Crucify my Love: Gay Book Reviews: [202-ENG] Review: A Right To Know

Series: County Durham Quad

Volume: 7/?
Publisher: Self-Published

Genre/s: M/M crime/mystery and relationships

Length: 57 300 words

Pages: -

Read in: English
Review copy format: epub

Rate:✮✮✮✮✮✮

“A son! A child! How? Why? Fuck! Phil! You can’t have! And does this sperm-child want to see you?”

Blurb

“A son! A child! How? Why? Fuck! Phil! You can’t have! And does this sperm-child want to see you?”

Abandonment, trust, suspicion and compromise—integral parts of a mystery that involves industrial espionage, sperm donation and coming to terms with oneself and the truth.

Sperm donors know that now, under UK law, offspring who reach eighteen have the right to learn a donor’s identity and last known address, but Phil Roberts donated before the law was changed. He is shocked and dismayed to learn that he has a son called Lewis who intends to visit. Phil’s husband, Raith, is furious—and very scared.

What does Lewis Lennon really want? The man he has always called ‘dad’ is dead. Was his death suicide or was he murdered? Lewis wants Phil to find out. So, Phil, Raith, Mike and Ross, the County Durham Quad, plus their special friend, Nick, are embroiled in another investigation, but, as always, their relationships come under scrutiny too.

"A Right To Know" is the seventh volume in Jude Tresswell's "County Durham Quad" series. What can I say, it's a series that I love and fear at the same time, because our boys get into trouble with amazing ease and Mike never knows when to say no to his heart. However, this time, the problems our characters have to deal with have a slightly different source than before. Our composed Phil, who always offers his quiet support, is rarely the cause of an earthquake that shakes the polyamorous relationship he is part of up, but in this installment he is the one who has made his lovers' jaws drop in shock. After all, we didn't expect him to turn out to be the father. What's more, we are not talking about a little baby in pampers, but about an almost adult young man. Yes, it is a shock, not only for the characters but also for the readers. This volume promised to be extremely interesting from the very beginning, and the author's idea for this part is simply fantastic. Yes, "County Durham Quad" is suddenly even more addictive than ever.

The really fascinating part of "A Right To Know" is also the fact that it's putting Raith in such an incredibly difficult situation. After all, out of all our boys, he is the most unpredictable one, and at the same time he is susceptible to the power of his emotions that swirl inside of him. We can say that he is like a child who cannot quite deal with the world around him, who is as easy to motivate as to discourage and lead to depression. Thus, the situation which Phil completely unknowingly put his husband in makes Raith, his emotions and psyche one of the main and most important themes in this volume. Of course, in each and every installment so far, we have learned to a large extent a lot about Raith's inner side, but it is now that I have the impression that he opens up the most to the readers. I just thought of comparing Raith's psyche to Jumanji, and I don't think it's such a bad comparison at all.

So, as I've mentioned, in "A Right To Know" we find elements that both surprise us and show us the characters' psyche in even more detail. However, this is not all that draws the reader into the world of the book and makes them addicted to this series. After all, what would this series by Jude Tresswell be without the action, adventure, puzzle? Just like in the volumes published so far, also this time we see not only elements of "slice of life" theme in this novel, but also a large dose of a criminal mystery. So if someone was afraid that in "A Right To Know" Jude Tresswell would focus only on the drama related to the unexpected appearance of a child, they can breathe a sigh of relief, because a lot happens in the novel and our passion for detective mysteries is fully satisfied. I think that at this point it is also worth emphasizing the fact that the author is a genius when it comes to combining "slice of life" and criminal threads.

Finally, I would like to mention a few words about Nick and Mike's relationship, more precisely about the way it grows, evolves. I admit that I do not like the direction in which this relationship is headed, but knowing Mike from previous volumes, I cannot say that I did not expect certain things. In fact, I'm worried about Nick. Mike is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and Nick is just a sheep that is easy to use. After all, what Nick feels for Mike is completely new to him, while Mike has needs that are hard for him to control. I really hope that the relationship between these two will go down the right track, go in the right direction and they will build a healthy relationship based on full trust and respect.

All in all, "A Right To Know" is another great volume in the series that will make readers fall in love with it. Jude Tresswell once again offers us an incredibly interesting novel, in which we will find everything we love in literature. This novel is worth getting interested in. Read it and let Mike, Ross, Phil, Raith and Nick conquer your heart.

