THE TURNERS, a three-book gay romance series from Cat Sebastian

THE SOLDIER'S SCOUNDREL
CAT SEBASTIAN (The Turners #1)
Avon Impulse
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A scoundrel who lives in the shadows

Jack Turner grew up in the darkness of London's slums, born into a life of crime and willing to do anything to keep his belly full and his siblings safe. Now he uses the tricks and schemes of the underworld to help those who need the kind of assistance only a scoundrel can provide. His distrust of the nobility runs deep and his services do not extend to the gorgeous high-born soldier who personifies everything Jack will never be.

A soldier untarnished by vice

After the chaos of war, Oliver Rivington craves the safe predictability of a gentleman's life-one that doesn't include sparring with a ne'er-do-well who flouts the law at every turn. But Jack tempts Oliver like no other man has before. Soon his yearning for the unapologetic criminal is only matched by Jack's pleasure in watching his genteel polish crumble every time they're together.

Two men only meant for each other

My Review: First, read this:

Jack had relied utterly on {Oliver} for all things related to navigation—the geography of the north of England was nothing more than an ominous question mark to Jack. This morning, as plain as day, he had seen mountains to the west, mountains that he was certain had no business being in England at all, and yet there they were, which only went to show how completely unreliable everything became the farther one got from London.
–and–
When Oliver gently bit Jack’s earlobe, all those worries scattered like spiders, retreating to the dark and safe corners of Jack’s mind.
–and–
{Jack} said “breeding” like someone would say “syphilis” or “bedbugs.”

The thing about privilege is, when you're born to it, it's a bit...restrictive. There are codes. Rules. Norms. Small price to pay for luxury, grumble those without it. Yeah? You try it, sneer those with it.

Honor was a luxury item, like hair pomade and snuff. Its only purpose was to show the world that you could afford to be impractical, that you had enough money to behave in a way that was compatible with some ludicrous code instead of acting out of self-preservation like the rest of humanity.

So Oliver, privileged by his parentage and his recent Napoleonic-Wars service and injury, is restless back in England. Accidentally he discovers his sister has paid a considerable sum to a private investigator, Jack, and decides he wants to know the whys and wherefores. There are prices to pay for losing one's ignorance...

“No,” Jack said after a moment. “That is not how it works. With all due respect,” he remarked, managing to convey no respect whatsoever, “you wouldn’t know whether or not he was decent. You couldn’t, in fact. You play cards with him, maybe drink or make idle conversation. He has no power over you to be anything other than decent. It’s his wife and servants who know the truth. You would likely have thought your brother-in-law a decent fellow had you met him at your club.”

Jack, well, he doesn't play even when it's playtime. Jack lives his life. There's no room in it for an overbred underdone scion of the nobility he so despises. Until, of course, Oliver:

{Oliver} seemed unperturbed by Jack’s loss of temper. He rubbed has hand along his jaw. “In that case, we could pretend to be cousins by marriage. And then we can both act appalled by the connection.”

Jack laughed, feeling his anger dissipate.”
–and–
“Hear me now, Oliver Rivington. You will not use gestures with me.”

The humor of the situation, a gap in social class being made as nothing when love enters the frame, the stakes of the men's mutual pursuit of a miscreant...all worked for me largely because Author Cat writes amusing and witty lines the way I sweat, effortlessly and profusely. I've tried to sample the typical lines, the ones that aren't set-pieces, as well as those that are. The story will stand or fall on your opinion of the synopsis. The writing, you've seen, is what will make your experience memorable for good or ill.

I'm very much on the "good" side, and I hope you'll be as well.

An almost-perfect score, a quarter-star off for a few mondegreens, but mostly BECAUSE THERE WAS NOT ONE SINGLE SOLITARY AWFUL GHASTLY WINK.

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

THE LAWRENCE BROWNE AFFAIR
CAT SEBASTIAN (The Turners #2)
Avon Impulse
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: An earl hiding from his future . . .

Lawrence Browne, the Earl of Radnor, is mad. At least, that’s what he and most of the village believes. A brilliant scientist, he hides himself away in his family’s crumbling estate, unwilling to venture into the outside world. When an annoyingly handsome man arrives at Penkellis, claiming to be Lawrence’s new secretary, his carefully planned world is turned upside down.

A swindler haunted by his past . . .

Georgie Turner has made his life pretending to be anyone but himself. A swindler and con man, he can slip into an identity faster than he can change clothes. But when his long-dead conscience resurrects and a dangerous associate is out for blood, Georgie escapes to the wilds of Cornwall. Pretending to be a secretary should be easy, but he doesn’t expect that the only madness he finds is the one he has for the gorgeous earl.

Can they find forever in the wreckage of their lives?

Challenging each other at every turn, the two men soon give into the desire that threatens to overwhelm them. But with one man convinced he is at the very brink of madness and the other hiding his real identity, only true love can make this an affair to remember.

My Review: First, read this:

“You have a library of hundreds—if not thousands—of books downstairs, and you let them rot.” So it was a book Turner was waving about, brandishing like a weapon. “Do you have any idea what that does to any person of sense? It’s obscene, I tell you.”
–and–
He ruffled feathers without even knowing he had encountered a bird.
–and–
He had never understood what use fine feelings were to a man who was half-starved.

But now he thought he did.

