Widdershins, from Jordan L. Hawk (Whyborne & Griffin #1)

Hello, there! Despite the awful beginning of the day with the news about Alan Rickman’s death (Rest In Peace, dear Alan!), life must continue and I’m happy to say that I took refuge in a wonderful book to sooth my sorrow. My dearest chosen was the first book in the Whyborne & Griffin series from the awesome Jordan L. Hawk, Widdershins.

from my Instagram 🙂

The Story

Percival Endicott Whyborne wanted nothing more of life in general. A quiet and awkward academic, his work at the Ladysmith Museum and his studies of several dead languages (13 spoken, but he could read more) were enough to occupy his thoughts and his empty existence.

That is, until nosy and charming detective Griffin Flaherty invaded his life and dragged him into a very obscure and dangerous mystery. Now both men have to work aside each other to prevent humanity of collapsing in the hands of a very old secret society with a very lively founder.

The thing is that both Whyborne and Griffin will have to decide whether their heated relationship have more to meet the eye or will be over as soon as they finish up the case.

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

I have already read two books from Jordan, both in the Spirits series: Restless Spirits and Dangerous Spirits (review here!). So, I was prepared for a wonderful writing style and awesomely built characters.

But nothing prepared me for Whyborne and Griffin.

It all started with the narrative style: first person thought the eyes of Whyborne. If you follow the blog for a while, you know that this is not my preferred narrative style. I often find it to be lacking in the story and limiting. Not the case at all! The fact that we could only live the drama through Whyborne’s eyes made it all more interesting. We second-guessed Griffin’s amour intentions, saw the double face of the truth and watched as Whyborne had to develop to solve the case. But I’ll get there, haha!

The plot was amazing. It was simply brilliant and completely connected. I didn’t find any loose ends on the mystery os even the characters, for that matter. And this is a freaking book series, where any loose ends were forgivable! =O

Seriously, this book!

Ahem.

So, the characters. As I had stated previously on this post, I was sure I would love Whyborne and Griffin simply because I can’t imagine a world where I would not like a character built by Hawk. At first, I thought Whyborne too shy, to neurotic and afraid of breathing; don’t get me wrong, it’s an accurate description. I could never imagine his blossoming through the story, how his love for Griffin made him braver and confident. And the same goes to Griffin: he may have been at ease and chatty, but has his own ghosts, some of them far worse than Whyborne’s. He also faced many fears in behalf of his lover and, on this point, their kind of romance reminded me the ones that my goddess Ava March writes. The couple was lacking something before they found true love and their love makes them better people. Needless to say that, besides adding two more bookish boyfriends to that legendary list of mine, I also gave my heart to this series ❤

I also thought that I would prefer Griffin over Whyborne and I’m astonished that Whyborne managed to steal Griffin’s spotlight with me, haha! Oh, and I also can’t go through this review without mentioning Whyborne’s bff, Christine! She is a blast ❤ I identified with her in so many levels, I wish she’d appeared more… For you guys to get her essence, I’ll leave the explaining task to Ariana Grande:

This is Christine all over, haha!

And there is the ultimate villain. Jeez, I need to catch my breath, haha! How awesome is that his only flaws are being in a need of a fingernail cut and to want world domination? Honestly, I would have loved to see a sex scene between him and Whyborne, omg. Don’t get me wrong, I love Whyborne with Griffin and regret nothing that happened in this book, but a girl can dream, haha! I love sex scenes where desire and hate are mixed into pleasure (not rape, just the sheer need of having the body of a fellow that you could fire in the head to kill). I shan’t reveal the villain’s name for the sake of spoilers, but he is hot.

And, as I already hinted in the last paragraph, let’s now analyze sex scenes! The last books I had been reading lacked those, so I rather missed them, oops! Also, it has been a while since my last gay book, so I was double happy with Hawk’s work 😉 One thing I adored was that Whyborne and Griffin took it slow in bed. Whyborne was a virgin and remained that way even after their first sexual plays. It was lovely ❤ Griffin was the top in this book, but hinted that he’s the type that likes both ends of sex making, haha!

Ahem. I seem to be a little carried away today, I apologize.

Overall, this is a very good mystery book. Yes, there is romance, but it’s not its solemnly focus. I’d say this is a story about friendship in the first place and how relationships change over time. Not just in a romantic way 🙂

Well, that’s it! Thanks for reading ❤ Have you read Jordan L. Hawk’s books?

 

 

PS: Rest in Peace, dear Alan Rickman.

Always.