Peter Thorton was gay and he had a hopeless secret crush on his best friend and fellow lieutenant, Roger Perry. I started off with the standard formula of the genre: we meet our hero. I'll write one for my own amusement." It snowballed from there. A couple of years ago, I got disgusted and said, "I'm a writer. The various characters are given well rounded individual personalities which it is a joy to follow the development of and whilst there is an M/M romance element to the book, to class it as such is to do it an injustice. It is a good swashbuckling naval novel.I'm a fan of nautical fiction and got tired of the mainstream novels without gay characters, or, when they did, setting them up as nasty little incompetent minor characters whose sole reason for existence was to get knocked down by the big manly straight hero. Set in the period before American independance the book is not historical fact. Thornton 'takes the turban' and helps in the formation of a Sallee navy. The rest of the narrative explores the relationship between these two whilst giving us a strong insight into the world of galleys, lateen rigged vessels and the world from the corsair point of view. His lack of familiarity with this type of vessel soon leads to one of the slaves, a corsair, taking command. When they encounter a sinking Spanish Galley in need of assistance the Ajax saves the Spanish crew but Thornton and two crew members are left behind with the slaves. He takes a dislike to Thornton and finds every opportunity to berate him.
Firstly the captain of the Ajax is rather inept and not the usual 'Mr Nice Guy'. However from that point onwards the narrative is very fresh. This novel starts in traditional HNF style with Lieutenant Peter Thornton and his friend Lieutenant Roger Perry attending the Admiralty and recieving orders for the Frigate Ajax.
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