Customer Reviews

Lovers' Knot: An M/M Romance

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought this book was wonderful! It's set in a small Cornish village, and there's a gripping plot that involves ghosts and revenge and the return of a demon lover from our hero's past to bedevil him just as he's beginning to nerve himself up to confess his true love to the sunny young gentleman who is his guest at his newly acquired Cornish farmstead. A lovely meaty plot and a lush, evocative setting - banter and obvious ease between the two heroes, and a dangerous sensuality and threat from the lover of the past who is not as dead and gone as everyone might have hoped... It's a real classic of the genre in a similar vein to The Phoenix by Ruth Sims - a serious, literary book, but a delight to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

THERE IS A MINOR SPOILER IN THIS REVIEW.

I do apologize but I really could not come up with how not to mention it, especially since the blurb about the book mentions the ghost anyway, so maybe it is not a spoiler after all :)




This novel has all that I am looking for in m/m romance - sympathetic and likeable characters, interesting and rather complicated plot and a **love story**.
I was so so pleased that I found this gem. The setting is lovely, the language seems to be authentic to the period (not an expert here, but I love that it does not sound the way we talk today, even if it is not hundred percent true to the era).

I admit that while I did not have it in me to give four stars, because then I would have to give zero starts to so many books, my grade is probably 4.75 stars, because when I read this story for the first time, there was a point in this story when I felt that I was pulled out of the story, I felt that realistic setting and ghost did not really mesh together. I would have much preferred that "reality" of the ghost would have left more to reader's imagination, that maybe he was just part of the character's imagination if that makes sense. But honestly and truly that did not really influenced my enjoyment of the story overall, so maybe it was more my problem than writer's.

Thank you Mr.Hardy and I will certainly be buying your books in the future if you decide to write them.

This easily one of the best M/M romances I have read. The plot was inventive, the characters multidimensional, and the writing was extremely engaging. I particularly appreciated that it avoided many of the tiresome cliches of romance novels-- the purple prose, the generic sex scenes, the obvious villain-- as well as most of the tiresome cliches particular to the M/M genre-- the "Seme/Uke" or worldly/naive or buff/frail pairing, the character who thinks he is damaged but can be redeemed by the power of Twu Wuv, the blackmail angle, etc. I was particularly pleased to find characters who felt their fear and pain and needs deeply, but in a masculine, understated fashion. They felt very real to me, and that's a nice change from many of the stock characters readers get stuck with in this genre (and in all genre fiction. which, I suppose, is why they call it genre fiction.)


That said, I had a couple of quibbles that kept me from giving this a 5-star rating, one of which is specific to this book, and one of which is a more general frustration with the M/M genre universally-- so perhaps it's not entirely fair to isolate Mr. Hardy in this.

***SPOILERS BELOW!***





1) As much as I like supernatural stories, I had a hard time reconciling the supernatural element in this particular story. It was a wonderful historical novel, and so very realistic to me that the ghostly element didn't quite jibe with me. It never felt seamless to me, and I had a difficult time sustaining my disbelief as a result. I would have loved for this to either have had more supernatural elements from the start-- leading, perhaps, to a moodier, more atmospheric piece-- or a straightforward period piece. Mr. Hardy clearly has the talent to do both.

2) I wish the writers in this genre would find another plot device aside from rape and/or abuse!!! Seriously, people. Enough. It has come up in nearly every M/M story I have read. There has to be another way to get the characters together. It's not that I'm offended or disturbed by the topic (which, when you think about it is actually sort of problematic when you think about it), I'm just bored to tears by it. Please, authors! Find some new turf to tread!

But all complaints aside, this was a solid read. The relationship with Nat was wonderful and terrible and poignant, and Rose was a complicated antagonist. Alayne is a staunch friend and will be a wonderful partner for Jonathan. I would eagerly read anything else Mr. Hardy puts out based on this first venture... I just hope it'll be something that sidesteps the rape tropes.

Mr.Hardy is a breath of fresh air. I do not do plots, but I do praise them, as well as writing, character development, and command of language. This book deserves a wide-readership among m/m readers. There is so much poor writing, poor plotting, etc. besides sloppy porno out there, that to find some good stories and good writing is wonderful. I wish I could give a 10.

