Book Review Four Bears Construction by KM Neuhold
Trying to actually review the books I read. Don’t expect much. I am an actual disaster.
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ANYWAY! Just got through reading the Four Bears Construction series by KM Neuhold. As of the time of this post, there are currently five books in the series with at least one more in the works.
The premise is basically some gay guys who work in construction but don’t want to deal with the homophobia and intolerance that is typical among most construction crews, set out to start their own.
The first book is set after the group already has a successful company and, like most romance novels, features them falling headfirst into love. All the books can be read as a stand-alone but to really get the character-building it’s best to read them in order.
I read all five as audiobooks, there is a duel narration as the chapters do switch perspectives fairly often. And while I did have a preference for one of the narrators over the other it had nothing to do with the quality of their work.
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Book One: Caulky (Yes all the book titles are puns)
Tropes: Friends-With-Benefits to In Love (but not wanting to admit it because the other guy isn’t looking for something serious, Oops I am Him
Cole is a typical no-strings-attached kind of guy.
Ren just got dumped by a guy he’d been with for years.
They hook up and are never supposed to see each other again, but of course, they can’t stop thinking about one another.
And then Ren decides to remodel his bathroom and Hijinks ensue when Cole is the contractor that shows up.
And of course, while both of them are pining over one another they are also both slowly falling in love with the ‘mysterious’ person they met on a dating app.
Honestly, this story is cute. I liked the fact that both of the characters were in their late thirties as usually, romance tends to focus on the mid-twenties. It had a heavy emphasis on being honest with yourself and trying new things.
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Book Two: Nailed
Tropes: Neighbor from hell, miscommunication
In book one Stone moves into this fixer-upper. And it seems like his neighbor hates him for no reason.
So, Stone decides to give the man a reason to hate him. This involves goats and pink pet-safe hair dye.
Dare is a grumpy fuck who overheard and misunderstood something. But now has a reason to think Stone might actually be the most annoying man alive.
This book is really just ‘the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one’ combined with ‘is the dumb one really dumb or is he fucking with us’. It deals with family issues and the long-term effects they can have and a character learning to change aspects about themselves that they once needed to survive but that is only hurting them now.
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Book Three: Hardwood
Tropes Teaching an old dog new tricks, coming out, oh shit, that’s my kids’ teacher
So Everette is in his mid-forties. He’s gay. But he’s never admitted it to anyone. Not even his best friends and business partners who also happen to be gay, or his ex-wife with who he has a child.
Watson is his daughters’ music teacher and not wanting to get too attached to someone who he believes will surely want to ‘sow his wild oats.’
Alright, so this book had the potential to be my favorite in the series as it dealt with someone who was coming to terms with their sexuality much later in life. There were hijinks and deep emotional talks, but if you read this book be prepared to want to jump through the pages and shake Everette.
As Watson mentioned many times throughout the book, no one has the right to make you come out before you’re ready, but by a third of the way through the book, I was screaming.
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Book Four: Screwed
Tropes Friends-to-Lovers, Fake dating, fake marriage.
Ollie is a serial groom. And as such has become the but of a lot of jokes around the Four Bears office. He wants love. He wants forever. And he jumps into things with both feet even when he knows it won’t last.
Daniel thinks that the romance industry has poisoned the minds of everyone by making them think that there is a perfect person out there for them. But he hates bullies.
So when they wake up after a drunken night in Vegas to find themselves married to one another there is no way Daniel is going to let Ollie become the but of yet another harmful joke.
Now they’ve got to stay married for at least 8 months and make the rest of the Four Bears crew think that it’s real.
This book had a lot of friends to lovers moments and was big on the message that it’s never too late to follow your dream, even if you didn’t know that you had one. It also dealt a lot in how people aren’t perfect, not even when you love them, and that no one out there can complete you as you aren’t half of a person.
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Book Five: Stud
Tropes: Age gap, trying not to ruin the friendship, sabotage
West is Dare’s (From Book Two) nephew and bisexual. Sawyer is the owner of the local gay bar. West is in his early twenties and Sawyer is in his late thirties early forties. (I forget the actual ages sorry) West has been trying to get Sawyer to go on a date for years but after numerous rejections, he finally stops and they settle into a comfortable friendship that means a lot to both of them.
Then three years pass and West’s friends and uncle are starting to get worried about him not even trying to date anyone. He agrees to go out on a few dates since before he met Sawyer he went out on loads.
Sawyer, for reasons he doesn’t want to examine too closely, proceeds to sabotage those dates.
This book had a lot to do with facing down perceptions and realizing that you can’t judge everyone by your ex. There is a bit of a side story with letters that they found belonging to an older gay couple from the 40’s and 50’s. And Murder Ducks.
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Book six for this series (Stripped) is in the works with a release date of July 2nd. The MC is Miller who first shows up in Book 4 as a new hire at Four Bears, Miller is a trans man with a six-pack, and from the synopsis of the book, the love interest is a tweed-wearing professor from a nearby college.
All of the books are available on Kindle Unlimited.