Book 940: Seb’s Summer (Maine Men #3) – K.C. Wells

As I continue blazing through Wells’ Maine Men series to get ready for Aaron’s Awakening, book six, I’m not really hoping this isn’t a downturn in the series. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t as good as Finn’s Fantasy or Ben’s Boss.

In this book, we have Seb from the core friend group who has had to leave Ogunquit to head further north to Cape Porpoise to help out his injured uncle on his lobster boat. While there he runs into Marcus, an older (mid-30s) copywriter who fled his demons in NYC and is seeking refuge in his family’s vacation house.

The story was decently written if a little slower than the others. The reason I question if this is a downturn is that Wells decided to spend the first 2/3 of the novel with Marcus hiding the exact reason he left NYC and was closing himself off to everyone. It didn’t take a genius to guess what it was and the “big reveal” was a bit underwhelming (spoiler, it’s drugs/substance abuse).

As we readily recognize as a cause of alcoholism, abusing a drug is far more often than not a means of self-medication; it has become for the addict a means of alleviating pain, grief, or anxiety. (279)

I’m not sure how much of what Wells wrote is true about why people become addicted to meth, but her writing about addiction was spot on. I think she counteracted a large part of what she was trying to get across by having Marcus hide from everyone (family and Seb) why he had fled the city. He’s writing a book about it but is contemplating a pseudonym. I get why Wells had Marcus do it, after hearing a bit more about the reaction of his friends in NYC, it just rubbed me the wrong way if he really wants to help people.

Apart from that the relationship between Seb and Marcus was well done. They had a lot of marathon sex once they finally got around to it and Wells introduced sex toys which not many of the romances I’ve read include. It was a different take and she did a good job, even if I did have to go back once or twice to mentally try and figure out if something was possible (it was, but I just struggled to picture it in the moment). I liked that Wells walked the walk on the characters being verse and I mean walked it with flip-flopping in a couple of scenes.

Some things hadn’t changed: the sound of the waves slapping against the hull; boots squeaking on the wet deck; the whine of the winch as it drew up a trawl; and the soft chug of the engine. There were the smells too, taking him right back—gasoline fumes and motor oil. Then there was the wet spray that slipped under his collar, the feel of the sun on his face, dazzling him as it sparkled on the water. (49)

I’m a little annoyed at this point because I finally googled each of the towns in the series that I hadn’t been to (specifically Wells and Cape Porpoise) only to find out that so far the entire series takes place within 20 minutes of each other and Wells makes it sound like it’s HOURS between them. They do venture up to Bar Harbor at one point which is a trek (3.5 hours), but even that is still considered Downeast. It’s ANOTHER 3.5 hours north to the tip of Maine. But, laughably, having been in New England for over a decade 20 miles is still pretty far in most of the states because of traffic, in Maine sure in the summer and holidays, but most of the time, not so much.

The only other issue I had is with Marcus’ nephew Jake. There was so much of a build-up around him and his finally revealing it was a guy that made him choose to take a job in Boston instead of San Diego, but then NOTHING! Like WTF. I’m wondering if maybe Jake will make an appearance later in the series as someone else’s beau, but it seems every single friend is Maine/Wells based, so I guess not. I’m going to be VERY disappointed if I don’t find out where he ends up and who he ends up with at some point! (He’s already been mentioned in Dylan’s Dilemma, book four).

‘Mark Twain once wrote some very wise words. Let me see if I can remember them correctly.’ He paused, then recited, ‘Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile. Everyone always quotes that bit, but he goes on to say, Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.’ Marcus paused. ‘He ended with three words. Explore. Dream. Discover.’ (351)

Recommendation: This was a good one, but it wasn’t as good as the first two. For me, it came down to Marcus being super cagey about why he left NYC and that revelation is ultimately the crisis of the novel. Being able to see it from miles away and not having it just be in the open (I mean we’re in the character’s head already) just annoyed me and let me down in the long run. I very much enjoyed the final scene picking up at the same place as the final scene in the first two books and am looking forward to the next few.

Opening Line: “He wanted someone to know him, balls to bones. Someone to care when he was angry, or hurting, or just plain tired. Someone to come home to at the end of a long day, to give him a foot rub and listen to him rant about the little bastards he had to teach.”

Closing Line: “Marcus kissed his forehead. ‘All night long.'” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)