Nocturne

Nocturne #1

by Mel Keegan

Step into the glittering world of the ancient, the immortal -- the vampyre. Intrigue welcomes Capt. Vincent Bantry to London,1892. He's a veteran of the Far East, opium smugglers, Manchu warlords, but little in his experience prepares him for Irish occultist Michael Flynn, who's like no man he ever knew. Flynn draws him into an occult, exotic world, where the Tarot foretells an uncertain future.

Genres: M M Romance, Historical, Fantasy, Vampires, Paranormal, LGBT, Romance

Nook

First published April 15, 2009

About the author

A self-confessed science fiction and fantasy devotee, Keegan is known for novels across a wide range of subjects, from the historical to the future action-adventure. Mel lives in South Australia with an eccentric family and a variety of pets.

Every Mel Keegan book is strong on gay or bisexual heroes (also, often, on gay villains), and some of these heroes are the most delicious in fiction: Jarrat and Stone from the NARC series, Bill Ryan and Jim Hale from The Deceivers, Neil Travers and Curtis Marin from Hellgate, and many more unforgettable characters. Because Mel's books feature the same sex relationships, the partnership at the core of each book is integral: this is the relationship driving the story, and it can be very powerful indeed.

Reviews

[Ulysses Dietz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nocturne
By Mel Keegan
DreamCraft Multimedia, 2004
Five stars

Well, this was a surprise. I apparently forgot why I bought it and was well into it before I realized what I had gotten – a vampire novel of a new and exciting kind. How lucky I am to have found this author and this novel.

Captain Vincent Bantry, invalided out of Her Majesty’s army in the Orient in 1894, has returned to London to put down roots. At thirty-two, he has a long life to rebuild. Settling in to visit with an old friend, David Lockwood, a well-known pathologist in London, Bantry is reintroduced to English society by Lockwood’s ebullient and precocious nineteen-year-old daughter Phoebe. At a fashionable evening party in a rich widow’s mansion, Bantry is introduced to Michael Flynn, a celebrated occultist.

Boom.

What I loved about this book particularly, having not bothered to read anything about it at all before starting it, is that I got to savor the long slow reveal of just who Michael Flynn was. What made it all such a joy to read is that Keegan’s thoughtful prose, which feels fully historical without trying to be too linguistically accurate, pulled me into the world the author has created. It is a world where a man who is attracted to men must tread very carefully, even considering the possibility of marrying to camouflage his true self. We are very much in Bantry’s thoughts as he begins to find his way back into London society – so far from the world of Peking and his little Qing palace and his devoted houseboy Lin. We learn a lot about Bantry, and we like him, by the time he shakes hands with the mysterious and beautiful Michael.

The timing of this story – neatly in between the terror of Jack the Ripper and the sodomy trial of Oscar Wilde – sets up a delicious tension that the author uses without getting ham-fisted about it. He manages to build the emotional charge between Vince and Michael without falling into the trap of making it into a modern-style romance, while also underscoring the best of what’s inside both of the main characters. He draws the reader from an idyllic moment of romantic fantasy into a heart-pounding road trip as Vince and Michael have to run for their lives, abandoning all security as they seek shelter from a world where justice is tainted by prejudice, and where their own peril threatens to endanger the lives of everyone they care about.

Keegan is wonderful with developing characters, even secondary ones. Everyone Vince and Michael interact with is there for a reason, and Keegan wants us to know these people, their motivations, and their relationship with either Michael or Vincent. For the story arc to really work, we have to feel about all the players in this drama as the main actors do, and that’s just what happens.

The vampire story is not a new one, but Keegan has done something daring and fascinating with the mythology, creating a reality that is compelling in its logic. This is not Dracula – written and set in exactly the same time and place as “Nocturne.” This is better. It is a very modern reimagination of the vampire myth, one that embraces humanity, reason, and history in equal parts. Ultimately, I believed in it, and that made all the difference.

[Yancy Carpentier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vast in concept, rich in literary characterization and design, Mel Keegan’s historical novel, “Nocturne,” is a lushly sensual archway into mysterious midnight worlds and the grandeur that was the 19th century.

I am a student of the 18th and 19th centuries. A novel must be as adventurous, intriguing and complex as history itself if it is to lure me away from my text books. Spanning not years, but centuries, Keegan’s “Nocturne” achieves all these goals and more.

