kaje_harper 's review for:

Brute by Kim Fielding

4.0

---

This is a lovely M/M romance set in what is very definitely a fairy-tale mood and story arc. Brute/Aric is a wonderful, slightly larger-than-life character, in more ways than one. He is kind, patient, strong, smart if uneducated, compassionate, restrained... and lonely. Gray, the prisoner he is set to watch, and whom he gradually befriends, is a perfect foil, a man whose treatment has been so harsh that he needs every ounce of the caring and support Aric gives him. The fact that Gray gives back the first deep human affection Aric has had since his mother died adds sweetness and poignancy. The story arc is familiar, the resolution expected, smooth and easy, but because this is couched in fairy-tale terms and tropes, that feels right and complete rather than boring.