______________________________________

Here's some more about:

Book Title: A Right To Know

Author: Jude Tresswell

Publisher: Self-published

Release Date: August 2021

Genres: M/M crime/mystery and relationships

Tropes: Love conquers all; unexpected visitor; false identity

Themes: Fear of rejection; data protection v. the right to know; compromise.

Trigger Warning: parental suicide

Heat Rating: 2 flames

Length: 57 300 words

It is book 7 in the County Durham Quad series, but can be read as a standalone story. Background information is worked in to help readers with the protagonists’ history.

Goodreads

Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Excerpt

Phil sat at the big kitchen table. His beard, neatly trimmed as always, failed to hide the lack of colour in his face. He looked shocked. He was holding a letter.

“You alright, Phil?” Mike was puzzled and concerned. “Bad news?”

“Not ‘bad’ exactly. Unexpected. Very.” He sighed. “I’ve an eighteen-year-old son. Sperm donation.”

Raith, Phil’s husband, dropped the glass of juice he was drinking. It rolled off the table and smashed as it hit the floor.

“A son! A child! How? Why? Fuck! Phil! You can’t have! And does this sperm-child want to see you?” Raith snatched the letter from Phil’s hands. “I can’t read this fucking stuff; it’s in joined-up. Why didn’t he type it?”

“He probably felt that this was more personal,” Mike suggested, retrieving the letter from the floor where Raith had slung it in disgust and shaking it free of orange juice.

“It’s fucking personal alright. You always said they couldn’t identify you, Phil. What the fuck’s gone wrong?”

“It looks as though we might find out,” said Ross, the fourth member of the quad. He was reading the letter over Mike’s shoulder. “He intends to visit. I think we need to talk.”

***

Mike, Ross, Raith and Phil, four men who shared a home in Tunhead, a tiny hamlet in the Durham hills. Tunhead derived its name from Tun Beck, a little stream that flowed into the larger River Wear. Tun Beck lent its name to BOTWAC too—the Beck on the Wear Arts Centre. Ross managed BOTWAC, Raith provided paintings and ceramics and Mike carried out the maintenance. Phil was the only one whose work was separate. He was a surgeon at Warbridge Hospital, an hour’s drive away and, in a sense, his medical background was the cause of the morning’s shock announcement. The four of them talked about the news that evening.

“You knew I’d donated sperm, Raith.” Phil had always made it clear that when he was a medical student, like many others on his course, he had donated both for research and for procreation.

“I know that, but you’d always done it anonymously. You said so, and you never did it after they changed the law.”

Raith was referring to a change that occurred in 2005 regarding data held at UK fertility clinics. At licenced clinics, that is. Prior to the change, offspring conceived by sperm or egg donation could learn some information about their donor when they reached sixteen, but what was released was very general. If donors wished to remain anonymous, they could do so. From 2005, though, anonymity was lifted. Sixteen was still the age of release of the ‘non-identifiable information’, but at eighteen, offspring conceived by donation had the right to be told their donor’s name and date of birth and, also, their donor’s last known address.

“I didn’t donate after two thousand and five. I think I’d know if I did.”

“Sperm can be frozen though, can’t it, Phil? Perhaps it was used after the change was implemented.”

“Only for another year or so, Ross, and under the old anonymity rules. There was a transitional period but, after that, sperm could only be used in exceptional circumstances. To create a sibling, for example. I remember being contacted about it. I had the option of… going public, if you like, but I chose not to do so. I didn’t want...I didn’t want a child, well, not one that I’d feel some responsibility for. I suppose, if I’m honest, I did want to pass on my genes, have that sense of immortality—I knew it was unlikely that I’d ever father a child with a woman. I just wanted to… be helpful, I suppose. I gave a brief self-description at the time, but the details would apply to thousands of people: eyes, hair, height, weight, ethnicity. Even if you narrowed the count with ‘student medic’ and my year of birth, you’d still be talking hundreds. I was careful not to leave traces.”

“How thoughtful of you!”

“That’s not helpful, Raith.”

Ross chastised gently but, tonight, too harshly for Raith.

“Helpful! It’s not help Phil needs—it’s a fucking vasectomy, but he’s eighteen years too late. I’m going up.”

No hugs, no kisses—the little goodnight habits that told the men that they were loved and cared for and cared about. Just “I’m going up” and heavy footsteps on the stairs.

About the Author

Jude Tresswell lives in south-east England but was born and raised in the north, and that’s where her heart is. She is ace, and has been married to the same man for many years. She feels that she understands compromise. She supports Liverpool FC, listens to a lot of blues music and loves to write dialogue.

Author Links

Blog/Website | YouTube