Lieutenant Samuel Blackwood (deceased)

HMS Privet is a cursed ship – every first lieutenant serving aboard her dies gruesomely. Lieutenant Daniel Leigh is determined to solve the mystery and volunteers for the place himself, putting his life in desperate danger. Little does he suspect that he will fall in love with the Captain, John Meadows, and end up fighting not only for his own life but for the soul of his lover too.

This is a unique and delightful little book. I should declare an interest at once, because I proof-read it and am kindly listed as ‘editor’. But I agreed to proof read it because, having read the story, I had already fallen in love with it. In the best tradition of the Victorian penny dreadful, it is a rip-roaring story without great literary pretensions, but with buckets of verve and charm. Ghosts! Mortal peril! True love of the m/m persuasion. Derring-do on the high seas… It has all of these things. Above all, it’s an entertaining short story told with great wit.

It’s also embellished with four original drawings which – I think – are worth the price of the book on their own. The front cover gives you an accurate impression of the style. Like the story, they are deeply charming, and I believe my copy will end up falling open at the kiss on p59

The book is professionally put together and nice to handle. The quality of printing, paper and cover is very high. The first in a planned series (each volume kept short in order to keep the prices down) it’s available through the author’s website HERE

I think it says something that I’ve already bought two copies – one for me and one to give away, and on the strength of this one will be buying the rest of the series sight unseen.  It’s the perfect thing to while away a couple of hours on a windy night, and I hope I will eventually have a shelf full of the series 🙂