A very good second chance story with older main characters.
Renewing Forever By Kelly Jensen
Genre: Contemporary Romance, GLBTQ, MM
Released: November 12, 2018
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Series: This Time Forever, Book 2
Frankie and Tommy once dreamed of traveling the world together. But when seventeen-year-old Frank kissed Tom, their plans ended with a punch to the jaw and Frank leaving town without looking back. Thirty years later, Frank’s successful career as a journalist is interrupted by his uncle’s death and the question of his inheritance—the family resort where his childhood dreams were built. When he returns to the Pocono Mountains, however, he finds a dilapidated lodge and Tommy, the boy he never forgot.
Tom’s been keeping the resort together with spit and glue while caring for Frank’s uncle, Robert—a man he considered father, mentor, and friend—and his aged mother, who he refuses to leave behind. Now Robert is gone, taking Tom’s job with him. And Frank is on the doorstep, wanting to know why Tom is still there and why the old lodge is falling apart.
But before they can rebuild the resort, they’ll have to rebuild their friendship. Only then can they renew the forever they planned all those years ago.
Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003
A very good second chance story with older main characters.
I absolutely loved the first book in this series, Building Forever, so perhaps my expectations were a bit too high when I started to read Renewing Forever. This one started out a bit too slow for me and the back and forth in the timeline threw me just a bit at first. It may just have been one of those situations where my head wasn’t in the right place for this particular book – it happens sometimes. Now, having said all that, I am so glad that I kept on reading. BTW, characters from book one make brief appearances in this story but you won’t feel lost if you haven’t read it.
While the story started off a bit slow for me it just kept getting better and better. I loved how this book was about second chances and also that the MCs (main characters) were nearly 50 – older couples deserve love and happiness, too, and I think romance writers/readers sometimes forget that.
Tom and Frank were childhood best friends but came from different economic worlds. Tom was being raised by a single mother who was an addict but loved her son very much. Frank came from a family that was much better off and his uncle owned a resort in the Pocono Mountains. Frank returns to the Poconos after his uncle dies and leaves him the resort.
Frank never knew why Tom punched him when he was getting ready to leave for college and he never understood why Tom never answered any of his letters. The author is a bit cagey about giving us the answers to questions brought up in the blurb and it’s quite a bit in before we learn everything.
The more I read this book the more I didn’t want to put it down. It was almost heartbreaking to learn that such a close friendship as what Frank and Tom had just completely dissolved in one moment of lost temper.
Frank is surprised to learn that Tom has been working at the now broken-down resort. Once they start to get their friendship back on track, they begin making plans for rebuilding the resort. But Tom is hiding a lot of stuff from Frank and when he learns about it, he isn’t happy; it nearly ruins the second chance they’ve been given.
I really loved these characters and I hope there will be more books in this series.
♥♥♥♥♥
O Factor: Scorcher
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Tom rolled onto his side, facing Frank. His gaze had been pretty steady, focused mainly on Frank’s, but now it dipped slightly. Frank stopped breathing. The forest fell silent, every creature as still as his heart. Even the creek seemed not to burble, caught in this delirious pause. Fingers of unreason pushed at Frank’s shoulders, urging him to just do it. To lean forward, to press his lips to Tom’s. He was old enough to laugh it off if Tom rejected him. He could say he’d been playing. Teasing. That sort of behavior had become second nature. His motto was easy come, easy go.
But this was Tom. Not so easy. Already gone beyond his reach?
Frank found a breath, sucked it in.
Then Tom was there, closing the distance. And it was his breath at Frank’s lips. His mouth. A kiss, as light and crisp as a fallen leaf. Another breath, a second kiss, this one firmer, a lingering touch, a question begging for an answer.
There was no time to debate the merit of it, and Frank wouldn’t have anyway. Not with Tom. Never with Tom. With a soft groan, the simple sound hiding every complication, he gave in to the invitation. He kissed Tom back. Not a peck to the lips, not a return brush. He fastened his mouth to Tom’s and kissed him.
And flinched . . . sure history would rewind and play forward, bringing a fist out of nowhere to land sharply against his nose.
Instead, Tom curled a hand behind Frank’s neck and pulled him closer. Kissed him harder. Then moved, tasting Frank’s lips in small touches out to the corners of his mouth and back again. A looser kiss, openmouthed. The curious graze of tongue. Another invitation.
Frank caught Tom’s shoulder and opened for him. Tom didn’t dive in right away. Instead he seemed to look for Frank’s rhythm, for that pattern of kissing lovers found when their mouths fit in a certain way, and then their tongues were touching, tasting, sliding. The distance between them evaporated. Tom’s thighs were against his, warm and cold at the same time. Water trickled from their trunks, slicking the skin of their stomachs as they came together, arms wrapping around each other’s shoulders.
The kiss deepened, became something other than a hi and hello. Became I want more. A need to get farther inside the skin of the other.
I want to roll you over and fuck you.
If aliens ever do land on Earth, Kelly will not be prepared, despite having read over a hundred stories of the apocalypse. Still, she will pack her precious books into a box and carry them with her as she strives to survive. It’s what bibliophiles do.
Kelly is the author of a number of novels, novellas and short stories, including the Chaos Station series, co-written with Jenn Burke. Some of what she writes is speculative in nature, but mostly it’s just about a guy losing his socks and/or burning dinner. Because life isn’t all conquering aliens and mountain peaks. Sometimes finding a happy ever after is all the adventure we need.
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