These Old Lies

by Larrie Barton

A second chance at love for two men who fought together in the trenches of WWI. Class, ideals and prejudice drove them apart, but now, in the safety of peacetime, an illicit gay relationship has its own joys and risks. 1916, Northern France. Corporal Charlie Villiers breaks the monotony of the trenches by having sex with whoever is willing, including the posh Lieutenant Ned Pinsent. Except their stolen moments are becoming more than just a distraction — Ned actually listens when Charlie talks. But can Charlie share how going over the top is crushing his soul with the golden boy officer? 1923, London. Ned Pinsent’s reward for surviving the Great War is life as a scandalous Bright Young Thing — no cares, no responsibilities and no consequences. His carefully curated life of pleasure is upended when an errand brings him face to face with Charlie Villiers, his ex-lover from the trenches — the man whose life Ned saved and whose trust Ned betrayed. From the roaring twenties to the world wars and beyond, Charlie and Ned will learn to fight for each other and their love.

Genres: Historical, Romance, Historical Fiction, M M Romance, Historical Romance, Queer, Military Fiction

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 21, 2023

About the author

The latest in a four generations of romance readers, I proudly carry on the tradition of enjoying losing myself in stories where couples find their happy.

These Old Lies is my first novel, and draws off research on the First World War that I undertook as part of my beloved history degree. Getting under the skin of people who made up the past is one of my life long passions.

Reviews

[ancientreader]

On the first page: a "blonde" man

"nonplussed" used to mean "unfazed"

"discrete" instead of "discreet"

"Hugh’s strident refusal to pretend to be something that made society more comfortable was what spurred Ned to buy him a cocktail at Soho nightclub": "had spurred," please [ETA to clarify: because the book is in the narrative past, and the cocktail-buying takes place before the main action], and either "a" or "the" Soho nightclub.

That was as much as I could take.

[Bizzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book but I’m super rusty at writing reviews so I’m not going to be able to write something that does it justice. I was really impressed with how the author wove together multiple time periods in a way that enhanced the story and didn’t feel like a gimmick. I really love the When Death Meets the Devil series but the alternating timelines there are a total gimmick to create artificial suspense by withholding information from the reader as long as possible, and as a result I’ve never found the energy to reread the series. With this book, by contrast, the alternating timelines reinforce and augment information the reader already has, and allow the reader’s understanding of the characters to unfold along with the characters’ in a way that might not have been possible if the story were told linearly.

I really appreciated how the author explored different periods of the characters’ lives and the way their needs and desires changed over time. Romance authors often struggle with writing truly incompatible needs, in part because they often cannot be resolved in the short timeframes over which most romance books take place. In this book, the characters simply cannot get what they both need from their relationship while they’re young men, and Barton did an excellent job exploring that. The book is as much about the characters’ relationship with themselves as with each other, and I’m glad Barton chose to tell it over such a long period of time.

Finally, I don’t normally comment on the content of other reviews because we all have our own experience with books, but I don’t agree with the reviews saying the characters’ relationship is built entirely on sexual attraction. It starts that way, but it has to, because that’s the only way these two characters could plausibly interact with each other while serving in WWI. The inability to interact in other ways at first is a necessary part of the story that lays the foundation for later developments. The relationship does not remain a purely sexual one and, at least in my view, these characters have a deep emotional connection later in the story. As for complaints about editing, this is the author’s first book and there are some editing issues, but not to a level that interfered with my enjoyment, and I’m a reader who probably notices these issues more often than average due to my profession. However, if occasionally using the wrong homonym is an unforgivable crime for you, then perhaps you should skip this one, though I think you’ll be missing out on a great story.

[Iman (hiatus) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring.

Their relationship was purely sexual since the beginning, and the non-existence emotional connection made it so difficult to love them together. They felt like strangers the whole time despite having their cocks in each other’s throat the whole time.

I struggled with the pacing and the flashbacks between 1916 and 1923, and 1932 & 1941. They never bonded over other things than sex and the plotline was so boring I wasn’t hooked. Maybe they had a few cute scenes, but it wasn’t memorable, touchy or swoony. I understand the purpose of the flashbacks and time jumps, but it turned out to be very confusing, forced and boring making me forget what happened in the previous one.

