BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, support for good stories never felt easier or more fun

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
SALLY MALCOLM & JOANNA CHAMBERS Creative Types #3
Kindle edition (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Lights, camera…attraction!

When Tag O’Rourke, struggling actor-slash-barista, meets Jay Warren, son of acting royalty, it’s loathing at first sight. Loathing…and lust. Tag’s dream is to act, but it’s a dream that’s crumbling beneath the weight of student debt and his family’s financial problems. If his career doesn’t take off soon, he’s going to have to get a real job. After all, feeding his family is more important than feeding his soul. Luckily, Tag’s about to get his big break…

Jay never had to dream about acting; he was always destined to follow in his famous mother’s footsteps. But fame has its price and a traumatic experience early in Jay’s career has left him with paralysing stage fright, which is why he sticks to the safety of TV work—and avoids relationships with co-stars at all costs. Unfortunately, Jay’s safe world is about to be rocked…

After an ill-judged yet mind-blowing night together, Jay and Tag part acrimoniously. So it’s a nasty shock when they discover that they’ve been cast in a two-man play that could launch Tag’s career and finally get Jay back onto the stage where he belongs. Sure, it’s not ideal, but how bad can working with your arch-nemesis be? All they have to do is survive six weeks rehearsing together and navigate a cast of smarmy festival directors, terrible landladies, and vengeful journalists. Oh, and try not to fall in love before the curtain rises… Break a leg!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE AUTHORS. THANK YOU.

My Review: Well, whatever one expects from a romace novel, this book hands it over...enemies-to-lovers, second chance at love, soulmates discovering each other, all here. And all as much fun to read as fun gets.

Authors Sally and Jo don't exactly waste one's time with silly obfuscations. The story's pacing is neither rushed nor dilatory. The main duo are not in any danger of being relegated to juicy side characters...though Jay's mother could be a fun broad to follow around for a few hundred pages, hint hint...and the Others on the page still manage to make their presences felt. The playwright-cum-pal is another really good character I felt I knew enough about to get the story in gear, yet could also fill up her own book.

So there's absolutely every reason to go buy one. Go on! Go get a copy.

But you're only giving it four stars! I need a fifth one to autobuy!

Having heard this kind of statement on multiple occasions, I'll say this: The series is wonderful and fun, and funny, and endearingly honest about its characters' icky bits. All of those are good things. Tag irks me. He's a whiny little pisher whose chip is so big it needs both his shoulders to carry it so blocks his view straight ahead of him. Jay is quieter in his overplayed self-doubt but still manages not to hook me. Them together? I wanted to reach into the book and crack their heads tpgether, tell 'em to STFU and get back to having the kind of sex most of us don't dare believe exists because we ain't gettin' it.

So yeah. Four's where the star train stops.

It gets all those stars for the way I'm dragged into the story, the way my emotional investment is picked out of my readerly pocket. They mugged me in my own back alley, that pair of author/attackers! I encourage anyone with a taste for contemporary romances, for second-chance, artist-centered, and enemies-to-lovers romances, to get this entire three-book series.

HOME GROWN TALENT, second Creative Types series M/M rom-com

HOME GROWN TALENT
SALLY MALCOLM & JOANNA CHAMBERS (Creative Types #2)
Amazon Kindle (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 on Kindle, available now

Rating: 4 singed-by-profanity stars of five

The Publisher Says: Are you for real?

From the outside, it looks like model and influencer Mason Nash has it all—beauty, fame, and fortune. With his star rapidly rising, and a big contract up for grabs, Mason’s on the verge of hitting the big time.

When an opportunity arises to co-host a gardening slot on daytime TV with his ex’s brother, Owen Hunter, Mason is definitely on-board. And he intends to use every trick in the book to make the show a hit—including agreeing to his ruthless producer’s demand to fake a ‘will-they/won’t-they’ romance with his co-host…

Owen Hunter is a gardener with a huge heart and both feet planted firmly on the well-tilled ground. He’s proud of the life he’s built and has absolutely no desire to be on TV—yet somehow he finds himself agreeing to do the show.

It’s definitely not because he’s interested in Mason Nash. The guy might be beautiful—and yeah, his spoiled brat routine presses all Owen’s buttons in the bedroom—but Owen has no interest in a short-term fling with a fame-hungry model.

As the two men get closer, though, Owen starts to believe there’s more to Mason than his beautiful appearance and carefully-curated online persona—that beneath the glitz and glamour is a sweet, sensitive man longing to be loved.

A man Owen might be falling for. A man who might even feel the same.

But in a world of media spin and half-truths, Owen is dangerously out of his depth. And when a ridiculous scandal explodes online, with Owen at its heart, it starts to look as though everything he thought was real is built on lies—including his budding romance with Mason…

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHERS. THANK YOU.

My Review: Remember the story of Lewis and Aaron, the grumpy/sunshine boss/PA delight set in the TV world? It lost enough points for its SIX w-bombs not to get to five stars despite my deep affection for its story line and its delightful silliness. All that was wrapping a quite serious love story between two sad, lonely men whose lives are dedicated to a world that uses them for what it can get.

The authors? Nice people, one supposes, but severely addicted to carpet w-bombing the reader. Six was bad. TWELVE IN THIS STORY. Twelve! Using any word not a conjunction, pronoun, proper name, or toponym (and that one's iffy) twelve times in one's story is simply too damned many.

Anyway. The story, as expected from these two mavens of the genre, was a cracker. Owen raised his teenaged brother after their mother's death; as a barely fledged kid himself he...did a great job. He worked. He protected. He never left his brother in the lurch as he got left. His brother's grouchy personality, built to withstand misery and grief, was just more than he could handle. I think it's the most touching story I've ever read, and Owen's power as a character largely began from that base. When we meet him in this story, he's along for the ride at an awards show for Lewis's hit TV show, Leeches. One of the participants' plus-ones is young Mason Nash...Lewis's ex, met at the beginning of episode one, a model/Instagram influencer. Owen judged him harshly while Lewis was dating him. Mason rather curled his lip at Owen, too.

