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Awfully Glad
WWI hero Sam Hines is used to wearing a face that isn’t his own. When he’s not in the trenches, he’s the most popular female impersonator on the front, but a mysterious note from an anonymous admirer leaves him worried. Everyone realizes—eventually—that Sam’s not a woman, but has somebody also worked out that he also prefers his lovers to be male?
When Sam meets—and falls for—fellow officer Johnny Browne after the war, he wonders whether he could be the man who wrote the note. If so, is he the answer to Sam’s dreams or just another predatory blackmailer, ready to profit from a love that dare not speak its name?
When Sam meets—and falls for—fellow officer Johnny Browne after the war, he wonders whether he could be the man who wrote the note. If so, is he the answer to Sam’s dreams or just another predatory blackmailer, ready to profit from a love that dare not speak its name?
39 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
2 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Charlie Cochrane
86 books373 followersBecause Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice—like managing a rugby team—she writes. Her mystery novels include the Edwardian era Cambridge Fellows series, series, and the contemporary Best Corpse for the Job. Multi-published, she has titles with Carina, Samhain, Riptide and Bold Strokes, among others.
A member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Mystery People and International Thriller Writers Inc, Charlie regularly appears at literary festivals and at reader and author conferences with The Deadly Dames.
A member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Mystery People and International Thriller Writers Inc, Charlie regularly appears at literary festivals and at reader and author conferences with The Deadly Dames.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 14, 2016
3.75 stars
This novella was set mostly post WWI and is about two former officers meeting again and fumbling towards a relationship in a time when it was not easy for to men to come together. I enjoyed the setting but didn't feel the romance as strongly as I wanted to.
This novella was set mostly post WWI and is about two former officers meeting again and fumbling towards a relationship in a time when it was not easy for to men to come together. I enjoyed the setting but didn't feel the romance as strongly as I wanted to.
June 8, 2014
I very much enjoyed this lovely tale set during and after World War One. The settings were refreshing: a stage and a dressing room rather than the trenches during the war; and then professional offices and various clubs in London afterwards.
The English characters were vividly evoked - as indicated by the jolly spiffing title! The era was all too sharply evoked, too. Sam wasn't only made cautious by his situation as a gay man in such a time and place, but was fearful to the point of paranoia. It takes a lot to trust someone when even a fellow gay man might be more interested in blackmail than in love. But of course if you can find a way beyond such limits, then the reward is all the greater.
Nicely done, Charlie, me old mucker!
The English characters were vividly evoked - as indicated by the jolly spiffing title! The era was all too sharply evoked, too. Sam wasn't only made cautious by his situation as a gay man in such a time and place, but was fearful to the point of paranoia. It takes a lot to trust someone when even a fellow gay man might be more interested in blackmail than in love. But of course if you can find a way beyond such limits, then the reward is all the greater.
Nicely done, Charlie, me old mucker!
August 14, 2017
3.5 stars. I enjoy Charlie Cochrane's writing so much and she's one of my favourite authors. This is a very well done story and the post-World-War-One historical era is so vividly evoked. There's a thread of edginess and suspense running through this that was probably quite authentic to the time, and I found this story much more serious and tense than the blurb indicates. I really liked this, but I didn't connect with the characters and it felt as if perhaps there was more story to tell.
May 21, 2019
Somehow his being a rugby-playing, Military Cross-winning officer added a certain authority to the deception. A female impersonator he might be, but nobody would ever accuse him of being a pansy. [loc. 150]
A charming novella set during and after the First World War. Sam Hines is a war hero who's hung up 'Madeleine', the female alter ego who charmed so many soldiers, with his medals. There's no place for Madeleine in peacetime -- and Sam is all too aware of how swiftly rumours about sexual deviance can ruin a man's life. Settling into normality as a stockbroker, he welcomes a new client who remembers Madeleine. Is this mere coincidence, or somebody set on blackmail?
