Garrett Johnson is a young Hollywood actor who is on the rise. When he lands the role of a racing car driver, he travels to the NASCAR circuit in Charlotte, North Carolina, to learn from the pros. And the pro assigned to teach Garrett is none other than CJ Lamont, who has been touted as the sexiest driver in NASCAR, and who is one of the stars of the racing circuit. The two men strike up a friendship despite the fact that Garrett is openly gay and CJ works in one of the most homophobic of sports. There might be some attraction between them as well, but CJ is going through an unpleasant divorce and has stuffed any gay tendencies as deeply in the closet as he can to maintain his professional reputation.

When his ex-wife reveals his homosexuality in a newspaper expose, CJ’s world falls totally apart. His racing team leaves him, his agent disappears, and he is fired from his job. All CJ can think to do is pack up and run as far away as possible. And so it is in Los Angeles that Garrett once again meets a drunken and downtrodden CJ. Garrret dries him out, cleans him up, and helps CJ find the path back to reclaiming his life and his career. Feelings between them unfold into love, and soon CJ realizes that he has to make a difficult decision: he can either openly declare his love for this high-profile actor, or he can go back into the closet for his racing career. There is no middle ground and no compromise. The decision he makes will steer the course of the rest of his life.

T.A. Chase’s High Linet is the second novel in his The Love of Sports series. While this is a standalone story, readers may appreciate the storyline more if they read his novel Out of Bounds first.

High Line is a story about a man struggling to come to terms with his identity and with the impact that it has on his life. This is a well-written and fast-paced story that will take the reader from the oil-stained high octane pits of the NASCAR circuit to the nightclubs of L.A. to rural small-town Tennessee. The descriptions are so vivid that the settings come to life, and the characters are depicted clearly and colorfully. In CJ, we have a man whose reaction to adversity is to say nothing and run and to perhaps drink himself into an early grave. Unfortunately, hiding his head in the sand like an ostrich does not make his problems go away, and it takes Garrett to gently point this out to him. Garrett is a somewhat surprising character – not your typical spoiled Hollywood actor, but a very insightful man. Or, at least, insightful about other people’s lives. He has issues that he must come to terms with as well. Witnessing these two come together as CJ redefines his life makes High Line a very enjoyable read.


Reviewed by: Whitney