So guess what happens!

It's a rom-com. You know what you're getting, you know when you're going to get it, and this being 2022 we know we're in for some sex. The sex scenes add to the relationship drama, and the last one in particular was deeply, deeply relatable to anyone who's ever had a long-term relationship. So used well, written well, satisfyingly up to snuff on the heat-level scale...nothing tepid about these guys!...and exactly the proper amount of smexytimes for the story. (It doesn't hurt that I identify with Owen, either.)

One of the surprises in the story was the deeply sympathetic portrayal of "an influencer" or massively online person as a regular guy trying to make a living in a very cut-throat industry...two, really, as he was modeling as well as Instagramming his life. Or lifestyle, I suppose...like all the surface-gloss purveyors of Fantasy, there's a lot of effort behind the Glamour. Then there's Owen, simple son of the soil that he is, who runs a gardening business that doesn't require him to tart anything up for the cameras and likes it that way. But...key realization...Owen is a caretaker, with all the control and trust issues that implies. So, funnily enough, is Mason (real name it's not, but you'll find that out for yourself). Different angles, same path, and Owen'd been on it longer so has much, much more invested in the identity without really taking in his façade's effects on others. Mason's simply never, as a twentysomething, thought much about anyone he wasn't responsible for.

What draws the men together is what ultimately causes the only serious explosion neither is equipped to handle: Working together on something neither has any control over. It was a shock to me that Owen said yes, but thinking about myownself in my thirties, well...yeah, I see it. Mason's early-onset adulthood led him to reflect, "Responsibility, once assumed, was almost impossible to put down." This being an eternal verity known to most all of us who've taken it up as Owen had to do, as Mason must do, left me nodding along. Not for the first, or last, time, either. The authors are quite able to repackage Received Wisdom as new knowledge to their characters. It's one of the things that makes me enjoy these stories of younger people more than many, if not most, others.

The unfairness of Mason's life, as it leaks little by little into Owen's awareness, makes their estrangement that much more painful for them both. It was, TBH, about as blatantly signaled as can be. For a wonder, that actually worked to heighten its effect because of a choice I imagine was organic to the process of writing a series with two authors: Dual narrators. It's surprising to me how well the technique, mated to this story line, caused me to flip the pages past faster and faster. Kudos! By the end of the story, each knows the other's burdens, and it truly works as relationship binder. And the happily-ever-after that is part and parcel of the genre's promises to its readers arrived in a welcome, more grounded way than I thought it would...if at the expense of feeling a wee bit rushed.

Rein in the w-bombing, please, and bring on #3 soon!

TOTAL CREATIVE CONTROL, first in a new series of hilarious M/M rom-coms

TOTAL CREATIVE CONTROL
SALLY MALCOLM & JOANNA CHAMBERS (Creative Types #1)
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.76* of five

The Publisher Says: Sunshine PA, meet Grumpy Boss ...

When fanfic writer Aaron Page landed a temp job with the creator of hit TV show, Leeches, it was only meant to last a week. Three years later, Aaron’s still there ...

It could be because he loves the creative challenge. It could be because he’s a huge Leeches fanboy. It’s definitely not because of Lewis Hunter, his extremely demanding, staggeringly rude ... and breathtakingly gorgeous boss.

Is it?

Lewis Hunter grew up the hard way and fought for everything he’s got. His priority is the show, and personal relationships come a distant second. Besides, who needs romance when you have a steady stream of hot men hopping in and out of your bed?

His only meaningful relationship is with Aaron, his chief confidante and indispensable assistant. And no matter how appealing he finds Aaron’s cute boy-next-door charms, Lewis would never risk their professional partnership just to scratch an itch.

But when Lewis finds himself trapped at a hilariously awful corporate retreat, Aaron is his only friend and ally. As the professional lines between them begin to blur, their simmering attraction starts to sizzle...

...And they’re both about to get burned.

I WAS OFFERED A DRC AND ACCEPTED WITH UNSEEMLY GLEE.

My Review: Hello! Are you new around here? I kind of doubt it, but one never can be certain...so let me offer a greeting and an invitation to poke around, look over the goods, see what interests you. One thing you'll notice fairly quickly is that I like the books that feature people like me, which is to say men who sex up men while loving every minute of it; older men who have the good fortune to find younger men who enjoy their company; and who (lucky fictional bastards!) get second chances at The One(s) Who Got Away.

Authors Joanna Chambers and Sally Malcolm have each appeared on the pages of the blog on previous occasions, their respective ouevres coming in for no little praise on their own merits. (Still slightly shocked that BBC Scotland hasn't made Enlightenment into a limited series, Author Chambers...get your People onto it! David Tennant ain't gettin' any younger!) I am, in short, inclined to look upon these creatives' creations without undue harshness, permaybehaps even a Vaseline-smeared lens of hazy happiness.

When I am not being assaulted by w-bombs. (Two were allowable; they deepened the...foulness...of a revolting character; four others, NO; net deduction = 24 stars.) (What do you mean, there aren't 24 stars? It's my blog and I'll...oh, very well you boring commonsensical internal voice.)

The fun of watching, that is reading, this story was evident from the get-go. The insta-luuuv between the characters being sublimated into a working relationship for ages was nicely explained away by Aaron's dirty little secret: He writes fanfic in Lewis's show's universe! Well, as a reason for him to stay shtumm about his feelings, that one does a lot. He can't give up his literal dream, or his literal dreamboat, now can he. Plus Lewis clearly senses Aaron's abilities as a writer, as a fellow creative story-teller, and no one who's ever had a whole business riding on their shoulders can ever resist a true Lieutenant Colonel showing up when you need 'em. (Not to mention the man's a fount of excellent story ideas, and can keep the fan-service pipeline flowing both ways.)

There's a lot of fun in reading these words, just as words. This is exactly as one would expect from the two authors involved in creating the story.

