Ali Vali - Balance of Forces
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (October 18, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 160282567X
ISBN-13: 978-1602825673
Amazon: Balance of Force: Toujours Ici
Amazon Kindle: Balance of Force: Toujours Ici

Kendal Richoux’s life began during the reign of Egypt’s only female pharaoh. After accepting the opportunity to drink the elixir of the sun, Kendal becomes immortal and the Genesis Clan’s slayer. History has taught her the dangers of getting too close to anyone who hasn’t harnessed the power of time. After many years, she returns to New Orleans to finish a job she’s trained for all her life. It’s time for her to face her brother Henri, and it will have dire consequences to mankind if she fails. Piper Marmande believes Kendal has come to take over the company her family has built over generations. As Kendal prepares for the most important battle of her long life, Piper does her best to uncover every one of Kendal’s secrets, making herself a distraction Kendal can’t afford as she hunts Henri and Ora, the vampire who seduced him to a life of darkness.

Larry Closs - Beatitude
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Rebel Satori Press (October 18, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608640299
ISBN-13: 978-1608640294
Amazon: Beatitude
Amazon Kindle: Beatitude

New York City, 1995: Harry Charity is a sensitive young loner haunted by a disastrous affair when he meets Jay Bishop, an outgoing poet and former Marine. Propelled by a shared fascination with the unfettered lives of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation, the two are irresistibly drawn together, even as Jay's girlfriend, Zahra, senses something deeper developing. Reveling in their discovery of the legendary scroll manuscript of Kerouac's On the Road in the vaults of the New York Public Library, Harry and Jay embark on a nicotine-and-caffeine-fueled journey into New York's smoky jazz joints, dusty rare-book shops and thriving poetry scene of slams and open-mike nights. An encounter with "Howl" poet Allen Ginsberg shatters their notions of what it means to be Beat but ultimately and unexpectedly leads them into their own hearts where they're forced to confront the same questions that confounded their heroes: What do you do when you fall for someone who can't fall for you? What do you do when you're the object of affection? What must you each give up to keep the other in your life? Beatitude features two previously unpublished poems by Allen Ginsberg.

Kergan Edwards-Stout - Songs for the New Depression
Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: Circumspect Press (October 25, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0983983704
ISBN-13: 978-0983983705
Amazon: Songs for the New Depression
Amazon Kindle: Songs for the New Depression

2011 INDIE LIT AWARD FINALIST. Gabriel Travers knows he's dying; he just can't prove it. Despite his doctor's proclamations to the contrary and rumors of a promising new HIV drug cocktail, all it takes is one glance into the mirror to tell Gabe everything he needs to know. His ass, once the talk of West Hollywood, now looks suspiciously like a Shar-Pei, prompting even more talk around town. Back in his 20's, life had been so easy. Caught up in the 1980's world of LOVE! MONEY! SEX!, Gabe thought he'd have it all. But every effort to better himself ended in self-sabotage, and every attempt at love left him with only a fake number, scrawled on a realtor's notepad. The only happiness he could remember was in high school, where he'd met Keith, his first love. Only Keith had recognized the goodness within, and knew of the brutal attack Gabe had faced, the effects of which still rule his life today. Now almost 40, and with the clock ticking, Gabe begins to finally peel back the layers and tackle his demons - with a little help from the music of the Divine Miss M and his mom's new wife, a country music-loving priest.

Dorien Grey - The Peripheral Son
Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: Zumaya Boundless (October 31, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1936144107
ISBN-13: 978-1936144105
Amazon: The Peripheral Son
Amazon Kindle: The Peripheral Son

Investigating the disappearance of a freelance writer doing simultaneous exposes on both the boxing profession and construction unions, PI Dick Hardesty finds himself handed a Gordian Knot, with no sword to cut it. A plethora of motives and suspects, and a dearth of solid evidence sorely test both Dick's skills and his patience.

Nick Chivers - Witch Hunt
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (October 31, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613721846
ISBN-13: 978-1613721841
Amazon: Witch Hunt
Amazon Kindle: Witch Hunt

Mike thought he could escape his past. He renounced his crown as High Mage of The Council, had the Bands of Binding placed on him, and tried to start over as a normal human. It didn't work. And now a part of that past wants him dead, and Mike is running for his life. With his best friend, Andrew, and Andrew's soulbound partner along for the ride, Mike can't help but feel lonely until he meets Rick, an all-around gorgeous man who might just be the wrong guy-again-especially since Mike can't shake an ex-lover who's hoping for a second chance. It's a lot to deal with as demonic forces pursue him from Mongolia to Brazil, but Mike has to make it to the safety of The Council if he doesn't want to be the prize trophy at the end of this witch hunt.

