To date, my own book Soldiers In Arms, a lesbian historical romance has not been reviewed <sniffle>. 

In the early 1860s Ester May Echols dreamed. She wanted the life her father once lived, fighting a good fight, freedom for all, military respect, and the love of a good woman. He’d been an avid reader of poetry, a music man, and a soldier before he passed away in a hard winter. He taught her important truths, none steering her wrong in all her 18 years; poetry has a bite, music saves lives, sometimes you have to fight, and true love is never wrong. But the most important was to always care for his Bella, the military bugle that was his and his father’s before him. After recovering his pilfered beloved bugle from the greedy town merchant, she enlisted as Private Emmit Echols, a bugle boy for the 4th Regiment Virginia Cavalry for the North. She learned to soldier, make new friends and bitter enemies, and play her bugle. Having an attraction toward her Captain, one Rosco Woolman, was a shock until she discovered his secret. For a moment, they were Soldiers In Arms fighting together during the Civil War, but would they be more? 

She barely heard Baba talking but she thought the Captain’s low tones sounded in reply. She lowered her arm and let her eyelids fall shut and tried to block out any sounds as she fought the pain.

Next thing she knew, a cold cloth was pressed to her forehead once more. She could discern her benefactors’ identity, that light leather and balm she would now know in the dark. She lifted her face into it as it instantly soothed her. Ginger fingers pushed back her hair. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to halt the ministrations, nor the touch.

“Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.” Captain Woolman’s low droning tone was as soft as the melodic tones spoke the Walt Whitman prose. 

Ester May cracked opened her good eye. She looked into the green depths and felt no pain as she curled the edge of her lips. Her voice was scratchy as she replied with the lines herself. “Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?” She knew the poet provided his words to warn his beloved he could be a scoundrel and a liar. Right now, she hoped the Captain would understand her intent to share herself, her true self. She supposed the rhyme was to have been his remarks told to her in the beginning, judging by the exact poem that was quoted.

Those green eyes narrowed suspiciously, even as he leaned back. Ester reached out and caught the retreating hand that held the cool cloth. She spoke with a heated passion. “Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?” The poets word choice was bold and so was Ester May. She wasn’t perfect and nothing was as simple as it seemed. Perhaps she only had this single chance to express her feelings, as the prospect of doing so might provide.

The Captain’s eyes widened in surprise at the blatant intimate suggestion from the young private. 

Ester gave up on fear and lies. She could no longer battle the internal war along with the surface one. She laid the facts of her true self in front of her commander. She plunged onward with her heart, in speaking and action. “Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?”

Ester drew the captured hand that held the wet cloth to her chest. She withdrew the cloth and pressed the fingers to her t-shirt that covered the illusion. The under-bindings of wrapped cloth were evident if one was looking for such a thing. The fingers stroked the cotton and stilled. Ester closed her eyes at the beating of the blood in her head.

“You…?” the voice choked out.

Ester May just nodded. She reopened her eyes as she regarded the shocked features before her.

“And you.” She stated with absolute certainty.