Charlie was one of those almost-but-not-quite-good-looking men. Everything about him was just a little average. A little medium. On the two or three occasions he'd come into the office to see Lewis, he'd always seemed to Aaron to be trying to make up for that somehow, with his overbearing manner and his ridiculously pretentious outfits.
–and–
...Lewis yelped, "Wave!" and they both stumbled backwards as the surf splashed up over their ankles, soaking the ends of their rolled-up jeans. Lewis lost his balance as he scrambled up the beach, Aaron grabbed him, and suddenly they were both clinging to each other, laughing.
And then, just as suddenly, they weren't laughing.
They were simply standing there in the moonlight, clutching each other's arms, gazing at each other. Lewis looked dishevelled and windblown, undone in a way that transformed him from idol into someone more real, more tangible, his dark hair blowing across his forehead, and his eyes the deep blue of the twilight sky. He swallowed visibly, lips parting, chest rising and falling. Breathing hard. His fingers tightened on Aaron's arms, drawing him closer.

And we'll leave that there...*evil chuckle*

What a pleasure, then, to have this as a week-ending read. I wasn't expecting it to be awful, or painful; I was expecting it to be somehow less than the sum of the authors' different powers, a watering-down of what I've come to expect. I just love being wrong! Their different ways of approaching a story came together beautifully, and made this a better story than I'd even let myself hope that it was going to be. I'm also pleased that the process of working together worked well for them so we're going to get a book two and even a book three! I predict book two will be about Owen. (That was, if y'all were wondering, a stonking great hint.)

The genuinely surprising thing in this read...and let's not front, there's next to nothing surprising in romances...is that it takes its milieu seriously. The world of Fandom is presented without an arched eyebrow or a barely concealed sneer. The existence of AO3 is very much part of what drives the plot. The kind of characters in the fannish con-world are spot on and mostly treated kindly. (I, like Lewis, am unable to endure long moments of speech emitted by up-talkers.) The end of the story is a fan-person's wet dream. It is a pleasure to see the sub- go Culture.

I am well and truly pleased, Authors each and both, and I thank you for making me the offer of a DRC for review.

THE FIRST SNOW OF WINTER and THE LABOURS OF LORD PERRY CAVENDISH, third and fourth Winterbournverse books

THE FIRST SNOW OF WINTER
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Winterbourne #3)
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: 1814: Captain Sam Alderton returns to England from the continent with his life in tatters. Maimed and directionless, the last thing he wants to do is spend Christmas with his family and their close friends, the Huxleys—especially Jasper Huxley, who he almost kissed five years before. Sam plans to avoid the festivities, but when the first snow of winter arrives, and he and Jasper are trapped alone together at Alderton Hall, they find themselves revisiting old traditions and painful memories together—and discovering that things may not have been quite as either of them thought five years earlier.

My Review: Except for three foul, putrid w-bombs, this first-time friends to lovers tale gets full marks. The childhood love of the young men is well-played for the explanation of their chemistry as men. Adding in the war wound and its effect on each of them is what tips this short piece into a good read on its own and not a mere add-on to the series.

There are a few small details that niggled at my pleasure...like Jasper's freshly-washed hair. The act of washing one's heair was not trivial in the Regency. It took planning and was rather more complicated than standing under a shower and scrubbing in a surfactant. Jasper wouldn't have done all this on Christmas Eve, and most certainly wouldn't have done so in conjunction with a bath at someone else's home, even the home of childhood friends.

I found Sam's mother a revolting, manipulative old party, with her ginned-up tears and her revulsion for Sam's war wound. I get it, about the wound at least; but it didn't make her a sympathetic character in my eyes. And Jasper's female connections are described so humorously by Sam...Augusta, Jasper's mother, was bringing her own mother to Christmas and Sam thinks: "Bertha was the least grandmotherly person imaginable. Unless one was thinking of Lucretia Borgia’s grandmother, perhaps. Or Caligula’s." Which is pretty much priceless! And accurate.

One important point is that we're not made privy to the source of these two characters' prequel-ness...so while this is a series I strongly advises you to read in order, be a bit patient with this Napoleonic-Wars excursion from our accustomed George IV-era trip. The order of battle is quite important to follow in this series to extract maximum pleasure from it.

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

THE LABOURS OF LORD PERRY CAVENDISH
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Winterbourn #4)
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$3.49 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Lord Perry Cavendish knows that he's seen as a not-too-bright, amiable, sporting sort of chap. The type who can hold his own in the boxing ring, drink most men under the table, and offer a useful opinion on a piece of horseflesh—but not much else.

When Perry visits his friend, Lysander Winterbourne, he is introduced to the Honourable Jonny Mainwaring, a free-thinking artist who is everything Perry is not: unconventional, emotional…and very talkative.

At first, Perry is overwhelmed by the vibrant, witty Jonny Mainwairing, but when he agrees to sit for him, he discovers the real man beneath the dramatic flourishes, and the undeniable physical attraction he feels for Jonny begins to develop into something more.

But Jonny is not to be easily won over. While he has a longstanding weakness for brawny men like Perry, he’s still smarting from his latest heartbreak and determined to change his habit of throwing himself into each new affair without pausing to recover from the last.

Can Perry convince Jonny that he is more than just an empty-headed young buck, and that they could have a real future together?

My Review: The w-bombs come thick and fast here. Two—two!—within the first chapter alone! The onslaught of cheesy, unpleasant eye-infection behaviors continued until there were six...count 'em six...infringements of the Readers' Rights Agreement. Humph.

Perry is a Chelsea-bun hero all right, plain on the outside but fruity and spicy all the way through. (That's the period-appropriate term for a Cinnamon Roll hero, don't you know...since Chelsea buns were first made in the eighteenth century, unlike cinnamon rolls.) He's ooey-gooey sweet, with that large, lumbering man charm that seems to center on not fitting the furniture:

He was sitting in a spindly little chair, at a spindly little desk in the morning room. It was probably a lady’s desk and part of the effects of the house Adam had purchased when he’d bought the estate. Had the previous occupants been elves, Perry wondered? Most of the chairs in the house seemed to be too small for him.