Darcy Abriel - Silver
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing; Reprint edition (November 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609283120
ISBN-13: 978-1609283124
Amazon: Silver: Humanotica, Book 1
Amazon Kindle: Silver: Humanotica, Book 1

Born to freedom. Molded into submission. Pleasure is her only weapon. No matter what the law decrees, Entreus is no one’s chattel. And he’s determined that no other humanotic—part human, part robot—spends one more second under the stranglehold of the power-mad government machine. That means doing whatever it takes to advance the cause for freedom. Even seduce a government minister’s favorite toy, a newly minted trinex named Silver. Silver was a free woman until she committed the ultimate sin—pretending to be male to gain entrance to an exclusive science academy. Her punishment: modification. Now she is equal parts female, male and machine. The property of the secretive, charismatic Lel Kesselbaum, whose appetites push her new sexual abilities to heights of pleasure that make her wonder who is master, who is slave. Until Entreus bargains his body in exchange for a secret meeting that rekindles her longing for freedom. Yet helping the fiery revolutionary execute his plan isn’t so simple, especially when she discovers her master’s secret—a secret that leaves her heart torn between two men. And one step in the wrong direction could mean death for them all.

Erastes - Junction X
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Cheyenne Publishing (November 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193769206X
ISBN-13: 978-1937692063
Amazon: Junction X
Amazon Kindle: Junction X

Set in the very English suburbia of 1962 where everyone has tidy front gardens and lace curtains, Junction X is the story of Edward Johnson, who ostensibly has the perfect life: A beautiful house, a great job, an attractive wife and two well-mannered children. The trouble is he's been lying to himself all of his life. And first love, when it does come, hits him and hits him hard. Who is the object of his passion? The teenaged son of the new neighbours. Edward's world is about to go to hell. "Both a haunting tale of sexual obsession and a stunning portrait of an ordinary man caught up in the throes of an illicit love and teetering on the brink of self-destruction, told with pinpoint psychological insight and mouth-watering prose, this is a splendid example of the storyteller's art, reminiscent of James Baldwin." - Victor J. Banis, author of The Man from C.A.M.P.

Fyn Alexander - Knightly Love
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (November 1, 2011)
Amazon Kindle: Knightly Love

In the days when men sought to rescue damsels in distress, Sir Benedict Childerley’s only desire is to rescue Lord Robin Holt from an arranged marriage. Lord Robin, a sweet, gentle boy from a wealthy family, wants a knight in shining armor. When they meet Sir Ben is not charging in a white steed, but on his back unconscious after a jousting accident. Temporarily banished to a Welsh monastery, Lord Robin tends the knight’s injuries, and despite this ignominious first encounter, Lord Robin quickly realizes that the handsome knight is the only man who can win his heart. Sir Ben, the bastard son of a rich lord, is willing to fight an army in order to keep his beloved boy.

Aleksandr Voinov - Counterpunch
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: Storm Moon Press LLC (November 4, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1937058182
ISBN-13: 978-1937058180
Amazon: Counterpunch
Amazon Kindle: Counterpunch

'Fight like a man, or die like a slave.' Brooklyn Marshall used to be a policeman in London, with a wife and a promising future ahead of him. Then he accidentally killed a rioter whose father was a Member of Parliament and had him convicted of murder. To ease the burden on the overcrowded prison system, Brooklyn was sold into slavery rather than incarcerated. Now, he's the "Mean Machine", a boxer on the slave prizefighting circuit, pummelling other slaves for the entertainment of freemen and being rented out for the sexual service of his wealthier fans. When Nathaniel Bishop purchases Brooklyn's services for a night, it seems like any other assignation. But the pair form an unexpected bond that grows into something more. Brooklyn hesitates to call it "love"--such things do not exist between freemen and slaves--but when Nathaniel reveals that he wants to help get Brooklyn's conviction overturned, he dares to hope. Then, an accident in the ring sends Brooklyn on the run, jeopardizing everything he has worked so hard to achieve and sending him into the most important fight of all-the fight for freedom.

