Where the Pines Kiss the Sky — V.L. Locey

Sometimes life leads you back to where it all began because home is where the heart can truly mend. Elias Lake is facing a personal and professional crisis. The world-famous star of countless action movies has been outed on social media. By an ex-lover with a poisonous ax to grind. His life and reputation as The World's Only Remaining Manly Man—the studio's PR words, not his—is hiding in his mansion in the L.A. hills, trying to sort out where to go now. The media is camped outside his gates, the studio heads are up in arms, and his legion of fans are ready to fire up the torches and grab their pitchforks. With his world burning down around him, he tucks his tail and heads home to a small island that hugs the rocky coast of Maine. There Elias Lake can return to being plain old Elias Kesside, the son of an innkeeper, who spent his youth pretending to be a famed local pirate or swimming in the choppy waters of Kesside Bay. There he meets Gibson Vale, the upbeat and attractive older ceramist who owns the shop. What starts out as a duck-and-cover moment turns into a friendship that quickly grows into something strong, vibrant, and healing for both men. Contains mature themes.