“Unless it’s mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it’s a waste of your time. There are too many mediocre things in life. Love shouldn’t be one of them.” – Dream for an Insomniac
Title: Last First Kiss (Southern Comfort #1)
Author: Diane Adams
Publisher: Love Lane Books
Pages/Word Count: 275 Pages
Rating: 4 Stars
Blurb: Eighteen-year-old Gage Harris is not a part of twenty-five year old Trent Foster’s plans. He likes Gage but the intense attraction between them makes remaining just friends unlikely, and the young farmer with two small children is a complication Trent doesn’t need.
Despite all the reasons to stay away, Trent is pulled into the small family. Gage’s boys are delightful and the young man’s honesty and genuine affection impossible to resist. Trent is intrigued by a life so different from everything he’s known. As he struggles to reconcile his plans with his feelings Trent begins to suspect that his random offer of a ride in the rain might lead straight to his last first kiss.
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Review: I never understand the reasoning of people who say that children don’t belong in M/M romance. I don’t always want to read squishy, gooey love stories where the one MC falls in love with the other MC and his children, but I enjoy them very much when I do choose to read them. It brings out the tenderness in the MCs, I think, and makes us realize that love often isn’t convenient. You can’t stay in bed and have sex all day sometimes. It also brings awareness to the feasibility of two parents of the same gender making a family work. Not everyone who reads this particular M/M romance has read 500 others before it. This might be their first one. I think it’s a great message for them to get early and often.
Last First Kiss is a love story about two men and two little boys. Trent Foster is a medical office administrator at a fairly small practice in a small southern town. He sees it as a stepping stone on the path of his career. He doesn’t intend to stay there forever. The traffic on his way to work one day causes him to take a back road he hasn’t traveled before. He sees a sexy young man walking to work and can’t help but admire him. Daily.
Gage Harris is eighteen years old. He is in a loveless marriage and already has two young sons. He walks to his job on his uncle’s farm because his wife takes his truck every day. He has an amazing work ethic and fathomless love for his sons, who are practically neglected by their mother. He sees Trent, in his sexy sports car, slowing down to look at him. Daily.
One day when Trent just can’t let Gage keep walking in the downpour, he stops and offers him a ride. The attraction is immediate and strong from both sides. The two men strike up a friendship which they sense is quickly turning into much more, but won’t cheat on Gage’s wife. Regardless of her behavior, Gage, whose family knows he is gay, holds on to his own morals.
The love that grows between Trent and Gage is so sweet and innocent at first. The unconditional love between Trent and Gage’s sons is enough to make anyone cry. They have a father who they know loves them more than anything, but they still suffer from the loss of the love their mother should be giving them. Gage just can’t keep doing everything by himself and finds he really enjoys doing it with Trent by his side.
This is a slow-building romance, the old-fashioned kind that stays pretty chaste for awhile. Diane Adams gives the reader just enough that we know more is coming. She also makes the reader kind of want Gage to stay true to his loveless marriage. He is trying to set an example for his boys, which is that real men keep their promises. Even when it is hard to do so.
I really liked this book. The characters were realistic and flawed, but they had their priorities in the right order. Many of us have heard the advice that once you have kids, your life changes forever. We also know that you can’t really quantify the all-encompassing reach of that change until you experience it. Gage learned the hard way, and stood up to the challenge when many men his age would have run the other way. Trent accepted love on Gage’s terms because he saw that Gage was worth it. Just as this book is worth your investment of time and money.
You can buy Last First Kiss (Southern Comfort #1) here:
