Immerse In Almost An Equal (The Hunt Club, #1) Assembled By Heather Boyd Accessible As Hardcover

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This story was such a pleasant surprise! I originally assumed it was pure erotica and while the first half does have way too many sex scenes and there were some sloppy storytelling mistakes, there was a good plot, the romance was great and I loved most of the characters and the historical vibe.


My favorite aspect was Nate and Henry's relationship, Nate is a nobleman but he's a kindhearted man who treats his servants well and as a result, he has a great working relationship with his steward, Henry, and they both respect each other, despite Henry being quite young and not having prior service experience.
To my surprise, the author wasted no time getting the plot started and things get exciting and kind of dark fast, Henry used to work as a prostitute at the Hunt Club and he's kidnapped by the Duke of Lewes and tortured/raped by his friends.
What I loved was that Nate is the one to rescue Henry, rather than the other way around, Nate finds out about Henry's past as a sex worker during the rescue and I loved that this doesn't lead to drawn out drama which was a bit unexpected, since the book blurb makes it seem like this will be the main conflict in the story.
Instead, Nate easily accepts Henry's past and takes him to his nearby cottage where Nate can help Henry recover in private,

I also liked that the author used Henry being high on opium as a way to get the MCs to reveal their feelings for each other, with Henry asserting his dominant fantasies on Nate.


While this does mean their first few sexual interactions were dubcon, it was a creative way to move the plot along quickly since both of these men would never reveal their homosexualities to each other otherwise.


What I also enjoyed about their sexual dynamic was that Henry used to be submissive when he was a prostitute but he wants to be in control now that he's left that part of his life behind him.
Nate being a nobleman is accustomed to being the dominant partner during sex but he trusts and respects Henry enough to let Henry take the reins.
And to both of their delight, Nate ends up loving it, Their dynamic included some BDSM elements but it was very light BDSM only giving/receiving orders and a little bit of playful spanking and I loved how the author used that dynamic to create equality between the two MCs, which would otherwise be quite skewed due to Henry being younger, being Nate's employee and from a lower social class.
They easily settle into a pattern where Nate is in charge during the day but in the bedroom, Henry is in charge,

That being said, the first half of the story included way too many sex scenes, to the point of it being absurd.
There was a section where the two MCs couldn't have a conversation longer than a few sentences before they were having sex again.


But in the second half, Henry and Nate return to the main estate and that's when the plot resumed and it was fantastic! I especially liked that the author had Nate'syoung children and his wife play a big role in the overall romance.
I had recently DNF'd Behind Locked Doors by Nicholas Kinsley another BDSM Historical Victorian romance that featured a married nobleman who had a child and enjoyed BDSM relationships with men and it was interesting to note the different ways both books approached a similar premise.
In 'Doors', the MC married his wife under false pretenses and then resented her afterwards when she was disappointed to find out who he really was/what he was really like.
In addition, he resented his young son and barely spent any time with him, In this book, the situations were done very differently, It isn't outright stated, but I'm pretty sure Nate's marriage to his wife had been arranged and neither of them had ever held any illusions over what their marriage would be.
They don't like each other and they've both cheated on each other throughout their marriage Nate with other men and his wife with various servants.
It wasn't a healthy marriage but they treated each other equally badly so I didn't mind it,

Most importantly, Nate was a wonderful father to hisyoung children and he went out of his way to spend as much time with them as possible.
His wife didn't have much to do with the children but Nate never allowed his antagonistic relationship with his wife to impact his relationship with his children.
I also loved that Henry had his own relationship with the young children and that they loved him like they would an uncle.
Henry's desire to have a relationship with the children had nothing to do with his longheld feelings for Nate, which was another thing I liked.
The children aren't a huge part of the story but this is the first MM historical Victorian romance that I've read where I really enjoyed the relationship between the children and the MCs.


Another thing I enjoyed was how the author resolved the situation regarding Nate's marriage, It was handled in a way that was realistic for the time period when divorce wasn't an option but it allowed both Nate and his wife to finally get away from that unhealthy relationship and carve out new paths that didn't include the other person directly.
It was a mature and healthy way for them to solve the situation and I really enjoyed it,

All of these things were really positive, but unfortunately, I didn't only dislike the large number of sex scenes in the story.
There were a lot of sloppy mistakes with the storytelling, including plot holes and characters' backstories and story roles changing randomly, I'll give some examples:

Henry learns that Lewes has Nate's wife's diary and is going to blackmail him with it so Henry decides to steal it back.
But before he can do that, Lewes kidnaps Henry, brings him to his estate and keeps him drugged while Lewes' friends rape and torture him it's not shown in graphic detail.
Eventually, Henry is rescued by Nate, But later, Henry reveals that he had found and taken the diary while he'd been at Lewes' home, Cut to me blinking in massive confusion, When the hell did Henry have the time to do the required snooping, finding and stealing In addition, how could he physically do any snooping/finding/stealing when he was high, restrained and in significant pain It made no sense.


