About Galleons and Gangplanks
Edited by Rob Knight
181 pages / 76000 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-008-5, 1-60370-008-0
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, paperback
Pirates! Rapiers! Cannons and flintlocks! These are all the idea behind Galleons and Gangplanks. Bringing back the days when pirates ruled the high seas, this collection of stories has no shortage of adventure, danger, and excitement.
From Sean Michael comes Searching the Seas, a story about an honest man kidnapped by pirates, used as collateral for a trade between the pirates and the seaside village at their mercy. Things are not always as they seem, though, and soon the constable and the pirate Captain are learning to love, and live, with the past and the future.
Julia Talbot’s The White City takes on the Barbary Coast, with a legendary privateer meeting his match in an Algerian sheik. But who is the captor and who is the slave in this game of cat and mouse that runs from the sun baked streets of Algiers to the waves beyond the shore?
Mychael Black’s Fool’s Gold is a romp in the best pirate tradition. Searching for his father’s lost gold, a young man teams up with a salty veteran to follow a treasure map. Can the two of them find something in common besides a lust for coin?
In Willa Okati’s Of Boats and Bluebeards two young men are pressed into service on a pirate ship, one of them slated to be the Captain’s new toy, the other set to backbreaking work. Can Kit and Paul find a way to escape, and to share the budding love they find with each other?
Get your arrr! on. Grab Galleons and Gangplanks today!
Review
Kit Zheng, contributing Torquere Press anthology author, writes:</i> If you've been coveting some steamy adventures on the high seas ever since you laid eyes on Captain Jack Sparrow, you're in for a treat! "Gangplanks and Galleons" will thoroughly satisfy any craving for sea dogs and smoking hot romance. The anthology collects four stories that cover the classic -- such as the black-bearded scoundrel of "Of Boats and Blue Beards" -- to the more exotic -- like the far away locale of "The White City."
Of course, you can't have a pirate theme without the enduring favorite of love that sparks between a pirate and his captive. Sean Michael makes us think that's where he's headed and then gives it a sweet twist in "Searching the Seas." When a pirate ship sails into port, Abraham Sawyer, the law of St-Mary's, finds himself all but blackmailed aboard in trade for the town's safety. There's something that intrigues him about the captain, however. The man is foppish, indecent, and stirs up trouble in Abraham's heart that he thought was stilled. Sparks fly when the pirate reveals his secret. But can the love between a man who's found refuge in the law and a gleefully lawbreaking pirate survive? Fun and full of carefree sex and banter, "Searching the Seas" won't fail to please.
Julia Talbot ventures into exotic Algeria with her story "The White City." Cunning first mate and strategist Jem Nettles is captured by Hakim Reis, the lieutenant of Jem's favorite victim, Barbary Coast pirate Sharim Reis. Despite Jem's fears that he will be sold into slavery, something stops Hakim from handing him over to Sharim. In turn Jem finds that something about the blue-eyed Hakim piques his interest. A very sexy and intense prisoner-captive dynamic unfolds as the story progresses, and Ms. Talbot does not shy away from action scenes every bit as exciting as her... "action" scenes.
In "Fool's Gold" by Michael Black, pirate Ian Bowers is saved from the hangman's noose by a naive, well-to-do young man -- Silas Christian -- who claims to be the son of Ian's former captain and former love. Silas confesses he has freed Ian in the hopes of recovering his father's hidden treasure. But as they gear up to search for the missing booty, Ian begins to get an inkling that Silas is not as innocent as he appears to be. With engaging characters and a legacy of intrigue, "Fool's Gold" will take the reader on a treacherous and wonderful adventure.
The anthology wraps up with the dark and stormy "Of Boats and Blue Beards" by Willa Okati. Desperate to escape the clutches of his controlling and cruel uncle, Kit attempts to follow his dead lover David into Davy Jones' Locker by signing up with what he thinks is a merchant ship. A friend of David's, Paul, tries to warn Kit away, but instead both of them are taken aboard. When Kit at last realizes it's no merchant ship and no kindly captain, is it too late? With hints of a familiar fairy tale in its tumultuous telling, "Of Boats and Blue Beards" closes this anthology powerfully.
A marvellous collection of pirate fiction, "Gangplanks and Galleons" does not disappoint, and if it has any shortcoming, it is only that it leaves the reader craving even more hot and heavy adventures on the high seas!
