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The second of the “Glasgow Lads�� series, “Playing to Win�� turns its focus onto Colin MacDuff, the footballer who was sidelined with a torn knee in the first book; and Andrew Sunderland, the pampered lordling whose public coming out has made him a national celebrity.

I very much like series like this, where the entire context of the first book, including the characters, are all there in the second, but the attention has turned to other players. John and Fergus are very much present, and indeed the action begins at the party where the first book ended. It works well as a stand-alone book, but in the context of first book, offers a wider, richer perspective of gay life in Glasgow.

At first I was a bit concerned by the story, because its working-class-boy-meets-spoiled-aristo plot echoes traditional gay Brit romances focusing on class difference (Forster’s Maurice being the one that comes to mind first). But Cockburn manages this very well, and the prince-and-the-pauper angle works. Without getting too polemical, the author sketches out the realities of being poor in modern industrial UK, as well as the reality behind the fantasy of being a marquess’s son. Both Andrew and Colin are disenfranchised somewhat �� Colin by his class and a system that favors the top of the socio-economic pyramid; and Andrew by primogeniture, which essentially disinherits him and puts him entirely at the mercy of his father and brother.

The context for the tale is the memorable campaign for Scottish independence that most of us remember from 2014. Americans watched it from across the ocean quite avidly. I imagine our emotions were as divided as those in the UK (I was against the split, with all that romantic idealism that one would expect from Anglophilic Scots-Americans �� in spite of my German surname, my family is Clan Grant going back centuries, but with none of the Braveheart associations). Andrew, as a Scots nobleman, raised as part of the UK aristocracy in a massive castle, has an expectedly different view on the referendum from that of Colin, whose ancestral MacDuff castle stands in ruins and who grew up in a subsidized housing project in industrial Glasgow. These young men are the two sides of the Scottish independence coin, and Cockburn makes excellent use of it.

It was disconcerting to realize that Andrew is 20 and Colin is 19 �� the very age of my children. It is hard to put these boys into the mature roles Cockburn has written for them, but I had to acknowledge that both of them had been forced into maturity in a way that most university-aged boys are not. There was a necessity to making these lads young, because the story unfolds just as they are beginning their final journeys to manhood, each encumbered with the social standing into which they were born.

Cockburn manages to make Colin angry without being blinded by his anger. Equally, she makes Andrew a pampered toff without making him heartless and thoughtless (even though being heartless is something he tries to cultivate to protect himself from what is an untenable situation). Andrew is the more difficult character, because writers often make aristocrats impossibly awful. Andrew is superficial and smug, but Cockburn gives him a big heart to go with his intelligence, and ultimately that is what comes to the fore as the two boys struggle to figure out what love between them would mean for their futures.

As a reader who is increasingly weary of generic, formulaic sex in m/m romances, I have thank Cockburn for writing sexual situations that are both intense and integral to the emotional development of the plot. These two boys are both blindsided by their emotional connection with each other; both have shielded their feelings and hidden behind casual sex as teenagers. Neither one believes in romance, until it hits them. Their shared disbelief that romantic love can exist for them, particularly with their class divisions, provides a constant challenge to them and keeps the reader on edge.

There were some oddly unresolved issues at the end of the book, but I decided that the author had set them aside for book three, on which I hope desperately she’s working right now.

I'm going to add, just to be irritating, that Cockburn is very coy. Avery is a gender-neutral name, and the author gives no clue as to gender, other than there is a patient man at home. I assume this means Avery is a woman, because a man wouldn't do this. Again, no one in the m/m world is going to skip these books because the author is a woman. Enough with the coy.

You're probably right about Avery, but it's interesting that you say a man wouldn't do that. Without reading the original source, I feel like that's something either a man or woman might say.

I often find myself searching for true gender clues in bios and the writing itself but I don't know if I'm very good at ferreting out the truth. It does make me look at my own concept of 'male' vs 'female' though. The notion of gender and gender behaviors becomes more complicated and interesting as we become more informed and as gender roles get ever more blurred. It makes it so hard to really tell now.

Jax wrote: "You're probably right about Avery, but it's interesting that you say a man wouldn't do that. Without reading the original source, I feel like that's something either a man or woman might say.

Are there really people who WON'T read a book because it's by a woman - in THIS genre world? I love so many women authors, I can't imagine that it matters. I do like to read books by male authors, but it's more because I'm curious...glad to see men writing romantic fiction (as well as anything with gay characters).

Given that most straight people don't read anything by gay writers, your choice makes sense.

Now, I don't read things by gay writers that don't have gay characters. It's perfectly fine if you need to reach a marketplace who won't read gay stuff, but then you don't need me as a reader for those.

I'm lucky that I'm a voracious and fast reader. I get your point, because I do want to support gay men writing. But since I can read fast, I can indulge my selfishness and read everything I like (reading bad writing is the bummer!).

Now, at least two of the best romance writers are lesbians...Harper Fox and Ginn Hale. I'd hate to have missed their fantastic books.