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Another Great Book by John Wiltshire

8/30/2016

1 Comment

 
The Buckland-in-the-Vale and Sandstone Tor Gay Book Club (Inaugural Meeting)The Buckland-in-the-Vale and Sandstone Tor Gay Book Club by John Wiltshire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After a reread and loving it even more, I feel more comfortable sharing in more detail why I like this so much. I don't usually reveal plot in my reviews but will in this case, so beware. Many spoilers ahead.

The book starts off with the luridly, lycra-clad and openly gay school teacher, Rory, seeing a sign inviting people to the inaugural meeting of a gay book club.

Seeing he thought he was the only gay man in a quiet, country village on Dartmoor, he's overjoyed at the opportunity to meet other gay men. Not in a bar, where hooking up for sex is the major preoccupation, but discussing books! Because literature and books are Rory's passion.

It's not until the next chapter that we discover that it is actually a club devoted to reading gay books.

Thus we meet Gertrude who becomes another of John's classic characters, on par with Miles Toogood's grandmother and Babushka from his More Heat than the Sun series. All are fiercely independent elderly ladies who are much loved and respected by the main protagonists and their “adopted” children.

Gert, we discover much later, is single because she didn't know Adam's father, Brian, was himself gay. Back in those days they never mentioned or even envisaged such a thing. Men were “confirmed bachelors”.
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have wasted the best years of my life chasing you if they had. I’d have realised why you ran so fast.”
Brian stared at her for a long time but only replied calmly, “Perhaps I’d have known why I was running.”
So when she comes across some steamy gay novels while on holidays, she's fascinated and decides they're just the thing to brighten the lives of the “old dears” back home. From the titles, “Hard Ride” and “Deep Tunnel” we can assume the books are probably erotica or porn of the James Lear variety.
”Was it possible she had discovered something entirely new? Was she the only woman in the world who had read such a book and...Gertrude was thrown, which was a new occurrence for her. She'd been pretty sure of things for most of her eighty years. She wasn't convinced she liked this sensation of standing on the edge of something so tantalising and far beyond her expectations.
Gert and her companion, Ivy, have referred to themselves and their friends as the old dears for over forty years. According to the dedication these characters are inspired by women in a real book club who are friends (and possibly relatives) of the author. Mostly widows or spinsters, the old dears are asset rich, thanks to the growing value of their properties, but dirt poor. We discover later that one cannot afford to keep buying hearing aids and another uses an old push bike for balance instead of a walking frame.

It's through Gert's eyes that we meet the rest of the group: Constance, Jane, Ivy, Mary, Myrtle, Hilary and Thea. Each is a fabulous character in their own right. Whose strengths and weaknesses are well known to Gert as she has known them for so long.

Gert is an integral part of the story. She admits to herself that
she would not have wanted anyone to interfere with her unrequited courtship. Her time on Earth, with all its petty frustrations, had worked out for her as it had been ordained. It was wrong to interfere in other people’s affairs. Which was why she and the old dears were treading so carefully with Adam and Rory.
however, she is also very aware of the march of time.
Things seemed to be closing in on her, time running out, and she felt a frustrating imperative about opportunities slipping away. If only these young men, still in their twenties, could see how short life was, how few opportunities anyone had to simply live each day to the full.
Using devious tactics, one borrowed from Sun Tzu's “The Art of War” she does what she can to encourage a relationship between the two gay men who unexpectedly join their meeting. Because
Rory and Adam were the embodiment of gay book romance. They had the main necessary ingredient after all:mutual initial apathy
Mind you, this antipathy is not exclusive to gay romances. Think Elizabeth and Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice”!

So, after an unfortunate start, she even sets up a sub group, with just the old dears called the Adam and Rory RPS Club (Real person slash for the uninitiated).

I loved that Adam and Rory were accepted so unequivocally. There was no resentment at these two men turning up. They were welcomed with open arms because, after all, don't gay men have a right to be part of a club that discusses books about them?
Gertrude had not expected her book club to do much more than pass a few winter's evenings for her ladies in pleasant company, sharing a newfound delight in theoretical men and their intriguing love lives. She'd had no idea that two characters would literally walk off the pages and come to her first meeting. Todd and Brad and Danny and Jimmy and all of her favourites mixed up and even prettier, yet solid and in the flesh, and she had literally bumped into them as they'd hovered in the doorway like the helpess creatures they were.
From then on, seating arrangements, cups of tea and biscuits were skilfully brought in to achieve certain results. Because
Oh, what delicate, shy, creations they were, men, when you got beneath the leather and the strut. She'd actually smelt the fear.
What hope did Adam and Rory have?

Rory, “the very pretty one” identifies strongly with Hugh Dancy and Grigg, the character he played in the film The Jane Austen Book Club. Rory loves books with a passion and longs for a bookworthy romance. He wants his Heathcliff (Wuthering Heigts), his Gabriel Oak (Far from the Madding Crowd) ”whenever you look up there I shall be—and whenever I look up, there will be you.” He knows that life is not like a romance book, but he fervently wishes it was.

For years, he'd dreamed of being a teacher and sharing his love of books with children. However, he is quickly becoming disillusioned with his career.
Teaching English to Year Ten wasn’t fun. Not difficult, merely…lacklustre. The Department for Education had apparently decided anything intellectual and actually related to an education in English literature was too fraught with cultural elitism to attempt. The set book this year, consequently, was a gang-related graphic novel. Year Ten enjoyed colouring in the pictures though.
Added to this is his inability to understand or cope with another teacher, Lexi.