Been there, Brother Man, been there and hated the view. Dinky little people need to understand that they are not the proper measure of the world! But a deeper hurt has been done to Perry, beyond merely being made to feel that he's Too Much...

“You need to go slower,” Perry repeated, his face heating with mortification. “I’m not one of those clever fellows like you who can write quickly.” He forced a chuckle. “I was a bit of a dunce at school.”

He's not eloquent or even terribly articulate in his speech, and not a very intellectually inclined sort, but not (as Lysander knows of old) slow-witted or dumb. In his classes, however, he was rather thought less of and certainly belittled by his harridan of a mother. He bears terrible emotional scars because of this, and is very sure that someone like the garrulous swan-like Jonny Mainwaring, fey and dandyish and a riot of color and sound, would sooner be dead than than spend time with him.

Jonny is suffering from the fey, dandyish man's usual problem with other men: What appeals to them at the start makes them absolutely mad as hornets by the end. Jonny's an artiste, you see, on top of being less than a manly man. He's accustomed to that being a Very Bad Thing...and here's this large, lovable lummox of a Perry practically blushing himself into a stroke every time Jonny so much as smiles at him! And seems unable to utter a sound...except in extremis, as the two decide it's time to get it on.

When Jonny’s tongue slid against his own, Perry’s cock jerked. It felt hard enough to hammer nails into a board...
–and–
No. No, {Jonny} would not be going down that road again. Before he bound himself to anyone else, he had to sort himself out. He was a grown man who should be capable of standing on his own two feet. And if it turned out that he could not get his own wild feelings under control, well, perhaps he was better off alone.

Ahh, there it is...the Fuckening! How to screw stuff up without really trying. Okay, they're both young, one does need to forgive them for the collywobbles. And, of course, neither one can be honest with the other because they can barely be honest with themselves! These are the pains of loving before you're experienced in it, and it was a lot harder to gain experience in that time. So, well, the dance does go on...and all because some thoughtless clod hurt Jonny, who then failed to fail to pass it on to the sensitive studmuffin that is Perry.

A trip away from their base to visit Jonny's friends Sam and Jasper (see review above) has the two spending an idyllic and blissful day driving (Perry loves to drive his curricle, Jonny is amazed that he enjoys riding in the curricle with Perry when he has always hated riding in carriages) and eating together and then having a lovely visit with Sam and Jasper. The two of them are leaving for Italy soon, and they've asked Jonny to join them...a lovely offer, a place Jonny would love to visit, but he says no and offers his usual "I'm a bad traveler" excuses. This leads Perry, in his cups, to offer quite simply, sincerely, and beautifully to be Jonny's help and comfort through the horrors (to Jonny, not to Perry) of the journey.

The very most horrible thing then occurs. Jonny says a dismissive and cutting "no, thank you, I couldn't possibly impose on your kindness" rejection. "I know...KNOW...this is not going to end the way it is heading," thinks I. But just in case, I started sharpening my kitana and digging around for those ninja stars I got for that one Yule. "I might need to travel to England soon, on an unrelated topic. Do not be alarmed if I am gone some time," I posted, making plans to cause much, much trouble for A Badly Behaved Author.

Oh me of little faith. No, Author Chambers did not break the remaining parts of the Readers' Rights Agreement (Romance subhead). What a relief. And yes, the ending while happy was not without flaw...I felt it was rushed, and presumed that Perry would be much more forgiving on a much shorter time-frame than I found entirely believable...but it delivered the goods: These two delightfully different men are Together and will stay that way.

So, it was labourious wading through the w-bombs, but the conclusion lived up to my desires. You need to be in the mood for fears and doubts to get the full effect from the read. I think it's very worthwhile to take the trip.

RESTORED, another winning entry in Author Joanna Chambers's Enlightenment series

RESTORED
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #5)
Kindle original (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 ebook editions, available now!

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Eighteen years ago, Henry Asquith, Duke of Avesbury had to leave his kept lover, Kit Redford, in order to devote himself to raising his young family. Now, a lifetime later, his children are moving on and for the first time in years, Henry is alone.

During a rare visit to London, Henry unexpectedly happens upon an old friend of Kit’s and learns that Kit did not receive the financial pay off he was entitled to when Henry left him. Instead Kit was thrown out of his home and left destitute. Horrified, Henry begs Kit to see him and allow Henry to compensate him. But Kit, who now owns a discreet club for gentlemen of a certain persuasion, neither needs nor wants Henry’s money.

“Perhaps you should earn the money you owe me the way I had to earn it? On your knees, and on your back, taking my cock like a whore.”

Kit thought he had put his old hurts and grievances about Henry behind him, but when he sees Henry again, he discovers that, not only is the old pain still there, so is the fierce attraction that once burned between them. When, in a moment of fury, Kit demands a scandalous form of penance from Henry, no one is more surprised than Kit when Henry agrees to pay it.

As Kit and Henry spend more time together, they learn more about the men they have become, and about the secret feelings and desires they concealed from one another in the past.

Henry realises he wants to build a future with Kit but can he persuade his wary lover to trust him ever again? And can two men from such different worlds make a new life together?

I RECEIVED A DRC OF THIS TITLE FROM THE AUTHOR. NOW I MUST SAVAGE IT TO PROVE I CAN NOT BE BOUGHT.

My Review: I am much closer to seventy than I am to fifty. As hard as that fact is to swallow...Alanis Morissette and her bloody "Jagged Little Pill" begone!...it is the truth. And a corollary of that truth is that one becomes pretty much invisible at this age. My Young Gentleman Caller, unwilling to lie to my face, spins it as his insurance policy: Pretty young things don't look at me, so he doesn't have to stalk them with murderous intent!

