THE QUEER PRINCIPLES OF KIT WEBB, sheer delight and big big fun from Cat Sebastian

THE QUEER PRINCIPLES OF KIT WEBB
CAT SEBASTIAN
Avon Impulse
$10.99 ebook editions, available right now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Critically acclaimed author Cat Sebastian pens a stunning historical romance about a reluctantly reformed highwayman and the aristocrat who threatens to steal his heart.

Kit Webb has left his stand-and-deliver days behind him. But dreary days at his coffee shop have begun to make him pine for the heady rush of thievery. When a handsome yet arrogant aristocrat storms into his shop, Kit quickly realizes he may be unable to deny whatever this highborn man desires.

In order to save himself and a beloved friend, Percy, Lord Holland must go against every gentlemanly behavior he holds dear to gain what he needs most: a book that once belonged to his mother, a book his father never lets out of his sight and could be Percy’s savior. More comfortable in silk-filled ballrooms than coffee shops frequented by criminals, his attempts to hire the roughly hewn highwayman, formerly known as Gladhand Jack, proves equal parts frustrating and electrifying.

Kit refuses to participate in the robbery but agrees to teach Percy how to do the deed. Percy knows he has little choice but to submit and as the lessons in thievery begin, he discovers thievery isn’t the only crime he’s desperate to commit with Kit.

But when their careful plan goes dangerously wrong and shocking revelations threaten to tear them apart, can these stolen hearts overcome the impediments in their path?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I've been able to write harsh reviews before. It should be a doddle to write a happy one, right?

Wrong...when I'm happy, where I expected to be and really almost was, ecstatic.

First and foremost, however, let me assure anyone who likes historical fiction featuring men who get it on with other men that this is a very satisfying example of the genre. Despite the W-bomb dropped at the 17% mark. (At least it was just the one.)

I was utterly delighted by the odd-couple pairing of the future Duke with the highwayman. I was even glad that the couple took a goodly time getting down to business...I'm sure the rational side of an author of M/M romantic novels knows the inflection point of first sexual contact between men is likely to be the source of a sizable, um, payoff for their readers. Knowing it's, erm, coming and being teased to wait for it can be a lot of fun!

Until the magic moment slips by...and it becomes a Thursday-night fuck.

I was 95% there by the time the deed got done, and was fairly resigned to the men having an old-fashioned "the fire flickered and died" fade-to-black coupling. That's not really Author Sebastian's métier, but people are allowed to change and try different things. Going over half the story without the act of consummation was almost too long. It was risky to use alternating PoVs in the story, given the lateness of the sex, because it really risked disinvesting the reader in the when-will-they. There was no question that they wouldn't, of course, but waiting so long to give us the reward when we weren't able to follow one character's perspective on the cost of delay resulted in a certain distancing and detachment...we had no sense of why the particular choice that was made in the final analysis was made. It felt as surprising to me as it must've felt to the men themselves. And yet we dwelt on it not at all!

Webb frequented neither church nor tavern nor anywhere even remotely interesting. Percy had become momentarily intrigued when he realized how often Webb went to the baths, but the man seemed to spend his time there actually bathing, so Percy resumed being unimpressed.
–and–
Kit was usually very good at controlling this sort of urge. Hopping into bed with attractive strangers had never appealed to him very much anyway. It always seemed like a lot of hassle {anachronism; coinage not attested until 1945} and risk for pleasure that never quite lived up to one's expectations. And that was with women; with men things were even more complicated because a heaping great dose of danger was thrown into the bargain.

And yet this monadnock of reticence chooses the loss of virginity that most men quail before! This didn't square with what I'd been told, nor was I privy to anything in the cross-talk of the book that would let me think anything other than, "do what now? where'd that even come from?!"

There are Author Sebastian's trademark delightful aperçus, of course, like this delicious pair:

“I used to think that revenge was about defending one’s honor, but it turns out that honor is just spite dressed up for Sunday.”
–and–
Percy realized he had had it all wrong when he told Kit that honor is just spite dressed up; spite was honor when it was the only weapon you had against someone more powerful.

Thesis, meet antithesis...and both are equally true. Inarguably so. Doesn't something in you resound with the truth in each of these?

Then came a serious issue I felt really didn't get anything like the time it needed to build up to: the return of the wanderer, and the foreshadowing of the real stakes in what I feel sure now is going to be a series. I can't really say more, and was encouraged to say even less (ie, nothing at all) but there's a reason I want to tell you that you're going to need to brace yourself.

In life, as we live it, there are no unmixed emotions, no purely experienced peak moments. We drag the past with us and chuck it up as a screen to avoid looking into the nothingness of the unlived future. The present is almost never enough to really distract us from the blank wall we can choose what to project onto, but more often choose to see in all its void-of-glory through a ragged curtain of life as it was.

When that happens in fiction, it's of necessity a surprise. What stakes there are, however, are utterly and totally on the line for the author. One false step, one gesture misplaced or misused, and the trust between reader and author can crumble. It almost did for me when the past came to haunt the future.

