Charles: Learning to Love

This is a story about finding your way in life when it isn’t clear and falling in love when you weren’t looking for it. I loved that Charles and Hugo had a right place, right time meet-cute. It was so sweet and funny. This story definitely has some good hurt comfort vibes and enough angst to really get you into your feelings. I loved it so much. Told from Charles’s POV, we get immersed in his insecurities. As the third son of an Earl with profound dyslexia, he struggles to do things in life others take for granted. However, Charles is a sunshine character whose love of children and nurturing them is his calling. Hugo is trying to find his way in life and needs a bit of Charles sunshine.Charles finds himself applying for a temp position at a school to escape the nagging of his elder brother. He is offered the position with the caveat that he will move in with Hugo, the man he met after his interview. Life has not been kind to Hugo and he smiled for the first time in ages after spending time with Charles. Together, they form a friendship, give into their mutual attraction, and Charles begins to see what the future could look like if he gives up his playboy ways. But with the end of term approaching, they both have to put themselves out on the edge and decide if they will jump.I loved the give and take of this sweet love story. They each need the other so much it made me get misty. Charles has a deep capacity to feel things and after being judged and found wanting for much of his life, he struggles to see himself as worthy. Hugo is the first person who he felt really understood him and I absolutely loved their journey together to their HEA. It was everything I wanted it to be. If you love an emotional love story about finding your way when you are a bit lost, then this is the book for you.

“Charles” is definitely in the top top of the best books I’ve read this year. It really doesn’t have any downsides which doesn’t happen as often as I wish to. The writing is amazing, all the characters are lovable and grab your attention in the way that you want to know more about them. The children are cute and not annoying, more, the moments with little Tor are just the most wholesome thing ever. And what we all are here for: the love story is wonderful. Very well-paced and realistic, with friendship first, and attraction that is early acknowledged and in the open, the relationship is sweet and swoony, and earned. So nothing more to say, in “Charles” everything just works.Really couldn’t dream of the better end to my reading year. ❤️

Never read a book by this author but thoroughly enjoyed it. M/M contemporary romance between Charles and Hugo.Loved the setting (Cornwall) and listened to the audio version narrated by Cornell Collins which was magnificent

In the first review I read for this book, the reader affirmed herself as jealous of the author for having Charles alive and living on her mind. At first, my reaction was thinking it a bit much. Now, I stand corrected.Charles is one of the best written characters I’ve ever read. Never have I had tears threatening to spill as early as the second chapter. Better still, Hugo and the supporting characters are just as wonderful.I’ve been reading M/M romance for a while and more often than not, I’m left wanting for a bit more. This book has it. The story, the love & spice, along with the context, the feeling, the depth, and even the hurt….all of it!

Con Riley is fast becoming a go to mm author. This book is set in the UK with Charles and Hugo the main characters. Told from Charles POV. A beautiful story. Charles is the 3 rd son of an Earl and has been crippled with dyslexia all his life. He has become a child play specialist. Hugo is a padre who has lost his way in life. Touching story with many side stories as well. A guest appearance from the characters from the True Brit book as well.

Like most of the books I've read recently, it was the blurb that had me interested in this title. Having no prior knowledge of His Haven, I came into this book blind and have no regrets giving this a go.The story revolves around Charles and Hugo. Two wounded men who throughout the book slowly heals and in the end find their happiness in each other.Charles Keppel is a free-spirited man, quite open and easy with his affections and is not shy from enjoying sex. Beneath this care-free part of himself is a man who is deeply hurting from the lack of support and understanding from his family in his chosen profession despite having conquered insurmountable odds regarding his condition of dyslexia and low working memory. He loves teaching children that have difficulties in learning and he excels in it yet his family seem to be oblivious to it.Hugo is a padre or chaplain if you will who has been injured having had the group he is in be caught in a horrible incident that has lost lives and caused huge injuries to a lot of people. Having the psychological trauma of his experience, couple that with him questioning his place and purpose in life, Hugo had very little to smile about.Charles and Hugo meeting in the confessional is both a hilarious and heart-breaking first time meeting. The dialogue and banter shared in that section is witty, funny, real and quite on point. The chemistry these two characters have is undeniable and yet there is careful thought and care in the way it has been executed in this story making it sweeter, grounded and true for the characters involved.Some religious elements are touched upon in this book so people who are adverse to such kind of things should bear that in mind if you do decide to pick up this. Faith and religion are fundamental to the main characters more so in Hugo's case as he was close to being ordained. This has been handled quite nicely in a way that is not quite preachy as I would've thought it would be.Overall, Charles is a wonderfully written story with some really compelling and likeable characters that tackles the theme of healing and finding one's true love nicely. I recommend this book and give this a 4 stars out of five.I received an ARC of this book via GRR and I have chosen to publish my fair and honest review.

This was a big change from the Ice Hockey series I’ve read recently. Also it is set in Cornwall, in South West of England, where I’d spent a family holiday a few years ago. Loved the setting and the story of The Honourable Charles Hepple and his Castle home near Bath. Charles is a real man about town flits from one man to another on his one nightstands. He is also dyslexic and not held in too high regard by his 15 years older brother, The Earl. However, he does have some very redeeming characteristics, he’d love to have been able to qualify as a teacher but his dyslexia prevented him from getting the qualifications required.He managed to get part time post as “Teacher Assistant” at a school in Cornwall, helping children that had learning difficulties not necessarily physical, maybe issues at home. There he meets a man who was struggling to find his way back into his life after receiving injuries in a war far away from Cornwall. He struggles with his Faith, physical injuries and disfigurement. How could two men so completely opposites ever manage to get along together in a work environment? There are a few other good supporting characters with stories of their own includingChildren at the school. I enjoyed this story of the two main characters and I shed a few tears too. It sure was a good read, slow and steady and more mature a good change of pace from Sport Setting.

I don't even know where to start with this review. My first book by this author, and watch me go and get everything else before this!!What do we have here?Beautiful writing? checkPerfectly complex and beautifully flawed characters? checkStunning setting full of great secondary characters? checkFeelings and humour and serious matters all intertwined to give us an amazing story with a gorgeous HEA? check, check and checkCharles' story had me in tears. My only tiny bit of criticism about this book is that Charles sometimes read as a younger character. Definitely younger than his very late 20's. Perhaps it was his outlook in life, mixed with his love of "maggots" and his dyslexia. But his inner voice resonnated so much with me anyway.I loved his love for live, his love for the children, his love for his friend (I need to read Kier's story like right now) eventually his loyalty to his family. I loved his understanding of Hugo's faith and how he simply fell in love.Something that annoys me about romance books sometimes is the lack of communication between the main characters. However when Nathan appeared, I totally understood Charles' point of view and he did everything that I would have ever done. At no point I found myself thinking "don't be silly, you know better, go and talk to Hugo". No. Despite knowing deep inside me that Nathan was just a friend, I totally stood with Charles here.And Hugo... You know, something else great about this book is that I never felt like I was missing Hugo's POV. We see his initial pain, both mental and physical, so well through Charles' eyes. We see his faith, we see him finding a new calling and finding his feet. We see his happiness slowly growing into a love that he had never experienced before. And when Hugo asks Charles at the end of the book whether he knows what a sacrament is, well, imagine the waterworks...And the secondary characters? Tor: Freaking adorable "maggot". So happy that he got his happy ending too. George and Fliss, although very very secondary, such an important part of the development of the "what could have been". The first Charles and Huw, and the folley and their letters. Just stunning.

All the stars for this one. It wrecked me and put me back together in the nicest of ways. I didn't think anything could better His Haven...but this one blew it out of the water!! I want more stories about the ridiculously lovely Charles Heppel and his scarred but full of faith wannabe padre/vicar/man of the cloth Hugo Eavis. I also want more of Tor and the other children of Glynn Harber, and will confess to crying particularly ugly tears throughout the reading of this story, so box of tissues warning for everyone. Onto my Creme-de-la-Creme shelf with you my beauty, and well done Con Riley.

I enjoyed this, and ended up reading it almost in one go. Gorgeous descriptions of the setting, and I really liked how Charles worked with his dyslexia. The children here managed to be realistic and interesting, which is something that xan he very hard to find! I liked that Hugo's religion was neither a huge issue nor something abandoned, but that they could find a relationship with balance.I was slightly confused by the confession part at the beginning as Hugo seems to have been training to be a CoE vicar so why there was a confessional booth at the Chapel I'm not sure, but its possible I either misunderstood or am just too picky, but fir sone reason I couldn't forget about it!A very enjoyable read that sets up the rest of the series I feel, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

So I struggled to get through that. It’s a beautiful book but maybe that’s the problem. It’s technically excellent but I just never connected with the main characters. Too flowery, too much like poetry and absolutely like a fairytale. I mean it is grounded in some hard real life problems but you never feelconnected to the challenges the MCs face. I could not lose myself in the story…I DNFd Keir’s story and reading this did not make me want to go back and finish it. I won’t be reading anymore books in this series either. I get the gushing others feel over this story I just felt underwhelmed and bored. But maybe it’s me not the story. I’ll be fair and give it 4 🌟 for its technical excellence.