“[A] brilliantly written LGBTQ+ take on the classic small-town romance.” –Booklist High school wasn’t the right time or place for their relationship to grow, but now, fifteen years later, a chance encounter changes both of their lives forever. No one in the charming river town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, needs to know that Vince Amato plans on flipping The Hideaway Inn to the highest bidder … Hideaway Inn to the highest bidder and returning to his luxury lifestyle in New York City. He needs to make his last remaining investment turn a profit…even if that means temporarily relocating to the quirky small town where he endured growing up. He’s spent years reinventing himself and won’t let his past dictate his future.
But on his way to New Hope, Vince gets stuck in the middle of nowhere and his past might be the only thing that can get him to his future. Specifically Tack O’Leary, the gorgeous, easygoing farm boy who broke his heart and who picks Vince up in his dilapidated truck.
Tack comes to the rescue not only with a ride but also by signing on to be the chef at The Hideaway for the summer. As Vince and Tack open their hearts to each other again, Vince learns that being true to himself doesn’t mean shutting down a second chance with Tack–it means starting over and letting love in.
Seasons of New Hope
Book 1: The Hideaway Inn
Book 2: The Beautiful Things Shoppe
Carina Adores is home to modern, romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters. Discover a new Carina Adores book every month!
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I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley. I am voluntarily reviewing this book.
The Hideaway Inn caught my attention when I stumbled upon it and I decided to give it a try. I really like a well written second chance romance, add in the whole renovating the inn plot line and this sounded like a great read.
Hideaway Inn is set in the small town New Hope. Vince returns to the town he grew up to to turn a quick profit, his goal is to renovate The Hideaway Inn and then sell it to FunTime, a big company who likes to buy properties like those. Falling back in love with Tack who broke is heart was not on the planning, but that’s exactly what happens.
There was a lot I enjoyed about the book, but also plenty of things I didn’t enjoy .It’s this strange mix where I can’t figure out quite what to think, but mostly I still had fun reading this one, so I went with a 4 star rating in the end. Overall I definitely enjoyed it, the writing style is pleasant, the story interesting, plenty of sweet moments, Tack was a great character, there were some fun side characters as well and I liked the renovating plot line and even more so the foodie aspect that I hadn’t expected to find in this book. Then on the other hand I felt some parts lacked the emotional depth or I wanted to see them explored more, Vince wasn’t likable for most of the book, but I mostly felt sorry for him and on top of that I didn’t fully feel the romance. So yeah plenty of great parts and plenty of not so good parts.
While the renovating the inn plot line is the set-up for the couple meeting again, I was surprised that there wasn’t more about it. I wanted to read more about the decisions Vince was making, how he fell in love with the place and how they were renovating the inn. On the good side there was quite the focus on food and the recipes Tack was trying out, which I hadn’t expected, but I really liked reading those scenes. Tack’s passion for cooking really shines through.
On the topic of Tack, I really liked him. Tack is the love interest and we get a few chapters form his point of view as well. He was sweet and determined. He had a kid and he worked so hard to give them a good live and the freedom to choose who they wanted to be. I liked his passion for cooking and how he was going to culinary school as he wanted to learn more. He had made mistakes in his past, but he became a better human being, came out to everyone as bi and now seemed comfortable with who he was. He know what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. I liked how chapters the most as I enjoyed reading about him and his point of view.
Vince on the other hand was much less likable. I mostly just felt sad when reading about him. He was this skinny skid who loved to read and got bullied badly. Then the boy he fell for didn’t stand up for him and broke his heart. He got hurt so badly that even now about 15 years later if I am correct he’s still dealing with all the emotional baggage. He did feel younger to he at times than the 35 he was supposed to be, but on the other hand I do think it makes sense for some things to stick with you this long. He just didn’t seem happy at all or have things he cared about and I wasn’t sure how he managed to go through life like that for so long. I felt so sorry for him it was just so sad to see how he still struggled with how he was bullied and now he is this uber masculine version of himself who hides behind a mask so no one can ever hurt him again. On top of that he also was quite rude at first, he acted like this rich entitled person. It just felt like presenting this put together masculine image was all that mattered to him. And it was just sad that he didn’t feel like he could be himself.
