Review: More angsty than the first story, but it does have a good ending
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 22, 2010
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 8/10PROS:- This story is a nice progression from the one before it (Bound by Deception). The characters' personalities are consistent between stories but have evolved as a result of their relationship, and Oliver and Vincent struggle with the sorts of problems I would expect to have arisen in the past 6 months since they first got together.- Oliver's situation is quite sad. He's in love with a man (a hanging offense), he's almost destitute (for a gentleman, anyway), he's the son of a man with a terrible reputation for excessive gambling, and Vincent treats him with very little emotional affection the majority of the time. Yet he doesn't allow himself to wallow in self-pity, and I like that about him.- The sex scenes are hot, with a touch of BDSM. It's interesting reading about sex toys from 1830s England. I don't have any idea whether they're realistic or not, but I'm sure the author did some research before including them.- I liked the ending quite a bit. It mentions the *possibility* of unhappiness in the future, but given the time frame of the story, it's as happy as it can realistically be.CONS:- Much of the story is sad in a hopeless, "I'll never have what I want from life" sort of way. (Once again, though, happy ending...)- I got super annoyed with Vincent's treatment of Oliver and with the fact that Oliver puts up with it for so long. Vincent treats Oliver basically like a prostitute for the majority of the story: he uses Oliver for sex and then leaves so he can get back to his uber-important, aristocratic life. He insults Oliver over and over again, and Oliver is so whipped that he simply takes it. I did get an idea of WHY Vincent is such a jerk sometimes, but his selfishness took a lot of the romance out of the story for me.Overall comments: I liked this story overall: it's well written and contains a few decently graphic sex scenes--which, with the inclusion of bondage and light pain games, are unusual for a Regency story. The story is about 75% angst, though: it has a good ending, I think, but the majority of the journey to get TO that ending is a little rough.