4* Good combination of mystery, a blast from the past, and friends who nearly made it to being lovers getting a second chance.

This book follows the blurb pretty faithfully, but doesn't tell readers much about the various - flawed - relationships in this tale. I'd expected it to be more romance-orientated, but it wasn't, which isn't a criticism, as it felt realistic after an absence of twenty years, and, I ended up rather fascinated about all the lives broken due to boozing and the death of a non-central character.

I believed in Alex's damaged relationship with his alcoholic dad, having been raised by his mum and her new husband, the man he considered his father. I believed in his sister, who'd stayed local to their dad, and whose own relationships ended up flawed, being resentful of Alex, though she called him home to their father's deathbed. I believed in Ben's mother, grieving for her daughter, someone described as unpleasant and manipulative, simply because she needed the truth about her disappearance. I believed in Ben, whose broken family seemed to have translated into his need to help others. What I didn't 100% believe in, was the romance between Ben and Alex. But, this didn't overshadow the tale, as there was so much going on.

There is a proper mystery at the core of the tale, and there were hints that had me thinking one thing, and being rather surprised to discover the sad truth about Ben's sister's disappearance. This tale could have worked without the leads getting back together, because, tbh, they didn't feel suited and the romance element felt not-integral to the tale.

It's worth a read for the various relationships that end up entwined and then broken apart - again, as long as you're not expecting a full-on romance.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Riptide Publishing, for my reading pleasure.

RATING: 5 out of 5

A journalist who comes home to his sleepy hometown after two decades. A second-chance romance with the first boy he ever kissed. And an answer to the mystery of a missing teenage girl that might either make or break the possible future between the two of them

This book is (nearly) perfect for me in every way. It is MY kind of read.

From the moment it opens with Alex driving his car towards his hometown of Alton Pop. 3,200 I was bewitched with Chris Scully's atmospheric prose. Alex returns home to visit his estranged dying father, after a call from his older sister. But Alex knows, he also going back to Benji Morning, his former best friend. Once Ben was part of Alex's childhood life, they did everything together. And Ben was also Alex's first kiss with a boy. Unfortunately, after Alex's mother packed up their bags and left their father, Alex ceased to continue communication with Ben...

In hindsight, I suppose I could have Googled him, or found him on Facebook like any other long-lost friend, but I was already in motion, driving the extra hour east purely by instinct, as if Benji were my true north and I the needle on a compass.

However as he arrives in Alton, Alex is involved with a mystery involving Ben's older sister. Twenty years ago, Misty Morning, disappeared without a trace; her case was considered a runaway. But a little over a week before Alex's arrival, Misty's car was found near a lake, and Ben's mother insisted for the police to re-open the case.

The memory of Misty’s white Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme seeped into my brain, coalescing like a slow-developing Polaroid. Calling it a shit-bucket would have been generous.

Back to You is written solely from Alex's perspective. While Ben's POV is missing but I wasn't completely bothered by it. For me, this is basically Alex's journey. He is the one returning home. He is the one that needs to make peace with his father and his decision to 'cut-off' any communication with Ben. In a way that matters Ben's is the solid one -- like Alex said, his true north.

I was as engaged with the answer to the mystery as much as I did with the romance. Scully cleverly throws some red herrings before she reveals what really happened to Misty all those years ago. She skillfully navigates the dysfunctional family dynamic in both Alex and Ben's family the serves a role to the mystery that both heartbreaking and thought-provoking.

At the same time Scully steadily develops the relationship between Alex and Ben, which is appropriate considering when they left things, the two men were only in a brink of their teenage years. Alex and Ben need to work through the years that they have been separated, to untangle what they are meant to each other then and now.

To me, this is a compelling story. It fulfills my (reading) heart's desire for a strong plot and characterizations -- and not simply leaning on sexual content. I did wish the epilogue to be more of a firm happily ever after decorated with sunshine and rainbows.

I have been a fan of Chris Scully since the very beginning -- this is definitely her best yet and my favorite so far.

► Page-turner-alert! → Highly recommended.

Back To You was a total win for me and came just when I needed it!

The low-key mystery, the tranquil vibe… it fit my mood perfectly. The romance was bittersweet (in my eyes), their connection strong.

