REVIEW: THE GENTLEMAN’S CAPTAIN

by Cristal Crowley

Publisher:    Publication Date: July 25, 2016

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

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Seemingly inseparable, Fitzwilliam Burton and William Hunt are torn apart by circumstance—Fitz remains at his family’s manor, Will leaves for a career in the navy, hoping to make his fortune.

What follows is a decade of Will’s unanswered letters and Fitz’s half-formed guilt. That is until the two are reunited in London and they both quickly realize the difference ten years makes.

Fitz took his place as the fashionable gentleman everyone knew he would become, distinguished as much for his good name, good looks, and good fortune as for his aversion towards romance. The once scrawny Will became the dashing Captain Hunt, famed leader of the Autolycus and now eligible bachelor. Constricted by the rules of polite society, the two men maneuver around their broken friendship, coincidental reacquaintance, and undeniable attraction.

As they relearn what it means to share their lives with each other amidst rising jealousies and persistent denial, can their mutual secrets transform into mutual understanding or will their forbidden love remain unsaid?

“The Gentleman’s Captain” is a romance set in England’s Regency era, when being gentlemanly is a full time job and being in love is a much desired, sometimes abandoned, luxury. In the war of affections, one’s self is often the greatest enemy. That, and handsome young lords named Henry.

Review written by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

If you are reading for the love story’s fruition and the sex, you have a bit of a wait with this book. The story starts out when the boys are young, just before William is sent off to be a midshipman in the Royal Navy. As inseparable as the two boys were, William is disappointed when Fitzwilliam never seems to write to him. They run into each other again when William has come back having resigned his commission in the Navy, and he is uncomfortable with restarting the friendship. Fortunately Fitzwilliam realizes that their friendship was always important to him, and he makes a point of becoming intimate socially with William as the man himself prospers. As a result you get to see several of the friends’ relationships, including William’s sister and Fitzwilliam, and to see how the young people prosper. There is an inevitable moment when they both realize that they love each other, and that’s basically the end of the book.

One interesting aspect of this relationship is that William, the more retiring boy, turns out to be much more interesting and much more outgoing. Fitzwilliam, who more or less abandoned his old friend, becomes the pursuant. Watching William and Fitzwilliam work their way towards each other is at times frustrating but also very rewarding.