Customer Reviews

My Fair Captain

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have a great time reading this. No qualm about purchasing it in print too. This is a great sci-fi M/M romance with an engrossing plot, appealing characters and I like Langley's light hearted, amusing and engaging style. She has created a fascinating futuristic world and the story takes place in a planet, advanced in technology, but living in a Regency period which is patriarchal, with its "charming" protocols. Instead of the virgin ladies being "protected", it is the virgin young men, more so when he is a royalty or lord.
Both main and supporting characters are appealing and lively and they are all gorgeous men of course.
This is vol 1 of a series and centers on Captain Nathaniel Hawks, 100% alpha and a hunk. He has an unhappy past which forced him into exile but he has made an excellent military career for himself.
Then there is Prince Aiden, totally adorable in his innocence, with his artistic flair and intensity. You could not ask for a better or more romantic pairing.
The supporting characters of Aiden's royal Father and Sire and his equally gorgeous brothers as well as Nathan's adopted son are equally likable and I certainly do not mind future volumes to center on any of them.
This is not your usual M/M erotica because there is a wonderful and tightly paced plot here and characters development which take precedence over the sex, which believe me is hot and sensual. A dose of BDSM but it is OK.
Looking forward to much more on this series and bravo, J.L.Langley.

In My Fair Captain, J.L. Langley takes an incongruous batch of ingredients: science fiction, speculative fantasy, historical elements from the Regency period, gay romance, explicit male-on-male action, and a sprawling family saga to create - amazingly! - a deliciously satisfying and spicy dish.

Had you described that to me - had I not read Langley's book myself - I'd think you were nuts. The elements of Langley's story sound like the craziest mash-up since Run DMC joined Aerosmith. Who'd think it could work?

If you read My Fair Captain, you'll be a believer, too. Langley is an author who truly experiences her work. The worlds she describes are fully fleshed out and, in their own incredibly way, totally believable. Regelence, where most of the action takes place, is a vivid setting that you won't soon forget. Imagine a society that combines the customs of 1,800's England with the cast of one of those Falcon videos where everyone is ridiculously hot and totally available, throw in a few Star-Trekian glimpses of future-tech, and you might begin to have a clue.

One of the nice things about the book is that it takes its time revealing the secrets of its society...and its citizens. Things you think make no sense become perfectly reasonable once you understand the planet's laws and values.

Meanwhile, a bunch of likeable and, to many readers, lick-able characters fight and fuss and fall in love. Frustrating the proceedings is fact that most of the book's men are forbidden by law from having sex - not because MM sex is illegal, mind you, but because they must save themselves for marriage - to another man, of course. That leads to a lot of pent up feelings, which, when they're finally released, are all the more explosive for having been contained.

The book's central romance is well-developed in the manner of a Harlequin romance, albeit one where all the heaving bodices have been replaced by pumped-up pecs. There's definitely some explicit sex in this book - much of it of the dom/sub variety - but that's not the primary appeal here by any means -there's not much sheet-wrestling until midway through the book. By then, you'll have fallen in love with Regelence, its characters, and the soaring, surprising imagination of J.L. Langley.

The ending of My Fair Captain leaves more than enough unresolved for a possible sequel. Let's hope we get to go back to Regelence soon.

Scott Sherman, author,
First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery

Intergalactic Navy Captain Nathaniel Hawkins left his home on the Planet Englor and renounced his title and property to become Captain of a Navy space frigate because of a secret in his past. His Admiral asks him to use his peerage as the Earl of Deverell to go undercover on the Planet Regelence and investigate a missing weapons cache and he is forced to comply. When he arrives he finds a world that is poles apart from his own as night is from day. Here the young men are guarded and are expected to remain virgins until marriage or when they reach their majority at twenty-five. Unfortunately for Nate the first time he meets the King's artistic son Prince Aiden he falls for him despite the differences in their outlook and personalities.

Aiden has a flair for getting into trouble and having accidents and his parents King Steven and King-Consort Raleigh have threatened to curtail his freedom and find a consort for him if he doesn't toe the Royal line. The first time Aiden meets the dashing Captain Hawkins he falls into his arms, literally, from a tree where he had been hiding to do some sketching. He is immediately attracted to Nate who is the first man to ring his bell but he is aware that as a Prince he cannot afford to be compromised. Aiden, who is completely unlike Nate, has no interest in politics or having a consort and only wants to be an artist. Nate however wants Aiden very badly and has a hard time letting his scruples get in the way of his hormones but he doesn't want to do anything that would hurt Aiden who he is beginning to care for, also the King and his Consort would kill him.

