False Colors: An Age of Sail Romance
For his first command, John Cavendish is given the elderly bomb vessel HMS Meteor, and a crew as ugly as the ship. He’s determined to make a success of their first mission, and hopes the well-liked lieutenant Alfie Donwell can pull the crew together before he has to lead them into battle: stopping the slave trade off the coast of Algiers.
Alfie knows that with a single ship, however well manned, their mission is futile, and their superiors back in England are hoping to use their demise as an excuse for war with the Ottoman
Empire. But the darker secret he keeps is his growing attraction for his commanding officer-a secret punishable by death.
With the arrival of his former captain-and lover-on the scene, Alfie is torn between the security of his past and the uncertain promise of a future with the straight-laced John.
Against a backdrop of war, intrigue, piracy and personal betrayal, the high seas will carry these men through dangerous waters from England to Africa, from the Arctic to the West Indies, in search of a safe harbor.
Review from ‘Dear Author’
Rarely, oh so rarely, I’ll read a book that is so sublime, so transcendent, I actually come away from it a little melancholy, because it’s over and I can never read it for the first time ever again, because I know I’ll never be able to do justice to it in my review or analysis, and because I know I won’t meet its equal for many a year. But the process of devouring the book, of eking out its layered, textured meaning, of savoring its descriptions, and the emotions–oh, the emotions!–leaves me flying for days and the melancholy only makes it all the sweeter.
This is one of those books. It ravished me. It scoured my insides. I feel like I’m stuck in it and I don’t ever want to get out.
Review from Courtney Milan
False Colors in the Newspapers
http://www.justout.com/arts.aspx?id=113
http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=12643
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/weekinreview/19rich.html?_r=1
http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/blog-217-more-waistcoat-ripping___.html
http://www.afterelton.com/askmonkey/06-01-2009?page=0%2C2
Jezebel.com – What women want, gay male sex. <http://jezebel.com/5296884/what-women-want-gay-male-sex>
Zipper Rippers – Baltimore City Paper <http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=18234>
Columbus News – Male Lovers, Female Readers <http://www.theotherpaper.com/articles/2009/04/23/arts/doc49f0736039a3f331393849.txt>
SN&R > Arts&Culture > The Brokeback effect > 06.04.09 <http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1002345>
New Haven Advocate (also in Fairfield Weekly) All Male Review <http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=12690>
Is That a Bellows in Your Tunic? – Books – The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper <http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/is-that-a-bellows-in-your-tunic/Content?oid=1634459>
Library Journal – if it ain’t Brokeback <http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6650980.html>
From Jessica at the Read React Review blog “It is sometimes said that genre fiction is about plot and character, while literary fiction is about language and Big Ideas. I have the perfect book to recommend to anyone who persists in that false belief.”
From Lisa at Michele n Jeff Reviews it is indeed everything that romantic tragedy embodies: overwhelming odds, impossible choices, demonic forces—both within and without—conflict with society, powerlessness, human limitations, forbidden love, and the loss of what might have been. All are present in this book and each is explored beautifully.
