Last month I decided to challenge myself by reading at least one book a month that was outside of my normal reading genres. To help myself pick books, I set up the birthday challenge (link), in which I read a book by an author is having a birthday in that particular month. In February, the author was Michael Shaara and the book Gods and Generals.

Gods and Generals is a book that follows four leaders of the Civil War, looking at their lives and careers in the years leading to and the first 2 years (approximately) of the war. While the characters in the story are pulled from history (General Robert E. Lee, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, General Winfield Scott Hancock, and Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain), it is fiction in that the author delves more into the characters than history records. If you’re looking for an accurate history book with very detailed information about battles, then this isn’t the book for you. While Shaara does give ample information about troop movements and battles, he spends more time exploring the characters, their motivations for fighting, their family lives, and their relationships with the other soldiers.

I’m a history buff and particularly enjoy learning about the Civil War. So, I really enjoyed this book. As I read I had a strong urge to watch the movie Gettysburg, which was based on his father, Michael Shaara’s book The Killer Angels, to get the rest of the story.

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Warning: This is a gay romance between two men. So, if you're squeamish about these things, pass this book by. There are a couple not very graphic sex scenes, and some violence. You have been warned.

This is the blurb taken from Linden Bay Romance (the publisher):
Ambitious and handsome, Joshua Andrews had always valued his life too much to take unnecessary risks. Then he laid eyes on the elegant picture of perfection that is Peter Kenyon. Soon to be promoted to captain, Peter Kenyon is the darling of the Bermuda garrison. With a string of successes behind him and a suitable bride lined up to share his future, Peter seems completely out of reach to Joshua. But when the two men are thrown together to serve during a long voyage under a sadistic commander with a mutinous crew, they discover unexpected friendship. As the tension on board their vessel heats up, the closeness they feel for one another intensifies and both officers find themselves unable to rein in their passion. Let yourself be transported back to a time when love between two men in the British Navy was punishable by death, and to a story about love, about honor, but most of all, about a Captain’s Surrender.

I received this book as a contest winning and am glad to have had the chance to read it. This is one of those rare m/m stories that focuses more on the relationship between the characters and not so much their bedroom romps. Both characters struggle with their feelings in a time when it was unacceptable to be gay. Ms. Beecroft does a masterful job of bringing the reader into the heads of Joshua and Peter as they pit their wants and needs against society's rules. For an interesting history lesson intermixed with a romance story, this book is a winner.

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