I didn’t feel anything reading this when I expected it to make me wail. Idk the cover had me ngl and usually historical romances are more gloomy and depressing but this wasn’t it.

They got back to bed together (sort of) at the 30% mark which was too early for me and it was FTB so I didn’t enjoy it at all. Then the L word come through at 53% 🥲🥲🥲 wasn’t convincing at all. I just didn’t see what they actually liked about each other.

In the end, I was still left confused on the time jumps, the second chance felt like there wasn’t any chance at all, their relationship felt bland despite having part 1 & 2 for them to make up 🤷 and lastly, I still don’t understand was this suppose to be a slow burn or what.

[PaperMoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of plots that flip between timelines from one chapter to the next - it gets tiresome fast. Somewhere around the 40% mark (at a momentous and moving scene in a family chapel), the flipping back and forth somehow lost their negative impact and I started noticing how cleverly each chapter alludes to some conversation / event which gets subsequently expounded on in the following chapter. Ultimately, it was the intensity of the feels at several key moments throughout the read that moved me to fall in love with these two MCs - they were beautifully and lovingly drawn. Some readers may not appreciate some of the hard decisions Charlie and Ned made but I totally understood where they were coming from.

[Chiara D'Agosto · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing, complex romance!

I'm quite tired (thanks to the magical combination of a demanding full-time job and a toddler) so I'm afraid I won't be as eloquent as I usually am, but I wanted to jot down my immediate thoughts on this.
See, I don't have a lot of spare time, for the reasons abovementioned. As my time is precious to me, spending it glued to my kindle totally means I am loving the book I'm reading. And boy did I love this. It's not perfect, I think, and in facts, probably I would have changed a few bits and bobs. But in the end, it delivers an incredibly satisfying romance, a great love story, two amazing characters and a well researched historical setting. I'm not an expert in WWI history (that is my dad, in the family...) but I absolutely loved the first part of this novel. The harrowing desperation of the trenches, the mud, the fear, it felt so real to me. And it was incredibly emotional to see Ned and Charlie's connection blossom into this horrifying scenario. The scene in the French brothel has to be my favourite of the whole thing. Like, that is a stunning piece. And it made me fall in love with Ned as much as it did Charlie, I think. I loved his contradictions, his bravery, his quiet but proud way of being himself in a world and a country that absolutely would have refused is mere existence. I loved the way gender expression was described, because it was perfectly attuned with how a man from that time-period would have thought of it, using words and concepts he would have used. As a hater of anachronisms in historical novels, I appreciated that.

What convinced me less was their second break-up. Not the one during the war, that made perfect sense, but the one in 1924, when Ned goes off to become a politician. I get it, I mean, it made perfect sense too. But I wished it had been more fleshed out than a small chapter in an incredibly long book. We get a 20-year time-skip after, I wanted a little more..
Bonus points tho for the good story structure: I admit sometimes it felt a little frustrating to drag a single event of the past (like, their encounter in France in the 30s) for multiple chapters, not even consecutive ones. But even then, the structure was well-executed, especially in the first half, when memories of the trenches entwine with the present days, and it results in a very effective narrative of a love story that unfolds in front of the reader slowly, but surprisingly, and in the end, carrying the emotional punch I want from a romance novel.

I am going to be waiting for this author's next book, and I have the suspicion that's is going to be an auto-buy!

bye now forgive my horrible English as I said I'm fucking knackered

[Kathleen in Oslo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

Honestly, I expected more.

The writing style lacked depth, and I wasn't feeling the connection between the MCs until the last third of the book. But rounded up because I liked the expansive notion of family and the epilogue is lovely.

If you want queer love in the trenches of WWI, with clever chronology and a huge heaping of emotional devastation, I recommend In Memoriam -- it is to These Old Lies' disadvantage that I read the much better book, first.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we have a late contender for best read of the year. No, seriously, it was one of the most acutely romantic books I've read in a while. And so well-written, with these incredible, complex characters. I loved it. What a début.

The story is told in a series of time jumps, flashing back and forth between the trenches of WWI and a post-war London, and then later on between the 1930s and WWII. It spans decades and tells the story of Ned and Charlie, who met as two young soldiers in the mud of Western Europe and go on to develop a profound, lifelong romance. Ned is the son of a viscount and an officer, and Charlie is the son of a hatmaker and just an ordinary enlisted man. They start off their affair as 2 men scratching an itch, but in the horrors of warfare and its aftermath, it becomes something else. They lose each other in the wake of the war, but a chance encounter in post-war London sparks something between them, and we get to see the next few years of their lives played out.