The author takes the time to let the readers into Nate's back story which lends credence to his character and personality. Several scenes in the book resonated with me but I will mention two in particular. The first is the formal ball held in honour of Regelence veterans where Nate, representing his Fleet, is dressed to the nines in all his military splendour and resplendent in his uniform. When he appears in front of Aiden and requests a waltz, Aiden realizes that if he accepts Nate's invitation it would signify more than appeared on the surface and be more than just a dance. The way the scene is described made my heart flutter. The second scene occurs in Nate's bedroom where Aiden is hiding as Nate emerges from the shower naked and pretends not to know Aiden is there while he, ahem, has some fun at his expense; but it turns out to be mutually pleasurable and very sensual.

My Fair Captain is my favourite J.L. Langley book and probably the most read and I now have it in both e-book format and print. This fast paced story has everything - a riveting plot, a great setting, terrific dialogue, humour, political intrigue, mayhem and murder, as well as action and adventure in a futuristic but Regency era on a far away planet . The patriarchal society created by the author is authentic in terms of the story as well as charming. The major difference in Regelence society is that being gay is the norm rather than the exception. Men marry each other and are expected to remain chaste until marriage or the age of 25, whichever comes first. The characters are so well drawn that they could step off the pages of the book and into everyday life without anyone turning a hair, except they are all extremely handsome!. There is great chemistry between Nate and Aiden and the romance is so erotic and hot it burns brightly and engulfs the reader, but it is the enthralling plot that drew me in and kept me entranced until the very end. What a remarkable story.

Nate represents every human quality and characteristic I want in a hero - strong, decisive, hot, brave, articulate, loving, sensitive and of course hot (I guess I said that already); there just aren't enough superlatives to describe him. The other characters in the book are equally remarkable from Prince Aiden - innocent, totally adorable and a wonderful foil for Nate, to King Steven and King-Consort Raleigh and their other offspring who you know are waiting in the wings for their own stories. Trouble, Nate's adopted son whose character I thought was absolutely first rate, has a very important role in the story but I won't reveal it and be a spoiler. Even the computer Jeffers that controls security in and around the house and grounds has a distinct personality which is evidence of the author's unique sense of humour.

My Fair Captain is a terrific book, the equivalent of a blockbuster summer flick at the movies and I can't say enough good things about it. I think the book is sci-fi at its best and for the author to add a Regency period twist as part of the setting is sheer genius. If you buy this book, be prepared to stay up all night to finish it - you won't be able to put it down!

The Englor Affair, book 2 in this Sci-Regency series will be available in November which is way too long to wait.

Aiden Townsend is one of the princes of the regency planet Regelence, but thankfully not the heir to the throne. All Aiden has wanted to do in his life is to be allowed to pursue his art and become a painter of note. He has zero interest in political intrigues, mingling in society or worse still - acquiring a consort! However, if he keeps having these little accidents that require being rescued, his parents, King Steven and King-Consort Raleigh have threatened to find Aiden a consort and curtail his freedom to pursue his art. This has kept Aiden toeing the line, or at least seeming to, but when he is caught falling out of a tree by visiting dignitary Nathaniel Hawkins, Lord Deverell, Aiden finds something outside of his art to hold his interest. Aiden wants to pursue his attraction for this handsome man, but how to do that without being compromised?

Nathaniel Hawkins is a captain in the Intergalactic Navy and he has been sent undercover to Regelence to investigate the theft of a stash of IN weapons. Nate reluctantly accepts this assignment to investigate knowing that he is entering into a patriarchic society where the nobility is composed of male pairings and where young men are expected to remain pure until marriage. Nate thinks he is ready to handle the situation, until he comes across one of the King's unmarried sons. Now Nate has to fight his attraction for Aiden, or he risks compromising the boy and ending up married to him.

My Fair Captain is by far one of the best books I've read in a long while. It's a fast passed, erotic and humorous story that will engage you from the very first word. Aiden and Nate are amazing characters that you will love for their charm, wit and sense of humor, and of course it doesn't hurt that they are both hunks! The plot is very compelling and the chemistry between Aiden and Nate will scorch you every time they come together. Ms. Langley creates a great world for her characters to inhabit, and I hope we will get to explore it further in future books. The secondary characters are wonderful and add playfulness to the book that is thoroughly enjoyable. J.L. Langley did a masterful job in My Fair Captain creating characters and a world that you will want to revisit often. If you enjoy spicy and playful m/m romances I recommend that you pick up My Fair Captain today, but be warned you might stay up all night reading this book!

