Rating: 5🌈
It’s going to break my heart to say goodbye to the Campo Royale series. It’s turned out to be a moving and entertaining series based around a Wilmington, Delaware hard working drag establishment. We’ve had all types of Queens and romances, from tiny Gigi and her NHL player to aging drag Queen Mother Sitka Patel and young Yampier.
Now at the penultimate story, we have Clarice Patel Coco, manager and performer at the Campo Royale. At the end of the last novel, a long lost and bitterly regretted love had resurfaced from Clarice’s past.
Nathan Abrams met young Leroy Marx on a college summer trip in France. It was incredibly beautiful and intense time when the young men fell deeply in love. But Nathan left, tragedy struck at home and Leroy returned to deal with it.
Locey gives us the innocence of Paris, the brutality of its loss and its significance to make Leroy’s current bitterness and solid stance against Nathan seem rational instead of extreme. When paired with their current monetary circumstances, Leroy scrambling to pay off the debts versus Nathan being wealthy to the point of private planes, the past seems a bigger barrier to overcome.
The realness and depth of energy that Locey has brought to the Campo Royale in every aspect makes it such a compelling stage for the series and romances. With Mother Sitka reigning over the chaos, the Queens backstage fondly quarreling and delivering shade with lines worthy of the best of RuPaul’s Untucked , this is a place you believe in. And love.
So it’s tough that most of the story is necessarily removed from here. It’s as though the author is preparing us to say goodbye .
Leroy, Nathan, and Leroy’s ebullient young sister, Laila (a great character), go on a journey of forgiveness, discovery, and love is so well done. I was deeply impressed with the details of pageantry, the city trips, the raw emotion, and how emotionally committed I was to the project and outcome.
Locey’s story has so many elements and all are fully explored and made real to the extent the reader will believe we’ve traveled around with the people, engaging in conversations, sharing experiences, and growing up with the newly created family.
Honestly, The Financier and the Sweetheart is my favorite of the series. It’s a deeply felt story and beautifully written journey about second chances and personal growth.
Then the letting go and moving forward to a new chapter in life.
There’s one last book to come . That will be a sorrowful read. Until then, I’m highly recommending The Financier and the Sweetheart (Campo Royale #4) by V.L. Locey, a beautiful way to start our goodbyes.
Campo Royale series:
✓ The Viking and the Drag Queen #1
✓ The Batchelor and The Cherry #2
✓ The Barkeep and The Bookseller #3
✓ The Financier and the Sweetheart #4
â—¦ The Chanteuse and the Bodyguard #5 – TBD release
Description:
Will the love they once shared reignite or will this goodbye truly be the last?
Leroy Marx has been performing as Clarice Patel Coco for years. Ever since that fateful summer when he was a young and foolish man touring Europe before heading to a religious college in the Deep South. That trip proved to be a time of great joy as well as crushing sorrow. He found love on that grand tour in the arms of an arrogant, beautiful young man who was sowing his wild oats amid the lavender fields of France. That great passion was not to last for many reasons, one being the untimely death of Leroy’s parents in a car crash. The same crash that put his twin sister in a wheelchair for life. Leaving that young lover behind, he divided his time between his job and caring for his sibling. Leroy never dreamed that he’d be face-to-face with the man who had won, then trampled his heart all those years ago. The years have been incredibly kind to Nate Abrams but no matter how sweet that voice or how alluring those eyes are, Leroy is not about to offer up his heart again.
Nathan Abrams has it all, or so people say. Nate himself would say that as well and has numerous times. He’s a proud and out gay man who has an uncanny knack for knowing when to buy and when to sell. Anything. Stocks, houses, artwork, bonds. Nate has a keen sense of when to walk and when to hold tight. The only time he’d ever been wrong about his instincts was that glorious summer when he’d been eighteen and had met a reserved sweetheart of a man named Leroy Marx. He’d fallen hard for Leroy, the wild and impetuous headiness of first love overwhelming him. To the point that he’d feared the deep emotions ablaze in his chest. He’d run from that romance and into the arms of countless lovers, but he’d never been able to purge the tender memories of that love from his heart. Now here he was fifteen years older, and it seems none the wiser because he cannot seem to win back the man who has haunted his dreams no matter what he tries. He’s at his wit’s end but is too stubborn to give up and lose Leroy for a second time. Nate is ready to do whatever it takes to fix the biggest mistake of his life if he could just figure out what exactly he has to do and how to go about doing it…
The Financier and the Sweetheart is a second chance romance with a rich banker, a proud and independent queen, a past that both prayed would never be seen or heard from again, go-go boots, world travel, loving sisters, bell bottom love, and a glitteringly gorgeous happy ending.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 