Sam's constant fear of betrayal, and his mistrust of the likeable Jonny, felt wearing: but I suspect that's how it did feel, to know that one false step could lead to ruin. I'd have liked Sam to be slightly less ready to leap athletically to erroneous conclusions about his new friend, but I think he's dealing with a certain degree of survivors' guilt, as well as anxiety and loneliness. And I suspect he misses being Madeleine, too.
June 22, 2016
Lovely and original. I can't help but wish this book was so much longer *sigh*!!!
June 24, 2017
Steady and Sensible
The amount of information and the depth of plot in this short story is remarkable--a Charlie Cochrane specialty that draws you in an doesn't let you go. Her characters are vividly portrayed even if they are completely different from each other.
Sam, the former war time female impersonator, is a solid middle class bachelor banker after he returns from The Great War. Jonny is a discreetly cautious and somewhat more forward individual who vividly remembers Sam from his one show on the French battlefield and is grateful that he could reconnect with Sam on a professional level.
That the two of them harbor thoughts that the reunion could be much more is the key to the action moving along--and that action gets very heated outside the bedroom when it finally comes. What goes on inside the bedroom is more discreetly handled, but that was the way of the world in those days, don't you know.
Tea and biscuits or sherry and scones would be a perfect accompaniment to this thoroughly delightful trifle.
The amount of information and the depth of plot in this short story is remarkable--a Charlie Cochrane specialty that draws you in an doesn't let you go. Her characters are vividly portrayed even if they are completely different from each other.
Sam, the former war time female impersonator, is a solid middle class bachelor banker after he returns from The Great War. Jonny is a discreetly cautious and somewhat more forward individual who vividly remembers Sam from his one show on the French battlefield and is grateful that he could reconnect with Sam on a professional level.
That the two of them harbor thoughts that the reunion could be much more is the key to the action moving along--and that action gets very heated outside the bedroom when it finally comes. What goes on inside the bedroom is more discreetly handled, but that was the way of the world in those days, don't you know.
Tea and biscuits or sherry and scones would be a perfect accompaniment to this thoroughly delightful trifle.
January 24, 2024
Quite well written. Unlike 90% of the books I read, this wasn’t too long, it was too short. There is a lot more story left untold.
April 23, 2014
Josie Goodreads reviews Awfully Glad by Charlie Cochrane.
http://www.mrsconditreadsbooks.com/?p...
JOSIE’S OPINION: To the war weary audience Sam Hines is Miss Madeline, the darling of The Macaronis concert party. Her renditions of Roses of Picardy and Home Fires Burning has turned her into a star at-traction, feted and adored by all who watch her perform. Meeting soldiers backstage after the show Sam never hides the fact he’s a woman impersonator, and after one of these groups Sam finds a note left in his dressing room, “I’m awfully glad you’re not a girl. J.”
A year later, the war a fading memory, Sam is back in his office at a London Stockbrokers. Sam has never revealed to anyone his wartime role as Miss Madeline, passing off a picture of him as her as that of a deceased cousin. Sam is not ashamed of his wartime role but he’s not open about it either, displaying the military cross he won on his office desk to deflect any questions about exactly what he did in the war. Then Sam acquires a new client, J Browne. Sam has a sinking feeling he recognizes the name but can’t place him precisely, could he be someone he met in the war? Someone who can link him to Miss Madeline?
Awfully Glad, in contrary to its cover, is not a story set during WW1 but a story set just after the war, when fighting men went back to their old lives happy to have just survived the fighting, their experiences during the fighting years consigned only to memory. I understood Sam’s reticence and unease; he had to be careful not to let his true nature show through. This was a time when men could not openly show their attraction for each other, when the world in which they walked was a dangerous place. Sam is always nervous of saying or dis-playing anything that could lend him open to blackmail, or even worse, to be turned over to the authorities.
J Browne is an enigma to Sam, although the reader knows straight away who he is and how he met Sam, Sam himself doesn’t know when they first meet. It is a shame that we never get to know much about Johnny, the story is told mainly through Sam’s eyes, and thoughts. I loved the subtleness of the story though, the will they, won’t they, and the sheer confusion of it all.
