Book 942: Shaun’s Salvation (Maine Men #5) – K.C. Wells

And Wells pulled me back in! Yes!!! I wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do it after the two lackluster offerings of Seb’s Summer and Dylan’s Dilemma, but she did with Shaun and Nathan’s stories.

Shaun is another member of the core group of friends that no one knows what his sexuality is. There are a couple of friends that are sort of nebulous/fluid and he’s one of them. He put his personal (and sexual) life on hold after his mom died of cancer in high school and his dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Shaun’s Salvation picks up quite a few years later towards the end of his dad’s life and we meet Nathan, the in-home care nurse who is helping Shaun with his dad. They’ve both fallen for each other but are trying to keep the most “professional” relationship as they tiptoe around each other. Nathan holds the sole spot of the person of color in this series, everyone else is very white, which is kind of understandable when it comes to Maine. So this puts the count for the series as three older male partners (more May-December romances: Finn’s Fantasy, Seb’s Summer and Dylan’s Dilemma), one enemies to lovers (Ben’s Boss), and one BIPOC love interest.

There are some fascinating and frank conversations between Nathan and his mom about being Black in Maine and about being a Black gay man in Maine when he finally comes out to her. Honestly, his coming out to his mom was probably one of the best scenes of the novel, because she doesn’t blink and immediately starts getting after him to find a man and settle down and give her more grandchildren.

The reason this one worked better than the last two is the emotions Wells tapped into via Shaun and Nathan. There were so many scenes where Shaun had so many raw emotions about his father’s impending death and connecting that to the loss of his mother earlier in his life and Nathan wanting to not only provide the best care for Shaun’s dad but also take care of Shaun and WOW was it a wringer. Another great scene that shows this was when Shaun finally came out to his dad after he was in hospice. I legit teared up and Wells did a great job of handling the moments leading up to death with everything happening off the page overnight in his sleep.

The sex scenes were great and exploratory and the first kiss was so wonderfully and adorably well written I couldn’t ask for a better scene. This is probably another reason this one worked better for me, it was a much slower-paced simmering romance for 75% of the novel with only a few sex scenes—guess it’s the emotions do it for me. Honestly, I can’t remember if the characters were verse or not, but if they were I’m sure Wells walked the walk as she did in almost every other book of this series.

Recommendation: Wells pulled me back in with this one. I was worried after the last two that the series was done for me and I honestly would’ve let it fall to the wayside if I weren’t reading toward Aaron’s AAwakening, but this book definitely made it worth the last two (which weren’t hard to read, they just weren’t as good as the first two). Shaun and Nathan’s story is loving and well written, but 100% be prepared for a lot of emotions to happen throughout the novel. And when you add in that it’s a holiday romance on top of the Maine and first love romance, it was a no-brainer I was going to enjoy this one.

Opening Line: “The day you guys let me in was the luckiest day of my life.” They’d been his life raft back when he was seventeen and his mother had gotten diagnosed, and he suspected they would be again before all this was over.”

Closing Line: “Shaun pulled back and looked him in the eye. ‘I think you mean, Happy New Life.'” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)