Desmond & Garrick: Book 2

As the vain and self-absorbed poets con­tinue their cam­paign of destruc­tion via awful verse and cat­a­strophic roman­tic advice in Dry­den Abbey, Gar­rick finds him­self strug­gling in the class­room, with increas­ingly dis­tracted and agi­tated pupils erod­ing all of his hard work and reduc­ing him to using all things dead and decay­ing in order to keep Desmond and Lavinia’s minds on their lessons. As if that isn’t enough, his par­ents embark on a mad coun­try­side ram­ble, their ulti­mate des­ti­na­tion being Dry­den Abbey and a face-to-face meet­ing with their son’s unholy employers.

Mean­while, with Phillip Priestley’s unex­pected appear­ance, Desmond’s world slowly unrav­els as infat­u­a­tion, lust, con­fu­sion, and revul­sion drive him into wilder mood swings and an over­whelm­ing desire to play with his father’s antique executioner’s axe. Mr. Sherbourne’s coldly dis­tant yet attrac­tive pres­ence in Dry­den Abbey fur­ther com­pli­cates things, prompt­ing Desmond to do some­thing he never thought he’ll ever do: reach out to unlikely allies, namely mor­tals, for help.

In the midst of all the wild goings on around them, Gar­rick and Desmond will real­ize that the chasm that sep­a­rates them as dis­tinct species will not only teach them impor­tant lessons on under­stand­ing and accep­tance, but also forge a stronger bond of friend­ship than they’ve expected.