They were all rich brats, all from monied families, all connected to everyone, to everything, to the warm center of American politics and wealth. They’d had saltwater pools and au pairs and fast cars; they grew up trilingual and vacationed in places so exclusive most people couldn’t name them. And Brenton Tucker, son of the long-time North Carolina senator, and Reid Wells, son of his … chief-of-staff, enjoyed it all together, from their childhood in Sidwell Friends to their graduation from Phillips Exeter.
But in retrospect, when you borrow-not-steal film equipment, when you’re nabbed with drugs in your pocket, and when the Secret Service rats you out for sleeping with the vice president’s kids — at the same party, at the same time, in adjacent rooms — your parents freak out about their walking risks to senatorial reputation. Best friends Reid and Brenton find themselves warehoused after graduation at Highlands Bridge Academy: two years, no contact with the outside world, beat-the-man-into-you, all-boys, all the time. You’re rumored to come out a little — well, not right.
But award-winning, dreamy cinematographer Brenton has access to the academy’s film department, one of the best in the country. And Reid has a plan: he’s slept with a guy or two, who’ve told him whom they’ve slept with, who know who else has slept around. Reid rounds up eight of them and explains the plan: with straight Brenton as director, they film the types of scenes people pay huge sums of money for: Skull and Bones meets Eyes Wide Shut. It’s not cam boys; it’s art house films — starring very, very attractive guys. Reid’s pining for Brenton, like he has since he can remember. He might as well have this to distract him.
And in the meantime, he can also distract himself with sweet, shy Cash — who’s also into Scott, rumored to be at Highlands for hijacking the Fort Sumter ferry. But as Brenton stands as the straight man behind the camera, all those confusing feelings about Reid to surface — and spread, and tangle with Cash and Scott. Brenton, Reid, Cash, and Scott are making movies. They’re trying to figure out where they stand with each other. But they also might be falling in love.
With a gay for you narrative, a best friends to lovers trope, a young daddy, and lots of movie scenes, The Masked Boys not only delivers plenty of boy drama without high angst, but also the twists and turns inherent in multiple-partner relationships, all told in the lyrical prose you’d expect from what’s being called Julia McBryant’s best novel yet.
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I really loved this book and I don’t think I’m going to be able to describe just how much I did!
I have read quite a few books by Julia McBryant and I can safely say that this is definitely one of my favourites.
Brenton and Reid,best friends since forever,caught doing something they shouldn’t have been doing,are sent to Highlands Bridge Academy,as a last resort.
To distract themselves from the boring, suffocating environment surrounding them, Brenton and Reid come up with an idea.
What starts out as a plan to earn money ends up as so much more when, during the filming of art house scenes,all of Brenton’s hidden feelings are woken up.
I don’t want to give spoilers for this story, what I want to do is highly recommend this book to everyone.
I wanted this book to be longer and I would definitely read more about these characters.
Fantastic polyamorous read.
I had so many conflicting emotions while I read this one. Four lost boys together in a place where one on one and possessive don’t work. And I just wanted to hug and punch them all at once.
It’s steamy, of course it is, when it’s about boys filming porn, it can’t be anything else. With all the emotions that could be a part of life long loving and new crushes.
The author always writes the lost boys so well, in a way that brings you in with them and you want to wrap them up and care for them.
Something new was the addition of jealousy, it’s not something that is truly in her other stories, except for brief moments. I loved the story and hope for more.
What started out as gay-for-pay turned into a beautiful relationship between four boys.
All four had their reasons for being at the academy. Brenton and Reid were the closest of friends as they are a week apart in age and grew up together. They always had each other’s back no matter the situation.
Brenton and Cash seem to need the comforting the most and Scott and Reid were good at comforting them. When things moved on from one-on-one to a threesome to a foursome you could feel the togetherness even though there were a few moments of “can this actually be done”. These boys were perfect for each other as a group. They each brought something to the able the others were in need of.
I also loved that Brenton had this beautiful artistic mind where he tried with his whole heart to make the world see things thru his eyes, hence the gay-for-pay Plan. Plus, it didn’t hurt to pad your pocket for the real world.
I just love Julia’s writing. This book just sucked me in and made me want to hug each of those boys and tell them that their family can suck it and in order to be happy you can make your own family. I also love that Julia threw in some names of characters that we know from other books of hers. I have loved everything that I have read from Julia but this book, sigh, this book was everything and a damn fine read and a must for your TBR.
This book was steamy! And I mean really really steamy! It was also really well written, with a unique plot and a great group of characters. They weren’t perfect, they were flawed, they made mistakes and questionable choices but they still tried to make sense of life and I think that by the end of the book they were better. I loved how the relationships between the main four characters evolved and how they ended up in the end. There was a scene between Brenton and Scott that was one of my favorite hurt/comfort scenes I’ve ever read. It hit all of my buttons and just melted my heart.
I really enjoyed reading it and I hope there’s going to be more!
I received an ARC of this book for an honest review.
This book is so much everything. It’s complicated relationships, hot boys, hotter sex, drama, and tender all wrapped into one.
This is not your typical Julia McBryant novel. Normally, Julia writes these high emotion, super angsty books with boys that you just want to hold and take care of because they’re so broken. You don’t get that here. These four boys aren’t broken. Lost, but not broken. And it’s brilliant.
It’s hot, dirty, tells an actual story of four angsty teens getting what they need without being ridiculous. The sex wasn’t boring, which with everything they were doing could have been, kudos to the author on that as there are only so many ways you can write sex.
Brenton is such a perfect, spacey, nut of a boyfriend. He’s the director, before being sent to Highlands Bridge he won awards for his films. He wants to create something beautiful and with his best friend and two other lovers he does. You can’t help but love the dreamy nut.
There were times where Reid is a little bitch and I wanted to punch him but he got better. His love for Brandon was all-encompassing and that’s what you have to understand. He’s not acting the jealous boyfriend because that’s who he is, but because for so long he wanted for what he thought was unattainable. Reid goes on a journey, it’s long and painful but at the end you can see why the others love him. That’s characterization.
Cash is such a baby and needs all the cuddles. He never had people who cared or who stayed, his parents shipped him off to military school when he was twelve and he never felt safe. Not until the Plan. Not until Scott, Brenton, and Reid. Not until he finds love in the most unlikely of places and gets to keep it.
Scott is mine. I will cut someone. He’s a baby Daddy. He takes care of Brenton and Cash. He gives Reid a safe space to just be and to have equal footing with a partner. He’s the sanest of the four. I love how steadfast he is. How help knows how to be what his partners need when they need it, especially since everyone is so different.
With the gay for pay/porn aspect, the relationship between the four of them could have gone so wrong but it didn’t. It didn’t feel like the four of them were just being thrown together. They all had specific needs and reasons to need one and it worked. It worked so well through all the jealousy and insecurity and feels.
Their relationships, while messy and complex are seamless and you can feel how they’re able to make them work.
It could have gone really wrong and been clumpy or just confusing or not work at all. It didn’t. Julia McBryant truly pulled out all the stops and created a beautifully written novel about love and art-house style porn. I’ve never read anything like it before and I never will. The Masked Boys is a unique masterpiece of a book.