Vince did become more likeable during the story when he slowly let his mask fall away and opens up a bit to tack, but I just never felt like he let Tack in all the way. I wish he would’ve told Tack more about himself and who he was now. I also wanted the change to be a bit more subtle, start a bit earlier and see more of his changed self. It was great to see Vince realize this was no way to live and change, but by then it both felt like too little too late and too sudden. It was like this one realization let him to change his whole life. And I wanted to see more of the process and how he was to work to really shed that image and become who he wants to be.
So with how I felt about the two main characters, it was a bit hard to feel the romance. Frankly I wouldn’t have blamed Tack if he would’ve ditched Vince after Vince is so rude to him, but Tack clearly is a good person and believes the Vinny he knew is still in there and sticks with him. Even though Vince can’t even say a nice word about his cooking or him helping. And Tack helps him a lot and never asks for anything in return except for Vince to give him another chance. Tack was so sweet and Vince could be so harsh, but when that slowly begins to change there were some great scenes. I would’ve liked they opened up a bit more and talked a bit more about how they were feeling. The mutual attraction is clear from the start and there’s a lot of talk about sex and lust, but there are only a few sex scenes written out and the rest is all fade to black. There are some sweet moments where they connect that I liked the most about their romance.
What I liked the least was the obligatory break-up scene. Everything I hate about obligatory break up scenes was fit in there. There was plenty of miscommunication, lack of communication, acting out of character and this big blow up after which ofcourse Tack had to bridge the gap again. The whole scene just felt off and forced and stilted. I did like that while Tack bridged the gap, Vince also has to show he was in this and I did like the scene at the end where they get together again.
The focus on this book mostly is on the two main characters, but there’s a group of fun side characters surrounding them. Vince doesn’t really have anyone in his life that’s close to him, but he has some people in new Hope that he still knows and gets to know. There was the bookstore owner that Vince knew as a kid and I liked how she saw right through him and gave him some good advice too. And Anita who works at the Hideaway Inn and I liked how she handled both Vince and Tack and got them on track a few times. Then there was Jules who is Tack’s kid, I really liked reading about them and how they grew to like Vince as well.
I liked reading about this small town and the characters in it. And I am excited to hear there will be more books in this series.
To summarize: This was a sweet and fun romance to read set in a small town. I enjoyed reading this book, the writing style was well done and I liked the story and the foodie type scenes that were in the book. I would’ve liked to see more about the renovation. I really liked Tack, the love interest and I am glad we got some scenes form his point of view. I liked who he was and how he made mistakes, but now was a better person and how hew really seemed to know what he wanted out of life. Vince was hard to like, I mostly just felt bad for him. He got bullied as a kid and now has this uber masculine persona and I felt bad he couldn’t just be himself. He could be quite rude at first. It was great to see him slowly change, but it felt a bit too sudden and I would’ve liked to see a bit of the progress. I had trouble fully feeling the romance at times, but these tow were good together and I liked that they got their second chance. There are some sweet moments between these two. There are some fun side characters and I liked reading about this small town.
When I learned that Carina was producing a romance line specifically for LGBQT stories, I became ridiculously excited. I’ve long been a fan of the Carina line – they’ve made a real commitment to publishing diverse, #ownvoices romances and some of my favorite writers are published by them. When the Carina Adores titles showed up on my Netgalley, I was first in line with my grabby hands to read each one.
This book brings together a few favorite tropes – big city vs. small town pairing, forced proximity and second chance romance. Vince Amato returns to his hometown to renovate The Hideaway Inn, with the intention of flipping it and selling it to a franchise vacation business for a profit before returning to the city. He has no intention of sticking around, since New Hope holds difficult memories of a poor upbringing and his first – and greatest – heartbreak.
He runs into Tack O’Leary within the first five pages of the book and it is clear that there is history between the former “Skinny Vinnie” and the popular high school football star turned chef. But there is serious history and Vinnie barely hides his resentment behind a veneer of toxic masculinity that often made me cringe.
But beneath all that bluster is still the slender, courageous, poetry-loving boy who loved Tack from afar and spent his life compensating for Tack’s apparent rejection of him by armoring himself in a take-no-prisoners maleness that only serves to crush any tender feelings Vinnie might possess. Vinnie is aggressive and rude and frankly obnoxious, but there is no doubt that, no matter how hard he tries to push those feelings away, they refuse to disappear
Tack, meanwhile, has changed, owning his bisexuality and raising a gender-nonconforming child with his ex-wife, with whom he is friendly and has bonded because she has come to terms with her own queerness. He is handsome, competent, gregarious and easy to love.
