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Hide Out

Review 41
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Title: Hide Out
Author: Katie Allen
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave
Genre: Contemporary M/M
Length: Plus Novel
Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

THE BLURB

When Officer Peter Giordano is assigned to keep Trevor Haas safe until he can testify against his murderous father, he expects the hardest part of his job will be keeping his hands off the gorgeous witness. The two men hide out in the small, sleepy town of Honeysuckle, fixing up their dilapidated safe house by day…exploring each other’s bodies by night.

Their small-town neighbors have some secrets of their own, however, including one that someone is willing to kill to protect. Soon, a neighbor is dead and Pete and Trevor are thrown into the middle of a murder investigation. The two men struggle to keep Trevor’s true identity a secret, knowing his father will stop at nothing to silence the star witness against him—even if that means killing his own son.

THE REVIEW

I was hoping that Hide Out would be just as terrific as Private Dicks reviewed here and I got my wish in spades with two plus two hot, hunky heroes, a fun adventure, murder most foul, and a bunch of characters in a small town that would make you want to move to the big city … any big city.

Officer Pete Giordano is flying under the radar as a gay cop when he’s assigned the job of protecting Trevor Haas who was in the Witness Protection Program. Trevor was hiding out for 7 months until  he could testify against his father before the Grand Jury, and Pete’s biggest fear was whether he would be able to keep his hands off the great looking witness. Things didn’t start out very well when Trevor found out that they were moving to a small town where Pete had bought a property he was thinking of flipping. To make matters worse, their cover as a gay couple involved a lot of touching and kissing in public to fool the nosy neighbours, which was very hard on Pete. 🙂 In addition to being isolated, Trevor was not happy that he was expected to live in a safe house that was falling down, no furniture, and he really didn’t want to help Pete with all of the back breaking work involved in making the house livable. Since they were both gay and hiding their sexual orientation from each other this caused a bit of stress and friction until they ‘fessed up a few days later. Once they opened up to each other the heat level was off the scale. Both men found what they had been looking for in each other.

Pete was an only child whose mother had no problem with him being gay, except for the fact that she would never have any grandchildren. He had been ‘out’ since high school and had had many one night stands but never any boyfriends, so living in the same house with Trevor was something he had not experienced before. Trevor had lived with his father since his mother died when he was a child and their relationship was close, even when he told him he was gay. However the trouble between them started when Trevor brought his new boyfriend home who had insisted on meeting his family before taking their relationship to the next level. His father and the boyfriend got on so well that he was offered a job with the company, and it was splitsville for the relationship. It was then Trevor found out he had been played and that the boyfriend was really an undercover cop who was out to nail his father for his crimes, but before he could do so he was busted and Trevor’s father murdered him in cold blood. Trevor witnessed the crime and was next on the list to be eliminated, but he got away by the skin of his teeth and went into hiding and was placed in protective custody. After the cop who was guarding him ratted him out to his father for money he escaped, and lucky for him he found a job with Isaac Rhodes and Nate Washington whom we met in Private Dicks  

Shortly after Pete and Trevor arrived in Honeysuckle, Rhodie and Wash showed up because Trevor had emailed them and they managed to track him down. This of course didn’t please Pete who felt that Trevor had placed himself in danger and he didn’t know what to make of the pair of private detectives, but after getting over his jealousy and checking them out they got on like a house on fire. Those of you who read Private Dicks may remember Trevor as the bouncer who had the hots for Rhodes and made Wash jealous. Everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan until a vicious murder was committed a few doors down and everyone was a suspect which meant that Trevor’s identity was in danger of being revealed.

As usual with this author the prose and dialogue are to die for funny. Rhodes and Wash added some continuity to the storyline from the previous book and a lot of laughs. In addition, the tension between Pete and Trevor was highly emotional and there was one scene where Pete did a striptease for Trevor with the other guys looking on that was so hot you could feel the fire. The sex was off the chart with a bid of mild BDSM, and the passion and emotions were so close to the surface and seemed so real that I had a hard time remembering that this was just a story. The chemistry between this couple was tangible and real and the heat will make you want to turn on the A/C to full. I really wish that Katie Allen had a whole backlist of M/M romances that I could read, she’s such a wonderful writer.

