Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings

Foxed by Jay Hogan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well this was just just a breath of fresh air – two mature characters with long lived life experiences finding their feet into a relationship.

I absolutely adored both Jed and Nash, two men who’ve been around the block, Jed in a long term marriage which produced two kids who have grown up, one giving him a granddaughter he finds himself spending lots of time with – an offshoot of him feeling guilty for perhaps not being there as much in the younger days of his marriage.

Nash has never been interested in relationships – or so he tells himself – but really, he’s still smarting from the one time he did get involved with someone who was younger than him (not a twink though, he’s keen to point out, he was 35 😄 ) and he left him for a sugar daddy type.

Their first meeting we hear about in retrospective, but the second one is a joyous stumbling mess as Jed totally fails to deal with his attraction towards Nash, who happens to be the Principal at the school his daughter teaches at.

Nash doesn’t disguise the fact he’s attracted to Jed, but the other man’s basically kept his bisexuality locked away since he was a teenager as he and his ex-wife met, feel in love and were just together for years.

What I felt the most about this book was how different the narrative felt, this isn’t two young men without much in the way of life experiences to be worried about. Here we get two mature men who’s troubles are a completely different flavour.

Once they get involved, Jed still has wobbles, but they’re about the effect coming out will have on his family as a whole, not just repressed fears, they’re valid and they’re dealt with in a way which is genuine and honest.

I just loved the way they fell in love, it’s a soft and gentle kind of acceptance that they want to spend their time together, that they find joy in each other’s company, that they can have sex which is still passionate but which then comes with loads of cuddle time afterwards!

As an almost 53-year-old, I have to say I found reading this book to just be a joy from start to finish. It’s the worries and doubts that I’d probably have (if I ever wanted to get into another relationship again – atm I don’t, having had a friendly split from my long term partner four years ago).

It has subtle humour as well as laugh out loud hilarity, it has a man who’s not taken much time for himself because of his unwarranted guilt, it has a man who’s finding he wants to take the time to get to know someone instead of a wham, bang, thank you man approach to the twinks he’s usually bedded.

And it as a family coming to terms with realising they have to change up the way they see their ex-husband/father/father-in-law and their expectations of his availability – in other words, this is a truly REAL examination of how life changes in the most unexpected of ways sometimes.

But what I think I loved the most about this book is that Jay shows you it’s never too late to find the perfect half to make up your whole, even if you’ve had a happy life beforehand.

Jed and Nash are just a wonderfully uplifting pair, I felt ridiculously happy and not a little bit teary as I came to the end of this book, especially with the Epilogues – there’s a bonus extra one to download, don’t miss it!

I pretty much devour anything Jay Hogan writes and this has proved to be no exception to that rule.

#ARC kindly received from the author in return for an honest and unbiased review

View all my reviews