I first met Damon Suede in May of 2017 at the RT Convention Writers Boot Camp, where he was on of the very involved instructors. Then recently at this year’s Emerald City Writers Conference, he taught a master class. Both times I had short conversations with him. But it’s his general presence that is so remarkable. He’s a great speaker and he’s so solid on content. When we were working on pitches and loglines at RT, he would come around to help and you’d give him your basic premise and he’d come up with something genius in like two seconds. (After you’d been struggling for minutes.) He comes from a theater background and is a modern-day entertainment polymath. So I was quite curious to see if he was as good a writer as I guessed he might be.

He is. Hot Head is a well-plotted and very emotionally demanding novel about two male firefighters who have been best friends since childhood. The book is told entirely from the perspective of Griff, who has fairly recently become very attracted to Dante. Griff grew up basically as a member of Dante’s large family, as his mother died when Griff was young and his father basically absconded. So Griff thinks his feelings are very inappropriate and would only cause all sorts of turmoil between him and Dante and in the family. 

But then Dante starts down this dangerous path. Looking for some quick money to save his house from foreclosure, he agrees to appear on a porn site. Griff tries to convince him not to but loses that battle. When Dante works on convincing Griff to go on the site, too, for some particularly lucrative “extended activities”, Griff struggles to say no. But he has a hard time saying no to Dante. 

What could go wrong? Loads of things. For one, if the fire department finds out, they’re really screwed. But even worse, what could go wrong between Griff and Dante? Everything. You’ll have to read it to see if it does. 

As I mentioned, the plot of the novel is satisfying. The secondary characters are also good (Dante’s family, an EMT, and a maybe-kind-of-slimy “businessman”). The choice of using Griff’s point-of-view only is a good one that adds to the tension throughout the book because we can only guess what Dante’s thinking based on what Griff sees. Griff is such a sympathetic character with a whole warehouse of feelings, and the mastery Suede has of the reader’s emotions is admirable. I should mention that this is a very steamy book. Also, this is the first m-m book I’ve read that was actually written by a gay man and the level of detail is interesting and very informative. If you’re looking for that kind of information, anyway. (As a romance writer, I am.) 

If you want a very authentic m-m romance, try this one out. I’ve read a few other books from this press, and this one is by far the strongest. 

Clickbait is the sequel to Lost in Geeklandia, which I previously enjoyed (and reviewed). I loved Lost in Geeklandia for its heroine, Charlie, a super-smart but slightly awkward data geek. Gideon is her supportive roommate in that book, and Clicklandia is his own story.

In the first book, Gideon clearly has a lot of personality, though I admit I found him a little annoying. I continued to find him slightly annoying in Clickbait, but only a little and it didn’t keep me from enjoying the book. This is partially because the other hero, Alex, was very likable, a big contrast.

Gideon has a lot of room for growth. He’s fairly shallow and obsessed with image in who he dates and in how he dresses (among other categories). He only wants to date men who meet his high intellectual standards. He is a web developer, and while he doesn’t require his dates to be technical, they have to be objectively successful in the white-collar world. He’s also in a bit of a bind, as he’s a freelancer without work. He ends up taking an impossible job that involves building up a network and a server room, physical work he’s not really used to, although he can do it. The carrot on the stick is that if he can finish it fast enough, he will get a gig designing the company’s web site, which is what he really wants to do.

Alex is much more easily sympathetic. He’s a blue-collar guy who does drywall, electrical work, stuff like that. We already know he’s never going to measure up to Gideon’s standards. He’s also dealing with family issues—his father is suffering from debilitating and heartbreaking dementia (to the point he no longer recognizes his family, as he’s stuck about 20 years in the past). Alex’s sister, who is also Gideon’s roommate, is not handling their father’s decline well. She’s in denial about what it is, thinking it can improve.

Alex met Gideon a couple years earlier at a party and has had a crush on him ever since. Gideon has no idea he exists, until they run into each other in Gideon’s apartment, where Alex is started some remodeling work. They have a relatively unpleasant exchange, accompanied by some clear physical attraction, however. Gideon doesn’t think much about it until they run into each other again—on the job site. It turns out that the company Alex works for is doing simultaneous work there while Gideon builds the network.

There are a lot of obstacles to overcome, mostly for Gideon. He has to get over his snobbery and his aversion to the dementia (he has a big fear of becoming intellectually incapacitated). There’s also an issue with Alex’s size (he’s a big guy) being intimidating to the much smaller Gideon. Then, Alex has to deal with his family situation and get his sister on board with a treatment plan for their father. He’s also got to make time for himself, so he can actually date Gideon.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and found the characters engaging and believable, even if Gideon himself wasn’t always someone I’d want to be friends with in real life. The attraction was realistic and it culminated in a satisfying ending. On top of that, I appreciated the slight geeky bent of the story. Russell added technical terms at the beginning of each chapter, which was fun and added to the feel of it (yet not in a way that would distract readers uninterested in it).