Definitely Deacon by Vawn Cassidy Blog Tour

An emotional and humour filled roller-coaster ride through a sleepy little Cornish Bay.

Jesse Ainsley’s life running his busy veterinary practice in the sleepy Cornwall bay he grew up in leaves no time for a serious relationship… at least, that’s what he tells himself, but the simple truth is much more cliché. He’s been in love with his best friend forever, but when he starts pulling away and goes radio silent on him for six months, Jesse begins to wonder if their friendship is finally over.

Deacon James lives his life at two speeds, a hundred miles an hour and stop. He’s spent the last decade travelling the world, winning races, partying with the most beautiful men and women, and living life on his terms, a life which was pretty close to perfect… with just one caveat… he’s never quite been able to get over the boy he left behind. His best friend Jesse has always made him yearn for something he’s too afraid to face and cutting him out of his life seemed like the only answer.

But things are never that simple. When Deacon wakes from an accident in Italy with Jesse asleep in the hospital chair beside him, he discovers Jesse’s been keeping secrets of his own.

At a crossroads in their life, they’re faced with a choice, build something deeper and stronger from the ashes, or let words unsaid and secrets tear them apart forever.

From author Wendy Saunders writing as Vawn Cassidy comes this second chance, friends to lovers, hurt/comfort with a HEA.

Don’t miss our reviews of the rest of the Belong to Me series!
For book one, Suddenly Beck, click HERE.

 

 

Book 2
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
Paperback (US)
~  Also Available with KindleUnlimited  ~

 

 

I surface through the syrupy depths of consciousness, and this time it’s a little easier. My body still screams in agony, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. My head is pounding, and my throat feels like it’s filled with razor blades, but as I open my eyes, they don’t feel so heavy and it’s easier to focus.

I tilt my head slowly and glance at the chair wondering if I really had seen Jesse or if it had been some kind of feverish dream.

It wasn’t, unless I’m still hallucinating because he’s curled up in a comfortable looking leather chair next to me, idly leafing through a magazine. I’m sure he’s wearing a different colour shirt than before, and I take a moment to study him.

His short blonde hair is in need of a trim, sticking up slightly as if he’s run his fingers through it in agitation. There’s a light scruff along his jaw, which means he probably hasn’t shaved in a few days, and there are smudges under his eyes, like he’s barely slept.

“Jesse…” My voice is barely more than a croak, causing Jesse’s head to snap up in my direction.

“Deak.” He leans forward with a gasp of relief. “You’re awake. You opened your eyes for a few moments yesterday, but then you were out cold again.”

Yesterday? I stare at him in confusion. “Where…” I try to speak, but my voice sounds like a rusty nail, and my mouth is so dry I don’t even have any spit when I attempt to swallow.

“Here.” Jesse carefully lifts a small plastic cup and guides a straw to my lips. “Sip slowly. They had to put a tube down your throat to help you breath for a while, so you probably have a sore throat.”

Understatement.

I sip gratefully. The water is lukewarm and has a faintly clinical taste to it, but against my painful throat it feels like the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I release the straw, feeling a bead of water drip from my lower lip. I watch as Jesse reaches out unconsciously and runs his thumb along my lip. My heart kicks up a notch, and once again the stupid machine next to me starts beeping faster.

Realising what he’s done, he drops his hand and swallows, staring at the machine. “I’ll go get someone.” He frowns.

“Jesse,” I whisper hoarsely, lifting my hand clumsily to grasp his. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a hospital in Rome,” he replies quietly, his warm hazel eyes searching my face for any flicker of recognition, but so far, I’m drawing a blank.

“Rome?” I frown, and I have a vague recollection of a party. “What happened?”

“You were in a car accident.”

I close my eyes against the sudden flash of lights, the sound of grinding metal, glass shattering.

 

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Sarah – ☆☆☆☆☆
This is a wonderfully complicated second-chance, friends-to-lovers romance. Charming, playful, and just a tiny bit heart wrenching, Jesse and Deacon are wonderful.

Actually, at the start of the book, Deacon is a spoiled and self-centred sports star. It’s Jesse, the patient village veterinarian who is wonderful from the start. Where Deacon is brooding and resentful, Jesse is sunshine and light – even when I wanted him to save himself and walk away.

I really enjoyed the way the author works back and forth through the important moments in the men’s 26-year friendship. It is the young Deacon's memories and experiences that make the adult Deacon feel redeemable. From childhood, Jesse’s feelings for his friend are almost painful to witness. Deacon’s childhood experiences are equally terrible.

