3.5 ( )

This was one of the first historical gay romances I read, well if you don’t consider Maurice by E.M. Forster, and I still remember the impression it left me. I decided to re-read it now, since I had my print copy, and again, I’m surprise at how daring this romance is, while maintaining the feeling of a classic. Even if the two men in this romance behave accordingly to their age and period, they are lovers, and it’s clear to the reader that there is passion, and lust, between them. The reader is not left there wondering, they did it or they didn’t?, but instead he is well aware that to the eyes of the majority of people, these men are sinners, but to their own eyes, they are simple in love, a love that doesn’t know space or time barriers.

In the best tradition of the English classic literature, see Tom Jones or Oliver Twist or Molly Flanders, our main hero, Kit St. Denys, despite the fancy name and the fashionable career as actor and theatre owner, has a obscure past as pickpocket and a tragedy that still haunts him. He was lucky, and he was “adopted” by a wealthy man without sons who made him his official heir; benefactor was gay, as Kit is, but they never went beyond the relationship between father and son, and indeed, maybe Kit has a good role model from whom learn how a nineteen century gay man should behave. But Kit’s reckless nature, and maybe his strong will, prevents him to be one another closeted gay man with a wife in the country and a male lover in the city, and he decides to live his life in the open, maybe helped in that from the notorious scandalous life of an actor and the money he inherited by his patron.

Problem is that Kit falls in love for Nicholas Stuart, a country boy who was raised in a very strict family; Nicholas already rebelled to his father becoming a “modern” doctor, going to college and opening a practice in the city. He is already sinning, at least at the eyes of his father, and so when Kit bursts into his life he is yet another sin to add to the list. And Nicholas sins, and sins again, and he enjoys it, but he is never free from the sense of guilty and the need to be forgiven; any small sign he receives it is like a sign leading him far from Kit, and far from the happiness he finds with him. Nicholas can’t be happy, since that life is a forbidden fruit, Kit is the luscious apple tempting him.

Nicholas will do everything to punish himself, and life will help him; and Kit will do everything to not allow Nicholas to forget who is the real love of his life. This I like of Kit, he is never repentant, at least not for the sin of loving a man; Kit has plenty of sense of guilty, but loving Nicholas is not one more sin to add to the list, since for Kit loving is not a sin.

The happiness for these two men will not come for free, and that is yet another point I liked: this novel has a some sort of happily ever after, their punishment will not be to be apart from each other, but they will have to renounce to something; in the end, to understand if they really have an happily ever after, you need to balance what they lost and what they found, and deciding the importance of both.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590210468/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

An epic love story filled with romance, tragedy,humor and heartbrake. ( )

Beautiful new edition!

The Phoenix easily gives Romeo and Juliet a run for it's money! I am a huge fan of Shakespeare, as is the author if her (Kit's!) enthusiasm within the story is any indication. Yet, Sims' forbidden love between two men is more poignant. It resonates through our society, where such love is attacked as strongly now as it was when this story was set.

I will not rehash the plot, as other reviewers have already done so. But, I will say Ruth Sims is an exceptional writer whose work should not be missed. If you are looking for erotica, or M/M romance, this may not be for you. There is sex, but it's not explicit. And, Phoenix does not have the contrived "happily ever after" ending that many romances have (which I also enjoy, and am not knocking here). If you ARE looking for a deeply felt, well-written novel of true love, then buy this book now. Nico and Kit love each other, but their lives, society, and their own insecurities get in the way time and again. Until, finally, they realize that one simply cannot live without the other. While our two heroes do end up together, it is only after much loss and pain, just as in real life. A bittersweet ending, but still sweet.

This novel should be enjoyed by historical fiction fans, as well as M/M fiction fans. Even those who do not agree with the M/M lifestyle can appreciate the magic in the story and Sims' prose. The reviewer who quoted Kit, forgot one line (or it has changed in this revised edition):

Without the sanction of Sociey
Without the sanction of the Church
Without the sanction of God,
Without the sanction even of yourself
I love you.

Obviously, these words have touched a lot of people (me included). How else to explain so many reviewers quoting them here? And, the cover art is beautiful.

