Rating: 4
Steam: 3
PoV: dual, 3rd person
Series: Portland Evergreens #1
Genre: contemporary romance, MM
Tropes / tags: college, sports, double sexual discovery
Ian rolled his eyes, but his face was still full of teasing delight. “This gonna be one of those roommate situations, Dean?”
“No. No. Definitely not.” Yes.
Melting the Ice was great college sport romance with a lot of explorations and first times, but also dealt with finding ones identity and own path in life.
Dean and Brody were a bit of an unlikely pair, but they really had all of the chemistry! Being put together as roommates by their meddling friend Ramsey, it didn’t take long before something other than friendship started to build between them. Neither of them had ever been with a guy before, and it was sweet and very hot to see them explore together.
The push and pull was great here and I like how Beth Bolden initially kept building on the will they won’t they feeling, even if something happening between them felt pretty inevitable. The sexual tension was extra thick and it I loved how it was almost palpable every time they were in the same room. There were some bumps along the way, as they both needed some time to come to terms with their mutual attraction and just how well their first ‘experiment’ went…
It was a bit of a slow burn with miscommunication / avoidance, as Dean and Brody both tended to avoid each other instead of communicating and facing their feelings. They were both very busy with studies and sports, so it wasn’t that hard for them to stay away from each other. It was easy to understand their insecurities though, and why they acted the way they did – and I appreciate how it didn’t feel dragged out or overdone.
Melting the Ice was a great start to a new series and I really enjoyed the themes and tropes in this one! It was entertaining to see how oblivious and naïve Brody and Dean were at times, and there were a bit of humour to their story as well. The chemistry between them was perfection and I liked the depth of their story, as Brody had some tough choices to make about his future. There were a lot of interesting side characters and I loved getting little glimpses into who might get their own story eventually.
They’d barely touched each other yet. Never even made it to a bed. And yet even the thought of Brody had him in a chokehold.
Book links:
Amazon | Goodreads | BookBub | StoryGraph
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