The characters are all three dimensional even the secondary characters, from Sheriff Osgood to Danny the young lurker who had more secrets to tell than anyone else, Cindy the owner of the local diner with the best food, and the neighbours who had their idiosyncracies and secrets that could only be found in a small town, which made it difficult to figure out who was the murderer in their midst.

This story is laugh out loud funny, your stomach will clench many times with the excitement of the murder investigation, the guys are so sexy you will wish you could take them home, the emotions are incredibly raw, the plot is believable and the end will blow you away. While I did have a couple of niggles they were not important.

Hide Out is a book you will read many times and I can’t wait for the next M/M romance from this writer. This story can be read as a standalone but you will definitely want to pick up Private Dicks if you haven’t read it. Highly recommended!

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41 comments

    • Ingrid
      I loved this book just as much as I did Private Dicks. I know you love long books and this one is definitely long…. and hot:)

  • I loved this, probably more than Private Dicks as I found Wash’s ‘will I or won’t I’ a bit annoying in the first book, and I really loved how Trevor found someone to boss him around the way he wanted 🙂

    Katie is an auto buy for me, her het stuff is great too though I understand some of you don’t read het at all.

    • Hi Beck
      As you can tell, I loved Hide Out a lot. What I loved about Private Dicks was the dialogue and prose as well as the relationship between the guys. I suppose it’s hard to switch so I can understand how Wash felt going from straight to gay. In this book he definitely is gay. 🙂

      I don’t read het romances – I used to a long time ago but moved completely to M/M. However I’m sure that Katie’s het books would be just as great. I’m just hoping that she continues to write M/M because she’s a wonderful writer.

  • Wow, you’ve sold me. Must get these, although I never shop at Elora’s Cave. Guess I’ll have to check it out.

    Wow, I just went to Ellora’s Cave and clicked on “male/male”, out of the 12 books on the first page, 9 of them have a woman on them. Most of them one man and one woman so not even m/m/f menage. It’s that’s their version of m/m I’m worried. LOL

    • Tam
      This is the reason I don’t shop at E.C. I think Larissa originally recommended this book so I went directly to buy it without having to go through all of the menages they categorizde as M/M. I really hate that.

      You will love both books. 🙂

  • I had Private Dicks on my tbr list for ages and finally got around to reading it this week – absolutely adored it and dashed straight out to get Hide Out! Haven’t started that one yet, but I’m glad to hear I’m in for another treat! 😀

    • You’re in for a treat. Katie Allen is an incredible writer and for someone who writes het she has done a surprisingly good job with the guys. Most het writers don’t get the characterization down right but this author knows her stuff.

  • What a relief! I think I was more worried about what Wave would think of HO than I was about what my editor would think (just kidding, Kelli. Um…sort of ;-)). Thank you for such a wonderful review! I definitely have more M/M books planned (and one half-written), which I’m excited about, since I find M/M the most fun to write (those heroines are so high-maintenance ;-)).

    • Hi Katie
      You’re such a kidder. 🙂 We love your books here. The only problem is that you have no backlist. The guys are lots of fun – as you said, those heroines are high maintenance.

      If it wasn’t for Larissa, one of the “regulars” on the site, I would never have found Private Dicks. We don’t visit EC because the way they categorize their books requires too much effort to find the real M/M books in between the M/F/M or M/M/F books. If you scroll up you’ll see a couple of comments from Tam about the difficulty finding M/M on the EC site.

      Drop by any time.

    • No apologies needed, Katie. In point of fact, since I love all your stuff, you really should be more worried about Wave. Lol. The readers’ opinions matter far more than mine. You write for *them*, not me (and really, I edit for them, not you). 🙂

      And thanks, Wave, for another wonderful review! It’s a massive relief when author and editor know they’ve done their jobs well.

  • I really loved “Private Dicks” (best book title ever) and Trevor was one of the things I liked best about it. I am so happy he has his own story!

    Ellora’s Cave categorizes the book as a “plus novel” but I just downloaded the PDF and it is 197 pages; I have a few m/m books that are around 500 pages… I guess E.C. would list those in the mega-godzilla range! 🙂

    Thanks for posting the review Wave! You are still the best source for new m/m titles out there.

    • Thanks Diane. I try to keep up and I get many recommendations for new books from readers like yourself.

      I, too, loved Trevor from Private Dicks (Katie really loves that title) 🙂 and when she told me he was getting his own story I couldn’t wait. I hope you enjoy the book.

