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Of Wild and Merry Men
In seventeenth-century England, loving the wrong person could put you in a hangman's noose...
Noah Bancroft, banished and rejected after being caught in a compromising position, hopes for a fresh start in the new colonies, where no one knows his sins. But his bright future gets derailed when he can't keep his eyes off a handsome young native man named Jimmy Hawkey.
After escaping from a cruel master, Noah finds refuge in a community of young men like himself in a colony led by the eccentric Thomas Morton. But after Captain Wollaston sells most of the indentured servants to Virginia, threatening the survival of the colony, Noah and the others force him out and establish an egalitarian society. Noah has found freedom at Merrymount.
Thomas Morton's merry and free-wheeling revels, plus the colony's fair treatment of their Native American neighbors, earn the wrath of the Plymouth Puritans. When the vindictive preacher Jonathan Cheswick witnesses Noah with Jimmy, he and the Plymouth authorities move to suppress the "evil" in their midst.
Will Noah ever be free to love and find happiness with Jimmy? Or will the Puritan authorities sacrifice them on the altar of their New Jerusalem? Read Of Wild and Merry Men to find out!
Noah Bancroft, banished and rejected after being caught in a compromising position, hopes for a fresh start in the new colonies, where no one knows his sins. But his bright future gets derailed when he can't keep his eyes off a handsome young native man named Jimmy Hawkey.
After escaping from a cruel master, Noah finds refuge in a community of young men like himself in a colony led by the eccentric Thomas Morton. But after Captain Wollaston sells most of the indentured servants to Virginia, threatening the survival of the colony, Noah and the others force him out and establish an egalitarian society. Noah has found freedom at Merrymount.
Thomas Morton's merry and free-wheeling revels, plus the colony's fair treatment of their Native American neighbors, earn the wrath of the Plymouth Puritans. When the vindictive preacher Jonathan Cheswick witnesses Noah with Jimmy, he and the Plymouth authorities move to suppress the "evil" in their midst.
Will Noah ever be free to love and find happiness with Jimmy? Or will the Puritan authorities sacrifice them on the altar of their New Jerusalem? Read Of Wild and Merry Men to find out!
359 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 14, 2023
About the author
Garrett Hutson
12 books30 followersGarrett Hutson writes upmarket historical fiction driven by characters who are moving and unforgettable. Whether it's a murder mystery, a thrilling spy novel, or an adventurous and swoon-worthy romance, his books will make you feel something.
Garrett lives in Indianapolis with his husband, their partner, three adorable dogs, an odd-ball cat, and more fish than you can count.
You can usually find him reading about history, and day-dreaming about being there. This is where his stories are born, and he hopes they transport you the way his imagination transports him.
Look for him on Facebook (Garrett Hutson Author) and Twitter (@GarrettBHutson). You can contact him or sign up for his monthly newsletter on his website at www.garretthutson.com.
Garrett lives in Indianapolis with his husband, their partner, three adorable dogs, an odd-ball cat, and more fish than you can count.
You can usually find him reading about history, and day-dreaming about being there. This is where his stories are born, and he hopes they transport you the way his imagination transports him.
Look for him on Facebook (Garrett Hutson Author) and Twitter (@GarrettBHutson). You can contact him or sign up for his monthly newsletter on his website at www.garretthutson.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 15, 2023
Hutson never disappoints!
I discovered Garrett Hutson some four years ago now, with The Jade Dragon, the first of the Shanghai books. Aside: if you haven't read that series yet, do it. Jade Dragon was the beginning, and all his subsequent works served only to cement me further into his "fandom". Every new book just showcases the talent with which he is blessed.
On to Merry Men, then. History was never my strong suit. I spent most of my school years alternately failing history or geography - whichever one wasn't the one I was "trying" for that semester - until I could finally drop both! Hutson's books are almost always, in some measure, historical works. Whether one hundred or five hundred years ago, the research is meticulous and in-depth. I always learn something from the times he writes about. The fiction he weaves around the facts is so plausible as to have this historically challenged fan wondering, "what if?"
It also makes me ask myself, "why?"
Rich backgrounds, engaging characters, engrossing plotlines - all of these have a two-fold effect on the reader. First, you barrel through the pages wanting only to know more, and how, and what next. Second, you're left feeling bereft that these new friends are done telling you their story and are gone. This may be one of the very few - two that I can think of right off - books that I go back to again and again.
Do yourself a favour, read it - then come back and tell me how right I was. I like hearing when I'm right!
[I was fortunate to receive a prepublication copy of the book from the author, with no obligation to review. The opinions expressed herein are given freely, and are entirely my own.]
I discovered Garrett Hutson some four years ago now, with The Jade Dragon, the first of the Shanghai books. Aside: if you haven't read that series yet, do it. Jade Dragon was the beginning, and all his subsequent works served only to cement me further into his "fandom". Every new book just showcases the talent with which he is blessed.
On to Merry Men, then. History was never my strong suit. I spent most of my school years alternately failing history or geography - whichever one wasn't the one I was "trying" for that semester - until I could finally drop both! Hutson's books are almost always, in some measure, historical works. Whether one hundred or five hundred years ago, the research is meticulous and in-depth. I always learn something from the times he writes about. The fiction he weaves around the facts is so plausible as to have this historically challenged fan wondering, "what if?"
It also makes me ask myself, "why?"
Rich backgrounds, engaging characters, engrossing plotlines - all of these have a two-fold effect on the reader. First, you barrel through the pages wanting only to know more, and how, and what next. Second, you're left feeling bereft that these new friends are done telling you their story and are gone. This may be one of the very few - two that I can think of right off - books that I go back to again and again.
Do yourself a favour, read it - then come back and tell me how right I was. I like hearing when I'm right!
