Muffled Drum by Erastes

Summary:

Bohemia, 1866

They met in a port-side tavern, their lust-filled moments stolen from days of marching and madness. After eighteen months, Captain Rudolph von Ratzlaff and First Lieutenant Mathias Hofmann have decided to run away from everything they hold dear. Resigning their commissions is social suicide, but there's no other choice. Someone will eventually see Rudolph's partiality toward Mathias.

Now their plans have gone horribly awry... When Mathias goes to Rudolph's tent after their last battle, his lover looks at him without a hint of recognition. Mathias can hardly believe the man he knew is gone. He wants to fill in so many of Rudolph's missing memories, but the doctor says a shock could result in permanent damage. The pain of seeing Rudolph on a daily basis, when Rudolph doesn't remember their love, is excruciating. Now Mathias must decide whether he wants to fight for the man he loves or forget him completely...

Reviewer: BlackTulip
When I choose to read a book by this author I know that I will have a very good time. And even more interesting, the action takes place in Bohemia where my father's roots are ...

What can I say, she has a way with words when it comes to description. It is unique, you can feel the cold of the battlefield, you can smell the mixture of sweat of both men and horses, you can hear the hooves and the shouts all around, you're nearly a part of the action! Touch after touch, with subtlety she paints us a picture.

This is a story of two soldiers, Captain Rudolph von Ratzlaff and First Lieutenant Mathias Hoffman, best friends and secret lovers who intend to start a life together, far from society, its obligations and demands, unfortunately something terrible happens. Rudolph becomes partially amnesic and looses the last two years of his life and Mathias looses the only part of his life that matters to him and he doesn't know how he will coop. Between confusion for one and despair for the other the situation becomes more complicated when Rudolph old lover reappears on the scene using the situation to his advantage.

After a lot of hardship, in the end, they will have a second chance and will be able to build new memories together.

It is a book full of noises, full of emotions and full of life. I loved it. Erastes knows how to tell us a story! No doubt I will read it again. I give it a 5/5.

See the original review on goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/213121177

Junction X by Erastes

Summary:

Set in the very English surburbia of the 1960's where everyone has tidy front gardens and lace curtains, Junction X is the story of Edward Johnson, who ostensibly has the perfect life. A beautiful house, a great job and a wonderful wife. The trouble is he’s been lying to himself all of his life.  And first love, when it does come, hits him and hits him hard. The object of his passion? The teenaged son of the new neighbours.

Edward’s world is about to go to hell.

Reviewer: TigerLily
Some secrets tattoo themselves on your skin, and Alex was that kind of secret.

WOW. I don’t really know what to say. This book is an intense and emotional journey inside the head of Edward, an unhappyily married man who had a fling with his friend, a sexual release from his monotone life and nothing more untill he sees his neighbor’s teenage son and everything changes for him. For the first time in his 33 years he is in love, with a 17 year old and having feelings and thoughts he can never understand which leads to the end of this epic tragedy.

The acceleration of the story was slow but emotionally disturbing at the same time. Being in someone else’s head, feeling the same feelings and having the same thoughts felt like an intrusion that left me sad. Even their sexual encounters at the beginning were innocent in a way that left me breathless with anticipation. What next? How would the final act be? And at the end it was like poetry more than sex.

I don’t know why this book kept reminding me of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, which is considered one of his best books and for me this is the best of Erastes. I can’t wait to see what she will write next! 5 stars

Publisher: Cheyenne Publishing

Mere Mortals by Erastes

Summary:

Orphaned Crispin Thorne has been taken as ward by Philip Smallwood and is transplanted from his private school to Smallwood's house on an island in Norfolk. Upon his arrival, he finds that he's not the only young man given a fresh start. With their benefactor away, they speculate on why they've been given this new life.

Reviewer: BlackTulip
Erastes has nothing to prove to anyone anymore, we know for a fact that she is a magician with words. She delivers here a captivating story that will keep you on tenterhooks from start to finish!

With a wealth of details she paints a fascinating landscape of Norfolk, which in itself is a very important part of this book. Very quickly, a unique and palpable atmosphere full of shadows and mystery hovers like a veil of mist.

From the start she has found a clever way to set up the scenery of her tale by making us discover it through the eyes of one of the main characters, Crispin, as he begins his journey.

Patiently and delicately she weaves an intricate story where everything and every body has its place and its importance but where nothing and nobody is what it seems. Everybody here has a secret!

Crispin Thorne is a young and penniless orphan who has been sent from his boarding school to a remote place in Norfolk. Horsey Mere is owned by the very intriguing Philip Smallwood who is Crispin's mysterious benefactor. When Crispin arrives on the island, Philip Smallwood is conspicuously absent but there are two other young men like him! Jude Middleton and Myles Graham. Very quickly we realize that something is not right, but what exactly and why? it is yours to discover!

It is a crafty mystery with clues and misdirections scattered here and there and a final startling twist!

I would have given 5 stars but a few points stayed unfortunately unexplained at the end and left me a little frustrated. I give 4 stars.

Publisher: Lethe Press