This one was an insta-preorder, and when it popped up on NetGalley, I thought I’d give it a request and see what happened.
I made a squee noise much longer than truly necessary when it was approved.
So thanks to the author, as well as Avon via NetGalley for the review copy.
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?
“You’re skipping bits,” Will said. “You realize I can see the words.”
“Of course I am.” Martin flipped forward several pages. “I’m getting to the part where she—ah, there we are. ‘Thus I gave up myself to a readiness of being ruined without the least concern.’ See, it’s thematically relevant.”
“Am I meant to ruin you? I didn’t know men ruined one another, but I suppose we could give it a go.”
Ohhh I wasn’t expecting to love this one as much as I did, but here we are. These two are the softest, most adorable idiots. I love them.
This is the story of Will and his best friend Martin. Martin has been sickly all his life, but during a fair bit of this book, he’s suffering from consumption, which was very often fatal at the time this book takes place. Will is a former opium addict with a past full of not-niceness from his time in the Navy. Martin has been missing for months, only to turn up near-death living in Will’s brother’s attic. On doctor’s advice, Will takes him out to the countryside to recover (after a bit of light abduction). And as he recovers… ^_^
I wouldn’t recommend reading this one without having read the first two books in the series. It does stand alone, but there is a loooot of context you would miss out on. Martin’s family and the Sedgwick family, most especially Will’s brother Hartley, have had considerable drama between them for years. Having that context was very helpful. And also Ben’s story and Hartley’s story are both adorable and you should just read them.
One of the best things is finding a book with characters that you can relate to. In this particular case, one of the main characters is bisexual, and the other is demisexual, which is… something you don’t generally see a lot in fiction (more as of recently though!), especially in romance. I was pleasantly surprised by this, and I think it helped me latch onto this pair even more.
All told this was a quick, adorable, and very soft friends-to-lovers story and I loved it a lot. It’s pretty safe to say at this point that I love pretty much anything that Cat Sebastian writes, but I loved this one a little more than is usual. ^_^ 5/5 stars!~
superstardrifter 
I really need to read more Cat Sebastian
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