The Scottish Boy

The Scottish Boy has been on my “read someday” list for a while. I finally got around to it… actually I listened to the audiobook. It is brilliant. Truly one of the better books that I have read this last year. The scope is epic and the characters are specific. It pulled me in within the first three chapters or so and I was enrapt within the plot’s twists and turns. I wasn’t sure how a romantic relationship between two men in medieval England could ever find a happy ending. The book is unpredictable. At times the characters do things that horrify my modern sensibilities. But the amount of research that had to have gone into this book really shows as the reader is transported into a different place and time. I highly recommend this book if you like historical romance.

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1333. Edward III is at war with Scotland.

Nineteen-year-old Sir Harry de Lyon yearns to prove himself in the war, and jumps at the chance when a powerful English baron, William Montagu, invites him on a secret mission with a dozen elite knights. They ride north, to a crumbling Scottish keep, capturing the feral, half-starved boy within and putting the other inhabitants to the sword.

But nobody knows why the flower of English knighthood snuck over the border to capture a savage, dirty teenage boy. Montagu gives the boy to Harry as his squire, with only two rules: don’t let him escape, and convert him to the English cause. At first, it’s hopeless. The Scottish boy is surly and violent, and eats anything that isn’t nailed down. Then Harry begins to notice things: that, as well as Gaelic, the boy speaks flawless French, with an accent much different from Harry’s Norman one. That he can read the language – Latin, too. And when Harry finally convinces the boy – Iain mac Maíl Coluim – to cut his filthy curtain of hair, the face revealed is the most beautiful thing Harry has ever seen. With Iain as his squire, Harry wins tournament after tournament and becomes a favourite of the King. But underneath the pageantry smoulders twin secrets: Harry and Iain’s growing passion for each other, and Iain’s mysterious heritage.

As England hurtles towards war once again, these secrets will destroy everything Harry holds dear.

The Purple Fantastic Steam rating gives this a 4 out of 5. The sex is described explicitly, but a sense of intimacy and personal growth permeates those moments so it didn’t feel gratuitous (assuming that you are comfortable with explicitly described sex).