"Stolen Summer"

Review - "Stolen Summer" by S.A. Meade

Wonderful insightful story

Very Highly Recommended

Evan Harrison moves from story to story, location to location in his career as a journalist.  Some places are dangerous, but he always gets the story.  He survives a bombing in Afghanistan by the skin of his teeth, and comes home to file the story.  But that just pushes him to chase after another angle, to chase down a warlord in Pakistan who supplies weapons to the insurgents.

At the same time, he begins to wonder about his feelings for his girlfriend as well as for college professor Colin Williams.  When Colin, his best friend since his college days, tells him he is in love with him, he questions if that might be why his relationships with women never quite work out.

The two men explore their feelings for each other, and Evan is surprised by how natural it feels.  And how right they are together.  He promises Evan that this will be his last trip and his last time to put himself in harms way. 

So he leaves, and the worst happens.  He is kidnapped and held captive, wondering for four long months if he will face the same fate as Daniel Pearl.  And wishing he could just share one more moment with Colin.  Tell him what he didn't before he left - that he loves him.

He manages to make it home, but will he manage to keep his word?  Will this be it for him and danger, or will he break his word, and Colin's heart, and leave one more time?  And will Colin be there if and when he comes back?

This book FLAT. OUT. ROCKS.  S.A. Meade has given us a beautifully layered look at a man who is so smart and insightful, but so very very blind.  Evan is able to peer out at the world and understand and explain it so well, and then stumble and hurt the one closet to him so badly.

I appreciated how it had taken Colin years to admit to his feelings and take the chance of blowing his friendship with Evan out of the water.  And then, when he did, he committed with his whole heart and expected the same. 

And then Evan, with his logic and clueless nature, just makes assumptions.  That love is enough.  That Colin will understand.  That he knows best.  That the Truth is worth the sacrifices he chooses for them both.

He is just such a...man.

And Ms. Meade takes him, and us, on the real adventure.  What happens when you open your heart and life to another person.  When decisions are for two, not one.  And when you finally, finally get that love is about making the rest of your life about about putting a smile on your partner's face and peace in his heart.

So very good.

Tom