Series: Men of Bird’s Eye, #2
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Release Date: June 22nd, 2021
Add to Goodreads | Amazon.in (Available on KU)
I have loved everything about Will since we met her in Hawk’s book, the first in the series. She was the feisty woman working at the tattoo shop and as Hawk’s best friend, she was basically royalty. So I was obviously very excited when I got a chance to read an ARC of this fun book!
Willette Archer (can we also please talk about this gorgeous name?!) is the only woman working at the Bird’s Eye tattoo shop started by her best friend. She’s really good at her job and she’s in demand by lots of customers. Will is soft around the corners badass who doesn’t get too caught up in the little things. Her life is simple and she likes it that way. Will is obviously looking for some romance and she’s looking for the kind of life that she never imagines she’ll have. Being a woman covered in tattoos, men don’t always appreciate who she is and what she has to offer and that makes Will not want anything to do with them anymore either. I loved how Will comes off as a badass punk rocker on the surface, but is all soft and mushy on the inside. She doesn’t pretend to be anything she’s not, because Will is confident in who she is, she just lives differently from the way people expect her to be.
Then there’s Dr. Derek Tanner. Derek is Hawk’s brother and completely different from him. Where Hawk is covered in ink and lives a wild life (or he did till Drew came along), Derek lives it pretty simply. He’s busy at the hospital most of the time and he doesn’t have too many attachments. Derek and Hawk are really close though, but Derek is still very focused on his career. He’s not looking for romance or love or anything beyond what his body can offer. And honestly, he’s super swoony, so look out for lots of swooning on yours and Will’s part.
“The slow and painful torture of being in close quarters with a person I’ve secretly loved most of my life is exactly how I always imagined dying.”
If you’ve read Hawk, then you already know tht Will grew up with the Tanner boys. And since then, Will has been holding onto these intense feelings for Derek that she doesn’t know what to do with. He’s older, he’s the brother of her best friend and he’s never looked at her like he wants anything to do with her beyond be her friend. So Will’s never tried anything either. She’s just lusted after him from the sidelines and till Derek shows up looking for somewhere to live, she feels like everything is going to be just fine. When he moves into the spare room in her apartment, things start to get really weird. See, Will’s been in love with Derek for the better part of two decades, while Derek has been oblivious to these feelings and probably doesn’t even feel the same way. But because of their history and because Derek is Hawk’s brother, Will is the perfect hostess. They find the balance between looking after each other as their shifts never line up. And honestly, it’s in the little things they do for each other that you fall in love with Will and Derek.
Unlike with Hawk and Drew, this is a slow burn. Mostly because it’s unrequited love for so long and even when they cross that line, Derek and Will aren’t anything more than just friends with benefits. And oh boy, those benefits are super beneficial. But it doesn’t stop them from being the best kind of friends. I loved their romance, but I really loved how their friendship builds slowly and how they start to learn more about each other. Strangely, I loved the whole thing about Will being head over heels for Derek, while he’s still trying to come to terms with what all of this means for him. All in all, their relationship was wholesome and made me warm and fuzzy all over!
Will is a best friend’s brother, slow burn, forced proximity, unrequited love and low angst story about two people who are complete opposites falling in love. And if that’s not tempting enough, you should read this just for Willette Archer alone.
Thanks to Kat Savage and Wildfire Marketing Solutions for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
anna reads here 