Puppy Pride by Gabbi Grey

Continuing with the Pride Summer Camp 2025 series, we visit a new Pride Camp for queer kids in Mission City! 

From the blurb:

Jai

Six years ago, the guy I thought I loved told all my friends that I liked to wear paws and a tail and crawl on the floor being a puppy. He turned my private play into a cruel joke, and I ran. Left my friends, my family, home, job, as well as my puppy-play group, and tried to let distance and time heal those wounds. Now, I've been given the chance to serve as the director of the new Mission City Pride Camp for teens. But my fresh start turns sour when someone starts leaving dog treats on my desk. Can I stand up to bullying this time and show these kids they have a right to be themselves? Or am I going to run again?

Demetrius

When my best friend got cancer, marrying her was the only real help I could give. Then she died, and I was left trying to single-parent my hurting stepson and stepdaughter without her. When Keegan tells me he's being bullied for being gay, I desperately want to help him gain resources to survive and thrive. Enrolling him at Pride Camp is step one, and I'm delighted to find the director is a pup I loved playing with back at Whatsup Pup Club. If anyone knows about being bullied and inner strength, it's Jai. I'd love to reconnect with him on a personal level, too, but he keeps pretending he doesn't recognize me. I figure leaving him reminder gifts is a good place to start, to show him I'm interested in man and pup. But he seems more and more stressed, and I wonder if I have it wrong. Is there any chance he'll let me be the Daddy I was for those short, sweet moments six years ago? Can I take a load off his shoulders, or will he shut me out forever?

Puppy Pride is an interracial, age-gap, hurt/comfort, second chance gay romance novel with a generous Daddy, a skittish pup, and the magic when they find each other again.

Welcome to Pride Camp, where diversity and inclusion is our motto. We’ve got daddies, mommies, littles, pets and families of all kinds. So, unroll your sleeping bag, make a couple s’mores, and enjoy the show!

Molly Otto's review:

A beautifully told second chance romance set at a Camp Pride, an all-inclusive camp for kids, to learn acceptance of themselves. Jai has run before and ends up back in Mission City to be the new director for this all new camp. Demetrius sends his son to the camp after being bullied in school to learn that not everyone in this world is bad. What he doesn't expect is to once again find the puppy he once played with but was never intimate with. Jai doesn't remember, and together, they learn love and acceptance, and its time to once and for all be settled in one place with their found and brought together family. All in all, a well-done story with puppy play as a side part but not the main story.

Heather's review:

This book combines the Pride Camp theme with this author's Mission City world, offering us a second chance romance featuring two souls that need comfort... Widower Demetrius, who is raising his step-kids and sweet Jai, who ran from past hurts and a doomed secret relationship can reconnect in this slow burn daddy/pup story.

I love that the characters don't rush into anything and build their relationship on trust and communication.  It's lovely to see that the couple and the children find what they are looking for and the whole vibe is sweet and while puppy play is certainly part of the book, the focus is truly on building a strong relationship beyond the play.

Puppy Pride is currently available as an e-book and paperback and can be read as part of your Kindle Unlimited Subscription