Bully for Sale by Leta Blake Blog Tour

Heat can be sold, but love is earned.

Bullied and outcast, Ezer has seen firsthand the cruelties of the world. He knows what’s expected from his kind—timid compliance and submission to his “betters.” But Ezer isn’t one to roll over and conform to the role society has forced upon him.

Despite his defiant nature, Ezer is coerced into partnering with a man of his father’s choosing. One his father promises will love and care for him for the rest of his life.

A night of nameless and faceless passion later, Ezer is horrified to find himself bound to Ned, a bully who has done so much to make his life hell. Ezer’s determined to hate Ned but he can’t help the way his body craves his touch.

Ned is young, privileged, and hopelessly in love with Ezer. Too bad his pack of so-called “friends” have targeted Ezer for torment. Ned has a lot of regrets, but none greater than his role in Ezer’s misery. When Ned’s offered the contract of a lifetime, he sees it as the only way forward with the man he loves.

The dual biological drives of heat and its aftermath might be all that’s keeping them close now, but Ned is determined to prove he’s worthy of Ezer’s love.

While Ezer is just as determined not to fall for his bully.

Bully for Sale is a standalone m/m romance set in the Heat for Sale universe featuring forced proximity, first times, bully romance, opposites attract, and enemies to lovers.

Content warnings: bullying, sexual assault (not between the heroes), heat, knotting, pregnancy, intense birth, familial coercion.

Don’t miss our reviews of the rest of the Heat for Sale series!
For book one, Heat for Sale, click HERE.

 

 

Book 2
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The front porch was small, but there was a rocking chair on it, so Ned led Ezer toward it, the shade of the covering casting off the warmth of the pale, winter sun, but letting the cool sea breeze sail through. Ezer sighed as he collapsed in the chair, his overheated skin still flushed from their last coupling.

Ned took a seat at Ezer’s feet, daring to rest his head against Ezer’s knee, as they gazed out across the sandy dunes toward the splashing water, and the soft blue sky sped away into the distance, merging with the horizon.

Fingers entered Ned’s hair, soft and timid, carding through it. Ezer said, “You keep telling me you want me to understand.”

“I do.”

“Then I think you should start talking now,” Ezer said after a few sweet moments had passed. “The heat will be back, I know. This is just a reprieve. But we have some time, and I want to hear you out.”

“What should I tell you about first?” Ned asked, not wanting Ezer to disappear into silence again. “I’ll tell you anything.”

Ezer laughed under his breath. “You know what’s crazy? I believe you would.” He touched Ned’s hair again, before pulling his hand away, tucking it beneath his arm and looking out toward the ocean. “When did you decide you liked me? Was it when you and your pals were harassing me on the first day of school?”

“No.” Ned was, relieved to confess this truth. He’d lived with it on his own for so long. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“No.”

“I do.”

Ezer rolled his eyes. “Don’t even pretend you—”

“I’m not pretending,” Ned said fervently. “I saw you on the first day of school, and my heart…” Smiling, Ned clutched his chest to demonstrate. “Just like that, I fell in love with you.”

Ezer frowned. “That’s not what I want to hear. I don’t believe in it for one thing. For another, it just makes the rest worse.”

“I’ve told you I’m sorry.”

“No,” Ezer said, diverting his attention to the sea. “For now, through this heat, I’d rather pretend nothing about our lives existed before we came to this house. That I didn’t exist. This is my life now, so I should get used to it.”

Ned chewed on his lower lip. This house wasn’t Ezer’s entire life. It couldn’t be. This was just an interlude. He had to make Ezer understand, so they could move forward together with love.

If only Ezer would go ahead and fall in love with him already.