Somehow, the author keeps the connection between Deacon and Jesse light, playful, and mostly fun. After a rocky reunion, the friendship between them burns brightly. Jesse’s family and the quirky Bay residents are familiar from the first book, and I love them even more in this second story.

I love the English seaside setting and characters. The Bay is truly the main character in this series. This book introduces a more glamorous second set of characters connected to Deacon and I’m really curious to see where the author takes them. This is definitely one of my favourite series at the moment and I can’t wait for the next one.


Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆☆
This is the second book in the series, and I would definitely recommend that you read them in order. This could be read as a standalone, although I think you would miss some of the finer points of the plot.

Jesse is the identical twin of Beck, who featured in book one. The funny thing is that Beck is this gorgeous, larger than life artist who falls for Nate the new chef in the family restaurant, yet his twin considers himself to be an uninteresting veterinarian. Perhaps partly due to his lifelong love for Deacon having been crushed by his continued absence from his life. It is so perfectly written though, that it is only much later in the book, that this discrepancy between actual and perceived really becomes obvious.

Deacon has been travelling the world, competing in sailing competitions and avoiding his hometown, in part because he can't face seeing Jesse and the feelings he has for him. Avoidance has come at a price, but it seems fitting that he should suffer.

Fate clearly has to intervene, and whilst a bad car crash seems a cruel route, it definitely starts these two men on a journey to revisit their lifelong friendship, their one summer of intimacy, and review what the future could hold if the stars align.

I love the little touches which make this an exceptional book – like the origami to reduce panic, the discussion Deacon has with Garrett about the wood that should be used on the latest boat being built, and the black silky hair of paper artist Jin. I am also looking forward to the mystery of the car crash being looked into further in the future... a definite unfinished thread there!

Beautiful story, wonderfully written, thank you.

 

 

VAWN CASSIDY is the mild mannered M/M obsessed alter ego and pen name of contemporary fantasy & romantic suspense author Wendy Saunders. She's a Brit and lives in the UK with her husband and kids.

Connect with Vawn Cassidy

Facebook  ~  Instagram  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads
Facebook Group: Cassidy's Bay Boys

 

 

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Hosted by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Definitely Deacon (Belong to Me #2) by Vawn Cassidy to read and review.

Suddenly Beck by Vawn Cassidy Blog Tour

A surprisingly sweet, sinfully sexy, and deliciously hilarious romp along the Cornish coast.

Nathan Elliott has run away from home at the age of twenty-six. His teenage rebellion may have come ten years late, but better late than never. Leaving behind a world of wealth and privilege, and a strict patriarchal family that would never except a gay son, he’s ready to embrace life and make up for lost time, but nothing’s ever that simple. A coin toss, a delayed train, and a wrong bus later, and Nat finds himself in a small bay in Cornwall being hauled out of the ocean by a gorgeous stranger and wondering how the hell his life got so off track.

Beck Ainsley lives life by a very simple ethos, don’t get attached, don’t get involved and don’t fall in love. He’s been there, done that and got the t-shirt that reads I’m a gullible idiot. Now, he keeps his life simple; all he needs is his dog, his art, his rambling sea cottage overlooking the bay and a few choice waves to surf. He’s not looking for love or commitment, but when he ends up plucking a posh boy from London with incredible blue eyes from the ocean, Cupid doesn’t just shoot him with an arrow, he decides to club him senseless with the bow too.

One simple agreement. A summer fling, a chance to act on the insane attraction between them with no strings attached, and at the end of the summer they walk away.

There’s just one problem, fate is a fickle and capricious creature, and she has no intention of letting them walk away unscathed. They’re about to discover that sometimes the heart wants, what the heart wants…

From author Wendy Saunders writing as Vawn Cassidy, comes this hot and sweet, first time, MM romance that will leave you laughing out loud and fanning yourself from the heat…

Can be read as a standalone.

 

 

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
Paperback (US)
~  Also Available with KindleUnlimited  ~

 

 

I knock again, and after a moment the door opens, and I almost swallow my tongue. Nat is standing there in all his warm, sleepy glory. His olive skin flushed, his wild dark curls rioting all over the place and wearing nothing but a very… very thin pair of sleeping shorts. I swallow slowly, my mouth is actually watering, and I almost reach up to see if I’m drooling.

Just friends… Just friends… I chant silently.

He blinks slowly, as if he isn’t quite awake enough to focus.

‘Beck?’ he murmurs, and his voice, hoarse from sleep, shoots straight to my balls. He blinks again in confusion. ‘Am I having that dream again?’ he wonders aloud. ‘If I am, where’s your moustache, and why aren’t you fixing the plumbing?’

