Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #335945 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Synopsis
Buccaneer adventure/romance. The first of three volumes chronicling the relationship between an emotionally wounded and disenchanted English lord and an insane and lonely French exile, set among the buccaneers of Port Royal, Jamaica, in 1667.

Customer Reviews

A sailor's life for me
Fantastic, a great read full of interesting facts a strong story line and for once not just sex but real emotions. One of the best historical gay books around. Not always a comfortable read but not too sweet and sugary. Looking forward to the final in the trilogy.

Deserved a better editor. Bloated. Disappointing.
It's a big book. About 550 pages. Big in scope and ambition. Slightly too large a paperback to hold comfortably in bed or in the bath. That being said it's set in a fascinating era which isn't often written about in a fictional and accurate capacity, so I was looking forward to tackling it, although a little daunted by the size.

(It must be said that this was originally part of a trilogy, and now the author has announced that this has expanded and will be a quartet.)

At its core it follows the traditions of a typical love story - an arranged marriage which isn't consumated and a long long road in which the two protagonists learn to love and trust each other. Layered on top of this is a healthy dose of piratey action with some good secondary characters and some obvious hard research.

The author tries a little too hard, and she's guilty of "doing a Dan Brown" from time to time and info dumping hard about buccaneers and filibusters and the history behind it all - and mostly that was ok, as I didn't know a lot of it, but I also shook my head at times and said "And I should care about this over-richness of facts WHY exactly?" Too much of it and I was pulled away from the story itself. It is the same with the interractions between Gaston and Will (of which there are legion.) Granted, I admit there are boring bits in a sailor's life, but all these two seem to do is yak; chapters and chapters of it, and it got rather boring at times.

As for the actual daily life of the seaman, it was disappointingly absent for much of the book, replaced by the conversations. Only at rare points did I get the tang of salt in my nostrils and feel the rigging beneath my bare feet. They sailed around without the crew doing very much except shag and talk.

There is a over-arching plot, though and eventually it kicks in and starts to progress, but it takes too long getting there, and I had lost interest, both in the love affair and the backstory. I didn't like Will much - he didn't catch my imagination. He was a murderer/mercenary, and although Hoffman attempted to show me he was a "Good Egg" at the beginning by getting him to look after his bondsmen, and rescuing a sailor who was being abused, he lost any sympathy he gained there by promptly sailing off and leaving the bondsmen to rot in the hands of his overseer without a backward wave and never bothering much with the rescued sailor again.

As to the "Wolves" motif: it was overdone - He's a nobleman, he considers himself a wolf, being on top of society and he's always explaining about the wolves and the sheep (those who take orders.) I understood the concept after half a page, but the point was rammed home so often I was screaming at Will not to treat me like an idiot. The repetitive "hook" at the end of each chapter discussing "the Gods" too affected me like a dripping tap after 10 chapters, and I was dreading the last line of each one.

There were a few confusing or inaccurate details that I noticed. Right in chapter 1 Will says "I was not a Protestant" and then later he refers to "You Papists" so I'm all confused and thinking "well, what are you, then? Jewish?" No matter what he considered himself to be, he'd be one or the other. Then he celebrates Mass with his family so he must have been a Catholic. But even in the Restoration, I am fairly sure that Catholics weren't celebrating Mass so openly. But feel free to contradict me, I haven't checked this.

However, it's not a bad read. The inaccuracies didn't make me want to throw it against the wall, and as an adventure story it's well researched and not horribly written. Some of the speech is a little too modern and there are some typos, but that's to be expected in a self-published novel. Where the self-publishing REALLY lets Hoffman down, however, is the bloated size of the book itself. She would have done the book a favour to let a professional editor loose on it and rip out large sections; all the unnecessary chit-chat and scenes where nothing happens. It could have been reduced to 350 pages without losing any of its flavour, and would have been a much better, tighter book for the reduction.

Fans of seafaring tales will love this - and they do by all accounts but it wasn't for me. After the cliffhanger ending, I don't care enough about the characters to find out what happens to them next and the emotional involvement in reading a book 2 or 3 times the size of the average novel wasn't repaid, as the book, in essence, contained no more actual content than a book of 200 pages.

Wayward gay Lord finds his matelot
Lord Marsdale, wayward twenty six year old first son of an English Lord has for ten years travelled Europe, charming and seducing both male and female, and paying his way by dispatching the unwanted to order. Having to leave yet another city following his latest killing, which also meant reluctantly leaving Alonso, his lover of the last two years, he returns home to England and his estranged father. But it is not long before he is off travelling again, this time sent by his father to oversee the establishment of a new sugar plantation in Jamaica. But he is still the adventurer, and not one to idly watch over a plantation. He soon finds a commonality with the buccaneers, and within no time at all he is sailing and pillaging with them, adopting their ways and customs. But before his first sailing he encounters the enigmatic buccaneer Gaston, with whom he finds himself partnered; and soon falling in love.
There are numerous other interesting characters including the most appealing Adonis like Pete, the Golden One; and his devoted partner, the equally handsome Striker. Marsdale, a dualist skilled with both sword and gun, who is happy enough to bed a man or women, but preferring a man for a relationship, is an interesting mix of mercenary and philanthropist; his biggest concern over his father's plantation is that the workers be treated properly.
As the story, narrated by Marsdale, unfolds we gradually learn glean more about both Gaston and Marsdale himself, and we learn that the two have much in common. As well as each being of noble birth and sharing an interest in art and literature, they both have suffered dreadfully in their youth. The love that grows between them, a complicated love for Gaston's usual sexual preference is for the opposite sex, is beautiful despite the problems and difficulties they have to overcome; and through their love and mutual support, they are able to face the dark shadows of their past.
An epic adventure set around 1666, packed full of interesting well researched snippets of information, yet Brethren is primarily a deeply touching love story involving two very appealing, but far from perfect individuals. Raised by Wolves Volume 1, Brethren, is a captivating and positive story, highly recommended.