Listen, I've been up for over 24 hours now. I skipped sleeping in favor of devouring the books in this series by Aiden Bates, "Vanguard Tower". It's a series of books featuring each brother in each book. There's 8 of them. Brothers not by blood (except for the twins) but by choice and circumstances and against all odds, they fought hard to stick together. These are foster brothers who grew up together and became each other's family.
I love chosen family. I love boisterous, colorful and vivid character personalities. What I love most about this series is that even if each book focuses on one couple, we still get a good dose of brotherly action, family centered scenes, strong bonding moments and hilarious meddling family dynamics.
My favorite of the series is the fourth book, Fire and Ice. Best friends to lovers, demisexuality awakening.
I enjoyed inhaling each and every book though. Each story unique, talking about different adversary and trauma. Each time they've overcome the challenges is a victorious one. Some issues tackled run deep, lots of childhood trauma, but it's handled with respect and care. The strong family support makes everything easier to deal with.
It's not heavily angsty, but there are moments. It's steamy, spicy and very intimate. Most of all, it's full of love, surviving traumas and overcoming, sass and banter and happily ever afters.
I'm hoping the author/s keep writing more of this series. I'm on the 5th book, almost done and I can't wait for the next one. It's worth losing sleep over, would definitely recommend. Um, reading the series, not skipping sleep. But you do you, boo!
my rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
edit to add:
You guys, I just finished the last book shortly after I wrote the review above. Well, Owen and Howie's story wrapped up real well. What's really disappointing is the final chapter told from Sean's POV. It's a touching scene, a wedding scene. It would have been exquisite if not for the part where it's really a fast forwarding epilogue/wrap up. It's giving light to what could have been future plotlines for each brother, like who Matt ended up, who was Sean texting, who actually is with Hunter... It also resorted to a deviation of what was originally foreshadowed in Owen and Howie's story : Matt and Hunter. I was really looking forward to reading their story. But I have a feeling the author/s already wrapped things up and there will be no more books out of this series. It's very disappointing and I feel cheated with the stories of the rest of the brothers.
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