Title: Renewing Forever
Series: This Time Forever: Book Two
Author: Kelly Jensen
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Length: 346 Pages
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: I wish I could go on and on about how amazing this novel was for me. With a slow-moving but engaging plotline, and characters that leaped off the page in terms of realism, this novel is a win from beginning to end.
Reviewed By: Sammy
Blurb: Frankie and Tommy once dreamed of traveling the world together. But when seventeen-year-old Frank kissed Tom, their plans ended with a punch to the jaw and Frank leaving town without looking back. Thirty years later, Frank’s successful career as a journalist is interrupted by his uncle’s death and the question of his inheritance—the family resort where his childhood dreams were built. When he returns to the Pocono Mountains, however, he finds a dilapidated lodge and Tommy, the boy he never forgot.
Tom’s been keeping the resort together with spit and glue while caring for Frank’s uncle, Robert—a man he considered father, mentor, and friend—and his aged mother, who he refuses to leave behind. Now Robert is gone, taking Tom’s job with him. And Frank is on the doorstep, wanting to know why Tom is still there and why the old lodge is falling apart.
But before they can rebuild the resort, they’ll have to rebuild their friendship. Only then can they renew the forever they planned all those years ago.
Review: Okay, sign me up for any and all additional novels in Kelly Jensen’s This Time Forever series, because this one, Renewing Forever, was even better than the first—and that is saying an awful lot considering I loved Building Forever. This is a deliciously sweet, slightly angsty romance at its best, in my opinion. With well-written characters who have depth and some emotional maturity—but a whole raft of insecurities—the novel gives us a fully fleshed out story that keeps one invested to the very end.
Told in alternating time periods, by hearkening back to the past and unfolding the present day, the book gives a friendship of two young boys from very different economic backgrounds who become best buddies. When Frankie pushes for more right before going off to college, Tommy reacts in fear—fear that any change, moving them to a distinct romantic edge, would ruin the friendship he has come to depend on so much. The two go their separate ways, with Tommy never communicating with Frankie after their falling out. They won’t meet again until some thirty years later, when Frankie’s uncle (Tommy’s employer and, essentially, his father figure as well) passes away, leaving the rundown resort, where Tommy has been living and working, to Frankie. Since they parted, Frankie has become a successful writer, doing various projects for popular magazines, and Tommy has pursued his photography, making a modest side-living from it. However, Tommy has also been caring for his ailing mother, and her facility care expenses have drained every financial resource he has or could earn.
When the two men meet again, there is a great deal of anger on Frankie’s part which simply masks the hurt he had when Tommy turned him away and spurned his overtures. For Tommy, he now has a chance to make things right, to hopefully heal the rift he caused between he and Frankie and see if they can try again. But Tommy still has difficulty trusting that he will ever be good enough for Frankie, and now that he is living near poverty level and is not nearly as successful as Frankie, the doubts Tommy has strengthens the wall he has built around his heart.
I wish I could go on and on about how amazing this novel was for me. Never did I want to both shake and hug a person like I did Tommy. Here he had the man he has loved for so long within his grasp, and fear keeps him from telling the guy the truth. This story was really beautiful. First, I love that Kelly Jensen has chosen to focus on older men in this series—they have both a maturity and a vulnerability that is not very often seen in characters their age. Secondly, I additionally enjoyed the idea that most of these men are having a second go at love and, in this case, hoping to overcome a past that left an indelible mark on them emotionally. But what really delights me about this novel is that the happiness often found at story’s end is one that is solid, real and lasting.
Tommy was a right mess, and yet one could understand his reluctance to allow Frankie to see how much he needed help. After so many years apart and knowing how successful Frankie had become, it was a no-brainer to get just how much of a loser Tommy viewed himself as. It was the struggle that both men went through that made this story so rich. Both had real feelings of inadequacy when it came to being enough for the other. I was swept up in their past and enjoyed seeing glimpses of how they grew together. It’s hard to describe why this story resonated with me; perhaps it’s the age of the men, which was so refreshing given we rarely see both being older MCs. Or, maybe it was the way in which Kelly Jensen never rushed but made time for the story arc to fully develop and thereby made the ending that much sweeter. I think, however, that it was the way in which Tommy grew to understand that relying on a person you love is not failing but rather cementing the idea of a forever-after with that person.
Renewing Forever is an emotionally satisfying novel that allows for love to be the victor over obstinate pride and past failures. With a slow-moving but engaging plotline, and characters that leaped off the page in terms of realism, this novel is a win from beginning to end.
You can by Renewing Forever here:
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