A Seattle Stories novel A year after the sudden death of his longtime partner, Ben, Theo Anderson is still grieving. The last thing he’s looking for is a new lover. But as Theo soon discovers, sometimes life has other plans. While Theo experiences a powerful physical attraction to fellow gym member Peter, it’s his new online friend, Morgan, who provides the intellectual challenge to make him come … intellectual challenge to make him come alive. Morgan is witty, brave, and irreverent, and Theo is ready to take the plunge… until he discovers Morgan might be half his age.
Theo’s late partner was significantly older–enough to strain Theo’s relationship with his family–and the potential of another relationship being cut short leaves him gunshy. Theo needs to lay Ben’s memory to rest, reconcile with his family, and rekindle neglected friendships if he’s to start afresh with a new lover. But Theo isn’t the only one with a past.
His biggest challenge, in living after Ben, might not be his to face.
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The was a beautiful story. I started reading it just before a family member passed away. The family member who passed had a lifetime defined in part by how they managed the loss of their first love.
I kept reading the story slowly because it was oddly comforting to read about someone dealing with loss and moving on to new relationships. I think I appreciate even more how strong my family member was.
The story has some very emotional moments, but it really focuses on hope which I appreciated so very much. Read the book with on open heart and maybe a box of tissues just in case…
I loved After Ben, it was such a slow building story. I thought the memories and real time were a great way to learn about Theo. It was sweet, sexy, interesting and kept me reading kind of story. I loved Morgan and Peter and Theo and I liked learning about the man Theo first loved. I thought the secondary characters really added to this story and I enjoyed this story thoroughly and definitely look forward to reading more about the Seattle Stories. I absolutely recommend this book.
This is an M/M romance that also deals very believably with themes of grief and loss, which is honestly one of the main reasons I enjoyed it so much. While I felt the growing relationship between the two main characters was nice enough, it was how the previous (and in a certain sense, evolving) relationship between the main POV character and his dead husband was depicted – and how that continued to impact the MC’s life and social connections – that really sold me. It felt genuine, which is what made this book emotionally click for me, even though I don’t usually do contemporary. Overall, a really solid read.
New to me author and her writing was amazing. This is a mm contemporary story about loss and grief and starting over again. Slow burn. For more that half the book I didn’t even know who Theo would have a HEA with. Such a moving topic. The way we see things can change with a different perspective. I’ll be reading more from this author.
A story of loss, healing and finding new love.
After Ben is the first book I’ve read by Con Riley and I really enjoyed reading it. It took me a bit longer to read it than I expected but that may be because it was my first book by this author. There were a lot of things woven throughout this book and I was really kept engaged by the story. I usually try to write a review as soon as I finish a book but I needed to let this one settle for me a bit; several days later it’s still difficult for me to put how I felt about it into words.
I found After Ben to be a pretty realistic story. I have never lost a partner but I have lost other important people and the grieving process is different each time. I can easily imagine how difficult it is to move on after such a loss. Some of the things that Theo does and the way he acts are similar to the way other grieving people I have known have acted.
This is an age-gap book but that is only one small aspect of the overall story. While the age gap between the characters was an important aspect of the story, and how it affected Theo’s relationship with his parents, I didn’t feel like it was beat to death like some age gap stories are. The fact is that the gap really wasn’t that great between Theo and Ben.
I loved the slow burn aspect of After Ben. I also liked the complications of Peter as a love interest for Theo. I have just one smallish complaint about the story… It ended a bit too abruptly for me. I’ll admit that I’m one of those readers who never wants a good book to end but in my opinion After Ben would have benefited greatly from an epilogue so that we could know how Theo and Morgan are doing a little further down the road. Perhaps we will see more of them in the other books in this series.
Since After Ben is a reissue of the book that was first published in 2012, I already know that a couple of characters get their own books and I’m looking forward to reading them.
A copy of this book was provided to me but my review was voluntary and not influenced by the author.
***Reviewed for Xtreme-Delusions dot com***
I first read this author a while back and had promised to read more, but my to-be-read list being what it is, she slipped off my radar for a bit. When I saw the Seattle Stories series was being relaunched, I jumped at the chance to read another of her works.
After Ben has all the makings of a fantastic hurt-comfort romance, following two troubled men as they navigate their lives after traumatic events. While there is a good amount of character development for Morgan, After Ben’s main focus is Theo and how he comes to grips with losing his partner of 15 years, eventually looking toward the future and the possibility of new love. There’s heartache and angst aplenty in this novel, and though my eyes welled and my heart clenched at times, the little pieces that came together for Theo were beautiful and certainly worth it.
Finding new love is always a tricky thing to navigate in a romance because there’s a fine line between making that jump to the new relationship while still honoring the lost love, and this novel excelled in that. I loved the way their internet connection allowed Morgan and Theo to develop a connection initially, giving Theo time to process his feelings and move on from his grief. The slow build and raw emotions in After Ben provided a really honest look at love after loss, and is one I won’t quickly forget. If you are looking for a book that will make an emotional impact while gifting a great love story, I’d highly recommend After Ben.
This was a truly lovely book, written in effortlessly flowing prose. It tells the story of Theo, who a year before lost his beloved partner Ben. Almost despite himself, Theo is at last beginning to re-engage with life, as embodied by a new gym-buddy, the new young interns at work, and a new chatroom friend. Theo’s personal assistant Maggie, and his parents, have been at his side the whole time – and yet even with these stalwarts there needs to be adjustments made, conflicting emotions resolved, lessons learned.
There is genuine change and growth in a number of characters – importantly in Theo, of course, but not only in him. The plot or story focuses on this rather than any great dramatics or external incidents, and that is one of the novel’s strengths.
The story is told in the present, with the backstory told via resurfacing memories. Usually I don’t have much tolerance for this kind of thing, as I like to keep moving forward as much as possible, but in this case the style was handled perfectly well. Never any confusion, and the memories and ‘flashbacks’ always pertinent.
The chatroom chat was handled very well, as were the good and bad things about ‘virtual’ relationships developed over the internet and sometimes spilling into ‘real’ life. There was a lot of humour in the book, which is always a plus for me, often relating to the chatroom conversations.
The thing I loved most about this book, however, is how it handles grief. Theo is still grieving for Ben, the love of his life, though the worst of his despair is past. Time does indeed heal, though not yet completely. At times he is still bewildered and hurt by this sense of an absence beside him. But slowly Theo is re-engaging, and finding the strength to move on, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. This process felt very real – and the whole thing was written in a simple straightforward style that took melodrama completely out of the equation.
And if I hadn’t already identified with all of that, I certainly identified with this comment that Theo makes in the chatroom he frequents: ‘iTunes has beaten me.’
Yes. I say yes. To all of the above.