Review: Wonderful historical novella
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 30, 2010
This is a prequel to Alexander Voinov's story Deliverance from the anthology Forbidden Love. Here we meet William who is still a squire in his lord Robert's household and whose ambition is to become a knight. And Lord Robert is returning from Holy Land and helping him to achieve this ambition and helping him to learn that he has some other desires too.This story is perfect as gay historical novella, there is no doubt about the time and place where it set. Yes I have read several which attempted to pass up as historicals and I was scratching my head about the era it is set in.But of course while I care to a degree about placing the story in the recognizable setting (I surely do not care about small details), if I do not care for the characters, I would toss the story aside and never come back to it no matter how well researched the story is.Young William is wonderful - loyal and strong and has the strong desire to succeed as a knight and no matter how sinful he knows church consider for a man to be with another man, when he falls in love he does not deny it to himself.Robert as his Lord and mentor is also a strong and sympathetic character, albeit to me he was a bit more distant, probably because he is not a POV character.I loved them together very much, having said that the novella was a bit less than satisfying read for me, however this has to do with me reading Deliverance first. I already know how William is going to change and I don't know this just feels as a glimpse in who he was while he was young rather than a promise for the future.But on its own novella stands out very well. Highly recommended.