“Happiness is not a goal…it is a by-product of a life well lived.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
Bernard “Bear” Henson is a blessed man. He is happily married to the love of his life, he co-owns a successful business, and his grown son is desperately in love with a wonderful partner. But Bear knows all too well how precarious that happiness is, so he lives every day with love in his heart and gratitude for everything he has—especially his husband Richard Brightman. Richard has been HIV-positive for thirty years and every new day is a gift.
When Richard becomes unexpectedly ill and is rushed to the hospital, Bear braces for his beautifully constructed life to come crashing down. A hard-won life full of ups and downs, illnesses and setbacks, love and anger, and a lot of regret for how certain things went down. Certain things involving Bear’s alcoholic ex-wife Debbie and the start of Bear’s relationship with Richard. But the past can’t be changed, only remembered and studied.
As Richard fights for his life, Bear reflects on the last thirty years of their entwined lives. College days, his shotgun wedding to Debbie, his unexpected feelings for Richard, and the proudest moment of Bear’s life: the birth of his son Gabriel. Bear’s life with Richard is woven with love, heartache, regret, joy, and everything else in between. They’ve overcome every obstacle that’s come their way, and they’ll overcome this new illness, too. Period. Bear simply isn’t ready to live his life without Richard in it.
Published May 8th 2017 by Briggs-King Books
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Review 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
This has to be by far one of the the best books in the series. The book is a back and forth in time novel and while that can sometimes be a bit confusing this one is clever done. It suits the book great and after reading I can’t really imagine it any other way – good thing that I don’t have too I guess.
Things falls into places, you kind the background story of Bear’s marriage with Debbie, Gabe’s mother – Gabe from book two, what really happened? And OH BOY! what a story you get, it kind of amazing. You also get the insight in Gabe being born and growning up with tow dads, they made him the man he is today, his mother not so much.
I know it’s kind of off topic and has nothing to do with the review, but I didn’t really get Debbie, why hold on to a marriage with a man she didn’t love, a pipe dream about a ‘real’ family, I don’t think so.
I liked that the author was brave enough to visit male abuse. We are educated people, but even I think that abuse mostly is a man hitting a woman thing, not really the other way around. I know that it’s out there and I fell the same if it was the other way around, no spouse should be abused man or woman. So thank for that – maybe a bit more in on the counselling would make me understand the whole thing better.
The story itself revolves mostly around Richard being hospitalised, thinking back on the years they have been together, I really like it, form the minute they met until present day. So defiantly a five star read for me.
Read my review of the frist book in the series ‘The Truth as He Knows it’
Read my review of the second book in the series ‘The World as He Sees it’
Read my review of the third book in the series ‘The Heart As He Hears It’
MM Romance Reader 