Blogtour and Review: Outing the Quarterback – Tara Lain

Posted 23 September, 2014 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Blog Tour, Reviews / 7 Comments

Blogtour and Review: Outing the Quarterback - Tara Lain

*I received a free copy of Outing the Quarterback from via Enchantress Design and Promo. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *


Warning: This book includes mature content such as: sexual content, and/or drug and/or alcohol use, and/or violence.
Blogtour and Review: Outing the Quarterback – Tara LainOuting the Quarterback by Tara Lain
Series: Long Pass Chronicles #1
on 19 September 2014
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, LGBT
Format: eARC
Source: Enchantress Design and Promo
|
5 Stars

Will Ashford lives in two closets. He meets his wealthy father’s goals as both the quarterback for the famous SCU football team and a business major, but secretly he attends art school and longs to live as a painter. And he's gay. But if he can win the coveted Milton Scholarship for art, he’ll be able to break from his father at the end of his senior year.

In a painting master class, Will meets his divergent opposite, Noah Zajack. A scarred orphan who’s slept on park benches and eaten from trash cans, Noah carefully plans his life and multiple jobs so he has money and time to go to art school. Will's problems seem like nothing compared to Noah's. Noah wants the scholarship too and may have a way to get it since the teacher of his class has designs on him, a plan Will isn't happy about.

When a gossipmonger with a popular YouTube channel finds evidence that Will is gay, the quarterback’s closet doors begin to crumble. Hounded by the press and harassed by other players, Will has to choose. Stay in the closet and keep his family’s wealth, or let the doors fall off and walk out with nothing. Nothing but Noah.

Welcome to my stop on the Outing the Quarteback blogtour! This tour is hosted by Enchantress of Books Blogtours, and you can find the other tour-stops by clicking on the image above.

My first reaction after reading this amazing story was just WOW, oh my goodness! Tara Lain has totally outdone herself – I loved Will and Noah, and Jamal and Eve were great characters, too.

My Outing the Quarterback review:

Secrecy, hurt and heartache are very much present in Outing the Quarterback. Will wants to be able to keep it together for just one more year until he finishes high-school, then he’ll go off and live his own dreams rather than his dad’s. Being the star quarterback, and dating the cheer-leader queen is not at all what Will wants, he would rather paint, find himself a nice guy and just live quietly out of the spotlight.

When he meets Noah at an art-class, he finds a whole year to wait until he can fully be himself too long, and things happen rather quickly after their first meeting. Also, he realizes he needs to break up with his girlfriend, and she does not take that lightly at all! Out for revenge on Will, she goes to the school’s gossip-monger to share her suspicions about Will’s true self.

I loved the anguish, the way Will was so afraid nobody among his friends and family would stand by him, and the utter desolation of not being the man he wanted to be. The characters were really well done, and I was so angry at Will’s father, both for his reaction and the way he acted after Will finally told him that he was gay, that he wanted to paint, and that football wasn’t his thing at all.

Well-written, Outing the Quarterback has both tender and tough moments, and the injustice Will, and probably many other LGBTQ people go through in real life, was poignant and touched me deeply. If you are looking for a true love story, where the road-blocks seem to be far too many, you should pick this up at your earliest convenience and enjoy the beautiful story Ms. Lain has created.

Some of my favorite Outing the Quarterback quotes:

He showed her some teeth, then went back to mixing. A little of the lime mixture and a lot of cachaça over the ice. With a twirl of the glass to mix, he tasted it. Whoa. He didn’t drink much. Not only was he still underage, but his parents’ fondness for alcohol made it low on his list of attractions.

Noah hummed as he gathered the plates for his corner table. Hummed! Him. Man, he wanted to be ashamed and pissed at himself for being such a jerk to the jockoid, but he just couldn’t do it.

Will had swapped his dressier party clothes for a sweatshirt, and Noah swapped that for skin, pulling the soft fabric straight up and over Will’s head. Before Will caught his breath, Noah leaped forward and captured his nipple between sharp teeth.

