Captain’s Surrender by Alex Beecroft – Review

Title: Captain’s Surrender
Author: Alex Beecroft
Genre: Historical fiction
URL: Linden Bay Romance
Price: US $6.99
Summary: (from publisher)

Ambitious and handsome, Joshua Andrews had always valued his life too much to take unnecessary risks. Then he laid eyes on the elegant picture of perfection that is Peter Kenyon.

Soon to be promoted to captain, Peter Kenyon is the darling of the Bermuda garrison. With a string of successes behind him and a suitable bride lined up to share his future, Peter seems completely out of reach to Joshua.

But when the two men are thrown together to serve during a long voyage under a sadistic commander with a mutinous crew, they discover unexpected friendship. As the tension on board their vessel heats up, the closeness they feel for one another intensifies and both officers find themselves unable to rein in their passion.

Let yourself be transported back to a time when love between two men in the British Navy was punishable by death, and to a story about love, about honor, but most of all, about a Captain’s Surrender.

My review:

Having rarely ventured into the waters of historical fiction, I have to admit I was ready to be bored to tears by lovingly fetishized descriptions of white breeches and brass buttons that I’ve (in my undoubtedly unfair ignorance) come to associate with the genre. And while Captain’s Surrender does contain its fair share of careful description, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this description serves the purpose of rooting us in the setting without bombarding us with too many details that only those with a kink for the Age of Sail would truly appreciate. In other words, the historical details are numerous and feel well-researched, yet the author shows restraint in not allowing those details to swamp pacing and plot. The style of prose and characters’ speech ring true to the period without being florid, and while the author keeps most of the action grounded in the laws and mores of the time, there’s a streak of modern sensibility throughout that many readers will find uplifting.

In the first (and noticeably superior) half of the book, we’re introduced to the romantic leads, dashing golden boy Peter and sensitive, self-loathing Joshua, as they struggle through a transatlantic voyage under the tyrannical Captain Walker. We spend a bit of time getting to know the characters and watching them forge a friendship under harsh conditions, but the real driving forces behind this section are the glimpses into the brutality of shipboard life that we see through the eyes of more minor characters–outsiders looking into this punishing world. (Readers with a low tolerance for realistic violence beware; the depictions of naval punishments are vivid.) The characterization here is lovely. Characters are largely three-dimensional, sympathetic, and react to situations in sensible, easy-to-understand ways. The pacing is also very nice. I couldn’t help but read late into the night with a foreboding sense of tension as the situation on-board deteriorated.

The resolution to this early section doesn’t disappoint, but the early build-up was so nicely executed that everything after felt a bit poorly paced, some sections rushed and others stiflingly deliberate. The supporting characters who make the first part of the book so compelling lose some of their presence in the second half; I was left craving more point-of-view switches away from Peter and Joshua. This isn’t to say that Peter and Joshua aren’t strong characters–they’re vividly written–but the dynamic between the two and the progression of their romance is a little stale. Any reader who has perused the popular slash offerings will find the power imbalance, emotionally unaware top, and overly self-sacrificing bottom routine achingly familiar. Beecroft does it well, but I felt like the central romance was a story I’d read too many times before to become fully engaged with it. The surrender to which the title refers is executed in a fresh way that feels relatively true to the period. However, the steps the characters take to get there–particularly a ridiculous sojourn by Joshua that sets him on the path to self-acceptance–compounded my mild dissatisfaction with the romance element. The sparse, restrained yet sumptuous sex scenes balanced the scales a bit for me.

Although the romance didn’t particularly send me swooning, Captain’s Surrender is well-written, nicely edited, and an above-average offering in the m/m market. I personally find the price a bit steep for an e-book that comes in at under 200 pages, but if you’re a fan of period stories, romances with a power imbalance but a happy ending, or are just in the mood for a decent page-turner, it’s a book I’d recommend.