Provoked

It's rare to find an m/m book that isn't made up of pages and pages of sexathons, held together by a paper-thin plot. So imagine my delight when I stumbled on this book and discovered that there was an actual, meaty plot going on and that we get to thoroughly explore the psyche, motivations and feelings of our main character, David.

From the book, we truly understand and feel the sadness, desperation and frustration of living as a homosexual man during a time when same sex relationships were not just frowned upon but is considered criminal.

David is a very upright, moral man and preferred to live as a celibate, refusing to marry for the convenience of it even if it would greatly help his career. Murdo is the opposite. As an aristocrat he's expected to marry well, and he is happy to treat marriage as a transaction and to “fulfil his needs once in a while” .

David finds this abhorrent, Murdo finds David's abhorrence abhorrent. ;P So, yes, these two clash often about this. The sex scenes in this book enhances the plot rather than distracts from it.

My only criticism is that it's only from David's point of view - I would have very much liked to read Murdo's POV to get a more rounded story.