Dirty Laundry by Heidi Cullinan

Grade: A-
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: Moderate Kink (D/s, spanking, restraints)
Genre: Contemporary, m/m
Series: Tucker Springs #3

Reviewed by Anne

265 pages

 

Adam is a college grad student with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Anxiety issues that severely shape his day to day life.  He's at the laundromat doing some laundry when a group of drunk college guys start harassing him.  Denver, a tank of a man, comes to his rescue and scares the drunks away.  Adam is thankful, but also very attracted to Denver.  They hook up right there in the laundromat.   Adam is amazed at how calm and centered he feels with Denver, and how attracted he is to the kink of having Denver be physically in charge of him.  Denver is surprised that Adam stays on his mind.  He has a lot of one night stands, but he just keeps thinking about Adam.

This is a really sweet and very dirty story.  Amazingly, that balances really well.  Adam's issues are huge.  It's a struggle for him to function every day.

 

"... I have no idea how I'm supposed to make out with someone when I know the soup cans aren't alphabetized by type and the shoelaces are all sloppy in the closet.  If they're even in the closet at all."

 

 

Denver is a muscle bound bouncer at a local gay bar.  He's interested in Adam, and doesn't think much of working around Adam's issues, even before he really understands what they are. This is so very, very sweet!

 

My only issue was in the use of D/s as a therapy type tool.  This was somewhat balanced out by the fact that Adam also saw a therapist who was helping him figure out coping skills. The story was about much more than that, though.  Denver has his own suitcase of issues and it's unbelievable to him that Adam would be willing to accept him if he knew.  Watching these two work their way together was just so wonderful.

 

This book is third in the Tucker Springs series, but it was the first one I read and it stood alone very well.  Note that the books in this series are written by different authors.  Another note:  I LOVE this cover.  This is exactly how I pictured these two!

 

This book brings me to about a dozen m/m books read now and I'm officially declaring my love for the m/m subgenre.  How about you?  Do you read m/m?  I've read and enjoyed Heidi Cullinan, Marie Sexton, Daisy Harris, Sean Kennedy, and Josh Lanyon.  Any other m/m authors you'd recommend?  And standout books I MUST read?