The romance builds slowly and when they get together, it is steamy and heart-felt. Vinnie slowly grows into his feelings and even when he botches everything, he is always the poet who pines for his first love.
The rep in this book is excellent, featuring not only the full spectrum of the LGBTQ community but also disabled and neurodivergent representations. New Hope is a wonderful creation – a town that exists as a safe haven for everyone. It’s an excellent example of found family and an inclusive society that does not interfere, but supports the full spectrum of human expression and it is, frankly, magical. As an #ownvoices offering, it was a must-read for me.
I received a copy of this book from Carina Press in exchange for an honest review.
Originally posted at https://serataino.com/2020/06/03/bookshelf-the-hideaway-inn-seasons-of-new-hope-book-1/
Wheeler-dealer Vince thinks flipping the Hideaway Inn in his old home town is going to save him from his financial woes, but he doesn’t count on tangling with his old high school crush who also happened to crush his heart back in the day. He’s not the same old Vince.
Tack is Vince’s high school crush. He’s come a long way in understanding himself and who he wants to be which is a very attractive quality in this character. And even though Tack and Vince are both crushing on each other as adults, it takes a little bit for them to trust each other and themselves. I liked these two together.
Things get complicated once Tack finds out about Vince’s plans for the Inn and Vince has to make some hard decisions. While predictable, I did really like these two characters. Vince is a jerk at times, and that just made his transformation all the more satisfying. Tack’s soulfulness complimented him well.
There were a few aspects of this story that bugged me and might even be almost cringe-worthy. There is a very inappropriate business colleague who I didn’t find funny, and the power imbalance between Vince as owner and Tack as employee might be viewed as questionable by some.
I did appreciate the diversity of this book and I would probably check out this new-to-me author again.
The Hideaway Inn is a second chance romance in a sense, but it’s more another chance at being who they’re meant to be. Sometimes it takes a bit of life lived to get there, and to me, that’s what Vince and Tack needed. Both of these guys have some emotional work to do on this journey, and I gotta say that Vince was a hard one to like. He made me think of someone who has gone so far over the top of reinventing himself that even he doesn’t quite know who he is anymore, and the result wasn’t favorable. Nevertheless, Tack either saw something in the new and not so improved Vince or he saw the Vinny he remembered from high school. Whatever it was, this pair did start to grow on me little by little, and the more Stover pulled back the layers of Vince, the more I wanted to hug him – even when I wanted to shake the daylights out of him first. I’m going to stop there rather than give spoilers, but I’ll add that I really like the town of New Hope and its colorful characters, and I hope to see more of it in the future. Tack and Vince’s romance may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I ended up liking them both and enjoying their journey.
When Vince comes back to his hometown a completely made over, masculine version of his former self, the last person he expects to recognize him and be happy to see him is his childhood crush, tormentor, Tack.
Tack cannot believe he has a chance at redemption, at being with the boy he let be bullied, but definitely had feelings for, still has feelings for. But Vince may have an agenda Tack is unaware of, and that agenda may be the biggest obstacle standing in their way.
I wanted to love this, I really did. The blurb really got me, and the cover conveys a sweet sensibility that admittedly, Tack has. Unfortunately, there’s a big, big reason why I couldn’t love this, and that’s Vince. He’s completely unlikable. Yes, he was the one bullied when he was younger, and Tack certainly should have, and did, make amends for that. But…in the present, Vince had transformed himself into an ass who treated Tack horribly, even when it became obvious Tack had changed. Sorry, but Vince was so unlikable that I couldn’t bring myself to rate this one higher, no matter how much I like Tack and his child, Jules.
I loved it!
The Hideaway Inn captured my attention right away and held it from start to finish. The only reason I didn’t read it in one session is that real life required my attention. This is the first book I’ve read by Philip William Stover and one of the first in the new Carina Adores line.
The story is told in first person POV, with most chapters told by Vince and about one-third of them by Tack. One thing I found a bit disconcerting at first… the chapters told from Tack’s POV are labeled with his name at the top but when the next chapter switched back to Vince there was no label. I love books where we get the POV of both of the MCs but I’m used to seeing each chapter labeled with the name of the character speaking in that chapter. After the first couple of shifts I finally caught on to how this book was being done and didn’t have any issues with it going forward.
