tlashop.com

Review

Set in politically roiling Spain in 1624, the intermittently entertaining Checkmate by Nicki Bennett and Ariel Tachna is the gay equivalent of a romance novel. It is almost what used to be called a “bodice ripper” in which poor damsels in distress are threatened by dastardly villains and saved by masculine heroes---except that here everyone lusts after other men.

The young threatened hero is the 23 year old noble Englishman Christian Blackwood, Viscount Aldwych, who is naturally tall and blonde with sky blue eyes. The initial villain seems to be the dashing Spanish sword for hire (they didn’t have guns for hire then) the somewhat older but plenty handsome Teodoro Cieza de Vivar. He has supposedly been employed to bring Christian back to his father. But all is not what it seems in the Spain of the Inquisition, where the suspicion of sodomy is equivalent to a death sentence. Teodoro soon discovers that the man who hired him is the true villain and he turns from kidnapper to ardent protector. In the process he falls in love with the noble youth who more than returns his feelings. Those readers who like sex scenes will have to be patient because it takes fully three-quarters of the book before they truly and completely consummate their passion. Along the way a few other well-drawn major characters are introduced, including a wise gypsy friend of Teodoro’s, and various plot twists ensue. The dialogue of the book varies from an occasional attempt at old-fashioned language to modern idiom, and overall does not very successfully evoke the time.

 -- Roy Liebman