Hi there! Today I’m sharing a Throwback Thursday review for a contemporary M/M romance from Emma Scott. SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY is a book I read a WHILE back, but never had the time to blog about. It features two men with terrible family situations surviving rough experiences and finding love just when they need it.

About the book:

How long would you wait for love?

Max Kaufman was kicked out of his home as a teen and his life has been an uphill battle ever since. From addiction and living on the streets, to recovery and putting himself through nursing school, he’s spent the last ten years rebuilding his shattered sense of self. Now he’s taken a job as a private caretaker to Edward Marsh III, the president and CEO of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Max soon learns Marsh’s multi-billion-dollar empire is a gold and diamond-encrusted web of secrets and lies.

The longer Max works and lives with the Marsh family, the tighter the secrets tangle around him. And his heart—that he’s worked so hard to protect—falls straight into the hands of the distant, cold, and beautiful son of a dynasty…

Silas Marsh is set to inherit the family fortune, but his father is determined his heir be the “perfect” son. Before Silas can take over the company and end its shady business practices, he must prove himself worthy…and deny his true nature.

Silas must choose: stand up to his father by being true to himself and his undeniable feelings for Max. Or pretend to be someone he is not in order to inherit everything. Even if it means sacrificing his first chance at love.

Content warning: contains scenes of conversion therapy, homophobia, and parental verbal abuse of a neurodivergent character. Readers are advised to proceed with caution.

My Review:

Max Kaufman ran away from home as a teen, once his family made it clear that his sexuality would not be welcome or tolerated in their home. He spent years on the streets as a hooker and drug user, but met a man who helped him clean up and get enough education to be a nurse. He’s returned to his hometown of Seattle, Washington to reconnect with his roots. He’d worked in the ER before being recommended to a lucrative position as a private, live-in, caregiver to Edward March III, a billionaire pharmaceuticals CEO. It’s a tetchy assignment because he’s gay and Marsh is a vocal homophobe. Well, he’s a vocal a-hole, he’s got plenty of slurs to spread around his whole family, including his beautiful, dutiful son Silas who is running the company, and his eldest son, Eddie, who has Down’s Syndrome. Marsh is dying of MS and spiteful as all hell. But, he’s been that way a long, long time.

Silas March hates his father, but he hates himself, too. He was only ten when his loving and devoted mother died of a stroke, and whatever humanity his father had disappeared. With his heir, Eddie “compromised,” he took exceptional interest in Silas becoming his perfect replacement at the company. So, when he got the idea that Silas was gay he shipped the teen boy off to an abusive gay-conversion camp in Alaska. The damage was immediate and long-lasting; Silas has a deep aversion to touch, and has never had any intimacy–or even arousal since. He’s hired a woman, Faith< to act as his girlfriend and maintain the pretense that he’s a virile and functional heterosexual man to his father, even though he’s neither. Faith is a stalwart confidante, happy to accept the money and gifts Silas gives her–at least for now. But, Max is so deeply giving and so willing to help him, as well as Marsh and Eddie, well, the emotional bonds form nonetheless.

Silas knows that his company’s cash cow drug is an opioid painkiller that hooks people into dependency–he knows because he got hooked himself, when he was trying to find something to take away his pain and nightmares over Alaska. Knowing that Max is clean, and an NA sponsor, helps Silas confess to his past addiction, but also to develop a plan to remediate the opioid dependency his company has fostered. He’s going to be the CEO someday, and he doesn’t want his legacy to be one of profiteering from pain pill addictions and heroin overdoses. Of course, his manipulative father is holding the company hostage, insisting that Silas marry Faith before he signs over control. And then, he wants Silas to become a father, and then…and then…

So, yeah, it’s a big mess, especially once Silas begins to recognize that he and Max are more than friends, they are soulmates. And, well, Daddy Dearest has some more nasty surprises to hamstring Silas. Both Silas and Max are good men. They have deep family trauma, and they each work through it in methodical steps. Silas needs to outsmart not only his father, but also insiders in the company who’d love to capitalize on Marsh’s failing health and avarice. Max has to forgive his family to find closure that helps on his recovery journey. It’s hard, because they do not really see themselves as at fault for Max’s trauma–he could have chosen differently, right?

Silas and Max make choices that are the right ones for them in the moment, knowing it can hurt the other in that moment. Marsh likes Max, and trusts him implicitly, but his abuse escalates to the point that Max can’t take it any longer. And that means a forced separation is in order. Adding all the machinations going on at the company, Max has no guarantee that Silas will ever be able to be out, or love him completely. It could even lead to a relapse for either of them. It’s still tough to get through, especially while trusting that their life paths will converge eventually.

I loved this one. It’s definitely challenging and triggering, so please know there will be scenes of verbal abuse, and recollections of prostitution, domestic violence, conversion therapy situations and drug use.

Interested? You can find SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY on Goodreads and Amazon. I received a review copy via NetGalley.

About the Author:

Emma Scott is a USA Today and Wall St. Journal bestselling author whose books have been translated in five languages and featured in Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, New York Daily News and USA Today’s Happy Ever After. Her first MM romance, Someday, Someday won the Utopia Con Award for LGBTQ Book of the Year. Emma writes emotional, character-driven romances in which art and love intertwine to heal, and in which love always wins. If you enjoy emotionally-charged stories that rip your heart out and put it back together again, with diverse characters and heroes who treat their heroines like gold, you will enjoy her novels.

Catch up with Emma on her website and twitter.

Thanks for popping in, and keep reading my friends!