I am a huge, huge fan of Annabeth Albert’s Out of Uniform series, so I was very excited to obtain an ARC of Wheels Up in return for a fair and honest review.
Dylan and Apollo from At Attention are one of my favorite couples from any author, so I really enjoyed learning more about Dylan’s big brother Dustin. It was really interesting to see how he fit into the Strauss family and what his past was like up until we meet him in At Attention.
I thoroughly enjoyed Wheels Up from cover to cover, staying up until the wee hours of the morning on a work night because I could just not put it down. Annabeth is, in my opinion, the master of balancing sweet with hot with angst, and this book is no exception. Dustin and Wes’s relationship goes through a multitude of ups and downs that kept me glued to the page, as well as sobbing at the wonderful HEA payoff at the end.
In the other Out of Uniform books, there’s more of an “opposites attract” vibe going on, usually with one character being gregarious and the other more sedate. I liked than Annabeth flipped that a little in this book, with both Dustin and Wes being more on the solid, serious side. Their sexual relationship also has a BDSM element to it that was as unexpected as it was blazing hot. Sometimes with a series it seems like the author is just writing the same story over and over again with different characters, but Annabeth makes each story unique while keeping true to the continuity of the series.
Wheels Up contains the usual wonderful assortment of fully developed side characters you’d expect in an Out of Uniform book. In addition to ones we’ve met before, I especially loved Wes’s sister and parents, and I hope we get to see more of them in future Out of Uniform books.
I really don’t have a single negative thing to say about Wheels Up. 5 stars all the way!
Laurin Kelly 