Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. – Kahlil Gibran
Yessssss. I’ve been waiting for this book since the very second I read the final words of Letting Go, Drew and Mason’s story in M.J. O’Shea’s Rock Bay series. I thought that anticipation was bad, but only until I started reading Finding Shelter and realized it was nothing in comparison to the anticipation I felt while waiting for Justin Foster and Logan O’Brien’s first kiss. That was a little more like torture.
And let me tell you, I thought the wait was worth it.
Justin has escaped to Rock Bay, the tiny town in coastal Washington State where his aunt and uncle, who will become Justin’s temporary shelter from a childhood and a life that has left its share of scars, live; though, sadly, it will never be home for Justin, because any concept he has of home means fear and pain, and is the place from which it’s always best to be prepared to run, not the place that means security or acceptance, and certainly is not a place that means forever.
Trusting in his new family’s unconditional kindness isn’t something that comes easily for Justin; trusting in the unconditional kindness of his new employers, Lex and Tally, or of friends like Mason and Drew, and particularly of Logan—the very picture of the quintessential jock, the ones who made Justin’s school days a waking nightmare of abuse—is next to inconceivable. Trusting in the fact his father won’t show up on his doorstep at any moment and serve up the hell Justin had survived and escaped from is beyond the realms of his ability to believe.
Through all the uncertainty and caution and doubt and fear and anger and heartache, though, Justin and Logan manage to fall in love, even if they do try to fool each other, and everyone else, by calling it friendship, all for lack of the faith they need to grab hold of the feeling and to the faith that what they feel for each other is not only mutual but can be the kind of shelter that feels like home.
This is the story of how a straight guy falls in love with a virtual stranger at first sight, of how there is no tangible way of explaining what attraction is or why it works. It’s the story of how bonds form and the ways it’s possible to see a person for the first time and realize he is the one you want to belong to. It isn’t rational. It isn’t logical. It isn’t measurable or verifiable. It’s life altering and soul changing. It simply is.
I so loved this story for everything it was: sweet, romantic, touching, and uplifting. If you like this series at all, I can’t imagine you won’t be so glad that Justin and Logan have got their story now, and have got the chance at a happy beginning.
You can buy Finding Shelter here: