As Meat Loves Salt

Maria McCann

A gritty love story about two men who meet in war and engage in a struggle with themselves, society and each other. This book puts you right in the middle of the stink and terror of 17th century England. You may not like Jacob, he’s a frightening, violent man; but you suffer with him and track his painful attempts to change with understanding, frustration and sympathy. The sex scenes are brilliant - very erotic. The whole book is just a jewel.

Extract

The great hall by torchlight was now a gilded slaughterhouse, with pictures everywhere, filthy idolatries in paint and in stone. I glanced up in blinking the warm water from my eyes and saw wood carved fine as lace. Velvet and gold tissue ran with gore or were caught on pikes and torn from the walls: men were blown up and fell in gobbets through jewelled windows. I saw one soldier ram a sword down another's throat, and heard the scream grow shrill and then choke off as the blade was driven home. Above them, high on the far wall, a marble Christ pale in death looked down from the cross upon His people.

Parallels