The year is 1779. Welcome aboard the Nimrod where 793 crewmen and 45 officers serve under the tyrannical Captain Walker. Be forewarned, do your duty and trust no one, as the Captain’s spies could be any one of your crewmates.  Punishments vary from five dozen to twenty dozen lashes, handed out for infractions such as being the last one down from the booms, speaking in Irish, any perceived disrespect towards the Captain, or slovenliness in completing assigned tasks. The next step for the crew is mutiny.

Amidst these trying times, Joshua Andrews, a young handsome gay twenty-year-old meets soon to be promoted to captain, Peter Kenyon on the voyage to the British Bermuda Garrison.  Peter has a promising Navy career path and marriage on his horizons. In a world where same sex relationships are punishable by death, Joshua and Peter are drawn together first by friendship and then by desire, and later torn apart by society and circumstances.

Alex Beecroft has written a truly engrossing tale of life in the British Navy. The story is written with seamanship expertness that puts the reader in the middle of the action. In Captain’s Surrender, the bounds of honor, loyalty, fidelity and love are all tested and divergent paths and possibilities are explored for both Joshua and Peter. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to more from Alex Beecroft.