A King’s Ransom by Aislinn Kerry

[reviews_and_ramblings]

A King’s Ransom is a fantasy tale both for allowing the author to play with a gay romance in an historical setting and also to have some escamotage in the story that would have been not possible in real life.

Luke is the princeling of a fantasy kingdom and he is sailing to a near kingdom to meet his soon-to-be bride; it’s not a love marriage but more a political agreement: Luke’s father is hill and he wants the son married and with an heir on the come before living his mortal life. Luke is young and very responsible, the classical good son that would never disappoint his father; and of course he will not arrive to the end of his travel.

Conall is a pirate and a gentleman, well he is a gentleman since he is not interested in damsel in distress, and Luke is disguised as a lady when they meet. At first Conall is more than intentioned to give back the young lady unscathed in exchange of a good sum of money, but when he discovers that Luke is a boy and not a girl, and above all an innocent boy, the temptation is too great; after all he can debauch a young boy without much consequences, something he would have been not able to do with a lady.

At first Luke is all against surrendering to temptation, not much since he is against the idea to be with a man, but more since he doesn’t know what to expect. Luke has never been with a woman, much less with a man, and he is not used to satisfy his body desires. As soon as Conall awakes him to the pleasure of the flesh, Luke seems almost to forget that there is kingdom waiting for him and a supposed fiance. Actually the soon-to-be bride disappears from the story and the only complaint Luke has on Conall is that the man is a pirate and of an enemy country; the fact that he is a man seems not really important. Luke seems more worried to be accused of indecency, than sodomy.

That is probably the point of the book where the reader start to realize that this is a fantasy and not an historical romance: there is no much fuss over the homosexuality of Conall, it’s more important that he is not of the same social status of Luke than the “little” detail that he is a man. But aside from that, in any case this is more a romance than an historical fiction: Conall and Luke seem to spend all their time in Conall’s cabin, there is no really evidence of any other people outside them if not for two episodes when Conall’s men, rightly I would say, make their presence clear; the pirate’s life seems a little too fascinating, and of course the captain, Conall, is both a pirate than a gentleman, otherwise he would not be a good match for an heir to a throne.

A King’s Ransom is more a romantic tale than a historical fiction, and people should read it like that; enjoy Conall’s carelessly behaviour and Luke’s descend from his pedestal; Conall is in all respects the ravishing pirate of Romance with the capital letter R.

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