I might be an old bastard, but I'm a *lucky* old bastard. And here I am bragging about it to the world. It feels right to do that in a review of Restored, though, because while neither of the heroes (they are indeed heroes) are anything like as old as I am, they're old for their time (fifty was elderly in Regency times, and Henry's forty-seven) and not slowing down a bit. Henry, Duke of Avesbury, and Christopher Redford shared a passion as young men and, after two decades, find each other and wonderingly work their way through a shared past that never went as either would've wanted it to.

Gawddam, it feels so fucking good to read something Romance-wise that mirrors so many of my own experiences being an old crock!

That's really it, and I ought to belt up and go have some hot milk and toast for my supper, but there is quite a bit to say yet. Henry's companionable marriage ended in tragedy, the death of his young wife. She was his friend; not long after the birth of their fourth child, she revealed her extreme dislike of sex and her unwillingness to bear more children. She was kind and sensible about it, giving Henry complete freedom to meet his needs; that is, so long as he was merely working off his lurid energies, not threatening her position as wife.

Enter (!) Christopher Redford, Kept Boy. The heart (as adults all know to their cost) isn't likely to listen to sensible, reasonable rules, and Henry finds himself approaching a cliff...then his wife throws her imminent mortality into the mix, makes him swear to "put away his toys" (ie leave his belovèd Christopher) in a really denigrating, unkind, and harshly judgmental way. But she's the Wife. Must be obeyed.

And that should've been that.

Was that, for most of two decades. Then Henry, in London from Wiltshire (is that a real place? I knew a guy whose last name was that once), sees a face from his misspent youth while meeting his pregnant daughter for tea. The memories he's never been able to fully repress, the longing for his lost love Christopher, all make the Duke of Avesbury venture to approach their old mutual acquaintance (one of Christopher's fellow courtesans) and beg news of him.

Well. Cat, pigeons, among. Kit, as he is now known, wasn't treated fairly in spite of Henry's very explicit and specific instructions to the contrary. There has been a long, resentful silence on both parts not because either man wanted it that way, but because someone else entirely took it upon himself to interfere. Naturally, neither ever knew this; and each has his lifetime of hurts to hide behind when they see the one face that will always make them smile. But knowing that one still loves is not at all the same as being in that wild, passionate "what, me worry?" zeal-of-the-organs stage of life. Older might not equal wiser, but it sure as shootin' equals warier.

As Kit and Henry circle each other, feinting at presumed weak spots and finding them yielding; shoving back, only to fall and need help up, always willingly, unstintingly given; each needs so badly to protect their loved ones, in fact so much so that they each forget to love back the important one-and-only they have the chance to make their own again. Not for long, though, since they're both in a phase of life where changes are coming ready or not. No one stops the clock.

What matters is what you do with your time, not what time has done to you. Changes? Yes; can, in fact, two scarred and mangled lovers find a new love?

Oh, as to that savaging: Author Chambers has revolted and appalled me. I am foully treated by the refusal, against all possible good taste or common sense, of the Romance Writing Academy to ban outright and for all time the vile, repellent, unnecessary, and lazily unworthy w-bomb from use.

And really? Tom? C'mon. That needed a bigger set-up. *tsk*

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.

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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.

INTRODUCING MR. WINTERBOURNE and MR. WINTERBOURNE'S CHRISTMAS, two novellas in a (better be) long series

INTRODUCING MR. WINTERBOURNE
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Winterbourne novellas #1)
Kindle original
99¢ and available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Lysander Winterbourne appears to lead a charmed life. Handsome, amiable, and a renowned sportsman, he is the darling of London society. As far as Adam Freeman is concerned though, Lysander is just another spoiled aristocrat.

A wealthy mill owner, Adam has no time for the frivolous world of the ton, but when his younger brother becomes engaged to Althea Winterbourne, he reluctantly agrees to be introduced to society–with the Winterbourne clan’s golden boy as his guide.

Resigning himself to a few days of boredom, Adam is surprised to learn that there is much more to Lysander than his perfect surface. But will Adam have the courage to introduce Lysander Winterbourne to his own secret self?

My Review: No points for realizing that Adam's secret self and Lysander's are in perfect harmony. Their spirits are, to each other's and their own deep surprise, perfectly made for the other man's wants and needs.

Why is that a fun story to read, grumble the po-faced. People fall in love every day, grouse the eat-your-spinach crowd, and look what hell it gets them. Everything is awful, sneer the small-souled, so quit distracting yourself from it and be wretched like you're supposed to be!

Get over it for an hour (it's that short a novella). Join Lysander the inexperienced youth as he does his best to entertain a man he's never met before, whose background isn't a thing like his own, and make sure his duty to his family is done. All the while wondering how he can haul this big fish into his arms.

Spend some time with a man so sure he can never let himself do something so risky, so suicidal in fact, as fall in love with another man. Get inside the head of a wealthy and non-conformist outsider who takes one appalled look at a scion of insiderdom, a perfect Golden Boy, and loses his heart and his mind at the same time.

Go fencing with two fit, athletic studmuffins who come to understand each other's bodies intimately without ever touching a naughty bit to a naughtier bit. Revel in their physicality, their competitive edge, as they learn and comprehend what their honed and powerful bodies want most from each other.

And then I dare you not to come unglued from the sheer sexual frustration of waltzing with your dream and imaging that's all you'll ever get.

And then when it is not...not at all...all you will ever get...!

Recommended reading for its happy, happy ending. What could be better than each new lover getting what his heart most desires?

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MR. WINTERBOURNE'S CHRISTMAS
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Winterbourne novellas #2)
Kindle original
$2.99 available now, so hop to it!

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Lysander Winterbourne has been living happily at Edgeley Park for the last eighteen months. By day he is Adam Freeman's estate manager, by night, his lover...but Adam never speaks of his feelings and Lysander has no idea whether their relationship is any more than a convenient arrangement for Adam.

