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Ormond Yard Romantic Adventures #2
The Lord and the Frenchman
Two wounded men discover true love and a found family in Victorian England
In the opulent courts of Victorian England, John Seales, Lord Therkenwell, is a man of wealth and privilege, expected to marry a woman of his own social standing and produce an heir. But when he meets dashing French diplomat Raoul Desjardins at a soirée arranged by a politically-connected gay couple, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the man despite the risks of their forbidden love.
John and Raoul struggle to keep their feelings for each other hidden while becoming ensnared in a web of international intrigue that threatens to ruin their careers and endanger their lives.
As they navigate the dangerous political landscape of the time, they must also confront their own demons and make a choice: follow the expectations of society or follow their hearts.
Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous era, "The Lord and the Frenchman" is a passionate and romantic tale of love that knows no bounds.
In the opulent courts of Victorian England, John Seales, Lord Therkenwell, is a man of wealth and privilege, expected to marry a woman of his own social standing and produce an heir. But when he meets dashing French diplomat Raoul Desjardins at a soirée arranged by a politically-connected gay couple, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the man despite the risks of their forbidden love.
John and Raoul struggle to keep their feelings for each other hidden while becoming ensnared in a web of international intrigue that threatens to ruin their careers and endanger their lives.
As they navigate the dangerous political landscape of the time, they must also confront their own demons and make a choice: follow the expectations of society or follow their hearts.
Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous era, "The Lord and the Frenchman" is a passionate and romantic tale of love that knows no bounds.
ebook
Published February 14, 2023
40 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Neil S. Plakcy
244 books653 followersI have been a voracious reader all my life, mostly in mystery, romance, and science fiction/fantasy, though a college degree in English did push a lot of literary works into my list of favorites.
Quick note: sign up for my newsletter at plakcy.substack.com to get free prologues, epilogues and short stories.
I began writing seriously in high school after an inspiring assignment with A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I didn't know I was gay then, but I knew I was longing for an emotional connection with a best friend. That desire shows up across my writing, from romance to mystery to adventure. I am lucky to have found my special person, and I want to inspire readers to make those connections, to one person or a found family.
It took getting an MFA in creative writing to kick-start my career. That's where I honed my technical skills and began to understand what kind of storyteller I am.
I remember reading Freddie the Detective about a very smart pig inspired by Sherlock Holmes. I’ve always believed that dogs make the best detectives. They notice what humans miss — a faint scent, a subtle shift in body language, the hidden treat in your pocket. That belief inspired my Golden Retriever Mysteries, where Rochester helps his human, Steve Levitan, nose out the truth.
My passion is telling stories where community, loyalty, and sometimes love solve problems just as much as clues do. Whether it’s a cozy mystery in Bucks County, a thriller on the streets of Miami, or a romance unfolding under the Mediterranean sun, I want readers to feel the heartbeat of the place and the people.
I write because stories helped me feel less alone growing up, and now I want to give readers that same feeling: a companion, a puzzle, and maybe a laugh.
When I’m not writing, I’m probably walking one of my own goldens, teaching writing, or daydreaming about my next story.
Since then I've written dozens of books, won a couple of treasured awards, and enjoyed the support of readers.
Every place I’ve lived has made its way into my fiction: the rolling hills of Bucks County, the neon heat of Miami, the beaches of Hawaii, the cobbled streets of Europe. I love exploring how communities work — from a café where dogs guide healing, to a fraternity house in South Beach, to a police unit in Honolulu.
My goal is simple: to write stories that feel grounded in real people and real places, but with enough twists, romance, or danger to keep you turning pages late into the night.
I hope you'll visit my website, where you can sign up for my occasional newsletter, and also follow my author page on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/neil.plakcy.
Quick note: sign up for my newsletter at plakcy.substack.com to get free prologues, epilogues and short stories.