For some reason I felt like I was thrown back in time, a setting like out of Bates Motel; some three thousand people town, a dying town as Alex put it, in the middle of nowhere. Lonely highways, dark, scary forests. Foggy days and snowy nights. The ghost of a missing girl lingering for decades.... I loved it.

I’ve always enjoyed Chris Scully’s storytelling and her characters once again felt real– I was intrigued from the beginning– and it was a pleasure getting to know them, learning their stories.

►

Alex Colville and Benjamin Morning grew up as neighbors and did what best friends do: They spent all their free time together, exploring the forests, and picked one another up when one of them felt down. While both boys had corrupted family dynamics and relied on each other, it was Alex who needed Ben’s quiet strength the most.

When they were thirteen, Ben’s older sister Misty Morning disappeared, supposedly ran away to escape the small town and become a model. Twenty years later her car was recovered and the questions once again arise: What really happened to Misty?

The year Misty went missing, Alex, his mother and sister moved to America, leaving their alcoholic, good-for-nothing father behind. Now, twenty years later, Alex returns to see his dying father one last time. Holding on tight to decades of resentment, Alex doesn’t have anything to say to him, but he hopes to at least get a story out of the trip. After all, his writing career is in dire need of something big to get him back on track.

With the familiar scenery of the place he once called home, the memories of his childhood friend come rushing back and soon Alex finds himself on the Morning Family’s doorstep. But, as expected, their reunion doesn’t go so well and when Alex finds out about the reappearance of Misty’s car even he can’t escape the mystery.

Smelling another story, Alex considers helping Mrs. Morning with the investigation of her missing daughter. Trying for decades to escape the drama around his sister, seemingly with no use, Ben wants Alex to stay out of the case. The ghost of Misty just wouldn’t leave him alone….

I thought the mystery and romance and self finding was equally divided and the story well paced. It just worked for me.

►

Alex is the voice of the story and while I didn’t always understand him or his actions I felt for the guy and supported him in his journey. He’s a bit self-centered and bitter where his family is concerned but his heart is in the right place.

Ben was a wonderful character; he’s kindhearted, gentle and teaches free art classes – art therapy for young and old. His relationship with his mother is almost non-existent, definitely on the unhealthy side, and I ached for him. I would have loved Ben’s POV! I think it would have made their story even more powerful.



▽
Many, many thanks to the publisher who kindly provided a free copy for an honest and impartial review.

Back to You, Chris Scully

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  Romance, LGBTQIA

I loved this story. a beautiful slowly unfolding romance, a tantalising mystery, and a look at just how much childhood influences our lives. 

Alex seemed pretty selfish when we first met him and I didn't really like him. It seemed pretty straightforward, alcoholic father loses job, or could have been jobless father becomes alcoholic....depends on your view, and then parents separate and mum moves away with kids and remarries. 
Alex loves his mum and stepfather but carries a real resentment that his own father didn't make more effort to see him and sister Janet, didn't even phone them.
Janet's older so her view of the past is not the same, she recalls more of their parents being happy. She leaves home and ends up back in the same town as their dad, and now Alex is back as their father is dying he can see that she's got issues too, another alcoholic, though a functioning one who covers it well. 

We only see things from Alex POV which is a shame, as I'd have loved in insight into Ben's mind. 
He's stayed in the same town, made a life for himself quietly, and clearly the event that had impact on him back then is still affecting him. His sister Misty, Janet's best friend, went missing while Alex and his family were still living there. In fact he and Ben were the last people to see her.
Her mum, Angela, was like many parents, wrapped up in day to day stuff, the slog and grind of working, running a home, looking after teens, didn't really make time for the kids, let them roam freely without much checking. Now she's thrown the last 20 years into finding out what happened to Misty, as if she blames herself for not being there so much of the while. 
She's turned Misty into some kind of a saint, and rewritten the past to give them a close, devoted almost, relationship when it simply wasn't that way, and Misty was a pretty mean, malicious individual.
She's really no time for Ben, kind of dismisses him as doing OK, and just doesn't appreciate that she still has one child, albeit grown now, living near her. 
Ben looks after her, helping out when she's in trouble yet again in her search for answers. She's very single  minded. 

Somehow Alex gets caught up in her search, partly because he feels there's a good story in it, partly because he wants something, anything, to give him an excuse to spend as little time as he can with his dying dad...

This book is a really close look at families, childhood, mistakes, the things that happen, that we can't evade but which have so much impact on us as adults.
Its clear that Alex thinks he's left the past behind but inside he's still seeking his dad's approval, but knowing its never coming, so everything he does is tinged with that sense of failure in his view of dad's eyes even before he starts it. My view of him changed as the story unfolded and I grew to really like him.

I love Ben, so quiet, so internal, and so helpful in an unobtrusive way to others in the town. He sees people for what they are, what they need, what he can do to help, not what problems they have.
He's always loved Alex, that's clear, even though they were only 13 when he left, and I get the feeling his life without Alex, with his mum there but in a way absent from his life in her search, means he's kind of lonely. Its a small town, everyone knows everything, or thinks they do - or so it seems, and towns like that aren't likely to have too many openly gay people.
Still, he's made himself a quietly successful life as an artist, and in his unique way gives so much back to helping others.
I just couldn't help wanting things to work out, was really worried he'd get his heart broken again. I could understand why he wasn't overjoyed to see Alex again. 

Alex changes a lot over the course of the story. Forced to look at himself he finally learns he doesn't like what he sees, what he's been doing, kidding himself he's happy, but knowing and ignoring that his childhood issues were still driving him.
Was his attempt to find Misty altruistic, an attempt at atonement or a cynical plot for the next big news story?
For me it starts as one and ends as the other, he and I learned a lot about him over the course of the book. 

Its not an overly sexual read, the parts where they do come together are very erotic and sensual but not frequent, and it takes a long while before they even touch each other, let alone do more. That was perfect for this story though, there was so much to tell, so much to learn that too much sex, them getting together quickly despite their pasts would have felt wrong. This way the balance felt perfect for me.
I used to read a lot of thrillers/suspense, but found their focus on thriller action first and romance second didn't really work for me, I need the romance to be quite a strong, solid part of the story even if kept in the background.
This book, putting the suspense angle into a mystery, a story to be worked out that involves so many characters we've already met works better for me than an out and out thriller type read, bringing in lost of external characters. 

Stars: five, a great read, perfect blend of romance ans suspense for me, and one I simply devoured in one sitting.
Riptide novels tend to be like that for me, stories that engross me, seduce me into another world, and let me escape from this one for a few hours. I was there with Ben, Alex, Janet and Angela, wondering just what was coming out next. 

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

~3.5~

Back to You is a sleepy mystery with a lyrical quality that made certain passages feel like a dream. The romance is equally quiet. The passion is muted, and the MCs barely talk until the halfway mark.

Alex, the first-person narrator of the story, returns to his hometown to see his dying father. A once Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who's lapsed into obscurity, Alex hopes to get a story out of the trip.

Alex resents his absent, alcoholic father and is estranged from his older sister Janet. But he can't help but be drawn to his childhood best friend Benji, now an artist.

Initially Alex spends as much time flirting with his father's nurse Katy as he does thinking about Ben.

Ben doesn't want Alex to meddle in the investigation surrounding his older sister Misty's disappearance twenty years earlier, the summer the boys were 13, the summer Alex left and forgot all about Ben.

Ben is a gentle, caring man who teaches free art classes to special needs and other kids. While Alex is self-absorbed, Ben thinks about others. Ben's mom has been obsessed with finding Misty for two decades, and Ben wants to move on and live in the present.

I was more invested in Alex's family dynamics than in the romance. Janet was a fascinating character, clearly troubled and grieving her father's demise. Alex's relationship with his sister is nuanced and complex.

Alex comes to understands that what we believe at 13, filtered through idealized adolescent fantasies, is not The Truth, but a diluted version of it.

This book is about the choices we make and the secrets we keep. Scully's writing is evocative and grew on me as the story progressed. Fans of her work are sure to enjoy this book.

I found the pacing a bit slow, and the romance rather lackluster. I think the story would have been stronger had Ben's POV been included.