Speak Its Name is a wonderful collection of three historical gay romances set in England that are very different from one another and yet complement each other quite well. The first, Aftermath by Charlie Cochrane is set in Cramner College in 1920 and features two students – popular Hugo Lamont and socially awkward Edward Easterby. While they both are enamored with one another, neither has the courage to act upon his feelings. The story is a simple one with very little in the way of plot, but rather a character study of the complications of a burgeoning romance in a repressed time.

The second story, Gentleman's Gentleman by Lee Rowan is a delightful escapade of an English Lord and his Valet. Lord Scoville has dalliances with temporary male lovers and this is accepted by Jack who carries on a few clandestine affairs of his own but manages to fool his employer into thinking that he’s a ladies man. During a secret mission for the government in which Scoville is to retrieve secret papers involving plans of the Germans, things get a little complicated and in the chaos the two men finally reveal that they have actually been carrying a torch for one another. The nice thing about Rowan’s story is that it really is an exciting adventure and the romantic feelings between the two leads were always just below the surface creating dramatic tension, because the reader feels that the truth could erupt at any moment.

The third story, Hard And Fast by Erastes is the crown jewel of the three. The somewhat feckless Geoffrey Chaloner is a pawn in his father’s plans to match him with a lady of some standing, Miss Pelham. However in order to court her, Geoffrey must first win the favor of her cousin, Adam Heyward. Adam is an enigma. He’s scathing and yet he also manipulates Geoffrey into doing what he wants. Geoffrey and Adam eventually have a torrid encounter and Geoffrey has to make some radical decisions about the direction he chooses for the future. Written in the first-person, the story has a style that is sumptuous and precise. The formality and structure of the language are spot-on in reflecting the rigid, polite society and the dry humor and subtle digs that Geoffrey makes toward his father and society in general are deliciously rich. This is first-class writing and I predict the name Erastes will soon be much wider known. ( )

Expectations riding on a generation of young Englishmen are immense; for those who’ve something to hide, those expectations could prove overwhelming.

Aftermath by Charlie Cochrane: When shy Edward Easterby first sees the popular Hugo Lamont, he's both envious of the man’s social skills and ashamed of finding him so attractive. But two awful secrets weigh Lamont down. One is that he fancies Easterby, at a time when the expression of such desires is strictly illegal. The second is that an earlier, disastrous encounter with a young gigolo has left him unwilling to enter into a relationship with anyone. Hugo feels torn apart by the conflict between what he wants and what he feels is "right." Will Edward find that time and patience are enough to change Hugo's mind?

"Aftermath" is a story of first love, for both the main characters. Charlie Cochrane writes it in a style that's almost claustrophobic. "Aftermath" focuses closely on Edward and Hugo alone and there are no significant secondary characters. Cochrane's style dramatizes Edward and Hugo's emotions, and the extra focus on the two, without outside characters, greatly exaggerates any feelings between the two. This worked well with the story, since the central conflict in "Aftermath" is Edward and Hugo battling with their emotions, and there are no side conflicts such as dangerous diplomatic missions or impending marriages. I appreciated this style sometimes and was frustrated by it other times. It can get a bit too much, and I did feel claustrophobic and closed in with all the heightened emotional drama surrounding so few characters. I actually took a break from this story and jumped to Rowan's before returning to it again. But some parts of it did work for me.

"Aftermath" is a good start to the anthology, by presenting all the thrill and risks associated with loving another man in a society that rejects all such relationships. Cochrane writes in an appealing style that charges and intensifies the experience for readers. I look forward to his future works.

Gentleman's Gentleman by Lee Rowan: Lord Robert Scoville has lived in a reasonably comfortable Victorian closet, without hope of real love, or any notion that it's right there in front of him if he would only open his eyes and take notice of his right-hand man, Jack Darling. Jack has done his best to be satisfied with the lesser intimacy of caring for the man he loves, but his feigned role as a below-stairs ladies' man leaves his heart empty. When a simple diplomatic errand turns dangerous and a man from their past raises unanswerable questions, both men find themselves endangered by the secrets between them. Can they untangle the web of misunderstanding before an unknown attacker parts them forever?

