288 pages
English language
Published June 30, 2018
Some of Ben Sedgwick’s favorite things:
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:
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 …
Some of Ben Sedgwick’s favorite things:
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:
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.
In the midst of runaway children, a plot to blackmail Ben’s family, and torturous nights of pleasure, Ben and Phillip must decide if a safe life is worth losing the one thing that makes them come alive.
Solid gay historical romance, extra spicy, takes longer to arrive than KJ Charles but does so with luscious attention to detail. You must be willing to wade through a fair bit of Arranging Matches, Sebastian, but it’s definitely worth it.
If you hate stories where the kids are adorable moppets who exist primarily to clarify the protag's romantic entanglements, you will probably like this story.
So the force that brings the two protags together is that Captain Phillip Dacre's kids are running wild in his absence, and Vicar Ben Sedgewick is the closest thing this century has to a social worker. Captain Dacre is grieving the lover who he never confessed his feelings to, and not sure how to relate to the children his deceased wife managed while he was at sea. Ben Sedgewick has always vaguely intended to marry his childhood best friend, a prospect that has become more urgent with her having suffered an illness that has left her disabled.
Obviously, they discover they are attracted to each other and have to decide what this means for their plans. This is a story primarily about struggling to find …
If you hate stories where the kids are adorable moppets who exist primarily to clarify the protag's romantic entanglements, you will probably like this story.
So the force that brings the two protags together is that Captain Phillip Dacre's kids are running wild in his absence, and Vicar Ben Sedgewick is the closest thing this century has to a social worker. Captain Dacre is grieving the lover who he never confessed his feelings to, and not sure how to relate to the children his deceased wife managed while he was at sea. Ben Sedgewick has always vaguely intended to marry his childhood best friend, a prospect that has become more urgent with her having suffered an illness that has left her disabled.
Obviously, they discover they are attracted to each other and have to decide what this means for their plans. This is a story primarily about struggling to find a place in a society that doesn't create places for queer people to live. A good deal of their struggle is not against their social programming, but with the necessity for living hidden, since the discovery of their relationship would at best make them social outcasts. This theme is somewhat undermined, to me, by the fact that Captain Dacre captains the ship Patroclus.
