The Harder He Falls

With this spicy, heartwarming tale, Aicher (the Power Play series) launches a new male-male romance series featuring Adrenaline Kick Adventures, an outdoor adventure company in Portland, Ore., run by kinky queer men. New employee Grady, a white-water raft guide, fears losing his job if found guilty of negligence in a rafting accident that left a colleague dead and Grady's cousin Finn in a coma, a trauma for which he feels culpable. He was disowned by his father and abused by his dominant first lover, and he also fears his employers will discover his sexually submissive inclinations. Micah, a non-dominant top who has lingering physical side effects from his own coma experience, volunteers to read to comatose patients and bartends at Dane's, a gay leather bar frequented by Kick's owners. Micah and Grady, fearful of intimacy but drawn together by a strong sexual attraction, discover mutual respect and kindness: "Holding not confining. Supporting not judging. Helping not saving." Readers will love this uplifting, satisfying romantic adventure about sympathetic protagonists finding strength to leave their comfort zones and risk a committed relationship as both friends and lovers. (June)