Defending a teammate's right to privacy cost star football player Gavin Brawley his season. Gavin's uncontrollable rage flared up, and he is now under house arrest for six months. Football is Gavin's life and this does nothing to improve his volatile temper, which is barely helped by his anger management counseling. His manager suggests hiring a personal assistant to deal with the everyday stuff Gavin neglects, as well as the deluge of hate mail that is bound to flood his mailbox. Noah Monroe's friend Jasmine talked him into applying for the PA job, not knowing it was for Gavin Brawley. Noah lost his job at a youth centre after being embroiled in a scandal; he needs money for his student loans and for his father, who was laid off. Noah really doesn't want this job, he doesn't care about overpaid athletes and doesn't know anything about football or Brawley. The initial interview doesn't go over too well: Gavin is his usually hostile self, but he does look like a beautiful golden lion, and only a handful of people know that Gavin is bisexual...

I had read many very, very good things about Santino Hassell, and it is inconceivable that, even though I read a fair share of M/M romances, I had never read his novels; at last, this oversight has been rectified, and only now do I understand what I had missed! Mr. Hassell writes such amazing dialogues that I had a smile plastered on my face from the beginning while Gavin was being so unpleasant because he was also wildly entertaining from a literary point of view; he is one snarly dude! It is a testament to Mr. Hassell's skills that I never hated Gavin, who is seriously bad-tempered and rude. Noah is delightful: he is terrified because he does need the job but he stands up to Gavin's tantrums, and he tells him off, which is one of the reasons Gavin hires him.

I thought Gavin's bisexuality was admirably dealt with, as was everything else, to be honest. Every character was beautifully defined, and I loved the relationships between Noah and his friend Jasmine, and the friendship between Gavin and his teammates Marcus and Simeon; I felt I was included in their inner circle. ILLEGAL CONTACT is very fast-paced, and so carefully structured that Gavin and Noah's very bumpy road to romance is one of the most realistic I have ever seen. The hurdles they face are gigantic and felt so real, it hurt. There is an undeniable feeling of authenticity that permeates ILLEGAL CONTACT which kept me involved all the way. One thing that I did not expect was Santino Hassell's knowledge of the game and his understanding of every aspect of a professional athlete's everyday life, which made the book even more compelling and contributed to Gavin's woes.

Santino Hassell's prose is superb; casually elegant, and masculine, and the author clearly demonstrates that there are ways to write sex scenes without annoying euphemisms while avoiding endless repetitions. The sex scenes are brilliant: they felt realistic, and were so passionate, tender and loving, that I think many romance writers, regardless of the genre, could take lessons from Mr. Hassell. I feel that in the past few years, a lot of contemporary romances, whether gay or straight, have been somewhat repetitive, lacking originality, depth, and authenticity, which are certainly not a problem for this author. Santino Hassell is now on my go-to list!