Customer Reviews

False Colors: An M/M Romance

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Whoever was responsible for creating the book cover of this book over at Running Press deserves a bonus. Having never read Alex Beecroft before, I came across False Colors on Amazon.com just through a random search. Now I have to admit...sure, I like to read erotica and M/M romance from time to time but I'm usually TURNED OFF when I see big chested men on the cover shirtless and headless. You know the books I'm talking about...all chest and abs and if they show the person's face, it's only from the nose down. The cover of this book caught and held my attention immediately because it is much more respectable and deserving of the story that lies within the book's pages. It gives a certain quality to the reading and this author does not disappoint. You won't be disappointed either.

False Colors follows John Cavendish who has just taken command of the HMS Meteor and its lackluster crew. John is strong, charismatic, and determined to shine as a leader and succeed at their first mission. But as they sail to Algiers to interfere with slave trade, there's only one thing - one person - that stands in John's way: Lieutenant "Alfie" Donwell.

Donwell seems to be a bit young at sea and certainly not as serious as Cavendish. The chemistry between the two is amazing, and Beecroft has done a superb job of making the reader just as uncomfortable as the two sexually charged men are when they are together on the ship. During battle, Alfie tempts John by making suggestive jokes just to feel him out and to try hard to get under his skin. But John is determined to keep up his guard and not let Alfie see the softer side.

However, it's not the raging waters that will be the ship's demise. Donwell's former captain and lover soon returns to aid in the botched mission. It is only then that we get to see that Alfie is indeed the one with a softer side. As he is torn between the safety and security of his old mate and the tempting sparks between him and Cavendish, the novel heightens to an amazing climax.

I'd like to point out that Beecroft has put a lot of time and effort into the historical aspect of this book and its characters. She does not treat Cavendish and Donwell as playthings, just moving them around on the page between bed sessions. You will have read almost 100 pages before even getting to the first passionate scene. This proves that Beecroft set out to write a novel that would entertain, not just turn you on. She builds up the intensity between the two leading men, ultimately making the reader eager to turn the page for more. She obviously cares about these characters and the story itself and wants the reader to care too. I know I did, long after reading the last page.

Kudos to Running Press for creating a series not flawed by nude bodies on the cover and stories clouded with predictable sex. Kudos to Alex Beecroft for a story of men at sea, piracy, war, betrayal, love, and redemption. There's nothing false about this colorful and historical romance which I'll be suggesting to readers for a long time to come! If you enjoy getting lost at sea with complex and interesting characters in a story that will challenge and excite you, then this book is for you.

I don't generally read m/m romances but the beautiful cover for this book and Alex Beecroft's trailer made me decide to take a chance.

"Stop chasing love. Love is not for men like us. We share a deviancy we must pay for with lives of exemplary duty...You will get yourself hanged if you think otherwise."

This is the advice Charles Farrant, Captain Lord Lisburn, gives Lieutenant Aelfstan Donwell after he seduces him, but the young naval officer doesn't heed his advice. Alfie wants true love, and is willing to risk career, reputation, and life to have it.

False Colors begins in 1762, traveling from Gibraltar to Jamaica to the Arctic Sea, as John Cavendish, a chaste and straight-laced young Quaker, is given the captaincy of the HMS Meteor, and told he is to launch an attack against the pirates of the Barbary Coast. Though the mission appears to be a suicide run, John, who is an aspiring and rising naval officer, has no choice but to obey. Joining him is Lt. Donwell, and the two immediately clash although at this point, it appears more a matter of attitude. Though the mission succeeds, Alfie is captured and it is up to John and his men to rescue him from the slave pens where he is beaten, starved, and wounded.

In a following battle against the French, John is wounded and it is Alfie who takes on the chore of becoming his nurse, settling himself and his wounded commanding officer into a little house in Gibraltar. A friendship grows between the two men, born of their brushes with death as well as their love of music, a friendship that has more importance for one than the other, and only after John has recovered does Alfie dare speak what he's felt since first seeing his captain, only to be immediately rejected. Fearing recriminations, Alfie disappears, signs on the HMS Britannia with Farrant, and comes face-to-face with the only other man he might ever love, the noble for whom he's had a hero's crush since age 13 when he was a cabin boy. Farrant laughed at him then, but now he doesn't and Alfie is swept away into an affair that could cost both him and his lover their lives if anyone speaks the words aloud.

Abandoned by his friend, horrified by that friendship and questioning his own convictions, John learns that the entire mission was a ruse to begin a war with the Turks and he and his crew are the scapegoats. The Admiralty denies everything and John loses his ship and his crew.

