Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Clean Start at Forty-Seven

SERIES: Forty-Seven Duology, Book 1

AUTHOR: Nora Phoenix

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH:  261 pages

RELEASE DATE:  January 12, 2022

BLURB: 

I’m done hiding who I am.

Pretending to be straight, to be the loving, devoted husband and successful ER doctor everyone wanted me to be has been exhausting.

I numbed the pain any way I could, and in the end, it cost me everything. My job, my marriage, the relationship with my grown kids.

But now I’m in recovery, and for the first time, I’m living my true life as an out gay man.

I need to get my act together, to get healthy again. Benoni is my new personal trainer…twenty years my junior. He makes my mouth water and certain other body parts react. Oh, and he’s also my son’s best friend.

I’m forty-seven years old. It’s time for a clean start. But where does Benoni fit in?

Clean Start at Forty-Seven is part one of a duology, an emotional MM romance with an age gap, first time gay, loads of hurt/comfort, and the beginnings of a beautiful Daddy/boy relationship. It contains themes of opioid addiction and religious homophobia. Please check the trigger warnings in the front of the book.

REVIEW: 

Nora Phoenix has established herself as an exceptional storyteller.  But she’s also proven herself as a thorough, detail-oriented researcher, devoted to getting the facts right and imparting them to her readers in a meaningful way.  It’s a unicorn combination that results in entertaining and educational stories. Her previous series, White House Men, is perhaps the epitome of Ms. Phoenix’s skill and incisiveness at work with her sweeping seven-book story arc jam-packed with extraordinary specifics about the inner workings of the White House, the FBI, and terrorism.

Well, she does it again in her latest, Clean Start at Forty-Seven, a beautiful hurt/comfort story centered on an improbable age-gap relationship between Kinsey, a doctor who’s lost everything, and his estranged son’s best friend, Benoni.  Ms. Phoenix enraptures us with their love story, which is complicated and emotional. Within it, she shares with us myriad details about religious homophobia and opioid addiction.  They’re undoubtedly informative, but also crucial to understanding Kinsey’s character and his journey from devastation to forgiveness, healing, and ultimately love with Benoni.

Clean Start contains a continuing storyline spanning the two books in the Forty-Seven duology.  Kinsey is the primary focus of this first book, and Benoni appears to be the focus of the upcoming second book, New Daddy at Forty-Seven.  But unlike most other continuing storylines that have natural break points that serve as the demarcation between the series’ books, this duology reads like one long book.  Clean Start ends like it’s merely a chapter break.  As such, there’s a mild cliffy. 

Kinsey’s life has been turned upside down and inside out.  He’s just starting to take baby steps as a baby gay towards accepting and forgiving himself, with Benoni’s support.  Benoni, for his part, has started to unravel who he wants to be and what he needs to provide to Kinsey, who he’s quickly falling for.  The story is still expanding at the end of Clean Start.  But despite the lack of closure, the story works and the wait for the next “chapter” isn’t long.  New Daddy at Forty-Seven arrives in just a few weeks to tie everything up and hopefully give our men their HEA.

Ms. Phoenix shines in Clean Start with her exceptional character development.  Kinsey will make your heart hurt, and Benoni’s care and handling of him will bring tears to your eyes.  Their relationship is built up slowly and steadily, which keeps things authentic and believable.  It also allows us to connect with these men and understand them with uncommon depth.  There’s not much action or heat in this story.  Still, Ms. Phoenix makes up for it with her textured, detailed descriptions of Kinsey’s background and upbringing.  We learn how zealot-level religious homophobia shaped him. It forced him to live in fear and shame, hiding who he is and believing he’s flawed.

I was all in for Clean Start at Forty-Seven.  But even with that commitment, the story’s momentum wanes at points along the way.  The pacing is even but generally slow, and consequently gets laden down by the very details that make the story so intriguing.  In the White House Men series, Ms. Phoenix varies the pacing by interspersing her intricate narrative with action and heat.  Here, though, there’s not quite enough in the way of dynamics or change of pace to elevate this excellent story to the level of engrossing rather than simply engaging.

To that point, this is in fact an excellent, engaging story that I recommend.  I’m eagerly awaiting the second book so we can spend more time with Kinsey and Benoni as they fall in love.  Ms. Phoenix’s investment in Kinsey and Benoni’s journey is evident and keenly felt.  I highly encourage you to invest your time in reading this beautiful story and meeting these two captivating men that will steal your heart.

RATING:

BUY LINK: 

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