It Takes Two to Tumble

This book ended a little abruptly; it would have been nice to get an epilogue. Maybe the author chose not to because this is the first book in a series, and we'll see Ben and Philip again, but I just wanted a little more resolution.

Speaking of Philip - he is largely why this book is rated so low. While he did eventually grow on me, and I came to even enjoy his point of view, for the first several chapters I actively despised this man. I get that he's all grumpy and miserable, but I honestly wanted to drop kick him all the way back to his ship. Ben and the children caried the story in the early chapters, and the only reason I didn't want to see Philip choke on a cactus was purely for the sake of his children. (I mean, he was mad that his oldest son had a nickname that he didn't know about?! My guy, you weren't there, being a parent to your children, of course you don't know them! And his constant judgement about how wrong things were if they weren't exactly like his experiences on his ship. I can't even... Just no. Boo, Philip. Boo, in the bin with you! And Ben, my sweet sunshine boy, can you stop mooning over the grumpy asshole and just slap him like I know you want to? Please? As a personal favor?) 

Needless to say, Philip did improve (or this would have been a 2 star book, if I hadn't stopped reading altogether) - in that he stopped bossing everyone around, stopped blaming other people for his problems, and stopped thinking military precision and punishment were the only way to manage his children. By the midpoint, I was actively rooting for the pair to be together, though I wasn't sure how the author would manage it when both men seemed to want such different things.

All in all, this was a sweet story and a quick read with enough spice to keep things interesting. My favorite part by far was the familial plotline with Ben and Philip getting to be adorable gay dads, and watching Philip mend the relationship with his kids was heartwarming. I actually wish we'd gotten more of this.