I thought this book was a triumph, Barton did so well with evoking the atmosphere of the trenches in WWI, and with writing these nuanced characters with such compassion. It's heartbreaking in places, sweet and tender in others, but ultimately a really good read. Highly recommended.

[Laxmama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this one and the start promising. However it was a bit long and took a turn that just made it too contrived for me

[Brittanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an insta-buy for me as I'm a sucker for World War-era romances and I happily ended up being impressed by this first-time author.
In a similar vein as In Memoriam and The Larks Still Bravely Singing, both books I highly enjoyed, this follows the lives of Charlie and Ned through their time fighting in WWI France, their reunion in post-WWI England, all the way through living as older men during the WWII blitz, with the last chapter ending the book during the mid-1960s. And like those other books, this isn't a happy romance for a variety of reasons. These men are from different classes in a country where their love is highly illegal but even their friendship is heavily scrutinized. Charlie is bisexual with "an out" where Ned is trapped not only by his outlawed sexuality but also as an upper-class gentleman with high societal expectations. They both come back from the war with mental and physical scars. And all this amid a country in political turmoil in the years between wars, filled with broken families and broken men.
The angst to me is delicious but this definitely isn't for readers not already into this type of setting.

While there are some typos in my Kindle copy, overall the writing is fantastic. I was sucked into the story from page 1 and didn't want to put it down. I look forward to reading any future historical romances from Barton.

[Katie (Romance Novel Quotes)]

I cried a lot. My highest praise.

There's so much to love in this one (Carina never steers me wrong💜) that I almost didn't mind the multiple timelines. The story jumps from WWI France to two decades later in London, with additional leaps forward. I appreciated seeing the characters grow and change, but there was still some mental math involved that took me a bit out of the story at the start of each chapter. This is a me thing, I think. When I'm deeply immersed in a story it can be jarring to have to re-orient myself in time and place.

Despite that, I flew through this one and I have so much love for Ned and Charlie. I think this is a debut and look forward to more from the author.

[Mirian · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars (a very neutral 3)

This is a very difficult book for me to rate because although I enjoyed large aspects of it, there are other aspects that I know a lot of my other reader friends would despise. My fatal flaw is taking into account whether I would recommend this book in my official star rating—and the thing is I would definitely NOT recommend this to a lot of people.
It has not one, not two, but three different break-ups. It jumped back and forth quite a lot (in terms of time) and most annoyingly the narrator told much much more than they actually showed; which in my opinion is the biggest downside of this novel.
Despite all of that, I genuinely enjoyed Ned and Charlie’s relationship—I liked reading them as they figured out their dynamics over the years and finally finding their happiness.
The depiction of war was pretty accurate (although I’m a novice when it comes to history so please correct me if I’m wrong) and the angst was *chefs kiss*
The ending left a lot to be desired but my knees tremble weakly when the mcs are shown at such a mature age and so incredibly happy so I’ll take it with a smile.

I’d suggest reading the trigger warnings cause there are two particular scenes that I hadn’t anticipated to be quite so detailed.

[Марија Николовска · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very pleasant surprise.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epic and deeply moving debut. Completely my jam, with both world wars and set in England and queer love and so much heartbreak- and thank goodness, it's a romance, so we get to have the necessary or my heart would have broken HEA.

Lots of CW for war, and homophobia and violence and suicide (attempted).

I did find the many different time lines distracting; but not enough to keep me from a very enthusiastic recommendation. I cried. A Lot.

[crabapple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sitting in an airport and trying not to tear up as I finish this book. Ned and Charlie first meet as soldiers in WWI, their story spans a lifetime, crosses class lines, defies the rules and it is one for the ages. Painful and sweet, there is never a question of their love.

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid 4.5 stars
Remarkable for an indie debut.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queer Great War longing?
Class difference? Brave politicians?
Sign me the fuck up.

OMG, those date typos nearly broke me. Horrible.

