Spring Break at Villa Hermes (Brandt and Donelly book 4)by Xavier Mayne

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Blurb
Troopers Ethan Brandt and Gabriel Donnelly celebrate the one-year anniversary of their engagement by flying south for a week of calm relaxation at the Villa Hermes, a gay boutique hotel on the beach. But when the rest of the guests turn out to be college guys on spring break (unwittingly booked into a gay hotel by a passive-aggressive travel agent), their week turns out to be anything but calm.

Ted, one of the spring breakers, has harbored a crush on his roommate and best friend, Bark, since they met freshman year. Now, on their fourth and final spring break, Ted knows they must soon say good-bye. A lacrosse star and ladies’ man, Bark has no idea Ted has fallen for him—until a storm forces the entire group underground for twenty-four hours of stress and truth-telling. Bark doesn’t want to say good-bye to Ted at graduation either. He just didn’t know how to put his feelings into words or if he could face the consequences of speaking them. Brandt and Donnelly help the college guys through their crisis by showing them what love between best friends can grow into.

Review

Ted and Bark are friends and roommates in their last year at the university. This is to the their last “hoorah” and Ted plans to say good-bye to the man who’s been his unrequited love interest for the last four years. But when a manipulative travel agency books Ted and his friends at the same gay resort as Brandt and Donelly a lot of things happen that change that plan.

**
This is an absolutely hysterical and lovely story. Ted’s friends are full of charismatic stories that get told one night as they all huddle against a storm.  Each striving to be their own man and to deal with their own sexuality in ways that none of the others ever guessed.

Xavier Mayne has given us more wonderful secondary characters with just as much flavor as Bryce and Nestor.  I also love that Xavier is not shy about letting the secondary characters sometimes steal some of the limelight.  In this case Ted and Bark’s story, though lovely and really sweet, has moments where it is eclipsed by the tale of the underwear model and the bear and a blossoming bi-sexual hippy.

I love that we continue to be awed by the love between Brandt and Donelly again – there are still layers to explore in their relationship- and it is always fun to check in on them as they get closer to marriage.

I have really enjoyed this series tremendously and I think that this comes in second as my favorite of the bunch.

I whole-heartedly recommend it and give it 5 of 5 hearts.