J.L. Merrow - Wight Mischief
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (September 4, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609288033
ISBN-13: 978-1609288037
Amazon: Wight Mischief
Amazon Kindle: Wight Mischief

A stranger could light up his world...or drive him deeper into darkness. Will Golding needs a break from his usual routine, and he’s been looking forward to a holiday helping Baz, his friend-with-benefits, research a book about Isle of Wight ghosts. When an evening beach walk turns into a startling encounter with Marcus Devereux, Will can’t get his mind off the notoriously reclusive writer’s pale, perfect, naked body. And any interest in ghostly legends takes a back seat to the haunting secrets lying in Marcus’s past. Marcus, painfully aware of his appearance, is accustomed to keeping to himself. But the memory of tall, athletic Will standing on the beach draws him out from behind defenses he’s maintained since age fourteen, when his parents were murdered. While his heart is hungry for human contact, though, his longtime guardian warns him that talking to anyone—particularly a journalist like Baz—is as dangerous as a day in the sun. As Baz gets closer to the truth, the only thing adding up is the sizzling attraction between Will and Marcus. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that someone wants to let sleeping secrets lie…or Will and Baz could end up added to the island’s ghostly population.

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

Today author is Michele L. Montgomery (http://www.michelelmontgomery.com/)

Dammit! by Michele L. Montgomery
Publisher: Seventh Window Publications (April 4, 2012)
Amazon Kindle: Dammit!

Escaping the past isn’t easy, especially when the scars left behind are a constant reminder that trust and love can hurt.

Michael McKnight knows what it means to be on the run from memories. Years ago, after fleeing an abusive relationship, he was brutally stabbed and left for dead. His only savior had been a compassionate stranger he’d only gotten a glimpse of before slipping into the blackness that claimed him.

For Michael, recovery was an arduous and hard fought return to some semblance of normalcy. He rebuilds his life, spending his waking hours buried in work and fighting to forget the past. And his life seems to be going well until he finds out that his cousin Wayne is being held captive in a mental asylum for being gay. So he buys a plane ticket and flies out to rescue his cousin.

But the weather is against Michael, keeping him grounded and talking to a man who claims that he’d once saved his life and is willing to help him rescue his cousin. Can this man be for real or is something more sinister in the works?

Cheryl L. Clarke is a writer, educator and lesbian Black feminist activist, born in Washington DC in 1947.

Raised in Washington DC, some of her earliest work reflected the troubled times of the 1960s and the rebellions that ripped through the District of Columbia following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clarke is the author of four collections of poetry from Firebrand Books: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (originally self-published in 1981); Living as a Lesbian, Humid Pitch and Experimental Love.

She also published After Mecca---Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (Rutgers University Press), the first study of its kind in a field that traditionally only recognizes Black male poets; Days of Good Looks {Carroll & Graf Publishing), a collection of poems and essays and Corridors of Nostalgia a collection of poetry.

Cheryl Clarke has served on the editorial collective of Conditions, an early lesbian publication and has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including: Home Girls, The Callaloo Journal and Black Scholar.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Clarke

( Cheryl Clarke and Jewelle Gomez, 1987, by Robert Giard  )

John Henry Mackay (6 February 1864 – 16 May 1933) was an individualist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten (The Anarchists) (1891) and Der Freiheitsucher (The Searcher for Freedom) (1921). Mackay was published in the United States in his friend Benjamin Tucker's magazine, Liberty. He was a noted homosexual.

Mackay was born in Greenock on February 6, 1864. His mother came from a prosperous Hamburg family. His father was a Scottish marine insurance broker who died when the child was less than two years old. at which point mother and son returned to Germany, where Mackay grew up.

Mackay lived in Berlin from 1896 onwards, and became a friend of scientist and Gemeinschaft der Eigenen co-founder Benedict Friedlaender.

Mackay died in Stahnsdorf on May 16, 1933, ten days after the Nazi book burnings at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. Adolf Hitler had become Reichskanzler on January 30, 1933, and all activities of the German homosexual emancipation movement soon ceased. Allegations that Mackay's death may have been a suicide have been disputed: Mackay died on 16 May 1933 in the office of his doctor, only a few houses from his own, apparently of a heart attack. He was also suffering from stones in his bladder. -- Kennedy, Hubert. Anarchist of Love: The Secret Life of John Henry Mackay

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Mackay

( Further Readings )

The Book: Tommy is twenty-nine, lives and loves in London, and has a morbid fear of the c word (commitment), the b word (boyfriend), and the f word (forgetting to call his drug dealer before the weekend). But when he begins to feel the urge to become a father, and the pressure from his boyfriend to make a real commitment to their relationship, Tommy starts to wonder if his chosen lifestyle can ever make him happy.