This doesn’t read as a normal MM romance, it’s more a set of short scenes put together to show the way two men who are gay might have been danced around each other at the beginning of a relationship. It’s quite an unusual and unique concept and I think it works really well, adding to the tense sinister style of the story. I never anticipated the ending; the way things twisted around came as a surprise to me.
Charlie Cochrane is a quintessential English writer and I honestly don’t know of another author who could have written a story like Awfully Glad. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who loves historical stories that make them think. It does have a HFN ending though, I’d like to think it was a HEA but I’m not really sure it would have worked out like that and I guess it wasn’t the time period for that type of long term relation-ship. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story though.
http://www.mrsconditreadsbooks.com/?p...
JOSIE’S OPINION: To the war weary audience Sam Hines is Miss Madeline, the darling of The Macaronis concert party. Her renditions of Roses of Picardy and Home Fires Burning has turned her into a star at-traction, feted and adored by all who watch her perform. Meeting soldiers backstage after the show Sam never hides the fact he’s a woman impersonator, and after one of these groups Sam finds a note left in his dressing room, “I’m awfully glad you’re not a girl. J.”
A year later, the war a fading memory, Sam is back in his office at a London Stockbrokers. Sam has never revealed to anyone his wartime role as Miss Madeline, passing off a picture of him as her as that of a deceased cousin. Sam is not ashamed of his wartime role but he’s not open about it either, displaying the military cross he won on his office desk to deflect any questions about exactly what he did in the war. Then Sam acquires a new client, J Browne. Sam has a sinking feeling he recognizes the name but can’t place him precisely, could he be someone he met in the war? Someone who can link him to Miss Madeline?
Awfully Glad, in contrary to its cover, is not a story set during WW1 but a story set just after the war, when fighting men went back to their old lives happy to have just survived the fighting, their experiences during the fighting years consigned only to memory. I understood Sam’s reticence and unease; he had to be careful not to let his true nature show through. This was a time when men could not openly show their attraction for each other, when the world in which they walked was a dangerous place. Sam is always nervous of saying or dis-playing anything that could lend him open to blackmail, or even worse, to be turned over to the authorities.
J Browne is an enigma to Sam, although the reader knows straight away who he is and how he met Sam, Sam himself doesn’t know when they first meet. It is a shame that we never get to know much about Johnny, the story is told mainly through Sam’s eyes, and thoughts. I loved the subtleness of the story though, the will they, won’t they, and the sheer confusion of it all.
This doesn’t read as a normal MM romance, it’s more a set of short scenes put together to show the way two men who are gay might have been danced around each other at the beginning of a relationship. It’s quite an unusual and unique concept and I think it works really well, adding to the tense sinister style of the story. I never anticipated the ending; the way things twisted around came as a surprise to me.
Charlie Cochrane is a quintessential English writer and I honestly don’t know of another author who could have written a story like Awfully Glad. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who loves historical stories that make them think. It does have a HFN ending though, I’d like to think it was a HEA but I’m not really sure it would have worked out like that and I guess it wasn’t the time period for that type of long term relation-ship. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story though.
March 1, 2014
Okay, this was not what I was expecting...AT ALL! I thought it was going to be a war story, but no, it all takes place after WWI.
Jonny first meets Sam near the end of the war while Sam is in drag, playing the lovely Miss Madeline as theatrical entertainment for the soldiers. A year later, the two men meet again when Jonny needs Sam's financial advice, which quickly leads them to bed.
The Beginning: The entire story is set and staged like scenes from a play. I really liked that and thought it was a unique idea that tied in well with the circumstances of Sam and Jonny's first meeting. I did struggle with the story a bit in the begging; it started off choppy and I was having trouble following the character POV in the first scene. I couldn't figure out who was telling the story at first because it seemed to be head-hopping between several different characters, but then it clears up and the rest of the story is told from Sam's POV...which was MUCH easier to follow.
