All of the books in the Rainbow Place series can be read as standalones. I have read all of them and highly recommend this series. Happy Place is a coming out story about a man in his forties who has hidden his sexuality all of his life; no one knows, not even his ex-wife.

When George unexpectedly comes out to the younger man who interviewed him for a magazine piece his life begins to change. When Quentin finds out that George has never been with a man before he offers himself to George. Before long things turn into something that neither of them expected

Although their relationship starts out as strictly a couple of hookups, the more they see each other the more their feelings change. The first sex scenes between them seemed pretty realistic to me as George has never been with a man before and only knew what he’d seen in porn. Also, his nerves caused him to have performance anxiety and that also felt pretty realistic to me.

Happy Place really tore me up in places. I was so sad for George that he hasn’t experienced romantic happiness in his life. His strict upbringing by his fanatical mother pretty much scarred him and caused him to be ashamed of his sexuality; it has prevented him from living openly as a gay man. There were many places in this story that brought me to tears but I knew that Jay Northcote would give George and Quentin a happy ending.

Quentin is falling for George but he just can’t handle the pressure of keeping George a secret and it’s causing a strain in their relationship. Quentin doesn’t want to force George to come out because if things don’t work out between them, he doesn’t want to be responsible for forcing George to do something he wasn’t read to do.

I loved that George’s job was restoring boats and that he lived on a sailboat. I’ve never been on a sailboat but have always wanted to experience that. The scenes on the sailboat were really beautiful. They allowed me to imagine that I was on the boat and being comforted by the gentle rocking when the boat was anchored.

I think Rainbow Place is a fantastic series and I hope Jay continues to write more books set in this world.

Reviews for Jay Northcote

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Rainbow Place Series

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