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Harper Fox
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Life After Joe Kindle Edition

by Harper Fox (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 221 ratings
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It's not the breaking up that kills you, it's the aftermath.

Ever since his longtime lover decided he'd seen the "heterosexual light," Matt's life has been in a nosedive. Six months of too many missed shifts at the hospital, too much booze, too many men. Matt knows he's on the verge of losing everything, but he's finding it hard to care.

Then Matt meets Aaron. He's gorgeous, intelligent and apparently not interested in being picked up. Still, even after seeing Matt at his worst, he doesn't turn away. Aaron's kindness and respect have Matt almost believing he's worth it—and that there could be life after Joe. But his newfound happiness is threatened when Matt begins to suspect Aaron is hiding something, or someone...

35,000 words
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  1. Print length
    119 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Carina Press
  5. Publication date
    May 26, 2010
  6. File size
    858 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003NX7BZ8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Carina Press (May 26, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 26, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 858 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 119 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 221 ratings

About the author

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Harper Fox

Harper Fox

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Bestselling British author Harper Fox has established herself as a firm favourite with readers of M/M romance. Harper Fox has become a well-loved go-to author for fans of M/M romance. Here you’ll find immersive tales of excitement, magic, drama, all underpinned by the ordinary processes of love, hope and loss in an imperfect world.

Harper has garnered critical acclaim for novels such as Scrap Metal, Brothers of the Wild North Sea, Seven Summer Nights and The Salisbury Key. She is also creator of the enduringly popular Tyack & Frayne mystery series. Many of her ebooks are also available in paperback and audio format. She runs her own publishing imprint, FoxTales Publications. You can find news of her current projects and full backlist at her website, www.harperfox.net.

A northerner at heart, Harper has returned to her native Northumberland after a spell in Cornwall. She travels between the two as often as she can, and feels she has a home in both magical kingdoms. She is married to Jane, and owned by three cats.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
221 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Tom W
5.0 out of 5 stars Two broken souls who heal each other
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2012
Verified Purchase
Matt was dumped. His partner Joe decided to bow to family pressure and settle down with a woman, have kids, the whole dream come true. So he left his committed relationship with Matt, cheated behind his back with a woman, proposed to her and then calmly told Matt he was leaving him.

And that did it. Drove Matt over the edge, and six months later he is drinking every night, sleeping with any man he can find, and getting very close to blowing his residency at the hospital and not becoming a doctor. And it is when he is out drinking and looking for the lay of the night that he sees Aaron.

Aaron is a mystery. Handsome, built, sure of himself. But he never does more than exchange pleasantries with the men who try to chat him up, and never leaves with anyone. But when Matt catches his eye, drunk, getting tossed out of the bar for having sex in public, he breaks his own rules and gives Matt a hand up and a walk home.

And right then, Matt takes a look at himself, his decisions, his behaviors. Joe's wife drops by to tell him he needs to sell the home he and Joe shared, as Joe wants his equity out. And decides it's enough. No more limbo. No more drinking and whoring.

"No point in an autopsy, picking over all the points at which my life had slowly died."

And so the two become lovers and friends. Matt hears Aaron calling our for Rosie in his sleep, and assumes he has a wife, another life. But the attraction is strong, and he knows he wants Aaron. For as long as he can have him.

"It was welcome, protest at the size of him, wild-excitement - a sudden grief that, of all the men I'd let inside my body, for the first time I wanted one."

Then Joe reappears, wanting Matt back. Will Joe go back? Or will he take a chance on Aaron? And will Aaron tell Joe the truth about Rosie?

Harper Fox has written a gentle and joyful book about two broken men who somehow find their way to each other and find the strength to love again. Their pains shape them, both men thinking they would ever emerge from it. And when they do, man, it is beautiful.

I loved this book. The quietness and care and love shine through.

Fine job.

Tom
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silvia
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great book by this author
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2018
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After being jilted by his boyfriend for a woman, you know the drill: wants a future with a wife & kids etc, Matt hits the booze and one night stands to fill the hole left in his heart. One night in a club he notices a mysterious man sitting at the bar fending off admirers. Matt takes his chance and after causing a disturbance to get the mystery man’s attention, he sidles up to him only to receive a warning. Matt turns on his heal and makes an even bigger commotion that results in him being tossed out of the club. Aaron, the mysterious man is not too far behind him. And so Aaron enters Matt’s life seemingly with no expectations but he also has baggage that he keeps to himself. Their story begins.

I’ve only read one other book by this author, Brothers of the Wild North Sea, and loved it because it was so descriptive and I was able to go back in time. This book is also just as well written. I could really feel what Matt was going through after Joe dumped him. The emotions he experienced were what I experienced when it happened to me. I swear I was re-living that part of my life.

Oh the feels. The angst. The hope. The uncertainty. Everything I love was right here on these pages. I highly recommend this book.
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Lexi
4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely, well-written love story with soul - wonderful read!
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2011
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This is the second Harper Fox book I've read, although I believe it was the first she wrote in this genre. The first,  Driftwood  is better (I gave it 5 stars - I'd have given it 10 if I could!), but this is still a wonderful read. Ms. Fox's writing is outstanding, and her narrative has an almost poetic quality to it. Her ability to describe the look and feel of the settings for her stories is just fabulous. I look forward to reading many more of her works!

MILD SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

"Life After Joe," much like "Driftwood," is a love story between two men who are both in pain. Matt, a doctor, is wandering through a self-destructive blur of grief from the sudden departure of his longtime lover, Joe. Joe, it seems, has decided he wants a wife of the female persuasion and a family. Aaron has pain of his own (I won't reveal what it is, because that really would spoil the lovely and haunting revelation towards the end of the book), but suffice it to say, he rescues Matt from himself with kindness and patience. Matt, however, begins to suspect Aaron is hiding a secret which will hurt Matt and, when Joe shows up on Matt's doorstep, Matt is forced to make some important choices.

