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Whistle Stopper - Captain's Surrender
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List Price: $12.99
Our Price: $12.64
Your Save: $ 0.35 ( 3% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Linden Bay Romance
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781602020894
ISBN: 1602020892
Label: Linden Bay Romance
Manufacturer: Linden Bay Romance
Number Of Pages: 194
Publication Date: 2008-01-15
Publisher: Linden Bay Romance
Release Date: 2008-01-15
Studio: Linden Bay Romance
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: AFRAID OF LIVING, SCARED OF DYING
Comment: Captain's SurrenderThat is the life Joshua Andrews must live, his turmoil really heats up when he meets Peter Kenyon. What starts out as friendship, develops into love, yet Peter seems to be unaware of Joshua's anxiety. Peter thinks they are just exploring their curiosity until he takes his place in society, but events changes his view of how he really feels. The story's pace is a little slow, but the emotional drama more than makes up for that. Very enjoyable for anyone who likes gay historical.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What a Surrender
Comment: The year is 1779 and if you are serving on a ship in this era the Captain is God, or at least he thinks and acts like a deity. The Nimrod's tyrannical Captain is pretty horrible by all accounts. He wants every man on board ship to know who the boss is by terrorizing and beating his crew into submission; if any of them fail to give him the absolute obedience he demands they pay the ultimate price. The first scene in the book is horrific - a hanging that the Captain makes everyone watch, even the youngest members of the crew who are barely into their teens. The sin for which the poor sailor is hanged is sodomy which is punishable by death. But fear not my hearties the story gets a little more upbeat from here on with the arrival on board the Nimrod of the new First Lieutenant, Peter Kenyon.
When Peter meets midshipman Josh Andrews for the first time it is not earth shattering lust immediately and they start out as friends, but Josh does fall hopelessly in love with his roommate whom the Captain very cleverly puts in Josh's sights as bait. He suspects Josh's sexual orientation and hopes to catch him in the act so that he can have the pleasure of another hanging. The relationship between the two men starts off very slowly as both are afraid of the consequences, if caught, and in addition Peter does not believe that he is gay while Josh is absolutely sure of his own sexual orientation. There is no action between the sheets until half way into the book and for me to become so immersed in the story without any overt sex is testament to the writer's skill in weaving such a wonderful tale of men at sea. The unspoken understanding and caring between Peter and Josh with just heated glances as they embark on their romance was wonderfully done and for Peter it was a step into unchartered waters.
In the masterful telling of this tale Alex Beecroft made me believe that I was actually on the Nimrod riding the waves with those unhappy midshipmen. The sustained beatings for minor misdemeanors may have been brutal but I suppose they were historically true of the era and made the story more authentic. What really impressed me was the amount of painstaking detail in the book about every aspect of life on board the Nimrod, and I found it remarkable that the writer did not shy away from the blood and gore. Since I'm not an expert on the period I could not judge its accuracy but it seemed real to me - the author must have done an incredible amount of research to make this book feel as genuine as it did.
It is difficult to believe that this is Ms Beecroft's first book as she is a mistress at the art of world building and sets the stage wonderfully for our two protagonists. WOW! I have lost my ability to articulate, or to put it simply, words fail me. Captain's Surrender shattered any preconceived biases or notions I might have had about historical romances, particularly those involving men at sea, as I was absolutely captivated and transported to the Age of Sail. The characterizations were very realistic although I loved Josh more than Peter who seemed a bit dim and selfish when it came to matters of the heart. Peter is determined to marry a suitable woman who would bear his children and he does not understand how much he is hurting Josh. When he almost loses him in battle he realizes how much Josh really means to him. The author uses the minor characters in a way I have seldom seen and they add to the story rather than detract from it as at times I was able to glimpse the action through their eyes.
For the genre there is not a whole lot of sex in the book, instead it is a true action adventure and a romance in every sense of the word - from the first meeting between the Peter and Josh, through their fumbling attempts at sex, separations, war, serious injury and ultimatums. There is so much more to the book but I would be a spoiler if I elaborated any further.
