection hits the heart dead-center). And, if I’m not mistaken, we meet Charles’ love interest briefly too, a book for which I am now profoundly anxious, because Charles falling in love is going to be something wonderful to behold.
You can buy His Haven here:
[zilla_button url=”https://books2read.com/His-Haven-Riley” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]