Sabella
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Author J.L. Langley is to be commended for attempting to blend several disparate elements--the Regency period set in the distant reaches of space, historical science-fiction, spy versus spy, male/male romance and no-holds-barred erotica--into one rip-roaring novel of adventure and unlikely love. It's a brilliant concept. Both Englor and Regelence were deftly woven and richly imagined. The author skillfully blended the vagaries of Regelence culture into the narrative and into the character's dialogue. On Regelence, men marrying other men for the same reasons they did in Regency England was quite plausible, and the sons of the ton were expected to stay chaste until marriage. One of the most important elements of well-written science-fiction/fantasy is the ability to make the improbable--probable. Regelence was a male-dominated world where females aren't even needed for procreation.

So why only THREE stars?

Two reasons: It's NOT a Sci-Fi Regency. It's a alternate universe historical with Regency elements. It's not enough to pepper a book with a few sundry details like titles and clothing, the language is vitally important and I think some authors tend to forget that. Reading 'My Fair Captain' was like trying to imagine a hot and sweaty Colin Firth a la Pride and Prejudice, but getting Johnny Rotten instead. Yes, I am particular in this, but I wanted a sexed-up version of Jane Austen, language, warts, and all. It can--and HAS--been done. Linda Berdoll's 'Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife' and Ann Herendeen's 'Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander' both do justice to the erotic Regency. Even Dara Joy's futuristic 'Ritual of Proof' was amazingly true to the genre.

The author's reliance on bad gay male stereotypes was the other reason. This wasn't a bodice-ripper, but a cravat-ripper.

Considering the time spent on their backstory, the heroes of 'My Fair Captain' should have been so much more. As it were, both just left me wondering why some gay romance writers feel this need to make at least one of the characters as stereotypically feminine as possible. The naïve innocent and the worldly experienced character have been done and are still beloved archetypes, Frankly, I think it's pretty boring even in straight romance.

As the uber-alpha "daddy", Captain Nathaniel Hawkins scowled a lot and liked dropping the f-bomb quite often. Yes he was strong, silent, and a perfectly-formed specimen of a man with ripped abs and a prodigious piece of equipment packed inside of his trousers. It was like he spent a great deal of the novel in a state of perpetual arousal when not rescuing his starry-eyed paramour. As expected, Nathaniel was sexually experienced and obviously the top man in any relationship, but he seemed so one-dimensional, and I had a hard time seeing him as a man who could fall in love, rather than just be in lust.

Prince Aiden, the King of Regelence's handsome son falls for him--literally--right out of a tree. Aiden doesn't want to have anything to do with politics--his soul belongs to the arts, namely sketching. Again, not a bad thing had there been a core streak of rebelliousness in him. Unfortunately Aiden was male only in anatomy. He was like a typically annoying Barbara Cartland-esque heroine--he swooned and tended to get himself into all sorts of trouble that obviously required he-man Nate to rescue him. I'm not saying that a male hero can't be sensitive and artistic--a lover and not necessarily a fighter--and a balanced foil for the more rugged hero. For example, Alec from Ellen Kushner's 'Swordspoint' was described as being tall, thin, ascetic and far better at picking fights than actually fighting them. However, he was also armed with a razor-sharp tongue that did as much damage to an adversary as Richard St. Vier, his lover, did with a rapier.

On Regelence Aiden lived a very sheltered existence, much like standard Regency heroines, but he really was a male character who's essentially female. I want male/male erotica to feature MEN who may be different in temperament, but equal in the relationship--even if that relationship is Dom/sub, such as this one turns out to be. Because of how distracting the stereotypes were, I really couldn't enjoy the erotic scenes in all their high-definition detail. The one scene where Nate emerges from the shower naked while Aiden hides watching him and getting all tingly at the sight of all that man-flesh kept reminding me in a strange way of Little Red Riding Hood. I was waiting for Aiden to say something like, "But Nathaniel, what a long leg you have."

The uncomfortable realization is that some authors really shouldn't be writing gay male romances if all they are going to do is emasculate the male characters. If I wanted to read about a weak and whining protagonist who always seems to need the "me caveman" hero to rescue them, I'd stick with straight romances (and frankly I've always hated those types of books).

Thankfully a few authors out there DO get it right--Ellen Kushner, Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear for starters. They feed my addiction for well-written and hot fantasy featuring strong male characters who love passionately and equally.

Dash it, back to the drawing room!

