He didn’t want to talk about it, or even think about it, but his mind kept catching on it anyway. It was like having a broken step on a stairway you used every day. You could learn to step over it, forget about it except for the odd time when it caught you by surprise and you tripped, risked falling.[loc. 305]
A short, sweet m/m romance. Lord Heliodor is in his fifties, and has more or less given up on love. He's traumatised by the aftermath of a vile curse -- which led to him having to kill his transformed friends while protecting his sovereign -- and when it's suggested that he might benefit from a rest, he retires to his childhood home, and a life of leisure, with ill grace.
There is a new librarian, who turns out to be more than he seems. There is a dastardly plot, and its undoing by men of valour. And perhaps there is some work, still, for someone of Lord Heliodor's calibre.
This was a calm and cheering read: the world, and the society, were sketched rather than detailed, because the story focussed on Lord Heliodor's PTSD and the recovery process. It was refreshing to read a romance with an older protagonist, and Lord Heliodor's thoughts and concerns are very much those of a successful individual in middle years who's undergone a traumatic experience, and the slow pace of the romance suits him perfectly.
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