RELEASE DAY REVIEW: 'A Second Harvest (Men of Lancaster County #1)' by Eli Easton
Title: A Second Harvest (Men of Lancaster County #1)
Series: Men of Lancaster County
Author: Eli Easton
Published: July 1, 2016
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Bree Archer
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Erotic Romance
Length: 206 pages
Tags: M/M; Gay; May/December; Angst; Coming Out; Family Drama; Friends to Lovers; First time
Blurb:
David Fisher has lived by the rules all his life. Born to a Mennonite family, he obeyed his father and took over the family farm, married, and had two children. Now with both his kids in college and his wife deceased, he runs his farm alone and without joy, counting off the days of a life half-lived. Christie Landon, graphic designer, Manhattanite, and fierce gay party boy, needs a change. Now thirty, he figures it’s time to grow up and think about his future. When his best friend overdoses, Christie resolves to take a break from the city. He heads to a small house in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to rest, recoup, and reflect. But life in the country is boring despite glimpses of the hunky silver fox next door. When Christie’s creativity latches on to cooking, he decides to approach his widower neighbor with a plan to share meals and grocery expenses. David agrees, and soon the odd couple finds they really enjoy spending time together. Christie challenges the boundaries of David’s closed world and brings out feelings he buried long ago. If he can break free of the past, he might find a second chance at happiness.
5 HEART READ
In Eli Easton’s first installment in the Men of Lancaster County series, A Second Harvest, it’s never too late for a second chance.
David is a good son, a dutiful husband and a wonderful father.
But he has lived his life for everyone else except himself.
His father passed away when he was 18. By 19 he was married and taking over the reins of his father’s Lancaster County farm.
David also has a secret, tucked away in a metal box. He takes it out from time to time. When life overwhelms him. No one knows about it so therefore the secret isn’t real.
This has been his life for the past 20 years. Now, at age 41, with his kids grown and gone and having lost his wife two years ago, David feels as if his life has passed him by, that he’s just drifting away.
Christie is living life as a graphic designer in New York City. He seems to have it all. He’s got close friends and a pretty active social life. But Christie is feeling disheartened by the fast life. He’s tired of the club scene, the late nights and hook ups.
When Lancaster County meets New York City worlds collide.
Christie’s Aunt Ruth leaves him her Lancaster County house in her will, so he decides this is the perfect time for a change, to regroup and get a fresh start. He gives himself six months to try and jumpstart his career and get some much needed clarity in his life.
David soon notices that someone new has moved into Ruth’s house. Deciding to be neighbourly he goes to introduce himself and is immediately taken aback by how “pretty” Christie is.
And for all intents and purposes the feelings definitely appear mutual. The two men are quite drawn to each other and begin to form a tentative friendship as they start to work out together and enjoy meals with one another.
Christie finds a quiet joy in cooking and soon realizes that there’s too much food for just one person so he proposes to David that they split the grocery bills and Christie will do all the cooking for them. A spur of the moment decision finds Christie at David’s front door with dinner in hand.
Christie falls so hard for David that it is beautiful to see their slow awkward friendship evolve into a truly lovely discovery about each other. David realizes that he hasn’t truly been living and Christie opens his eyes to the world as well as to the joys of love, both physical and emotional.
These two men literally come alive with each other and it’s an absolute joy to share in their friendship and eventual attraction to one another. Eli Easton has a way of showing each character’s emotions and I fell in love with both of them as they fell in love with each other.
The fact that David feels no regret or guilt after they make love for the first time, is telling .
“...right now being with Christie was like hot sunlight… when you were in the sunlight, it was hard to imagine the darkness.”
A Second Harvest has some really sexy moments between Christie and David and the “sexting” one night is really hot.
When their relationship becomes physical, these two men truly shine!
That’s not to say there aren’t some hurdles they must overcome. Namely David’s son, Joe, who recognizes that Christie is gay and is horrified that his father has been keeping company with a “homosexual”.
I love second chance stories and Eli made this one work because she endeared me to David’s character. He is in such denial over his feelings for men yet he cannot resist Christie. Christie awakens long denied feelings in David and he is powerless to resist them.
“If this was wrong, David would go to hell gladly because nothing ever fed his soul like this. He almost sobbed at the thought of how long he denied himself this pleasure”
These words right there convey all the emotion that David has kept bottled up inside himself his whole life!
A Second Harvest is so well written, you can literally feel the confusion, the fear, all rolling through David. As a reader you get invested in these characters, silently cheering them on. Second chance stories, when done right, are absolutely beautiful and Eli Easton does not disappoint!
An advanced copy of A Second Harvest (Men of Lancaster County #1) was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by the Dreamspinner Press, in exchange for our fair and honest opinion.
Having been, at various times and under different names, a minister’s daughter, a computer programmer, the author of paranormal mysteries, a game designer, an organic farmer, an avid hiker, and a profound sleeper, Eli is happily embarking on yet another incarnation as a m/m romance author. As an addicted reader of such, she is tinkled pink when an author manages to combine literary merit, vast stores of humor, melting hotness and eye-dabbing sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most of that most of the time. She currently lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with her husband, three bulldogs, three cows and six chickens. All of them (except for the husband) are female, hence explaining the naked men that have taken up residence in her latest fiction writing.
