Sarah Granger: A Minor Inconvenience

Duty, honor, propriety…all fall in the face of love.

Captain Hugh Fanshawe returned from the Peninsular War with a leg that no longer works properly, thanks to a French musket ball. Now his fight against Napoleon is reduced to quiet, lonely days compiling paperwork at Horse Guards headquarters.

His evenings are spent dutifully escorting his mother and sister to stifling social engagements, where his lameness renders him an object of pity and distaste. But his orderly, restricted life is thrown into sudden disarray with the arrival of Colonel Theo Lindsay.

Theo is everything Hugh is not—a man of physical perfection and easy yet distinguished address. Surprisingly to Hugh, Theo appears to be interested in making his acquaintance. Lindsay turns out to be a most convivial companion, and Hugh finds great pleasure in his company. Their friendship deepens when they become lovers.

In spite of himself, Hugh falls desperately in love. But when a French spy is suspected at Horse Guards, Hugh discovers nothing is as it seems…and the paper he shuffles from day to day could be the instrument of his lover’s death.

Product Warnings
Contains gallant English officers in love, dastardly French spies, skintight pantaloons (sometimes on the floor) and gleaming tasseled Hessians.

When I got sent this book some months ago, I sent it to my ebook queue and admittedly forgot about the plot. So, I was pretty surprised when what started as a typical Regency book transformed quickly into a Regency romance about two heroes (instead of a hero and heroine). And in case you are thinking I am an idiot for not discerning that from the cover, let me clarify that I have an old school e-reader that seldom has pretty pictures. This was one of those cases where the cover did not show up.

As my first foray into the historical MM romance (male/male), I think Sarah Granger was a great guide. She clearly did her homework, with a lot of detail about the military and Regency era military movements, great cultural references, rooted language, and few anachronisms. Its part of what made the book so enjoyable, and I am thrilled to see Granger has more novels to try out.

Granger deals with the intimate scenes with a tasteful, gentle hand that skipped a lot of belaboring of body parts and graphic by blows. Some readers will find that frustrating, however I thought it made the scenes sexier. Although in recent years, I have come to really appreciate traditional Regencies (PG or clean as I sometimes refer to them), I can appreciate a well-told erotic story…and I think Minor Inconvenience strikes a careful balance between sensuality and the romance which should always be part of a good Reg Rom.

The heroes are both interesting characters, with a lot of crafted depth. One is the more hardened rakehell type, although apparently a pretty prodigious diplomat and military man while the main protagonist, Hugh, is the solid, dutiful son who has returned from war wounded. While abroad, Hugh has come to identify his sexual orientation but is still unsure what that means for his future. In the context of the era, which I believe Granger does with attention to detail, this must have been a terrifying prospect with the very real threat of prosecution, public humiliation, and punishment if out-ed to the wrong person.

I loved the subplot with Hugh’s sister as a great contrast to his own love story. I also think it really helped to add that Regency flavor and was a great mechanism to really showcase the character’s finer qualities. The intrigue was a little ho-hum to me…maybe a bit too predictable and over too soon, with a bit of the melodramatic thrown in to the villian at the last ditch, but in some ways it was fun to see what is so familiar in the MF Regency repeated in the MM Regency.

Overall, I really enjoyed this fast-paced read and would definitely check out more from Sarah Granger. I think if she can continue to take some of those tried and true tropes and turn them on their ear for the MM historical, it will be fun not only for new readers to the genre but also for those of us voracious Reg Readers who deserve a good shake up now and again.

I am thinking, perhaps, a man masquerading as a female masquerading as a man? Or maybe a companionship of convenience? We really need a working Reg stories forum!

5 Stars 4 out of 6 A sexy MM take on the classic (but not traditional) Regency, replete with a villian, lots of balls, and a dashing man in a scarlet coat.