Ransom

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Publishing info below.

This is the third edition of this novel, having been published by two publishers before this one.  The entire Royal Navy series will come out from Dreamspinner Press, so you will be able to follow Marshall and Davy through much of their career.

This is a mixed bag.  It has quite brilliant moments, particularly the relationship between the two young men, where quite appropriate to 1799 they have doubts about their attraction to each other.  Davy, who has been victimized before, feels he is leading William astray while William, thinks his own affection for Davy comes from his friendship for and physical attraction to his friend.  It is unusual for a story set in a time like this to show really realistic feelings about homosexuality, so I was more than pleased.

The storytelling is meticulous… or plodding, depending on the scene being described.  It is almost cinematically directed, each scene specific and easy to follow, but sometimes you just want the author to get on with it.  I often felt like I could hear a metronome in the background, ticking each action along.  The basic story of the men’s abduction is steady from the start, but then the novel goes on to show the blossoming and continuation of the relationship.  If that had been the point from the start there should have been something at the beginning that did not set the expectation that once the abduction was over and the bad guy vanquished, there was another more important story to finish.

Another problem I had was telling the two young men apart.  Since the novel was read to me by my Kindle I could not pick up on clues obvious to someone reading with his or her eyes.  For much of the novel, I found myself trying to remember whether the bad guy, Adrian, was after William or Davy and whether Davy was the rich kid or William.  This lasted almost to the end of the book.  The two men just were not that distinct.

All in all, this is a competent but generally lackluster novel.  Its handling of the young men’s anxieties about being gay was the one feature of the novel that rises to the standard of excellent.

1st Edition (Print and eBook) published by Linden Bay Romance, LLC, 2006
2nd Edition (Print) published by Cheyenne Publishing, 2009
2nd Edition (eBook) published by Bristlecone Pine Press, 2009