It’s 1946, and the dust of World War Two has just begun to settle. When famous archaeologist Rufus Denby returns to London, his life and reputation are as devastated as the city around him. He’s used to the most glamorous of excavations, but can’t turn down the offer of a job in rural Sussex. It’s a refuge, and the only means left to him of scraping a living. With nothing but his satchel and a … and a mongrel dog he’s rescued from a bomb site, he sets out to investigate an ancient church in the sleepy village of Droyton Parva.
It’s an ordinary task, but Droyton is in the hands of a most extraordinary vicar. The Reverend Archie Thorne has tasted action too, as a motorcycle-riding army chaplain, and is struggling to readjust to the little world around him. He’s a lonely man, and Rufus’s arrival soon sparks off in him a lifetime of repressed desires.
Rufus is a combat case, amnesiac and shellshocked. As he and Archie begin to unfold the archaeological mystery of Droyton, their growing friendship makes Rufus believe he might one day recapture his lost memories of the war, and find his way back from the edge of insanity to love.
It’s summer on the South Downs, the air full of sunshine and enchantment. And Rufus and Archie’s seven summer nights have just begun…
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I love historicals, but I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the magical elements in this story. But I thought the mixture of archaeology and mysticism was very well done and I rolled with it, Set post-WWII, the effects of the war on the characters are explored convincingly, and the romance between former army captain and current archaeologist Rufus and country vicar Archie (a secret atheist) was absolutely swoon-worthy. I listened to the audio, and the narration was wonderful. Gorgeous book!
I have recently discovered Harper Fox and her wonderful M/M books. They are uniquely beautiful. This one is set in post-WW2 Britain and is full of mythology, archaeology, ancient wisdom, goddess energy – and lovely, repressed gay Englishmen. The moment I finished it I went straight back to the beginning and started reading again.
Harper Fox’s writing and characters are among my favorites in the genre. This is a lovely magic-tinged post-WWII historical fantasy. Rufus Denby returned from active service with a significant case of shell-shock/PTSD. He has some minor amnesia about the worst episode. At times, he has nightmares he can’t wake up from, and he strikes out in unpredictable ways. After a bad reaction on an important dig, he’s recalled to England, and sent to investigate a church that might have some historical significance.
Although the job seems designed to keep him quietly out of the way, Rufus is relieved to take it on. He’s at the end of his mental, emotional, and financial rope, when he travels to investigate the ancient church in the sleepy village of Droyton Parva. There he comes into the orbit of the Reverend Archie Thorne, a young vicar whose own service overseas gives him some insight into Rufus’s troubles.
The Reverend Archie collects waifs and strays, bolstering his faltering faith by doing good works. Among them are a woman whose bouts of apparent madness have a deeper meaning, a child whose future is stranger than it seems, a young man who looks like a young woman, and more. The fates of the two war-weary men are bound together, but they will have to fight domestic enemies and their own natures to move forward.
I really loved the historical and relationship parts of this story. I also grew very attached to the characters, particularly the main characters, and the housekeeper. This was a wonderfully long book, with a plot that had both emotion and action in it. Harper Fox’s command of atmospheric language is as strong as ever.
In a way, I think I’d have loved this more had it been fully a historical, without the fantasy elements. In several places, the fantasy component eliminated obstacles and smoothed paths in a way that would otherwise have been impossible. At least there was real actual magic, not just romantic tropes, to account for the magical healing that took place a couple of times, but since I’m a big fan of angst, I was less fond of seeing obstacles to happiness swept away with the ease of fantasy. And the homophobia of the era was more alluded to than actually validated by the secondary characters in the book (whose acceptance was lovely, but lent a bit of additional unreality to the story.)
Those quibbles aside, this goes onto my starter list for favorite reads of 2017. I adored Archie, and really felt for Rufus in his ethical dilemmas, and his desire for a safe warm place and a loving man within it. The ending was unexpected enough to be fun, and happy enough to be satisfying. And I really enjoyed getting a range of strong female secondary characters in an M/M story. This goes on my reread shelf.
Another comfort-read for me that I have discovered included with my renewed Audible subscription. Beautifully narrated by Chris Clog, it’s a two-part novel set just after World War 2. Archie is a car-mad vicar without vocation. Rufus is a disgraced, shell-shocked archaeologist sent to investigate his church. It’s a story evocative of the shattered period after the war ended, bombed out houses still standing stark in London streets, men and women bent out of shape by years of fighting trying to fit back in to a more ‘normal’ life. Rufus and Archie are both damaged and hurt in different ways and Harper Fox’s delicate, precise writing paints them as perfect creatures with depth of character and emotion. The rural idyll of Archie’s village is laid over the top of past horrors in the same way the veneer of normality is starting to be laid over the horrors and displacement of the war. It’s one of my favourite books and I really recommend it, both in written form and narration.
OMG I just love Harper’s writing. That’s all I have to say. Just buy it. So original. A great read.