I snort out loud, and it breaks the tension.

His head tilts as he studies me. ‘What are you doing here?’ He glances back into his room, presumably to look at a clock and scowls. ‘At five thirty in the morning?’

‘The break is perfect this morning, so I thought we could catch some waves.’ I smile.

‘At five thirty in the morning?’ he repeats slowly, and I nod. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he says dryly.

‘Nope,’ I pop my lips on the word and grin again.

‘Urgh,’ he grunts in disgust and turns back into the room.

I reach out and slap my hand against the door before it slams in my face and follow him in curiously. He crosses the room and crawls back into bed, flopping down on his stomach like a starfish with his face buried in the pillows and gifting me with a gorgeous view of his round peachy arse.

‘Go away and come back at a more civilized hour,’ he mumbles incoherently into the pillow.

‘Come on, Nat.’ I smile widely as I throw the curtains open and let in the pale rays of dawn.

He grunts again as he grabs a pillow and shoves it over his head.

‘Besides,’ I say brightly. ‘The farmers market is on at the Killacourt, and we need to source some new suppliers for the restaurant.’

‘Then come back and get me in four hours,’ comes the muffled reply from beneath the pillow.

I cross the room slowly, unable to hide how much he delights me, even all sleepy and grumpy. I drop down on my haunches beside the bed.

‘I’ll buy you a coffee,’ I croon in a low teasing voice.

For a moment there’s silence, then the pillow shifts, and his face slowly peeks out, locking those starling baby blues on me, which are framed with sooty black lashes. I’ve never seen him unshaven, but now he has a sexy dark stubble gracing his jaw that I’d love to trace the pads of my fingers over before brushing those soft, bee stung lips.

‘What sort of coffee?’ He pouts in reluctant interest.

‘Only the best for you, Nat.’ I smile slowly. ‘Hand roasted, freshly ground and as dark and bitter as the pits of hell.’

 

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
4.5 stars of seaside sexiness!

This is the first book in a new series, and I am absolutely invested in the people of the Bay community and definitely will be reading future installments.

There is something so wonderfully magical about the place that Nat and Beck meet, yet incredibly real. Beck's cottage with a studio overlooking the sea; the fading, slightly neglected air in the town; the surf shack; the vitality of Molly; the loss of a family, expressed by the disappearance of a chef. We are drawn into a community which is caring, slightly apart from the real world, and which absorbs the very lost Nathan into its ambit.

The romance between Beck and Nat is so fragile and so precious, yet fierce in its potency. I loved the line between it being everything or nothing, and we get to watch the intensity along with Beck's family and friends. Delicious from start to end.

I cannot wait for the next book to come out, as I find that I care about these people as if I knew them!


Angie – ☆☆☆☆
I honestly want to know if a place like the Bay exists because I fell in love with everything about it. I felt like I was there, and I loved it and can't wait for the next book in the series. Nat and Beck are simply good together. This book was sweet, funny at times, and while there was a little angst, it fit the story. Great start to a series.


Sarah – ☆☆☆☆
This is a warm, funny romance set in a small Cornish beach town. Two very different lives collide when Beck rescues newcomer Nat from the sea. Where Beck is part of a large, close family, Nat is running from his own family and his life back in London. But quickly, the artist and the chef find common ground and become inseparable.

The glimpse of Cornish sea-side life in this book is lovely. I love Beck, his family, and the whole community. The relationship that builds between Nat and Beck is also very special. While both Beck and Nat are working through difficult issues around grief and identity, the book stays light and hopeful.

My only reservation with this book is the writing and the editing. I read a pre-publication copy, so I can hope that a full copy edit took place prior to publication. In the copy I read, the punctuation and sentence structure errors were frequent and distracting. The story is strong enough for me to ignore the slightly clunky writing, but it was a frustrating read at times.

 

 

 

Vawn Cassidy is the MM pen name of author Wendy Saunders. She lives in Hampshire in the UK with her husband and three children. She writes Supernatural and Contemporary Fantasy Fiction as Wendy Saunders and Romantic Suspense as WJ Saunders.

Suddenly Beck is her debut MM novel and was borne of her love and enjoyment of MM Romance. During the lockdown, she wanted to write something fun and light-hearted, and as a quirky and unapologetic Brit herself, she wanted to set a story back home in the UK as opposed to her other fiction which is primarily set in the states.

Connect with Vawn

Facebook  ~  Instagram  ~  Goodreads
Facebook Group: Cassidy's Bay Boys

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Hosted by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Suddenly Beck (Belong to Me #1) by Vawn Cassidy to read and review for this tour.