There are so many layers to this story in addition to the lovely complicated love-loss-love plot Daniel (our only point-of-view character) has to navigate. The mystery is complex, the love interest's background, ditto, and even the epilogue reveals another level! I read this one slowly because I didn't want to miss anything. If all you want is m/m romance, leave this one for later. If you are ready for something rich and emotional and surprising, this is your novel. Highly recommended. ( )

Harper Fox is the queen of sensuality. She enthralls us in her world effortlessly, and her characterization is simple but effective. She doesn't over-write, or leave us behind with leaps of imagination. Her details are as evocative as they are largely imagined by ourselves. But about the sensuality, I don't think I would care if no one ever had sex in her books, because the romance sparkles with such electricity, that I could read the non-sex sexiness for hundreds of pages. I jump to add, Salisbury Key is perfect as it is.

Jason Ross is a wealthy, and eminent archaeologist, his young lover Daniel Logan is an up-and-comer and his student, and their passionate affair ends as dramatically, and recklessly, as it began. Salisbury Key is pretty angst ridden. I mean, god, the novel begins shortly before someone commits suicide, that has to carry some weight or else there isn't a proper dimension to the severity of events. Despite, or because of the mysterious nature of Jason's death, Daniel continues to search the Salisbury Plain for the mysterious key which Jason's work had long been pointing toward. Lieutenant Rayne is introduced to help the stoic Daniel finish Jason's life work, but after a few heart-clenching days, Daniel's grief gets the better of him and the attraction between them both comes to a head.

Not over-playing the gay-in-the-military angle, Rayne and Daniel's budding relationship draws some unwanted attention, from friends of Jason's and military personnel who never wanted archaeologists digging around on Salisbury Plain in the first place. But suspicions are aroused when it becomes apparent that the excavations are seen as more than a nuisance, they are potentially even a threat to a secret which has been buried for decades, and should never, ever be brought back into the light of day.

Instead of discussing technique, characters and plot, I'm going to share with you a passage from the book which I really liked.
"But I didn’t have to find him. He was halfway down the stairs on his way to find me. When he saw me he came to a halt, and so did I, transfixed, throwing out a hand to the doorframe to steady myself. The old copper lantern in the hallway was shedding a warm glow from its amber panes. Jason, gripping the banister, looked as I might have imagined his ancient Greek namesake to do, after dealing with his golden fleece and dark-eyed exotic witches and his last Argonaut—descending slowly into his kingdom, his princely hall. Tired, with the salt of his voyages still tangled in his wet hair… So beautiful that my eyes stung, his summer silk robe clinging damply to the contours of his shoulders and back. He was naked underneath. It's front hung open, exposing him from the hollow of his throat to the place where his half-erect c--- was rising from the shadows of his groin."
As one reviewer succinctly says, Harper Fox's dramas should be unbearable, verging on melodramatic, but "somehow they have a wonderful reality, [and] this comes from the light touch within her writing." It's almost as though she's delicately retelling intimate secrets and tales from real people, whom she knows very well. If you enjoy great romance novels, give Harper Fox a read. Though this is the second of hers I've read, I'm willing to vouch that all of them are at least good.

272pp. Samhain Publishing. 3rd Jan. 2012

Really liked it and I know it would be totally cheesetastic, but come on a story about Winter? Great story, brilliantly angst and sexy. Great read. ( )

This author does such a great job of writing deep characterizations, descriptive environments, and intricate plot line.


There were so many times I cried for Daniel and what he goes through. Beautiful story. ( )

So. Here we are. And I am in no better condition today to review than I was the other day when I finished reading. There was pain and beauty, suffering and redemption, I can honestly say there was probably a little thing for everyone in this story.

Language-wise I am in awe, and that, my friends, happens only very seldom. All verbs were correct, both in usage and in tense (horrifyingly uncommon, these days), and the descriptor words used were far-reaching, mesmerizing, controlling me, the reader. Fabulous. A lot of precision has gone into the choice of words here, and for me, that is such a bonus. I feel appreciated, as a reader, when my author goes the extra mile to deliver a fine, fine product. So thank you for that, too, Harper Fox. I'll be trawling your list of books soon.

What about this story, then? Well, it was a little bit incredible, then it became more credible, and then it went right back into ( a good kind of) incredible again. I had all the feels when reading, and then it heaped some quite impossible feels on top of the others, and my mind was officially blown about half-way in. And then it kept on GIVING. Good words, fabulous settings, cool and hot sex, angry and sad and happy and snot-sobbing-wailing-sadness... Sorry, yes, I'm in a muddle here, all the feels, as you can see.

The narrative jumps back and forth in the most delicious way, and the action scenes are interspersed by deep thoughts and philosophical yearnings. Quite scholarly, without ever getting pompous. (Well, Jason was probably quite the pompous British university professor, but he's not around much, right?)

This is a study of losing your love, and finding life again. I especially appreciated Daniel's growth as an independent person without the support of Jason. He was quite submissive to Jason, and it grated on me in the beginning, how he couldn't even put down a glass on a table without thinking about whether it would be staining something valuable or not. Jason was a hell of a micro-manager, I think.

So, some excerpts, as per my usual MO:

"Rayne kissed me. It was the gentlest of gestures, only the brush of his lips to my brow. But it held me down, kept me warm, in a time-slip whirlwind threatening to demolish the frail reality I'd constructed..."

See what I mean with wording? It just paints such a vivid picture. Some may say there are too many words here. I say there are *exactly* as many words as it takes.

or how about:

"I burst out laughing, forgetting for whole seconds that my world had crashed and burned."

We've all been there, when sorrow is all you have, and suddenly you realize you are laughing again for the first time. It gets cut short by a wail and a painful blocking of your lungs. And when that happens, after all that introspection, it gets countered with Reyne's down-to-earth:

"Breathe, you fucking pillock."

Yeah, I had to look up that word, too. I love it when that happens.

Brilliant stuff, this.

So, all in all a very pleasurable read. I was taken by the hand and led from A all the way to Z without missing a single beat. That's quite a feat, in my book. Add to that the fact that there is also a backstory that runs all the way without breaking down, and I'd say it's a very good and rounded story. Romance? Thriller? Detective story?

You decide. For me, M/M Romance just seems like a straight-jacket on this one, it is so much more.
I think I'll go with all the above, and then some.


***
I was NOT asked to read this book by anyone, I paid for it with my own money, as I do for all the books I read, all the music I listen to and the movies I watch.
( )