      EC categorizes everything differently. Size as well as sub genres. We were just talking about the way they categorize M/M on their site. I get too frustrated whenever I go through all of their gazillion titles to find the true M/M books. I have no idea why they do this. Do they think a pure M/M reader would buy menage books? Surely it can’t be difficult to do a proper job.

    • Jules
      I promise hyou that you will have a wonderful time reading these two books and getting to know the characters who are a hoot. I’m so glad I discovered Katie and I’m trying to get her to write more M/M books.

  • I started reading this review and then paused, went back to read the review for PD, and came back to read the rest of this review. These two books (especially this one) sound right up my alley! 🙂 Two more for my ever-growing ‘to by’ list….

    • Kendall
      There are some books that I consider must reads and these two books are defintely on that list. Katie Allen is a very talented writer and I wish she had a backlist so that I could read more of her books.
      You’re definitely in for a treat when you pick up Hide Out and Private Dicks.

  • Oh woa! I didn’t know this was out. Bad me, no cookie!

    When I read the blurb, I thought “haven’t we done this before?” But in the review the story sounds different and wonderful, so definitely going to read it SOON! Thanks 🙂

    • Larissa
      You should pat yourself on the back because you were the one who introduced me to Private Dicks and Katie several months ago. I’m still waiting for those other recs you promised to send me. 🙂

      • I know. They’re coming. I’m trying to bring a semblance of order in a chaos so big even chaos would be jealous of it! You’ll get it…soon I hope!

  • I LOVED Private Dicks. Heh, that didn’t come out right, did it?? I was so excited part-way reading this review, I was ready to rush off and get the book and then I realized we’re talking Trevor from Private Dicks, major squeee…., Trevor so deserved his own HEA!! Great review, Wave!!

    • Hi Salina
      This book was most deserving of the review. I loved Trevor when he was in Private Dicks and now that his character is in its own story more readers will get to know him better.

      I know you will have a great time reading Hide Out.

  • I liked Hide Out a lot, but I have to admit that my absolute favourite thing about this book was seeing Rhodes from the outside. In Private Dicks you were inside his head and you immediately knew that he was a deeply emotional, compassionate man, even if he didn’t say much. Watching him mumble and grunt through Hide Out and realising that he really does come across as an intimidating Man of Mystery was hysterical.

    • Hi Alexi
      Having Rhodie and Wash in this book made it perfect. 🙂
      This couple really rocks. However, we can’t take anything away from Pete and Trevor who are wonderful vulnerable characters.

      Katie Allen has a knack for creating people that readers never want to leave and consequently we end up reading her books again and again. She did a terrific job.

  • This could be one of my favorite books this year, it was so good. Then again, it’s no surprise, since based on previous books Katie Allen has a great way of writing. She combines emotions, laughs and action like nobody else.

    • Hi Sari
      Isn’t her writing great? I only know about the two books but I’m sure she does just as well with her het stories. Now she’s found a new fan base and we’re all hoping that she will continue writing about her gorgeous gay heroes! 🙂 We can’t get enough of them.

  • Wave, you’ve convinced me I need to get both books. I don’t normally visit/ buy from EC for the reasons that have been mentioned, so I only find out about good m/m books there when they’re mentioned here. So thanks for doing the review!

    • Nichem
      I strongly believe that you will love these books. The author has a way of giving us characters that we will love and the dialogue and prose are sometimes gut busting funny. 🙂 Clearly I have become a fan.

  • Love love looooove Katie Allen’s writing. I’ll read anything with her name on it.

    Private Dicks is one of my favorite m/m cop books, and I can’t wait to read my copy of Hide Out (if I ever get some free time lol).

    Awesome review, Wave. Glad you enjoyed the book. Makes me all the more excited to read it. 🙂

    • Hi Jen
      We never see you any more. I know you’re busy but in your business you should check out what’s happening on the circuit. How are you doing?

      Katie is awesome. I found her a few months ago when another reader who visits EC occasionally recommended that I read Private Dicks and I was hooked. So I asked her to keep me in the loop for when Hide Out was being released and here we are. 🙂

      • I’m doing great. Busy though!

        I stay pretty well informed. I work for a few of the m/m publishers and I lurk on the blogs. 😉

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