17 year old Aidan is staying at the Mandarin Oriental NY for the night when he gets bored. He checks out the gay hookup app, DirtyPaws, and see’s that this hotel has lots of options for fun. He responds to a request from a guy named Benoit and heads up to his room. A little nervous, even after a couple of drinks, Aidan figures he and Benoit are on the same page for a quick fling. When he wakes up to Benoit’s dead body and a laser target moving around the room Aidan realizes he’s fallen into an alternate reality. A reality where he’s been mistaken for someone else. His life changes from hookup to hunted.

Swipe Right for Murder starts fast and never stops. A really fun, politically charged action novel, our hero has to make a decision to get involved to save not only his own life, but the lives of his friends and family. Filled with intrigue, red herring’s, sexual innuendo’s, and fear filled encounters, Aidan is forced to grow up and face his questionable past decisions that led him to this place in his life. He also starts to question a world where what he is, a young gay man, makes him obscene to conventional society. His eyes wide open he needs to choose a side when both sides look wrong.

Aidan’s history made his story unique and interesting and his decisions very personal. A brother who dies suddenly of an enlarged heart, a sexual relationship with a friends father, and his parents questionable response to his being gay have altered his life’s path. He’s made a ton of mistakes and relives those memories over and over, shaping the decisions he makes while on the run. His psychoses led him to react in a way that was surprising, engaging, and made him more sympathetic a character than what we see at the beginning of the novel. By the end of his run, I’m all in, fingers crossed that he comes out ok.

Without giving anything away I’ll just say that Aidan’s a character you learn to like more as the book goes on and you learn more about him. The flimsy layers of Aidan’s personality peel away to reveal a delicious pulp that is real and about mid way through Swipe Right for Murder I settled in and gobbled his story up.

Through Aidan’s eyes we see how faulty society and our government is to those who live on the outside of societal norms. Or at least what society considers the norm. Derek Milman makes an interesting point by comparing our government to this made up terrorist faction. The outcomes may be slightly different, one protecting citizens, and the other harming them, but how they get to those points are pretty similar. Both factions maneuver and take advantage of everyone to get what they want, bulldozing over innocents to get the outcome they’d like. In the end I think Aidan grows enough to see this reality doesn’t make a world that he’s happy to be in and he makes decisions to improve his circumstances for not only himself but those like him. I liked this self discovery and Aidan more for having come to that conclusion.

Seriousness aside, Swipe Right for Murder, while delivering a lesson on what’s right and wrong in our world also delivers a hell of a story. It’s fast pace, interesting hero, and even more interesting side characters made this a fun novel to read. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more from this author. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher for my honest review and it was honest!

Opinions from around the Blogosphere

“I’m in the minority here when I say that this book is toxic, as it has a 4.5 star rating on Goodreads right now. When I say toxic, I’m saying a political agenda seems to be shoved down some kids throats here. In other words, if it’s looking to change someone’s mind about something, I feel, at the ARC’s stage, it would blatantly fail, as anyone who has any sort of anything against left-wingers would immediately catch on to what’s happening within the first twenty pages and put it down anyway.” Page to Page

“I loved Derek Milman’s first book, Scream All Night, and honestly wondered if his sophomore effort would live up to his debut. I’m thrilled to say that I think it actually surpassed it! Both books blend the world of classic film, with contemporary coming-of-age themes, sympathetic and relatable main characters, and over-the-top (in a good way) storylines.” By Hook or By Book

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Copyright 2019 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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