Title: Tied to Home
Series: Ames Bridge: Book Three
Author: Silvia Violet
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 176 Pages
Category: Contemporary, Age Gap
At a Glance: I enjoyed this one, not my favorite, but that is my opinion only and I still highly recommend it for the romance and the interesting storyline.
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: Luke Sumner has spent his whole life being coddled, after nearly dying as an infant. At twenty-one, he is more than ready to break free from his restricted world. He hasn’t told anyone he’s gay, and he’s only just admitted his kinkier needs to himself, but he hopes to work up the courage to say something to the older man who has captured his attention.
Since moving back to Ames Bridge, Jack Lawrence has been consumed with running a successful bed-and-breakfast. He hasn’t considered making time for relationships until he starts flirting with Luke each week at the farmers’ market. By the end of the summer, Jack is wondering where the spark between them could go.
When Luke finally ventures into a club where he can fulfill his desires, he unexpectedly runs into Jack, and they discover they’re a perfect match in the bedroom. With each hot encounter, more tender feelings surface, but between the age gap, not being out in Ames Bridge, and Luke’s need to come into his own, do they dare be more to each other?
Review: Tied to Home is book three in the Ames Bridge Series. We started with Down on the Farm, and then moved to The Past Comes Home, and now we’ve reached Luke and Jack’s story. I was looking forward to this one. I particularly liked these characters, and I am a fan of the May/December trope. Seventeen years is quite a gap, but Violet navigates it well and, in the end, age doesn’t matter and that’s very clear here. Some of the supporting characters need to get the memo, but that just makes it a believable story and made Luke more endearing to me.
Jack runs the bed and breakfast in Ames Bridge. He’s a good landlord, and shops daily at the farmers market for produce to feed his hungry guests. He loves what he does, but he wants someone to share it all with. Flirting with Luke at the farmers market is just that, flirting. Jack needs a certain kind of relationship, and he doubts the Luke’s fresh-faced innocence is ready for his type of dominance. When Luke walks into the BDSM club that Jack is a member of, no way is Jack going to let someone else initiate his crush into the world of kink. But caution is Jack’s watchword, and moving forward with Luke gets harder and harder with all the opposition he encounters from well-meaning friends.
Luke almost died. Having a catastrophic event as an infant and then having to live with the consequences of that event have left his home-life stifling. His mother has figuratively wrapped him in bubble wrap, duct taped it closed and put him in a padded room. And Luke is ready to break free. He’s finally twenty-one and ready to start asking for what he wants out of life. But knowing what you want and asking for it are two different things, and Luke has been sheltered for so long that he’s just not sure of the correct words. He wants sex, kinky sex, with Jack preferably, but if Jack says no, then he’s open to other options. Getting enough courage to walk through the doors of the club was huge for him. Articulating his wants and needs to Jack is harder than he thought it would be.
These two have so much stacked against them. Jack isn’t out, Luke’s mom is a nightmare of a helicopter parent, and they live in a fish bowl called Ames Bridge. I appreciated the fact that the characters stay true to their ages. Jack tries so hard to be responsible toward Luke and respect the blossoming of Luke’s sexuality. Luke keeps his fresh-faced innocence, and the struggle and conflict is real inside him to step away from that proverbial bubble-wrapped room and live on his own terms. The secondary characters help to move the story along, and Luke’s aunt gets my vote for favorite family member, hands down. Those little old ladies at the diner were a hoot and a half, and the comedic banter made me laugh.
Now I’m going to be honest here: I had some trouble with the way Jack was almost too self-effacing about letting Luke “grow up”, in his eyes. This part of the plot bugged me, and I wanted to hit Jack upside the head and call him an idiot, not to mention being quite perturbed with several secondary characters in Ames Bridge. I just didn’t think all that angst was necessary. I wanted more quality time with these two men as equals.
The books in this series are toned down in the BDSM department. It is there but it’s not the focus of the relationships. This series is about romance and it’s really nice to read. I enjoyed this one, not my favorite, but that is my opinion only and I still highly recommend it for the romance and the interesting storyline. Silvia Violet is pretty much an auto-buy for me, and will remain so. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series and going back to the small town of Ames Bridge.
You can buy Tied to Home here:
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