When the two men are invited to Winterbourne Abbey for a family Christmas, matters quickly come to a head. Snowed in at the Abbey with a house full of guests, Lysander has to face up to shocking revelations, long-held secrets and a choice he never expected to have to make...

My Review: So, after eighteen months left to their own devices, whither Lysander and Adam? Why on EARTH would one expect the happy ending to remain happy? After all, both men have families (those well-known sources of misery and dissatisfaction), the world outside is chock-a-block with superstar divas whose lives require you as audience-slash-extra in the blockbuster that is their drama, etc etc ad nauseum.

And it's Christmas. Oh Tide Pods of comfortless boys. I mean tidings of comfort and joy, of course I do, silly old faggot.

Adam is besotted. Lysander is deeply in love. Each man is eagerly disfruiting the tree of carnal knowledge; each is contentedly launched into work that satisfies his soul; what could possibly be wanting?

Nothing. Until the snake arrives in their Edenic Buckinghamshire manor. A well-meaning, lovely man called Jonny, long-time friend of Adam's school days, is recovering from his most recent emotional devastation as the men's guest. We join the party just in time for goofy Jonny to plant the seeds of doubt and fear into Lysander's inexperienced, needful-of-reassurance soul: "Adam's so in love with you that he's even got rid of his harem!"

Harem. HAREM?!

Is that why Adam's gone for weeks at a time?! Is that why Adam hasn't said he loves me?!? Well yes, okay, I haven't said it either but...
You know the drill. You've been there. So has Adam. After all, he's gnawing his store of happiness like a rat in a granary because beautiful, accomplished, socially desirable Lysander couldn't want to spend the rest of his life stuck in Nowheresville with old fuddy-duddy Adam, not when the world that dislikes a starchy, focused businessman adores Golden Boys...

And hoopla! It's Christmas, their second as mates, and guess what? Lysander has to go home. Again. Hold on...wait for it...Lysander's useless arrogant git of a daddy invites ADAM, of all people, to spend it with them! No one is more surprised by this than Adam. Except Lysander. Whose shock and horror continues to mount as Adam is led off to the east wing. Lysander's back in his old room, of course.

In the west wing.

Teatime! Into the drawing room pile all the guests, and of course Lysander must greet them, be introduced to a few, catch up with childhood bestie Perry...uber-hunky Lord Peregrine Cavendish to Adam's uneasy eyes...and his bratty sister Bella, husband-hunting minx in need of a rich, single man. Say, like Adam.

So we get to see all the charming (and not-so-charming) aspects of Family. The Winterbournes are not to be trifled with. It takes a serious commitment to endure the silly, frivolous people causing actual and damning harm, the timorous people failing to reach out for what they most want and what's more what they're wanted for, the selfish absentees who simply won't. Luckily for Lysander, his timidity is rattled a good hard one, and Adam is the most committed man ever born when he's decided what he wants.

So why can't they just say it?

Because someone's always inter-bloody-rupting them!!

Every. damn. time. someone opens the door to the room they're in, knocks on it, drags one off to do something tedious, you name it! And then when they least expect it, are least prepared for it, a deeply felt and long held secret rocks Lysander's (and by extension Adam's) world.

It was delicious.

I won't tell you what it is because spoilers, but I was on the edge of my seat! But no. No. Too cruel of me to tease, it was the long-time building
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Anyway, I know you're as floored as I was, so we're all on the same page now! And just imagine how awful that was
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Can you even imagine the sheer cruel audacity of that Author Chambers wench! Treating our men so cavalierly. They have feelings, you know! Dreadful person.

But it was all in service of a good story well-told, so all is forgiven.

Except those five (5) ghastly w-bombs.

UNNATURAL, fourth in the Enlightenment series of Joanna Chambers' Late-Regency novels

UNNATURAL
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #4)
Kindle original (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Captain Iain Sinclair has looks, charm, military honours—even the favour of the king himself. He has everything—everything, that is, except the friendship of the one man whose good opinion he has ever cared for, scientist, James Hart.

James has loved Iain all his life, but after the last disastrous encounter between them, he vowed to accept no more crumbs from Iain’s table. If Iain cannot be the lover James wants, then James will have no more to do with him.

Disenchanted with his career, and miserable without James in his life, Iain decides to leave military service and embark upon a new career in India. Before he leaves England behind, though, he is determined to try one last time to reconcile with his dearest friend.

An invitation to a country house party from James’s sister provides the perfect opportunity to pin James down and force him to finally listen to Iain’s apology. But when Iain discovers that an apology is not enough—that James is not willing settle for less than a lover—he is forced to reconsider everything: his life, his future career, and most of all, his feelings for James.

My Review: A series that ends with a secondary character's starring role in a series novel is a very strong series indeed. This book takes a character from book 2 of the main series, Enlightenment, and gives him a star turn. Captain Iain Sinclair is King George IV's aide-de-camp, responsible to the newly enthroned Prinny for managing the flow of people seeking his attention all the while serving his army masters as a spy on His Pathetic Majesty's private life and thoughts.

Characteristically for the charismatic and unprincipled Iain, it's the tedium and not the moral questionability of his job that drives him to resign his commission in His Majesty's Army. Dealing with the Royal Twit's sulks, tantrums, and crotchets makes Iain crazy. He does it for three years because he's ashamed to let go of the army career that has enabled him to feel his father's mildest, most conditional affection every once in a way.

You see, Iain had the bad taste to be gay. He's a younger son, so there aren't dynastic consequences. But his father, already disappointed in his own life, puts extra weight on Iain and feels he was sorely let down by him on a horrible occasion back before discovering the lad's gayness. He speaks awful, hateful words to his son, and essentially does his dead-level best to be hateful and terrible to him as often as possible. This is made easier for "Father" Dear as his personal and familial disappointments are constantly laved in the (un-)balm of alcohol. Iain is only slightly redeemed by his Army commission and his tales of derring-do in battle.

