This is close to 4 stars - it is written well and the story flows smoothly.

I progressed to this novel after reading my first Nora Phoenix with New Daddy at Forty-Seven.

To call Coming Out on Top an "age-gap" romance is too simple and misleading, putting the emphasis on an element that hardly matters. The difference between the MCs is in experience - they are each experienced in life in diametrically opposed ways. And the path taken in the novel is how they bring that experience to each other.

An impulsive young man of 24, Quentin, takes a shine to a gentle giant, Mac, 38, who rescues him in a snow storm in a small town in New York.

Mac is an outcast for various murky reasons, and because he has a severe stutter, which the townsfolk interpret as his being "slow".

The audiobook blurb says "Quentin is searching for ... something. Respect. Answers. His identity." But these things take a backseat to the near-instant sexy romance between the MCs.

Narrator Kenneth Obi hasn't crossed my path before, but he has a great touch with this novel, and not sure I would have got into it if his reading hadn't made the most of it. ( )

You have to love both characters...Quinton because of how devoted he is to life and how hard he works to make the things that are important in his life work out in spite of a huge school debt, and how he wants the people in his life to be happy. He never expected the gigantic snowstorm...he's a California boy and he had never even seen much snow much less all this white stuff. He decides that fate must hate him, because now he's stranded in this small New York town with a broken-down car and an almost empty wallet. To make matters worse...if that is even possible, the guy that owns the salvage yard and come to his rescue is his idea of a dream walking on two legs...but he seems eager to be rid of him and begins to do so by hauling him into town to the nearest...and only inn...which has no electricity...so no heat...plus it seems everyone in town hates his rescuer and the big giant just lets it all happen with a sigh. WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ABOUT??? Mac...the walking dream...has a generator, therefore he has heat...but now he also has Quinton under the same roof with him. I loved Quinton and Mac, (the walking dream). I hated the townspeople for the way they treated Mac, but I also hated Mac through most of the story for allowing it. Then we watched as both characters began to grow and evolve. Overall...it was a fun story, but it was filled with almost too many challenges that the characters had to face in the outside world, however a great deal of care is given to their evolving relationship in the "indoor" world. Nora Phoenix has beautifully provided for the mismatched characteristics of Quinton and Mac... a younger, smaller man who struggles with actually being a Dominant and the older, larger, tatted and pierced "walking dream" who desperately wants to be the young Dom's submissive. Overall, what we get is an entertaining, beautifully written, story, with loads of heart and kink. ( )

3.25 ( )

So much snow

Quentin and Augustus met under less than ideal circumstances, but it didn't stay that way.

I love how protective each of the guys is of the other. I think that they really complete each other in a very good way. ( )