Lickety Split

Lickety Split is hilarious. It's such a fast paced, great book. I love the speech patterns. More reason I really want to go to Texas. I thought Patch and Tucker are interesting and likable. I totally enjoyed everything about this book and would highly recommend it.

Absolutely fantastic! Blew me away. I love Damon Suede, and all of his stories are so much fun to read, but this is my new favorite (sorry Silas) gah, Tucker Biggs - holy hot damn, he's perfect. If you've got a dirty cowboy kink (and I sure do) he's the answer.

I really enjoyed watching them fall in love over the course of the story. It's all from Patch's pov, and seeing Tucker through Patch's eyes was such a treat. From Patch's boyhood fantasies of cowboy/coach/slut/daddy the real Tucker emerges and blends in with who Patch grows into during the story. They need each other soooo well.

What a trip - 100% perfect!

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered that Damon Suede is from Texas. I'm still struggling to wrap my brain around that as, having met this wonderful author, I honestly couldn't begin to reconcile those two thoughts. For anyone who is starting to feel a little prickly, don't. I have nothing against Texas, per se, it's just not a state I could conceive Damon having grown up in. With all that said, once I read the description for 'Lickety Split', I was all in and ready to have the time of my life. I was not disappointed.

Patrick (Patch) is twenty-two and still struggles with reconciling his memories of growing up in Hixville versus the reality that hits him once he's home. He got there with a chip as big as the state riding on his shoulders, remembering nothing but all the stuff he hated about growing up there, and it took a while to remember some of the good things. "Only, Hixville wasn’t like he remembered, so maybe he and his folks weren’t either."

Then there's Tucker. A forty-three year old man who has never been out of Texas and has rarely strayed too far from East Texas. Comes from a no-good family and Tucker has bred his own share of bastards in the county that hate him. Tucker is simple but far from stupid. He just has a way of looking at life that seems pretty practical, all things considered. The more I saw of him, the more I liked him.

“I’m just a man, Patch. You gotta see that. I’m stupid and stubborn, headed nowhere fast. Whatever bullshit you imagine about me, I can’t never measure up. I’m just some old cracker, used to wrestle steer. Nobody needs to call me sir.”

I was surprised and pleased at the amount of character study the author wrote. This is no simple story. Far from it. Patch and Tucker are both very complex men with insecurities, vulnerabilities, strengths, and weaknesses, and both still trying to find their path in the world, albeit in different ways. Falling in love wasn't planned and neither had a clue what to do about it. Patch finally realizes sometimes you just have to slow down in order to find your place, and Tucker figures out that staying one place your whole life isn't necessarily a good thing.

“Oh kiddo. Love don’t exist to make folks happy…. It’s there to tear us up and make us over. To teach us how much we can survive ’fore we keel over. It’s like sunshine. Makes things grow and burns your ass both.”

'Lickety Split' was way more than I expected it to be. It moved me and made me really think about life, and love. A truly beautiful story about going home and finding what you never knew you'd lost.

NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews

Reviewed by Erin for Diverse Reader

There's a saying "You can never go home again" which played in the back of my mind all through my reading of Damon Suede's new book, Lickety Split. With a title like that and an eye-catching (though not my personal favorite) cover, not to mention, hello, a new Damon Suede book, I was more than a little pumped to read this one. By the end, I was glad I'd read it, even if my feelings about it are a bit complicated, much like the main characters of the book, Tucker and Patch.

I'll say this first, though. I'm a Southeast Texas girl. I grew up in Beaumont so seeing my hometown and the surrounding area as a setting of a book was a kick in the pants. I don't know that it's ever happened so right away I wanted to love this book. I totally got Patch's ambivalence and his conflicted feelings about his hometown of Hixville. After leaving home at the age of seventeen, it's seven years before Patch goes home again, though it's to bury his parents. He hasn't seen or talked to them since he escaped and not only does he have to deal with that, but the man that made his growing up particularly painful, Tucker Biggs, has been named the executor of his parents' estate. So, not so much to be happy about returning to Hixville. Patch also has complicated feelings toward Tucker. Sure there's some misplaced hatred, but there's also a gnawing infatuation and draw to Tucker.

Patch and Tucker are definitely not the most endearing characters I've ever read. In fact, it was quite difficult to like either one of them. At the beginning, through Patch's selective memories, Tucker is nothing but a homophobic, womanizing pig. The more time adult Patch spends around Tucker we come to find out that much of what Patch has believed and the things that sent him fleeing his hometown have been inaccurate. It turns out his parents didn't hate him for being gay. It turns out that Tucker had strong feelings for Patch all along but couldn't deal with them. And to be quite honest, Tucker is hard to like. He's gruff and crass and crude and some of the things that came out of his mouth made me squirm uncomfortably. Not a horrible thing to have happen mind you, which just goes to show how talented Damon Suede is. I did warm up to the big cowboy though, and once he was actually honest with Patch, I enjoyed him more.

There are plenty of hot sex scenes in Lickety Split; from Damon Suede would you expect anything less? I mean they were on fire hot. But what I really appreciated was how Patch redefines what home is. Patch is impetuous and whiny and quick to form an opinion. The miscommunication between Tucker and Patch made me want to pull my hair out they were so frustrating, but two people who have such strong personalities are bound to clash, and these two do that and more. It takes quite the talented author to make me care about characters I don't particularly like and Damon made me care about Tucker and Patch. I wanted them to be happy. I wanted them to find their way past their hurt and anger and find a way to make things work. That says something about the quality of the storytelling.

Lickety Split is a romance that's outside of the norm for sure, but it's definitely worth the time to read it. And by the end, you might just think about what your definition of home is a little differently. I know I did.

*Copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie by Dreamspinner Press for my reading pleasure in hopes of an unbiased opinion, a review was not a requirement.*

Patch left home as a teenager and worked his way to New York where he became a model and then a DJ. He tried to forget him hometown and family, and lived it up partying around the world. Until Patch received a call that his parents had died, and he needs to go back home to take care of things. Patch cannot believe that his parents would leave him anything upon their death, since they never liked him growing up. He's really unhappy when he gets back to town to find out that his dad's best friend was left the executor of the estate. Patch has nothing but bad memories of Tucker and there's no love loss between the two. Too bad his anatomy refuses to listen. But Tucker may not be the person he remembers and now that he's in his 40's, he seems to be more open minded about some things.

Let me say, this book was not for me so don't go by my review, you need to read it for yourself! I didn't like either main character and honestly never felt a connection between them anywhere but below the waist. Part way through the book, I started noting when the words "meat", "pole", or "bone" was used to refer to anatomy, and it was a lot. I've read some books that were crude, and all about the naked time and I definitely know there are a lot of people that are going to love this book. For me, I found all the naked time off-putting because of the way it was described "adding some gravy to the meat", and various other ways.

If you enjoy raw naked time in an enemies to lovers book, this is definitely the book for you. There is an age gap, Patch is in his very early 20's and Tucker is in his 40's and was the best friend of his father. Tucker has gotten around in his 40 years of life, left lots of offspring, and doesn't consider himself gay. He's just willing to take care of things with whoever is around. There is also some consensual bondage, if that's something you're not interested in reading about. This book ends with a HEA.

Rating: 3.5 stars