While the book is very funny in places, I didn't laugh at Lexi, and I don't think the reader is meant to. I've decided I must still be stuck in the second tier of feminism as described in this article. I also think that you can stand up for your rights without impugning those of others or being downright hostile to the opposite gender. My attitude is always that no one has the right to be rude. Old, young, male, female, fat, skinny, rich or poor. So when Lexi said things like this:
Rory nodded and debated volunteering to carry her heavy book bag for her. Sometimes she accepted these offers gracefully, but sometimes he got a lecture on insidious male benevolent sexism, and she would accuse him of thinking of her as incompetent or needing his protection.
and from her partner, Susan
he was nothing more than a biological accident. When his stunned expression had been mistaken for defiance, Susan had added that in her opinion he was a walking, talking deficiency disease. Lexi had saved him by explaining he was gay.
Yet, knowing he was gay, Lexi still shamed him into handing out pamphlets entitled “Our Culture Perpetuates Violence Against Women” and “Male Violence on the Increase” while during Rape Culture awareness Day at the school he had to stand under a banner proclaiming “Violent-Masculinity and Victim Blaming”. Her style of rabid feminism is not shared by all females, as evidenced in this article

Her rudeness extended to belittlement of him for daring to be skinny.
She was particularly vocal about thin privilege (#thinprivilege), which she accused him of daily, citing many examples of how he shamed those who were obviously equally fit and healthy but nevertheless discriminated against in the workplace by virtue of being fortunate enough to be fat.
and
she commented on his cycling shorts. They were oppressive apparently, and it was thoughtless of him to parade around in them, given they only made such attire for skinny people.
It's interesting comparing her to his treatment of Peyton and Miles in More Heat than the Sun series. Both characters are overweight, but neither use this as an excuse for anything and neither are ever rude.

Lexi, on first meeting Adam, the other MC, immediately launches into an aggressive diatribe on the way women should be able to serve on the front lines in the army regardless of the fact that they do not share a male's physical capabilities. According to her, the rules should be changed to suit them. She doesn't get Adam's sarcasm in wondering whether the rules of engagement will also change to match it.

Ah, Adam. If ever there was an anti hero it's him. He starts out by insulting Rory when they first meet, inadvertantly punches him at the first book club meeting and then, at every opportunity tries to prove to him that getting involved in a relationship with him would be a BAD IDEA. He doesn't do romantic, He isn't nice. He's only interested in sex. And Rory should look elsewhere.

Yet despite all this, we keep seeing signs that this is all surface bluster. Underneath he's yearning for a connection as much as Rory is. Gert sees through his bluster immediately, because she knows about his tragic past. She doesn't know the full extent of the tragedies however and the self blame he is heaping on himself.

Adam left the army because of this tragic incident and is deliberately rejecting all the things that reminds him of his time there. After years of inspection and maintaining rigorous standards, he deliberately doesn't clean the house and takes no care in his appearance. But he's finding it difficult
Step by step, he’d decoupled himself from the army and all it had meant to him. A conscious survival mechanism to turn from something he could no longer have to something he needed to become: squalor in the house, foulness of mood, existing on anger and self-pity.
...But it was so hard to let go, to be so much less than he had once been. To be so diminished.
He likes to think he's a bad ass and then does things like this:
Unwilling to disturb his father by dragging three very reluctant collies back out to the yard, he gave them each a pat and tickle of rebuke then left them to it.
and he takes an instant liking to Charles, the frail husband of one of the old dears whose acting abilities are called into play one day
He lifted the old man, making a small joke about them having to stop meeting like this and tucked him in securely.
and it's not just the males he helps. When he comes across Fat Sam, the pet he had left behind
Adam put his hands on either side of the old dog’s face and felt an emotion so overwhelming he thought he might cry. He covered by gently play wrestling the silky ears.
But Rory is incensed that Adam left Fat Sam behind when he left Sandhurst. In fact, he discovers that
Being with Adam was like rolling in barbed wire—extremely uncomfortable yet increasingly entangling. Struggle for your life, or stay still and twist in the wind, either way there seemed no escape.
Because, even though they both know it will probably end in tears (for different reasons) they're drawn to one another. True humor occurs when Gert and the old dears try to help but often end up hindering their inevitable coming together.

But the old dears stick with both the book club and their efforts to get the two together. Rory suggests different books for their reading and they indulge him by agreeing. First off, Brokeback Mountain (which they found too short and wanted a happy ending) then a fictitious series which they loved, starring a librarian, Andrew French, and a homophobic detective called Jack (obviously based on Josh Lanyon's Adrien English!).

Adam, obviously uncomfortable at the similarities between him and Jake had been scathing of the series and after Adam's inexcusable behaviour at Sandhurst, Rory also rejects the series as "silly and unrealistic" and suggests instead they read The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren as the ending was much more realistic.
The (old dears were) willing to take his recommendations, of course, and lovely Andrew and amusing Jack were therefore put to one side.
But death intervened and securing their future became paramount.

How this was achieved was probably more for literary suspense than fulfilling a feminist agenda, but it had the added benefit of leaving them with cash for possible future health issues rather than once again being asset rich and cash poor.

There's no doubt that Adam and Rory wouldn't have got together without the intervention of the old dears, but I loved the way there was no intrusive or insensitive manipulation. If any happened, it was inadvertant and forgiven because Adam and Rory knew they meant well and wanted only the best for them. Everything was done through understanding of what makes people tick. Of seeing what was unsaid as well as what was said. Of treating people with respect for what they did rather than what they demanded. And if Adam or Rory fucked up and acted badly, then they tried to discover why.

The writing is a delight as usual. Sometimes his books need to be read twice to ensure you haven't missed things. This time, although there's a trademark John Wiltshire dog, it's really the old dears who steal the book. Especially as they espouse that great British tradition of self deprecation and the ability to laugh at their problems.

