Book Review: On A Lee Shore by Elin Gregory

Reviewed by Heather C

Title: On A Lee Shore
Author: Elin Gregory
The Heroes: Lt Christopher “Kit” Penrose & Captain Griffin
Genre: M/M Historical Romance / Adventure
Length: 110,000+ words
Publisher: Etopia Press
Release Date: December 14, 2012
Available at: Etopia Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: “Give me a reason to let you live…”

Beached after losing his ship and crew, and with England finally at peace, Lt Christopher Penrose will take whatever work he can get. A valet? Why not? Escorting an elderly diplomat to the Leeward Islands seems like an easy job, but when their ship is boarded by pirates, Kit’s world is turned upside down. Forced aboard the pirate ship, Kit finds himself juggling his honor with his desire to staying alive among the crew, not to mention the alarming—yet enticing—captain, known as Le Griffe.

Kit has always obeyed the rules, but as the pirates plunder their way across the Caribbean, he finds much to admire in their freedom. He deplores their lawlessness but is drawn to their way of life, and begins to think he might just have found a purpose. Dare he dream of finding love too? Or would loving a pirate take him too far down the road to ruin?

Review:

I was in a bit of a book funk last month and decided to sign up for January’s Comfort Zone Challenge in the M/M Romance Group on Goodreads. For those of you who are not familiar with this challenge, a reader signs up and lists their likes and dislikes, and then they get paired with another reader who has to pick a book for them to read…preferably something not on their TBR list or any of their shelves. On a Lee Shore was picked for me to read by Susan A and I was so excited to start, I didn’t even read the blurb and went in TOTALLY blind.

Desperately wanting to get back at sea following a huge scandal when the last ship he sailed sank, Kit Penrose doesn’t have many options. He takes a job as a simple valet for an inexperienced traveler aboard the Hypatia. What should be an easy journey and of no interest to pirates…quickly turns into Kit’s nightmare when just that happens; the Hypatia is attacked and Kit is taken captive aboard the Africa and forced to turn pirate by the notorious pirate Captain Le Griffe (AKA Captain Griffin…sorta). Griffin has a plan and needs Kit’s naval experience to carry it out, but Kit doesn’t give in easy. As Kit battles with his conscience of helping pirates and the shame he feels as his attraction to Griffin grows, he soon realizes that there are good men around him and not all pirates have no morals. And he knows that someday soon he will have to make a choice: a choice between his heart and his name.

It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! Okay, I got that out of the way…

The Characters: I don’t even know where to begin about how much I loved Kit and Griffin. Oh, certainly they are both flawed, but there were so many layers to them. Then all the secondary characters like Davy and Denny and Saunders and Lewis and Protheroe…and even the Africa. Yes, I was attached to the freakin’ ship!

The Romance: I was totally in slow burn heaven! Sexual tension to the max and I was tortured forever until Kit and Griffin’s lips ever even touched! Gah! These two did me in and there wasn’t even any on page sex!! *sigh*

The Setting: 18th century Caribbean where pirates controlled the seas. I have no idea how historically accurate it is, and I don’t really care. I loved the world and the codes the pirates lived by: where every man has a say and every wrong must be made right…and a man’s word defines his honor.

The Pace: It started off a bit slow for me, but once Kit was taken by the pirates I could not put it down. It’s not a short read so I was snatching bits and pieces every chance I got. There was some set up in the beginning that turned out to be very relevant throughout the story, so every word of it was important IMO.

The Language: Oh boy, all the naval/nautical terminology was turning my brain in circles. At first I was using my Kindle dictionary to look up the words, but eventually I gave up and the story started to flow. I was able to understand what was going on without knowing exactly what some of the words meant. For me, that enhanced the authenticity of the story and I feel like I learned a little something along the way. And the pirate speak? Well, it wasn’t the clichéd “Arrgh” like we are all used to. No, it was an interesting mesh of languages and dialects that proved to bring me back in time to the 18th century life of a pirate.

The “Ah Ha” moment: Yes, there were light bulbs going off all throughout the story and I had pretty much suspected what was really going on. But, honestly, I was still freaking out ’til about the last 5 minutes of the book!

The Ending: Dammit, I didn’t want it to end!!! Why why why did it have to end??? I know it’s a very happy HEA that still makes my tummy flutter and put a big ol’ smile on my face…but I still want the next adventure.

It will be a while before I can get over this experience. Ah, the joys of a great book.

Highly recommended to all those historical adventure lovers out there.

****I want to make note that I think there is a formatting problem with the electronic version of this book: there were absolutely no italicized words and I know that ship names are usually italicized…so that caused some confusion for me because a few times it took me a bit to discern if the characters were referring to a ship, a place, or possibly a person. Plus, there were some thoughts of Kit’s that I highly suspected were meant to be italicized. I received my copy from the publisher, so I compared it to the sample version on Amazon and they were exactly the same…

Overall Impression: It was amazing

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in return for a fair and honest review.*