In Tobago, Farrant and his crew are ordered to rescue British sailors attacked by pirates. They arrive too late--all but one are dead. The survivor...John Cavendish. By now, John is trying to come to terms with his friendship for Alfie, his silence, and the fact that one word from him could cause the death of the man who saved his life. When Farrant dies of wounds received in the rescue, and Alfie is accused of being his lover and brought up for court martial, it is John who goes behind the scenes to buy off witnesses, and beg the accuser to retract his statement, eventually losing his appointment to his own ship because he helps the man he still continues to call simply a friend. Though Alfie is released, John's absence at his trial makes him feel he's been abandoned, not knowing that John is going through his own religious soul-searching concerning the emotions he is suddenly experiencing. Alfie signs on the HMS Albion, sent to explore the Arctic. When the first officer dies of yellow fever, a new man is assigned and now John and Alfie two find themselves on a frozen ship off Baffin Bay, facing each other and their fears. As at other moments which have arisen, they don't say what needs to be said, and as usual, they continue on still isolated from each other.

I'm totally ignorant of naval or sea-faring terms and don't know a mainsail from a bosun but that didn't stop me from loving the vivid, gruesome descriptions of the sea battles or how the British lived in Jamaica and Gibraltar. The bleak, desolation of the Albion's being stranded in frozen waters after striking an iceberg made me wonder: How did these men manage to survive without computers and other modern equipment on their ships? Surely they had to have an inordinate amount of courage to even attempt such voyages! You have to admire anyone who'd dare choose such a life, much less make a career of it.

The main characters in this story--Alfie, John, and Farrant--are portrayed exactly that way...Alfie, seeking permanent love, Farrant taking medications to help him stave off his vice, and John, questioning in his first tremble of attraction to another man whether both his love of God, his sense of duty, and his chastity are a sham. They are brave men, men with both honor and courage, who hold to duty while flying secretly in the face of public morality, not a limp wrist or a lacy hanky in the lot. More is made of their characters than anything else; the first sexual scene doesn't even occur until a third of the way into the story, and it's very brief, concentrating more on the participants' emotions and thoughts than the physical aspects.

Only two things bothered me. Immediately after violently repulsing Alfie, the young captain starts questioning his own resolve, his religion, everything that has until that moment made up his life. Would a chaste man who'd been raised a Quaker, when faced with another man declaring his love, immediately assume that he, too, was of the same cloth? If Alfie had never come along, would John ever have set foot on the same path as his friend? The other is the ending. "Is it worth death?" Alfie asks. "What we've done so far only earns us the pillory. I could be satisfied with nothing more than that forever, couldn't you? Why run the risk?"

Why indeed?

There's a Happy Ending but it may not be Everafter. I would've opted for both men to cashier out of the navy, retire to a secluded cottage in the English countryside, and live out their days together. Instead, it appears they will remain in their chosen service, living lies, and continually running the risk of death...but at least they'll be together while they do it.

I guess, in the long run, that's all anyone can ask: to be with the one you love through it all.

There are certain writers who have the capacity to make me want to smash my keyboard into tiny pieces and not write again. When I finished Alex Beecroft's new book, False Colors, I had that feeling this morning.

There are a very few books on my list of 'essential reads' for anyone interested in Gay Historical Fiction. The Charioteer, At Swim Two Boys, As Meat Loves Salt and now False Colors.

Yes, it's that good. If you are interested in the genre at all, or are planning to write the genre in future I hold up False Colors and say 'this is how it should be done.'

To say that FC isn't a romance would be doing it an injustice because it is-in the modern and the old-fashioned sense of the word. But Beecroft takes that mixes it up with adventure to die for (literally) moral dilemmas popping up like mushrooms, earthy realistic 18th century figures and heart stopping action'and of course romance.

At the core it's about two young men who struggle with their places in life and have to weigh up those places, and their reputations- and ruin thereof-against their duty. Many authors would take a book about gay sailors and have most of it having the protagonists either shagging like bunnies or leaning attractively on the quarter-deck pining for the colour of his love's eyes but Beecroft knows the navy and the men within. She knows despite how much tumescence is going on in the fine linen of a sailor's drawers sailors need to work the ship, take watches, men need to be fed, watered, entertained, repel boarders, fight the enemy. If they tend to forget their lover's fine eyes while they are fighting for their lives, one has to forgive them.' This is after all a historical novel and quite aside from the wonderful story of John and Alfie, it is a a book that reeks of the sea ' and one that would grace any naval enthusiast's shelves.