If this is the first time you're reading one of Author Sebastian's books, put it down and pick up The Turners series or the Seducing the Sedgwicks series here and here. They lack this authorial high-wire act, and building your trust in Author Sebastian's landings being solid, if not precisely the one you're expecting, is necessary not to experience disorientation.

The fact that this will be a series is worth noting as well, since there are people whose actions and inactions we need to know more about before they make full sense. And there are some actions that are, to put it mildly, aren't easy to gloss over...and I don't mean the one many will blench at.

So take this as a solid encouragement to pick up and savor the book for existing fans, with the note to set aside some established patterns; and a shove in the direction of the previous reads by Author Sebastian for new readers. For here be pleasures you should definitely not deny yourself or remain without. We need happy distractions from ugly reality...what better way than to see love conquering the many barriers folk decide to allow there to be in its free and complete exercise.

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.

TWO ROGUES MAKE A RIGHT, third "Seducing the Sedgwicks" novel from Cat Sebastian

TWO ROGUES MAKE A RIGHT
CAT SEBASTIAN (Seducing the Sedgwicks #3)
Avon Impulse
$3.99 ebook editions, available now

Today, 31 March 22, it's only $1.99 on Kindle!

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Will Sedgwick can’t believe that after months of searching for his oldest friend, Martin Easterbrook is found hiding in an attic like a gothic nightmare. Intent on nursing Martin back to health, Will kindly kidnaps him and takes him to the countryside to recover, well away from the world.

Martin doesn’t much care where he is or even how he got there. He’s much more concerned that the man he’s loved his entire life is currently waiting on him hand and foot, feeding him soup and making him tea. Martin knows he’s a lost cause, one he doesn’t want Will to waste his life on.

As a lifetime of love transforms into a tender passion both men always desired but neither expected, can they envision a life free from the restrictions of the past, a life with each other?

LIBRARIES ARE AWESOME! USE YOURS MORE OFTEN, THEY NEED US! And see my reviews of the first two books in the series here.

My Review: First, read this:

“Which poor man?” Will asked carefully.

“The man who—he lives in the Alps and has an overbearing father.”

Will closed the book. “I think we’ll leave the rest of this novel for when you’re more lucid,” he said, his mouth twitching in a badly suppressed smile, “but I will always cherish the description of Victor Frankenstein as an overbearing parent.”
–and–
He knew Will liked women, but that didn’t mean he only liked women. Martin was fairly sure he himself liked women as much as he liked men, which was to say not particularly much. He supposed he was capable of being attracted to anybody, as long as they were Will Sedgwick.
–and–
“If you can be stupid for me, then I can be stupid for you.”

“You’re stupid no matter what you do,” Will said, trying very hard to sound like he wasn’t about to cry.

There's no escaping it: Will Sedgwick has *terrible* taste in men. He is in love, and really always has been, with Sir Martin Easterbrook. "Sir" Martin (a busted-flat baronet), on the other hand, is mean, grouchy, anti-social, and equally in love with Will. Tell me those quotes don't feel deeply familiar from one or another of your bygone youth's loves!

But they've both been through the mills...they've each got a family secret...and neither one will drop his guard. Because, y'know, reasons. Like Martin is dying of consumption, the Regency equivalent of AIDS in the 1980s: Invariably fatal, of unknown cause, and really really bad news.

People been people forever, don't you know. The two could sort everything out by simply opening up their respective yaps. Will they? Why would they? Neither has any slightest belief that the other could possibly be interested in him that way.

That tension, familiar as it is to most all of us, does wear thin. The subject of "do you/don't you—will you/won't you" loses a certain amount of urgency once one learns that rejection and embarrassment aren't fatal. They are unpleasant, and never stop being so. But Will and Martin are still feeling as though the stakes are too damned high and so they're too scared to get the job done...until they're not, and what a relief it is! (To all of us, I mean, not just them.)

What's most poignant to me, what moves me very deeply, is that above-mentioned similarity to AIDS. I lost two loves and a lot of friends to that plague. And these lines:

On a good day Will barely felt competent to manage his own life, and being responsible for another person’s—the most precious person’s—was daunting at best. He was not in the habit of eating regular meals or keeping predictable hours, but now he had to keep track of Martin’s medicines and make sure he drank and ate a few times a day. And Martin fought him every step of the way, as if Will’s ministrations were an annoyance, as if he wished Will had left him to rot in London.
–and–
Will stared hard at his friend, saw how his profile was caught in the setting sun, and was struck by how fleeting this all could be. A chill, a cough, and Martin could be gone. He was filled with a wave of—not sorrow, because the time for that had come and gone—but the urge to make this count. If their time was finite, then he ought to—he didn’t know what. He ought to take these tiny incandescent moments and figure out a way to hold them in his heart.

Well, they just couldn't have been more perfectly tuned to twang my sentimental old fools of heartstrings. Yes indeed, Author Cat, you caused a barely-sublethal crying jag, you did you did. And isn't that what the word "catharsis" was coined to describe.

