Renaissance man John Gilliam is a patient at an asylum, due to his unfortunate attraction to men, or his being caught at it, rather. At first he thought treatment might actually help him, but being humiliated, attacked by a warden and bereft of his writing utensils he's quite unhappy with his situation. He becomes friendly with the burly but gentle warden Sam Tully, and starts teaching the former dock worker better reading skills. But Tully harbors the same forbidden feelings John does, which is really not a good idea in an asylum meant to treat said feelings.

The book started out a little dark but very nice. The situation for John is pretty bad, but not as horrible as it could be in an Victorian age asylum. But the idea to cure someone of homosexuality by giving them cold-water treatment seems pretty ludicrous now.
The scenes with Tully are very heart-warming and I liked both of them together. John is very much intellectual, too much in his own head sometimes, while Sam is not learned but inherently observant and kind. Sam helps John and John helps Sam and it's a nice feel-good dynamic.

But then the books needs to introduce a pretty boring and stereotypical mystery into the plot which could not hold my interest much and which also lead to the characters getting way too little time together. The book just went stale for me with that.

There is a pretty romantic HEA, which feels just a little too unrealistic, forced and picture-perfect too me.