But then the Napoleonic Wars end. Being an aide-de-camp to the King...well...not quite so exciting as battlefield stuff, though goddesses know that most fathers of that era would be kvelling over their son's closeness to the Royal Person. Not Iain's, no indeed. Where does Iain turn for his affections to be returned?

His best friend, the younger but more intelligent James Hart. Jamie has hero-worshipped his dashing, sophisticated older friend most of his life. Their mothers and older sisters are fast friends. Their proximity and their mutual admiration lead the usual places for young gay boys in the country with no other objects of desire. But only after the older Iain has some experience under his belt, having been away in the Army and all. And James gets a first-hand look at what Iain has learned! Mind=blown.

So what if Iain isn't the marrying kind and his country mouse is?

When we meet Iain in the series universe it is as a fellow debauchee of starchy David Lauriston's rakehell true love, Lord Murdo Balfour. The King's Scottish tour was organized to keep the fat old fool busy while the *real* governing class gets on with drawing a plan to keep peace and foster stability in all of Europe. (It was remarkably successful.) The fool's progress through Scotland was Iain's worst nightmare and his resignation came shortly after it was over. Iain is still hurting from James' inability to be just friends with the man he loves and idolizes. After one truly gorgeous lovemaking session, a romantic and loving scene described by Author Chambers in her trademark spare and evocative style, Iain has severe collywobbles and runs away, comme d'habitude. James is...done, through, out of patience with his beloved's assholish behavior, both at that moment and later when James runs Iain to ground to have it out with him in fashionable London's bordello of choice for sodomites. (Doubly funny since the sin of the Sodomites was lack of hospitality to strangers, and what could *possibly* be more hospitable than a bordello?! That lack of the hospitable spirit's why ol' Yhwh rained fire and brimstone down on 'em. Look it up! It's right there in that Bible the homophobes beat us up with.)

This novel's structure shifts points of view between the men as well as time-shifts between past and present. That can feel a little seasick at times. There is one section of the men at a fight that I skimmed...I don't like boxing...plus it went on a bit long. But in the moments that make the series of novels work, the quiet and private moments of two young men flouting every tradition and every custom they've been raised to uphold and revere, Author Chambers delivers the goods and then some.

There is a love nest scene...the young men coming into a prepared love nest for the first time...that made me smile as wide as anything I've ever read. There was an al fresco scene that caused a mild attack of the vapours. There was a moment between two siblings that made me sadly aware that very few gay people in this country, and in this world, have real families. There were deeply affecting scenes in almost every chapter (every if you're more boxing tolerant than I am). This is an historical novel with gay main characters, though, and make no mistake. Romantic yes, romance no. It's closer to a romance than the main trilogy, which I'd call a long historical novel, is, but still not enough of the beats of a genre romance are there for that subset of readers.

I went into the read expecting that to be the case so I was not jolted by the lacks and absences. If you'll set aside romance novel ideation and think of the books as historical novels, I suspect you'll thoroughly enjoy the reads.

ENLIGHTENED, third Joanna Chambers historical novel in the Enlightenment series

ENLIGHTENED
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #3)
Kindle original (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: David Lauriston has been recuperating at Lord Murdo Balfour’s Laverock estate for the last five months. At Laverock, he has regained his health and confidence and has found—with Murdo—more happiness and contentment than he has never known before.

David is all too aware that some day soon he will have to leave Laverock—and Murdo—and return to his legal practice in Edinburgh, just as Murdo will have to return to his life in London. But when David’s mentor, Patrick Chalmers, asks David to return to Edinburgh to visit him on his deathbed, it seems that day has come sooner than either David or Murdo would have wished.

Chalmers begs David to undertake one last piece of business for him: to secure the future of Chalmers’s daughter Elizabeth. But to carry out his old mentor’s wishes, David must travel to London, with Murdo.

No sooner have the two men arrived in the capital than they encounter Murdo’s ruthlessly manipulative father, who reveals a shocking secret that rocks David to his foundations. What’s more, when David discovers Elizabeth is facing far greater danger than even her father feared, he is determined to help her, no matter the cost to his own safety.

As the stakes rise, it is Murdo who must choose what he is prepared to sacrifice to keep David at his side, and ask whether there is any possibility of lasting happiness for men like them.

My Review: Yes indeed, this is the way to end a series/long book. A completely satisfying and inevitable ending that managed to come about in a logical and challenging way.

The lead-up to the ending ain't half bad, either, but it's this ending...won't spoiler it for y'all, the Antispoilerization Brigade gets downright violent...that explains why I connected with this series of just-post-Regency-set books.

How to explain without giving the show away...geez...this is as rough as explaining what the fuss about non-masturbatory orgasms is to one who has never had one...okay, lemme see here, you know how your intimate loved one has this set of things you know they do and do well? Your Lovely Other, as a Kiwi friend of mine refers to her partner, operates in this expected way and you're happy with that (or you're the Remodeler and should be excoriated and shunned, if you don't like the house don't buy it), even proud of the high end of the range of behaviors.

Then comes the day when there's a lot at stake, the high end of the range that you love in them isn't going to solve all the problems but hey, pobody's nerfect, and...

...

...they come ripping through good enough and fly up to jaw-dropping otherworldly excellence-cum-terrifying gut-wrenching omigawd-we're-gonna-die recklessness...

...

...and there you are arms outstretched to catch them when the inevitable fall comes, praying you're strong enough to keep them at least alive...

...

...and they land light as a feather next to you, take your hand, smile and say, "shall we go home now, dear?"

And that, my friends, is that. You will never, ever look at another human being without thinking, "you poor miserable sod, My Very Own Love doesn't know you're alive but can't wait to get home to *me*," with a smug, superior smirk on your nasty little unfairly-lucky-rotter face.

Fortunately we have fiction to take us there. It's not the most common IRL experience, is it. This series/fairly long novel gave me that experience. Read the three main novels and it's just possible it might give you the same one. I encourage you to try at least volume 1, Provoked.

