Marquesate

I absolutely loved this short story, there is practically no sex and despite this (or maybe thanks to this) it’s one of the most romantic and sweet story I have ever read, and if you considering it’s about rough soldiers, it was not an easy job to make it like that.

Tom and Alex are buddy friends and something more; no one wants to really admit the deepness of their feelings, but it’s obvious and binding. Waiting for Alex to leave for a six months shift abroad, Tom has the chance to show more question his own side of the relationship and to arrive to the right conclusion: he is in love. But in their world, and mentality, it’s almost impossible to be open with this type of feeling, and so Tom is not able to say the words, not even to think at them. Alex will leave and Tom will wait at home, like a friend and not a partner.

Tom is probably more near to the point in which it will be impossible to deny it’s love, but it’s not that Alex is doing something to push him away; on the contrary, even from abroad, he is cultivating their feelings, and maintaining the contact, so that when he will be back home, Tom will be there waiting for him. Does it matter that their friends and relatives believe them to be only best friends? By the way, I think Tom and Alex want to think their dear ones are not aware, but I think it’s one example more of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: in this case it’s a benigne example, a way for Tom’s family to letting him know that he will be always welcome in their comforting embrace.

This is a Christmas story, and as such is tender and with an happily ever after, maybe a macho man HEA, but nevertheless a good one.

This is a charity publication, strictly no-profit for the author, and the £0.40 revenue of each book go to Médecins Sans Frontières

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I liked the story, how it spanned several years and allowed both Col and Chris to grow and their relationship to change from, "Do you want to fuck me, Sir?" I got a real sense of life in the British Forces (and how it differs from the American military): the duty, the rigorous lifestyle and training, the order, and the chaos of tours. I also love how their lives progressed and how they managed to stay together.

But, the way in which this was written, with most "chapters" only a few (or often show more a couple) pages long, and moving to the next chapter meant skipping over weeks or months, left the story feeling disjointed, and kept me from emotionally bonding with the characters as much as I wanted to. I did feel for them, sometimes horror, sometimes happiness and love, but it was very subdued, and now that I've reached the end I'm happy for them and their story, but I feel a little empty as well. Also, the grammar was sometimes a little off and the point-of-view threw me a few times, as I had to wonder for a few paragraphs at least whose eyes I was seeing through, or if it was a third-person omniscient-type summary.

In summary, I loved Col's and Chris's characters, how they grew, the genuine sense of being ingrained in the Forces, and spending those years with them, but I didn't love this book as a whole, and it was rather unmemorable, predominately because of the disharmony between chapters. I just have read so many beautiful and heart-wrenching gay military romances, and loved them, that this doesn't come close to being on par. show less

Look at that cover: no naked chests, no passionate embraces, no kissing with glorious flags on the background... an old boot and a piece of camouflage cloth. What can you understand from that cover? that this is an hard book without romance? That you will sex but not love? That the two main characters are all manly and without feelings? yes and no, yes and no, yes and no...

Sergeant Alex Turner is a scarred man, not only in body but also deep in his soul. He trusted a person, a woman, his show more wife and he was frustrated. Coming home from a mission that almost cost him his life, he didn't find a warm embrace and a comforting body, he found the cold refusal of a woman that couldn't see past his marked body. And Alex turned for the embrace toward the Army, a family that never disappointed him, even if he didn't expected to find also the comforting body. Even if he doens't show it, Alex has mental scars that run deeply than the visual ones: he probably thinks to have failed, that he didn't deserve to be still alive, that he now doesn't deserve to have a normal life and to feel pleasure again. These are the barriers he has in his mind, but also his body has some idea for his own: wounded in what are the most intimate and fragile parts of a man, he can't react to a gentle touch, since it's too light for the shield he built around himself, the reaction can only be forced, through a strong and authoritative touch.

Sergeant Tom Warren is Alex's buddy friend, the man with whom he spends all his free time, the one that probably helped him to fill a void. But Tom can't hide no more: he doesn't want Alex as a friend, he wants the man in every way he can. Tom enlisted when he was 16 years old, when he wasn't meat or fish, when he wasn't a man. Growing up, Tom realized that he preferred men, and in way or another he always fulfilled his desires. But now his mind, and body, wants Alex, and Alex's is not available... or so he thinks. When a fist fight with his friend over the discovery that Tom is gay, ends in a burst of unexpected sex, Tom and Alex have to find a way to go on.

Alex accepts Tom's attentions like an unavoidable thing, like something he searches only when he can no more deny his body, a body that has decided to respond only to Tom's. Tom accepts Alex's unwilling surrender like the only way to be with the man he desperately wants. Is it love? maybe. Tom interprets his feelings as lust over Alex's body, better over Alex's scarred body: the scars for Tom are like symbols of Alex's strenght, the testimony that he survived; he almost feels guilty to be so aroused by something that witnesses Alex's pain. In a way Alex, who unlike Tom's never admits to be gay, is more sincere, since he instead admit that it's not Tom's body that turns him on, it's Tom, apart from the fact that he is a man, or gay, or whatsoever.

There is only one thing that I don't like of the book: that it's too short (142 pages in print version)! While reading faster than I can to see what it happened next, I was also thinking, or damn, I'm at mid book, it's almost finished! and I would liked for it to have still more to read. And I forgot to mention that obviously, the military part of the story is convincing and heroic, all male and proud and adventures filled... but well, I'm a romantic at heart and so I was led astray from the romance!

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The only regret I have upon finishing this one is that it took me so long to read it. Actually, I’m ashamed cause I really liked the previous military romance I read by Marquesate, so I knew this one was probably as good as well, but there are so many books out every month, that I tend to read new to me authors, and let the ones I have already read got behind. Well, don’t do my same mistake and if you haven’t the chance, read Basic Training.

The main strength of the novel is the balance show more between manliness and romance, military and love story: never once the author forgot these were soldiers she was writing about, but at the same time, the romance was “romantic” (sorry the double similar words but they fit).

Aside from the military theme, that already part of a romance tradition, the author also ventured in another classical romance theme, the May/December romance, or better the young/older lovers: Platoon Sergeant Col 'Bulldog' Wilson is 35 years old, while new recruits Chris Thompson is 21 years old. Of course the age difference is part of the plot, with Col wondering if Chris is not searching a substitute father in him, even considering the bad relationship Chris has with his own father, but the author managed to shorten it with a clever expedient: Chris never hid his sexuality, since he was a teenager, arriving even to tick of the “homosexual” square in his enlisting papers, and so at 21 he hasn’t maybe much sexual experience on the field, but he had plenty of time to be self-conscious about his sexuality and desires; Col instead has always repressed his feelings, and at 35 he has never been with a man before, and he still needs to arrive to pact with his own sexual needs, let alone feelings.

It will be a long path for Col and Chris, another thing I liked of the story, we followed them for years, not just during the heat of the passion, but a path with a very romantic happily ever after at the end.

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