[Talya · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF 52%, I don’t know where this book is going and I’m sorry but I don’t care enough to find out

[Olimpia E. Petruzzella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay. Questo libro mi ha fatto provare emozioni estremamente contrastanti. Da un lato ho AMATO visceralmente la prima parte, fino quasi al 50%. Certo, alcune cose già mi avevano un po’ perplesso (per esempio, il fatto che non vediamo Ned lasciare Hugh - e secondo me ce la meritavamo una scena loro, liquidare la cosa con un lapidario “Hugh and I are done” detto da Ned a Charlie senza poi vedere effettivamente il momento in cui Ned e Hugh si lasciano mi ha fatto un po’ storcere il naso. E anche il fatto che gli amici di Ned a una certa spariscano completamente, per poi riapparire magicamente a una certa… ma questo lo vediamo dopo), ma la romance tra Ned e Charlie mi stava piacendo così tanto, mi stava facendo emettere versi e tutto che alla fin fine queste cosine gliele avrei anche potute perdonare.
Il problema per me viene con “il third act break up” che qui avviene a metà libro, in realtà. Ma andiamo con ordine. La prima metà del libro è ambientata su due piani temporali a capitoli alternati (un capitolo nel 1916 dal pov di Ned e un capitolo nel 1923 dal pov di Charlie). Cosa che peraltro io ho adorato. Solo che poi abbiamo gli ultimi due capitoli di questa parte con i pov scambiati (Ned nel 1916 e Charlie nel 1923). Che ha senso, da un certo punto di vista (specie per il 1916!) ma dall’altro mi è sembrato 1) una scelta facile e un po’ pigra; 2) il break up nel 1917 ha super senso, quello nel 1924… no. O quantomeno non così. Charlie lascia Ned perché Ned vuole diventare un politico e aiutare il prossimo e bla bla bla. Che va pure bene ma questa passione per la politica in Ned… dov’è? Se ne accenna, certo, ma dov’è? Io volevo vederla. Volevo vedere lo struggle vero, le litigate, un climax che portava alla rottura, alla scelta impossibile tra amore e carriera… Invece è tutto smorzato. Charlie sente UNA conversazione e dice “okay allora finiamola qui in modo super civile, io ti amo, tu mi ami, ci ameremo sempre ma lasciamoci”. WTF??? Vi giuro, io nera.
Sta cosa mi ha infastidita così tanto che mi ha impedito di godermi per bene gran parte della seconda parte del romanzo, ambientata anche questa su due piani paralleli (un capitolo nel 1932 dal pov di Charlie e un capitolo nel 1941 dal pov di Ned). Da un lato io AMO le storie d’amore che coprono decadi. Dall’altro mi è sembrata un po’ piatta, specie la parte nel 1932 (che poteva essere molto più breve, sono onesta. Penso che la struttura, per quanto interessante e gratificante per il mio personale OCD abbia un po’ penalizzato la storia perché appunto l’autrice ha dovuto allungare alcune parti che potevano essere riassunto e riassunto alcune parte che avrebbero meritato un approfondimento. Tipo la storia di Ned e George, sia a livello sentimentale che amicale, il rapporto di Ned con i suoi amici e anche la sua evoluzione politica).
Però poi il finale mi ha ripagata un po’ di tutto. Ho voluto molto bene ai personaggi e ho amato la storia, anche se non sono riuscita a passare sopra ad alcuni difetti. Però alla fin fine è un esordio, in self e l’opera era davvero ambiziosa, forse un po’ troppo per un’autrice così inesperta.
Di una cosa però sono sicura: Larrie Barton è un’autrice interessante che potrà regalare vere perle. Spero di poter leggere presto un suo nuovo libro, spero in una sua nuova pubblicazione a breve.

PS: le scene esplicite comunque rega >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

PPS: so che questo libro è stato un sacco confrontato con “In Memoriam” di Alice Winn. E lo capisco. Entrambi esordi, entrambi incentrati sulla prima guerra mondiale, entrambi usciti più o meno nello stesso periodo. Ma io non mi sento di fare confronti perché le due storie e i protagonisti sono così diversi che /per me\ non sono proprio paragonabili.

[Sarah Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

There was so much about this book that I loved, a beautiful love story that begins in the trenches of WWI, arguably the worst place to find the love of your life. But what starts out as two men releasing their anxiety through messy blow jobs, becomes a friendship and a pure deep love they don’t fully understand until years later. And it felt organic, sweet, messy but real. Sure Charlie’s wife endorsing their love was contrived and convenient, but why not, it’s fiction.

