3.0 out of 5 based on 1 reviews. – Customer review on 21/09/2009

This book got off to a good start with a sweetly developing friendship between David Caverly and Johnathan Graie. Graie is a puritan and struggles quite a lot more than Caverly does with the idea of forming a same sex relationship. I enjoyed the way that he was written and his character was nicely developed.

David Caverly, on the otherhand is a lazy, shiftless and reckless boy at the beginning of the story who cares very little for his responsibilities as the son of the local blacksmith and who doesn't seem to grow up terribly much in the course of the story, either. His solution to any trouble he finds himself in (and he finds himself in plenty) is simply to dodge responsibility and run away.

That is exactly what he does when the villagers confront him with a situation which, to give him his due this time, he didn't have a hand in. Leaving his 'beloved puritan' his father and everything he has ever known, David flees the village and signs up with the Royalist army to fight in the cause of King Charles.

My first struggle with the story is in actually believing that David loves Johnathan -- If the author is trying to draw a comparison between the David and Johnathan of the bible, then sadly, that attempt failed for me. I didn't see any knitting of souls here, and Johnathan's love didn't seem to me, to surpass the love of women, for David--except for the fact that David is gay and not attracted to women--he was still quick enough to fall into the arms of another man when one happened along to the forge. (before his love for Johnathan was consummated). I didn't feel it, and was almost glad when David fled the village, thinking that Johnathan could do better anyway.

The remainder of the book is taken up with the war. David fights in the Royalist army, falls into the arms of a fellow soldier, Haldane, with the occasional whimsical thought of Johnathan thrown in, to remind the reader that there is supposedly a first love for David who is better and brighter than anyone else.

Meanwhile, Johnathan pines away back at the forge, missing his lost lover and fretting over whether David -- who has never attempted to make contact since he fled -- is alive or dead. I found Johnathan's love for David, believable, if somewhat foolish.

At the battle of Naseby, David and Johnathan are briefly reunited, fighting on opposite sides, after Johnathan was pressed into Cromwell's roundheads. The reunion is not a happy one and they are once more parted by fate, and David's propensity to run, rather than confronting his problems head on.

With the heroes thus parted anew, the book goes into long detail of their lives apart.

My next struggle came when Johnathan fell in with a group of witchfinders and as a part of his initiation we're treated to a graphic description of day after day of torture, at the end of which, Johnathan falls inexplicably and unbelievably in love with his tormenter. Johnathan envisages Michael as an avenging angel, sent to purge his soul of the black stain of sodomy and save him from himself--unfortunately, that image is flawed as the torturer then proceeds to sexually use the young man and take advantage of his Stockholm syndrome induced dependency (it's not love!) at every opportunity. The book very nearly lost me, here.

And the long awaited and longed for happy ending? Didn't last much more than three pages, and left me unconvinced. I still don't believe that David Caverly loves Johnathan Graie with his entire soul; nor does the love of Johnathan surpass the love of anyone, or anything else for David.

The historical detail in this book is rich, and well researched,and Erastes weaves it into the story mostly unobtrusively.
The plot, though convoluted is strong, but I just didn't feel like I was reading a romance. That disappointed me more than anything else.

I'd still recommend this book to fans of the m/m historical genre, though.