The Book Boyfriend Addict

“You scare me. You smile at me and expose parts of myself that I didn’t even know existed.”

Oh, my heart! This book put it through its paces. Told in dual POV with a dual timeline this book tells the story of Lieutenant Ned Pinsent and Corporal Charlie Villiers who turned to each other for companionship during the First World War. What started as a means to satisfy their physical desires turned into a deep bond between two men who have to fight time, class ideals, and circumstance, over the course of decades, to find a way to love one another the way they’ve always wanted to.

“I’m so tired of missing you.”

The first half of the book alternates between their time together in WWI and several years later during peacetime where a chance meeting puts Ned and Charlie back into each other’s lives. Then the second part alternates between about 10 and 20 years after their reconnection in the 1920s. We see them survive one world war only to be faced with another in the early 1940s and what the prospect of having to serve again means for both of their characters and their relationship.

“I didn’t know how to love in the trenches. You were a golden-boy officer with a future, and I was a washed-up soldier who’s only skill was killing people.”

Throughout all of that is the very real fact that homosexuality was illegal during those times and being caught loving another man held very real consequences. This book explores all the complicated choices that go into trying to balance the desires of the heart with the very real dangers that come along with a same-sex relationship. And it does a really great job of it! My heart ached for these men who longed to be together but had the world stacked against them. They had both survived the horrors of the First World War and when they reconnect they finally have a chance of being together, even if they have to keep their love hidden away, but then life throws another curveball that separates them once more.

After all these years, Charlie Villiers still shattered him. Completely, utterly, shattered him.

It took them a very long time to get their timing right and even then things were unorthodox and quite complicated, but I think their arrangement was probably prevalent in those days. Ultimately, it turned out to be a beautiful thing and the last chapter and the epilogue had me in tears. There were all sorts of emotions swirling around in my heart by that point, it was a beautiful ending. This book was not a light read by any means, the depictions of the reality of war were harrowing and the unfairness queer people faced made me sad but seeing the power of Ned and Charlie’s love and their fight to overcome all that warmed my heart and made enduring all the rest of the stuff worth it to see where things end up!

“You’ve made me want things that can never be. To be with you, to care about you. Two men together in partnership has never been possible, and so why does the idea that we can’t have it hurt so much?”