However, the flashbacks, that worked at the beginning just became tiresome after a while and just made the book feel longer than it needed to be. The whole second half dragged on and on, which was a bummer since I was loving it so much in the first half. We could have had less talking and less flashback scenes that drew out the book more than I would have liked.

Sweet ending tho

[Amélie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see people saying they didn't feel the connection between Ned and Charlie, and I'm sorry for them, I guess it's a matter of sensitivity. I think their connection is about what was left unsaid, what they couldn't express, because of society. I think it is very subtle, but I felt it so stongly.
I thought the construction was very clever, one chapter was alluding to some events that we didn't know about (creating curiosity), and that was developped in the flashback of the next chapter, and it made this whole "going back and forth" interesting.
The way that is was written felt very true, and honest, and not "trying too hard"
I'm not a fan of war stories, but I was captivated.
I look forward to reading the next book from this new author
Sorry if the writing is weird, english isn't my first language, and it is my first book review

[smokeandmirrors]

DNF at 21% -- I just couldn't get past the awkward writing style. Felt like a lot of telling without much showing, the characters never quite rang true to me, and the jumpy timeskip structure didn't help. Usually I feel like i have more patience for a writing style that doesn't catch my fancy but for whatever reason this one got old real fast

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. I felt like it was drawn out more then it needed to be, and the flashbacks at the beginning made sense, but later in the book they’d continue to do war flashbacks that weren’t needed (like first meeting from the other guys pov or an unneeded sex scene).

[Betts · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a while since a book made me cry as much as this one. Ned and Charlie loved each other so freaking much, and against all odds, they had their happy ending 😭😭😭

[Carina · Rating 5 out of 5]

*CWs for discussions on suicide, PTSD, homophobia, battlefield death and injury, grief, police entrapment*


I am emotionally devastated. This was great.

[Erin]

Honestly, I thought this was really great. I've read through some of the reviews and don't agree with a lot of the criticisms I'm seeing, but it's everyone's right to be wrong about something :) This book has both heart and realism while set in a time and place where it was very hard to be queer. Ned and Charlie's journey is very rewarding and I'm very pleased to have picked this up.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a masterclass on how to capture the human experience of love. The author was able to write a love story that was honest, raw, and so real. This book made me feel every range of emotions. Oftentimes, even the most dramatic, romance books don't capture how complicated relationships are, but Larrie managed to just that. This book will break your heart but then put it back together. This is one of those books that will just stay with you. It really felt like someone's deal life love story. For the reviews that said it was just a sexual relationship with no emotional connection, I'm sorry that's your takeaway from this book. Ned and Charlie's relationship started off as physical, but it evolved into more, just how a real relationship does. There isn't a perfect road map to love, and this book captured rhay perfectly, especially for the time period it takes place in. I could gush about this book for hours. Everyone really should read it.

[Lynn P · Rating 3 out of 5]

good but….

I really struggled with the back and forth in time. Every time I felt like I was getting fully engaged in the story it either jumped back or jumped forward, and I felt like I was having to start over. To me that was a little tedious. I think I would like to read another book by this author just to see what else they write because the writing was good.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I was going to be reading something easy and fun, but this was actually heavy. I always enjoy a love story told through the decades, especially one that involves second chances and family.of choice.

[Hannah-backwards-spells-Hannah. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story reminds me of Aster Glen Gray’s Honeytrap in both a good and a bad way.

The good way is the epic scope of the love story - beginning in 1916 and ending in 1941 - and the satisfying way in which we see the lives of the central characters spin out across various times in history. They were well-drawn characters with a real (not a manufactured) area of conflict.

I do in fact recommend the book, and for this reason: it’s well-written, well-paced and well-developed — everything you could want from a ww1 queer romance, right down to the titular reference to Wilfred Owen and the in-text reference to the saying from Horace that he calls an “old lie”: “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” (Is it sad that I scour books for ww1 poetry easter eggs?)

The bad aspect of the book involves a slight spoiler: be warned! It is, however, a spoiler that I know many people consider a dealbreaker.