Captain's Surrender surpasses genre - it is a superb story that would rank up there with any mainstream book, and the story is what drew me in kept me enthralled until the very last page. It would be remiss of me not to add my voice to others who decried the awful cover with which this book was saddled and I hope that future stories by this author will be given better treatment.
Run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore or e-book retailer to purchase a copy of Captain's Surrender. For those readers who would like a bit more sex in the book there is a free story called INSUBORDINATION on the Linden Bay and Ms Beecroft's websites which detail the further sexual adventures of our heroes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful.
Comment: I almost didn't buy this book. The cover was a decided turn-off.
But then I read some enthusiastic reviews for it and finally had to read the book for myself, to know if it was really that good.
It is.
The cover might lead you to believe this is just another raunchy, endless-sex-scene-every-other-page gay "romance" (emphasis not so much on the romance). Ignore the cover! It doesn't even come close to living up to the story within.
Captain's Surrender is a romance for those of us who are unabashedly romantic at heart and know a good love story when we read it. From first glance, Joshua falls head over heels with Peter, and so did I. Peter's handsome, as well as immediately likeable. But he's also wonderfully flawed--a little arrogant and too placidly confident that he always knows what's expected of him and that he's entirely capable of living up to everyone's expectations, including his own. It takes a self-aware and emotional man like Joshua to shake Peter to the core and upset his tidy world-view. Joshua's the wiser, but more vulnerable in a way, because he is afraid to let himself think he's capable of falling in love. He has seen himself as something perverse for so long, his feelings for Peter are a revelation--and his vulnerability in that regard endears him utterly to the reader. He falls first and falls hard--and the reader hopes desperately with him that his love doesn't go unrequited.
Peter's got plenty to deal with, himself, in trying to fend off both a potential mutiny aboard ship and the matchmaking efforts of a friend hoping to marry off his only child to the dashing, eligible lieutenant. Usually I dislike female characters in gay romance novels. They are usually either obnoxious BFFs of the main characters or they are overbearing relatives, usually moms who can't quit meddling. In Captain's Surrender, I am happy to say that Emily was a breath of fresh, feminine air. She was independent without being obnoxious about it, and still innocent and vulnerable without being the damsel-in-distress. She came across like a real woman of her time period and I liked her and rooted for her and wondered how the author would work it out that no hearts ended up broken.
One particular appeal of this novel is that it does have its unpredictable twists. Just when you think it will go a certain way, it goes another, and keeps you reading to find out where the new path will lead. All the characters, including secondary ones, are so well-rounded, I could easily visualize them and understand what drove each one, even when their mindsets led them to choices that were maddening or exasperating. That's another strength of the book. The author's characters live in *their* world, in their time period, and they respond to each other and the rest of society accordingly. It makes for some powerfully affecting and interesting situations, particularly for Peter.
One other thing I must mention--if you love lyrical prose and description that makes another time period come to life all around you as you read--then you will thoroughly enjoy this book. I adored the descriptions of time and place. The author can turn a phrase with that kind of rare beauty that makes you want to stop for an instant and re-read just to savor the way it is written.
There was very little I didn't like about the book. One thing I would've liked more of was the developing relationship between Josh and Peter early on. The author gives some of it in a flashback-y way that, while evocative and romantic, only left me wishing for more details of their courtship, as secret as it was and had to be. I also had some trouble following a lot of the nautical terms, but this is the first real sea story I've ever read, apart from YA books twenty years ago, so I am not up on the lingo. More experienced readers would probably follow it just fine. It was a little too much for me and I had to do some re-reading to figure out what was going on in the big battle scenes. The depth and care with which details are included do immerse you wonderfully into the story. I am also extremely appreciative of certain details left out, namely long, graphic sex scenes. The intimacy in Captain's Surrender is tender, sexy, sweet, and just exactly right.
