Title: Stolen Summer
Author: S. A. Meade
Genre: GLBT Contemporary
Publisher: Total-E Bound
Length: Novel
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥4.5Hearts
Blurb: The horror of Evan and Colin’s stolen summer may be over but the nightmares remain. Can their love survive the fallout?
The last thing journalist Evan Harrison expects to hear, when he returns from covering the war in Afghanistan, is that his best friend, Colin Williams, is in love with him.
Colin, an Oxford Professor with a poet’s soul and a roving eye, turns out to be a temptation Evan can’t resist. What he discovers is that sex with Colin is hot, wild and relentless. The two of them embark on a passionate affair and Evan knows he’s going to spend his days with Colin – after one last assignment.
A western journalist in Pakistan is too tempting a target for local insurgents. Evan’s ‘Oh-shit’ sense fails dismally when he is taken hostage and spends four months refusing to let his captors grind him down by clinging to memories of the lover he left behind. Freedom from captivity, however, doesn’t bring freedom from terror. The legacy of Evan’s ordeal results in meltdowns and nightmares that threaten to destroy his life with Colin. He can’t even seek comfort in lovemaking because the pills intended to save his sanity kill his desire.
Evan seizes a chance to put his nightmares behind him by taking one final assignment, covering unrest in Jordan. Colin sees Evan’s decision as the end of a relationship he fought hard to save. If Evan makes it back to England in one piece, winning Colin back will be the toughest assignment he’s ever faced.
Reviewer: Portia
Review: I hated this book. Hated it so much, I couldn’t put it down for two days. I guess I was expecting a cutesy little story about a bi-curious guy’s first time. And I did get that. But, I also got a very poignant story of a young man’s journey through a harrowing experience and his subsequent recovery.
I spent more than half the book waiting for someone to die. There was just a dark foreshadowing that kept me waiting for the next shoe to drop. What happens, instead, is worse in a lot of ways. Wonder if Colin and Evan would ever get their Happily Ever After kept me turning pages. Wondering how Colin would respond to Evan’s choices kept me up way past my bedtime. Stolen Summer is an amazing book. It’s not your average war story, as neither Colin nor Evan is a soldier. But it does give the reader a glimpse into war-torn areas. Not just the atrocities of war, but the humanity of regular folks caught up in a hell that they didn’t create.
The loving is hot and sweaty. The British dialogue is a hoot and the story is very well told. I highly recommend this book and look forward to S. A. Meade’s next work.