Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: All He Ever Needed
AUTHOR: Cate Ashwood
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 178 Pages
RELEASE DATE: September 21, 2018
BLURB:
Some secrets are too heavy to hold on to forever.
For Ethan, pretending has become second nature. After all, he’s spent the last decade pretending to be straight, pretending to be happy, and pretending he isn’t desperately in love with his best friend. But in a single moment of raw honesty, all those lies come crashing down around him and he’s left wondering what to do next.
When Jase learns his best friend is going through a breakup, his first instinct is to come to Ethan’s rescue, and he knows just the thing to help. The cabin where they spent summers as kids is sitting vacant, and a week there is the perfect remedy to start healing a broken heart.
In the seclusion of the mountains, long-buried fears and emotions take their friendship into unexplored territory that will either bring them closer together… or tear everything apart.
REVIEW:
When Jase’s best friend Ethan breaks up with his long time girlfriend, Jase isn’t sure what to do. Yeah, he has plenty of experience with breakups — a lot of them with his currently ex-girlfriend — but Ethan’s sudden breakup is on a whole ‘nother level. Jase honestly would have bet on wedding rings instead of tearful phone calls telling him he needed to get to Ethan’s house. Stat.
When he finds the man crying and unable — or unwilling — to explain what happened, Jase knows he has to do something. So he bundles his best friend into his car, and drives them out to his uncle’s cabin. He hopes that the short escape will help Ethan calm down and maybe explain what exactly went down. Little did he know that the answer has the potential to change both their lives forever.
Sweet and simple is how I would best describe this story. It is two men figuring out who they can and want to be to each other, and not a lot more. There are not many huge problems here for them to solve, but really just them trying to understand who they are. Ethan is having to deal with coming out to people for the first time, and Jase is having to face up — if only to himself — to the fact that all those fleeting thoughts about guys as he was growing up might lead to a lot of real feelings for Ethan. And while both these issues create problems for them to overcome it never becomes overly angsty. They do a good job of making sure the plot keeps in motion, but don’t let it wander too far off course either.
It was just a very relaxing read. Even when I was reading it while stuck at the DMV. And if a book can keep me relaxed while having to listen to the world’s worst game of BINGO ever, that is one hell of an achievement.
I think the only thing I can say that didn’t work for me is the sex-to-story ratio. But I’ve been leaning more towards fade-to-black these days, so I can’t say with any surety that it is a problem for the wider audience. Those scenes were well written, at least, so if that is your thing you should be happy.
All in all, a very good book.
4-stars. Would read in a DMV again.
RATING: 
BUY LINK:
Oh, Chris! This is a great review but like you, I’ve been more interested in fade to black. Unfortunately, it’s almost inpossible to find out which books are which before buying. Wish y’all would start a low sex review area. I’m still reading this one because I love her writing but it’s very nice to know ahead of time.
That is one of those things i never remember to track. For all that I love fade to black stories it never occurs to me till it is too late to shelve it as such. Always wish I had later on when I’m craving a good romance with low or no sex, but by then it is too late. There is a no-sex tag option for the reviews here (it would be found in the list right under the share/like buttons), but it doesn’t get used all that often and Word Press isn’t all that great with its search algorithm, unfortunately.