Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Find me in July
AUTHOR: Christie Gordon
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 322 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 11, 2025, 2nd Ed.
BLURB:
Two best friends. One summer in 1978. Will their love be enough to defy the odds?
In the summer of 1978, Troy Larson is filled with anticipation and confusion. The annual family vacation to a lake resort with his best friend is his favorite escape, but Jessie’s distant. When Troy stumbles onto his secret, he’s thrown into a storm of emotions he never expected.
Jessie Smith is spending his college years in New York learning to embrace his truth. He’s gay. Coming home means facing Troy, the one person who knows him best. When Jessie is exposed, it stirs terrifying and thrilling feelings all at once.
While Troy grapples with new emotions for his best friend, Jessie worries about the risks awaiting Troy if he continues the path of becoming a queer teacher. With the gay rights movement facing legal challenges from Save our Children, can Troy convince Jessie to fight alongside him and face the consequences together?
Find Me in July is a standalone novel with ties to the Mesa Boys series. It is a friends to lovers, bi-awakening, coming of age romance with angst and hurt/comfort, where love conquers all. It features a determined but naïve best friend who falls for a man wanting to protect him.
Step back into 1978 and feel the triumph of love against all odds. Grab Find Me in July today!
REVIEW:
Jessie and Troy and their families spend every July on a lake at their cabins. They’ve done this since they were kids. Now they are 21 and it’s the last summer for the whole group. Troy and his brother and sister and parents and Jessie and his parents and brother are set to have a nice time at the lake – enjoy the weather, the boating, the holiday, etc. Except things are a little off. Jessie has been distant that last year – not coming home from college in NYC for holidays. Not being available when Troy calls. Troy is a bit put out to be honest. Then the first day when they are supposed to go out on the boat, well he see’s Jessie in a compromising position with a guy at the boathouse at the Marina.
Troy is really confused about being turned on by his best friend’s escpades. He’s never been into guys before, but discovering Jessie’s secret has triggered something in him. He clearly doesn’t want anyone else to be touching or being with Jessie. It take a little bit before he can admit to himself that it’s jealousy. He knows he’s not gay – he likes girls. But he tries to figure things out. The more time they spend together, the more he wants to do stuff with Jessie. They are also bickering though because of the confusion.
Eventually they have a real talk and Troy keeps asking. Jessie confesses that he’s gay. He’s figured out some things in New York. He doesn’t want to come home and work in his father’s business. He wants to head west – maybe San Francisco. This doesn’t go over well with his father. Troy isn’t happy either because he doesn’t want Jessie to be so far away. Troy is going to be a teacher and they each only have a year left of college. Jessie does help Troy put a name to what he’s feeling – bi-sexual. This is news to Troy that there is a name for it.
There are family dynamics at play here too. Both of Troy’s siblings aren’t happy they don’t get to spend time with Jessie and Troy. The guys are trying to keep their relationship under wraps, but there are a lot of people around. Surprisingly when someone does find out, they are supportive! But there are hurdles. Can someone be a gay elementary teacher in the 80s? This is not an easy time to be out and keep a job. What choices do they have? Anita Bryant was touring the country stirring up anti-gay sentiment and trying to remove any civil rights LGBT people had gained. Jessie doesn’t want Troy’s life to be ruined. This looks like a lose/lose proposition 
So this was an interesting and nostalgic look back at the late 70s in the Midwest. Full disclosure that I was a teenager in 1978. I have a lot of gay guy friends and this story feels pretty authentic to me based on my conversations that I’ve had with them in our later year well after they came out. It was a tough time for sure to be gay in the Midwest in what were generally conservative towns. Back in the days before mobile phones and personal computers and the internet, people had to actually interact with each other. In PERSON! Imagine that. 
I worked summers when I was a teenager and we only took one actual road trip vacation that was not just a trip to visit family that lived hundreds of miles away, so I don’t really have the same recollection of summers spent on a lake, but I know other people who did. I also didn’t know folks who smoked much weed – but I grew up in a pretty small town Certainly by the time I got to college that was changing – although it was the 80s and cocaine was on the rise. A lot of the activities – playing pool in bars, boating on a lake, playing board games, spending summers with family and long time friends is right on track for the 70s. HIV/AIDS wasn’t a concern yet, but gay bashing and homophobia was definitely out in force. I found Jessie’s fear at losing his family to be very realistic. Also Anita Bryant deserves a VERY hot seat in hell. Hope she happy down there
The pacing of this story wasn’t great from my perspective and the book I thought was a little long. The story moved pretty slowly and a lot of pages are used to cover a pretty short span of time. The story is told entirely from Troy’s POV. While this was good in one way, I would have maybe liked more of Jessie’s perspective other than what he shared verbally. There is a pleasant plot twist with a parent I totally didn’t see coming. In the end I was happy where they ended up. I kinda wish the epilogue was farther in the future. But frankly the near future was not bright – particularly for gay men. But if you’re interested in what it was like almost 50 years ago, this book give a good intro. Recommended.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