"Gentleman's Gentleman" is a sort of mystery combined with mild action and romance. Lee Rowan wastes little time on unnecessary details and dives right in to introducing the perils surrounding the jobs that her characters are undertaking. The story has a rushed feel, in the sense that the reader is being whooshed from place to place, train to hotel, and the fact that their assignment changes during halfway through this short story adds to that effect. Overall, I really love this story and I feel it's one of the strongest of the three in this collection.

From the beginning, we find out Robert Scoville and Jack Darling mean more to each other than just superior and officer, or employer and employee. It communicates through to their actions and whether or not either one of them picked up even subtle hints, nothing comes of it because they're afraid their close relationship will be ruined by adding intimacy. This was the main issue they had throughout this story. Even though this is a short story, Rowan takes the time to show how dependent Robert and Jack are upon each other, and I really enjoyed the fact that she added short sections at the beginning and end to show Robert and Jack's friendship ten years before and twenty years after. I also love her ingenious solution to the marriage problem for Robert!

Hard and Fast by Erastes: Major Geoffrey Chaloner has returned, relatively unscathed, from the Napoleonic War, and England is at peace for the first time in years. Unable to set up his own establishment, he is forced to live with his irascible father who has very clear views on just about everything ~ including exactly whom Geoffrey will marry and why. The trouble is that Geoffrey isn't particularly keen on the idea, and even less so when he meets Adam Heyward, the enigmatic cousin of the lady his father has picked out for him ... As Geoffrey says himself: "I have never been taught what I should do if I fell in love with someone of a sex that was not, as I expected it would be, opposite to my own."

"Hard and Fast" departs from the two stories before and is written in first-person narrative, which is perfect for this story. Geoffrey has an attractive voice, and his thoughts run into funny asides about his father and the other characters which added spice to this story. The beginning of it, however, was a little hard to get into for me because of the style it was written in. Here are a couple sentences from the second page:

"It was last spring, the first spring free of war ~ a soldier’s spring ~ and London, though cold as h—, was still resplendent in red and white. It was, it seemed to me, as I drove through St. James’s with my father, as if London had draped itself in the colours of Victory, daring the Corsican to come again if he dared, to strike north and east ~ for London at least was ready for him should he dare."

Some of the first chapter carried on that way, and I thought the numerous use of commas to break up fractured thoughts was a little distracting and confusing. They might simulate how real people think, but those sentences drew attention to themselves and disrupted the flow of the story. It was a good thing for me that this didn't happen as often after the first chapter, and I was easily able to slip into Erastes' wonderful story.

Geoffrey Chaloner is pressured to marry by his father, who's looking to improve their social standing. Miss Pelham is too shy and Geoffrey often finds himself making conversation with her cousin, Adam Heyward. Heyward frustrates Geoffrey because Geoffrey has a hard time guessing his intentions.

The first-person narrative really heightens the feeling of Geoffrey's confusion with Heyward because we're offered no other perspective than Geoffrey's. Heyward is just as hard to figure out for the reader as he is for Geoffrey. At times, his exasperation and his resignation are very intense and this is one of the story's strong points. Erastes can express her character's emotions without turning them into meaningless jumble or resorting to over the top angst.

"Hard and Fast" sets a good pace and is an excellent story, if you lop off the ending. The subheading for the last chapter is, "In which the birds have flown, my father gets a shock and a solution comes from the unlikeliest of sources." It lives up to its promise. To me, the ending is very unlikely.

Despite that though, "Hard and Fast" is a wonderful story and is one of my favorites of the bunch. It's worth reading alone for Geoffrey's addictive narrative voice.

This collection as a whole is thoughtfully put together, with talented authors, and definitely worth reading for any fans of historical romance. All three pieces take place in Europe with a past war playing some sort of role, but they each spin off into unique directions that are wonderful to read. "Speak Its Name" is an excellent anthology. ( )

Three historical novella setting in three different moment of English history. There is a strange parallelism, from the first story by Cochrane, passing through Rowan's ones, till Erastes', the time goes back and the sensuality rate goes up.