OUR BEDS ARE CROWDED. Our relationships are complex living organs, laden with scar tissue from times past, often relationships past. Even in our most intimate, most enduring relationships, it is impossible to know each other as thoroughly and completely as we might arrogantly think we do. As Louise DeSalvo points out in her book Adultery, Virginia Woolf addressed the issue of how well spouses or partners know each other in her fiction. In "The Legacy," written shortly before Woolf's suicide in the Thames river, Woolf presents Gilbert Clarendon, a widower recovering from his wife's recent "accidental" death, who assumes he knew all there was to know (which was not much indeed, he thought) about Angela his wife. Upon reading her diaries, which she intentionally left as her legacy to him, he discovers how very little he actually knew about her. In Mrs. Dalloway, Sally Seton notes the irony of how people who live together often know so very little of sustenance about each other.
Lovers' Knot is a brilliantly written tale set in the English countryside alternating between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the novel opens, Jonathan Williams is a man who has just inherited a sizeable estate, Trevaglan Fram, from his unmarried cousin, Andrew. Jonathan is no stranger to the estate, having visited it fourteen years earlier. Finding sudden unexpected wealth a bit unsettling, Jonathan asks his best friend and roommate since their Cambridge days, Alayne Langsford-Knight, to accompany him on a trip to the estate. Jonathan is to live there permanently, whereas Langsford will stay for a week then return to the London flat previously occupied by the two of them. He will now live there alone, visiting Jonathan at the farm whenever possible.
Secrets abound in this novel. We soon learn that the protagonist, Jonathan, is in love with Langsford (he is almost never referred to in the book by his first name) and dreads the thought of living separately from him. He dares not ask L:angsford to move to the farm with him, however, since to do so would betray feelings he is quite certain Langsford does not reciprocate. Jonathan is quite certain that Langsford is "normal" (i.e. straight). It isn't too long before it is revealed that Langsford harbors the same feelings for Jonathan, undeclared for precisely the same reasons.
Fourteen years earlier, as a visitor to the estate, Jonathan has an affair with a farmhand. Shrouded within two taboos: the illegality of homosexual behavior coupled with (pun intended) the breach in social norms (a person of the gentry class being overly with someone from a lower class), this love affair exists only under the careful disguise of an unlikely friendship. Although the friendship itself, according to social norms of the time, would normally have been considered inappropriate, cousin Andrew, master of the house, lends sanction to such a friendship, claiming it as a good distraction for the grief - stricken Jonathan (whose mother had just recently died and whose father had recently wed). When the friendship begins to show signs of a love affair, Andrew conspicuously turns a blind eye to what he appears to understand full well (Considering the fact that Andrew, a wealthy land owner in nineteenth century England remains a bachelor, one must wonder if his "deliberate blindness" suggests there some love of men in his own past). The affair has tragic and far reaching consequences, in both the past and the present day (1906, in this novel). No one speaks of this affair, either when it happens or fourteen years later, when Jonathan returns. Most assuredly, Jonathan refuses to speak of Nat or the relationship they had. In all his years of friendship with Langsford, he has never even mentioned Nat. Up until this trip, Langsford thought he knew all there was to know about his best friend; he is soon to discover that he is sorely mistaken.
Hardy does an extraordinary job of providing two separate and distinct narratives simultaneously, while also blending them together to show how one story affects the other. In the present, Langsford is deeply affected by this man, Nat, whom he has never met. Nat affects Langsford in ways in which the latter does not even comprehend throughout most of the novel.
Lovers' Knot artfully blends mystery, romance and the supernatural in this poignant tale, while providing social commentary as well. The same heterosexual societal forces which cause Septimus Smith to plunge to his death out of a window in Mrs. Dalloway, cause the tragic end of Jonathan and Nat. Bowing to society will likewise be the death of what could be a loving relationship for Jonathan and Langsford, if they do not have the courage to step out of the box they (like many of us) have been taught to inhabit.
Highly recommendable as this novel is, two shortcomings are noteworthy. Love scenes are described mostly in general details, kissing being as passionate as it usually gets. It lacks the luster that one may find in any heterosexual novel. Secondly, this reviewer finds the traditional literary notion of the doomed M/M romance (usually ending in death) to be a bit trite, annoying and overdone. From Forster, to Baldwin, to Williams, the doomed gay man (as well as the gay man "forced" to carry out a straight acting life), has been overdone. It put a damper on what was otherwise a very worthwhile, engaging and thought provoking novel.
When all is said and done, a superb job and a fabulous read.