This is a category romance, so we know the ending will include the men being together. It isn't kind of me to take you on the whole cruise, so I'll just note that once The Deed is done, there is no magical sunshine lollipops and rainbows effect...they still don't possess an ounce of sense between them. "Just SAY IT!!!" I came close to screaming at the silly buffoons. But they aren't, buffoons that is, and they aren't any different from many, many abused men I've known. They simply can't articulate the feeling of wanting something without choking on it. Very common, I'm afraid. But...and this is important...hang tight. The ending...well, house martins and sweet williams will always have a bit of extra luster in my eyes.

And, while another story won the 33rd Lammy Award for Gay Romance, this one is always going to win in my heart.

IT TAKES TWO TO TUMBLE & A GENTLEMAN NEVER KEEPS SCORE, the first two "Seducing the Sedgwicks" queer Regency romances

IT TAKES TWO TO TUMBLE
CAT SEBASTIAN (Seducing the Sedgwicks #1)
Avon Impulse
$3.99 ebook platforms, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Some of Ben Sedgwick’s favorite things:
    Helping his poor parishioners
    Baby animals
    Shamelessly flirting with the handsome Captain Phillip     Dacre

After an unconventional upbringing, Ben is perfectly content with the quiet, predictable life of a country vicar, free of strife or turmoil. When he’s asked to look after an absent naval captain’s three wild children, he reluctantly agrees, but instantly falls for the hellions. And when their stern but gloriously handsome father arrives, Ben is tempted in ways that make him doubt everything.

Some of Phillip Dacre’s favorite things:
  His ship
  People doing precisely as they're told
  Touching the irresistible vicar at every opportunity

Phillip can’t wait to leave England’s shores and be back on his ship, away from the grief that haunts him. But his children have driven off a succession of governesses and tutors and he must set things right. The unexpected presence of the cheerful, adorable vicar sets his world on its head and now he can’t seem to live without Ben’s winning smiles or devastating kisses.

LIBRARIES ARE AWESOME! SUPPORT THEM! USE THEM!

My Review: First, read this:

He didn’t even stop himself from thinking about the man, the taut muscles of his arms and the habit he had of biting back a smile as if smiles cost extra and he was saving up for an especially big one.
–and–
He wanted to watch the trees lose their leaves. He wanted to watch his children and the changes each day wrought in them. He wanted to belong here, to belong to his children and to Ben.
–and–
“This is all new to me. I’m in a new world without a map or a chart, but you’re my compass, Ben, and I know we’ll find a way.”

What a pleasure to escape into a late Regency world where two men grab their happiness instead of allowing the world to order them around. I think this happened, then as now, more often than They thought/think it does.

Several things got under my saddle and rubbed me wrong, but as they were reasonably minor and mostly ignorable, I flowed on past them with mere surface ripples in the stream of my enjoyment.

This mixing metaphors thing is fun. I'm gonna do it more often.

Some just lovely phrase-making, isn't it. There's humor and there's a bit of sentiment and then there's Author Sebastian's way with writing about horny men without making it crude. I'm becoming a Sebastianista. On to volume two!

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

A GENTLEMAN NEVER KEEPS SCORE
CAT SEBASTIAN (Seducing the Sedgwicks #2)
Avon Impulse
$3.99 ebook platforms, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Once beloved by London's fashionable elite, Hartley Sedgwick has become a recluse after a spate of salacious gossip exposed his most-private secrets. Rarely venturing from the house whose inheritance is a daily reminder of his downfall, he’s captivated by the exceedingly handsome man who seeks to rob him.

Since retiring from the boxing ring, Sam Fox has made his pub, The Bell, into a haven for those in his Free Black community. But when his best friend Kate implores him to find and destroy a scandalously revealing painting of her, he agrees. Sam would do anything to protect those he loves, even if it means stealing from a wealthy gentleman. But when he encounters Hartley, he soon finds himself wanting to steal more than just a painting from the lovely, lonely man—he wants to steal his heart.

Content Warning from Author: This book includes a main character who was sexually abused in the past; abuse happens off page but is alluded to.

LIBRARIES...MAN, JUST CAN'T SAY ENOUGH ABOUT THEIR AMAZINGNESS!

My Review: First, read this:

“Oh, to hell with decent people. They’re exhausting. Make one feel so evil, when really one simply has one’s own concerns.”
–and–
“Let me make this equally clear to you, because I think I've failed you on this score. I want to be with you, in rooms above a pub or anywhere you happen to be. A cave, a pirate ship, a desert island, doesn't matter.”
–and–
“Maybe you need to get rid of your idea of better. Your boots are better than mine, but they won’t fit my feet.”

I seriously love a pithy aperçu!

I quite like all the interconnectedness of these stories, and was gratified that Ben showed up despite being happily hooked up with his Phillip.

Not quite as easy for me was the nature of Hartley's problem barring him from easy intimacy with Sam. Saintly Sam got a smidge saccharine if you want to know the truth. The big problem separating them was, in the end, less resolved than treated with a massive injection of handwavium. I was in the fullness of my go-with-the-flow mood from Ben and Phillip's tale so I bobbed past that rock.

Right into the one that holed my boat and resulted in that missing star: Martin. I gather that Martin and Will are next in the series, so I will say nothing except: "Really."

My review of the third Seducing the Sedgwicks series, TWO ROGUES MAKE A RIGHT, comes out tomorrow is right here!