Farm lad Iain Munro knows his love affair with Tavish MacIntyre, future Laird of Creachann-Dubh, is dangerous—discovery could mean disgrace and death. But they’ve been in love since they were boys, and they’ve never been able to resist each other, dishonorable though it is to deceive their families.
Young men now, their sexual explorations have deepened and their love for each other has strengthened. But Iain’s father fears for his eldest son’s future, and Tavish faces dangers and duties of his own: his demanding mother would see him respectably wed, and his interfering sister knows too much—and has schemes of her own.
Facing a lifetime apart, Iain and Tavish must leave their childhoods behind for good as they choose between honor and love, innocence and happiness, and their vows before God and to each other.
Tavish and Iaian are distant cousins (key word distant) and are just 18 and 15 respectively when they finally realize their tastes run not only toward other men but toward each other. They can really only see each other once a year at the yearly harvest festival and it’s so hard on both boys as they care so much about each other – on top of the fact that they wear each other out going at it all day long! lol
As they get older Iain starts to realize that as much as he loves Tavish he can’t continue to see him and basically breaks him off. Tavish doesn’t stand for it and goes after him. When the Tavish is 22 his mother gets an inkling as to what’s going on between the two and tries to separate them. She wants to force Tavish to marry but an unlikely savior comes along to save them.
One of the things that I normally don’t like about historical m/m is the fact that they two men can never be together out in the open and that bothers me on so many levels. I think that’s why I enjoy contemporary m/m so much because the men can be who they are without hiding it. Ok, some do and some have to but they have the CHOICE. Anyway, I love Scottish historicals so much that I thought I’d give this one a go. It was a bit heart wrenching at times because I couldn’t see a way that Tavish and Iaian could be together and their love for each other was just so sweet.
When their savior steps forward (and no I’m not spoiling that for you) I was pleasantly surprised. The solution to the problem wasn’t perfect and the men still couldn’t be together publicly – obviously – but I thought it was a clever way to make sure that both men’s asses were covered with Tavish’s mom not being able to step in to stop things.
I had a little issue with the way the story was told starting when they were older and then going back and forth from present to past and having the story flow through the years. There were a couple of times that I was confused as to what year it was or how old the guys were but I got used to it and it ended up working for the most part.
This is one that I would recommend as it’s just such a sweet tale of love and compromise. Isn’t that what most relationships are made up of? I think so.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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