by
Morgan Turner, agent to the Winthrop estate, owes everything to his benefactor. When the late baronet’s will tasks him with finding the lost heir and making a gentleman of him, he is determined to succeed.
Thirteen years ago, Evelyn Winthrop ran away to sea. Now that his hated patriarch is dead, the ancestral home he returns to is more shadowed than what he left behind. Ungrateful relations and old friends alike tie a knot of scandal and depravity only a sailor could hope to unravel. And all the while, the siren song of the sea calls him to return at the first opportunity.
Neither anticipated forming more tender attachments.
To Evelyn, his unexpectedly handsome agent is the only thing anchoring him to shore. He sees a captain’s soul within Morgan, and his heart is caught upon the hook of command—if only Morgan would return his affections.
To Morgan, his new employer’s charms threaten to tear down the thorns that have grown around his heart—thorns he cultivated to restrain his unnatural instincts.
When the estate and all who live there are threatened by a maelstrom of bitter secrets and sinister plots, it is down to Morgan to take command, down to Evelyn to hold fast, and down to them both to navigate their own treacherous sea.
(Previously published as Take Me Like a Sailor.)
- 3 To Be Read lists
- 2 Read lists
Publisher: Independently Published
Genres:
Pairings: M-M
Heat Level: 5
Romantic Content: 5
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Gay
Protagonist 1 Age: 26-35
Protagonist 2 Age: 26-35
Tropes: Death of Parent, Hurt / Comfort, Lost Heir, Rescue
Word Count: 111480
Setting: Cumberland, England
Languages Available: English
“For God’s sake!” Sir Evelyn burst out behind him. “Are you ever going to fuck me, or am I going to have to satisfy myself on a belaying pin?“
Morgan had stopped at the sound of Sir Evelyn’s voice. He began to turn at the word “fuck,” and by the end of the sentence his spine was flush with the door. He and Sir Evelyn stared at each other for a long, silent moment.
“I beg your pardon?” said Morgan, working double to keep his tone even.
“A belaying pin,” Sir Evelyn said, ambling over to stand nose-to-nose with Morgan, “is a bit o’ wood, to which one ties off a bit o’ rope. Yea long—” Here he held out his hands, palms facing each other, roughly a foot apart. “—and yea wide.” He made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, holding it up for Morgan’s inspection.
READ MOREMorgan’s throat bobbed in a nervous swallow. He needed to speak, to say something sensible, to remind Sir Evelyn of his status as a gentleman and how inappropriate his suggestions were—no matter how well they sounded to the base instincts lurking in Morgan’s mind.
Sir Evelyn’s lips quirked in a self-deprecating smile. “’Course, I’d much rather have your pin. If you take my meaning.”
A rattling noise came from the door behind Morgan. A half-second later he recognized it as the sound of his own hand fumbling with the latch. He ought to throw the door open, fall into the corridor, and scramble up to his feet again, flee from Sir Evelyn, from the estate, from his own shameful, unspeakable desires.
Instead, with a dull thud, he threw the deadbolt shut.
COLLAPSESebastian Nothwell is quickly becoming my favorite historical m/m author. Take Me Like a Sailor is his second foray into the genre and it would be safe to say that I absolutely devoured this book. The plot is captivating and dramatic and it swept me up from page one. I would go so far as to say the action occasionally borders on melodramatic, but of the very best kind. The threats feel real and the consequences deadly. And there are lines that often come out of nowhere and left me laughing out loud. The title alone made me chuckle. As with Nothwell’s first historical, Mr. Warren’s Profession, it’s the characters that drive this book. Morgan and Evelyn feel vibrant and alive, men of flesh and blood that we can imagine meeting because they are so well developed and defined. Evelyn is a bit of twit at times and more than once I wanted to throttle him when he failed to heed Morgan’s warnings regarding the antagonist. But this naïveté felt like a natural extension of his personality, so it also felt believable. The secondary cast is strong and the women represented are of their time, but strong and intelligent, which I appreciated.
... Don’t let the warnings dissuade you from reading this book if possible. It’s worth your time and effort if you can bear it’s more gruesome aspects. Take Me Like a Sailor is a fantastic romance, but it’s also a solid and wonderfully enjoyable piece of historical fiction. This one will play merry hell with your emotions, but it’s a divine read and I can’t recommend it more highly.
