The British period drama has long been a magnet for romance, whether set in a castle, or a farm. It has been used as the backdrop for decades, and to this day, series like Bridgerton underscore the continued appeal. We look away from the harsh realities of how Britain was so wealthy, or how hard rural life really was, we get lost int the accent and read away. Where I have a hard time is actual legal threat to gay men in Britain – considering is was illegal until the 1960s. So it is really hard to sufficiently suspend disbelief in order to work with the period drama for MM romance. This series is a prime case.
Joel Leslie can do a pretty good English accent. In fact, that was part of his selling point for me – that ability to move about the accents – provided it isn’t his Boston accent, ugh. But there is something about his tone that has begun to grate on me, and he has a tendency go frantic. This isn’t his most aggressively narrated work, but it has it moments.
The story is very predictable, Ben, the vicar, in another author’s book been Benita, the vicar’s daughter. Ben’s possession of male genitalia is the only difference between a 1960’s Georgette Heyer, and the title by Cat Sebastian. An angry, absent father, precocious children from central casting, a foreboding manor, and various busybodies are the ingredients of literally hundreds of romance novels. What this book doesn’t have is a truly deep sense of fear around being caught.
That doesn’t mean there can’t be a wide range of joyous emotion and experiences, it isn’t all bleak. If you consider a book like Diana Gabaldon’s Lord John series, she tempers the romance with a healthy dose of reality. That is not to say Lord John suffers in silence, to the contrary, he has a well rounded life for this time period, including a variety of loves and lovers – marmalade anyone? While I neither expect, nor want all authors to pivot to Gabaldon’s style, I would be completely on board if more of them took a more thoughtful approach to this topic when setting the story in 18th and 19th centuries. I am neutral on a recommendation, it isn’t awful, but it isn’t not awful. It is the off the rails second book of the series that is truly awful.