It Takes Two to Tumble

This isn't as memorable as some other Regency romances I've read this year but the two mains are charming in their own way. It has the typical trope of dead/mangled women in order to establish the romance which I could have done without. How Captain Dacre sees Ben (sunny disposition, always smiling) isn't really what we see when reading from Ben's POV so the disconnect there was a little odd. Almost all the drama is internal with whole paragraphs of dialogue being seperated by internal thoughts so it was a lot of “JUST TELL HIM THAT.” thoughts, but I feel like that's a common trope in M/M romances. The dyslexia seemed like something just thrown in as it doesn't really create much conflict; it was probably supposed to give Dacre some vulnerability but it obviously didn't affect his career that much and just gave him one more thing to hide from the world and something to relate to with one of his kids.
Overall, I'll try to continue with this series but Sebastian didn't make her way into my favourite MM authors with this one book.

Why is this man a physically absent and emotionally deadbeat dad and why are we expected to love him anyway lmao.

I know it wasn't odd at the time but he wasn't even being kept away? He just preferred going off to sea to play at adventure with his crew.

Benedict literally has to beg him not to abandon his own kids💀💀💀💀sorry but I can't take him seriously. And even then, it wasn't enough until his kid ran off and he had a come to Jesus moment? Sigh.

Really, what were his redeeming characteristics?

And then he found Ben, who was just as eager as his late wife to fill the role of present parent. Bet he was like aha! Another victim!

Lol. Anyway. Loved Ben. Very very iffy on Philip.

" I don't have many talents. But I'm good at telling people what to do and having them obey me. Let me do that, in your service."

I don't know why but I found this very hot. Philip ate that one little statement.

This book ended a little abruptly; it would have been nice to get an epilogue. Maybe the author chose not to because this is the first book in a series, and we'll see Ben and Philip again, but I just wanted a little more resolution.

Speaking of Philip - he is largely why this book is rated so low. While he did eventually grow on me, and I came to even enjoy his point of view, for the first several chapters I actively despised this man. I get that he's all grumpy and miserable, but I honestly wanted to drop kick him all the way back to his ship. Ben and the children caried the story in the early chapters, and the only reason I didn't want to see Philip choke on a cactus was purely for the sake of his children. (I mean, he was mad that his oldest son had a nickname that he didn't know about?! My guy, you weren't there, being a parent to your children, of course you don't know them! And his constant judgement about how wrong things were if they weren't exactly like his experiences on his ship. I can't even... Just no. Boo, Philip. Boo, in the bin with you! And Ben, my sweet sunshine boy, can you stop mooning over the grumpy asshole and just slap him like I know you want to? Please? As a personal favor?) 

Needless to say, Philip did improve (or this would have been a 2 star book, if I hadn't stopped reading altogether) - in that he stopped bossing everyone around, stopped blaming other people for his problems, and stopped thinking military precision and punishment were the only way to manage his children. By the midpoint, I was actively rooting for the pair to be together, though I wasn't sure how the author would manage it when both men seemed to want such different things.

All in all, this was a sweet story and a quick read with enough spice to keep things interesting. My favorite part by far was the familial plotline with Ben and Philip getting to be adorable gay dads, and watching Philip mend the relationship with his kids was heartwarming. I actually wish we'd gotten more of this.