WHAT IT IS: A gently humorous novel about boys at an English boarding school in the early 20th century. It hits on all the classic beats of the public school story genre—cricket, pranks, exams, slice of life, cheating, expulsions, hero worship, rivalries, etc. Except with actually canonical homoeroticism and feelings.
This is a boarding school novel where the boys are explicitly flirting and whipping one other with racquet handles, fainting in one another's arms, cuddling in bed, reciting romantic poetry to one another while swimming naked, repressing their desperate feelings for one another, literally actually saving one another's lives with the power of love... I can't.
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Everyone who has read this book is screaming and flailing about how it is iddy as all fuck.
The iddiness largely resides with David's best friend Frank Maddox. Frank is handsome, brilliant, athletic, friendly—and yet not at all annoying—and the object of David's intense hero worship. Frank's only 'flaw' is that he is gay and desperately in love with David. His internalized homophobia and repression and self-loathing are deliciously angsty. But he's also really fun and playful and brings a lot of joy into everyone's lives. He's a wonderful creation.
David's other best friend is George (he goes by "Bags") who is as desperately devoted to David as David is to Frank. Bags and Frank even talk about it once! Bags is a darling.
There's a sequel is about David's years at Cambridge that you don't need to read to fulfill most people's requests. Frank only overlaps with David at university for one year, and then spends large swathes of the novel away on Greek archeological expeditions (swoon!). However, if you control-F for Frank's name and only read the parts that he's in (as I did), you'll see that their UST and love are even MORE ridiculous than in the first book. And they don't get canon het endings! \o/
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: 'David Blaize' is free on Gutenberg HERE.
The sequel, 'David of Kings', that is unfortunately still under copyright. You can buy it on Amazon for Kindle or in physical forms. There's also a totally unconnected thing called "David Blaize and the Blue Door" that is the author's attempt to write an Alice In Wonderland-style novel. It's set when David was really little and has no connection to the other books. (I haven't read it and I don't know of anyone in the fandom who has, but it's free on Gutenberg.)
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WHAT IT IS: A gently humorous novel about boys at an English boarding school in the early 20th century. It hits on all the classic beats of the public school story genre—cricket, pranks, exams, slice of life, cheating, expulsions, hero worship, rivalries, etc. Except with actually canonical homoeroticism and feelings.
This is a boarding school novel where the boys are explicitly flirting and whipping one other with racquet handles, fainting in one another's arms, cuddling in bed, reciting romantic poetry to one another while swimming naked, repressing their desperate feelings for one another, literally actually saving one another's lives with the power of love... I can't.
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Everyone who has read this book is screaming and flailing about how it is iddy as all fuck.
The iddiness largely resides with David's best friend Frank Maddox. Frank is handsome, brilliant, athletic, friendly—and yet not at all annoying—and the object of David's intense hero worship. Frank's only 'flaw' is that he is gay and desperately in love with David. His internalized homophobia and repression and self-loathing are deliciously angsty. But he's also really fun and playful and brings a lot of joy into everyone's lives. He's a wonderful creation.
David's other best friend is George (he goes by "Bags") who is as desperately devoted to David as David is to Frank. Bags and Frank even talk about it once! Bags is a darling.
There's a sequel is about David's years at Cambridge that you don't need to read to fulfill most people's requests. Frank only overlaps with David at university for one year, and then spends large swathes of the novel away on Greek archeological expeditions (swoon!). However, if you control-F for Frank's name and only read the parts that he's in (as I did), you'll see that their UST and love are even MORE ridiculous than in the first book. And they don't get canon het endings! \o/
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?:
'David Blaize' is free on Gutenberg HERE.
The sequel, 'David of Kings', that is unfortunately still under copyright. You can buy it on Amazon for Kindle or in physical forms. There's also a totally unconnected thing called "David Blaize and the Blue Door" that is the author's attempt to write an Alice In Wonderland-style novel. It's set when David was really little and has no connection to the other books. (I haven't read it and I don't know of anyone in the fandom who has, but it's free on Gutenberg.)