Vincent Bantry returns a captain and a war hero from the arcane and perilous Far East. The year is 1892. In London, a young adventurer is always the darling of society. Yet opium smugglers and Manchurian warlords did not prepare him for the pain, struggle and treachery foretold by the Tarot cards – any more than his experiences as a leader of men could counter the attraction he felt for the young Irish occultist, Michael Flynn.

Seduced by the mystery, Bantry rushes toward the danger; even as a tangled web of deceit and cruelty threatens to destroy them both. It is Flynn who is beautiful, brilliant, exotic, and unlike anyone he has ever known. And it is his strange world of the occult, in all its midnight grandeur, that Bantry glimpses and desires.

The richness of it all! Keegan’s panoramic canvas spans the continents. Unique characters, exotic locations, memorable prose and attention to detail convey the 19th century, and the centuries before, as it could or should have been. The joyful spirit of romantic music, art, history and literature are woven thoughtfully and seamlessly into a thrilling and compelling tale of adventure, romance, intrigue and the supernatural.

Given the breadth of this saga, I would have liked to have read more about those living in the safe houses in Copenhagen, Alexandria, Capri, Vienna, Coruña, and the palace on the Bosporus. However, that desire represents only my area of interest, and I can surely understand and appreciate the author’s focus of the story.

For me, the sensual relationship between Vince and Michael, and their period of solitude in the Camargue, is particularly endearing. A handful of writers can imbue life in time and space, and Mel Keegan is one of them. ‘The Camargue seemed an infinity within itself, nothing but sky and water and tall grasses, its herds of ponies and fighting bulls strung out along the shorelines like toy animals on a child’s miniature landscape.’

Now step into the glittering midnight world of the Ancient. Vastly imaginative, rich in historical detail, endearing always, “Nocturne” is a novel you will want to read again and again. I know I have.

[Myristica Myristica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mel Keegan has such a grasp of this time period. Am just finishing this book, but can already say I'll be heading for the sequel: "Twilight" and no, not the Edward 'Twilight', either. :) The concept of 'changelings' not fully 'born' vampires, but 'turned' (thus they need to file their teeth in order to be able to pierce the vein) is, to me, a unique one. I find the tender romance to be beautifully written. MK always astounds me with poetic emotion. This book keeps in line with that style.

[Misty · Rating 5 out of 5]

** 4.5 Stars **

Another engrossing read, different and so unique. I've yet to be disappointed by one of Mel Keegan's book. The Historicals and the Sci-fi series are pretty damn good! The author's ability to make me (and others) care greatly for his characters is to be greatly admired.

[Aricia Gavriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think you know a thing or two about vampires ... how they sleep in earth-filled coffins, hang out in creepy old houses festooned with webs, can't see their reflections in mirrors, have giant canine teeth and rip the throats out of virgin girls in graveyards in the wee hours of the morning ... think again. Keegan's vampire (or vampyre, as it's spelled in these books) are very different.

They are immortal, but they come in two kinds, or races, or strains. First, there's the vampire themselves, mostly thousands of years old -- individuals who've managed to survive since the time of the Battle of Troy, against millennia of persecution. They're a gentle people, old, wise, sad, because only a handful have survived. They live a different lifestyle; they do sustain themselves with blood; they do fear daylight for medical reasons ...

Leave it to Keegan to rethink the whole thing and diagnose an ancient virus, transmitted the same way as HIV, which makes people turn into vampires: this is where you get your second race. The vampires are an ancient human subspecies, carriers of said virus. When it's transmitted to normal humans, the human mutates, changes, over the space of months, becoming a changeling. These changelings also become immortal but sterile; they carry the virus and can pass it to humans if they're not damned careful. Like HIV. The virus makes them shun daylight the same as the elder vampire, also making it impossible for them to digest anything but ... you got it. Blood.

Now it gets complicated. Changelings are caught between two worlds -- the crass, callow human world they were born into, and the elegant ancient world they aspire to. But humans hunt them down, and the vampire won't accept them, because ... hey, read the book. If I even try to explain, the plot spoilers will hit you thick and fast.

The story focuses on two gorgeous characters. The changeling is Michael Flynn, a "young" Irishman, an occultist and Tarot reader passing himself off in London high society in 1893 as the sufferer of a rare blood disease. He's also gay, by the way ... and beautiful. (Beauty is key to the plot of Nocturne ... as I said, read the book.) At a party one night he meets Capt. Vincent Bantry, an army officer just retired from the service, badly injured. He spent years in the Far East, saw all kinds of weirdness -- but nothing to prepare him for falling in love with Flynn, stumbling into the vampire world and wanting desperately to become part of it.

The vampire characters are amazing. I absolutely fell in love with Chabrier, and the changeling Mario/Maria. The main romance is between Flynn and Bantry, and will stand your hair on end. Trust me. The combination of the occult and the spice of a gay romance is irresistable.

The story is staged in England, France, Italy ... London, Paris, the Camargue. It's 450pp of smallish type -- a huge book -- and you won't be able to get it out of your memory for weeks. You'll want the second book, Twilight (which came out looong before the tv series of that name). I'll review the sequel separately, of course.

Is there a downside to these books? Only the fact I wish Keegan would get on and write more in this series. Nocturne (and Twilight) ... highly recommended. AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars on each one, and if you add them together, I'd award a 6 if I could.

[Patricia Esposito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some readers want vampires as monsters, powerful and frightening; some want sensual vampires whose kiss is ecstasy; some like the immortality, immunity, or safety of vampires. There are hundreds of vampire novels out there fulfilling these needs. Nocturne by Mel Keegan is something else.

Writing in an elegant style that’s unafraid of tenderness, Keegan presents vampires and their changelings that blend into the human world—because essentially they are human. They’re living in the late eighteen hundreds, the age of reason, where superstitions are no longer believed, and odd traits like sensitivity to food and daylight are attributed to a blood disease. Named photonic mydriasis, this disease has infected Michael Flynn, or so his contemporary humans believe. He’s a novelty, beautiful and intriguing.

His beauty, sensitivity, and mystery captivate Vincent Bantry, an army captain recently returned from China. Bantry encounters Flynn at an evening gathering of friends, and becomes involved in a tarot card reading that warns him of danger and struggles. Despite warnings everywhere, he can’t deny his attraction to Flynn, saying, “You’re built like a boy but you’re not a boy. You’ve skin like a girl but you’re not a girl. You’re more than both. You’re a man.”

The changeling Flynn, however, is also a fascinating specimen for David Lockwood, a doctor who kidnaps the changeling, torturing him to find the secret of his power and youth. And when a series of killings occur in the city, all involving blood loss, Flynn with his oddities becomes suspect.

Bantry is suspicious himself. He knows there is something odd about Flynn, beyond the explanations of his disease. yet despite what reason and suspicion tell him, he feels more deeply a sense of trust. He knows that Flynn is good, that he could never kill. When Bantry learns of Flynn’s captivity and the doctor’s extreme and cruel experiments, he wants to risk his own reputation and being named an accomplice to help the changeling.

Vincent Bantry, human, and Michael Flynn, vampire changeling, are two men in love. They live in a society that fears and punishes male intimacy; yet, they know that what they feel for each other is right. Fugitives. Lovers. Vampire and human. Passionate and sensitive. Man and man. This is the heart of the novel. Two characters who care about each other and whom we come to care about as if they exist in our world.

Mel Keegan is not in a rush to make you feel for his characters; they are not contrived. Though they speak their minds clearly and aren’t afraid to divulge their hearts, Keegan develops them patiently, letting the reader come to care for them in a natural way, the kind of caring that means we feel any loss or pain acutely.

Neither does Keegan rush through formulaic plot. He lets the enjoyment of foods entertain us, lets the art and music of the time set the moods. And yet there’s no self-indulgence in his writing. The prose is elegant and precise, intelligent and clear, and authentic to its time: “Still, he knew he would commit the letters to the hearth the moment he returned.”

Sensuality is found in the world around them, and Bantry come to realize that he wants the vampire world of “opulence and art, where love was the language of the night, fluently spoken by timeless people.” In his careful depictions of the time period, Keegan doesn’t ignore the sensuality found in the lovers’ bed. Sex scenes are vivid, first tentative and then demanding, as passion deepens between Flynn and Bantry. Bantry’s desire to be changed intensifies despite Flynn’s protests, and Flynn confesses, “to be in love again is to be alive.”