Sample
From Of Boats and Blue Beards
By Willa Okati
Christopher, better known as "Kit" to those he called friends, stood in front of the solid oak door to his uncle's study and straightened his cravat. He knew it was poorly tied and would make quite the spectacle if he were to venture out in public, but despite Uncle's decision that a valet was too costly for "the likes of him", he insisted on Kit's observing the niceties of a gentleman. The damned neck-cloth was about to choke him about the throat, while hanging too loose below.
Still, he'd done the best he could. And he didn't plan to keep the blasted thing on for long. All he needed was to face his uncle this one last time, and he'd be free.
Free to go after his heart's desire… or what came in second place, since what he wanted most had vanished in the seas several months gone, with nothing sent back but word of his death. Uncle had been relieved. He'd forbidden Kit to mourn, of course, but Kit obeyed only on the exterior.
Inside, he grieved every night for his lost David.
"Just one voyage," David insisted, toying with the light dusting of hair on Kit's chest. They lay naked together in David's bed for the safety of them both, Kit's uncle having far too many eyes and ears for anyone's good. It wasn't a very good bed, the stuffing having gone flat and the linen sheets well-frayed from being washed too many times, the rope supports giving little snaps of warning each time they moved, but it suited them.
It was, after all, the place where they came together.
Kit finger-walked his own hand up David's broad chest, counting off each muscle and stopping to circle one flat brown nipple with his forefinger. "I don't trust the seas," he'd said, not looking up. He couldn't quite bear to look David in the face, quashing his dreams as he was. "There are too many things out there for my peace of mind. Shipwrecks, scurvy, pirates…"
David laughed, his body shaking with the force of it -- they had no worries about anyone hearing or caring about them in David's tumbledown dwelling. He'd appropriated the place, an old barn, after the stable master gave up trying to sell skinny mares and slump-backed geldings and moved out. The place still smelled of hay and horseflesh, tempered with the rich musky scent of two males in rut.
They'd just finished making love, but Kit found himself eager, as always, to go again. He was young and strong, his cock eager at the slightest provocation, and David an irresistible temptation. He moved closer so that David would be able to feel the swelling of his manhood between the two of them, made a hungry sound, and kissed his lover on the round cap of his shoulder. Licking an intricate path between the freckles there, he made a purring sound and chuckled when David did.
"You're a sweet one when the mood's on you," David said, nestling comfortably on his back. Kit followed, pressing kisses on his chest. He tongued one nipple into his mouth and then bit lightly.
David gasped. "I know full well what you're trying to do, and it won't work," he said as firmly as a man could in his position. "One voyage, Kit. I've already put up the capital to invest in the venture."
"Then stay here on land, and let your profits mature without you there."
"No, no." David caught Kit's head with one broad hand and held it still. Kit paused over the nipple he'd been lavishing attention on, then sighed, his breath stirring the springy hairs. "Look, Kit, it's not as if I won't miss you. But I need to be on board to ensure that my goods are safe."
"Pay someone to do it for you."
"Love, no. I must go. I've given my word."
Kit sat up, gathering the thin sheet around himself. He gazed down at David, the gentle giant who'd won his heart from their first meeting over a game of cards, and drank in the sight of his lover from his sparkling green eyes to the thick thatch of his beard to his broad shoulders and tapering chest. He didn't reach for David's cock, even though it had grown half-full again. "Promise me, then," he said, seizing David's hand in his own. "Stay safe out on the waters, and come back to me again."
David grinned, teeth flashing white in his dusky face. "A promise easily kept," he said as if it were already a thing accomplished. "Now come here and kiss me again. We've time for one more round before you must leave."
"Damn Uncle for his suspicious nature. If he tolerated my having male friends, or even carousing like a young buck is expected to, we wouldn't have to sneak around so."
"Forget about your uncle. Think about us, lover. I've got a fancy to feel that sweet mouth of yours wrapped around my cock." David squeezed Kit's hand. His gaze danced. "Do you think you could force yourself to the task?"
"We'll see who forces who," Kit murmured, slipping down the bed and seizing David's cock in a firm grip, his mouth already watering for the salty, bitter taste of his lover's come on his tongue…
"Sir? Excuse me, sir?"
Kit came out of his reverie to see a young serving maid carrying a basket full of sheets, nervously eyeing him up and down. "Yes?" he asked distantly, his mind still hazy and full of images from the long past. "Did you need something?"