When it comes to your ex, nothing is ever easy. The Borealis boys are settling into their new normal, or at least into their new digs. But when North's soon-to-be (please-let-it-be-soon) ex-husband, Tucker, is arrested and charged with murder, everything goes sideways. Hired by Tucker's parents, North and Shaw begin looking for proof that Tucker is innocent, in spite of the evidence against him. When they find seemingly incriminating photos hidden in Tucker's BMW, North is convinced that someone is trying to frame Tucker-and might get away with it. But the cast of alternate suspects presents its own challenges: an estranged son, a betrayed wife, and North and Shaw's close-knit circle of friends from college-men who had their own connections to the victim, and who had their own reasons for wanting him dead. A threatening email suggests that the motive, whatever it might be, lies buried in the past, in a relationship gone wrong. The question is, which one? When Tucker is poisoned, North and Shaw realize that the killer isn't finished. Clearing Tucker's name won't be enough; they must find the killer before someone else dies. And to do so, they will have to unearth truths from their own pasts.
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1 primary bookBorealis: Without a Compass is a 1-book series first released in 2021 with contributions by Gregory Ashe.
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I ended up waiting to pair my read with the release of the audio by [a:Charlie David 2895612 Charlie David https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1461856493p2/2895612.jpg], life got busy, other reads came and went and I just got back to North & Shaw and their super bumpy relationship road. I'm glad I took the respite because these two don't know how to do easy & sweet.Can you just jump into this series here? I wouldn't recommend it. The relationship between them and their individual histories has been teased out in the previous books and we are now getting to the part where the truly thorny things are being addressed. This book belongs to North. His still unresolved relationship with his soon to be ex-husband Tucker, the why & how he ended up with Tucker, his fraught relationship with his father, a bit about his own identity as a gay man, and most importantly his helplessness when it comes to his attachment & attraction to Shaw. There is of course a case and a victim I couldn't have cared less about save as it serves as a mirror (a horror funhouse one) to who they are or could have been given the time, place, and society they came up in. I enjoyed it way more than expected. I confess to sometimes being annoyed by the infamous N&S banter, which is charming to most readers, but I like to imbibe in small doses. Additionally the way they deal with serious issues affecting their relationship strikes me as a tad childish but then I remember that they are men, gay men, and that (much to my chagrin) the 20's are now the teens when it comes to people's development. Despite all of it I loved this entry in the series and it was in no small part because the author has never shied away from going into situations & places that perhaps many romance readers might recoil from, and he doesn't do it here either. He presents the nitty gritty of the lives of modern day gay men, the hookup culture, the casual sex that's just that, sex, the drug use, the self doubt, the acceptance, partial or completely denied by society and/or loved ones. How it affects the way they see themselves & others. It gets deep. My other cause for relief & joy was that Pari & Truck are barely in it
