Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Oceans Apart
AUTHOR: J.K. Hogan
PUBLISHER: Euphoria Press
LENGTH: 368 Pages
RELEASE DATE: October 1, 2018
BLURB:
Bored of with his mundane life, Leo Takahashi heads to the East Coast to find a new adventure. A series of unfortunate circumstances leave him in a potentially disastrous predicament: a gay man stranded in a backwater town of coastal North Carolina.
Sellars Hodge is a farmer from a long line of farmers who has never left his family’s land. He’s never even seen the ocean despite living less than ninety miles from the coast. In fact, he’s never done or seen anything interesting—he’s never even had a date.
When a stranded motorist stays at his house, Sellers gets a glimpse of everything he can never have. Though fear of his father’s reaction keeps him silent, Sellars’ two deepest secrets won’t stay hidden. The more time he spends with Leo, the less satisfied he is with the hand he’s been dealt and the choices he never had.
Leo wants to set up a quiet, independent life on the coast, but he feels pulled toward Sellars. He hates the idea of leaving such a vibrant, gentle giant behind to waste away on that farm.
Storms, both figurative and literal, brew in their lives, and they can only hope those storms clear the path to self-discovery and, most of all, love.
REVIEW:
Where do I start? Oceans Apart was one of those reads that kept me glued to the pages until I got to the end. It is the story of two cultures from opposite ends of the spectrum, crashing together in the wilds of eastern North Carolina. One character is an urbane educated and privileged Japanese American man from California and the other is a very small-town North Carolina man, who has never left his family’s farm. The ocean is only an hour or so away, and he has never seen it. His family is insular, and his father controls him completely.
I absolutely loved the character of Sellars. He is such a big bumbling southern boy, and he falls all over himself when he finds Leo Takahashi broken down on the side of the road near his farm in North Carolina. Right from the first Sellars paragraph, I knew I’d like him. Leo, I wasn’t so sure of, since he came across as a bit of a spoiled brat… but he grew on me.
As the story progressed and things heated up between the two, I was drawn more and more into their story. There were a lot of issues that the author tied into the story. There was the man who was so deeply in the closet that he had never told anyone that he was gay. No one. There was the sexist attitude of the dad. Only the son could inherit the farm, forget about the four older daughters. There was the homophobia from the dad. But there was also sweetness. A lot of it.
I really enjoyed getting to know the two men, and I liked where their story went. It was one of those books you finish reading and sigh. What? No more pages? Sad. Then if you are like me, you reflect and realize just how much you enjoyed it. I’m not giving any more spoilers.
I highly recommend this one. If you haven’t read anything by J.K. Hogan, I’d recommend you start with this one, and then move on to her other books. I’ve enjoyed every one of hers that I’ve read.
RATING: 
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