Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Finding Forgiveness
AUTHOR: Ari McKay
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 pages
BLURB:
Boston in 1888 is quite urbane, but unfortunately for Gil Porter, that isn’t the same thing as being understanding. When his sexuality is exposed by the scandalous suicide of his lover, Gil is exiled to the small town of Mercy, Texas, by his domineering father, George, who believes life on Vernon Porter’s ranch will cure Gil of his “unnatural” desires. Grieving and ashamed, Gil is determined to keep his distance from everyone until he can return home. To his surprise, he finds acceptance at Bent Oak Ranch, especially from Matt Grayson, the handsome son of the ranch foreman. Knowing he must fight his attraction to Matt, Gil courts a local girl, but an unexpected encounter with Matt leads to his discovery of Matt’s feelings for him. Torn between Matt and his desire to be “normal,” between returning to his old life and building a new one in Texas, Gil is faced with a choice—appeasing his father or becoming the man Matt knows he can be.
REVIEW:
This review, I fear, has fallen victim to the plague that has beset my house…or in other words: I’ve got a cold and about three braincells up and running (and two of them are wholly focused on getting more tea) so this review is going to be probably less than perfect. I am sorry, just not sorry enough to put off this review (for like the third time). So…the review must go on!
Gil has found himself shipped off to Texas because his father was less than pleased to find out his one and only son has a bit of a thing for the menfolk. His father hopes that time spent on Gil’s uncle’s ranch will finally shape him into the man his father has always wanted. Too bad (for his father, at least) that the ranch happens to be rather less intent on shaping Gil, than it is on letting Gil shape himself. And Matt, the son of the ranch foreman, really does like the shape that Gil is turning himself into. Well…at least after Gil drops his holier-than-thou Boston elitist attitude. But Gil, despite how much he has grown, can’t seem to get past his past, or what he thought his future had to hold, so even though he finds himself attracted and damn well smitten he doubts that he could ever have what his heart desires. It is going to be up to the people of the Bent Oak Ranch to show him just how freeing the west can be.
This was a pretty light book, and it flew by quite quickly. And despite all his hemming and hawing about having to do ‘the right thing,’ I never really doubted that Gil would pull his head out of his ass and see that the future is whatever the hell you make of it. That it didn’t have to be dictated by every whim of his father. Gil and Matt were rather cute together and I am glad that they figured it out in the end. Even if it took Gild for-ev-er.
I just had some issues with the book itself.
The way it was written, and the way these guys talked, did not make it seem like it was set in 1880’s. Some of the characters talked, pretty much, like I would expect someone from now to talk. The dialogue, and some of the thought patterns, didn’t have any sense of age to them. It felt like if you had wrote this book to happen in 2014, you would only have to change a few things, like throw in a truck or two instead of wagons.
Also, while I am glad no one on the ranch was a homophobe or a bigot, that everyone was so loving and accepting seemed odd. And while Texas may be a great place to start over, where every man is judged on his deeds not his past–at least according to everyone in this book–it was also Texas in the 1880’s. Now, I’m probably going on about a thousand stereotypes about the south at this point, but the way that the characters here (except for the obvious bad guy: Gil’s dad) didn’t think it was a big deal at all to be gay, rung a bit false.
One of the things I love about m/m historicals is that pressure between who the men are, and what will happen if the world finds out who they are. And while I don’t expect everything to be all doom and gloom in every historically based book, I do want a little more reality than this. I wanted to feel like there were real consequences for Gil coming out–if only to justify his fear of doing so. But there really weren’t, so I kept getting endlessly frustrated with him and his idiotic plan to marry a woman to be ‘normal.’
I had a hard time getting past all this historical oddness to really enjoy the book. But then again, I’ve been spending the week wrapped like a burrito on my bed trying to convince my respiratory system, that yes, I do in fact need to breathe, thank you. I am not in the best place to gloss over inconsistencies in books, at the moment. I might have been more forgiving if I had not already had to deal with my body revolting against my every wish. So maybe it will not be such a big deal for others. It is a light read, if nothing else. And full of cute cowboys, and that is nothing to scoff at.
RATING: 
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