THE BEQUEST, an Enlightenment Epilogue; a delight in every way

SEASONS PASS: An Enlightenment Story
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #3.5)
see below for availability

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Note: Seasons Pass was written as a bonus story for readers and is intended to be read after the full trilogy - it contains spoilers for book 3. As of 2020 this is no longer available on vendor sites - it is exclusively available to newsletter subscribers as is The Bequest, an epilogue story featuring the same characters (the link to her newsletter is below)

It's April 1822 and two years have passed since Lord Murdo Balfour was last in Edinburgh; two years since he met low-born lawyer, David Lauriston. Back then, Lauriston's naïve idealism and self-loathing provoked Murdo's scorn, yet Murdo has not been able to forget him.

When Murdo is asked by his father to return to Edinburgh for the King's forthcoming Scottish visit, his memories of his last time in the city are stirred up again. Frustrated by his inability to forget Lauriston, he decides to seek refuge in an anonymous encounter at Kit Redford's discreet establishment. But will Murdo find the oblivion he seeks at Kit's, or something else entirely?

My Review: I really understand why Murdo feels as deeply for David as he does after reading this story. The cold heartlessness of sex without love repels some as it consumes others. Murdo, who needs warmth to counterbalance the cold and calculating upbringing he endured, would find David's uncompromising centeredness utterly irresistible, and David's priggishness comforting. I hadn't really understood that until I read this.

And as to reading Unnatural...without having read this, the entire story would've taken me too long to immerse myself within and I'd've lost the thread early on. I recommend reading the story in its proper chronological place inside the series.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE BEQUEST: An Enlightenment Epilogue
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #3.6)
see below for availability

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: David Lauriston and Lord Murdo Balfour have been living happily together for three years at the Laverock estate in Perthshire. But when some unexpected news arrives, Murdo must confront old demons he thought he’d put behind him forever.

This story will be exclusively available to my newsletter.


Rating: Adult for extensive nudity and detailed onscreen love scenes; also contains significant crude humor/language, some substance use, passionate kissing, and moderate profanity (TBH I didn't notice profanity, but then I wouldn't)


My Review: I'll be honest...I toyed with a single star rating for this because Author Chambers said of David and Murdo: "...if I was going to give them one last story..."

I nearly unswallowed at the awful betrayal I felt at the cold, emotionless, efficient disembowelling I was undergoing at the hands of someone I've come to enjoy and admire as an artist, a talespinner, and an all-around Good Egg.

No more David and Murdo?!? WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS, THIS DREARY TRUDGE TO THE GRAVE?!?

*ahem*

So, well, you see that I didn't succumb to my more Marquess-esque impulses. I thoroughly approve of the Laverock scenes, the lovely domestic intimacy paired with the men's still-fresh joy in each others' many charms and quirks. Yes, I know that fifteen years on they'll crab at each other for the things they swoon at today; it's inevitable; but it seems to me that these are friends and companions who had the unfathomable good fortune to fall in love, to discover the unique delight of sexual intimacy with someone who matters to you, who has keys to the doors you didn't put in and don't want to think about too often.

Murdo needs something only David has ever offered him: Compassion. His wretch of a father used Murdo in his schemes to get and hold power, no thought for how Murdo would feel about it. David needs something Murdo and only Murdo possesses: Devotion. Unlike a certain scumbag from David's past, Murdo will not present himself as apart from, above, David. Even when situationally he is required to introduce David as his "man of business," it is genuinely against his own wishes and out of respect for David's damaged trust in the goodwill of the world. Lord Murdoch doesn't need it; David Lauriston, risen to a station far below Murdo's, always will. And Murdo understands, behaves in the way that will serve his man's needs first.

If that is not true love, I do not know what is.

So this last *sob* story in the men's love story concerns the commonest crisis to enter any son's life: His father's death. And the fallout of a parent's death is always complex. Murdo's father has left him, the second son and the greatest disappointment of his life, a bequest. It changes everything and that is all I can say without the Spoiler Stasi descending upon me with their tazers and truncheons at the ready. It is very much worth signing up for Author Chambers's newsletter to procure, though honestly don't get near unless you've read the entire series.

I have to clutch at a straw here: There's a very good story waiting in Avesbury and Reid's, erm, well, encounter. And I can see no reasonable excuse for Author Chambers to avoid putting David and Murdo in that story.

No. Reason. At. All.