Ebb and Flow (Loves Charter book 2) by Andrew Grey | Tams Review, Excerpt & #giveaway @Dreamspinners @AndrewGreyBooks

Sequel to Setting the Hook

Love's Charter: Book Two

To achieve happiness, they’ll have to find the courage to be their own men.

As first mate on a charter fishing boat, Billy Ray meets a lot of people, but not one of them has made him as uncomfortable as Skippy—because he’s drawn to Skippy as surely as the moon pulls the tides, and he’s almost as powerless to resist. Billy Ray has spent his life denying who he is to avoid the wrath of his religious father, and he can’t allow anyone to see through his carefully built façade.

Skippy is only in town on business and will have to return to Boston once he’s through. After all, his father has certain expectations, and him staying in Florida is not one of them. But he doesn’t count on Billy Ray capturing his attention and touching his heart.

Billy Ray doesn’t realize just how much he and Skippy have in common, though. They’re both living to please their fathers instead of following their own dreams—a fact that becomes painfully obvious when they get to know each other and realize how much joy they’ve denied themselves. While they can’t change the past, they can begin a future together and make up for lost time—as long as they’re willing to face the consequences of charting their own course.

Buy links: Dreamspinner | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Tams gives this one 5 Stars...

Skippy escapes his stuffy life, tedious job and over bearing parents and heads off to Florida to do research for a new client. It's not his first trip or the first charter with his friends, but on this particular trip, Skippy reels in so much more than just a fish or a sea turtle. 

Billy Ray is naive when it comes to many things in life. The twenty something boat hand has been under his Father's thumb since the day his was born and the good Reverend is determined to save face, regardless the cost. 

The spark is ignited with the first glance and when Billy Ray finally works up the courage to steal a kiss, it becomes a raging fire. It's far from smooth sailing, at any rate. Especially when their Fathers, who seem to be trying to one up each other in the game of who can be the biggest biggot, attempt to drive a wedge between them at every turn. 

Ebb and Flow starts slow, gradually building while each man comes to terms with the negativity from the one man in their life that should love them unconditionally, their Father. I think that was what I enjoyed most about this story, the slow burn. Skippy has experience, both in life and with other men, Billy Ray does not. Skippy is there for him, helping to ease the aches and pains while Billy Ray figures out who he is, and more importantly, who he wants to be. In the process, Skippy realizes that he too needs to deal with some aspects of his life that he's ignored or brushed aside for far too long. 

I devoured this book over breakfast, it was food for my soul. The story is heart breaking at times, what Billy Ray's father puts him through. But he takes that pain and suffering, the uncertainty of the entire situation, and perseveres, stronger in the end because of it. Skippy learns some things about his father as well that shake him to the core. What I loved was the way Grey spent the first half of the book allowing the characters to truly get to know one another, have conversations, come to realizations and learn to lean on one another before they took the relationship to the next level. And he seriously devoted an entire chapter to a kiss. Breaking it down, defining every emotion Billy Ray was feeling, both the want and need he was feeling as well as the struggle with what has been ingrained in him by his Religious Zealot father over the years. 

So, definitely a must read folks, I highly recommend. And if you haven't read Setting the Hook yet (book 1) you won't be lost. You will have a better understanding of secondary characters if you do, but this book is beautiful and poignant all on its own. 

Disclaimer: no sea turtles were injured in this story, though the fish sounded like it was awfully delicious. 

Excerpt...

SKIPPY LEFT the restaurant with Steven and Kyle, taking them home with him because he wasn’t about to let them drive. He figured they could crash in his guest rooms, which they’d done enough times before. After parking in his space in the garage, they took the elevator to the top of one of Boston’s exclusive high-rises and stepped out into his large home. It was a quarter of the entire floor and had one of the best views in the city. He loved it. Skippy had had the space done in large, masculine furniture with lots of texture, muted colors, and chocolate-toned wood—all the things he loved.

“Come on, guys, you know where the guest rooms are. Go get undressed, clean up, and go to bed.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Kyle countered like a six-year-old. He seemed to regress whenever he got drunk. Steven got the giggles, and together the two of them were a handful sometimes.

Skippy gave them both some Tylenol and water, making them drink to try to minimize the hangover, and they went to bed. Once they were settled, Skippy curled up in his favorite chair right in front of the window, put his feet on the ottoman, and fished out the file his father had given him.