The Middle: I liked the tension between Sam and Jonny when they meet again; there's this whole dark, sinister air surrounding all the possibilities of blackmail and exposure as the two men dance around the topic of their preferences. Then when its finally out in the open that they both prefer men, its more like a we-both-like-cock-so-lets-hook-up affair than an actual love affair. There is sex, very non-explicit, which is perfectly fine, but I felt no passion between them at all. Yes, I think there was an attraction, especially on Jonny's part since obviously he has been lusting after Sam for a while, but there was no trust between them and I'm not a bit sold that this will be a lasting romance. I'm still hoping, though.
The End: Well THAT was sudden. There's this whole plot that was started near the end about Jonny's sister and I don't feel like it was properly resolved. I was like "Huh? That's it?" when I was expecting there to be more.
Overall: I enjoyed pieces of the story, it was kinda sweet and I liked the characters, but I felt like there was very little depth and the author only scratched the surface of the story that Jonny and Sam were meant to tell.
Reviewed for The Blogger Girls
Jonny first meets Sam near the end of the war while Sam is in drag, playing the lovely Miss Madeline as theatrical entertainment for the soldiers. A year later, the two men meet again when Jonny needs Sam's financial advice, which quickly leads them to bed.
The Beginning: The entire story is set and staged like scenes from a play. I really liked that and thought it was a unique idea that tied in well with the circumstances of Sam and Jonny's first meeting. I did struggle with the story a bit in the begging; it started off choppy and I was having trouble following the character POV in the first scene. I couldn't figure out who was telling the story at first because it seemed to be head-hopping between several different characters, but then it clears up and the rest of the story is told from Sam's POV...which was MUCH easier to follow.
The Middle: I liked the tension between Sam and Jonny when they meet again; there's this whole dark, sinister air surrounding all the possibilities of blackmail and exposure as the two men dance around the topic of their preferences. Then when its finally out in the open that they both prefer men, its more like a we-both-like-cock-so-lets-hook-up affair than an actual love affair. There is sex, very non-explicit, which is perfectly fine, but I felt no passion between them at all. Yes, I think there was an attraction, especially on Jonny's part since obviously he has been lusting after Sam for a while, but there was no trust between them and I'm not a bit sold that this will be a lasting romance. I'm still hoping, though.
The End: Well THAT was sudden. There's this whole plot that was started near the end about Jonny's sister and I don't feel like it was properly resolved. I was like "Huh? That's it?" when I was expecting there to be more.
Overall: I enjoyed pieces of the story, it was kinda sweet and I liked the characters, but I felt like there was very little depth and the author only scratched the surface of the story that Jonny and Sam were meant to tell.
Reviewed for The Blogger Girls
November 11, 2020
2nd Re-Read Review November 2020:
Not much to add that hasn't already been said so I'll just reiterate that Charlie Cochrane's love of the era shines through in all the tiny moments. Don't get me wrong, they shine through in the big moments too but it's the small details that some might "forget" or don't fully research that make her one of top 1-click authors and her WW1/post-war stories are some of my absolute favorites.
Re-Read Review November 2018:
Not much more I can say about Awfully Glad that I didn't say when I originally read it back 2015. Watching Sam and Johnny navigate the whole "is he or isn't he" debate is just as fulfilling as it was over three years ago. Like I said before, if they just communicated more clearly so many answers would have been discovered but then not only would that make this little gem way too short but not very accurate either. Nobody wants their nose broken if they got the assumptions wrong and it was also illegal to be in a homosexual relationship so its no wonder they were edging around the question. Once again Charlie Cochrane has proven her respect for the era as well as her respect for her readers with her storytelling in this little gem.
