Well, three months later I've finally finished reading As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann. I took some time off in the middle of it to finish proofing Prove a Villain, and also to read a manuscript that I'm in the process of signing for Cheyenne Publishing for next year. Anyway, back to AMSL, for me it was one of those things where you feel enriched for having read it even though the process was not all that enjoyable—kind of like doing research. Not everything that one reads needs to be buoyant and trivial. Sometimes it's worthwhile to read something where you actually learn something. Maria McCann is an astonishing writer and did a brilliant job of immersing me into the 17th Century before, during, and after the siege of Basing House. The neatest trick Ms. McCann pulls off is making the reader truly care about the first-person protagonist who is quite a despicable creature. Should we feel sympathy for Jacob Cullen? Probably not, but we do because we are made to understand what is going on inside of his head and what forces are guiding him to make such treacherous decisions.

I'd categorize this right alongside other dark, unpleasant but brilliant gay fiction such as Ginn Hale's Wicked Gentlemen, Blake Fraina's King of Cats: A Life in Five Novellas, Erastes' Transgressions, and Vienna Dolorosa by Mykola Dementiuk, though in that last one Dementiuk's characters are so unpleasant it somewhat hampered my ability to feel sympathy for them.