Snow fell outside his windows, swirling in the wind as it headed for the streets below. He loved watching it from up here and found it hard to focus on what he was supposed to be reading. Finally he turned away from the lights and swirls of white outside and concentrated on the file.

Their client—his client—was a large oil company. Just seeing that was enough to elicit a groan. Usually that meant he was going to be on the side that was against whatever regulation he was supposed to somehow twist or get around so they could do their best to extract what they wanted from the earth with as little government interference and as little regard for the environment as possible. He hated these cases. After all, he’d gone into environmental law to help protect the environment, not rape it all to hell.

But this case was different yet identical, all at the same time. The case was complicated, and Skippy read the file through and then grabbed a pad to make notes before pulling up a map of the area on his phone so he’d know the exact locations in question.

The oil company owned rights to a number of offshore areas in the region. That wasn’t the problem. They had bought the company that controlled the commercial docking areas near the town and wanted to remove them to construct a pipeline from their offshore resources, through the dockland’s property, which they now controlled, and then on to their refineries for processing. And Skippy’s job was to make that possible by easing the way around the environmental regulations and processes. The oil company’s plans hadn’t been announced yet, but Skippy would see a wave of opposition to what they wanted to do and was supposed to help manage that.

“Aren’t you going to bed?” Kyle asked as he wandered out in his boxers. “We were just talking about how we all work too much, and here you are, sitting up after a celebration, reading files instead of getting some sleep. If you’re going to stay up, the least you could do is go out and get laid.” Kyle scratched his ass through the material, and Skippy turned away. Yeah, that wasn’t attractive in any way. At least he knew why Kyle hadn’t been getting any lately. He was nice-looking, trim and fit enough, but tended to land on the crude side sometimes.

“I know.” Skippy tossed Kyle a blanket, and he wrapped up, sitting on the sofa. “I want to get a head start on tomorrow.”

“It isn’t as though your father is going to appreciate it.” Sometimes, even semidrunk, Kyle could hit the nail on the head.

“No. And it also isn’t like I want to take this case, but it’s the firm’s client and I’ve been assigned, so I put my feelings aside and do what the client wants.” Damn, it would be so much easier if Skippy started his own firm and could make his own decisions. “It’s what we do, and this could be an important case for us because the principles involved could set precedent for the future.” He sat back, looking out the windows once more. “It shouldn’t matter what my father likes or doesn’t. This is my job and what I do.”

“Maybe not, but most fathers would be proud of their son for winning a big case and all that jazz. Instead, yours takes it for granted….” Kyle leaned back. “Reminds me of my own father. They’re two peas in a pod, you know. My father doesn’t give a shit about anything other than what his latest mistress wants and how he can keep her from my mother.”

“At least Dad doesn’t do that,” Skippy said. He certainly hoped not. His mother deserved better than that, and if his father was keeping someone on the down-low, he hoped his mother would rip his nuts off.

Skippy gathered up the papers and placed them back in the case file, then turned to Kyle, who had fallen asleep leaning back, mouth open. Skippy shook his head, helped Kyle to his feet, and guided him back to the room he was using to put him into bed. Then Skippy went to his own room, closed the door, undressed, and got cleaned up before climbing into bed. He set the alarm, knowing both his guests had to be places in the morning and it was going to fall on him to get them up and moving. He closed his eyes.

That night, like so many others, Skippy didn’t dream. He’d stopped long ago. They didn’t do him any good anyway.

Andrew Grey is the author of nearly 100 works of Contemporary Gay Romantic fiction. After 27 years in corporate America, he has now settled down in Central Pennsylvania with his husband Dominic and his laptop. An interesting ménage. Andrew grew up in western Michigan with a father who loved to tell stories and a mother who loved to read them. Since then he has lived throughout the country and traveled throughout the world. He has a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and now writes full time. Andrew’s hobbies include collecting antiques, gardening, and leaving his dirty dishes anywhere but in the sink (particularly when writing) He considers himself blessed with an accepting family, fantastic friends, and the world’s most supportive and loving partner. Andrew currently lives in beautiful, historic Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

• Andrew Grey: http://www.andrewgreybooks.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewgreyauthor/
• Twitter: @AndrewGreyBooks

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