Book Title: Favorite Son
Author: Will Freshwater
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Book Length: 204 pages
Genre: Gay, Romance
Born into a blue-collar family, John Wells beat the odds and came out a winner. As chief of staff to Patrick Donovan, a US senator and aspiring presidential candidate, he enjoys all the power and privilege of a DC insider. But while riding high on a wave of success, he’s blindsided by a series of betrayals from the people he trusts the most. In the space of a single day, John’s perfect life unexpectedly unravels when his career falters and his marriage implodes. Following a final, devastating blow, John assumes a new identity as “Peter” and flees to Provincetown, where a tight-knit community of eclectic characters slowly transforms him.
Peter finds himself drawn to Danny Cavanaugh, an enigmatic carpenter who is struggling to come to terms with his own troubled past. As they work together to renovate a local landmark, the two men forge an unlikely friendship that blossoms into love and becomes the foundation for a new life they hope to build together. But when a reversal of fortune pulls John back to DC, the treacherous world of politics he thought he’d left behind threatens to destroy his chance at true happiness.
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I remember someone explaining to me once how losing your job, losing someone you love (divorce or breakup), and losing a family member are some of the most stressful situations that can happen to someone. John Wells starts out with both and his life is broken into pieces that he has no idea how to at least pick up from the floor, let alone glue together. The failure of his relationship is not really a surprise, but his new sex partner turning out to be a reporter and not buy his new found Peter persona is. So is the way he is dismissed after long years off hard work. Then his best friends dies and he can no longer stomach the political games of DC.
What is John Wells to do? Become his dead twin, Peter, once more and flee to Provincetown to find another way of life, one where people care and are friendly, and where there is Danny, who has his own past and demons to fight, but who Peter cannot resist.
I have enjoyed this book from start to finish and gulped it down as if it were fresh water and I’d been roaming the desert. The political games, the threads of his his former life that John stubbornly tries to knit back together, the silent tragedy that happens within John as everything he knew and loved is taken from him, and then the shy glimmers of hope that he grabs hold of in Provincetown, it all makes for a great story, one that you just need to read.
Although very different, this is not my first trip to Provincetown. Actually, I had a whole Jacob Z. Flores series take me there. The off-season calmness of this tourist spot has just completely sold me on the location and whatever I do, I just have to go there, and soon! Back to Will Freshwater and his Favorite Son, it’s written in an in-depth, introspective style that will get you well acquainted not only with John/Peter, but also the world he lives in, the people he interacts with, and it will make you experience the shocking difference between his crazy world and the calmness and intimacy of Provincetown. I suggest you enjoy it, savor it, and then join me in waiting for a new book from this author.
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Will Freshwater was born and raised in a small steel town outside Pittsburgh. He graduated, cum laude, from Boston College and was awarded a Juris Doctorate from the
University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Will has lived and worked in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Tampa. Although he has spent the better part of the
last twenty years working as a successful corporate attorney, Will can happily confirm that his true vocation is writing. He currently resides in Morristown, New Jersey with his
husband, Stephen, and their golden retriever, Rory. Favorite Son is Will’s debut novel, and he is hard at work on his second novel.
Email: willfreshwater@yahoo.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/will.freshwater.9?fref=ts
Twitter: @WillFreshwater
Thank you for your helpful review and I can empathise and recognise the trials and upsets John/Peter goes through and hopefully he can find happiness & love in Provincetown. I have been following this tour and enjoying the videos and posts by Will, so thank you for a chance to win a copy of this book 🙂