More importantly, the financial security and support of Adam and Rory as a team, has left the old dears in a position to add another type of distraction to fill their days. The Buckland-in-the-Vale and Sandstone Tor Murder-Mystery Club

I'm really looking forward to reading that.

View all my reviews
1 Comment

His Fateful Heap of Days

4/13/2016

6 Comments

 
Nikolas was running scared, and the enemy was relentless
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Ben kissed deeply into his neck at the same time as he tipped over the edge into sleep, and Nikolas plunged after him, unwilling, even in this, to be left alone and in a conscious world where Ben wasn’t present.

What a great quote to demonstrate two lovers generating more heat than the sun.

And what a great series it has been. Certainly the best I’ve ever encountered, both in this genre and outside it. An epic adventure right from the first chapter. Nail biting action, gut wrenching excitement, unforgettable characters, and an all encompassing love.

At no stage was I bored and, if at times I wondered where on earth the plot or the emotional arc was going, I felt confident that the author’s story telling skills and character depiction would rise to the occasion. There were stacks of surprises, none more so than in the first few books where revelations shook not only the readers’ minds but the minds of the characters as well.

We laughed and we cried along with Ben and Nik as they progressed on their journey. The lack of emotional attachment that some readers found disturbing in the start gradually gave way until, in this book, Nik finally acknowledges that he doesn’t only love Ben, he is “in love” with him. But this isn’t shown with wine and roses, it’s done in typical Nik fashion

“I do not like being so much in love, Benjamin, and I blame you entirely.”


The most disturbing aspect of the book were the two words “The End”. Before this, each one finished with “To be continued" and the title of the next book. I gather that the author was always a couple of books ahead when each was published. But as yet, there is no Book 9.

Good news or bad?

Good, in one way, because some readers won’t even start a series until they know they’re complete. There’s nothing worse than unfinished story lines or unresolved issues between the characters. Or, worse still, they go on too long until they “Jump the Shark" or just dwindle into nothingness.

If this is the final book in the series, it’s a fitting one. There’s lots of closure on many fronts, and right up to the end there is nail biting action and possibly the most horrific of all scenes to date.

But what of Book 8?

In tone, it’s quite mundane. No exotic locations. We’re not even sure for ages if there is an arch villain or a threat to them or their loved ones. Most of the action takes place within walking distance of Ben’s birthplace and the expanse of Dartmoor as the author draws on his local knowledge to paint a picture of an area littered with ancient relics.

In doing so, Books 3 and 7 are drawn on. Family and God. Many readers had issues with the inclusion of the latter, so, remembering that Book 8 was already written when Book 7 came out, it’s interesting to see more of Ben’s insights into what he did and why. We learn that it wasn’t purely a repayment of a promise for saving Nik.

He’d been searching for something lost to him since he was eight, when his mother had not been home one day on his return from school. Martin and Sarah had explained it to him—God knocks, and if you open the door He will enter. Ben had heard something, and he had been very willing to open that door.

So we have the mystery/suspense/action core, centering around Dartmoor and its relics both ancient and new.
But, His Fateful Heap of Days is also a story about humanisation. From a childhood where he was used and abused, Nik has donned an impenetrable suit of armor. Deflect, deflect, deflect. The first time we meet him, back in Book 1, Ben describes his “perpetual air of disinterested nonchalance”. By the time this book comes around, Nik is struggling to regain this apartness, but the barriers are continually being chipped away by his entourage, both consciously and unconsciously. Now, nearing fifty and super aware of that fact, Nik is becoming human, and he’s finding it scary.

It’s amusing to watch someone who is not English, gradually realise that one of the most sincere expressions of love and affection in the British culture is being called names and made the butt of jokes.

Hence, when violence rears its ugly head amidst all this light hearted jollity and schoolboy style adventuring, they are caught by surprise, and it’s only through the intervention of an unlikely saviour that Nik lives to see another day. But when Nik and Ben regroup and go to the rescue of what they hold most dear, the gloves are off and no punches are pulled.

For once, this action only takes up a small part of the book, but it is shocking and heart stopping possibly because it is so unexpected.

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So let’s get down to spoilersville as I explain and give examples showing why I liked this book particularly, both as a stand alone and as a wrap up book.

Nik, has filled his world with people and animals who need him and who he has chosen (for whatever reason) to protect. Even going so far as to provide a companion for the dog blinded when coming to his defence. Puffball, PB or Petookh doesn’t play a vital role in this book except by assisting Nikolas with the paperwork that had been left carelessly on the table. In doing this, he seemed to have discovered the remains of Ben’s steak and eggs, as some very well licked shards of china littered the floor along with the soggy remains of the investment portfolio. The only thing from the table not on the floor was the glass with the remains of the olive oil and chocolate whey shake.

The latter is, supposedly, the answer to Nik’s new fear. One that consumes him at the start of the book and drives some very funny scenes. He’s continued his workouts with Squeezy which started during Book 7 and, at first, Ben is jealous and imagining the worst. Once Tim reassures him that Nik is just worrying about turning fifty, then the fun and games begin. Lots of jibes at Nik’s expense about bad backs, early nights, needing glasses and taking it easy. At first, Nik doesn’t know that Ben knows, but gradually he realizes that Ben is teasing him. Then he is miffed because that’s not how their relationship is. He’s the boss and everyone should pay due deference to him. This interplay between Nik, Ben, Squeezy and Tim is at the heart of the first part of the book.

On the surface, it’s harmless fun and some readers may think it irrelevant, but this is missing out on what it represents. The humanisation of Aleksey Primakov into Nik.

