Genre/Tags: Historical Setting. Gay Romance

Author: Keira Andrews

Story Rating: 4 Stars

Narrator: Cornell Collins

Narrator Rating: 5 Stars

Length: 10 hours & 6 minutes

Audiobook Buy Links: Audible and Amazon

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.

Contains mature themes.

Review:

The title. The cover. Oooh, I love the cover! They both tell you what this book is bringing to the table.  A good old bodice breeches ripper. Nathaniel comes from a once wealthy family but his father has squandered the family money. His dead wife’s inheritance as well. The last little ribbon in the bow for Walter Bainbridge is to have his unwed daughter and son, both of whom he has matched, to marry at his new station as Governor of a Colonial outpost, Primrose Isle. When the ship taking them to the Isle is stopped and boarded by the dreaded Captain Hawk of the Damned Manta, Susanna is sent along on the original ship to pass word to her father about what has happened. About the dreadful pirates. About Nathaniel being kept as a ransom.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel just happens to be the son of a man who wronged Hawk and set him on his pirating ways. He’s going to enjoy fucking with Walter Bainbridge, getting the money and payback he deserves, and he’s been gifted his young son to exact the revenge that still burns bright. But one can also say fortunately, as where would the story be without this scenario?   

Of course, Hawk starts out being every bit the villainous pirate, scaring Nathaniel witless. Keeping him locked in his cabin. Choking him, letting him know he’ll gut him like a fish if his father doesn’t pay the ransom – a distinct possibility as his father goes through money like sand sieves through fingers. However, Bainbridge Snr has a reputation to uphold. He can’t be made to look bad as a Colonial representative. Hawk is counting on it. Nathaniel’s life is depending on it. But Nathaniel isn’t looking forward to marriage, he doesn’t desire women, or being expected to behave Walter Bainbridge’s way.  

Nathaniel thought of Primrose Isle, his father and a proper young lady named Elizabeth, a new life waiting on a new colony. A new life that would ensnare him even more thoroughly than he already was. Then he laughed out loud as he thought that being a monster’s captive on a pirate ship and ending his life here was perhaps preferable.

Nathaniel is eighteen, a virgin, as mentioned in he blurb, and he’s sweet. He’s attractive. He can’t read. Isn’t particularly scholarly, much to the disdain of his horrid father. He’s a disappointment. His father has let him know it over and over so Nathaniel believes it. To top it off, he knows he’s attracted to men but believes it’s a terrible sin and amoral. Hawk can read. Is cunning and shrewd. He also fancies men and sees nothing amoral in it at all. It’s a match made in deflowering heaven. Which Andrews clearly delighted in writing. It shines through.   

I listened to this in audiobook because of the Cornell Collins audiobook-a-thon I’ve been on of late. I think I’ve listened to about eight books with him as the narrator over the last month and a half, and quite deliberately. I grabbed this because a) as already mentioned, Collins narration, and b) I’ve been in the mood for gay historical or Regency romance audiobooks of late. Easy equation.

The Things I liked:

An age gap. Hawk is forty-ish to Nathaniel’s eighteen. It’s fiction and romance and I like an age gap. 

They’re good characters. I was able to get right behind Hawk and Nathaniel.

No shade intended: You know romance books like this have a recipe. Hawk will have had a love once that he misses to this day. That underneath his tough seadog exterior beats a decent heart. The younger character, the captive, gets a nickname. Plum in this case. That he is going to teach young Plum how to embrace his sexy side with gusto and live life to the fullest. That he’ll also teach Hawk a thing of two as well. 

Nathaniel is unlike his father. He’s decent. He does a couple of earnest and good things that make Hawk see him as more than a ransom which causes some indigestion for both of them on one or two occasions. It drives a speck of angst. It’s always worth seeing an obstacle or two to overcome in a book.  

Acid roiled Hawk’s stomach. If Bainbridge didn’t pay and the men were denied their prize, it would be a bloody mess.

There are other pirates that want the Damned Manta and they come into pirate-on-pirate conflict. It adds some action.

Fucking One-Eyed Alfred and the Javelin. He attacks anyone and everyone without provocation, no matter the risk. Madman.

You also know the snitch who ratted out Nathaniel in the first place will be a pain in the arse. I’m not spoiling anything because it stands out like a flashing neon sign – *blink – I’m going to cause a problem at some stage- *blink

Nathaniel’s sister, Susanna, is an awesome sister. Supportive female characters in gay romance FTW. 

Bainbridge Snr was an arsehole who I wanted to see get hit by the Karma Bus? Ship? I love it when the good guys win and arseholes get what they deserve. If I think about it in that black and white a way then you know the author has done their job and written relatable characters.

I had a good time listening. It flowed well. There was a bit of excitement. Two guys I really liked got their happy-happy joy-joy.  A little too much sex for mine, but I knew going in that sex would be flowing freely.  

 I liked the Barbarian duology that this author wrote and this has a similar vibe, although a quite different setting.  Kidnapped by the Pirate was a fun story. I’m so glad I spent the last 5 nights listening to Cornell Collins bringing Nathaniel and Hawk’s story to life. 4.5 Stars!