Erryn reviews Like the Taste of Summer by Kaje Harper (Published August 8, 2019, 55 pages).
Why I read this book: I loved A Midnight Clear.
Jack managed to get a scholarship to a small-town college in the middle of the Iowa cornfields, September 1981. It wasn’t New York, or California, but he figured it would be better than being home. College would be be a new start in a new place, maybe somewhere he could be himself.
Sean was local, born and bred, on the opposite side of the town-and-gown divide, but attraction knows no boundaries. When personal tragedy brought them together, it was the beginning of something extraordinary.
This is the re-release of a story written for a Goodreads M/M Romance writing event in 2011.
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Erryn’s review:
I’m a huge Kaje Harper fan and was in the mood for something simple and sweet. And maybe a taste of the early eighties.
Jack is from the east coast, but he’s landed a full scholarship to a college in Bumfuck, Iowa. He’s not exactly comfortable there, though. He’s not a townie – he’s a college student. He’s also not exactly straight, either, only he didn’t really understand that at first. He’d dated a couple of girls in high school, but nothing stuck. Now he’s got access to plenty of young woman, but none interest him. He’s just hanging out with some friends when some shit goes down and he winds up meeting Sean. Sean is a townie. He’s as opposite as can be from Jack.
Yet the connection is there from the start.
Life’s complicated, though. Being out in Iowa isn’t any easier today, I don’t think, than it was forty years ago. If Jack and Sean were to come out, their lives would be irrevocably changed. Then their hands are forced. So…stay? Go? Stand their ground or run back to safer territory?
I loved that this was a story about love. It’s clear, by the prologue and the epilogue, that the men are together. Their familiarity with each other speaks to long love. Something many of us will never be lucky enough to find. So we get to read wonderful stories about men falling – and staying – in love. Stories that touch our hearts in just the right way at just the right time.
Erryn’s rating:
10/10 Pots of Gold – Compares to 5/5 Stars
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I was born in Montreal but have lived for 30 years in Minnesota, where the two seasons are Snow-removal and Road-repair, where the mosquito is the state bird, and where winter can be breathtakingly beautiful. Minnesota’s a kind, quiet (if sometimes chilly) place and it’s home.
I’ve been writing far longer than I care to admit (*whispers – forty years*), mostly for my own entertainment, usually M/M romance (with added mystery, fantasy, historical, SciFi…) I also have a few Young Adult stories (some released under the pen name Kira Harp.)
My husband finally convinced me that after all the years of writing for fun, I really should submit something, somewhere. My first professionally published book, Life Lessons, came out from MLR Press in May 2011. I have a weakness for closeted cops with honest hearts, and teachers who speak their minds, and I had fun writing four novels and three freebie short stories in that series. I was delighted and encouraged by the reception Mac and Tony received.
I now have a good-sized backlist in ebooks and print, both free and professionally published. A complete list with links can be found on my website “Books” page at https://kajeharper.wordpress.com/books/.
You can find me and my book reviews on my author page here on Goodreads – I hang out on Goodreads a lot because I moderate the Goodreads YA LGBT Books group. I also post free short YA stories on that group, more than 50 of them so far.
You can also find me on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/KajeHarper
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