He’d lived his life parcelling out the truth, coating it with lies and then obscuring that with evasion. He had intended to keep his discovery entirely to himself, but as he smoothed the creases on the table, it occurred to him that more than telling them, he was, in fact, sharing with them. It was something of a revelation. He wanted to share this with these three men.

But what of these three men? For starters, Squeezy is shown in a new light. Totally irreverent and nonPC when with Ben, chiming in with unhelpful comments and references to movies of dubious worth: Centaur porn and the Human Centipede. But one on one with Nik, the “fucks” disappear and at one stage, commenting on Nik’s attempts to manipulate things, he says:
“You do know you’re heading for a fall, yeah? ”.... “Has this tactic ever worked with anyone in your life? Anyone? Ever? Put so much armour on no one will see the fear? Has that ever worked for you? ”
.....You don’t get rid of fear and unhappiness by palming it off onto someone else.”


In Radulf’s top secret blog, Squeezy is called “dog in previous life biped” (his highest compliment) and notes that Almost all bipeds fall for dog-in-previous-life biped’s silence-inside trick. I learn from a master. Blond biped (Nik) suspicious. But blond biped suspicious of everyone.
Have to admit to being somewhat embarrassing around dog-in-previous-life biped, reverting to utterly humiliating puppy-like fawning. Gave him one of my favourite toys. He gave me one of his.
and in this book, even Nik develops a respect for Squeezy and Tim.

Squeezy is also one of the few to see past Ben’s beauty.“Least likely SAS soldier ever was our little Benji.”

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He could see that Ben was always searching for something. He also comes up with some pretty deep thinking, expressed simply in keeping with his character.“Ah, well. If everyone went through life listening more than they were listened to the world would be a better place. ”

He even deliberately lies to Nik to test his trust issues and then says: “So why not put that trust into practice a little and just tell him the truth?”

Finally, he postulates a different scenario surrounding Molly’s birth to make Nik (and Ben) think about bonds and relationships. He’s fucking awesome.

Poor Tim, who Nik derides as belonging to “Guardian Readers Anonymous”, suffers a lot. First we learn that he was hurt by Ben’s actions in Book 7.

“...you’re just mercenaries, Ben. You and him (Nik) both. You fight for the cause if and when it suits you, but you don’t wear the colours, haven’t sworn to the flag, don’t show any allegiance. When the battle’s over you don’t stay in country, and when the war resumes, you might just decide to sign up for the other side. Does that make it clearer to you? You rejected being gay. You said it was unclean. That’s me. I’m unclean.”

Tim utters lines that address the very nature of being gay, something that a few readers felt lacking in previous books, and his presence is vital because much of the storyline revolves around his knowledge of pagan customs and Wiccan rituals. Even though hurt by it, he understands Ben’s call for help in Book 7.

“Every religion, major or minor, or cult come to that, exists entirely on the premise that gods do occasionally speak to us, yes. The entire Christian religion is based on the belief that God speaks to the chosen elect. The Koran is believed to be the literal word of God given to a man. So why should I question that you also heard a voice calling to you?”

He even discusses the matter with Nik, daring to stand up to him for once when Nik refutes Ben’s spiritual crisis.
“Yes, it was! You of all people should recognise this. He was a soldier—’You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day…a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you…’ Those words have been recited by millions of men facing battle. They’ve turned to God. Surely, you’ve experienced that spiritual awakening at least once in your life?”

Of course Nik didn’t want to admit whether or not he had. He does, however, form a begrudging respect for Tim and uses his experience with men under fire to help him later.

Nik also acknowledges that: Tim Watson was the catalyst that had taken him from where he had been to where he was now—sitting in a Devon pub garden, feeling for the first time in his life that he’d like this life to be a bit longer than it was probably going to be.

Contrast this looking toward the future to the man who had to be chained to the bed for two weeks to get him to admit he was trying to leave Ben. For a change, Nik starts thinking about how others feel. He’d always thought about how they fared, but in remembering Squeezy’s comment about the best way to conquer fear, he even goes as far to lie to make Tim feel better:

“Ben cannot sleep well at night these days. He…frets…about you. About your friendship.” Nikolas wondered briefly whether this was the first selfless lie he’d ever told. He saw, with an annoying remembrance of the moron’s contention about happiness, the smile of pleasure on Tim’s face. He added, surprised at himself, “He said you’d talked. That all was now well in the sandpit.” He was going to embellish this with, “He’s missed you,” but this was a step too far. Then he wrinkled his nose and said it anyway.

These are baby steps for Nik but important ones.
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This call (spiritual crisis) and Ben’s subsequent desertion gets addressed a few times in this book, in fact Ben starts to wonder if it was more a call from his past, stemming from unresolved issues he has with his childhood, memories of which, especially his time at Horse Tor, gradually return. His lack of them (when Nik claims to remember his birth) suggests to him that they were buried deliberately as being too painful or traumatic.

He expected the distant images to suddenly resolve and, like a movie, play once more in his mind, but nothing further emerged than what had come to him in the porch—he’d hidden beneath the altar. It had been dark. There had been other people there. He suddenly remembered that. They’d been whispering, which is why he’d lifted the cloth. For some reason, Ben knew that this wasn’t a happy memory, unlike most of the others he’d experienced out in the grounds. He smiled at the thought that his mother or father may have admonished him for being disobedient, just as he had Molly.

And he has revelations about other aspects such as Nik’s obsession with his beauty and Ben’s own awareness of its power at times:
Even though he knew he didn’t need to appear any more attractive than he was—and this was not vanity in his book; he was burdened by his looks as much as he benefited from them. Sometimes, in dreams, he still heard a guttural Russian voice saying, “Very pretty,” and remembered on waking all that had followed from that assessment.

His relationship with Nik has become more even.
Sometimes, such moments with Nikolas made all the rest pale into insignificance. Nikolas called Ben his true twin. They could not be less alike in so many ways, but sometimes, in a few precious moments like these, they had an almost otherworldly connection.

Now Ben is quicker to be sensitive to when things are awry between them.

He also knows how to manipulate Nik into doing what he wants. Suggesting he is too old to do it. And he can tell better when Nik is lying or not. If he says something is okay, he knows it isn’t. Contrary, but that is how he ticks.
Nik has also come to terms with issues that irked him in the past. His jealousy of Ben’s acting career which was part of the conflict in previous books has changed over time as exemplified by his attitude to Ben’s fan mail which he refuses to admit he reads. “Yeah, you do. Peyton told me.”

Now he secretly takes pleasure in their adoration, as long as they don’t get too close. He even wonders if God is punishing him for taking such a prized possession away.

And so to love

Where once it was wham, bam, thank you man. Often needing pain and battles of dominance, now they take the time to enjoy each other, sometimes falling asleep where once they would have been fucking.
Was there anything better than kissing Ben? Nikolas didn’t think so. He wondered idly as they ground their mouths together and their tongues danced whether he was getting soft in his old age.....He sometimes thought now he could stay kissing Ben for the entire day and never grow weary or impatient for more.

This more than anything is closure for those readers who wanted there to be more emotion between these two men. But these things can’t be forced. They were a culmination of some pretty seismic shifts which took place over the course of the eight books.

Nik now has a new appreciation of his lover: He associated Ben’s power and hard-angled edges with security. And Ben, in return, is sure enough of himself to interrupt their love-making to demand he be told what Nik is thinking or laugh while indulging in some cock sucking.

In fact, there is little graphic description during the sex scenes, but so many things bring their love making to mind. Even accepting a chunk of steak from a fork in a restaurant. They don’t get to “moonlight and roses” more moonlight and jersey cows.
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Yeah, it’s funny

In fact, one of the best things throughout the series has been the humor. We laugh with them and at them. Especially at lines like this from Ben: “Read? I didn’t actually re…I mean…version? Huh? You mean there are Bibles with different endings?” and of course the hilarious Museum break in.

But later he’s talking about Nik and Nik assumes he’s talking about Tim as Ben says: “I gave too much credit for supposed maturity and apparent intelligence. Didn’t see the complete and utter fuckwit lurking beneath.”
Nikolas frowned. Tim was eight months older than Ben. This seemed a little harsh.


And while some readers may dismiss Nik’s concern about age as over the top, perhaps they should wait until they are his age before making that judgement, remembering also that gay men may be a tad more sensitive about such things as looks, especially when Nik imagines Ben. sleeping alongside something which should be put out for the bin men and then replaced with something more current—shinier, up-to-date, more knobs probably. Only with that moronic, irritating idiot with the dumb name could Nikolas admit that when he worked out and ran and drank his olive oil and whey, he was not waving but drowning…
It’s funny in a way, that this man who faced down polar bears, tsunamis, death squads, cannibals and Chechen hit men is scared of getting old. Not from vanity, but because by doing so he might lose Ben and he is only able to admit it to Squeezy.

Nik’s humor is usually internal. He thinks but does not say things like this: Ben and Squeezy appeared to have forgotten their rivalry and were deep into an argument about books they’d both read. Nikolas predicted it would be a short conversation. and this priceless one: Despite the absolute ban on him smoking in the car, Nikolas lit a cigarette and offered one to Radulf. Radulf was cutting back, apparently, so Nikolas tucked one into his collar for later.
And his continual attempts to retain his dignity, aloofness and “perpetual air of disinterested nonchalance” are few and far between. Nikolas spent the rest of the trip home in even more disgrace than earlier. But now it was the proper not being talked to of before—before he’d allowed the disrespect and familiarity to creep into his relationship with all these men. Tim even murmured sir to him once. Most satisfactory.
That respect didn’t last long.
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True Love

Nik understands what love is now and even sees the distinction between love and being in love. He’d loved him (Ben), but he wouldn’t have claimed he was in love. There seemed to be a distinction between these two - no, he’d always maintained that little distance, always guarded that last bit of his freedom. Loving implied conscious will. In love was captivity. He was Ben’s prisoner now, and he knew he would never seek to escape. It didn’t feel like incarceration though. When he looked at Ben, he wanted to smile. Whatever he was in was exceptionally welcoming. For the first time, it occurred to Nikolas that love wasn’t weakness. Love didn’t leave you vulnerable. If it did, then you were in love with the wrong person.
and 
Ben’s snark was now audacious, blatant, and Nikolas had the almost unheard of desire to actually kiss him in public. It was the damn being in love thing. It was awful.
Yet later he concedes that Ben’s leaving him voluntarily in Book 7 and coming back of his own accord was a demonstration of Ben’s love for him. And this adds to his confidence about the strength of their relationship. “For the first time, you thought for yourself and chose this life with me.”
At times, Nik’s almost in awe of this new feeling: Nikolas very discretely gave him the finger and Ben laughed a deep-throated chuckle that began a fire of need in Nikolas’s belly—no, in his soul. Being in love changed all kinds of meanings. He spoke many languages, but he was more than willing to learn another.
Wonderful sentiment, wonderful writing and again such a world away from where they were at the start of the series, yet a totally believable emotional arc given what they have been through in the meantime.

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Because people can change

Nik (sometimes) consciously thinks before he speaks and acts. Nikolas heard a habitual and cutting reply form on his lips, but he wasn’t that person anymore. He didn’t need to be. He was a master of the universe and Ben Rider-Mikkelsen loved him. So instead, he said, “I do. Stay here and contact your colleague in York. I would be very interested to discover if he knows Genevieve Redoubt as well as she appeared to know him.”
One of the passages I loved best was this one:
And in that instant, Nikolas’s whole life swirled and coalesced in his mind, as a man drowning would relive his own history. Everything he had done, he’d done with egotistical intentions. If he’d killed, he’d believed that person needed killing. If he’d tortured, then that also had been justified in his mind. But this man, Ben Rider, gave affirmation to felonious belief. He always had. Ben, Nikolas saw now, understood his better intent and overlooked his ego, and through that generosity of spirit, gave him salvation.
Then later he adds to this by admitting: He’d lied to Ben, to everyone in the past, because he wanted to protect them, himself, his secrets, which were damaging to them all. Ben’s unwavering faith in him had validated this choice—too much perhaps. But now he wanted the outcome of his life to match his meaning.

Now he understands what love is.  If Ben was happy, then he was happy—it was, he supposed with rueful regret, just another result of this being in love thing.
But he also now sees why Ben could love him. Something he’s never really believed before:
Ben laughed and glanced back at him, and Nikolas felt a surge of overwhelming friendship and love from Ben, and, for one brief moment, as he had in the dream, he stepped outside his own corporeal form and saw himself as Ben saw him—a vast, Nordic-blond Special Forces soldier, windswept and so powerful it was as if he was carved from the very rocks of the moors themselves.

One of the important aspects of army training in this belief that sometimes men need to be broken before they can be reformed into something stronger. Every trial, every tribulation that broke them down and made us weep for them was needed, because it was only via their love for each other that they were both able to reform into something new, something powerful.

It returned to him then: all his authority, all his confidence. Everything surged along with his blood in this primal act, this transgression, this perfection and worship of being a man with another man in a place such as they were. He exploded into Ben and hung on to him, toes raised, shaking with furious pleasure until Ben sank to his knees, taking him down, still trapped inside, and they knelt there panting until the great rush was finally over.

So despite being in love and enjoying their kisses and their fun in bed, they both still relish the primeval strength of their relationship. Fitting in this very pagan setting with its images of randy goats and leering satyrs.
Ben has changed too. He has started to relax about the nature of their relationship. He’s no longer angsting about it.
Nikolas would know he was there watching him. It was just the way they were together.

While this book has Nik becoming more human and therefore more vulnerable, it also shows the closeness they have. Twins was the comment at one stage, best friends at another. Getting satisfaction just by being together. Knowing how in tune with each other they are. They don’t have to be equals to have that. It’s this confidence that provides me with closure if this is the last book in the series. As so often happened these days, their fight was ruined by their inability to take each other seriously, and they collapsed onto their backs, panting and chuckling, arms loosely draped over each other’s bellies, just scrunching fingers against warm skin and feeling heartbeats steady and strong. “In love.”
Women

Over the series the author has included a number of female characters, some good, some evil, some helpless, some strong. Most of them play a part in His Fateful Heap of Days, even if only minor. We also get introduced to a new group at Hextor Farm, and Nik has to rethink his initial stereotyping and gains a new appreciation of their qualities.
He envied women then, and he had never done that before, always pitying them or deriding them for their weakness. He saw for the first time in his life that he had made a serious error in these assessments, and that he had only ever defined these opposites from the limited perspective of a man. Perhaps a whole other definition of those concepts existed of which he had no part…
Nik didn’t have a positive relationship with his mother, there are memories of her slapping him about the head. Yet he was always desperate for her attention, which she was too ill to understand or provide. Then, after she died, he was surrounded by men who used and abused him. Most of the women he subsequently came across in Russia were victims, ones he could afford to have no empathy with and although he got married there, it was to a woman who reminded him of the father who had raped him repeatedly. No wonder he had had negative thoughts about women at times.

I loved his interaction with Genevieve Redoubt. He saw in her a kindred spirit who protected the people around her. I loved the way she stood up to him, but he didn’t back down when she commented how women were usually victims in war.
“...because it’s always us, isn’t it? Always the victims when men want power and influence.”
Nikolas put his finger to her chest this time. “I did not see many women on the battlefields of my life, no. I saw broken bodies and destroyed lives, but they were the bodies of men and the lives of men.”

She acknowledges the truth in this and they develop a healthy respect for each other.

Later he says: He knew what this (becoming one through anal penentration) felt like, after all. And perhaps, in that, they weren’t less than women after all. They couldn’t bring life into the world, but they could bind their bodies with oneness of shared experience that women could never know. He and Ben could give and they could receive, and yet they were the same. They brought this unique mirroring to the phenomenon each time they made love, and out of that exclusivity they gave birth to passion that ignited the entire world.

We also get to see a bit more of Martin and Sarah. Nik still isn’t too sure what to make of these two. Neither of them have the sort of attributes he admires: looks, figure or personality. In fact, Martin in particular gets to him because he: didn’t back down, a feature of all their conversations Nikolas was beginning to notice. The most humble, obsequious, yet irresistible force you could ever meet. Yet later Martin admits that if he had to have a champion to right a wrong, then he could think of no one better than Nik. A sentiment I think all readers will agree with and thus Martin gets admitted to our pantheon of “good” characters.

And let's not forget that Nik later admits he has had a change of heart regarding Sarah in an extremely rare, better revelation that she was possibly one of the most beautiful women he'd ever known....

The Offspring

Again we get more closure as we see Nik still troubled by and grieving for his lost son. He doesn’t regret sacrificing him for Ben, but he is haunted by nightmares and even in daylight: (Nik) had a vision of his son being forever entwined with the peat-preserved remains of the witch, Jane Drover. Would she tighten her torc on him and open her fen? Would those dark juices work him to a saint’s kept body…? But Ben knows how troubled by this Nik is and supports him, sympathises with him and protects him when he can. It’s wrong to say Nik is unaffected by the deed or the loss of his son, or even more importantly his son’s chance at innocence.

Nothing will bring him back, even though the prospect of this is used at the end of the book. A dramatic and powerful scene that was depicted so vividly. While part of us knew Nik was bluffing, he had all the ammunition and gut wrenching determination inside to make that believable.
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We also get closure on Ben’s relationship with his daughter, Molly Rose. The child he never wanted or expected. The child he feared would come between him and Nik. Molly is now two and a half. Sarah is her nanny, but she lives with Ulyana who only speaks Russian. She first appears, running up to them and clearly preferring Nik (Papa) and Radulf (Daddy - as in DaddyBark - Squeezy’s nickname for the dog). To Nikolas, it spoke volumes about Ben’s relationship with Molly. To say there was a lack of connection between father and daughter was an understatement. Of course, seen in a certain light, it could be said that he’d somewhat contributed to this alienation between Molly and her father…but was it really his fault that Molly chose only to speak Russian? He didn’t think so. To this point, Ben has liked his daughter mainly because of the pleasure she gives Nik.

But at the end, He held her tight to his chest as her breathing steadied. He could not remember being held by his mother like this, but he knew he had been. Perhaps by his father as well. He suddenly wanted to buy Molly a little tricycle and put playing cards into the spokes for her, and then he realised with a swell of almost unbearable excitement that he could, instead, buy her a tiny off-road motorbike…and that he would then need a dirt bike too, so they could ride together…


Is it the Final Book?

JW has proved with “Ollie Always” and the “Royal Affair” series that he is not a one trick pony. A scifi novella is due out next month and, following that, the first in what he promises to be a series revolving around a book club, also located in Devon. I’m really looking forward to that one.

Personally, I would be quite happy to leave our heroes where they are. Still burning for each other but “in love”. Maybe some short stories could be written to fill in the gaps in the current timeline. Give us a closer look at the way they met, or some of the early cases. Or maybe we can have vignettes featuring Miles and Emilia or maybe even Squeezy and Tim getting married (that would be a hoot).

But hey, I’m willing to be outvoted on that one.
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Finally

I’ll finish off by expressing my heartfelt thanks to the author for providing hours and hours of wonderful entertainment.

Before each book came out, I re-read the entire series (or most of them) in preparation. This never felt like a chore or a drag because the writing is that good. In fact re-reading, and knowing what happens next made some of the scenes funnier, more heart warming or more gut wrenching.

But most of all I have to thank him for creating such wonderful characters who now have cemented their place in my heart and mind. There, Nik and Ben will live on forever. And to cap it all, the true hero of the series (in his eyes at least) not only survives to the end but saves the day! He deserves a medal just for that (and whether you take that as the author or the dog, I’ll leave up to you.)

Or better even expressed in Nik’s own words: What we have here, min skat, exists solely because of the two of us. I told you that we burn; well the radiance of that great conflagration is like a shield banishing darkness. This little bubble of perfection into which we’ve brought these few select people is the perfect world I tried but failed to create when I was a child. So ask me if I think it was an earthquake, and for once I’ll tell you what I really think. I see the manifestation of evil growing across the whole world, Ben. The lights of our civilisation are going out one by one, and we will be extinguished, engulfed by what is coming. Except here, under our shield, in the light of our fire.” He turned Ben’s hand over and stroked across the creases. “We hold the whole world in the palm of our hands.” He folded Ben’s fingers into a fist. “And we are mighty.”
And as for Ben?
He was willing to give Nikolas whatever he wanted right now—day-to-day, year-by-year—until the span of their days was done, and then, only then, would he resurrect his plan to enjoy another lifetime with Nikolas Mikkelsen.

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Always, Ollie.

1/15/2016

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Ollie AlwaysOllie Always by John Wiltshire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had heard that a lot of this book drew on the author's own experiences, so at times I was distracted by wondering which bits were autobiographical and which just drew on thoughts and experiences.

In the end, I relaxed and took the story as it came. And there were many things to like about this book. First off, the scene where he manipulated the "meeting" was hilarious as were the books titles that followed.

Then there is Ollie. I felt for him trying to find a place for himself given the overwhelming (even if loving) presence of his mother. It's like I imagine many children of celebrities feel and why so many of them have troubles finding their own paths in life.

I loved how Ollie eventually found a way to come to terms with his Oliver namesake via Freddy.

And of course there is a dog. And a loveable one at that. I loved the way he leaned on people and how Ollie unabashedly used him to further his goals.

Don't expect lots of hot sex scenes, this is more two men finding a way to be together. Tom/Skint is a proud man. I loved the scene in the shearing shed he'd been living in, and the way Ollie reacted.

There were definitely echoes of Nik in Ollie and Ben in Tom, but these were more real and hence, more fragile versions.

This was the narrator discovering that "Once the me, me, me of life had ceased, hearing other people's pain became a great deal easier."

There were lovely digs at the reality of living in picture postcard New Zealand's remoteness. The temperature of the water, the cost of living.

