The Book: A great house. A family dispossessed. A sensitive young man. A powerful landowner. An epic love that springs up between two men. Set in the post-Napoleonic years of the 1820's, Standish is a tale of two men - one man discovering his sexuality and the other struggling to overcome his traumatic past. Ambrose Standish, a studious and fragile young man, has dreams of regaining the great house his grandfather lost in a card game. When Rafe Goshawk returns from the continent to claim the estate, their meeting sets them on a path of desire and betrayal which threatens to tear both of their worlds apart. Painting a picture of homosexuality in Georgian England, Standish is a love story of how the decisions of two men affect their journey through Europe and through life. 

Amazon: Standish

My Review: What can I say... I love it. And hate it. Standish is a book that once you start reading it, you can put it down, but it's also a book not easy to love. It's dark, hard, absolutely not about handsome men in frilly dresses who fall in love and easily walk together toward the sunset.

I love Standish (the book) because Erastes makes me feel the emotions of Rafe, the main characters, and the joy of Ambrose, his lover.

I hate Standish cause Erastes describes the real world, where the true love is never simple, and where an happily ever after is not so common.

You want the perfect hero, dark, tortured but always on the right side of things? Then don't read Standish. Rafe is everything but perfect. Is a man led by the passion, and sometimes the passion guides him to the wrong path. And Ambrose, the other hero, is sometimes fragile, sometimes strong, but always human. And like everyone he wants love, and like everyone it would not be simple for him to reach it, and maybe love will be where he is not searching.

Ambrose and Rafe see each other like Ganymede and Zeus. Ganymede, the guy who, with his beauty, stole the role of God's cupbearer to Ebe. Ganymede served ambrosia to Zeus, so also the name of Ambrose recall this legend. He is the object and nourishment of the love of Rafe. In a romance perfect world Rafe must save Ambrose from every trouble and perilious... in the real world we have the tragedy, but also the love that forgives anything.

When I'm happy I want the laugh, when I'm sad I want to cry... Standish stays in between. And let me say: it's not a romance, if we consider the normal level of the romance. But it's a beautiful romance, when we consider that in this category we can put some very lost pearl.

So thanks to Erastes for this book, I will put it in my bookshelf, but think I will take it often.

Other Books in the List:

Frost Fair 
Amazon: Frost Fair

Speak Its Name by Various 
Amazon: Trilogy No. 111: Speak Its Name

Transgressions
Amazon: Transgressions: An M/M Romance 

The Author: Erastes is the penname of a female author.

Erastes has been writing all of his life, in one way or another, letters, emails, diaries used to satisfy his need for the written word. He simply didn’t think he could write, make plots that people would be interested in.

Then one day in 2003, he simply started, a few short stories, and then a novel and then…well, he hasn’t stopped writing since.

He lives in Norfolk, and when he can be dragged kicking and screaming away from his computer, he enjoys walks by the Broads. He likes cats and cheese but has discovered only one of those is any good with toast.

He likes his men like his fiction, dark, with a hint of danger, romantic and intelligent without being too wordy. He believes in the GDM bases his dodgy morality on Heinlein’s Intermissions.

He is a member of the Historical Novel Society, Director of The Erotic Authors’ Association and is a staff writer at www.bookpuppy.co.uk

http://www.erastes.com/

Top 100 Gay Novels List (*)

External Link to the Top 100 Gay Novels List (simple - without photos)

External Link to the Top 100 Gay Novels List (wanted - with photos)

*only one title per author, only print books released after January 1, 2000.

Other titles not in the top 100 list:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/top50MM