Original Review February 2015:
A nice little tale of war, post war, romance, and a bit of "what's he after?" thrown in for good measure. Sam is such an interesting character but as himself and as Madeline, who brought such joy to the men during the war. Now that the war is over and he's put Madeline behind him, he is reunited with one of the men he met after one of his Madeline's shows. I just love watching Sam trying to figure Johnny out and what he's after. Of course, there's a bit of "if they just communicated" but then the story would be even shorter and where's the fun in that? Definitely a great addition to my library and once again, I was not let down by the writings of Charlie Cochrane.
Not much to add that hasn't already been said so I'll just reiterate that Charlie Cochrane's love of the era shines through in all the tiny moments. Don't get me wrong, they shine through in the big moments too but it's the small details that some might "forget" or don't fully research that make her one of top 1-click authors and her WW1/post-war stories are some of my absolute favorites.
Re-Read Review November 2018:
Not much more I can say about Awfully Glad that I didn't say when I originally read it back 2015. Watching Sam and Johnny navigate the whole "is he or isn't he" debate is just as fulfilling as it was over three years ago. Like I said before, if they just communicated more clearly so many answers would have been discovered but then not only would that make this little gem way too short but not very accurate either. Nobody wants their nose broken if they got the assumptions wrong and it was also illegal to be in a homosexual relationship so its no wonder they were edging around the question. Once again Charlie Cochrane has proven her respect for the era as well as her respect for her readers with her storytelling in this little gem.
Original Review February 2015:
A nice little tale of war, post war, romance, and a bit of "what's he after?" thrown in for good measure. Sam is such an interesting character but as himself and as Madeline, who brought such joy to the men during the war. Now that the war is over and he's put Madeline behind him, he is reunited with one of the men he met after one of his Madeline's shows. I just love watching Sam trying to figure Johnny out and what he's after. Of course, there's a bit of "if they just communicated" but then the story would be even shorter and where's the fun in that? Definitely a great addition to my library and once again, I was not let down by the writings of Charlie Cochrane.
August 3, 2016
I'm giving this book 3 stars because It felt real to me the way 2 men back in the day would so carefully progress with hints about their sexuality when they could lose everything if their reputations were ruined. It amazes me sometimes that people did risk everything to be together. There was a very real paranoia that Sam felt--it was very hard for him to trust and he was constantly expecting to be blackmailed. The characterizations were kind of superficial--I never felt I really knew either of them and I didn't feel like they really knew each other--at times it almost seemed like they were settling for each other for safety or convenience, which is kind of understandable for that time.
The story was a bunch of short scenarios pieced together almost like a play with the setting told to set the scene. For instance this is one heading:
A makeshift stage. An audience. An entirely male audience, in khaki. A high sense of anticipation. The Macaronis concert party about to perform. Music starts, curtain is pulled across—to an outbreak of applause—revealing a group of men in evening dress, who take up the tune. The show begins.
Then the scene would begin.
So to recap, short story, not really passionate, no descriptive sex scenes, pretty much a HFN ending.
The story was a bunch of short scenarios pieced together almost like a play with the setting told to set the scene. For instance this is one heading:
A makeshift stage. An audience. An entirely male audience, in khaki. A high sense of anticipation. The Macaronis concert party about to perform. Music starts, curtain is pulled across—to an outbreak of applause—revealing a group of men in evening dress, who take up the tune. The show begins.
Then the scene would begin.
So to recap, short story, not really passionate, no descriptive sex scenes, pretty much a HFN ending.
February 15, 2014
Cute little story about negotiating attraction and avoiding blackmail in the years after the First World War and long before decriminalisation of gay sex. Bitter sweet in so much as not everyone we meet at the very beginning of the story is still alive by the time the main, post-war plot kicks off. One to revisit regularly as well.
December 26, 2014
While I'm not quite old enough to know for certain, this book feels authentic. Ms. Cochrane seems to have perfected the voice for this time-frame in history. Very enjoyable.
Read
December 30, 2019I enjoyed this historical m/m romance about men returned from WWI.
March 21, 2014
I really enjoyed this. It was quite unusual. Review coming soon
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews