Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Callan’s Atlas
SERIES: Brigs Ferry Bay Book 3
AUTHOR: K Webster
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 254 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 12, 2021
BLURB:
When we moved from New York to Maine, life was supposed to get easier, not harder.
Change, for me, was difficult.
I became the target of terrible crimes that resulted in sending a once-beloved man of the community to prison for a very long time.
Now that I’m eighteen, I could move back to the Big Apple, but fear has me rooted in place.
I hate what that monster did to me.
Looks like I’m stuck here for good.
Brigs Ferry Bay’s unhappiest gay.
Each day, the darkness closes in around me more and more.
Black clothes. Black mood. Black thoughts. Black eyeliner.
The color in my life bled from me months ago and never came back.
Until him.
Atlas Larson.
Newest cop on the BFB police force.
Too hot. Too strong. Too old for me. Too…everything.
Atlas is a rebellious, bossy, mouthy brute who likes to provoke me.
Every encounter starts with heat and ends with an argument.
Color begins sneaking back into my world little by little.
He reminds me of who I once was and shows me who I’m meant to be.
I crave to leave this town once and for all.
But now that I’ve found the courage to do it, the arrogant jerk with a badge might find a way to keep me here and in his arms forever.
***Brigs Ferry Bay is a steamy MM romance series. While each book can be read as a standalone, in order to get the full experience, they’re best read in order. Enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, hurt comfort, age-gap romance, and so much more. Fall in love with the charming small-town gay romances of Brigs Ferry Bay…***
REVIEW:
K Webster delivers the third full-length book in the Brigs Ferry Bay series, which she co-writes with Misty Walker. Rather than collaborate on each book, they alternate installments. K Webster takes her turn here with Callan’s Atlas.
In this high stakes, emotionally charged, dynamic story, Callan Kincaid and Atlas Larson come together in an entirely improbable, unpredictable relationship. I struggle to call it a romance, though, because Callan and Atlas’ love story doesn’t feel like the main focus of this book. Like minds may differ of course, but to me, Callan’s Atlas reads like a thriller, full of suspense and emotional exploration of Callan’s trauma and the continuing, insidious, violent homophobia that plagues him and Brigs Ferry Bay at large.
Before I continue, I need to point out that Callan’s Atlas is not a standalone. Interconnected, definitely yes. It exists in the shared universe of Brigs Ferry Bay. But standalone? Definitely not. Again, some may disagree, but if you read this book without having first read Book 1, Sheriff’s Secret, you will: 1) feel like you are missing something (because you are), and 2) encounter many spoilers for Book 1. You don’t need to read Book 2, Kian’s Focus, or the novella Adler’s Hart before you read Callan’s Atlas, but Sheriff’s Secret is a must-read first in my view.
We initially meet Callan in Sheriff’s Secret. He is Dante’s brother and currently lives with Dante and his partner, the town Sheriff, Jaxson Bell. Callan moved with Dante and their sister Shelley to BFB from New York after their parents died. Callan wasn’t happy with the move to start with, as you’d expect when you pull a high school kid away from the hustle and bustle of New York and all of his friends. Adding insult to injury, they moved to a small, insular town in the middle of nowhere Maine with residents harboring strong homophobic attitudes. Then combine that with the horrible events that happen in Sheriff’s Secret, and you’ve got the depressed and traumatized Callan that we meet at the start of Callan’s Atlas.
Throughout this book, Ms. Webster vividly, albeit melodramatically, depicts Callan’s mood and state of mind through his color choices for his makeup, clothes, and vision of his surroundings. She accomplishes striking imagery that conveys her point, although, in my opinion, it would have been more impactful if delivered with more subtlety.
Atlas is a police officer who’s returned home to BFB at Jax’s request to help him subdue the homophobic incidents in the town. Atlas has attitude to spare, lacking any concern about ruffling feathers. If anything, he seems to get off on stirring things up. He’s brash, impetuous, hot-headed, and unashamedly persistent in his pursuit of the significantly younger Callan. Their early interactions are repellant and some border on dubious consent in my view. But if you like antiheroes and morally ambiguous characters, you’ll love Atlas.
Atlas has his own complicated history with his family and BFB, but his electric energy and passionate commitment to his cause, bring color back into Callan’s world. Atlas wakes Callan up and restores his will to live, love, and thrive. By the end of the story, I saw how Callan and Atlas worked as a couple, but the story did not make that obvious early on.
In the blurb, the authors describe Brigs Ferry Bay as the home for “charming small-town gay romances”. To be honest, I struggle to identify what’s charming about BFB. The small town’s residents demonstrate hateful, homophobic, violent, and vitriolic attitudes, speech, and actions. Granted, there are many BFB townspeople who are exceptions to that statement, but overarchingly, the statement holds. I don’t blame Callan for wanting to leave. So if Ms. Webster sought redemption for a town with more bigots than LGBTQ supporters, I don’t think she succeeded in Callan’s Atlas, although undoubtedly groundwork was laid for that path in future books in the series.
On the whole, Callan’s Atlas showcases Ms. Webster’s strong writing skills and her ability to spin out a gripping storyline that will engross you from start to finish. Callan and Atlas didn’t emotionally engage me though, or at least not until pretty far into the book. The romance takes a backseat to the action, so the relationship development felt a bit choppy and likely detracted from my emotional connection with the couple.
If you want a romance with all the feels, and sweet swoony demonstrations of love and affection, keep looking because Callan’s Atlas is not that kind of book. But if you disconnect your expectation for a book that is primarily romance, and you don’t mind unsavory content with a morally ambiguous main character, Callan’s Atlas may be just your speed.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: