Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novella
Scott Carpenter has returned stateside after a difficult mission abroad. All he wants is the peace and quiet of his family beach home in Massachusetts. Instead, he finds a stranger inhabiting the space, sent there by his sister.
Kitt Tyler wasn’t expecting to see Scott, or anyone for that matter. He’s hiding from an abusive ex and was sent to the coast by his client and friend, Karen, who had no idea her brother was coming home.
Scott and Kitt must co exist while dealing with their own pain. As the days pass, each man begins to find solace in the other. Scott never reckoned with his bisexuality before Kitt and romance has been the last thing on his mind. But now Kitt is offering him the kind of love he never thought possible. They’ll have to face Kitt’s painful past and the agony of Scott’s last deployment, but if they stand together, they might just have a beautiful future together.
Against a Rising Tide was a sweet, if somewhat predictable, story about two men working through their pain to find a measure of joy. The general plot lacks a measure of depth and occasionally reads as superficial, but this wasn’t so severe as to cripple my overall enjoyment.
Both of the main characters are intriguing and come with their own baggage. Scott is a SEAL on leave after a gruesome recent deployment and Kitt is on the run from an abusive partner. Neither man was portrayed as weak or lacking, and yet each needed the support of the other, which was a balance I appreciated. I wanted slightly more dimension infused into Scott and Kitt, as there were times they read as shallow, though I doubt this was what the author intended. There was one scene in particular, after Scott has revealed a deeply personal trauma, where Kitt comes off as being more concerned with his own imagined slights and this is at odds with what we know about his character.
That said, these two do work as a couple, but their romance moves far too fast for believability. Over the course of about a week, Scott and Kitt go from being complete strangers to being so madly in love that they’re considering marriage. And while that sounds very romantic, it was hardly realistic. This whole rushed aspect made an otherwise sweet romance seem rather far fetched and I felt this weakened the impact that Kitt and Scott had to offer.
I enjoyed Against a Rising Tide for the most part and it was, at its core, a gentle story about two men suffering and finding a measure of peace with one another. The love story moved too fast for believability, but the plot was generally strong enough to get past the weaker aspects of the book. If you’re looking for a bit of angst with a happily every after, you might enjoy Against a Rising Tide.