 

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Angie – ☆☆☆☆
This book has a lot of triggers so read with care. This book made me feel all kinds of things – hate, sadness, empathy, and eventually, hope and happiness. Ezer and Ned have a history that wasn't so pleasant. I don't want to go into things and spoil anything, but Ned was a complete jerkface to Ezer. Ezer had such a rough life you can't help feeling for him. Ned didn't agree with all that happened to Ezer and harbored secret feelings for Ezer. When these two are thrown together, it started off rocky. It was a slow burn that eventually got the reader to not hate Ned anymore and to root for Ezer and his happiness. This book put me through the ringer but was worth it.


Erica – ☆☆☆
Bully for Sale is the second installment in the Heat for Sale series. While it could easily be read as a standalone, I recommend reading Heat for Sale prior, as the cast of characters are familial connections, where the previous protagonists make many cameos on the pages – their presence impacting the overall plot.

Ned and Ezer were both abused by their parental units, groomed to act in the manner in which they are behaving. Ned to always put his father first, no matter if it causes destruction to his own future. Ezer to champion for his omega parent, because he too is an omega, even if that parent isn't worthy of the devotion. This abuse leads to behaviors that are hard to swallow on both their parts.

During Heat for Sale, Heath downgraded his nephew as his heir by breeding an omega and having a son to call his own. Heath's nephew, Ned, was his previous heir, seeing the boy as more son than his layabout brother's son.

Ned is in a precarious position, forced to befriend his father's business partners' sons. While Ned is trying to be a better person, trying to make his uncle proud, he also has to think of his father's wellbeing – something his father never lets him forget. Befriending these two sadistic, teenage alphas is the only thing keeping his father out of the poorhouse and away from emptying Ned's trust fund, which would destroy Ned's future. There is only one major issue with this – his so-called friends have targeted the small omega with the hypnotic eyes.

Emotionally driven, easily manipulated by familial connections, Ned is a romantic, believing in love at first sight. While I wouldn't classify Ned as a coward, because he's not taking the path of least resistance. He's on a destructive, painful path, putting a father first that only ever thinks of himself. In the end, his emotions and drive to do right causes him to unknowingly do wrong.

Ezer (going to be honest, I'm not a fan of this name, as my mind continually kept trying to input Ezra for Ezer and it would yank me from the story). Ezer is an omega, born in the middle of a large family of omegas. To Ezer's knowledge, his father kicked out his omega parent for never producing an alpha child, then found a young replacement. Said father sees omegas as nothing but either money pits or opportunities, believing they should forever be barefoot and pregnant to be happy.

Ezer is filled with rage, to the point he never truly thinks clearly. Ezer will never take the path of least resistance, even if that's the path that is right to take or the path that he truly wants to take.

Spiteful, with good reason, highly intelligent, but this belligerence causes him to make mistakes, which make him look emotionally and intellectually stunted. Ezer isn't easy to love, let alone like, even when the reader is rooting for him. Even hormones cannot be blamed for his attitude. While this reader understood the outrage and is equally outraged for him and behalf of other omegas, there wasn't anything else to like about Ezer personality wise.

Ezer used to do math equations – that's it. His entire personality is rage, belligerence, and the drive to be opposing. If Ned says he likes TV shows, then Ezer can't stand TV, and so on. I'm surprised he actually answered with an ice cream flavor instead of saying he loathed it because Ned liked it.

A string of miscommunications and badly behaving parental units leads to the union of Ned and Ezer. Ned is patient, kind, submissive, comforting, understanding, and neverendingly calm and supportive. He's also young, younger than Ezer, yet Ezer assumes Ned should know everything and take care of everything.

Ned didn't get anything out of the contract – the parents did – except for Ezer, believing Ezer was where he wanted to be after signing the contract. Ezer got away from his father, from a fate much worse. I understand Ezer's rage, but it's directed at the wrong party. Ezer's fate was in peril – while Ned isn't his hero, shouldn't require thanks, he shouldn't also be the person vilified either.

