Last First Kiss by Julian Winters

Sunday, August 9, 2026--San Antonio

I actually read Last First Kiss by Julian Winters two novels ago (between reading Buckeye and Helen of Nowhere), but I just noticed I never wrote about it here.  It is a gay novel set in present-day Atlanta.  The protagonist is a man whose family operates a prestigious event planning agency.  He has just become a planner within the company and has been assigned to plan a rushed wedding event--rushed because the husband-to-be is the son of a famous Hollywood director and is to work with him on a new film starting production in only 3 months.  In meeting with the couple, the wife-to-be's best friend shows up.  He happens to be Jamie--someone that Jordan, the planner, has known since they were adolescents.  But there is a troubled history there.  Jordan is now in his late 20s, and Jamie is the only person he has ever kissed--an event that happened years ago when they were experimenting as children.  All his life, Jordan has never felt right in relationships, and he has never forgotten the feeling he got from that kiss with Jamie.  In fact, a year or so earlier than the time of the story, he had approached Jamie (who has been Jordon's cousins best friend all along and who is openly gay), to see if their friendship could be renewed and if maybe an even closer relationship could be established.  But he did something that caused Jamie to cut off their friendship, and this is the first time they have interacted since.  It's a romance novel, so the reader knows something is going to happen.  They story is really about all the fits and false starts that are part of the relationship before they finally accept that they have been destined to be together from the time of that first kiss.  It was a fun, fast read--a good summer novel.  I have it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.