Ms Beecroft, as anyone who has read Captain's Surrender will know, does not shy from the realism of her chosen era. The bodycount in this book could rival any Hollywood blockbuster and she doesn't spare the reader the details of the horrors that life in His Majesty's navy can bring, not in sight or sound or taste or smell. Scurvy and yellowjack, torture and shipwreck, the details are always crisp, and convincing. This is what raises her work above the heads of her peers and what makes this great gay romantic fiction.

If I have any quibbles with this very fine piece of work-quite the best Ms Beecroft has produced-it's perhaps that the first sixty pages are so crammed with action (making it utterly unputdownable) that it's the tiniest bit jumpy. This doesn't do any detriment to the story though, other than perhaps to take the shine off one of the big fat shiny five stars this book very deservedly gets from me.

I like the sea. I like M/M romance. I was really excited to order this book (in paperback, no less!). Soon enough I realized I'd made a terrible mistake.

As a primer on British naval history and operations this book was fine. The writing is solid, the excruciating detail was solid. The romance just wasn't there for me. Instead, I got a lot of brutality and plot turns that, while they drove the story, didn't make sense to me from a character point of view.

While I understand, given the time period, I wasn't going to get a great sweeping romance, I guess I just wasn't that into the unrelenting realism.

A gay romance intrigued me so I took the bait. I being a gay male was wondering how a heterosexual female would do with this topic. To my surprise and enjoyment this was a tasteful and entertaining read. I love that the reader receives a build up of the relationship and it is not just passion all the way through. There is a lot of historic sailing background. I do not know anything about sailing so the terms I thought would throw me off but the writing is so well done that I had no problem knowing what was happening. I did however have a couple things that bothered me. First if you are that unsure of your sexuality just having someone flirt with you is not going to make you go out and think you are the same way. Trust me I know. There is a lot of conflict within ones self to come to that point. Also if you are that concerned that someone will know and that you are unsure and your life is in danger to act on your feelings there is no way you would have sex in the open while others watched. The first time you have sex and you have repressed it as a gay man you have a ton of emotions and none of them were addressed. That being said the final chapter is so well written that the emotions and love shine through. All and all I would totally recommend this for an entertaining elegant read.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I like historical fiction. I like nautical fiction. I like gay romance. To find all three combined into one pretty good read was enjoyable. The characters are well developed and believable and the time period is captured well. I will recommend this book to others.

I have been exploring cross genre "incursions" into age-of-fighting-sail Historic Naval Fiction with varied results. Science fiction -- disappointing. Good SF/Fantasy, but no respect for the naval side. Young adult -- mixed. One or two writers who set their stories in a genuinely-rendered navy of the Napoleonic era and one or two who tell a good story, but who show little respect for the details of ships and navies. When I became aware of False Colors, I did not hold out a great deal of hope for a gay romance set in the Royal Navy just at the close of the Seven Years War. In fact, I was very wrong. While I had feared to find the navy ignored after being used as a convention for throwing a lot of men together, like some kind of mincing Pirates of the Caribbean, I encountered instead a well-researched re-creation of both the technical and social sides of the navy. Alex Beecroft did her homework and treats the reader to compellingly written passages of ship and sail evolutions, gunnery, medicine and boat handling. There are plenty of well handled actions -- single ship, cutting out, shore bombardments and fighting ashore. In particular, Beecroft showed a fine mastery of how to fight a bomb ketch. I was very impressed with her narration of ship handling and repair during a harrowing, and near-disastrous, encounter with an iceberg in the arctic.

Beecroft also understands the socio-political structure and mores of the Eighteenth Century navy. While it would have been easy for her to establish a convention that homosexuality, while officially condemned, was unofficially condoned and a fact of life -- a sort of proto don't-ask-don't-tell -- her romance in fact unfolds in a harsh and unforgiving culture where it is viewed with disgust and punished by death. She does permit herself the license to create some not-implausible situations that allow the story to move forward, but she never fails to respect the real culture of the navy. Needless to say, the romance does take up a good bit of the story. Alfie Donwell is smitten with the handsome Jack Cavendish, who spends most of the book becoming aware of, and reconciled to, his own love for another man. There is a lot of soul-searching and a few encounters, but this is a love story, not pornography -- nothing as graphic as, say, the straight sex in Dewey Lambdin's novels. Other reviewers who enjoy romance have praised the love story. Readers of historic naval fiction may find themselves less engaged with this aspect of the book, but will still find a good adventure and an authentic historical novel which shows the Royal Navy from a slightly different perspective.

