Reviewed by Larissa

 

TITLE: Finding Home: The Complete Series

SERIES: Finding Home

AUTHOR: Lily Morton

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 885 pages

RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2022

BLURB: 

The bestselling Finding Home series is now available in one collection. Set in Cornwall, the series follows a group of friends as they each find love with a lot of heat and humour along the way.

Oz

Oz Gallagher does not do relationships well. Bored and jobless after another disastrous hook up, he decides to leave London for a temporary job in the wilds of Cornwall. Surely managing a stately home on a country estate will be easier than navigating the detritus of his relationships at home.

However, when he gets there, he finds a house in danger of crumbling to the ground and a man who is completely unlike anyone he’s ever met. An earl belonging to a family whose roots go back hundreds of years. Silas is the living embodiment of duty and sacrifice. Two things that Oz has never wanted. He’s also warm and funny and he draws Oz to him like a magnet.

Will falling in love be enough to make Oz stop moving at last and realise that he’s finally home?

Milo

Milo has been burying himself at Chi an Mor, hiding from the wreckage of his once promising career and running from a bad relationship that destroyed what little confidence he had. Niall, his big brother’s best friend, has been there for him that entire time. An arrogant and funny man, Niall couldn’t be any more different from the shy and occasionally stuttering Milo, which has never stopped Milo from crushing wildly on the man who saved him.

However, just as Milo makes the decision to move on from his hopeless crush, he and Niall are thrown into close contact, and for the first time ever Niall seems to be returning his interest. But it can never work. How can it when Milo always needs rescuing?

Content warning: There are descriptions of domestic abuse in this book.

Gideon

Gideon has everything he should want in life. Fame, money, acting awards – he has it all. Everything but honesty. At the advice of his agent, Gideon has concealed his sexuality for years. But it’s starting to get harder to hide, and his increasingly wild behaviour is threatening to destroy his career.

Then he’s laid low by a serious illness and into his life comes Eli Jones. Eli is everything that Gideon can’t understand. He’s sunny tempered, friendly, and optimistic. Even worse, he’s unaffected by grumpiness and sarcasm, which forms ninety percent of Gideon’s body weight. As Gideon gets to know the other man, he finds himself wildly attracted to his lazy smiles and warm, scruffy charm that seem to fill a hole inside Gideon that’s been empty for a long time.

Will he give in to this incomprehensible attraction when it could mean the end of everything that he’s worked for?

REVIEW: 

Comparing Lily Morton’s three series – Mixed Messages, Finding Home, and Close Proximity – is like comparing chocolate mousse cake, creme brulee, and tiramisu. They are all exceptionally delicious, sublime creations, so it’s comparing the best of the best. Preference really comes down to the flavor you prefer.  And each of these series does have a different flavor or feel to it.

Finding Home is less intense than Mixed Messages and Close Proximity.  There’s little in the way of angst, and the stories focus on character development with less emphasis on actions and events to propel the plot forward. But Morton doesn’t need external happenings to make her stories relevant and absorbing.  Her incisive writing and deep, textured character portrayals stand up in their own right and engage us from page one.  However, the tenor here is distinct, especially as book-ended between Mixed Messages and Close Proximity – two series that have a similar feel to each other, positioned in a more central urban environment with much more happening in terms of external events to move the plots forward.

Morton’s Finding Home series includes three excellent titles written in her distinctive style.  Oz, Milo, and Gideon all showcase her trademark snarky, sexy banter, colorful, relatable characters, and descriptive, impactful prose.  These three books are centered around Silas’ world at his family’s estate, Chi an Mor, in the Cornish countryside. The estate is a shadow of itself, and Silas is desperately trying to keep it afloat. It’s his childhood home and he loves it, despite some unpleasant experiences growing up under the firm hand and often physically and emotionally abusive treatment from his father. Silas and his brother Henry – who is featured in Risk Taker – didn’t have an easy time despite their aristocratic stature, and Silas remembers all of those house staff and village dwellers who were kind to them in those days.  Silas is perhaps the most generous spirit you’ll encounter.  He puts everyone ahead of himself and unwittingly allows himself to be taken advantage of – even by some exes.