I'm not sure why the butler didn't just hire security at the house, knowing everything there was to know about the pair of kids thrust into this situation by their awful parents. They needed a parental unit to take care of them. Heath was otherwise distracted. But Ned cannot know what he hasn't been taught, and it was wrong of Ezer to assume he should just do everything and know everything. Ezer demanding perfection from Ned while all he required of himself was to exist.

While pregnant, Ezer has no plans to take care of anything for himself or the house, nor does he support Ned in any way. I get that some of this was the world building, but Ezer showed no interest for the future either. Nothing was good enough, perpetually waited on like a prince, Ezer couldn't even get himself a drink or put his dishes in the sink.

It was odd, in a world where omegas are to be the caretakers, homemakers, and babymakers. Ezer did nothing but be miserable, most of the misery earned, but it showed he was spoiled and did absolutely nothing as he grew up, entitled and privileged. While the alpha was the one doing the housework, cooking, and caretaking, when that would have never been taught to him growing up. This just didn't compute.

Ned was wrong in the past, he's tried to make amends, even if Ezer is only hearing what he wants to hear. Ezer is borderline abusive in his manner toward Ned, even after admitting Ned was doing what he thought was right, what he thought Ezer wanted. Ned is not a mind-reader where the contract was concerned.

Does Ezer have the right to be angry? Yes. It just felt as if that rage wasn't directed at the correct parties. Ezer should have hated the system, the parents, the bullies. He should have seen Ned as a partner in this hellscape who had no options either. Instead, all he ever did was blame Ned. Everything was Ned's fault. Yet Ezer played into their hands time and time again. This intelligent, stubborn boy would get angry, the anger causing him to do exactly what they wanted instead of thinking of a work-around, even in the end of the novel when he returned to his father's home. Why did he do that? If Ned is at fault for everything, and Heath is so powerful, why not ask them to stop this versus being hysterical and playing into his father's hands. This was frustrating to read and made me dislike Ezer. The omega was a classical damsel in distress acting too stupid to live for the sake of some manufactured drama.

It just felt to me that Ned got the short end of the stick, as Ezer was just as narcissistic as the rest of the cast. Ezer's da was not a good person, and Ezer was now making excuses to justify abusive behaviors.

Ned is so besotted, he would give Ezer anything on the planet. Ezer isn't going to go to school, he wants to work but isn't. He has someone else taking care of the house and eventually the kids. I'm not sure what Ezer plans in life but to be purposefully miserable. Only the epilogue saved Ezer from appearing to be as awful as the parents, but the reader never saw the journey to his character growth. No matter Ned's horrific origins in the novel, at least he grows over the course of the pages.

As a feminist, the omega rights portions deeply resonated with me, enraged me, and gutted me. However, I found it ridiculous that every parent was a piece of shit. Every single one of them. Ned's dad was a layabout. Ezer's father was cruel and insane. His omega parent was not even remotely redeemable, especially shacking up with a married man with kids, said married man was also utterly worthless. The whole lot of them were awful.

Then add in the "bullies" and their never-shown fathers. How many villains can a novel support?

So while I appreciated the omega rights issues, I didn't appreciate how most of the cast was written as the villains to highlight how amazing and awesome Heath is as an alpha and a person.

Ned's journey into manhood was a good read. Ned and Ezer's relationship left a lot to be desired with the fact that Ezer never allowed Ned to truly speak to him, never allowed a true bond to take place. No matter how many times Ezer tested or punished Ned, there was never true closure.

Am I glad I read Bully for Sale? Yes. Would I recommend it? Yes. Did I think there was some missteps in the plot? Also, yes.

 

 

Author of the bestselling book Smoky Mountain Dreams and the fan favorite Training Season, LETA BLAKE’s educational and professional background is in psychology and finance, respectively. However, her passion has always been for writing. She enjoys crafting romance stories and exploring the psyches of made up people. At home in the Southern U.S., Leta works hard at achieving balance between her day job, her writing, and her family.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Bully for Sale (Heat for Sale #2) by Leta Blake to read and review.