In general, the entire diary thing ends up being pointless, Nate reads the diary without telling Henry what's in it readers never find out, Nate says he'll deal with his wife very harshly because of the diary's contents but when they return to the estate, there's another situation that arises regarding Nate's wife Nate's valet had gotten her pregnant and that's what leads to their unofficial separation.
So there was no point to the diary at all, except it put Nate at Lewes' estate at the perfect time to rescue Henry.


Another example: the epilogue has Nate getting visited by two Dukes, Lewes and Staines, We know from the rest of the story that Lewes is the one who kidnapped Henry and allowed him to be drugged/tortured/raped and that Staines is apparently Nate's best friend.
But then in the epilogue, it's like we're transported into an alternate dimension, Everybody greets Lewes in a friendly manner and when Lewes whines about still missing the former prostitute he used to spend time with one of Henry's friends who had also quit the Hunt Club, everybody including Nate and Henry make promises to help them reconnect.
WHAT! This is the guy who kidnapped and drugged Henry and was prepared to let his friends keep Henry permanently so they could keep torturing and raping him as long as they wanted.
And everybody's acting like Lewes just had a little fit of temper and it's a situation they've chosen to brush aside because they all like him WHAT!

In addition, Staines is apparently the owner of the Hunt Club and after greeting Nate in a friendly way, he starts acting aggressive towards Henry, pressuring him into coming back to work at the club and being pissed off about Henry and Henry's friend having left.
First of all having a Duke openly running a molly house a brothel that caters to gay men is absurd, But having Nate be best buddies with a pimp who is pissed off that one of his boys had left him is just as absurd.
Not to mention that Nate knew nothing about Henry's past, yet he frequently visits with Staines so the topic of Henry working for Nate must have come up in the past.


I think all of these sloppy mistakes were a result of the author's poor planning or lack of planning and lack of proper editing.
The plot holes were ridiculous and changing a character's backstory and role in a story so dramatically and for no reason resulted in massive confusion for me.


This all being said, everything regarding Nate, Henry and Nate's family was done really well and I was pleasantly surprised by it.
I'm going to continue the series because I wasn't expecting this to be as good as it was, but I'm hoping the author's sloppy storytelling doesn't stay consistent throughout.
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Short Regency romance that is an Ok read but a bit far fetched and heavy on the sex, Didn't not like it but didn't love it either, Not much else to say really except its part of a series and seeing as I bought the three together I'll read on to see if it gets any better.
Sadly unoriginal story which I think Ive read at least six times since starting reviewing the genre, Thats not to say that its not readable, because it is and at,its not expensive. But it says nothing new and the characters and plot are so derivative I got a little bored,
Two men who both fancy each other and of course neither knows and both think they have heterosexual inclinations, then theres an intervention and suddenly PING they fall into bed togetherthey cant even look at each other including in front of the children which was mildly repellent, no control at all without getting instant hardons.
You know. Then when they do go to bed, rather than being “Almost an Equal” the servant goes from calling the Duke “Your Grace” to “Nate” after being asked to call him Nathan.
And in a day or so they are madly in love, Of course. Sound familiar Yes.
Oh, and course the Token Woman who is necessarily Evil,

Then of course theres the obligatory BDSM elements which seem to be derigeur these days, It appears that you simply cant be a Regency homosexual without either being a sadistic rapist OR wanting to play BDSM games,

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, its selfpublished and yes, the editing is dire, The author clearly didnt bother to have anyone check it over or if she did, she needs to use someone else because there are dozens of typoslack of apostrophes where they need to be, wrong homonyms etc etc.
Im this close from never reviewing selfpubbed books again at this point,

I found myself intrigued, though in some respect, The books is subtitled “The Hunt Club Chronicles bookand Henry and his friend “Archer” were both whores at the ubiquitous upper class gay brothel so I would be interested in reading more about the background of the two men.
It might have been better though had the saga started in the Club and shown how they left rather than showing it as backstory.


There is a large proportion of sex in the book, which will probably please many, The build up is teasing and then theres many long, long scenes which are meticulously described and wellwritten, Although, once again, theres nothing new here, the sex scenes were the best parts of the book for me,

I might try bookif it gets published, but if its not noticeably better than this I wont be going on to book.
Unmemorable. .