Second chance stories are one of my absolute favorite romance tropes so I was really drawn to this one. Vince and Tack didn’t exactly have a relationship in high school but Vince definitely felt there was a connection and he was deeply hurt when he realized that Tack didn’t feel the same way.
In high school, Tack couldn’t acknowledge that he was attracted to “Skinny Vinny”, something he later lived to very much regret. While Vince returns to New Hope intending only to make a quick buck by flipping The Hideaway Inn, Tack sees it as a chance for him to right a wrong and reconnect with Vince.
This story has lots of feels going on. Tack has a child and he and his ex-wife are wonderful parents to them (yes, that is the right pronoun for his child). In the beginning Vince is all bad-ass and distant with the locals. But he is gradually won over by the town, Tack, and especially Tack’s child. I really fell in love with all of the characters and the town of New Hope. I hope we get to see more of Vince and Tack in the upcoming books in this series. I’m really looking forward to reading more.
A review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley but this did not influence my opinion or rating of the book.
***Reviewed for Xtreme-Delusions dot com***
I seem to be on a roll of reading great new-to-me authors and I’m loving it! This author doesn’t have a huge library, only a few more books before this one. But I’ll definitely be checking out what he already has out there.
Although I read a ton of romance and have read plenty of M/M romance, I don’t believe I’ve ever read any by a male author. I knew that was problematic, but with the books I always already have on tap I haven’t delved into getting recommendations for a male written gay romance. I’m so glad this one came across my email because I enjoyed it immensely.
Vince has a huge chip on his shoulder, with good reason. His formative years were rough. While he always seemed to know who he was, others didn’t accept that fact and made his life a series of bad incidents. While he was still at home and going to school, he still refused to change who he was. But as soon as he left for college he started to transform himself. He never wanted to be hurt again…physically or emotionally. He thought the best way to attain that goal was to never let anyone see the real him again. He even changed the way he spoke.
While Tack was the person to break Vince’s heart all those years ago, he didn’t do it out of hostility. Tack was going through his own thing, trying to hide his true self, and couldn’t see outside of his own fears. There’s a great line in the story about Tack not being able to tell the difference between what was expected of him from others and what he expected from himself. Don’t all teenagers have that issue? In fact, don’t people of all ages struggle with this very thing? Tack takes a very different path than Vince. Instead of putting up shields, he starts to take his down.
There were times I couldn’t stand Vince, but I understood him all too well. Because Vince had so many walls up and wasn’t confronting those old demons, there was no way for Tack to know why Vince’s moods would swing. When Vince finally lets it all out, doesn’t let the past get swept under the rug anymore, and calls Tack out on some past behavior, it’s a truly beautiful scene. I was crying and had hope peeking in that these two could find their way to each other.
I appreciate that the author included some they/their/them pronounced characters (my second book in a row with this inclusion! Yay! The world is progressing) and had some slips by the other characters along the way. We’re all still learning, but everyone in this story was open to learning. They knew slips and mistakes would be made, especially when emotions were high. They apologized and corrected themselves and it was lovely.
The only negative in this story for me was the secret keeping. I’m finding more and more that these plot points bother me. It wasn’t too bad in this one and many people enjoy the suspense of “when will they find out about___”, but it makes me too tense. I guess I’m turning into a fuddy-duddy.
I’m looking forward to more in this series (love the inclusive/safe town!) and by this author.
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
Returning to his childhood home, Vince Amato, who has undergone a personal and physical transformation, finds himself being rescued by Tack O’Leary, an old school friend.
Immediately, we’re introduced to intense chemistry, which Vince is reluctant to embrace, having being previously burnt. As the story develops, readers can expect character growth and a strong focus on personal identity and acceptance. Along the way, readers can also enjoy a vast range of diverse and wonderful characters, cementing a very clear expectation of what to expect in the reverse small-town of New Hope.
While the plot is a little cookie-cutter at times, there’s enough depth and developed conflict to ensure an element of originality. The main characters are a mix of sweet and fabulous, and frustrating. The latter is important for character development and also ensures characters are appropriately flawed.
With solid writing, Philip William Stover has created a fun series with a diverse group of characters. If you enjoy low-angst drama with a good balance of heat and sweet, be sure to check out The Hideaway Inn.