Nobody does gritty, angsty and deeply romantic quite like Garrett Leigh. Just This Once is the first book in her new Men of Porth Luck series, which features a chosen family of misfits who are working hard to make ends meet in a small Cornish town. Porth Luck is a spin off from the author’s Rebel Kings MC series and features some characters from those books in secondary roles while pushing some of the secondary characaters from that series to the fore and giving them their own stories. MC romances aren’t my jam so I haven’t read any of the Rebel Kings books, but I was able to follow this one easily enough – although I will say that there are a lot of characters, both new and recurring, and I did sometimes have to stop and remind myself how they related to each other.

Recently demobbed soldier Mal Gallagher lost his best friend during his last tour of duty and is drowing in guilt for what he perceives as his part in Vinnie’s death, struggling with untreated PTSD and with health issues he’s reluctant to acknowledge. He’s reluctantly moving into the house in Porth Luck his brother Jack – also former military – shares with his closest friends, Sol and Skylar, but has no plans to stick around. He just needs somewhere to get his shit together and decide what he wants to do next before he moves on.

Skylar Buchanan – whom I recognised as the ex-boyfriend of Bodhi Jones from Christmas on Stardust Lane – is a nurseat the local hospital. He’s extremely good at his job, but otherwise he’s a mess; he’s prickly and although he lives with friends, he tends to keep himself to himself, and he uses work as a distraction, taking lots of extra shifts so he can avoid thinking about the dark and complicated shit show of his past and the demons of the present that just won’t leave him alone.

He’s just clocked off a late shift but doesn’t want to go home – he’s too unsettled and on edge to face his housemates’ well-intentioned concern – so he heads to one of the underground bars “dark enough that no-one knows [his] name” to kill time, to just sit in a shadowed corner and stare at his phone while his head spins and he spaces out for a while. But he’s brought back to a sense of his surroundings when a man takes the seat next to him; tall and scruffy with ash-brown hair, an unshaven jaw and green eyes that pull Skylar in. But then it’s all too much – Skylar needs to get out of there, but as he gets up, his head starts pounding and his focus sways; a warm hand at his elbow helps steady him and the guy accompanies him outside.

Mal has very complicated feelings about going to live with his brother and has been deliberately delaying his arrival. This stop at a dive bar to indulge in a favourite avoidance technique and find someone to hook up with looks like a promising one; the gorgeous but haunted-looking stranger who’s caught his eye is just as up for it as Mal is, heat and attraction zinging between them – when a ringing phone breaks the spell – and both men realise they’re not exactly strangers after all and that they’re about to become housemates. Neither of them wants to further complicate an already complicated situation – Mal’s brother Jack has a tramatic brain injury and Mal feels guilty for not being around much or having the faintest clue how it has affected him, but even so, has no plans to stay in Porth Luck, and all of that puts Skylar firmly off-limits. And Skylar… well, Skylar isn’t looking to rock the boat either. He’s not in a place to be able to offer anyone anything other than anonymous sex, and doesn’t want to hurt Jack by taking up with and then dumping his brother. But knowing that starting something is a terrible idea doesn’t stop Mal and Skylar being so aware of each other, of the heat of each other’s presence, of the furtive gazes and the glancing touches and the intense chemistry that burns between them.

Just This Once is a deeply emotional hurt/comfort romance between two damaged individuals who try hard to not to fall for each other but who are unable to stop themselves doing exactly that. Their connection is immediate and visceral, but the initial insta-lust transforms into an almost agonisngly slow burn as they dance around each other and gradually start to really see one another. The romance is angsty and raw, full of tension and a kind of one-step-forward, two-steps-back hesitation, and watching as these two struggle to hold themselves together while fighting their complex internal battles, coming to let the other see the cracks in their tough outer shells to eventually reach a place where healing can begin, is extremely satisfying.

Mal and Skylar’s HEA is most definitely hard won, and I appreciated that neither is magically fixed by love; rather, they come to a greater understanding of what is broken in themselves and each other, and recognise that they need to make changes in their lives. At this point, I’ll encourage potential readers to take note of the author’s warnings at the beginning; Skylar’s undiagnosed and untreated disordered eating is a prominent feature of the story and Ms. Leigh doesn’t sugar coat anything or shy away from the way it impacts him or his life. His past trauma is truly horrific and the way he exerts control over his body now in order to manage the lack of it in his past can be hard to read.

I enjoyed the found-family aspect of the story and the way they – Jack, Sol, Oscar and Sev, as well as Mal and Skylar – all look out for each other is heartwarming and lovely to read. There’s also a sub-plot about a local gang who is threatening Sol and his business – he has a couple of small fishing boats – and trying to muscle in on the scene now that the Rebel Kings have “gone legit” which adds some tension to the story.

The setting is familiar and the character and relationship building is excellent – but I can’t deny that the writing is sometimes a bit too flowery for my taste. It’s dramatic and intense but can quickly tip over that dividing line between ‘dramatic’ and ‘purple’; YMMV of course, but for me, it goes a bit over the top at times.

Just This Once is an excellent start to this new series, a powerful and satisfyingly emotional read featuring two damaged men finding safety and comfort in each other. Despite my criticisms, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading more about the Men of Porth Luck.