Title: Godsend
Author: Sloan Johnson
Genre: M/M Gay Romance
Release Date: 4 February 2015
You can’t choose who you fall in love with. Despite knowing from a young age that he was gay, Scott Murphy couldn’t imagine life without Shelly. He threw away the labels and had eleven amazing years with her, but now, he feels even more lost trying to figure out how to move on after Shelly’s death. After nearly a year of watching Scott fade away, Shelly’s father forces him to start living again.
As much as Chris loathes the idea of attending a bereavement group week after week, it’s one of the only places he can go in this town, other than the bar, to not feel so alone. When there’s nothing to distract him or dull his senses, he spends too much time obsessing over how he should have been able to help his sister. When Scott shows up at his group session, Chris decides that maybe some good can come out of his sister’s death.
There’s no denying that Chris is the first man to catch Scott’s attention in a long time, but how can he move on when just thinking of Shelly sends him to his dark place?
The road to recovery won’t be an easy one, but Chris is determined to help Scott see that life is still worth living. But before Scott can allow himself to admit what he feels for Chris, he knows he has to reveal the full truth about Shelly’s death.
I promised Ma that I wouldn’t drink my dinner every night, but some days, it’s impossible to keep that promise. I tell myself that it’s different on days like today because I’m not drinking to forget how much I miss Jill, I’m drinking to forget how miserable some people choose to make one another. Today, I just about lost it and told one couple that there’s no point in them even trying to get along. Unfortunately, my partner frowns upon me telling couples that sometimes two people just aren’t meant to be together, as was this case with this pair.It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dark atmosphere of Brewster’s after walking around for thirty minutes trying to tell myself I didn’t need a drink. I find an empty seat at the end of the bar and signal the bartender for my usual. Okay, so maybe Ma had a point since he simply nods and has a tall whiskey sour sitting in front of me in less than a minute.I look around, the same way I do every night, wondering if this town will ever start to feel like home. It’s a nice enough place, but there’s a definite divide between those who are from here and those who move here at some point in their lives.I sit a bit straighter when I see Scott, the quiet, broody guy from group, sitting at one of the high top tables in the center of the room. He looks absolutely miserable. When I catch a glimpse of his date for the evening, Adrian the annoying twink who thinks he’s God’s gift to all gay men in town, the annoyance radiating off Scott is understandable.I nurse the first drink, rather than down it as quickly as possible. I’ve wanted to talk to Scott the past few weeks, but he’s ducked out as soon as the official meeting ends, even though Jim hangs around for a while. I’ve considered following him when he leaves, to see if I can talk to him, but then I tell myself that he must have his reasons for not wanting to deal with people and I have to respect that.I feel like a creep, watching Adrian and Scott eating dinner, but I can’t help it. A few times, I’ve thought Scott was checking me out the same way I have been him and this is the first confirmation I have that I might be right. Scott excuses himself from the table and Adrian reaches out for him as he walks away. I laugh when Scott practically jumps back to keep from being part of an awkward and unwelcome embrace.Once he’s in the restroom, I order another drink before putting a five-dollar bill in the jukebox. I don’t give a shit about the music, but it’s the closest I can get to Scott without following him into the bathroom, which is a level of creepy that I can’t imagine stooping to.
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Three and a half stars
*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review
as part of the book tour
This isn’t your usual M/M romance as the prologue is told
from the dead wife of one the MCs – Scott. So with reading that I was not
envisioning how this story was to pan out. It wasn’t an easy prologue to read
either, very dark and depressing, well it would be with the subject matter.
What I did like about this book though was that it didn’t
put labels on a person’s sexuality. Yes Scott had always been truthful with his
best friend, Shelly, who later became his wife, she knew he was attracted to
men. But then their friendship turned into that of man and wife. I would have
liked more detail about how they carried out that marriage as nothing was
really said about a sex life.
When Scott reached sixteen, his parents took off from the
small town to carry on their exploring of the World which they did before he
was born. Due to his close friendship with Shelly, her parents gladly took him
in, so Scott had always classed them as his second parents. He didn’t make a
secret of his believed sexuality but that all changed when one of Shelly’s
boyfriends treated her badly. Scott realised he felt more for her and when she
became ill he asked her to be his wife.
The story really begins a year after her death and when his
father in law takes Scott to a bereavement class, he meets Chris who is there
to help him recover from his sister’s death. He has a pull towards Scott yet
when he finds out he was married this confuses him. This then is the start of
the unravelling of feelings and past lives to finally bring Scott and Chris to
make a new start with their lives, both knowing that life is too short to live
in the past. This is not without any angst as Scott has a short temper, especially
when he feels threatened in his control of his life or getting close to anyone
seeing as those he has loved in the past have left him.
For me the story would have had more kudos if Shelly had
been a man to aid the believability of Scott being a gay man. But then again it
was good to not attach labels so I got over that. It was difficult at times
listening to Shelly’s voice speaking to Scott after her death. I can understand
the need to have this to reveal Scott’s inner dialogue but at times it felt a
bit weird.
Overall a thought provoking read and I did enjoy the
characters in the main, especially Chris. Scott came off a little childlike at
times but I liked him all the same. The relationship was a backwards and
forwards dance throughout and for two grown men this seemed a little immature.
However it did keep me wanting to invest in the romance and route for the
pairing. Loved the secondary characters too, especially Ma! Three and a half
stars.
Sloan Johnson is a big city girl trapped in a country girl’s life. While she longs for the hustle and bustle of New York City or Las Vegas, she hasn’t yet figured out how to sit on the deck with her morning coffee, watching the deer and wild turkeys in the fields while surrounded by concrete and glass.
When she was three, her parents received their first call from the principal asking them to pick her up from school. Apparently, if you aren’t enrolled, you can’t attend classes, even in Kindergarten. The next week, she was in preschool and started plotting her first story soon after.
Later in life, her parents needed to do something to help their socially awkward, uncoordinated child come out of her shell and figured there was no better place than a bar on Wednesday nights. It’s a good thing they did because this is where she found her love of reading and writing. Who needs socialization when you can sit alone in your bedroom with a good book?
Now, Sloan is a tattooed mom with a mohawk and two kids. She’s been kicked out of the PTA in two school districts and is no longer asked to help with fundraisers because she’s been known to lose herself with a good book and forget she has somewhere to be.
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