I began writing seriously in high school after an inspiring assignment with A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I didn't know I was gay then, but I knew I was longing for an emotional connection with a best friend. That desire shows up across my writing, from romance to mystery to adventure. I am lucky to have found my special person, and I want to inspire readers to make those connections, to one person or a found family.
It took getting an MFA in creative writing to kick-start my career. That's where I honed my technical skills and began to understand what kind of storyteller I am.
I remember reading Freddie the Detective about a very smart pig inspired by Sherlock Holmes. I’ve always believed that dogs make the best detectives. They notice what humans miss — a faint scent, a subtle shift in body language, the hidden treat in your pocket. That belief inspired my Golden Retriever Mysteries, where Rochester helps his human, Steve Levitan, nose out the truth.
My passion is telling stories where community, loyalty, and sometimes love solve problems just as much as clues do. Whether it’s a cozy mystery in Bucks County, a thriller on the streets of Miami, or a romance unfolding under the Mediterranean sun, I want readers to feel the heartbeat of the place and the people.
I write because stories helped me feel less alone growing up, and now I want to give readers that same feeling: a companion, a puzzle, and maybe a laugh.
When I’m not writing, I’m probably walking one of my own goldens, teaching writing, or daydreaming about my next story.
Since then I've written dozens of books, won a couple of treasured awards, and enjoyed the support of readers.
Every place I’ve lived has made its way into my fiction: the rolling hills of Bucks County, the neon heat of Miami, the beaches of Hawaii, the cobbled streets of Europe. I love exploring how communities work — from a café where dogs guide healing, to a fraternity house in South Beach, to a police unit in Honolulu.
My goal is simple: to write stories that feel grounded in real people and real places, but with enough twists, romance, or danger to keep you turning pages late into the night.
I hope you'll visit my website, where you can sign up for my occasional newsletter, and also follow my author page on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/neil.plakcy.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 6, 2024
Entanglements, Blackmail, Espionage And A Butterfly!
An amorous connection at a house party starts an intriguing journey for both Lord Therkenwell and Raoul Desjardins. This is good storytelling with well-developed characters. There are diplomats scheming, governments jockeying for territory dominance, and inheritance in peril. Yet, underneath it all, is a romantic, sexy story. I highly recommend this interesting read.
An amorous connection at a house party starts an intriguing journey for both Lord Therkenwell and Raoul Desjardins. This is good storytelling with well-developed characters. There are diplomats scheming, governments jockeying for territory dominance, and inheritance in peril. Yet, underneath it all, is a romantic, sexy story. I highly recommend this interesting read.
February 22, 2023
The Lord and the Frenchman (Ormond Yard 2)
By Neil S. Plakcy
Published by the author, 2023
Five stars
What this book made clear to me is that, to engage a reader like me in a historical romance, you really need to dig into the history of the moment and weave that reality into the fictional narrative. Neil Plakcy does just that in this second of the Ormond Yard series.
Nominally, it’s a classic m/m romantic set-up of a dilettante aristocrat and a “normal” guy. But our young aristo here is John Seales, aka Lord Therkenwell, only son of a conservative Cornish earl. He’s not just a dilettante living off unearned wealth; he’s got a genuine social conscience, and is philosophically at odds with his crusty father, who is not only a hereditary peer, but also a modern-style industrialist who uses child labor in his factories. Young John spends his time writing polemical broadsides decrying the greed and selfishness of the ruling class, using the pseudonym “Janner.”
John cares about exploited workers and brutalized children – as much as he cares about the oppression of women by the men who control their lives. But John is a bit of a coward, to be honest. He won’t really engage his father publicly (or even privately) because, well, John is also “not the marrying kind.” He thinks his father suspects this truth, and fears losing his comfortable income. This is an important thread in the plot, although subtly played out.
The other important character is Raoul Desjardins, well-educated son of a vineyard worker from a small town near the French coast. He has moved up in the world, working in the French embassy in London, using his education to earn a living as a translator and low-level diplomat. Raoul meets John at a party hosted by Toby and Magnus – the couple at the center of the first book in this series.
