Reviewed by Stephen K
TITLE: Illicit Relations
Series: (Boys Will Do Boys #5)
AUTHOR: Lucy Felthouse
Narrator: Nick Dee
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 1 Hour 59 Minutes
RELEASE DATE: April 5th 2017
BLURB:
Terry’s had a crush on his second cousin Justin for what seems like forever. He’s hidden it as well as possible, knowing that the other man is out of bounds, forbidden fruit. Second cousins getting together isn’t actually illegal, but for Justin the relationship is too close—he just can’t contemplate them being together.
But when some new information comes to light about Terry’s birth and his place in the family, the whole game changes. Suddenly the relationship isn’t so impossible, and things soon begin to get hot and heavy.
REVIEW:
Terry and his second cousin Justin have been constantly thrown together at family gatherings as long as both boys can remember. Terry is gay though he’s not out and he’s suspecting more and more that his cousin is as well and the attraction he’s been feeling is mutual.
I’ve always been a bit fascinated by stories like this, partly because I’ve never understood why the taboo against relationships between two gay men of consanguinity exists. Too close a genetic relationship between heterosexual spouses can and has led to genetic deformities etc. But in gay men, that’s clearly not an issue. I can even understand that problems might arise in sexual relationships between individuals in the same household. There can be issues of consent, duress, and so forth. But provided that those issues don’t exist, I can see no problem. I’ve always been hoping to understand this better but nothing I’ve read has ever presented any situation that might explain the taboo.
This story doesn’t change that. In fact it manages to side-step the issue altogether due to plot developments that I’ll not detail here for fear of spoiling the story for anyone.
The “boys” in this story are both described as being 30 and yet the situation and their personas both felt much younger, 20 or even 18 perhaps. I’m not sure why the author chose to make them the age she did. But, it was no great chore for me to shave a decade off the ages of these two fictional characters.
The narrator here is Mick Dee. As far as I can determine this is his first foray into audio-book narration. His basic narration is well done with good pacing. However his female character voices need some serious work. It also felt like the two main characters voices were a bit too similar. I sometimes got the POV confused, but that may have partly been the fault of the author.
This was a pleasant enough listening experience, but it doesn’t have the depth of detail, or the chemistry that I generally require for an audio-book to make it into to my frequent re-listen queue.
RATING: 
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