{"id":10925,"date":"2018-06-20T21:08:38","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T01:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=10925"},"modified":"2026-03-22T10:26:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:26:32","slug":"the-lawrence-browne-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/10925","title":{"rendered":"The Lawrence Browne Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lawrence Browne Affair<\/a><\/em> (2017) Cat Sebastian<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Set in Cornwall, England in 1816<\/p>\n

Lawrence Browne, the Earl of Radnor is mad. He’s driven away most of his staff, and the local vicar is worried about his stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive servants quit,\u201d Halliday said, tapping Lawrence\u2019s desk in emphasis. Dust puffed up in tiny clouds around the vicar\u2019s fingertips. \u201cFive. And you were woefully understaffed even before then.\u201d <\/p>\n

Five fewer servants? So that was why the house had been so pleasantly quiet, why his work had been so blissfully undisturbed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Georgie Turner is a confidence man, and has gotten himself into trouble, and so flees to the country on a job from his brother–looking into whether the mad earl really is mad.<\/p>\n

Georgie had no illusions about evading Mattie Brewster\u2019s men for long. Georgie was a traitor, an informer, and the Brewster gang would make an example of him. And rightly so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That isn’t to say that Lawrence doesn’t have issues. <\/p>\n

Lawrence had learned years ago that when he felt the creeping unease that signaled what he had come to think of as an attack of madness, he could sometimes set his mind to rights by exhausting himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s actually rather interesting, seeing how mental disorders were viewed–and how thin the line was between madness and being different. (Both could get you locked up.) I suppose that adding homosexuality–which was viewed as criminal and aberrant–would only have made it easier for someone neuro-atypical to see themselves as mad or going mad. I note it because this isn’t the first historical romance where one of the characters sees his homosexuality as a sign of his instability.<\/p>\n

Sodomites had been a favorite subject of his father\u2019s rage-fueled tirades, in which he lumped it in with other crimes against nature, such as Catholicism and being French.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I liked both Georgie and Lawrence right from the start, although as a confidence man, Georgie had the people skills that made him easier to like from the get-go.<\/p>\n

On a hunch, he cut the onion into several oddly sized chunks. Before its pungent aroma had even reached his nostrils she was by his side. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no. What are you about? Chop the onion fine, like this.\u201d She took the knife from his hand and held up a paper thin slice of onion for his edification.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That bit where he ingratiates himself to the cook amused me to no end.<\/p>\n

I also quite liked Simon, Lawrence’s son. Both how Lawrence ended up with a son as well as Georgie’s reaction to Simon (as well as Lawrence’s lack of a relationship with him). <\/p>\n

Simon regarded him, his nose red with cold. \u201cUncle Kemble says Lord Radnor isn\u2019t my real father anyway. So it\u2019s only natural that he can\u2019t be bothered.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cUncle Kemble can sod right off, then,\u201d Georgie said promptly, before recalling that this language was not suitable for an eight-year-old\u2019s ears. \u201cDamn!\u201d No, that was no improvement. Simon\u2019s eyes were wide. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. But your uncle is a thoroughgoing bastard if he says that sort of thing to you.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think one of the things I am liking so much about the MM historicals I’ve been reading is that the illegality of the relationships give them an extremely different take on historical romances–two people that don’t necessarily trust each other can have a relationship and eventually develop that trust, because the very nature of their love could get them both killed or jailed.<\/p>\n

As with the other MM romances, there is a lot of boinking, but I still quite enjoyed how the two men worked things out–and worked out things with Simon.<\/p>\n

Publisher: Avon Impulse
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian Set in Cornwall, England in 1816 Lawrence Browne, the Earl of Radnor is mad. He’s driven away most of his staff, and the local vicar is worried about his stability. \u201cFive servants quit,\u201d Halliday said, tapping Lawrence\u2019s desk in emphasis. Dust puffed up in tiny clouds around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,30,33,608,148,26,56],"tags":[641,50,147,544,548,513,769],"class_list":["post-10925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-british","category-historical","category-neurodiversity","category-queer","category-romance","category-sexual-content","tag-bad-family","tag-boinking","tag-cat-sebastian","tag-mm","tag-regency","tag-suicide","tag-the-turner-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-2Qd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":25626,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25626","url_meta":{"origin":10925,"position":0},"title":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","author":"Michelle","date":"January 17, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian (The Turner Series #2) Set in Cornwall, England in 1816 \u201cFive servants quit,\u201d Halliday said, tapping Lawrence\u2019s desk in emphasis. Dust puffed up in tiny clouds around the vicar\u2019s fingertips. \u201cFive. And you were woefully understaffed even before then.\u201d Five fewer servants? So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/The-Lawrence-Browne-Affair-186x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13245,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13245","url_meta":{"origin":10925,"position":1},"title":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","author":"Michelle","date":"June 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian (The Turner Series) Set in England in 1816 Georgie Turner needs to leave London ASAP. He has run afoul of the crime lord with whom he had worked for several years, because he couldn't go through with a confidence game. So his brother\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/The-Lawrence-Browne-Affair.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24253,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24253","url_meta":{"origin":10925,"position":2},"title":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","author":"Michelle","date":"February 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian (The Turners #2) Set in England in 1817 Georgie had too much practice deceiving others to be able to deceive himself. \u201cI apologize,\u201d he said in a normal tone of voice. \u201cI had a valet, but he left.\u201d \u201cI daresay he did, if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/The-Lawrence-Browne-Affair.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17713,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/17713","url_meta":{"origin":10925,"position":3},"title":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","author":"Michelle","date":"September 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian (The Turner Series) Set in England in 1816 Lawrence Browne is waiting to go mad. In the meantime, he's trying to be useful, putting his efforts into various inventions, but refusing to let anyone get close to him, for fear of taking them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/The-Lawrence-Browne-Affair.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21906,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21906","url_meta":{"origin":10925,"position":4},"title":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","author":"Michelle","date":"May 12, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian (The Turner Series) Set in England in 1816. Apparently I'm just picking books I want to read and ignoring the rest of any series they might be in. Georgie had taken matters into his own hands, and now Georgie was persona non grata\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/The-Lawrence-Browne-Affair.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20712,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20712","url_meta":{"origin":10925,"position":5},"title":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","author":"Michelle","date":"August 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lawrence Browne Affair (2017) Cat Sebastian (The Turner Series) Set in England in 1816. Lawrence has a reputation as a madman. A reputation he fully believes. Penkellis was no place for a child, madmen were not fit guardians, and nobody knew those facts better than Lawrence himself, who had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Lawrence Browne Affair","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/The-Lawrence-Browne-Affair.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}