To add to the complexity, this is a moment in British history (1872 or so) in which the powers in Europe have set their sights on the Dark Continent – Africa. Fifty years after Waterloo, France and England are at peace, but still culturally hostile, as both look to Africa as the future of their respective economies. Raoul and John get caught up in this sub-rosa conflict, and not only does it make the story interesting, it adds emotional and ethical considerations that remind a modern reader what a hot mess the world was.
Plakcy offers up John and Raoul as eyes through which we can see some unpleasant realities in a way that few writers other than Dickens ever dared in the period. He also deals very nicely with the rather frightening truth of being inclined toward one’s own sex in a world that had only recently dropped sodomy from the list of capital crimes.
Thomas Hardy would have made this a book where everybody dies at the end. Fortunately, Hardy is also dead, and we have Neil Plakcy to make us think about the past, without fearing too much for own emotional satisfaction.
By Neil S. Plakcy
Published by the author, 2023
Five stars
What this book made clear to me is that, to engage a reader like me in a historical romance, you really need to dig into the history of the moment and weave that reality into the fictional narrative. Neil Plakcy does just that in this second of the Ormond Yard series.
Nominally, it’s a classic m/m romantic set-up of a dilettante aristocrat and a “normal” guy. But our young aristo here is John Seales, aka Lord Therkenwell, only son of a conservative Cornish earl. He’s not just a dilettante living off unearned wealth; he’s got a genuine social conscience, and is philosophically at odds with his crusty father, who is not only a hereditary peer, but also a modern-style industrialist who uses child labor in his factories. Young John spends his time writing polemical broadsides decrying the greed and selfishness of the ruling class, using the pseudonym “Janner.”
John cares about exploited workers and brutalized children – as much as he cares about the oppression of women by the men who control their lives. But John is a bit of a coward, to be honest. He won’t really engage his father publicly (or even privately) because, well, John is also “not the marrying kind.” He thinks his father suspects this truth, and fears losing his comfortable income. This is an important thread in the plot, although subtly played out.
The other important character is Raoul Desjardins, well-educated son of a vineyard worker from a small town near the French coast. He has moved up in the world, working in the French embassy in London, using his education to earn a living as a translator and low-level diplomat. Raoul meets John at a party hosted by Toby and Magnus – the couple at the center of the first book in this series.
To add to the complexity, this is a moment in British history (1872 or so) in which the powers in Europe have set their sights on the Dark Continent – Africa. Fifty years after Waterloo, France and England are at peace, but still culturally hostile, as both look to Africa as the future of their respective economies. Raoul and John get caught up in this sub-rosa conflict, and not only does it make the story interesting, it adds emotional and ethical considerations that remind a modern reader what a hot mess the world was.
Plakcy offers up John and Raoul as eyes through which we can see some unpleasant realities in a way that few writers other than Dickens ever dared in the period. He also deals very nicely with the rather frightening truth of being inclined toward one’s own sex in a world that had only recently dropped sodomy from the list of capital crimes.
Thomas Hardy would have made this a book where everybody dies at the end. Fortunately, Hardy is also dead, and we have Neil Plakcy to make us think about the past, without fearing too much for own emotional satisfaction.
July 14, 2024
I think I need a Didn't Do The Research shelf.
The story is supposed to be set in the 1850s, but there are references to things that didn't exist until the 1870s, and almost none of the fashion described is period accurate. It's either 40 years out of date or 70 years ahead of its time. To be fair, the author does appear to have researched some things, just not fashion or infrastructure.
Apart from that, which to most readers would be a minor annoyance if they noticed at all, the story is incredibly repetitive. Two characters will converse and share a tidbit of information and two paragraphs later one of those characters repeats it almost verbatim to a third character. ON THE SAME PAGE.
Characters who are not the mains have POV chapters, and while they are characters from the first book and this might please the readers of that book, I was given to understand this was a standalone and hadn't read the first book. I had to stop reading to figure out wtf was going on.
