Blessed Isle by Alex Beecroft

BlessedIsle_600x900Title: Blessed Isle

Series: N/A

Author: Alex Beecroft

Genre: M/M, Historical, Romance

Length: Novella (103 pages)

Publisher: Riptide Publishing (December 31st, 2012)

Heat Level: Low

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥3Hearts-liked it

Blurb: For Captain Harry Thompson, the command of the prison transport ship HMS Banshee is his opportunity to prove his worth, working-class origins be damned. But his criminal attraction to his upper-crust First Lieutenant Garnet Littleton, threatens to overturn all he’s ever worked for.

Lust quickly proves to be the least of his problems, however. The deadly combination of typhus, rioting convicts, and a monstrous storm destroys his prospects…and shipwrecks him and Garnet on their own private island. After months of solitary paradise, the journey back to civilization – surviving mutineers, exposure, and desertion – is the ultimate test of their feelings for each other.

These two very different men each record their story for an unfathomable future in which the tale of their love – a love punishable by death in their own time – can finally be told. Today, dear reader, it is at last safe for you to hear it all.

Product Link: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/blessed-isle

Reviewer: Patrick

Review: I was expecting a bit more romance than historical content to this book. I learned a few interesting things, but I also noticed a couple of small inconsistencies. For instance, while it was punishable by death to be found having a sexual relationship with a person of the same-sex, it was done all the time among military personnel and the royal families. History glosses over it quite a bit, but if you dig deep enough, it is there to be found. Now, if you are caught, yes there is a death sentence, but on the ships for the various military Naval personnel, it was very common and most people always looked the other way and pretended it wasn’t happening, especially considering the short life spans, the time away at sea, the constant threat of war and more. If you were flagrant about it though and flaunted it, it would get you killed.

Captain Harry showed the time-honored tradition of denial and thinking something must be wrong with him, as is still the case today for a lot of people, no matter their age when they are on the cusp of coming out of the closet or admitting to themselves who they are. Through the storms, the mutiny, the prisoners, desertion, shipwrecks, disease, rescue and more, two people managed to find one another, but because of the determination to not be something sinful and criminal, things may never have happened without catastrophic interventions, which happened here in this story, more than once.

I still do not understand the reasoning behind the dramatic act outs of the brother arguments at the end of the book though. Then the sudden, oh this happened, but I will sum it up in one sentence thing? Really? That is when the story could really have taken off! That promised for something great, thrilling and exciting, but instead the book ended on just and dead-end kind of note. However, altogether, the story was a nice read, especially with all of the historical information. But next time, the romance should be fleshed out and put more action into this type of story, rather than just the great details of travel and storm. The rebellion of the prisoners could have been a really exciting extra chapter or two.