OVEREXPOSED (In Focus #4) by Megan Erickson-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date September 20, 2016

Levi Grainger needs a break. As a reality show star, he’s had enough of the spotlight and being edited into a walking stereotype. When he returns home after the last season of Trip League, he expects to spend time with his family, only to learn his sister is coming back from her deployment in a flag-draped casket. Devastated, Levi decides the best way to grieve will be to go off grid and hike the Appalachian Trail—a trip he’d planned to do with his sister.

His solitary existence on the trail is interrupted when he meets Thad, a quiet man with a hard body and intense eyes. Their connection is stronger than anything Levi has ever experienced. But when Levi discovers the truth about what Thad is hiking to escape, their future together looks uncertain, and uncertainty is the last thing Levi needs.

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REVIEW: OVEREXPOSED is the fourth installment in Megan Erickson’s contemporary, adult IN FOCUS M/M romance series. This is former reality star Levi Grainger, and Thad Connors’s story line. OVEREXPOSED can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. The previous story line couples make a cameo appearance at the ends of the book. The reader was first introduced to Levi Grainger in book three-Out of Frame-where he was presented as the ‘token’ gay guy on the reality show Trip League.

NOTE: OVEREXPOSED contains M/M sexual situations.

Told from first person point of view (Levi Grainger) OVEREXPOSED focuses on the building relationship between former reality star Levi Grainger-a twenty three year old young man who recently lost his sister-his best friend- to the war in the Middle East, and quiet, brooding twenty six year old Thad Connor- a man struggling with the direction of his life. To fulfill his sister’s dreams and wishes, Levi goes off grid and begins to hike the Appalachian Trail-alone. Enter Thad Connor, the man who would steal Levi’s heart, and destroy his faith in the man with whom he would fall in love. What ensues is a friends to lovers relationship that will falter when the truth about Thad’s solo hike is revealed.

Thad is a dark, introspective and foreboding character; a man whose silence screams secrets and pain, and in this Levi is determined to draw forth some sort of emotion from the man with whom he is falling in love. Thad needs the solitude of the Appalachian Trail as he struggles with what was and what is about to be. As a former reality star, Levi remains hidden from the public and social life, preferring to complete the trip his sister had planned but life has a way of interrupting his freedom as they meet several people along the way. Thad is unaware of Levi’s notoriety, and Levi prefers it just that way. The $ex scenes are intimate and provocative without the use of over the top graphic language or text.

OVEREXPOSED is a passionate and emotional story about starting over and personal growth for two men whose futures are fated by distance and time. The premise is encouraging and impressive; the characters are colorful, energetic and charismatic; the romance is captivating and powerful. OVEREXPOSED is an inspiring and poignant story.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy