Read as online read but enjoyed it enough to buy to read again when the mood takes me.
( )

Read as online read but enjoyed it enough to buy to read again when the mood takes me.
( )

Giles is a lonely gentleman and John is a widowed lamplighter. Sitting out on his front steps Giles looks like he might be drunk and John tries to help him only to learn this is where Giles lives. They start walking together and become friends when John invites Giles into his home where the two act on the attraction between them.

This was too short. I wish it were longer. I wanted to know how an affair between the two men would develop. I liked both men a lot. John was upbeat and helped Giles see things through different eyes. A good story. I would read this author again. ( )

This one might need to be moved up the list.

It's Victorian London, and wealthy young gentleman Giles Fullerton is still grieving a year after the death of the man he loved, his grief made worse by the need to conceal it. He deals with the emotional pain by walking the streets through the night, until he can face sleep. Young lamplighter John Banks knows a thing or two about grief himself. He loved his wife dearly, even though he's gay, and has missed her each day since her death. The young gentleman who wanders his route on so many nights may have attracted his attention with his good looks, but John can see that something drives him into the night. Enough so that at last John speaks to him, concerned for his safety. Curiosity about John's job of lighting and dousing the streetlamps provides something for Giles to focus on outside his grief.

There's companionship of a sort in a stranger to speak to, and gradually the two young widowers reveal more about themselves to each other in their conversation each night; first in coded and deniable references to their grief, and then more openly. Enough so that they finally act on their attraction. But this is Victorian London, and a relationship is barred by more than their being both men; the social gulf between them would be every bit as shocking to society, and moreover puts them at far greater risk of exposure than if they could meet as equals. Will they both have the courage to find a way through to a chance at happiness?

This is a gentle, slow romance, and all the better for it. It's a lovely short novella with a pair of well drawn, appealing main characters and some good secondary characters, and a sex scene that adds to the emotional development rather than being there to make up the word count. One for my re-read list.

Available free to members of the Heroes and Heartbreakers website, or you can pay a modest sum to get a nicely formatted ebook with a gorgous cover. ( )