2016 Release: Caught Inside by Jamie Deacon

Title: Caught Inside (Boys on the Brink #1)
Author: Jamie Deacon
Language: English
Published: 29th September, 2016
ISBN: Paperback ISBN:978-1-78645-035-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78645-036-4
ASIN: B01HTYPXSI
Genre: Young Adult, LGBT, Romance and Relationships, Travel and Holiday, Contemporary Fiction,

BLURB:
Luke believes he has his life figured out...and then he meets Theo.

It should have been simple - a summer spent with his girlfriend Zara at her family's holiday cottage in Cornwall. Seventeen-year-old Luke Savage jumps at the chance, envisioning endless hours of sunbathing on the private beach and riding the waves on his beloved surfboard. He isn't interested in love. Though his rugged good looks and lazy charm mean he can have his pick of girls, he has no intention of falling for anyone.

Nothing prepares Luke for his reaction to Theo, the sensitive Oxford undergraduate who is Zara's cousin and closest friend. All at once, he is plunged along a path of desire and discovery that has him questioning everything he thought he knew about himself. No one, especially Zara, must find out; what he and Theo have is too new, too fragile. But as the deceit spirals beyond their control, people are bound to get hurt, Luke most of all.

REVIEW:
It's rare for me to have a long lead-in to a book, but I did with Caught Inside. Thus, it's been some months since I edited this debut novel from Jamie Deacon, and whilst the words have faded somewhat from my memory, the story has remained as strong as ever. More than that, the feeling of being there, on that beach with Luke, is vivid and easily called to mind. OK, so, Cornwall does happen to be my favourite place in the real world, and I've visited enough times to add my own experiences to the imagery Jamie Deacon so beautifully paints with words, but the novel also evokes long-forgotten emotions that I'd buried along with my adolescence. I recall those summers when the weather was perfect, life was ticking along just fine, yet all of it was underwritten by the 'angst' of interpersonal relationships and our emerging identities, caught between childhood and adulthood, never quite sure who we are or what we're supposed to be doing.

Caught Inside captured those feelings so perfectly.

Whilst it won't be true for everyone, most of us during our teens flit back and forth between relationships, or shift from one to another without properly bringing matters to a close. It is the fickleness of youth, the fear of rejection, the avoidance of conflict. Often, those infidelities viewed through adult eyes take on more sinister overtones. However, this is young/new adult fiction, and should be enjoyed as such, by which I mean if you are no longer a young/new adult, take a moment to return to your youth and dip into this beautiful summer romance.

Buy 'Caught Inside (Boys on the Brink #1)':

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