I think I'd have given this 5 stars, but for the short-shrift given Aaron's character. True, some of the revelations as to Aaron explain a lot, but there might have been a way to structure the story so we'd have gotten more about him after the "big" revelation. In the end, we still don't know all that much about him. I think the ending could have been longer and more significant (although I agree that Aaron's admission that he still loves Rosie was a beautiful and realistic touch).

Regardless of these criticisms, I highly recommend this book. It is dark and angsty, but there is sweet light at the end of the tunnel - something I love about Ms. Fox's books. Wonderful read!
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Cat of Cat's Books: Romance Blog and Themepark
3.0 out of 5 stars Intense
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2018
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Harper Fox writes with intensity and detail Her hero is a mess after his boyfriend of many years leaves him out of the blue for a woman.

I am mean a self harming through hook ups, drugs, booze, and nearly getting kicked out of med school mess.

His only friend seems more like a double agent for his ex and then he meets the other hero.

This is an intense interior romance. It is very human but I needed more time to really believe in the love story and the recovery.
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Top reviews from other countries

MissTGO
5.0 out of 5 stars Really intense and very beautiful.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2019
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Matthew has a chair wedged hard up against his self destruct button. Wedged I tell you.

Aaron, understated but so utterly good and decent, suggests he could just maybe stop.

The prose is classic Harper Fox. Lush, lyrical and captivating.

The story is simple but deftly told, the dark moment exquisitely set up - seriously, the layers in it!! - and the ending perfectly in keeping witb the characters.

The bad guys are brilliantly created without an ounce of melodrama and yet I truly loathed them by the end.

This is one of my favourite books by this author. I've reread it several times - most recently twice only three days apart - because there's just so much beauty and emotion in it.

If you love a hot mess - (such a mess, my God!) a strong silent type, stories of betrayal, heartbreak, and sweet heart-mending. This is for you. Also there is an oil rig.

Trigger Warning: Assault and sexual assault (neither between the MCs). Also suicide (understated amd brief but present nevertheless).
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Kindle_lover
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2011
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You would think that with the advent of e-publishing and the subsequent plethora of m/m romance books it would be easy to find one actually readable story. Sadly, most of the stuff out there is dreadful, far worse than fan fiction which you can find for free. I'd almost given up trying to find a story that wasn't the equivalent of eating roasted marshmallow, or the flip side of that, skipping through a story that was little more than porn. However, Life After Joe was a delightful surprise. It's extremely well written, has a strong plot and very likeable characters. It's not a long book and I finished it easily in one evening, but what a great read. It is hard to pick a winner out of the dross these days, but this book is definitely worth giving a go. I'm a huge fan of another author in the m/m genre, Josh Lanyon. If you like his Adrien English or Christopher Holmes series, then I think you'd like Life After Joe.
11 people found this helpful
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Mack59
4.0 out of 5 stars Life After Joe - learning to trust again. 4.5*
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 10, 2012
Verified Purchase
An endearing romance about betrayal, mistrust and loss - in its different forms - but also a story about new beginnings and learning to trust again.

I've just recently discovered Harper Fox and admit to be very taken with her style of writing. She tells her stories without any unecessary frippery but at the same time still seems to be able to make them lyrical. When the story begins, Matthew is barely managing to exhist after being dumped by his lover Joe, but what makes it worse, is he has left him for a woman who he's going to marry. Matthew sees Aaron in a club one night, sat at the bar, rejecting advances from all the guys cruising him. There is something about him that captures Matts interest and vice versa as Aaron watches Matt having a public sexual encounter with one of the casual hook ups he has been using to try and deaden his emotional pain. From then on they are drawn to each other and in Aaron , Matt finds a rescuer, a friend and ultimately a lover but Aaron is also holding a secret that could shatter Matthews newly found trust and ruin what is turning out to be a true romance between them. The love scenes are sensual but never gratuitous and the chemistry they have is palpable.

* Possible Spoiler *
The only reason this didn't get a 5* rating was because I couldn't quite believe that knowing how ' skittish ' Matthew was about Joe's betrayal, Aaron wasn't more careful in keeping certain things about his own secret away from him and then when Matthew finds ' clues ' on his computer and becomes suspicious doesn't just explain and nip the misunderstanding in the bud at that point in their relationship. There is also an incident involving Joe that causes a rift between them later in the story that didn't quite feel right to me considering how much they had come to feel for each other by this point in the story and for a moment dropped my opinion of Matthew .... but it is the catalyst that makes Matthew do one of the most romantic things in a m/m romance that I've ever seen before that lead to a wonderful HEA - so he was forgiven!
* spoiler over*

I absolutely adored ' Scrap Metal ' the first book of hers I read, but this comes a close second. I'm now a Harper Fox convert. 4.5*
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Simon
5.0 out of 5 stars An Emotional Rollercoaster
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2012
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I had debated purchasing this novel from the Kindle store for a while before finally giving in. I'd read the reviews, I've purchased and read other novels by Harper Fox, yet the advertised length of this story (94 pages) always put me off. The novel didn't appear long enough to be a satisfying read.
How wrong was I? OK, so "Life After Joe" is a short story, but Ms Fox's writing more than makes up for its shortness. A very emotional read.
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Maxitaxireads
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeously Brilliant.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 28, 2019
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If you want a book to make you feel, to cry and hurt, then look no further. Aaron and Matthew will melt your heart in this beautiful tale of drowning in life, and quietly re-learning how to breathe.
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