In the first book Oz, the titular character Oz is improbably hired on as Chi an Mor’s house manager despite every effort on his part to self-sabotage the interview.  But, Niall, Silas’ longtime close friend sees something in Oz – something lonely Silas needs – and hires him much to Oz, and Milo’s, shock. 

Milo is a skittish creature when we meet him in Oz.  He’s young and we later learn in book two, Milo, that he’s living and working at Chi an Mor after Niall swept in and rescued him from an abusive situation. Milo’s on the road to healing, and he begins to come out of his shell under the unique tutelage of the very non-traditional Oz.  

Milo and Niall share an evident romantic interest and emotional connection explored in the second series book, Milo. It’s a delicious age-gap, best friend’s brother romance that showcases sweet Milo coming into his own and regaining the self-confidence and self-esteem that were destroyed by his abusive ex.  We also see Niall fumbling with this “new”, more self-assured, independent-minded Milo, and his wild attraction towards him.  Niall’s certainly grappling with some confusing feelings especially in light of his long-term friends-with benefits arrangement with Milo’s older brother and Niall’s BFF, Gideon.  

Milo really is the linchpin in this series, bridging Oz’s integration into the Chi an Mor found family, and propelling Gideon to rethink his errant ways.  Milo, Niall, and Gideon have a fascinating, complex dynamic.  Gideon is a bit of an ass to Milo and Niall in Milo, but when we segue into the third series book, Gideon, we start to understand why. I can’t say I ever got to a place where I loved Gideon, but Morton certainly makes us understand him in his grumpy/sunshine romance with the cheery, steady, sunshiny rehab nurse, Eli.  And how can you go wrong when a significant story component of Gideon takes place on a cruise ship!  A little forced proximity never hurt anyone – at least not in Morton’s fictional worlds.  

As a side note, Morton never skimps on her side characters.  In fact, it’s not uncommon for a side character to steal the show (*cough cough* Mal *cough cough*).  Mal is a model and ex-flame of Jude (from Deal Maker) who falls for Caden in Morton’s short story Spring Strings, which is featured in her collection of short stories, Short Stack. Caden just so happens to be the son of Constance, the hysterical cruising companion of Gideon in Gideon.

This series is entitled Finding Home, signaling that our couples all find a home at Chi an Mor, with each other, and with the found family they create there.  But there’s another prominent theme – breaking down preconceptions and judging people for who they are, not who they are presumed to be. Take Silas for example.  He’s a member of the aristocracy and owner of a large estate, so the expectation is that he’s entitled, pompous, out of touch, and perhaps even unkind at times due to self-absorption.  But Silas is about as far from that as can be.  Oz dispenses with every one of his misheld beliefs about Silas as they get to know each other. Silas is just a lonely man looking for love.  A kind-hearted soul, a veterinarian, and a man who would give you the shirt off his back. Similarly, Oz isn’t the screw-up he initially portrays himself to be. He is shrewd and exceptionally capable, and behind his steep walls, he cares deeply for those he lets into his heart.

We see this same subtext in Milo as Milo begins to spread his wings, confusing Niall, who presumes Milo’s a fragile, breakable thing in need of protection.  Even Gideon shows great character transformation in his story, and we are solidly disabused of preconceived notions of his callousness and uncaring treatment of those around him, including Milo.  In fact, we discover Gideon is a man in pain, deeply closeted, and desperate for affection. He’s trapped and uses drinking and drugs to cope.  Eli nurses him back to health in more ways than one, and with the backdrop of Chi an Mor, Gideon can truly find a home with his found family of Silas, Oz, Niall and Milo.

Each of these series books is worth buying separately, so having them packaged together in a series collection is an astonishing gift. Not only does it make the reading experience seamless, but it’s a total no-brainer from a cost and convenience point of view as well. The Finding Home: The Complete Series is another fantastic Lily Morton title that I give my highest endorsement. 

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