Jack lives in London with his twin brother Michael, his negligent mother, and his abusive drunk of a father. When his home life is thrown to even more tragic depths, Jack escapes with the help of a troupe of actors he has befriended, and is adopted by a kind, wealthy old man. Hiding his former identity, he takes on the name Kit and goes on to become an accomplished young actor and (somewhat secretly homosexual) heartthrob, yet still he is haunted by dreams of his tragic past. He meets Nico, a gay-but-fighting-it doctor from a strict, ultra religious family, and the two quickly fall in love and begin a tumultuous relationship.

Evocative, lush, dramatic, sweeping, epic, moving. These are the sorts of words I've commonly seen used to describe this book. Though melodramatic Victorian sagas aren't usually my thing (I tend to prefer more tight, character interaction/relationship focused stuff, rather than character good-chunk-of-life-span and time-period focused), I get a little tired of how frivolous so much of the m/m romance I find is, and was hoping with this I'd find the artistry, complexity, and convincing emotional content it's hard to find sometimes in more contemporary-styled things and pure romances.

Sadly I wasn't even able to finish this book, and it was not even my lack of interest in the genre that was the main detractor for me. It was that the book lacked the main thing I was hoping to get out of it: convincing, complex characterization, character development, and romance. Instead I found...

Unconvincing characters: Kit is a self-centered jerk who cares more about easing his nightmares than his partner's feelings. The fact he had a tragic past does not make his adult self any less of a smug, shallow bore. Nico is better, but for someone supposedly so sold on his religion, he drops his beliefs for a hot night of gay sex awfully readily. Then he angsts about it later, and does it all over again. His inner love vs. religion turmoil is never convincing. Certainly, imperfect characters are what a story like this thrives on, but they must be understandable and at least a little more sympathetic.

Unconvincing romance/relationship: Why do these two love each other? Even if they characters are self-admittedly unsure, should we not get some idea from watching them? First they were infatuated, then they couldn't bear to be parted. The only reason seems to be that for some magical reason sleeping next to Nico holds off Kit's bad dreams better than anyone else. I suppose that could be romantic, but it was discovered after one night of sex before they even had a real conversation with one another. We're told and told and told they make one another happy, but WHY? I'll admit this lack of desire to give a convincing reason for sudden love is something I've seen in other Victorian novels and some might say we should just write it off as the way of this style of story. But this romance was simply MUCH too central to this novel to be given that treatment.

Utter lack of development in characters/relationship: Things happen, characters angst, characters deal. Repeat. The relationship was showing no signs of development, change, or becoming more fleshed out. The characters have disagreements, giving a prime opportunity to DO these things, however all that happens is that they somewhat resolve them, then do it all over again.

To the novel's credit, the theater setting/background is an interesting idea. Still, I was so disinterested by the characters I failed to take interest in their potentially more interesting theater activities, and the details certainly still weren't enough to be compelling in and of themselves.

The novel also has a tendency to suddenly do a lot of “telling” at certain times. This is the occasional way of Victorian novels I think, but the author's choice of when to tell vs show and the transitions were quite jarring to me. It seemed less in the style of better Victorian novels I've read in the past (if not overly loved) and more just the author's whims of which scenes they'd like to describe and which not. Indeed, after the two main characters meet, these sudden bouts of summarizing large amounts of events stopped almost entirely, at least for the rest of the book I read, suggesting to me the author was less interested in emulating Victorian style and more in somewhat clumsily rushing through parts she wasn't interested in in order to get to the main part she was after.

Still, in my usual rush to point out flaws I feel aren't mentioned enough by other reviewers, I've made the book sound considerably more horrid than it is. Though not with the artistry I'd hoped for, and ignoring the bouts of “telling,” the prose is a bit better than the average m/m romance I've picked up. The plot seems as if it may have been decently done and eventful. But my inability to buy the characters and their relationship in this novel completely ruins its readability for me. While I'd been nursing the idea of continuing to see if things get more convincing, I was able to find another review that held the same opinion of the first part as I, and it sounds as if the latter half is if anything even more irritating. It looks like I will be giving up here. ( )