Unnatural By Joanna Chambers

Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (November 24, 2015)

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SYNOPSIS

The heart breaks but does not change.

An Enlightenment Story

Captain Iain Sinclair. Perfect son, perfect soldier, hero of Waterloo. A man living a lie. The only person who really knows him is his childhood friend, scientist James Hart. But they’ve been estranged since Iain brutally destroyed their friendship following a passionate encounter.

Iain is poised to leave the King’s service to become an undercover agent in India. Before he leaves his old life behind, he’s determined to reconcile with James. An invitation to a country house party from James’s sister provides the perfect opportunity to pin the man down.

James has loved Iain all his life, but his years of accepting crumbs from Iain’s table are over. Forgiving Iain is one thing—restoring their friendship is quite another.

In the face of James’s determined resistance, Iain is forced to confront his reasons for mending the wounds between them. And accept the possibility that James holds the key to his heart’s desire—if only he has the courage to reach for it.

Warning: Contains a dashing military hero with one weakness—a scientist who feels their chemistry in every cell of his body. Kissing in the rain, skinny dipping, and emotional flashbacks. Huzzah!

REVIEW by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

Young James and somewhat older Iain could not be more unalike. James, whose father is a landed naturalist, with or without his father’s scientific influence sees the world just as it is and should be. The delicious line from the novel is that the redoubtable Mr. Potts, an arrogant vicar, believes the world is as it is presented in a single book, the Bible, while James sees the world as constantly becoming better and more completely understood through science. Unfortunately, while Iain is not drawn to the Old Testament view of the world, his father’s condemning him for his “unnatural” tastes lacks the more flexible understanding of his own nature that James has and suffers for it.

The novel is designed to revisit childhood and young adulthood as the two boys grow and come to different understandings about life and love. Iain has always loved James but does not seem to recognize that, nor does he understand this is why he is continuously drawn to James, even though they quarrel and Iain harms James through his lack of understanding.

It will take these many encounters to allow Iain a chance to see what “natural” means and and to allow himself to stop hurting and start relying on the younger man’s maturity and understanding of just how much of a real human Iain is.

Proofread by One Love Editing.