reviews_and_ramblings | Redemption by Remmy Duchene

Keegan is a 43 years old man who spent the last 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. When he was 18 years old, openly gay and totally bad boy, he was the sore eye of the small town where he lived, and so, when he was framed for a murder of another young man, no one, from the judge to the police to his lawyer to his same parents believed in his innocence and he was sentenced to life. The only one who believed in him was his grandfather, a very wealthy man, who apparently couldn’t do anything for him if not preserve his inheritance. Now 25 years later Keegan is out on parole, and he is also rich, but the only thing he wants is to go back to his ranch, and live in peace, as far as possible to the folks who convicted him.

Jaxon was an orphan two years younger than Keegan; to his teenager eyes, Keegan was a forbidden fruit, someone he desperately wanted. Jaxon was also in the same gang who killed the boy Keegan was accused to, and he knew the true. Only that at the time, Jaxon was too scared to loose the only family he had, the gang, and so he said nothing. Growing up, Jaxon managed to become a famous professional baseball player, but almost as a penance, off season he is back home, and helping Keegan’s grandfather to preserve the ranch for his grandson. Even now that the old man is dead, Jaxon is going home to do his work, but this time it’s Keegan who opens the door, of both his home than all the forbidden desires Jaxon tried to forget. Jaxon is openly gay, but it’s not the gay thing that is forbidden, it’s the love he has for an ex con and also the guilty that weights on his shoulder: how can he fall in love with Keegan knowing that he stole 25 years of his life?

Even if both men deny the feelings they are having for each other, the desire is stronger, and they always end in each other arms. It’s like a play of pull and push, but in the end, it’s more Jaxon who is trying to reach out for Keegan: even if 25 years later, even if more experienced and successful, Jaxon probably is still that boy who was looking upon Keegan, waiting for the bad boy of the town to notice him, Mr Nobody; and yes, maybe it’s also a way for him to re-pay Keegan of his lost years, Jaxon for sure will do everything to make the man happy.

Overall I liked the story even if sometime it was “too much”: Keegan’s grandfather who dying left him multimillionaire? If he had so much money, probably he would have been able to help his grandson before that; it’s more believable that he asked Jaxon to help him out, since, even if it’s not said, maybe he noticed Jaxon’s interest in his grandson; a little less believable is that a professional baseball player is able to live as a rancher during off-season, and even less that he can be openly gay without the media give a fit. It’s instead quite understandable that Keegan doesn’t want to be involved with Jaxon, there are many reason for that: Keegan wants to be left alone and in peace, and a relationship with a public persona will not help; Keegan’s imagine is not help for Jaxon’s professional career; at a time the author hinted also to the interracial issue, Jaxon is Afro-American, but sincerely this was the last of their problem.

The mystery side of the story is pretty simple and the most enjoyable part is probably the hot sexual relationship between the two men, both of them well out the inexperience age, and quite aware of what they like and want.

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