THE LIGHT REFLECTED

A fisherman/musician falls for a friend who’s back in town for the summer in Freshwater’s second gay romance novel in a series.

It’s 1999, and 20-year-old Max Balais has lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, all his life—a rarity in a place known for its many tourists and vacationers. Between shifts as a cod fisherman, Max likes to hang out on Commercial Street, picking up guys looking for temporary holiday fun. He’s hoping to have an especially raucous summer given that it may be his last in P-Town. He plans to finally leave to study trumpet at Boston’s Berklee College of Music in the fall, even if it means leaving his widowed mother and younger sister to get by on their own. Then his best friend, Danny Cavanaugh, comes back to town after a year at college and throws Max’s plans up in the air. As the scion of a prominent, wealthy local family, Danny is everything Max wishes he was. The two young men begin a tumultuous summer fling, but when Danny’s familial business obligations threaten to take him away permanently, Max must act rashly in an attempt to keep him from slipping away. Freshwater brings Provincetown to life with wonderful specificity, from the historic buildings that Danny’s family’s foundation seeks to the fishing boats to the sweaty nightclubs: “The laidback vibe of the early evening had noticeably shifted. Alcohol and impatience were changing the well-mannered audience into something less predictable.” At times, Freshwater’s prose is so lively and inventive that occasional slips into cliché stand out: “When it came to sex, it was less about finding ‘Mr. Right’ and more like settling for ‘Mr. Right Now.’ ” Still, the author manages to hit the right romantic notes without skimping on character psychology or on providing readers with a rich sense of place.

A sexy, poignant gay love story about men from different sides of the wharf.