It Takes Two to Tumble
Seducing the Sedgwicks, #1
by Cat Sebastian
Publication Date: December 12th
2017
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Genre: Adult, Historical
Romance, LGBTQ Romance
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . .
IT TAKES TWO TO TUMBLE (Seducing the Sedwicks, #1) . . . Cat Sebastian has returned. She brings a power
to Regency Historical Romance that had not been a full-focus visit before. Her
previous books have put her toe in the pond so to speak and I found quite successful.
This read was reminiscent of an old movie I saw once, twice, okay maybe a lot
more. That was why I could make the comparisons. Sebastian’s other books set up
for a great read with Captain Dacre and Vicar Ben.
Ben was the carefree, loving, caregiver for
the children of an officer away from home. His children were a bit of a challenge
for most, but they won over the Vicar Ben or he won them over. It depends on
how you view things. Captain Phillip Dacre was better suited for his ship and
crew than being home on land. He was sure that a trip home would put the
children in place. They were after all his children. He never expected it to
take so long, to meet Ben, to enjoy spending time with Ben, to fall in love
with Ben, to have to make a choice.
I loved this book. The romance was true, real,
bold, and life changing. It Takes Two to Tumble has become the number
one LGBTQ Historical Romance for me. I love it. Okay, so I said that already.
BLURB
Some of Ben Sedgwick’s favorite
things:
Helping his poor
parishioners
Baby animals
Shamelessly flirting
with the handsome Captain Phillip Dacre
After an unconventional upbringing, Ben is
perfectly content with the quiet, predictable life of a country vicar, free of
strife or turmoil. When he’s asked to look after an absent naval captain’s
three wild children, he reluctantly agrees, but instantly falls for the
hellions. And when their stern but gloriously handsome father arrives, Ben is
tempted in ways that make him doubt everything.
Some of Phillip
Dacre’s favorite things:
His ship
People doing
precisely as they’re told
Touching the
irresistible vicar at every opportunity
Phillip can’t wait to leave England’s
shores and be back on his ship, away from the grief that haunts him. But his
children have driven off a succession of governesses and tutors and he must set
things right. The unexpected presence of the cheerful, adorable vicar sets his
world on its head and now he can’t seem to live without Ben’s winning smiles or
devastating kisses.
In the midst of runaway children, a
plot to blackmail Ben’s family, and torturous nights of pleasure, Ben and
Phillip must decide if a safe life is worth losing the one thing that makes
them come alive.
EXCERPT
After
the fact, Phillip thought he might have handled the situation a bit more
gracefully if the children hadn’t been in a tree. But he was not at his best,
having walked the distance from the coaching inn to the house, with each step
growing more disoriented by the sheer familiarity of the terrain. Surely the
place ought to have changed. But every rock and tree aligned precisely with
memories Phillip hadn’t even realized he still had.
Despite having sent a
messenger ahead with the approximate time of his arrival, the children were not
waiting in the hall to greet him. Of course they wouldn’t be, he told
himself. That had been Caroline’s doing, and she was gone. Their failure to
appear was just further proof of how badly Phillip’s intervention was needed.
He needed to get to work turning them into well-behaved, competent midshipmen. Children,
he corrected himself. Yes, children.
The servant who
opened the door told Phillip he’d find the children in the orchard with the
vicar. Phillip found this surprising, as nothing in Ernestine’s final letter
had indicated religiosity as part of the children’s reign of terror. But
instead of discovering the children at work in prayer or singing hymns, he
found them high up in a cherry tree.
The plain fact of the
matter was that children did not belong in trees, at least not when they ought
to be in the hall awaiting their father’s return. Nor did vicars belong in
trees at any time whatsoever. He might not have much experience with either,
and thank God for it, but he knew trees were not the natural habitat of either
class of person. He had expected to see his children for the first time in two
years in a setting that was slightly less arboreal. Somewhere he could properly
see them and they could properly see him and they could all say whatever the
hell they were supposed to say in this situation without Caroline to
manage things. Instead all he got was a glimpse of booted feet vanishing higher
into the branches accompanied by the sound of stifled laughter.
The vicar spotted him
first, and promptly swung down from the tree to land at Phillip’s feet. At
least, Phillip assumed it was the vicar, and not some stray stable hand who had
taken to capering about the orchard. But didn’t vicars wear uniforms of some
sort? Special hats or black coats? The chaplain on the ship always had. This
fellow was in his shirtsleeves, and if that weren’t bad enough, his sleeves
were rolled up. The chaplain had never done that. The chaplain had been about
sixty. And bald. This fellow had wheat-colored hair that needed a cut and
freckles all over his face. He was nothing like the chaplain. Unacceptable.
“Oh damn,” the vicar
said. Phillip gritted his teeth. Swearing was another thing the chaplain had
never done. “I mean drat,” the man said, his freckled face going pink. “Bother.
You must be Mr. Dacre.”
“Captain Dacre,”
Phillip said frostily. This fellow had to go. No discipline. No sense of
decorum. No wonder the children ran amok if they spent time in this man’s
company. “You have the advantage of me,” he said, not bothering to conceal his
frown. He never did.
