Goodbye Paradise (Hello Goodbye Book 1)

Goodbye Paradise (Hello Goodbye series Book 1) Sarina Bowen 2017 274 pages Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ MM Contemporary Romance Plot: What happens in Paradise, stays in Paradise. The last time Josh Royce stepped beyond the boundaries of the little religious community where he grew up, he was in third grade, too young to remember much about it. No one leaves the Paradise compound without permission, and Josh has never been granted it. What’s the point in leaving anyway? Josh was born out here in the dust among people who want to be left alone, so he has no birth certificate. He has no money, no driver’s license. To the outside world, he’s no one. He has nothing. Except for his best friend, Caleb Smith. Caleb is the grandson of one of the elders, and with that comes certain privileges. Caleb’s place within the community is secure, and Josh knows Caleb will be granted a wife sometime soon. Josh has complicated feelings about this, since he’s in love with his best friend. For Josh, the pain of watching Caleb get married would be a just punishment for his sinful thoughts. One day, a gun goes missing from the community storeroom, and Josh’s name is the one that comes up on the list as the person to have checked inventory most recently. His own standing in the community is not so well-assured as Caleb’s, especially now that he's been accused of stealing. If Josh gets thrown out of Paradise, he’ll have nowhere to go. First Take: I didn’t really know what to expect with this…

(Originally published as In Front of God and Everyone under pseudonym). A friends to lover romance; a road trip story; coming of age; creating a new family in rural Massachusetts. This book is the gentle tale of Joshua and Caleb, raised together since they first toddled, in a religious polygamous cult in Wyoming. Josh has never been able to prosper in the cult, and he knows his time is limited before he will be expelled. Caleb is a better fit for the cult, because he is quick and clever with machinery, and a grandson of one of the cult leaders. Caleb always takes care of Josh, helping him through the demanding chores and daily grind. When Josh is expelled, there is little warning...and a time of misery changes to a new adventure for them both. The cult is rotten and unhealthy, but relatively little time is actually spent there in this story. The cult is with them for awhile, though. Josh has to work against the negatives he heard everyday and decide if he can establish a new self-identity, new goals and skills, and new confidence. Caleb continues to strive to take care of everyone around him. The story focuses on them traveling from a false dark world into reality of coca-cola, television and supermarkets. Their bravery at building new warm connections with each other and others in this new world is a lovely thing to read. The story focuses primarily on the MCs relationship, but with engaging secondary characters and interesting details about the context (from cult,…

I love Sarina Bowen’s books primarily because she is an amazing writer. She gives her stories so much life, so much heart and soul. I admire her so much. I haven’t read a single book of hers I didn’t love. You might think romance novels are shallow and light, and some might be just that, but most of what Sarina Bowen writes is just the opposite. It is the best kind of romance, mainly because her storylines are meaningful and complex, her characters are real people you can connect with, and empathize with. And in the end, when you feel that the inevitable happy ending is everything you were expecting, you relize the journey that led you there was simply magical and unexpected. It surprises you in its intensity. Goodbye Paradise is the story of Josh and Caleb. Josh has been in love with Caleb his whole life, but has been raised to believe that what he feels for his best friend is wrong. They belong to a religious cult located in Wyoming until they manage to escape. Now, alone in a completely different world, they need to figure out how to live their lives, accept their feelings for each other and adapt to their new circumstances. Their most difficult challenge will prove to be their inner battle against the ideas and feelings of inadequacy ingrained into their minds by those who raised them. OMG. I loved this book. It is an amazing, beautiful story. It is so heartfelt, it broke my heart. In the end it put back together again, but just barely. Josh is such a beautiful soul.…

Goodbye Paradise is book one in the Hello Goodbye series by Sarina Bowen. Wow. This book was beautifully written. I was afraid it would be angsty but it wasn’t. It was just a beautiful love story between two men who didn’t think it could ever be possible for their dreams to come true. Caleb Smith and Joshua Royce are nearly twenty years old. They have seen each other every single day of their lives where they grew up on The Paradise Ranch in Wyoming. But this ranch was anything but paradise. It was a cult. Once you turned about sixteen, you were forced to leave your parents home and live in a bunkhouse with all the other unmarried males. You were forced to work the fields by day and spend your free time in prayer. The women of the ranch were nothing more than possessions. “He was the last one I saw before I closed my eyes at night and the first person I looked for when I opened them again in the morning.” Josh has always been just a little bit in love with Caleb. Caleb was the one who was strong, who worked on the compound’s engines. Who could always pick faster than he could in the fields. But Josh kept his feelings a secret. As has happened to so many men before him, Josh soon finds himself cast out with no where to go. But Caleb promises he will come to him, that they will escape together. That they will make a new life! This is their story. The story of two men who knew very little about the world we live in. Two men whose love for each other was finally allowed to…

I avoided reading this book for quite a while because I worried the subject matter would be too tough- young guys who grew up in a polygamist cult, got tossed out, and then had to find their way alone. And while that all happened, it wasn’t too rough. This story absolutely could have been, but the author spared us a dark story. Side characters Maggie and Miriam, two other escapees from the cult, had harder roads out of there than Caleb and Josh. Had this been their story, it would have been dark and painful. Caleb and Josh find good people almost immediately, people who help them and encourage them- in fact, almost everyone they meet after leaving the cult is kind. They have to adjust to a life with choices and free will, and with the reality that something they always believed impossible, being together, is now available to them. Caleb makes a stupid self-sacrificing noble decision near the end that is both so foolish and also so understandable given who he is and how he grew up that I forgave it. Other than that, there’s not a lot of angst or drama. There’s a decent number of sex scenes, well-written and steamy, but this isn’t a “sexy” book. It’s a love story, and it’s a good one.