***SPOILERS NEAR THE END OF THE REVIEW***

First off, I have to say that I've never read anything in this genre before. And by "this" genre I mean age-of-sail historical fiction. It's possible that this title isn't something that a novitiate to the genre should read, however, it's where I started.

Just to get the facts straight though, this isn't romance. There are romantic elements throughout the story but if you're looking for some hot sexy men getting it on, then look elsewhere. Tacking on "An M/M Romance" to the front cover is pure marketing at its best.

I have to say that the first half of this book made my brain numb with all the nautical terms. I don't think I'm completely ignorant of these things, but there were full sentences where I had no idea what the words meant. You'd think you'd at least be able to figure out what's going on from the context, but no, I was stumped most of the time, and I had to just read on and hope that I'd understand eventually. I suppose I could have looked up the words but I just didn't care enough. You're basically thrown into the seafaring world headfirst and the author assumes you'll understand, and this was frustrating.

In the middle of the book the two main characters tried to find just about every possible horrible situation they could get into that would keep them away from each other. Whether it was one being captured and tortured, the other getting gravely wounded, then the other one being captured and tortured, both men finding sexual gratification with other men, the court martial of one of them for being gay, or when they somehow ended up on the Titanic. That last bit is a joke, but only marginally so.

Finally, to add insult to injury, the last few chapters of the book are spent with the two men being angry at each other because they both think the other one wronged them, when it's all just one big misunderstanding.

And then the last three pages of the book they finally have sex with each other. That's where it ends.

Sigh ...

It's not as if I wanted them to jump in bed right from the get-go. And I understand that in those times being gay was an offense that could get you hanged, but waiting until the last chapter for them to finally be with each other was a bit much. And it makes me wonder what they're going to do now that they've had sex. It's not as if they can live with each other happily ever after. The author ends the book with sex even though the rest of the book is all about the trials and lives of the two men. Now that they've had sex everything is perfect, right, and all their previous troubles go away? Who knows, since it's left to the reader to decide. Maybe they get found out and hanged the next week.

Finally, another thing that I had a problem with were all the gruesome bits. I wasn't expecting people being strung up with their arms behind their back so their shoulders "ground out of their sockets," or how the people being burned alive were trying to escape their cages and had their fingers chopped off. The part that really made me upset was the 9 year old boy that drowned when he went back to save his pet bird when the ship hit an iceberg and the lower quarters filled with water. And of course we had to have descriptions of how all the livestock had drowned. And then the part when they were visiting the people with the plague in the hospital (yellow fever, I think) and the officers kept getting puked on. It would be interesting to count how many times human excrement, urine, and other bodily fluids are mentioned, because I'm sure the results are staggering.

And then there was the sexual encounter with the man with the rotting tooth ... ::shudders::

So I have to say that I didn't enjoy this book all that much. If I could, I'd give it 1-1/2 stars because it wasn't the absolute worst thing I've ever read. Maybe it was too "real" for me and it didn't have enough fluff in it, but if a book has the word Romance on the cover, I'm expecting at least some romance before I get to the last chapter.

I can't say that I'd never read something from this author again, but I'll definitely think twice.

"False Colors: An M/M Romance," is yet another swashbuckler from the remarkable imagination of Alex Beecroft (Running Press Book Publishers, 2009). This is the latest in her high-seas-adventure series, and is, in my opinion, the best example yet.

Set during the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, c. 1754 to 1763, it is the tale of a young naval officer, Lieutenant John Cavendish, a Quaker by up-bringing, who is not only deeply religious but also fervently committed to duty, honour and country. As the story opens Cavendish has just received his first temporary command of a modest merchant ship, the "Météore," by a politically motivated admiral, Admiral Lord Saunders. His Lordship's orders, conveyed in private, are that Cavendish should attack a colony of Barbary Coast pirates that have been raiding the English coast. In truth it is a suicide mission, given the size of the renamed "Meteor", and Cavendish is readily aware of this. Nevertheless, his commitment to duty dictates that he accept the assignment without question.

The ragtag crew that has been assigned to him also reflects this pessimistic prospect; all except for another young lieutenant, "Alfie" Donwell. He is an infectiously sunny personality who radiates a generosity-of-spirit like morning sunshine. Nevertheless, Cavendish confides in him that they are probably both sailing toward their dooms with their first adventure together. Thus, the stage is set for some male bonding in the shadow of an emerging threat.