Backstories are dropped in awkwardly, sometimes in the middle of a conversation. There were several words that don't mean what the author seems to think they mean. Overly formal dialogues in the most private of circumstances.
POSREIN: the sex scenes don't go on for pages and pages and pages.
As a fan of gay historical romance, and an even bigger fan of the Victorian era...this book was not for me.
TWO STARS because I've read SO MUCH WORSE.
The story is supposed to be set in the 1850s, but there are references to things that didn't exist until the 1870s, and almost none of the fashion described is period accurate. It's either 40 years out of date or 70 years ahead of its time. To be fair, the author does appear to have researched some things, just not fashion or infrastructure.
Apart from that, which to most readers would be a minor annoyance if they noticed at all, the story is incredibly repetitive. Two characters will converse and share a tidbit of information and two paragraphs later one of those characters repeats it almost verbatim to a third character. ON THE SAME PAGE.
Characters who are not the mains have POV chapters, and while they are characters from the first book and this might please the readers of that book, I was given to understand this was a standalone and hadn't read the first book. I had to stop reading to figure out wtf was going on.
Backstories are dropped in awkwardly, sometimes in the middle of a conversation. There were several words that don't mean what the author seems to think they mean. Overly formal dialogues in the most private of circumstances.
POSREIN: the sex scenes don't go on for pages and pages and pages.
As a fan of gay historical romance, and an even bigger fan of the Victorian era...this book was not for me.
TWO STARS because I've read SO MUCH WORSE.
November 19, 2024
I had a hard time following the jumps between characters. I listened to the audio and I know it says read by the author, but it felt like it was being read by tts. There was zero shift in voice and little change in spacing of words even during conversations and it caused me to have to repeat chunks to figure out who was who and what was happening. Maybe it was better in print? But my vision issues don’t allow that. The writing seemed like it was either a newer author or rushed through editing but that does not really bother me, all authors start somewhere and have less strong titles. I like listening to entire author lists to also see how they grow and develop their writing but it’s good to know if it does bother you. I was really excited for this series so I’m bummed I can’t say I loved it. Maybe others will enjoy it better.
June 25, 2025
I really enjoyed this historical romance. The drama, political intrigue, and mystery really pulled me in and the romance was strong and passionate. John Seales is a British aristocrat who secretly writes essays condemning the working conditions and abuses of the poor. His lover is Raoul, a Frenchman in service to his embassy. I was happy to revisit the Ormand Yard series again and look forward to reading more.
July 15, 2024
A wonderful take of two countrymen
The author is incredible at creating a story! The characters like real Life are flawed, seeking love and companionship. That love endures the bumpy road we call Life. I found the book charming and an awesome tale in a time when; much like today people are judged not for who they are, but for who they love.
The author is incredible at creating a story! The characters like real Life are flawed, seeking love and companionship. That love endures the bumpy road we call Life. I found the book charming and an awesome tale in a time when; much like today people are judged not for who they are, but for who they love.
March 15, 2023
I am hardened Georgette Hyer reader since 1973.
The only time I ever read another was Marion Chesney.
But I am now very pleased to find Mr. Plakcy to continue my love of romance novels. Nicely drawing me along way past my bed time.
The only time I ever read another was Marion Chesney.
But I am now very pleased to find Mr. Plakcy to continue my love of romance novels. Nicely drawing me along way past my bed time.
January 11, 2024
It's not "good" but it did entertain me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Read
October 14, 2025DNF
April 24, 2023
Edition should be PAPERBACK from Samwise Books but Goodreads doesn't list that edition option yet.
Entertaining historical gay novel involving international espionage, Victorian sexual repression and the need for clandestine activity.
One of Plakcy's better novels.
Entertaining historical gay novel involving international espionage, Victorian sexual repression and the need for clandestine activity.
One of Plakcy's better novels.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews