Heavy Lifting LGBTQ Contemporary Romance
Andrew Grey Books
April 20, 2021
133
Would-be journalist Reg Applewhite is a slight, geeky guy who knows from high school experience that he’s the perfect size to be shoved into a locker. He writes for his sister’s fashion and gossip blogs and is very understandably reluctant when assigned to cover a local bodybuilding competition for material.
Jack Ponte is a physical god, with a perfect body, poise, and intense eyes. But it’s his grace that captures Reg’s attention, and when Reg asks for an interview, Jack agrees. After all, he’s looking for a life after bodybuilding, and Reg’s blogs offer a chance at something less fleeting.
During the interview, they discover mutual interests in fashion and video games that lead to friendship and deeper feelings neither expects. Reg finds it hard to believe that a god-man like Jack would see anything in him, and Jack is just as shocked when Reg seems to see beyond his looks to the person inside. But there is a price to pay for everything, and Jack draws the kind of unwanted attention that could threaten to pull them apart… or worse. Together they need to figure out a way to lift each other up and push through the challenges.
Reviewed by Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Reg Applewhite always dreamed of being a journalist but by the time he graduated college jobs for journalists were few and far between. His sister Isabelle runs a fashion magazine and gossip blog and when she offers him a job, he jumps at it. His newest assignment is to cover a bodybuilding competition
which brings back memories of spending a lot of time in high school visiting the inside of smelly lockers. He is skinny, a geek and wears thick glasses and he will be covering a competition where the men involved would make his high school nightmares seem like a cartoon and there are loads of lockers nearby and huge men. As if it wasn’t bad enough, he had to cover the competition. He was supposed to gossip on Jack Ponti, a fitness model one of the competitors who was seen with a female reality star.
Jack Ponti is everything Reg isn’t, he is every woman and every man’s dream and when Reg asks him for an interview Jack readily agrees. In spite of the differences in the two men they immediately hit it off and find they share the same interests, except for Jack’s diet and workout practices. Jack finds himself attracted to Reg because he sees inside Jack not just outside as most do. So often men and women can’t see past the body and look to find out if there is something more but Reg does.
Jack agrees to do a story about sports clothes and the fact that so often clothes are not available for men his size, the story and pictures are a big hit and Jack and Reg begin to spend more time together and their relationship blossoms. Unfortunately, someone is also interested in Jack but their interest is unhealthy and dangerous. They have to find out who that person is and stop anything before it happens.
This was a beautiful story of two men who in spite of all their differences find a common bond. Reg sees Jack as more than a pretty face and body and although Reg finds it hard to believe Jack sees him as beautiful and proves that the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is very true.