They are further drawn together when Donwell is captured and cruelly tortured by the Barbary pirates, who regard the English as infidels, and Cavendish responds by first rescuing Alfie; then by ransacking the harbour of its prime ships before escaping into the open water of the Mediterranean. However, just before he reaches the sanctuary of Gibraltar he encounters an enemy corsair that easily outclasses the relatively modest "Meteor." A bloody battle ensues--i.e. "Even Alfie ... felt a little squeamish as he watched the bodies burst apart, the blood fountain out to stain the white sails red." -and although he is victorious, John is severely wounded in the melee.

By now Alfie Donwell has set his course on seducing the handsome but straight-laced commanding officer, and his lengthy convalescence that followed gives Alfie an opportunity to gradually work on his defences. However, he miscalculates by telling Cavendish about an adolescent crush he once had on a notoriously foppish captain--Captain Lord Lisburn--and John's puritanical up-bringing rebels at this news; so much so that he nearly names Donwell to the admiralty--meaning a veritable death sentence for Alfie.

A reversal of roles then takes place as Alfie turns his attention away from Cavendish, returning instead to Lisburn, just as John becomes enamoured by Alfie's honesty and erstwhile devotion. It is a juxtaposition that will repeat itself several times throughout the novel to considerable dramatic effect. Moreover, two predominant triangles are thus formed; one involving John, Alfie and Lisburn, and another to include duty and emerging--albeit forbidden--love.

That said, there is no disputing the fact that this is one of the best explorations of the subject I have read in a very long time. In his Cambridge lecture on the "Aspect of the Novel ," (1928), E.M. Forster maintained that a good novel is fundamentally comprised of two elements: life in time; and life by values, i.e. "I only saw her for five minutes, but it was worth it." In this regard Alex Beecroft has fulfilled both, admirably.

Life in time
One of the definite strong points of this story is the seemingly accurate depiction of the eighteenth century. Hollywood's romanticized portrayals notwithstanding, the 19th-century was a rugged, grotty period of time. On the one hand it was almost idyllic and somewhat puritanical in its thinking, and on the other life was `nasty, brutish and short.' In my opinion Beecroft has captured this dichotomy remarkably well, and has admirably withstood the temptation to `rose-hue' it.

Life by values
Fundamental to this category is a cast of strong, well-defined characters, and once again the author has delivered the goods. The two main characters, John Cavendish and Alfie Donwell, are distinct in their makeup and believably human in their thinking. Moreover, their developing relationship is well paced and credible throughout, and they are very much a part of their chosen professions and time.

It is a superb piece of writing, a credible and exciting story, uncompromisingly authentic in time, and highly recommended.

Gerry Burnie Books,
Canadian history from a gay perspective, series.


Journey to Big Sky

This is part of a longer review. [...]

False Colors is a novel that's half a poignant story of ships-passing-in-the-night male love, and half rip-roaring, swashbuckling, cannon-exploding, pirate fighting, iceberg-ramming Age of Sail adventure. Beecroft puts her characters through physical torture--literally--with stomach-turning details, and through psychological torture just as excruciating. This is one female author who can write convincingly of men at sea and men in lust and love.

The erotic scenes are well done, and worked seamlessly into the story. But the characters of John Cavendish and Alfie Donwell are finely drawn and the story so compelling that the sex scenes could be taken out and I wouldn't miss them. The heart and the sinews of this book are not in scenes of physical sex but in the tormented souls of two young naval officers drawn inexorably to each other in a time when such love could put them both on a gallows. John and Alfie are separated through much of the book, but are never far from one another's thoughts, though often the thoughts are bitter. And when they are together, they are at cross purposes. The last chapter is one of the most truly erotic scenes I've ever seen, because it has everything--physical sensation, humor, tenderness, impatience--the works.

Beecroft's research, as always, has been exhaustive; every sentence throbs with authenticity. She immerses you in research and detail so neatly that you don't even think about it. You don't read about bloody decks, splintered masts, and pirates burning men alive; you experience them. You can feel the manacles tear John's wrists down to the bone. You can smell the roasting flesh and hear the screams. You feel the unbearable cold of the Arctic ice and feel the fear of every man aboard, knowing a certain death waits as their ship fills with icy water as the deadly beauty of an iceberg towers over them.

Beecroft's skills have advanced amazingly since Captain's Surrender. I can only wonder what she has in store for us next.

Want a great story with both adventure and romance? Get this one!

Reviewer: Ruth Sims
author of The Phoenix (Lethe Press)