Faced with the choice of maintaining his hedonistic, drugged-out, and admittedly fabulous existence or chucking it all in favor of a far more sensitive, fulfilling, and—let's face it—slightly more staid lifestyle, Tommy finds himself in a true quandary. Through a series of adventures and misadventures that lead him from London nightspots to New York bedrooms and back, our boy Tommy manages to answer some of life's most pressing questions—even those he never thought to ask.

Amazon: Tommy's Tale: A Novel
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: It Books (October 21, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060989270
ISBN-13: 978-0060989279

The Author: Alan Cumming, OBE (born 27 January 1965), is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids films. He has also appeared in independent films like The Anniversary Party, which he co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in; and Ali Selim's Sweet Land, for which he won an Independent Spirit award as producer.

His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, for which he received an Olivier Award, the lead in Martin Sherman's Bent, and as Dionysus in The National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae. On Broadway he has appeared as Mac the Knife in The Threepenny Opera, the Emcee in Cabaret, for which he won the Tony in 1998, and Design for Living. Cumming also introduces Masterpiece Mystery! for PBS. He currently appears as Eli Gold on The Good Wife, for which he has been nominated for two Emmys, two SAGs, a Satellite Award and Critics' Circle Award.

He has also written a novel, Tommy's Tale, had a cable talk show (Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming) and produced a line of perfumed products labelled "Cumming". He has contributed opinion pieces to many publications and performed a cabaret show I Bought A Blue Car Today. Retaining his British citizenship, Cumming became a naturalized U.S. citizen on November 7, 2008.

Cumming lives in New York City with his husband, graphic artist Grant Shaffer, and their dogs, Honey and Leon. The couple dated for two years before entering into a civil partnership at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, on January 7, 2007. Cumming and Shaffer remarried in New York on January 7, 2012, the fifth anniversary of their London wedding.

( Read more... )

Top Gay Novels List (*)

First Decade (2000-2009): http://www.elisarolle.com/ramblings/top_100_gay_novels_2.htm

Second Decade (2010-2019): http://www.elisarolle.com/ramblings/top_100_gay_novels_2.2.htm

*only one title per author, only print books released after January 1, 2000.

Note: I remember to my friends that guest reviews of the above listed books (the top 100 Gay Novels) are welcome, just send them to me and I will post with full credits to the reviewer.

Other titles not in the top 100 list: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/top50MM

Nancy Garden (born May 15, 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American author of children's and young adult literature.

She is best known for her novel, Annie on My Mind (1982), which was critically acclaimed but attracted controversy because of its lesbian characters, Annie and Liza who fall in love. It was one of the first teen novels to feature lesbian characters in a positive light. In 1993, it was banned by the Kansas City school system and burnt in demonstrations. It was returned to shelves only after a First Amendment lawsuit by students in 1995. It is #48 on the American Library Association's list of 100 Most Frequently Banned or Challenged Books, 1990-2000.

Garden earned a B.F.A. (1961) and an M.A. (1962) from Columbia University School of Dramatic Arts. Through school and for several years after college, Garden worked in theater, supplementing the work with odd jobs in offices. She later taught school and worked as an editor of children's literature. She has also written non-fiction, mystery and fantasy for children and young adults. Other titles also feature GLBT characters. In 2001, Garden received the Robert B. Downs Award for Intellectual Freedom from the University of Illinois' Graduate School of Library and Information Science. In 2003, the American Library Association awarded her the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing books for teens. Garden's review of young adult titles have appeared in the Lambda Literary Foundation's Lambda Book Report.

She currently divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine, with partner Sandy Scott, their golden retriever, Loki, and their cats.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Garden

ANNIE ON MY MIND by Nancy Garden is a must read! If you want literature, if you want great writing, this book is for you. And if you’re a girl who thinks you might like other girls, this compelling love story will resonate. I aspire to write like Nancy Garden. She is lyrical and this novel is beautifully realized. Winner of many awards. Deservedly so. --Lee Bantle

( Nancy Garden, 1997, by Robert Giard  )

María Irene Fornés (born May 14, 1930) is a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director who is associated with the establishment of the Off-Off-Broadway movement in the 1960s. Fornes themes focused on poverty and feminism. In 1965, she won her first Distinguished Plays Obie Award for Promenade and The Successful Life of 3. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize with her play And What of the Night?. Other notable works include Fefu and Her Friends, Mud, Letters from Cuba and Sarita.