“Ben Sedgwick,” the
vicar said, smiling in a lopsided, bashful way. He stuck his hand out, and
Phillip had no choice but to take it. The vicar’s hand was warm and his grip
was firm, and Phillip’s gaze automatically drifted down to the man’s exposed
forearm, sun-burnished and dusted with light hair.
“Thank you, Mr.
Sedgwick,” Phillip said. “You may take yourself off.” His effort to dismiss
this careless young vicar was interrupted by a rustle of leaves and the thud of
a child landing at his feet.
The child was tall,
lanky, and excessively rumpled. “Edward,” Phillip said, briefly startled by the
changes a lapse of two years wrought in children. Phillip had last seen his
older son as a coltish child of eleven. Now Phillip could discern two
things—one, that he looked very much like Caroline, and two, that he was not
best pleased to see his father. For an instant, Phillip could hardly blame him.
Phillip had never much enjoyed seeing his own father either. When the navy had
taken his own father away for years at a time, Phillip had rather thought they
had all been the better for it.
He held out his hand
and noticed the barest hesitation before his son took it. “You look so much
like—”
“I know I look like
Mama,” Edward said coolly, dropping his father’s hand. “I have a looking
glass.” His scowl was so intent that Phillip opened his mouth to scold the boy.
“Mr. Sedgwick,” Edward said, turning to the vicar, “I’m going to finish my
history lesson.” Without waiting for a response from Sedgwick or so much as a
by-your-leave from Phillip himself, the child dashed off towards the house.
While Phillip had
always striven to keep order on his ship in less brutal ways, some captains
wouldn’t have hesitated to have boys flogged for even less blatant
insubordination. Phillip swallowed his anger and turned his attention to the
tree, where he could see two pairs of dangling feet.
“Margaret,” Phillip
called up into the tree. “James.”
“Oh, they won’t come
down,” Sedgwick said cheerfully. “Not a chance.”
“Excuse me?”
“I wouldn’t even
bother calling them. They’ll stay up there until the sun sets or until the
spirit moves them otherwise.” He seemed utterly undisturbed by this. His eyes
were actually sparkling, for God’s sake.
“And you permit
this?”
Sedgwick’s brow
furrowed. This was the first lapse in the blithe and idiotic good cheer he had
displayed since Phillip’s arrival. “Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do
about it. Rope them like a couple of stray sheep? They’re safer up there than
they are getting into whatever devilry they might seek out elsewhere. Really,”
he said, lowering his voice and leaning close in a way that made Phillip
instinctively mirror the pose until he realized what he was doing and
straightened up. Proximity was the last thing he needed with this man. “The
tree’s been a godsend. They haven’t been capering about the rooftops even once
since they discovered how climbable the cherry trees are.”
Phillip blinked.
“What I meant,” he said slowly, “was that perhaps you would like to tell them
to come down.”
“Tell them?” the
vicar repeated, as if Phillip had suggested a satanic ritual. “Won’t do a
blessed thing other than inspire them to more mischief, I’m afraid. No, no,
leave them safely up there, and when they’re hungry they’ll come inside.”
“Thank you for
everything you’ve done,” Phillip said in precisely the tone he’d use towards a
sailor about to be assigned morning watch for the foreseeable future. “But now
that I’ve returned I’ll see to engaging a proper tutor.”
The man had the nerve
to look hurt. Really, what had he expected? If Phillip had wanted his children
to run about like South Sea pirates, he could have stayed on his ship where he
belonged, thank you very much. But instead he would hire a tutor for the boys
and a governess for Margaret. And when they were ready, he’d send them off to
school, where they belonged.
“About that,” the
vicar said slowly. “I’m not sure you’ll find a tutor. They’ve run through a
good half dozen and I fear that well has run quite dry.”
“A half dozen!”
Ernestine hadn’t mentioned that in her last letter. Or at least he was fairly
certain she hadn’t. He knew there had been some trouble engaging suitable help,
but quite possibly she had obscured the details. Well, it was a good thing he
was here, then. He would see to it that his household was as it ought to be,
that his children were on a safe course, and then he’d go back to sea. Two
months. He had turned far more insalubrious characters into perfectly
disciplined first-rate sailors in less time than that, hadn’t he? He was used
to commanding dozens of men in clockwork precision. Surely he could make a
couple of children—his own children, at that—fall in line.
“Never mind that,” he
said. “I have everything in hand. Good day,” he added when the vicar didn’t
seem inclined to take the hint and leave.
“Good luck,” the
vicar said, gathering his discarded outer garments and carelessly dropping his
hat onto his head.
Phillip thought he
heard the man laugh as he made his way towards the house.
Ben gave it fifteen
minutes before Captain Dacre came begging for help. Half an hour at the
outside.
Likely as not, the
captain would be tied to a burning post before Ben had his valise packed.
Author
Info
Cat Sebastian lives in a swampy part
of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were
born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she
isn’t reading or writing, she’s doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and
wondering where she put her coffee cup.
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