There just isn't a more fun way to spend a couple of hours than reading well-crafted unserious stories designed to make you smile. Georgie and Lawrence are perfectly matched opposites. A lower-class con-man must be a social creature or fail and be punished by draconian laws. No one is ever going to tell an aristocrat he's wrong and bad for being "on the spectrum" as we say in the twenty-first century. Bring the two together and let the author's wit and cleverness grease the rails and bring the narrative train to full speed.

I love the way Author Cat takes very real issues, such as the social isolation of those on the spectrum, and weaves serious points into her farrago-of-nonsense stories. (I mean that in a *good* way! I need nonsense!) I am, in this case, not quite as rapturous as usual only because I felt it was anachrinistic for Georgie to respond so, well, empathetically to Lawrence. It's not impossible! I do fully realize it's not as though empathy only showed its face, shyly and reluctantly, in this century. (And we could use a LOT more of it, come to that.) But it was just a little jangling bell, a thready response up that one sneaky synapse...this is a bridge too far, even in my willing suspension of disbelief that two men—and one an aristocrat!—would be left alone to do as they liked when one is clearly not "right"...fired and fired.

You know what? Screw all that analytical crud. Get this book, read the series, let your mind take a vacation from the darkening edges of our social contract's shredding. Georgie Turner and Lawrence Browne deserve to live their happily-ever-after and you deserve to have it be in your brain.

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

THE RUIN OF A RAKE
CAT SEBASTIAN (The Turners #3)
Avon Impulse
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Rogue. Libertine. Rake. Lord Courtenay has been called many things and has never much cared. But after the publication of a salacious novel supposedly based on his exploits, he finds himself shunned from society. Unable to see his nephew, he is willing to do anything to improve his reputation, even if that means spending time with the most proper man in London.

Julian Medlock has spent years becoming the epitome of correct behavior. As far as he cares, if Courtenay finds himself in hot water, it’s his own fault for behaving so badly—and being so blasted irresistible. But when Julian’s sister asks him to rehabilitate Courtenay’s image, Julian is forced to spend time with the man he loathes—and lusts after—most.

As Courtenay begins to yearn for a love he fears he doesn’t deserve, Julian starts to understand how desire can drive a man to abandon all sense of propriety. But he has secrets he’s determined to keep, because if the truth came out, it would ruin everyone he loves. Together, they must decide what they’re willing to risk for love.

My Review: It's proving difficult for me to arrange my impressions into a shape more useful than "me likee" because I'm so conflicted by Julian Medlock's yuck-ick-ptui personality. A classic climber. Those people annoy me, as in "die monster die" annoy.

Every breath brought him into acute danger of one of his limbs meeting one of Courtenay’s. And that was a fate he ardently hoped would not come to pass, for reasons he chose not to dwell on.
–and–
He had arrived where he was by making a study of how people responded to everything he did, by calibrating his every decision—from the cut of his coat to the company he kept—to achieve a favorable reaction from society. And it had worked.

Sounds like a movie star's life, doesn't it...the constant calculation, the relentless ON-ness of performing one's life as well as for one's career.

Courtenay, his love object, is a wishy-washy sort but I get past that by understanding entirely his pathology: He's an abused boy trying to make his mama love him, little understanding that he can't because she's incapable of mothering.

It had been years since anyone had thought to defend him, even longer since he had believed he merited any kind of defense. And having a man like Medlock—stuffy, prim Medlock—take one’s part made it worth even more.
–and–
For some reason—likely his own perverse nature—Medlock's criticism delighted Courtenay almost as much as his stingy scraps of praise.
–and–
If he went long enough without thinking about it, the memories would fade, or at least be covered up by more layers of protective varnish, and it would be like it never happened in the first place.

Why can't I move past Medlock's climberishness, when his equally valid (and well-drawn, it must be said) pathology explains his behavior so well? Because social climbing is so, frankly, distasteful to me. A man of Courtenay's unusually progressive ideology should revile Medlock. (I certainly do.)

Ay me, we'll have to table the truncheoning for the moment, because this book's a happily-ever-after romance and those are delights to be savored. I'm happy to report that Medlock and Courtenay do indeed heat the sheets, climb out of them, and pine for each other in the approved romance-novel fashion.

Love was somebody aiming a pistol at your heart while you sat there and acted like it was perfectly fine.
–and–
Falling in love wasn’t like a bird hatching from an egg, for all both events were rather messy and fraught with vulnerability.
–and–
Yes, that was how it was when your soul was in pieces and somebody else had one of them. Only when you were together would the pieces fit into place and become whole.
–and–
You can’t possibly mean to kiss me. I’m revolting.” Please kiss me.

“You aren’t. And even if you were, you’d be other things too.”

It was a gentle kiss, the sort of patient and meandering kiss Courtenay liked and Julian had never understood before. It wasn’t a prelude to fucking, it wasn’t even a prelude to a more thorough kiss. It was a conversation, without the burden of words. Please, Julian wanted to say. Let me try again. Julian’s heart felt full of something terrifying, something more dangerous than anything he had ever thought possible. And he didn’t care. He was throwing himself into an abyss he couldn’t even see, and that was fine, at least for the duration of the kiss.

That's the stuff that keeps me hitting the "BORROW NOW" button, the "BUY NOW" button, and the "PAGE TURN" button.