To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. – Leo Buscaglia
Captain Harry Thompson of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is a man of honor and commitment to his duty to country and King. He is a man for whom respect and dignity holds far more value than to risk obeying his physical appetites. There is no temptation worth dying for, as far as Harry is concerned, especially when that temptation is called lust, and those hungers he feels are not safely aimed toward those of the opposite sex. No man is worth losing everything for, that is, until Lieutenant Garnet Littleton boarded the HMS Banshee and kindled a very dangerous flame in Harry, making him want things he should not want, feel things he should not feel. Garnet is guilty of the mutiny of Harry’s sensibilities, of commandeering Harry’s desires, of striking out against the barriers Harry has constructed to protect himself and his sterling reputation, and of crumbling Harry’s resolve when he is left with nothing, including that well guarded reputation, to lose.
Blessed Isle is Harry and Garnet’s story to tell, and they both narrate their thoughts, feelings, and memories in the form of journal entries, recounting all the hardships they endured, decisions that at the time seemed to spell nothing but doom, and the tragic events that lead to a love story to be passed down through time, to be read in a place they could only dream of, where their commitment to each other as partners and lovers would be celebrated as something more than the crime it was when they lived.
Told with no small amount of wit and warmth and playful banter, Alex Beecroft has written a fast paced and engaging story of tragedy and despair, a story that follows these two men through sickness and health, through danger and exposure and the threat of sure death, all leading to the love of a lifetime, an honest and abiding love that must be hidden from the world but is celebrated in these pages. It’s a story of fear and hope and courage that tells of the bitter times that made the sweet that much more gratifying.
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