The problem is this. Mid-way through, one of the mcs gets married to a woman. (He is not with the other mc at the time, this happens in a period of break-up: a twenty year period!) A mid-plot marriage occurs in Honeytrap (hence my comparison), and I enjoyed it there, because Honeytrap made the married mc’s attempt to have an open relationship with his wife (with mc2 but also others) a part of the arc — a major part, and one with what I felt was a very realistic level of emotional upheaval.

In Honeytrap, this upheaval is so great that married mc ends up divorced. In this book, however, there is no divorce. There is also no polyamory. It portrays what I cannot help thinking of as bigamy (the wife, Betty, agrees to her husband being monogamous with someone else — even exchanging vows with some else!! — without getting a formal divorce or separation) but without a serious attempt to consider the tensions and difficulties surely inherent. (Wow, it’s 1941 and I’m suddenly cohabiting with my husband’s lover and also my four children none of whom know the real reason why their dad is sharing a bedroom with his old army friend. What?!)

I do enjoy a poly set up in fiction on occasion. (I liked the way Aster Glen Gray did it, and loved the way Rachel Neumier did it in the Tuyo series). Here, though, Betty’s easygoing nature felt like a serious deus ex machina. This is perhaps an unfortunate side effect of the fact that we only see her relating to her husband (and to his future beloved) when we are being “shown” that she is okay with their relationship. Her whole character thus feels a little flat: everything in it (tragic lost love, being a mechanic) seems, in retrospect, to be leading up to the reasons why she will be okay with the ending.

That’s why this book doesn’t get five stars. I still liked it. I especially liked attention to the difficulties of being queer in the early 20th Century, and I loved the way that to-be-married mc deals with his bisexuality. Perhaps it was this very attention to difficulty that spawned the unfortunate marriage plot. (How can one get one’s characters out of this pit to their happy ending when one has attempted such a great degree of realism? I know: we need a beard. Betty is the beard.) This is a perennial problem of writing queer historical romance, and not one easy to handle. I enjoyed the attempt, and recommend the book, to all for whom that kind of resolution is not a major deal-breaker.

[J.E. Benoit · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

“You scare me. You smile at me and expose parts of myself that I didn’t even know existed.”

Oh, my heart! This book put it through its paces. Told in dual POV with a dual timeline this book tells the story of Lieutenant Ned Pinsent and Corporal Charlie Villiers who turned to each other for companionship during the First World War. What started as a means to satisfy their physical desires turned into a deep bond between two men who have to fight time, class ideals, and circumstance, over the course of decades, to find a way to love one another the way they’ve always wanted to.

“I’m so tired of missing you.”

The first half of the book alternates between their time together in WWI and several years later during peacetime where a chance meeting puts Ned and Charlie back into each other’s lives. Then the second part alternates between about 10 and 20 years after their reconnection in the 1920s. We see them survive one world war only to be faced with another in the early 1940s and what the prospect of having to serve again means for both of their characters and their relationship.

“I didn’t know how to love in the trenches. You were a golden-boy officer with a future, and I was a washed-up soldier who’s only skill was killing people."

Throughout all of that is the very real fact that homosexuality was illegal during those times and being caught loving another man held very real consequences. This book explores all the complicated choices that go into trying to balance the desires of the heart with the very real dangers that come along with a same-sex relationship. And it does a really great job of it! My heart ached for these men who longed to be together but had the world stacked against them. They had both survived the horrors of the First World War and when they reconnect they finally have a chance of being together, even if they have to keep their love hidden away, but then life throws another curveball that separates them once more.

After all these years, Charlie Villiers still shattered him. Completely, utterly, shattered him.

It took them a very long time to get their timing right and even then things were unorthodox and quite complicated, but I think their arrangement was probably prevalent in those days. Ultimately, it turned out to be a beautiful thing and the last chapter and the epilogue had me in tears. There were all sorts of emotions swirling around in my heart by that point, it was a beautiful ending. This book was not a light read by any means, the depictions of the reality of war were harrowing and the unfairness queer people faced made me sad but seeing the power of Ned and Charlie’s love and their fight to overcome all that warmed my heart and made enduring all the rest of the stuff worth it to see where things end up!

"You’ve made me want things that can never be. To be with you, to care about you. Two men together in partnership has never been possible, and so why does the idea that we can’t have it hurt so much?”