Title: Wake
Series: Tidal 01
Author: K. Evan Coles & Brigham Vaughn
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novel (267)
ISBN: 978-1-78651-556-8
Publisher: Pride Publishing (30th May 2017)
Heat Level: Low
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥ 3 ½ – 4 Hearts
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: A love worth the wait
Carter Hamilton and Riley Porter-Wright room together as Harvard undergraduates. An immediate friendship forms, but as the years pass it deepens into something neither man understands. As attraction simmers under the surface, lines begin to blur. When they move back to Manhattan, they gradually slip into the lives their families have envisioned for them.
Both men marry, but in time, Riley realizes he’s ended up in a passionless relationship like his parents’ while his career takes center stage. Although he loves his wife, Carter misses the emotional and physical connection he shared with Riley.
The weight of Riley’s feelings and his growing discontentment with his life eventually push him to tell Carter the truth about how he feels. Shocked and unable to face his own feelings, Carter rejects Riley.
As each man comes to terms with the lies they’ve told themselves, each other and the people around them, they find their lives changing in ways they never imagined. They soon discover that the truths they’ve been longing to tell shake the foundations of their friendship.
Reader Advisory: This book contains polyamory and infidelity, expressions of homophobia by multiple secondary characters, divorce, scenes of M/F/M intimacy, references to parental neglect, disownment, one brief scene involving a physical altercation.
Purchase Link: https://www.pride-publishing.com/book/wake
Review: Over the years Carter and Riley have become best friends, they spend a lot of time together and they’ve shared women together, even after they both marry their friendship doesn’t change. But Riley is becoming discontent with his life, so much so that he decides he needs to face up to what he really feels for Carter and he can only pray Carter feels the same way.
This story was a hard story for me to get into; the opening prologue left me with distaste for both men because of their casual disregard for their wives, it was just shocking that the polyamory, MFM and infidelity that the reader advisory is talking about was with a prostitute… all without the knowledge of the wives so that blasts the polyamory tag out the water.
Anyway, what we have here is a classic case of two men not knowing how they really feel for each other, and two men living up to the appearances that their parents expect them to live. The angst in most parts is about trying to parse through their feelings for each other and Carter angsting over the fact that Riley has decided to no longer live a lie, Riley does angst as well over Carter basically turning his back on Riley but you can understand that because it was easier for him to focus on that rather than his leaving his wife and his parents turning their back on him.
I’ll be honest and say that the story really didn’t need all the past between the two men throughout the years, just bits from the last couple of years would have done it. I had to really cling hard to keep reading as it just felt like filler to me. I mean yeah once it was to the present time for the guys I couldn’t put it down, but most of the stuff that came before had me fighting to keep reading.
Now in the present time we get all the turmoil, the desperation, the hope and, for Riley, acceptance. Riley comes into his own even as he struggles with the aftermath of his decision, Carter begins to flounder and he’s barely hanging on to his ‘safe life’. It’s sad really; you feel pity for Carter as he desperately tries to hang on to his perfectly normal life even as it crumbles around him. You do feel desperately sorry for Riley but it quickly changes to hope as he begins to emerge from the lies and begins to build the life he’s always wanted.
I can’t say that this is a happy for now ending; I can’t even describe the ending to be honest as it’s left in a place where one man has accepted his new life and the other is still desperate clinging to his life with his finger nails and barely there sanity. Oh and by the way the physical altercation that’s warned about in the reader advisory… well its domestic violence plain and simple, just because it’s a woman doing it doesn’t make it any less domestic violence.
I recommend this story to those who love angsty stories, lives being pulled apart and reshaped, friendships tested, relationships in limbo and a desperate need to read the next book!