My Fiction Nook: Book Review: Cancer Ships Aquarius (Signs of Love #5) by Anyta Sunday

Friday, February 21, 2020

Book Review: Cancer Ships Aquarius (Signs of Love #5) by Anyta Sunday

Blurb:

Prepare to dip your toe into the biggest adventure of your life, Cancer. There’s romance in the air, and it smells deliciously salty.

Dumped by the fifth girl in two years and abandoned by his best friends, Reid Glover is alone and in need of a home.
Desperate, he interviews to become a live-in manny aboard widowed Sullivan Bell’s yacht, the Aquarian.
The job? Not to look after thirteen-year-old Joanna. No, this child-mastermind needs Reid to befriend her dad, urge him to participate more in family life, encourage him to date, oh, and become his closest confidant and help him unleash his bottled emotions.
No pressure.
At least he’s not entirely out of his depth.
Okay, so he may have a slight aversion to the ocean. And possibly attract more than his fair share of misadventure.
But he is a pro at crying.
Watch out, Sullivan. Reid is on his way with a family-sized carton of tissues. He will help Sullivan through his fears. Will help him find love again.
Will absolutely not fall for him in the process . . .

Caution, Cancer, how long will you fool yourself?

~ ~ ~

Cancer Ships Aquarius (Signs of Love #5) is an MM opposites-attract romantic comedy featuring a misadventure prone manny and a blunt widower.
More wit, banter and bad puns - and even more heart-stopping slow burn!
Can be read as a standalone.

Tropes: slow burn, will-they-or-won’t-they, opposites attract, 10 year age gap, manny loves widow,
Genre: New Adult, light-hearted contemporary gay romance

Todd's rating:

Anyta's "Signs of Love" series has been a lot of fun, and this latest installment was no exception.

From an early age, 28 y.o. Reid had always found himself being rejected, first by his less-than-compassionate parents, then by a long line of girlfriends, so one of his most heart-felt wishes was to finally have someone in his life that truly wanted him there. Who would miss him if he wasn't around.

At 37, Sullivan had found true love, only to suddenly and unexpectedly lose it four years ago. But he hasn't healed, hasn't learned to fully live again, even keeping his 12 y.o. daughter, Joanna, at arms length.

But Joanna was sick of her dad always running from putting down new roots, so she decided to take matters into her own hands and request that Sullivan hire a manny to help take care of her. When in reality, the manny was entirely to help in her efforts to pull her dad out of his funk and to reengage again.

Joanna and Reid were a bit of a devious, plotting pair, for sure, and I enjoyed seeing their up-hill battle with Sullivan slowly begin to bear fruit. Not that it was easy, it wasn't, but well worth the work that they put into “Project Anchor the Storm”, as she called it.

The story was Anyta's trademark slow-burn, with the steam seeming to occur especially late in this book, not that I minded, as I was kept engaged by plenty of touching and humorous moments in those earlier chapters. Like Reid's almost love-like infatuation with his life jacket, which constantly made me chuckle.

If I had to pick one aspect of the story, gun to my head, that was a smidge disappointing, I'd have to say that it would be that I would've like to have seen the story go a bit more over-the-top with the described character traits. Such as Reid supposedly being misadventure-prone and Sullivan being stern and somewhat-cold. Other than a few instance of both, I was left wanting those aspects of their personas played up a bit.

The book ended with the shortest of separations, one that thankfully wasn't allowed to linger, then followed up by a grand gesture from Reid to get his man back, then an epilogue from a few months later, all of which made me pretty happy.

I'd rate the story at around 4.25 stars and strongly recommend it for fans of the other books in this series.

This book is *FREE* with Kindle Unlimited membership.