[I was fortunate to receive a prepublication copy of the book from the author, with no obligation to review. The opinions expressed herein are given freely, and are entirely my own.]
August 15, 2023
A wonderful piece of 🏳️🌈 M/M ❤️🔥 historical literature…
I was luckily given an opportunity to read a BETA version of this 📕. A BETA it may have been, but it was cleaner than (error free), any ARCs that I’ve read and even some published works.
As wonderful as that was, was the fact that even though the colonial time period would not be something I would gravitate toward, from the first page of the novel, I found myself continually going back to 📖 more.
I should preface this by saying that prior to the novel itself, starting there is a quite lengthy list of characters, both fictional and historical which I found so daunting I thought I would have to slog my way through the 📕.
Thank heavens, I was entirely wrong. This 📕, the story and the characters were SO compelling.
In short (and I tend to blather on), there was a time in British and American history, when men of a certain nature (🏳️🌈), were given an opportunity to be sold in to servitude and sent to the colonies rather than be hung for their sinful ways. This tale is about some of those men, the colony they helped establish and at least in one particular case, the romance between a young man sold as an indentured laborer and the Native American young man (raised by a Caucasian father when discovered as a abandoned orphan), their trials and tribulations, how they persevered and stayed together through it all, as well the other young men, some of the less scrupulous men controlling their fates and the ONE Lord who gave everything for these men to live happily, lovingly and eventually free.
Such an amazing part of our history rarely ever told and told in such a way, that this blend of fact and fiction took this reader on such a wonderful journey that I still purchased the 📕 after the fact and am excited to get to experience the final copy, the same as any other reader having just started it for the first time.
I had actually purchased ALL of this author’s work prior to this because most of it is set during WWII (my favorite time period), and are always told with 🏳️🌈 MCs, wrapped in a suspenseful, spy/detective, murder mystery vein, yet with accurate historical detail.
A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful 📕 and I felt and feel SO, SO blessed 🥹 to have been given an opportunity to read it. Here’s hoping that it also gets released in 🎧, because I would 🥰 being able to listen to this on 🔁 for quite some time…
I was luckily given an opportunity to read a BETA version of this 📕. A BETA it may have been, but it was cleaner than (error free), any ARCs that I’ve read and even some published works.
As wonderful as that was, was the fact that even though the colonial time period would not be something I would gravitate toward, from the first page of the novel, I found myself continually going back to 📖 more.
I should preface this by saying that prior to the novel itself, starting there is a quite lengthy list of characters, both fictional and historical which I found so daunting I thought I would have to slog my way through the 📕.
Thank heavens, I was entirely wrong. This 📕, the story and the characters were SO compelling.
In short (and I tend to blather on), there was a time in British and American history, when men of a certain nature (🏳️🌈), were given an opportunity to be sold in to servitude and sent to the colonies rather than be hung for their sinful ways. This tale is about some of those men, the colony they helped establish and at least in one particular case, the romance between a young man sold as an indentured laborer and the Native American young man (raised by a Caucasian father when discovered as a abandoned orphan), their trials and tribulations, how they persevered and stayed together through it all, as well the other young men, some of the less scrupulous men controlling their fates and the ONE Lord who gave everything for these men to live happily, lovingly and eventually free.
Such an amazing part of our history rarely ever told and told in such a way, that this blend of fact and fiction took this reader on such a wonderful journey that I still purchased the 📕 after the fact and am excited to get to experience the final copy, the same as any other reader having just started it for the first time.
I had actually purchased ALL of this author’s work prior to this because most of it is set during WWII (my favorite time period), and are always told with 🏳️🌈 MCs, wrapped in a suspenseful, spy/detective, murder mystery vein, yet with accurate historical detail.
A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful 📕 and I felt and feel SO, SO blessed 🥹 to have been given an opportunity to read it. Here’s hoping that it also gets released in 🎧, because I would 🥰 being able to listen to this on 🔁 for quite some time…
August 27, 2025
I have really struggled with rating this book. I ranged from a 3 star to 5 star rating, ending with compromise.
. it was not an easy read but that may be part of the problem. the story centres around two young gay man in the 1600's New England and their journey to each other mixed in with in with a maverick plantation owner who sets up a settlement of young men who prefer other men. Jimmy a native American meets Noah early on in the book, fall for each other immediately and are then separated.
The book is as much about how jimmy and noah get back together as it is about an experimental plantation where young men love young men and where white men are encouraged to couple with native Indians.
However there is alot of danger in the form of the puritan Christians who hate the young men's lifestyle. coupled with this is the way these young men where treated by the people who brought them over, not mire than slaves. in the hands of sadistic owners it was a harsh life fir the young men.
I did at times struggle with that story but it is well written and care is given to the development of the characters. lookimg forward to other books by author.
. it was not an easy read but that may be part of the problem. the story centres around two young gay man in the 1600's New England and their journey to each other mixed in with in with a maverick plantation owner who sets up a settlement of young men who prefer other men. Jimmy a native American meets Noah early on in the book, fall for each other immediately and are then separated.
The book is as much about how jimmy and noah get back together as it is about an experimental plantation where young men love young men and where white men are encouraged to couple with native Indians.
However there is alot of danger in the form of the puritan Christians who hate the young men's lifestyle. coupled with this is the way these young men where treated by the people who brought them over, not mire than slaves. in the hands of sadistic owners it was a harsh life fir the young men.
I did at times struggle with that story but it is well written and care is given to the development of the characters. lookimg forward to other books by author.
August 20, 2023
This is such a wonderful read which will get you within a few pages and you will be unable to stop reading until you reach the last page. Life is not easy for him and it will get worse but hopefully it may get better. Follow him to find out
Read
March 22, 2026DNF @20%.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews