The Terms of Release by B.A. Tortuga

Title: The Terms of Release
Series: N/A
Author: BA Tortuga
Genre: Gay Romance, Contemporary
Length: Novel (232 Pages)
ISBN: 978-1-62798-614-4
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (March 24th, 2014)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥5Hearts
Reviewer: Lisa

Blurb: They say a man can always come home. So after doing hard time, Sage Redding heads to his family’s northeast Texas ranch to help his ailing daddy with the cutting horses.

Adam (Win) Winchester is a county deputy and the cousin of one of the men killed in the incident that sent Sage to prison for almost a decade. While Win’s uncles, Jim and Teddy, are determined to make Sage and the entire Redding family pay for their loss, Win just figures Sage has paid his dues and maybe needs a friend. Maybe he needs more than a friend. In fact, Win’s counting on it.

No one’s denying Sage is an ex-con who went to prison for manslaughter. Regardless of the love he has for his father, he’s returned knowing things will likely go badly for him. Maybe a man can always come home, but he may not be able to stay.

Purchase Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4776
Review: B. A. Tortuga is one hell of an author. She gives you characters with such personality and situations that you can’t put the book down once you start reading it. This is an amazing story with such a heart breaking twist to it.

Sage had been just a teen when he had started his relationship with Angel. Times had been really hard with the two of them. They had been into many things including drugs. However when Sage learned that Angel had been cheating on him, he had decided to leave it all behind. Angel had taken the keys and since he had no way to go home, Sage had just slept in the truck. However, he had been awaken by an explosion. An explosion that had killed Angel.

Sage had lost his boyfriend to the explosion, and because of the fact that it was a drug lab explosion he had lost eight years of his life. They had sentenced him to hard time in a maximum-security prison. And everyone knows what happens in prison, especially for someone who is so young and little. He had been released and had decided never to go back home to the pain. However when his mom called he left to help his family. He had expected the hate that he felt from many of the residence. Including the sheriff and other family members of Angel’s. What he had not expected was for one of the police officers who was not only Angel’s cousin but also an old classmate, to actually help him.

Win knew that Sage had been given the raw in of the deal. He knew that his cousin Angel had not been good for anyone. He saw something in Sage, but he just wasn’t too sure at first what to think. However, he felt a strong connection with him, and knew that he would go against all of his family to be with this man. Now if he could get Sage to realize he wasn’t going to leave him. He knew Sage felt a lot of guilt for it all and that Sage felt that he was never going to get ahead in life. Sage had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also knew that there were so many obstacles in their way, but he also knew that this man was worth it all.

To spend eight years in a prison for something you are not truly guilty of is something that I would never understand. Yes, he had been into drugs, he was young and stupid. However, he had been outside sleeping in the truck when the home exploded. He had been dealt a bad hand but he was strong and surviving. He would do anything to help his family even come home to a lot of hate in the small town. This story gives you all of the drama, excitement, danger and pain that just makes a story come together.

It gives you a loving police officer who overlooks everything about a sex ex-con. He shows Sage that there is love still out there for him. That he deserves the love he receives not only from his family but also from him. When you read this story, you will fall in love with these guys. They have the desires to love each other, the abilities to overcome all their pain and turn them into gifts of strength. They have many people fighting against them but they have many who want to help.

I would recommend reading this book, once you start you won’t be able to stop. I picked it up and thought to myself lord it is over two hundred pages, it will take me forever to read it. However once I started, I could not put it down. It will catch your attention from the first paragraph and will keep it to the very end.