Fornés was born in Havana, Cuba, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 14, with her mother, Carmen Collado Fornés and sister, Margarita Fornés Lapinel, after her father, Carlos Fornés, died in 1945. She became a U.S. citizen in 1951. When she first arrived in America, Fornés worked in the Capezio factory. Dissatisfied by this work, she took classes to learn English. Later, she became a translator. At the age of 19, she formed an interest in painting and began her formal education in abstract art. During this time, she studied with artist Hans Hofmann in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

In 1954, Fornés moved to Europe to study painting. There, she was greatly influenced by a French production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot even though she never read the play nor did she understand French. This event shifted her creative ambitions towards playwriting.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Irene_Forn%C3%A9s

( María Irene Fornés, 1990, by Robert Giard  )

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) was considered a leading scholar of Chicano cultural theory and Queer theory. She loosely based her most well-known book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza on her life growing up on the Mexican-Texas border and incorporated her lifelong feelings of social and cultural marginalization into her works.

Anzaldúa was born in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas on September 26, 1942 to Urbano Anzaldúa and Amalia Anzaldúa née García. Gloria Anzaldúa's great-grandfather, Urbano Sr., once a precinct judge in Hidalgo County, was the first owner of the Jesús María Ranch on which Anzaldúa was born. Anzaldúa's mother grew up on an adjoining ranch, Los Vergeles ("the gardens"), which was owned by her family, and met and married Urbano Anzaldúa when both were very young. Anzaldúa is a descendant of many of the prominent Basque and Spanish explorers and settlers to come to the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries. The surname Anzaldúa is of Basque origin.

Anzaldúa began menstruating when she was only three months old, a symptom of the endocrine condition that caused her to stop growing physically at the age of twelve. Anzaldúa eventually underwent a hysterectomy to deal with uterine, cervical, and ovarian abnormalities. Reflecting upon her illness, she announced "I was born a queer."

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Anzaldua

Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands. Smart and tough and beautiful. An original warrior princess. --Sarah Black

( Gloria Anzaldua by Robert Giard  )

( Further Readings )

Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930) is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed. He then spent a year living with his mother in Columbia, South Carolina and thereafter he spent several years living with his aunt Gladys in Lake Murray, South Carolina, twenty-two miles from Columbia. He completed high school in Sumter, South Carolina, where he once again lived with his mother. Recounting this period in his life, he says, "In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in." He began drawing when he was three and has continued doing art ever since.

Johns studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948, a total of three semesters. He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at the Parsons School of Design in 1949. In 1952 and 1953 he was stationed in Sendai, Japan during the Korean War.


Numbers in Color (1958–59)

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Johns

( Further Readings )

Rodger Allen McFarlane (February 25, 1955 – May 15, 2009) was an American gay rights activist who served as the first paid executive director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis and later served in leadership positions with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Bailey House and the Gill Foundation.

McFarlane was born on February 25, 1955 in Mobile, Alabama and was raised on the family's soybean and chicken farm in Theodore, Alabama. The 6-foot, 7-inch McFarlane played football in high school, where he was "a monster, a legend", who was "big enough to get past the gay thing" playing football and could then "go jump rope with the girls." He attended the University of South Alabama. He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1974, serving on a submarine as a nuclear reactor technician. Following his military service, McFarlane moved to New York City, where he worked as a respiratory therapist.

In the early 1980s, McFarlane walked into the offices of Gay Men's Health Crisis, offering to serve as a volunteer. He began a crisis counseling hotline that originated on his own home telephone, which ultimately became one of the organization's most effective tools for sharing information about AIDS. Shortly thereafter, he was named as the first paid executive director of GMHC, helping create a more formal structure for the nascent organization, which had no funding or offices when he took on the role. Larry Kramer, the playwright and gay rights activist who was one of the six founders of Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1982, became a friend of McFarlane's, describing that by the time of his death, "the G.M.H.C. is essentially what he started: crisis counseling, legal aid, volunteers, the buddy system, social workers" as part of an organization that serves more than 15,000 people affected by HIV and AIDS.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodger_McFarlane