Aftermath: Edward and Hugo are two young students at Oxford. The time is soon after the end of the WWI and England, and the little world of Oxford in particular, seems to not have fully recovered yet from the war. Edward is from a wealthy family, but he is not a nobleman. Money allows him to enter the college, an unthinkable event before the war, but now, the lack of youth and probably the times changing, set him among the few remaining sons of English aristocracy. But Edward is a shy and naivee man, innocent of life and experiences. He feels like an intruder among the others, more when he is near Hugo, the perfect epitome of a nobleman. Hugo is popular and loved, always among the right circle, always behaving in the right way. Nothing seems to link them if not something that no one of them has the courage to reveal: they are attracted to men, and in this moment they are attracted to each other. But where Edward has never experienced love, nor with women or men, and so he sees at it with wide and eager eyes, Hugo has had a disastrous experience that left him with a bitter taste in mouth and a disenchanted perspective.

Charlie Cochrane wrote a very tender and sweet novella. It reminds me a lot two of my favourite movies (and one of my favourite book): Chariot of Fire for the setting and Maurice (both movie and book) for the characters. Also like in Maurice there is the dilemma of one of the two characters if loving another man could be only limited to a spiritual sharing of minds, quite the idea that sex will taint a pure love, almost the feeling that for a noble soul, sex is something dirty. But when there is love, true love, can two lovers nurturing themself only with a sharing of minds and not of bodies?

Gentleman's Gentleman: Lord Robert is a Victorian nobleman, content with his ordinary life. He has served as Major and he still complies his duty for the Queen, here and there. And he has two sisters that kindly gave birth to more possible heirs to the title. So he is free to live as he likes, and he likes to be a bachelor and to be pampered by his man, Jack Darling. Former sergeant at Robert's command, Jack chose to leave the army with Lord Robert and now he is the perfect... wife. Yes, cause all he does for Robert is what a very good wife would do: attending to the house and to the master of the house as well. Only in one thing Jack is not like a wife: he doesn't share his master's bed. And not because Robert would not be interested, au contraire, Robert inside the private walls of his house makes not secret to prefer a male companionship. But not one time he proposes Jack and not one time Jack seemed interested in taking also that position. But not always what it seems is what it is.

Lee Rowan's novella has a lighter tone in comparison to the other two. Nor Robert or Jack have guilty feelings for what they are or what they feel. Obviously they are not open and careless with their inclinations. Probably their attitude and their apparently inability to share their feelings is due to their military extraction: men of actions more than of words. But when they arrive to the decision point, they are ready and willing to take the right decision, without regrets.

Hard and Fast:: Geoffrey is the third child of a wealthy family. Former Major, soon after the Napoleonic War, being in health and without apparently problems, he is expected to marry. The chosen bride, chosen by his father, not by him, is Miss Pelham, a rather shy but not unpleasant young girl. Unfortunately Geoffrey seems more drawn to Miss Pelham's cousin, Adam, a mourning young man. Geoffrey is not used to the feelings he has, not since they are toward a man, but since they are love feelings: he is not used to love. And discovering that his interest is awakened by a man and not by a woman is unsettling. Plus he doesn't understand Adam, who at once seems to draw him nearer and soon after to drive back him both from his cousin than from himself.

The most tormented between the three novella and yet the most sensual, it's also the one with the most unpredictable end. Erastes plays with the classical romance elements, the mother in search of a suitable husband for her almost spinster daughter, the unrepentant rake (even if it's a second line character without own scenes), the mourning but handsome gentleman, with a secret and unspeakable past, the former officer with a dislike for the social events... but then he turns the tables and the couples are not what you will expect, not at all, and not in the end... It's like a Georgette Heyer's novel (more since the Bath setting), where the main hero at once, decides to ravish not the virgin maid, but the debauched cousin! And the "breeches rippers" tag in this case is very worthy: indeed there are a pair of breeches which are ripped and in a scene that would be very right in a savage romance of the '70, even if the attacker is more the man with the breeches ripped than the man who rips them.