One more thing--in case the publisher reads Amazon author reviews. Dear Linden Bay: How about a romantic, elegant, beautiful cover to go with a romantic, elegant, beautiful book? You are obviously capable of signing up first-class writers. It'd be great if you provided covers worthy of their stories. You might also want to look more closely at the formatting, because it was somewhat off in places, in the copy I received.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Crafted Novel
Comment: At last, a book that I could read and forget I was reading a book!
I found myself completely drawn into the world and lives of Peter Kenyon and Joshua Andrews and it felt more like I was watching a movie than reading a book. The language used is visual, immediate and feels 'right' for the time and setting of the story.
Although it is not a graphically erotic book, I felt the love scenes were well drawn, complete and not overwrought to the point where they outweigh the plot and that was a pleasant change from some of the erotic books that are available today.
Several plot twists actually made me laugh with surprised delight, and the battle scenes produced genuine horror and concern for the characters who were so alive to me that I was surprised to find myself biting my lips or holding my breath during the more tense scenes.
As a commentary on the treatment of homosexual men of the period, the book also draws comparative attention to the treatment of homosexuals today, and delivers a strong message in favor of acceptance and tolerance, without becoming preachy.
The only point in which the accuracy falls down is in the language of the Biblical texts quoted in the story, which is too modern and would have set better with me had it been drawn from the King James Version of the Bible.
But even taking that minuscule error into account, I still give it a hearty five stars!
Bravo!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Kenyon and Andrews Under Full Sail!
Comment: I must say right off that I have always lived smack-dab in the middle of corn-and-soybean country in the US. I have never seen, smelled, or heard the sea except in films and I'm scared to death of water and I've never been a particular fan of adventure stories. Plus I'm addicted to long, fat books. So why am I am enamored of this little book (less than 200 pages) with raging seas, heaving decks, booming cannon, salt spray and decks awash in blood?
Well, for one thing the protagonists, 20-year-old red-haired Josh Andrews and Lt. Peter Kenyon, are well-drawn, intelligent, and sympathetic young men who just happen to be hotter than a cannon barrel at Waterloo. And each has a secret that could get them hanged in the King's Navy. For another thing, the writing is excellent; the author has a facility for description that lets you taste the salt air, feel the pain of a flogging, hear the wind screaming through the lines in a storm, feel the deck, slippery with blood, lurch beneath your feet. Either Beecroft's research has been incredibly thorough or else we have a two-hundred-year-old sea-faring author in our midst.
Under the best of circumstances life was brutal in the closed-in, isolated world of a ship at sea. And when the captain is a vicious man who enjoys blood sport--especially if the blood is that of one of his men--it's unbearable. (That captain, by the way, is not the surrendering captain of the title!) On the first page a young sailor is hanged for being a "sodomite." So it is that from the opening sentence we know what kind of ship Andrews and Kenyon are aboard. We also know that 20-year-old, red-haired Joshua has a secret that could send him to the gallows. And very shortly we see that Josh is nearly undone by his fierce attraction to the lieutenant, Peter Kenyon.
This is a book packed full of excitement; when Josh and Peter finally get together the sex scenes are graphic without being overwhelming the story. The course of love does not run smooth, especially with a potential bride thrown into the mix. And as a bonus you'll probably learn a great deal about sailing vessels. For instance, I didn't know that after a battle the blood literally poured down the sides of the vessel from channels created for that purpose. See what I mean about the research?
The only thing I didn't care for, and which I'm sure the author had nothing to say about, was the cover. It's a tad cheesy and this book deserves better, not to mention you'd want to hide it from your mother and maiden aunt.
The story is highly recommended and I'm looking forward to Beecroft's next book. And after you read it, if you find yourself suddenly addicted to movies like Mutiny on the Bounty, Master and Commander, Moby Dick, etc., you can blame Alex Beecroft.
...Ruth Sims, author of The Phoenix
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Editorial Reviews:
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Captain's Surrender a male/male historical novel set in 1779, is a beautifully written tale of forbidden romance between two star crossed lovers who are trying to survive life in the British Navy during the war with the Colonies. It's filled with passion, intrigue, and the kind of compelling heroes that you've come to expect from a Linden Bay Romance novel--two of them, actually.
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