The writnig and plot were good. The concept of a futuristic world in which male virginity is prized was an interesting one, if derivative of Dara Joy's The Ritual of Proof. If Joy's male virgin suffered from the unrealistically-rapid onset of emotional and sexual maturity, the male virgin/bride in My Fair Captain suffered from a continuing and total lack of maturity. Although he was in his mid-twenties, he thought and acted like a tween or young teen -- in fact, he was no different in attitude or behavior than the groom's teen son, with whom he was hanging out. Meanwhile, the groom is a hardened combat veteran and mature man. The disparity in age and behavior was so great and so emphasized by their domination/submission of their bedroom relationship, that it made me somewhat queasy. It honestly felt as though I was reading a taboo story about an older man deflowering a teenager because he has a fetish.

I find myself in the difficult position of feeling differently about a book than I thought of it, so the 3 star rating (how I felt about it) and the review (what I thought about it) are going to be at odds. And in truth, the star rating would really be more like a 2.5 if I could. But it's not because of the story itself, and therein lies the dichotomy.

I don't know quite what I was expecting from this book, but the blend of sci-fi and regency romance wasn't badly written, really. The characters were perhaps a bit two dimensional and maybe an argument could be made that they were very cliched, but in all honesty, that's sort of the nature of a regency romance and I'm very familiar with the themes. It WAS a bit odd to see so classic a theme as the ton and society mavens parading around in a genetically engineered predisposed m/m culture, but it wasn't done poorly. From the standpoint of plot development and characterization, I'd simply say I wish there had been a bit more fleshing out of the world, making the blend of historical and futuristic a bit more visceral and clear. And while I don't think there was anything wrong with the plot of the action part of the book in which an IN captain goes undercover in the house of the King of a Regency planet to discover the perpetrator of massive weapons theft and ends up discovering a conspiracy that threatens war between worlds, I didn't think it was given enough attention to really be the core of the story.

Admittedly, it is a personal genre preference when reading romance novels that the romance happens either in hand with or AROUND a central core that is not related to the romance and not the other way around.

But it wasn't badly written. I did think some of the situations were a bit too contrived and didn't really feel organic to the plot and story, especially as the conflict reached it's somewhat disappointing and too-pat peak. I did like the characters, though. I would've really enjoyed much more about the King and King-Consort and their children. I thought their characters were quite interesting and would revel in reading more about them, especially with a vehicle that fleshed them out and gave them more face time. I enjoyed the main characters, uber-alpha naval captain Nate Hawkins and artistic dream boy with a flash of spine Aiden to be interesting and likable, and there was enough story there to provide both some depth.

Honestly, if I was rating the story itself and how it was told, I'd give it a 3.5 stars, but I've realized that neither this particular genre - the scifi-regency - nor this particular type of m/m pairing with the big brawny alpha and the submissive effeminate boy to be my cup of tea for m/m romances. I prefer a bit more equality between males - that doesn't have to always be sexual equality, I don't mind a bit of bondage or dom-sub in the bedroom - but I really don't prefer when submissive becomes synonymous with feminine and it extends beyond the bedroom, like it did in My Fair Captain.

Oh dear, could Aiden be any more submissive in the sex scenes? I am trying to imagine how and failing, really. This one did not even felt like het romance in disguise to me, that felt as if Nate was having sex with a young child, seriously. Aiden was in his twenties? Really? I felt that he acted as the boy in his very early teens for the most part of the book.

And to drive the point home, I stopped counting how many times Nate actually called him BOY.

What can I say? Thank goodness I have read this author's stories about cowboys first, because if I have read this one first, I seriously doubt that I would have been wanting to purchase anything written by this author ever again.

Now at least I may look from time to time, but boy would I be cautious.

I have to admit that I really didn't expect as much plot as I got in this story. I mean sure there was the sex (that I expected) but I didn't expect a actual plot that could have gone on without the extras. It all made the book better in my opinion. After all, I'm the one that's re-read it twice already.

I'll give you a brief synopsis - 'My Fair Captain' takes place in the future, on a planet called Regelence, where males are genetically bred to have a preference for the same sex. Now that's a fresh take on this whole M/M romance thing. Without the gay persecution/hatred plot that usually centers around these M/M romance novels, Langley is able to devote more of the story line to the romance and subplot. I read this book over the course of several days, and was so taken by the characters and Langley's creativity, I didn't want the story to end. When I finished the book, I flipped it over and started reading it again. Yeah, it's that good. I've read several other Langley novels, and this one is, by far, her best.