I highlighted a couple of sections, but will probably see more when I re-read it as it is definitely worth it.
Tom did release Ollie's hand then, but only apparently to pat the dog. Ollie began to see a pattern here-stressful question...dog. He foresaw Bartleby being very well patted for a few more days and nights yet.
And this: As he says "He hadn't proved himself entirely reliable since he'd met Tom over shit, and parted over vomit."

It's lovely to have another stand alone from John even though I am waiting with bated breath for Book 8 of More Heat than the Sun.

This is not the gut wrenching high octane emotions or dramatic events. This is life. I absolutely loved the way Ollie fantasized about a "rose-cottage, sugar-coated fantasy" where he could "Cook them both breakfast and slip into Tom's room, be welcomed into bed with a grumpy but secretly very-pleased-to-see-him pat of encouragement on the sheets to crawl in alongside Tom and they could sit there eating, perhaps reading the papers..." OR... and you'll have to read it to discover the alternative.

And if JW is wondering what book to write next, those children's books sounded good. Kids books without the moral message or at least have it very well hidden. We need more books with heroes like Miles/Freddy. Raoul Dahl made a fortune with books bucking the "system" perhaps there is room for more. Or maybe we need a series of adventures with three legged Bartleby and his pedigree-in-disguise mutt partner. Gay dogs. Yep, I'd buy that!



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The Start of a Great Series

11/26/2014

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Love is a Stranger (More Heat Than the Sun #1)Love is a Stranger by John Wiltshire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book first came to my notice when I saw it on a list of most underrated books for 2014. It had garnished lots of very enthusiastic 5 star ratings.

The blurb is worth repeating: "How do you love someone who exists entirely in the shadows? How do you love a man who describes himself as dead? How do you get that ghost to love you back? Ex-SAS soldier, Ben Rider, falls in love with his enigmatic married boss Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen, but Nikolas is living a lie. A lie so profound that when the shadows are lifted, Ben realises he's in love with a very dangerous stranger. Ben has to choose between Nikolas and safety, but sometimes danger comes in a very seductive package."

Once I started reading, I found myself being blown away as much as I was when I came across "Special Forces". There are parallels, ex SAS (British) and a man who we discover is not only Spetznaz, but belonging to the more sinister, Zaslon unit. And the author even admits to having read the first two books of that series "Soldiers I and II"). But it was more like fabulous fan-fiction, taking those bare bone parallels and going off in another direction.

For a start, these characters are more likeable (for me anyway). They both do and have done horrendous things. Some "on camera". They both hurt others, each other and even themselves, but underlying that, their love seems more honest. The men are monogamous for starters. (At least except for a blip in book 4 which was integral to the plot).

The first book is told entirely from the POV of Ben. He's a bit like Dan. Happy go lucky, good at what he does, straightforward, what you see is what you get.

He was head hunted by his current boss who now works for the British Government in a covert cell. (In later books, we get flashbacks to how and why) and Ben has become his right hand man, an efficent tool for carrying out different operations.

The first was busting open an animal right's potential terrorist group. Ben has to infiltrate the group by gaining access via the man they see is the ringleader, Tim. Tim is a Professor in Ethics and gay. This last fact isn't too abhorrent to Ben as he has been fucking his boss almost ever since he started working for him four years ago. His boss is married.

Ooh, cheating, infidelity. How could this man be termed "nice", Well it turns out that this is a marriage of convenience and a cover. The lovely twist being that not only is the marriage a cover for Sir Nikolas, it is a cover for his wife who is having an long term affair with a member of the Royal Family.

While the emotional arc of the ongoing changes in the relationship between these two men forms the backbone of the book, the plot is actually in a number of discreet parts. The next case Ben has is the abduction of a child on behalf of the father. The ethics of this one sits uneasily with Ben and he gets back in touch with Tim, for advice. For the operation Ben and Nik purchase a scruffy dog from the pound with the idea of using him to gain access to the target child's current family and then taking him back to the pound.

So, running along in the background of this book are all sorts of themes of ethics, lies, manipulation, using people and things and how far you are willing to go to achieve a goal.

In this book, the action is paramount. The sex scenes are pretty unemotional and because we only get Ben's POV, it's not that introspective (again shades of SF). But we do get introduced to some wonderful side characters. Including Radulf, the scruffy wolfhound, who in many ways, steals the series.

Critics will argue that the scenario is unrealistic, Nikolas turns out to be a billionaire. But he is so much more than that. How he came to be one: his family, his past, his enemies are only gradually revelaed to Ben and the reader.

Nikolas is a tortured hero who is willing to lie and manipulate to get what he wants, but his dark vision of himself is continually being challenged by Ben's love.

The story itself may not be perfect. The characters certainly are not, but in many ways these imperfections give the series somewhere to go. Everything that happens has repercussions down the line. And the books just get better and better.

Fabulous story telling.

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A Dog, an Angel, and a Vet in denial

11/24/2014

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Catch Me When I FallCatch Me When I Fall by John Wiltshire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book, but the cover is all wrong. It should have angel wings and an Irish wolfhound! I had no idea what to expect when I bought and read this. I'd just finished reading the first book Love is a Stranger in the series about an ex SAS guy and a Spetznaz (which brought back many memories of Special Forces) so I was expecting a bit of the same.

This story is also about an ex-soldier but it is starts off as an amusing comedy, but morphs into something more serious which brought tears to my eyes. Once again there is an adorable wolfhound, but this time being owned by a park Ranger whose job it was to reintroduce wolves into a National Park.

It's a story about a man acknowledging the truth about himself and finding love along the way.

It all starts when his guardan angel falls to earth outside his back door and his life is never the same again.

I could explain the plot and the characters, but I think part of the charm of this book was that I didn't know what was going to happen next and I was kept guessing right to the end. Thoroughly recommended.

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