Title: Kidnapped by the Pirate
Author: Keira Andrews
Publisher: Self-Published/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 280 Pages
Category: Historical
At a Glance: If you’re in the mood for a sexy historical high seas romance with some added danger and a sweet HEA, men whose conquest is to conquer each other, to ravage barriers and ravish each other body and soul, these are the pirates you’re looking for.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Will a virgin captive surrender to this pirate’s sinful touch?
Nathaniel Bainbridge is used to hiding, whether it’s concealing his struggles with reading or his forbidden desire for men. Under the thumb of his controlling father, the governor of Primrose Isle, he’s sailing to the fledging colony, where he’ll surrender to a respectable marriage for his family’s financial gain. Then pirates strike and he’s kidnapped for ransom by the Sea Hawk, a legendary villain of the New World.
Bitter and jaded, Hawk harbors futile dreams of leaving the sea for a quiet life, but men like him don’t deserve peace. He has a score to settle with Nathaniel’s father—the very man whose treachery forced him into piracy—and he’s sure Nathaniel is just as contemptible.
Yet as days pass in close quarters, Nathaniel’s feisty spirit and alluring innocence beguile and bewitch. Although Hawk knows he must keep his distance, the desire to teach Nathaniel the pleasure men can share grows uncontrollable. It’s not as though Hawk would ever feel anything for him besides lust…
Nathaniel realizes the fearsome Sea Hawk’s reputation is largely invented, and he sees the lonely man beneath the myth, willingly surrendering to his captor body and soul. As a pirate’s prisoner, he is finally free to be his true self. The crew has been promised the ransom Nathaniel will bring, yet as danger mounts and the time nears to give him up, Hawk’s biggest battle could be with his own heart.
This May-December gay romance from Keira Andrews features classic tropes including: a tough alpha pirate too afraid to love, a plucky virgin captive half his age, enemies to lovers, first-time sexual discovery, and of course a happy ending.
Review: If vampire bites are synonymous with sex, so can pirates pillaging and plundering be. That’s my final answer, and I’m sticking to it, because pirates are my fantasy crack. Add an age gap and the virginal hostage of a pirate who’s hell bent on revenge, and I’m all in, no questions asked.
Keira Andrews’ Kidnapped by the Pirate gives up some of its dramatic arc right at the outset, so readers don’t have to wait long to get the full picture of why the deadly Sea Hawk is so intent on adding young Nathaniel Bainbridge to his share of the spoils after intercepting the ship that was to deliver Nathaniel and his sister to Primrose Isle, the colony their father now governs. The elder Bainbridge is a despicable sort, greedy and deceitful, and I liked the way Andrews worked a ‘the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son’ angle into the story as the catalyst for Hawk and Nathaniel’s forced cohabitation aboard The Damned Manta. Hawk has an ax to grind, and he plans to use Nathaniel to collect a hefty ransom that will set up his crew comfortably…and might even give Hawk the means to leave behind his life on the high seas.
I liked the teenage Nathaniel so much, and loved that Andrews avoided the damsel in distress trope in his characterization. He’s vulnerable but never weak, intelligent if not book smart, and courageous even in the face of his own peril. And, of course, we wonder right along with him about his father’s ability, if not the man’s desire, to pay the ransom for his son once Nathaniel’s month of captivity comes to an end. That becomes the Ariadne’s Thread of the plot as Hawk and Nathaniel grow closer—is Hawk the cold-blooded man he seems to be, and can he follow through on his threats if Walter Bainbridge doesn’t meet Hawk’s demands? The overarching dilemma is the deepening of his and Nathaniel’s feelings for each other, especially as they each prove to the other that assumptions and first impressions are deceptive.
Kidnapped by the Pirate is pure category romance, an opposites attract story with a little swashbuckling on the side. The entirety of its conflict revolves around where these two men have come from, their feelings about themselves and their eventual feelings for each other, and where that will lead them. Nathaniel struggles with the things that make him different, not the least of which is his preference for men. Hawk’s backstory is not only resonant but is more expansive as the older man whose future was directed and dictated by external forces from an early age. His life experience contrasts with Nathaniel’s innocence, and their building physical need for each other was incredibly erotic. Their growing emotional need for each other was sweet and fraught with complications both internal and, again, external.
The Spanish, English, French and Dutch once ruled the waves, and Letters of Marque defined the fine line between privateer and pirate. For me, that’s part of the romanticism of piracy and why I love the trope. They were outlaws who existed outside the boundaries of society, and yet lived by their own codes of conduct. And while the scurvy pirate was certainly more the rule than the exception, it’s fun to imagine them as the dashing and dangerous hero, and I wish there were more attention paid to them in the LGBTQ genre. Not that I don’t appreciate the realism of the mitigating circumstances of being homosexual in historical fiction, and the inherent complications, but there’s irrefutable evidence that same sex relationships, among both male and female pirates, not only existed but were accepted as a matter of course. Or, maybe I just love pirate romance. Evidence suggests that’s true too.
Though the story, without question, belongs to Nathaniel and Hawk, there are some notable side characters, namely Nathaniel’s sister and her husband, who become heroes in their own right, as well as Alan O’Connell, who becomes a friend and ally to Nathaniel. There is also, of course, the requisite troublemaker who was quite the arse and overestimated his worth, and gets his due comeuppance.
If you’re in the mood for a sexy historical high seas romance with some added danger and a sweet HEA, men whose conquest is to conquer each other, to ravage barriers and ravish each other body and soul, these are the pirates you’re looking for.
You can buy Kidnapped by the Pirate here:
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