( Further Readings )

Proteus: very interesting stories about a 60 going 70 college professor and the clever student who is trying to seduce him; Edmund is unapologetically clear with the reader that he likes man, and he likes to savor the visual beauty of his young students, but he is also very firm in his decision to not ever give up to the temptation to “taste” them. Not even when Roy does everything in his power to convince the older man that his interest in Edmund is sincere. Edmund has not given up the idea of a long term relationship, but he cannot see it with a man under 40, and so Roy is no game. But their barter in classroom and out of it, is engaging and to a deeper lever than only physical, and so in a way, Edmund has a special relationship with Roy, a relationship that for him is maybe more satisfying than the mere act of sex.

Roomies: a beautiful short stories about three gay men sharing an apartment without being in a ménages a trois. All three of them with enough money to be alone, it’s not clear why they are rooming together, if not maybe since that is a sure way to not be alone. Love can be forever, but most often than not, it doesn’t last to their own experience, while instead their friendship is well-tested and they know each other good and bad sides. And they like each other. Probably between some of them it’s even possible that physical attraction could lead to something, but they don’t want to put in danger their balance. And please notice that I didn’t say love, not since there is not love among them, on the contrary, I absolutely think they love each other, probably more than if they had sex.

Photographic Memories: a short psychological thriller who would have been perfect for an Hitchcock movie. Kyle is the witness at a trial again a gay basher, but while he wants the killer of his friend to be convicted, he is not sure the man under trial is the one. Kyle has some proofs, problem is that, those proofs are not enough to condemn the other man as they are not enough to clear this one. Will Kyle’s conscience be stronger that his emotion? Will he be able to do the right thing, and above all, what is the right thing?

Facing the Music: a bittersweet tale about two very religious men who fall in love with each other. To Max and Joey what they are feeling is a sin, what they are doing is condemning them to eternal hell, but their love is too strong. The story is not a tragic one, the author chose to give them hope, but it’s barely escaping a more dramatic ending; maybe the author wanted the reader to be aware that could have been an option, that Max and Joey are not heroes, but men and like that they are scared and weak. Their only strength is the love for each other, and that is probably also their salvation, a more true salvation than the one their congregation is preaching to them.

Kevvy: this is the story of an unrealized threesome and of two possible closed gay man who probably in 10 years or so will realize they have lost part of their real life; Kevin, Arthur and Mitchell were high school friends, Kevin and Mitchell misfits, the gay kid and the rebel, and Arthur the good boy, the one who wanted to be original, but that, in the end, didn’t have the courage to be. According to me he associated with Kevin and Mitchell because it was the easy way, he can claim to be “cool” since he didn’t care of what everyone was thinking, but if it really came to the point he had to be pointed out for something, he hadn’t done anything.

Polygon: a polyamory story on the trend of Desperate Housewives; a girandole of couple where partners change bed like they would change dancing partner, only that not always they end in bed with someone of the opposite sex. It seems Paradise, isn’t it? Only that not all of them are strong enough to bear it, and someone will not see the end of the dance.

Since the Reunion: a strange little story about a man attending his 25 years High School Reunion party. For most of the story it appears he is regretting he did, but then you realize that the Reunion is the moment he finally came to terms with his own life. Maybe helped by the example of Cora, an homeless woman who once was the best promising of them all.

Amazon: Kaleidoscope
Amazon Kindle: Kaleidoscope
Paperback: 362 pages
Publisher: Silver Publishing (December 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1614953503
ISBN-13: 978-1614953500

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: qbeeqt please contact me

Today author is Ethan Day (http://www.ethanday.com/)

A Token of Time by Ethan Day
Paperback: 428 pages
Publisher: MLR Press (April 20, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608206505
ISBN-13: 978-1608206506
Amazon: A Token of Time
Amazon Kindle: A Token of Time

The murder of Zachary's lover and a mysterious connection to the recently deceased legendary matinee idol, Marc Castle challenged everything Zachary knew to be true - to believe that the impossible, was possible. On the run from his family, Zachary Hamilton was cursed with a gift he neither wanted nor asked for. The recent murder of his lover unleashed a chain of events revealing Zachary's connection to the recently deceased legendary matinee idol, Marc Castle. Attempting to unravel the mystery behind the movie star, Zachary encountered an ancient relic shrouded in history and folklore, leading to a discovery so shocking it altered his very existence -- challenging everything Zachary knew to be true -- to believe that the impossible, was possible.

