Review: Connor & Ash – A E Ryecart

Each time Ash Hemsby strips off for a stranger in a hotel room or gets down on his knees in a back alley, a little piece of his soul dies. But debt is a hard task master, and money lenders don’t take IOUs.

From a shadowy corner of a hotel bar, Connor O’Brian watches the rent boy’s clumsy attempts to ply his trade. Beneath the younger man’s brash exterior Connor senses desperation and vulnerability, and his heart goes out to him – because he too bears the scars of living crushed and defeated.

A whispered conversation, a key exchanged, and the deal is struck. Yet the night turns out in a way neither expects.

A chance meeting brings Connor face to face with the man he can’t stop thinking about, and he’s determined not to let him get away a second time. Ash owes Connor for what happened that night in the hotel, but what was meant only to be the fulfilment of a promise begins to feel like something more.

Step by step, they begin to mend what is broken in the other. But life has a habit of tripping up the unwary. A random discovery, a scribbled, desperate note and a race across London bring each man face to face with the secret shame they have only ever wanted to keep hidden.

Secrets and half-truths have kept Connor and Ash in the shadows. Only the raw, heart wrenching truth can lead them out of the darkness and into the light. But is it already too late, and will the shadows reclaim them?