For those who enjoy historic fiction, there is much history in the story’s details, such as in images of the ship they flee on: “Nowhere on board could one escape the drum of her engines…an old hull that had been converted to steam, she still had masts up, but the sails were reefed and stokers were working hard in the heavy weather.” And as ancient vampires tell their tales, flashbacks allow us journeys to other worlds and times. What comes of these flashbacks and the vampires’ perspective is an understanding of what it would be like to live this long. As one of the elder vampires says, “The trouble with humans is they grow old before they grow up properly, and never even begin to comprehend their own minds.”

Keegan’s vampires respect life and have lost many of the frailties, vulnerabilities, and fears of being human. They love without jealousy; they give without the greed of wanting to take back. “They’ve outgrown human folly.”

Yet their true being must remain secret. What would society do to gentle but powerful immortals? What would human greed want to take from them? What would human fear of what’s different destroy in them? This is what Flynn and Bantry face as they experience true and beautiful love together on the run from all that’s corrupt in humans. We root not only for the vampires but for two men trying to be in love.

What I admire about Keegan’s work is his fearless portrait of men in honest love, his ability to make readers care deeply for his characters, and his graceful, classic style of prose so suited to the grace of his people.

A highly recommended, fine portrait of what vampires and humans might be.

[ZorehAngelique · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF at 70%. I liked the characters and the story and it's written so well! BUT it's way too slow and i got so bored I had to quit.Maybe I'll revisit and finish someday but that day is not today...

[Lady*M · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I have read several Keegan's novels and liked them all. I enjoyed Nocturne as well, however, this is the one novel that needed, in my opinion, firmer editor's hand to remove excessive padding and do something with the pacing that alternates between painfully slow (where I wanted to fall asleep) and bursts of action (keeping me on the edge of my seat). Wading through the novel was, therefore, difficult at times, which is a shame because Keegan has a unique take on vampire lore.

The vampires, though stronger than humans, are gentle beings, patrons of the art and witnesses of bygone times who rarely engage in conflict with humans. Between human and vampire worlds stand the changelings, those turned rather than born with the "condition". Never fully accepted by vampires, often seen as toys, theirs is a lonely and uncertain existence.

After returning from China, retired Captain Vincent Bantry finds himself embroiled in the fate of Michael Flynn, young, alluring Irish occultist. He is thrown in the mysterious world of changelings and vampyres (the spelling in the novel), forced to go on the run as the accessory to gruesome murders and fight for his life and life of the man he fell in love with. I liked Bantry a lot. He is man of the world and man of action and it was satisfying to read how he works through various implications of Michael's existence and their new life. It was difficult to understand Michael in the first part of the novel (roughly 100 pages or so) and his hot and cold behavior, but once you learn his life story, he grows on you. The effectiveness of Michael's fascinating history and many anecdotes about famous historical persons was diminished by long exposition sequences, usually in slower parts of the novel. Chabrier, Jean, Phoebe and other secondary characters were vivid and interesting, while Lockwood, Vincent's former friend, was a worthy adversary. Lockwood's dreams of Utopia and superior race were ominous at the dawn of new - Twentieth - century. The science -that new human god - holds the fears and hopes of vampyres in precarious balance. It will free them of prejudices fueled by mythology, but also, possibly, expose them to the world of humans, unkind to anyone and anything different.

Overall, Nocturne was a good story with interesting, even fascinating characters that could have been more effective, more powerful in every possible way, if it was only a hundred or so pages shorter. I will certainly be interested in reading the sequel, after I take some much needed rest. Recommended with some reservations.

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most people on my list are not going to be the target interest group for this book. This is a male romance novel written by a man, and those of you "not in the know" for the M/M romance genre may laugh at that, but female authors make up at least half of the contributors to this market. So if you're not into male romance, this obviously isn't for you.

This is the first Keegan book I've read, and despite the bucketful of typos and grammatical errors, Nocturne is well worth the read. The characters are compelling, especially Vincent Bantry, from whose eyes we see the story unfold as he falls in love with Michael Flynn, an Irish occultist and "child of the night."

While I don't agree with some of Keegan's takes on vampire lore and mythology, and some of his dialogue can be a little stilted, I still found the story, the characters, and his prose very engrossing. The romance builds naturally, and the sex is hot, but the story develops around these events, not the other way around. In other words, there's more to it than just two guys going at it like gay rabbits every other page.

I have the sequel, called (humorously enough) Twilight. I haven't started it yet, but if it's anything like Nocture, I'm looking forward to it.

[Mickelange · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 stars. too slow.... and the french is awfull...