Outing the Quarterback giveaway:

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Available for purchase at 
   

 

 

 Outing the Quarterback excerpt:

“You’re not telling me that your own parents don’t know you’re gay? No way.”
“Way. I’ve never come out to them.”
Noah opened his mouth, then closed it. Being alone looked better and better. “How is that possible? Did you just decide you like guys last week or something?”
“No. I think I pretty much knew when I was twelve.” He smiled. “Our neighbors had a son who was about sixteen. His bedroom was across from mine. I used to peek through the curtains and watch him dress. Watched him jerk off too. Man, he did that a lot.” Will laughed. “I got hard every time, and I ended up beating my meat as much as he did. One day I finally realized that he had a sister who walked around the backyard wearing, like, nothing. I never looked at her, just him. That’s when I got worried.”
Had Noah ever been worried about being gay? Maybe a little. “But you date a girl. I saw you with her hanging all over your body.”
“Yeah. For the last couple years I’ve had sex with girls. I hoped I was bi.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and shook his head. “It doesn’t work very well. I even had to take Viagra once. I finally gave up and broke up with her.”
“When?”

“Today.”
“Jesus.”

He smiled, kind of sad. “Yeah, it’s been a helluva day.”
“So are you going to come out now?”
His golden eyebrows drew tight above that straight nose. So damned Aryan. “I wish I could. No, that’s a lie. I dread the whole thing. But the truth is, if I come out, the whole team takes it in the ass. Other teams will harass me, which means my guys will defend me. Some of them will. And they’ll get suspended for fighting. Anyway, it’s a fucking mess trying to come out in team sports. I’ve got to wait until after I graduate.”
Noah frowned. “If big-time athletes like you never come out, it will never change.”
“I get that and I hate to say this, but I’ve got enough shit in my life without carrying the damned rainbow flag.”
Noah sucked in his breath to call the guy a pussy. And stopped. Coming out had been no big deal for him. Just one more weird thing about weird Noah. No one expected anything different. Will’s life was another whole pile of bullshit. Different but maybe not better. “So why did you come here?”
The green eyes glanced up, then away. “To tell you I didn’t lie to you about my name because I wanted to deceive you. I’m just so deep in lies I can’t see over the top.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you want me to know? Why did you care?” He held his breath.
Will frowned. “Did you just have sex with Masterson?”
What the—? He pushed himself back on the couch. “What the fuck business is that of yours?”
He didn’t look up. “If you’re committed, spoken for, I want to know, that’s all.”
“Nobody speaks for me. I’m committed to no one. And I’ll have sex with whomever I please, got it?”
Will looked up from under his eyebrows, and this time he grinned. “I just wanted to check to see if you were too tired.”
Noah suppressed a snort. “What makes you think I’d want to have sex with you?” He tried to keep his lips from turning up.
“You kissed me, remember?”
The smile must show by now. “What if I didn’t like it?”
“Not an option.”
“You think you’re that good, huh?”
Will steepled his fingers in front of his own smile. “Yep.”
“I might catch girl cooties from you.”
“You’ll have to take that chance.”
Noah cocked his head at the big, handsome quarterback. Did he dare suggest it? Hell, the guy ate painters for breakfast. “There’s just one thing, jockoid.”
“What?”
“I like to top.”
“Oh. My. God.”

About the Author:

 

 

Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 23. Her best­selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft. She lives with her soul­mate husband and her soul­mate dog in Laguna Beach, California, a pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!
You can find Tara at

 

               
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Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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7 responses to “Blogtour and Review: Outing the Quarterback – Tara Lain”

  4. Bookworm Brandee

    I think I’m going to one-click this as soon as I finish my comment. I love the premise of this, Lexxie. And I know how much you enjoy Ms. Lain’s writing. So I know I’ll enjoy it. But more than that, it’s such a realistic and relevant story line. I almost clapped when, in the excerpt, Noah said that if big name athletes don’t come out, nothing will change. That’s so true, but I’m sure the repercussions of doing so keep many from coming out.

    So I guess I want to read this because it sounds like Ms. Lain has created some wonderful characters and a great story around a social issue that is important to me.

    Thanks for sharing and sorry for the long-winded comment. 🙂 **BIG HUGS**

    Bookworm Brandee recently posted: **Early Review ~ A Little Faith ~ Emma James**
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