When John and Isaac become faculty advisors for the school's literary magazine, their professional relationship evolves. Despite the strict code of conduct forbidding faculty fraternization, they delve into a secret affair—until Simon arrives.
Isaac's violent ex threatens not only their careers, but also John's life. His PTSD triggered, John must come to terms with that bloody day on College Green while Isaac must accept the heartbreak his secrets have wrought.
Reviewer: Annery
If you’ve been alive in America for the past 20 years the scenario of this story is an unhappy reality. A grim one. Still Sara Dobie Bauer has managed to create a little pocket of hope. Make no mistake, she hasn’t trotted out some fantastical cure-all for what ails us as a society, or even for the woes of the MCs, but she has written a story that, to me at least, felt vital and important. Is it perfect? No, not by a long stretch, and yet those loose ends, that true-to-life floundering, is what lends this book a real life flavor, with all of its jagged edges, unhappy truths, and uncertainties.
Isaac Twain has come to Hambden University in Lothos, Ohio trying to outrun his past. Foolish man. He crashes, head first, into his future. Said future is John Conlon, a fellow creative writing professor at Hambden, a wildly popular author of YA LGBTQ books, and as of the tragic event of the previous summer, much to his displeasure, he’s known as The Hambden Hero. John is unabashedly gay, almost faery like in build, with a mass of longish dark hair, soulful eyes, and a gregariousness that belies how broken he feels inside after the incident. He’s not the kind of man Isaac ever saw himself attracted to. Isaac is tall, blond, almost hypermasculine, and still negotiating how to comfortably navigate being out. He has valid reasons. None of these differences, nor the school injunction against staff fraternization matter when it comes to their attraction, one that almost verges on the obsessive for Isaac, or maybe it’s just the first time he’s been able to love someone as his authentic self.
The romance between John and Isaac worked like gangbusters for me. Isaac might have been perplexed at first but it made absolute sense. Their parts fit together in more ways than the physical. John’s house is full of music, friends, and good food, all things that are almost alien to Isaac’s existence. I loved how the gravitational pull between the MCs was undeniable but the author never lost sight of who they were: smart academics. I loved that as their love story progresses throughout the book regular life doesn’t just disappear. The events of the summer, and it’s repercussions on all who lived through it remain ever present in their everyday existence. Likewise Isaac’s past is present as the past always is, and comes calling.
I’ll say no more about the plot, but I’ll mention some of the things I loved: John’s students, his friends, and colleagues; the frank, unflinching, and non-judgemental handling of mental illness; the necessary witnessing of a horror that visits our schools and public spaces with an alarming regularity; the joy, life affirming, aspect of good sex without making it a magic bullet to solve all problems. There were things I’d’ve tweaked, all having to do with Isaac, who’s perhaps the weakest character. Some of his past could’ve remained off-stage, and other parts I would’ve appreciated seeing and knowing more about. Maybe an accompanying novella? All of these quibbles are negligible. I’d recommend this to everyone. It feels urgent.
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