Book Review – Stripped Love (Guys Next Door 1) by Baylin Crow

Book Blurb:

Phoenix—I never intended to become a stripper.

Two years ago I was in Nashville chasing the songwriter dream. Sleepless nights between day jobs were spent writing rock ballads and trying to make a name for myself.

That all changed with one phone call that forced me to return to Atlanta.

Needing consistent income to pay the mountain of debt I’d come home to, I traded stripping my soul for stripping my clothes.

Then Archer West comes crashing into my VIP room, tempting me to break all of my rules.

I want him—bad.

What I don’t count on is finding him living right next door for the summer. Inexperienced and with a creative drive that rivals my own, he stirs the lyrics in me once again.

Now I crave more than his body. Archer West has quickly become my unexpected muse.

Book Review

Stripped Love (Guys Next Door 1) by Baylin Crow hit all the high points of what I was in the mood to read. It has a dominant sexy stripper with a heart of gold, and the adorkable nerdy graphic novel writer who has been saving his virginity for the right person to awake something in him. 

And boy does Phoenix wake something up in Archer. Their names aside, their chemistry was explosive right from the start. Archer was literally shaking when he first encounters Phoenix in a strip club on his birthday. It is a scene that I enjoyed reading and re-reading a few times. Muy caliente… 

Since the two characters are so drawn to each other from the start, it is only inevitable that there is going to be some outside force to drive them apart, even if its only for a little while, and that is in the form of a hook-up gone wrong named Aiden who also happens to be a stripper at the same club with Phoenix. 

Aiden seemed to have a little too much going on, he was a stripper, he was hung up on Phoenix, he was actively sabotaging Phoenix’s relationship with archer, he was

That annoying character aside, Phoenix and Archer were very combustible in the sheets, and everywhere else they managed to hook up in this story. Fun read, enjoyed their developing relationship and how even the small challenges brought them together.

The only thing I had to skip through were the inevitable lyrics and songs that were included in the book, as is inevitable when writing about a character who is a songwriter. It neither added nor detracted from my experience, so I just skipped ahead through those parts. 

Solid 5-star book.