Review: Number six and going strong...they get better and better...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 27, 2013
I like a little darkness in my HEA. All of RJ Scott's men have pasts; all of them are broken somehow, but Ellery - it seems to heal them every one. Ellery has always felt (as I always point out) a little too "Mayberry RFD" for me...a rural mountain town in Tennessee that is welcoming and a haven for gay men?  Really?  But I let it slide, assuming that RJ Scott has some secret kink about Tennessee that I just don't get...(and I've been to Tennessee more than once, and have been treated well there as an out gay man).But in number six in the Ellery Mountain series, wherein the story of barkeep Avery Gideon and ex-Navy SEAL Travis Baransky is told, some shadows begin to darken the dappled sunshine of Ellery's quaintness.  For one, the totally bigoted Zoe, who runs the local grocery (I love that Scott calls it a shop, revealing her Brit-ness), seems to hate both damaged soldiers AND homos. Poor Travis, he's just buying cat food.  And then there's the mysterious assailant who almost killed teenage Mikey, Norma-Jean's grandson, in what was certainly a vicious hate crime.  He's never been caught.  And apparently, no one likes the new mayor.Travis is the first official guest of the halfway house for damaged veterans - designed and built by Daniel and his gay friends as a place of healing for those who have risked all to protect our country and can't seem to get past their scars and their nightmares.  He meets Avery, himself hiding from a powerful right-wing father, quite by accident, and then, amazingly, they take their time.  This tale isn't so much about a slow burn as about a slow healing process.  This is about Avery becoming an active member of the community in which he's been hiding out, and about Travis returning to life from a very dark and damaged place.  RJ Scott's stories are never harrowing, but this is as close as she's ever gotten, and the story is all the stronger for it.I might actually understand something about Ellery. It really does represent America in a strange microcosmic way. There is absolutely no protection for gay people of any sort in Tennessee; but then again, there wasn't anywhere in America when I was 20 and first coming out.  We, gay men, were on our own.  We built our own communities, made our own lives, forged relationships against all odds in spite of the world's hostility and with the support of a few straight allies.  This is what the men of Ellery Mountain do.  Their modern day corner of America echoes the America I knew 35 years ago.  And there could be a purpose to that, after all.Read one; read 'em all.  Worth your trouble.