3.5 Stars
This is a very sweet book. I surprised myself by buying something that had a family mentioned in it but, to be honest, I saw 'bisexual' and 'age gap' and 'father's best friend' in the Amazon tags and my pervy mind said, "you must buy this."
I got the family, Hadley is 5 and her mother and grandmother both died several years ago in a car accident and her grandfather, Jesse, is raising her. The thing that played with my head is he calls himself her daddy. He's really her grandfather so... I didn't understand that. I just felt weird about it, but I don't want to labour that point. It's really neither here nor there, just a personal preference thing.
There is an age gap between Jesse (50) and Cooper (25) and I liked that. I'm usually up for age gap books. They were good together and I liked how Cooper had the attitude to get Jesse onboard with a friends with benefits, no mess relationship. That he respectfully taught Jesse how to have sex with a man. That Jesse didn't wig out that he liked men, had known it before but never had the opportunity to explore it until Cooper.
I'm really not the primary market for this, outside of the fact it's in my gay romance reading world. I usually like darker, meatier books, but I found this to be happy and nice. The characters are all kind people with good intentions, even if Cooper's dad can really get talking about weird shit with his friend - 'are you bi, or pan, it's all good, just get out there and enjoy yourself with whomever you want to do that with, men, women, did I mention men?' (Me paraphrasing) I don't see that conversation going on between two 50 year old men. And then Robbie uses the word dick in relation to his son and his sex life with his best friend Jesse. Just no, not in a sweet book. But it is funny in a weird way.
Bev is the owner of Remington Place. It's a house where she takes in younger boarders and gives them a reasonable rent, sage advice, and good food - that woman can cook a casserole or ten - and guidance. It's a safe place. The young people are all decent and supportive and poke a bit of fun at each other as well. It really does give it that feel good vibe.
Overall, Adore is a ray of sunshine. I read it at night in bed while I was in the middle of reading some angsty, drama-filled books and I found this to be a happy little filler. If you're looking for sweet and sexy, ignore the cover, maybe give this a try.