*cue evil cackle and commence addictive reading in 3...2...1...*

BEGUILED, second Enlightenment novel by Joanna Chambers

BEGUILED
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #2)
Kindle original (non-affiliate Amazon link)
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Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Two years after his last encounter with cynical nobleman Lord Murdo Balfour, David Lauriston accidentally meets him again in the heart of Edinburgh.

King George IV is about to make his first visit to Edinburgh and Murdo has been sent North by his politician father to represent his aristocratic family at the celebrations.

David and Murdo’s last parting was painful—and on Murdo’s part, bitter—but Murdo’s feelings seem to have mellowed in the intervening years. So much so, that he suggests to David that they enjoy each other’s company during Murdo’s stay in the capital.
Despite his initial reservations, David cannot put Murdo’s proposal from his mind, and soon find himself at Murdo’s door—and in his arms.

But other figures from David’s past are converging on the city, and as the pomp and ceremony of the King’s visit unfolds around them, David is drawn into a chain of events that will threaten everything: his career, his wellbeing, and the fragile bond that, despite David’s best intentions, is growing between him and Murdo.

My Review: One quote to rule the book:

A man will fight for hate for a long time, but he will fight for love to the death.

Every single moment of this entry into the series is about Murdo's hate for the way his world wants him to behave, and his love for David, which is (he very much fears) unreciprocated.

It is also about how deeply David detests his weakness of character that forbids him to turn his face to his true love and say, simply and directly, "I love you, Murdo."

These men fight like wounded Spartans at Thermopylae for the victory of love...for others, straight others at that...and end up with a situation neither could've planned, predicted, laid a course for, and that perfectly suits their almost desperate hunger for space and time to revel in the love they share but can't quite figure out how to make manifest.

And can't admit they share because Rules and Reasons. Well, as you'd expect in a romantic novel, the Rules go right out the door and the Reasons fly out the window behind them. The plot device for this to happen is quite bittersweet, involving loss and pain for starchy little prig David, whose quite fragile heart is at odds with his armor-clad and spike-encrusted Sense of Honour. Murdo is, as always, staunch in his defense of David's well-being even when it hurts him quite deeply to privilege the twerp's sense of ma'at over his own desperate needs. They are, after all, of different classes and from radically (!) different kinds of families. Dynastic and political pressures apply to Murdo that simply pass lower-class David's ken. But one thing we all know: In books, Love Conquers All.

Eventually.

The historical aspects of the series please me, the characters are limned economically if, at times, a bit repetitively...one more of Murdo's "fractional relaxation"s and Imma cut a bitch....and the timelessness of men's cowardliness in the face of vulnerability makes volume 3 a must-read. Goodreads reviewer Heather_k described the series as one long novel. I concur. Start at the beginning, read to the end; it's also got a short fiction entry, Seasons Pass, which is best read for free before reading this book. It explains in detail the way Murdo ends up in Edinburgh at the Royal Tour.

It also sets up the fourth book of the trilogy, much like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy of five books, which I hope you'll get hooked enough to want to read.

PROVOKED, first in the Enlightenment series of historical novels featuring David Lauriston and Lord Murdo Balfour

PROVOKED
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightened #1)
Kindle original (non-affiliate Amazon link)
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Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Tormented by his forbidden desires for other men and the painful memories of the childhood friend he once loved, lawyer David Lauriston tries to maintain a celibate existence while he forges his reputation in Edinburgh’s privileged legal world.

But then, into his repressed and orderly life, bursts Lord Murdo Balfour.

Cynical, hedonistic and utterly unapologetic, Murdo could not be less like David. And as appalled as David is by Murdo’s unrepentant self-interest, he cannot resist the man’s sway. Murdo tempts and provokes David in equal measure, forcing him to acknowledge his physical desires.

But Murdo is not the only man distracting David from his work. Euan MacLennan, the brother of a convicted radical David once represented, approaches David to beg him for help. Euan is searching for the government agent who sent his brother to Australia on a convict ship, and other radicals to the gallows. Despite knowing it may damage his career, David cannot turn Euan away.

As their search progresses, it begins to look as though the trail may lead to none other than Lord Murdo Balfour, and David has to wonder whether it’s possible Murdo could be more than he seems. Is he really just a bored aristocrat, amusing himself at David’s expense, or could he be the agent provocateur responsible for the fate of Peter MacLennan and the other radicals?

My Review: I'd rate this lower if I hadn't been prepared for the modest sexual content. What there was the author did well and it wasn't gratuitous or inorganic. I was sure the story needed to be in that place at that moment; I was sure the characters were true to their established motivations; in the end, it wasn't about dissatisfaction that I've read from a few other reviewers. I suspect the issues arose from what I was inclined to see as "instaluuuv" between men of radically (!) different stations in Regency life.

That mattered a great deal more then than it does now. Not that it doesn't now, it definitely does, but then it was an issue front and center in every act of daily life. How Balfour comes on to David is completely believable. How David responds, and how he feels, is also completely believable.

That Murdo Balfour argues for the pragmatic accommodation of self to society is unremarkably in character; that David starchily stands for conformity to the harshest possible code of actions while suffering for it is also unremarkably in character for his Presbyterian upbringing. A sect that preached predestination...your soul's salvation was not earned or even earnable since God decided the identity of the 144,000 saved at the beginning of time....wasn't likely to produce anything but the most craven sorts of lickspittles.

What made the read pleasurable for me was the sense that the men were genuinely, if ineptly and obtusely, falling for the person wearing the pretty face that neither could quite unsee. David's red hair, Balfour's dark eyes, David's slightness and Balfour's height and heft...timelessly, opposites do indeed attract. But the characters, the bits that have to fit if a passion is to alter its bell curve towards love's more complex shapes, do match. The men are motivated by their respective and surprisingly similar sense of honor.

It's just a pity that David's sense of humor is so impaired at the expense of that sense of honor.

Not for the squeamishly heterosexual.