Title: Muffled Drum
Author: Erastes
Genre: Historical Romance
Length: 187pgs – 43,000w
Publisher: Carina Press
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥4 1/2
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: Bohemia, 1866
They met in a port-side tavern, their lust-filled moments stolen from days of marching and madness. After eighteen months, Captain Rudolph von Ratzlaff and First Lieutenant Mathias Hofmann have decided to run away from everything they hold dear. Resigning their commissions is social suicide, but there’s no other choice. Someone will eventually see Rudolph’s partiality toward Mathias.
Now their plans have gone horribly awry… When Mathias goes to Rudolph’s tent after their last battle, his lover looks at him without a hint of recognition. Mathias can hardly believe the man he knew is gone. He wants to fill in so many of Rudolph’s missing memories, but the doctor says a shock could result in permanent damage. The pain of seeing Rudolph on a daily basis, when Rudolph doesn’t remember their love, is excruciating. Now Mathias must decide whether he wants to fight for the man he loves or forget him completely…
Review: This is a devastatingly touching story and it was a privilege to read it.
Mathias and Rudolph make a great couple and plan to leave everything behind to start a new life together but during their last battle before they resign they are both injured in battle, Mathias gets bandaged up and then resigns excited to start a new life with the man he loves. Rudolph doesn’t recognize the young First Lieutenant who comes to his tent and then accompanies him on his journey back to Berlin.
I have got to say I don’t think I have felt such sympathetic pain before when reading a book; this book took my breath away. I can’t imagine anything that is as emotionally painful as having your lover completely forgetting you and thinking they love someone else. Oh yes, I can, having it happen to you and then seeing them with that person and believing you were just a convenience.
This book is beautifully written, you just can’t see how this will work out for Mathias, and he now has doubts about Rudolph. He can’t see any way forward. Rudolph keeps having flashbacks that include Mathias but they can’t be true, can they?
It is a poignant, incredible historical. All I can recommend is… you have GOT to read this book.