THE PROFESSOR AND THE SMUGGLER

Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon

Publisher: Duet Publishing (January 2, 2016)

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BLURB

A grumpy smuggler meets a bumbling professor and treasure is found.

An explorer at heart, former university professor Phillip Singleton’s adventures have only taken place in his imagination—until recently. Exploring the Cornish coast to research a travel book, he encounters a living example of a pirate archetype. Dark-haired, black-bearded Carne Treleaven might have been hewn from the very rock his name describes, and Phillip is eager to discover more.

Carne has little patience for the awkward, dreamy professor, an outsider who must be steered away from local secrets. He agrees to serve as a guide to seaside caves where smugglers once operated only to keep Phillip away from more recent activity.

As personalities clash, secrets unfold, and riches are revealed, the two polar opposites find the point where their similarities lay. Carne’s old beliefs are shattered by his attraction to a man, and he must decide if he’s willing to take a huge step outside his familiar life and into a brand new world.

REVIEW by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

Carne, the Cornish smuggler, has a nice arrangement with Bea, the tavern owner and widow, that suits him well as he takes on responsibility for the welfare of his little town, but he has a surprise coming.  One day he comes across a professor named Phillip who has just knocked a standing stone down while he prepares to photograph it for his travelogue on the sights of Britain.  Carne takes him home to keep an eye on him, but soon his curiosity about the admittedly gay writer gets the best of him.

We watch the reluctant man experiment with his professor while he takes him to the mysterious smuggler caves but is not aware when the man ventures off on his own and is caught by one of the locals.

It is fascinating to watch Carne, who is confident his private life is private and his masculinity assured, as he slowly begins to realize he is growing fond of Philip and is forced by near tragedy to admit it to himself.   In the meantime, Phillip is aware of his own chartering and risk taking and has developed a habit of dismissing his own emotions.    How these two are going to come together and make their way in an unfriendly world is the story that Dee and Devon tell so well.  This novel of two unlikely men to make a couple is one of the more complex and thoughtful of the series.

Proofread by One Love Editing.