I seldom get excited enough to give ANYTHING 5 stars, but after finishing this most satisfying novel, I really had to. I've read a fair number of gay fiction/romance novels in recent years. Sometimes they're actually good, but most are such "fairy tales", with one dimensional, silly, cliche'd characters, and/or very unlikely events. With this book however, Donald L. Hardy has created something truly wonderful. I think it must be pretty tough for anyone to write a believable "period piece" at all, but he's done it here. And the characters are magnificent! All are believable, interesting, and very three-dimensional. I found myself caring deeply about the people in the book, and was greatly touched with the description of the romance(s) between the main characters. It almost felt like Wuthering Heights meets Upstairs, Downstairs or something at times, though of course the time period was somewhere between these two. I also seldom read a book more than once, but this one, in time, I will simply have to enjoy again. Buy it. You'll love it!

I won't be able to do this book justice.

A warning: I'm an emotional mess in this period, so I think I was a fertile soil for the visceral feelings this book stirred in me. It's a historical romance with the touch of a classic and, even if the story is not as charged, it reminded me a few times of The Turn of the Screw. There are many elements in this story: romance, mystery, a touch of paranormal (or superstition?). Everything contributed to the constant feeling of dread and uncertainty, vulnerability, danger. Pretty angsty.

Jonathan and Langsford have known each other for years, they are very much in love, but they've never confessed these feelings to each other. When Jonathan inherits a farm in Cornwall, Langsford goes with him to spend a week together before he has to go back to London and probably put an end to the very close relationship he has with Jonathan. He'd like to finally confess his love to his friend, to get a weight off his chest, but many things happen on the farm, things that make him realize that Jonathan is maybe a different person than what he thought and that his reserved character probably hides some horrible secret.

In Cornwall Jonathan is forced to face the memories of his past and tragic love for Nat, a farm hand who had become his first lover 14 years before. That love was tragic because Nat had drowned falling from a cliff and leaving a pregnant girl, who he had to marry before his death. That girl, Rose, is now living on the farm and working for Jonathan and making everything in her power to make Jonathan miserable, since she thinks Jonathan is responsible for Nat's death. Alec - Nat and Rose's son - is the living remainder of the man who had so much influence on Jonathan's life.

Jonathan's love for Nat is told in a series of flashbacks. We learn of the young lovers' bliss at the beginning while shadows gather on their future. Their love is almost naive, but it's powerful and it binds them with their own deeds and their own words that seem to stir an ancient and dark magic. The times are not right for their love, which is considered against nature and law. There's also a malevolent will set against them. Slowly we see their story progress to its horrible and tragic end.

The main characters of the story are Jonathan and Langsford. They complete each other. Langsford is like the light, sunny and cheerful; Jonathan is more reserved and contained, but Langsford is able to bring out his more playful side.

The figure that stuck in my mind was Nat. I don't think we really know the truth about him, if he was really truthful in his relationship with Jonathan or if the cruel words of other characters were closer to the reality of what he was and what he was doing to Jonathan. I like to think that he was really born under an unlucky star, but even in his most horrible moments, his desperation for a future he couldn't change got to me and made me hurt so much that I can't still believe it. Reading his last encounter with Jonathan was incredibly hard and painful. Everything he did was wrong, and he knew it, and he couldn't help it.

The book is full of the most different feelings. There's love and tenderness, but there's also violence and desperation, there's deceit and revenge, but there's also friendship and generosity. There are people with an aura of ancient power and old rites in a land which seems to retain its pagan heritage. I don't think it's a book for everyone. It's not explicit, but sensual. I'd recommend it to those who like historical books where romance is more promised than given.

I can sum this one up easily enough, with the word excellent. Despite a few gothic trappings and a hint of the supernatural, I'd classify this one as a historical rather than a gothic. And quite honestly, it's one of the best gay-themed historicals I've read as of yet. I loved it---very well written with engaging characters and a great plot.

But I'm frustrated to know that this is the author's only novel thus far---I certainly hope he's working on another book, because I'd check out anything else he's written in an instant.

Very highly recommended---give it a try.

Having read a number of M/M Romance novels of late, I found this one to have a level of class and literary merit that others do not quite manage to show. Personally I do not get the big attraction to stories about ghosts, or the supernatural, so that part of this story was a distraction for me. The obvious romance between the two leading men in this story, as well as the protagonist's "flashback romance experience" were believable and handled with good taste. This was not a story where the sex seemed contrived or out of place. Nor was it a story where sex was over used. Sometimes one gets the impression authors resort to writing about a sexual encounter to mask the fact that their story line or characterization are weak. Here the balance was perfect. A great read. Thank you Donald. I look forward to your next foray into M/M

Lovers' Knot kept me enthralled from the first page to the last. As an avid reader of Victorian mysteries I commend Mr. Hardy's research for the time period and the language. His rich descriptions of the characters and their surroundings brought them to life. What a great love story. It's the first time in years that I have teared up while reading. I can't wait for his next novel!