{"id":20135,"date":"2022-07-25T20:39:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T00:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=20135"},"modified":"2026-03-22T09:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T13:17:08","slug":"the-botanist-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20135","title":{"rendered":"The Botanist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Botanist<\/a><\/em> (2017) Dahlia Donovan<\/a> (The Sin Bin)<\/p>\n

This is another dark story. It opens years prior to the events in the previous stories, with Wyatt helping to rescue Aled, a young botanist who was mistakenly grabbed by drug runners.<\/p>\n

This story takes course over several years and Aled slowly (slowly) heals and Wyatt falls in love with the younger man.<\/p>\n

Aled opened the door, stared up at the two imposing men, paled dramatically, and slammed the door shut in their faces. \u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sure<\/em>. <\/p>\n

His insistence would\u2019ve been funny if Wyatt hadn\u2019t seen the panic on his face. We should\u2019ve come a hell of a lot sooner<\/em>. He sat on the ground to the left of the door and gestured for Hamish to take a seat on the other side of it. <\/p>\n

\u201cAled? It\u2019s safe now.\u201d Wyatt waved his hand sharply to stop Hamish from speaking. \u201cWe won\u2019t loom over you. I swear.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard to watch Aled suffering, but she does an excellent job with the struggle to get past trauma–nothing is magically healed, and it all takes an extraordinarily long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a year.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd?\u201d Wyatt knew several veterans with post-traumatic stress who five years out of the military continued to struggle every day, some more than others. \u201cI don\u2019t think pain comes with a specific expiration date.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that the story starts with the rescue–we don’t see Aled being tortured, but we do struggle with him through his recovery.<\/p>\n

Also: She is terrible at writing American. We don’t have walking frames or pavements here.<\/p>\n

One important note. In this story, Aled’s parents are dead. Which makes a great deal of sense for this story. He had no family to notice how he was struggling, which is how Wyatt ended up helping him. But in another story, Aled has parents, as a reason for events panning out the way they did in that story, and it really bugged me.<\/p>\n

Aled’s parents couldn’t possibly be alive, because if they were they would have assisted him instead of Wyatt.<\/p>\n

I just needed to point this out.<\/p>\n

Publisher: Hot Tree Publishing<\/p>\n

Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Botanist (2017) Dahlia Donovan (The Sin Bin) This is another dark story. It opens years prior to the events in the previous stories, with Wyatt helping to rescue Aled, a young botanist who was mistakenly grabbed by drug runners. This story takes course over several years and Aled slowly (slowly) heals and Wyatt falls […]<\/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":[194,30,292,207,196,148,41,26,934],"tags":[254,544,212,532],"class_list":["post-20135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-5-10","category-british","category-ebook","category-mental-health-rep","category-novella","category-queer","category-reread","category-romance","category-trigger-warnings","tag-dahlia-donovan","tag-mm","tag-ptsd","tag-sin-bin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-5eL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18345,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/18345","url_meta":{"origin":20135,"position":0},"title":"The Botanist","author":"Michelle","date":"October 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Botanist (2017) Dahlia Donovan (The Sin Bin) This story takes place over the course of about two years, and opens with Aled being rescued by Wyatt. (The damage to Aded all occurs off the page, by Wyatt is there for the immediate aftermath.) Although it is a romance, most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"the botanist","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/the-botanist.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18348,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/18348","url_meta":{"origin":20135,"position":1},"title":"The Royal Marine","author":"Michelle","date":"October 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Royal Marine (2017) Dahlia Donovan (The Sin Bin) Akash Robinson moved to Cardiff to open his own bakery after working at his parents for years. Unfortunately, running his own bakery means he has no time for the social life he had hoped to develop with the move. (H)e\u2019d never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Royal Marine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-Royal-Marine.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14094,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/14094","url_meta":{"origin":20135,"position":2},"title":"Sin Bin Series: Box Set","author":"Michelle","date":"March 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Sin Bin Series: Box Set (2020) Dahlia Donovan This is seven stories (and three short stories) around a group of former rugby players and friends and the men they fall in love with. The Wanderer (2017) The Caretaker (2017) The Botanist (2017) The Royal Marine (2017) The Unexpected Santa (2017)\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":"Sin Bin Series","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Sin-Bin-Series.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18355,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/18355","url_meta":{"origin":20135,"position":3},"title":"The Lion Tamer","author":"Michelle","date":"October 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lion Tamer (2018) Dahlia Donovan (The Sin Bin) As noted throughout the series, Scottie us a wreck, who is incapable of being a functioning adult. Scottie sat up slowly and glanced around to find the scenery had changed quite significantly. \u201cWhy the fuck am I in a hospital bed?\u201d\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 Lion Tamer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-Lion-Tamer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-Lion-Tamer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-Lion-Tamer.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/The-Lion-Tamer.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20137,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20137","url_meta":{"origin":20135,"position":4},"title":"The Royal Marine","author":"Michelle","date":"July 25, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Royal Marine (2017) Dahlia Donovan (The Sin Bin) Wyatt's partner, Hamish, is set up with Graham and Freddie's friend Akash. Except that the rugby players are also trying to set Akash up with Scottie. This does not go well for Scottie. Although this is Hamish and Akash's story, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20143,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20143","url_meta":{"origin":20135,"position":5},"title":"The Lion Tamer","author":"Michelle","date":"July 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lion Tamer (2018) Dahlia Donovan (The Sin Bin) First off, this story has a lot happening. Over the course of the series we've watched Scottie spiral out of control. The story just before this sees the start of the interactions between Scottie and Gray. Gray sees Scottie as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20135","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=20135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}