Wren Wilds' Florida Panhandle Series

Welcome to Tex's Roadhouse, the center piece to Wilds' ongoing series of hurt/comfort novels featuring an eclectic cast of larger than life characters that include gentle giants, broken twinks, tough as nails bar tenders and country music stars. Wilds loves a good hurt comfort yarn with some heavy insta-love leanings in each of their works.

• Stormy: This is the first book in the series and introduces us to Tex. He's big, he's loud, and he's fond of strays. He owns Tex's Roadhouse, a dive bar for bikers that his father built and he now owns and operates. The problem is there is a category 5 hurricane bearing down on him and he's ignoring evacuation orders. All he needs is some sandbags and some plywood, but on his return from the hardware store he finds a stranded biker who is out of his depth and caught up in a down pour as the hurricane's outer bands make landfall.
  
  What follows is a forced proximity and slow burn introduction to the titular character of Stormy. A young man running from his past, and obviously afraid. But fate would have it that Tex is the bulwark Stormy needs. Honestly, the book only works because Tex is like the perfect gentle giant. And boy can he go on and on. Other books have long winded train of thought characters that I just get sick of reading. But Wilds seems to know the secret to Tex's long speeches and makes almost of them memorable, and they only add to Tex's charm. And the charm really comes into play because Tex recognizes what Stormy needs. He's not trying to fix this quiet and terrified twink, he's giving him the safe space he needs. The book establishes additional characters like the bar's mother figure, Sheila, who is a no nonsense bar tender who worked for Tex's dad before he passed the bar on to Tex. She's a delightful character who I couldn't help but envision as Katherine LaNasa who plays the tough as nails charge nurse in The Pitt.
  
  The Tex and Stormy slowly morph into a couple and the book turns to Stormy's past where the third act delves into a yarn about righteous justice. I won't lie it was a tad off putting for me, I wasn't expecting the amount of violence that is displayed in the final act... I'm not sure the foundations for it are backed up by Stormy's journey through the first two acts. But the underdog tones and righteous justice themes buoy it enough to get you to the happy every after, and ultimately the line up for the next book in the series. I would give this an 8/10 but the weird bit in the third act brings it down to 7/10 but I liked the setting and the characters enough to dive into the next book.
  
• Benji: Unlike other "in universe" series, I think Wilds is one of the few authors that allow the majority of the previous book's cast to play specific roles in the following books and continue to build them out. We start with the titular character Benji, a wedding planner who is in town on a job, and he finds himself at the Roadhouse to blow of some steam after dealing with a Bride and her mother all day. After ignoring Shelia's bartender wisdom, Benji finds himself on the wrong side of some other bar patrons. Enter Mickey, Tex's best friend and local cop. Things go very much sideways and Benji and Mickey fall head long into a lovely Injured MC troupe.
  
  What follows is some great bed side vigil and guilt troupes as Benji and Mickey slowly start to lay down some foundations to their shared traumatic experience. People note that some of it gets a little repetitive, and there are some levels of disbelief that come into play as Benji really burns himself from both ends to maintain his own life and his developing relationship with Mickey. But I'm a sucker for Injured MC and the third act of the book sort of shines once Benji and Mickey are given more freedom and we return to the Roadhouse where the original cast shines.
  
  While third act breakups aren't everyone's cup of tea, and this one really is just because Mickey can't use his words, Wilds does a very humorous bit and the third act breakup actually becomes sort of playful and less angsty than your classic third act breakups. It's made even more cute in that Tex and Stormy get pulled into it. It also brings in Benji's best bud Dante, who is the wise sage of a friend who wants the best for Benji while also recognizing Mickey has potential even if he's going about handling Benji the wrong way.
  
  It's a heartfelt book, that builds out this found family further and has some great Injured MC content and likable characters.
  7.5/10
  
• Levi: Of the three books so far this one is the most light hearted. While still leaning into hurt/comfort and traumatic past issues, this book is very much a Cinderella story. You have Levi. He's a country music star that's facing some PR issues and his slave master of an agent has just booked him as a main liner for a local event. Levi just needs to keep his head down and hide out in the mansion his agent has rented him.
  
  The problem is Dante, Benji's best friend from the second book and real estate agent, is trying to sell the mansion Levi has been put up in. What follows is a forced proximity, enemies to lovers, and unrecognized celebrity yarn. Levi is more than the persona he dawns for his career, and his past has been one of manipulation and mistreatment of a minor by powerful people around him. He's being used and he doesn't know a way out and he's been doing this so long it's just the prison he knows.
  
  This book isn't super deep, I mean it's puddle for sure. But it continues to build out the Roadhouse universe and like the second book major events for previous characters take place in this book. Benji and Mickey's story continues in this, to very satisfying levels, Dante is completely fleshed out even if he ends up being larger than life even compared to Tex. All the while Levi puts down some roots with the original cast, primarily Tex.
  
  These books become less about the couple specific to the title and more about the growth of the community that's being build around the Roadhouse. It's comforting and delightful and it feels like coming home each time another books is released. 7/10