Only Trick - Review

Only Trick by Jewel E. Ann

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What they say: “Don’t Look Back in Anger”

In one night, I lost five years of my life. Here’s what I know …

I was homeless. 

I’m a recovering drug addict.

My inked skin crawls from lustful eyes. 

I have a serious aversion to women. 

My gay partner is a home wrecker. 

I own a gun and I’m a damn good shot. 

I’m a makeup artist, but it’s an insult to my talent. 

I’ve never wanted to possess anything except my Ducati … until I met Darby. 

Now here’s what I know since that day in the ER when she pieced me back together … nothing—but a few random thoughts.

My new “friend” is distracting, clingy, and obsessed with acronyms, emojis, and phrases like “breakfast soul mates.” 

I didn’t want to like her, but she crawled under my skin and swallowed me whole. Now we’re best friends and she’s my new addiction. I'd drink her from a shot glass, snort her up my nose, or inject her into my veins if I could. What I won’t do … is ever tell her that. 

She doesn’t know me … I don’t know me. When those missing years come back, I think she will hate me … I think I will hate me. 

My parents named me Patrick Roth, and this is my story.

What I say: This is a bit of a strange review for me to write because I was expecting to really enjoy Only Trick, but although there were some moments I really did enjoy, a lot of it annoyed me and fell a bit flat. 
I read the book purely based around the synopsis. The idea of a gay make-up artist who has amnesia and is obsessed with a women, was just too intriguing for me to miss. However after after the big reveal I found myself getting more and more aggravated with the main characters. 
Trick cannot remember a big chunk of his life and is very guarded around women (he's actually pretty moody and rude). When he meets Darby he expects her to be just like all the other spoilt women who fawn over him, and is shaken when she isn't. 
I initially really liked Darby and appreciated how she stood up to Trick and questioned his attitude. I even found her slightly stalkerish behaviour towards him kinda of amusing. The problem I had with her was how she let him treat her later on in the story. She seemed to lose a lot of her sass and becomes almost subservient to him. She goes from quirky and fun, to needy and jealous. I was literally willingly her to tell him off and find her strength again. 
Trick's behaviour was what really annoyed me because he seemed to think it was fine for him to do what he liked, but would become extremely jealous of any guy around Darby. I did appreciate his search for the truth and how much he genuinely cares for her, but it was the manner in which he shut down and how he often treated her that I had problems with.

There are a lot of naughty scenes throughout the book, which while hot were a little repetitive at times and I felt as though they were stuck in a cycle of sex, jealousy, arguing and making up, which while it sounds hot on paper, did seem a little toxic at times. I really wanted them to work through things and find a HEA together, because although I have been negative about them, I did like the idea of them as a couple. I felt as though they deserved some happiness together.

I wasn't a massive fan of the epilogue because it all seemed extremely neat and extremely left of field (I can't say more without posting spoilers), but I did appreciate the glimpse into the future and finally getting some answers (even if they weren't what I had expected).

2.5 - 3 Stars in my Sky!