Joe LeSueur was a decorated soldier when he moved to New York in 1949, at the age of twenty-five. He held jobs as an editor, critic, and screenwriter. He died in 2001 in East Hampton.

In 1951 Joe LeSueur moved into an apartment in New York City with Frank O'Hara, who would be his roommate and sometime lover for the next 11 years.

Joe LeSueur lived with Frank O'Hara until 1965, the years when O'Hara wrote his greatest poems, including 'To the Film Industry in Crisis', 'In Memory of My Feelings', 'Having a Coke with You', and the famous Lunch Poems-so called because O'Hara wrote them during his lunch break at the Museum of Modern Art, where he worked as a curator. (The artists he championed include Jackson Pollock, Joseph Cornell, Grace Hartigan, Jane Freilicher, Joan Mitchell, and Robert Rauschenberg.) The flowering of O'Hara's talent, cut short by a fatal car accident in 1966, produced some of the most exuberant, truly celebratory lyrics of the twentieth century. And it produced America's greatest poet of city life since Whitman.

Joe LeSueur died on May 14, 2001. The New York Times obituary remembers him as: Man of letters. Dear friend of the late Patsy Southgate and Frank O'Hara. Loved by many whose lives he touched.

I am lonely for myself
I can't find a real poem
if it won't happen to me
what shall I do
--Frank O'Hara, from, "At Joan's", 1959

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Emma Goldman (June 27 [O.S. June 15] 1869 – May 14, 1940) was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.

Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement. Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.

In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1923, she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. While living in England, Canada, and France, she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there. She died in Toronto on May 14, 1940, aged 70.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman

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Magnus Hirschfeld (May 14, 1868 – May 14, 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."

Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, Poland) in a Jewish family, the son of a highly regarded physician and 'Medizinalrat' Hermann Hirschfeld. In 1887-1888 he studied philosophy and philology in Breslau, then from 1888-1892 medicine in Strasbourg, Munich, Heidelberg, and Berlin. In 1892 he took his doctoral degree. After his studies, he traveled through the United States for eight months, visiting the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and living from the proceeds of his writing for German journals. Then he started a naturopathic practice in Magdeburg; in 1896 be moved his practice to Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Magnus Hirschfeld's career successfully found a balance between medicine and writing. After several years as a general practitioner in Magdeburg, in 1896 he issued a pamphlet Sappho and Socrates, on homosexual love (under the pseudonym Th. Ramien). In 1897, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee with the publisher Max Spohr, the lawyer Eduard Oberg, and the writer Max von Bülow. The group aimed to undertake research to defend the rights of homosexuals and to repeal Paragraph 175, the section of the German penal code that since 1871 had criminalized homosexuality. They argued that the law encouraged blackmail, and the motto of the Committee, "Justice through science", reflected Hirschfeld's belief that a better scientific understanding of homosexuality would eliminate hostility toward homosexuals.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld

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Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, set in San Francisco.

Maupin is married to Christopher Turner, a website producer and photographer whom he saw on a dating website. He then "chased him down Castro Street, saying, 'Didn’t I see you on Daddyhunt.com?'" Maupin and Turner were married in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 18, 2007, though Maupin says that they had called each other "husband" for two years prior.

Maupin was born to a conservative Christian family in Washington, D.C.. Soon afterwards, his family moved to North Carolina, where he was raised. He says he has had storytelling instincts since he was eight years old. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became involved in journalism through writing for The Daily Tar Heel. After earning his undergraduate degree, Maupin enrolled in law school, but later resigned from it.


Armistead Maupin and Christopher Turner

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistead_Maupin

The characters of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of The City" are utterly beautiful in their flawed state of discovery and evolving. They start with Mary Ann Singleton, who, while on vacation in San Francisco, just stays. Here again, I loved the writer's style and the way he brought the characters to life. I read them from start to finish in about a month and I cried like a baby when I read the very last one. --Johnny Miles

Maybe the Moon by Armistead Maupin is a great story about a dwarf actress whose claim to fame was starring in an ET-like movie. I’ve always loved stories/books/movies about those who (like myself!) came to Hollywood to make it in some way. Most of us, of course, don’t make it or have many strange twists and turns on that journey, and this is such a story. The heroine, Cady, is a take-no-prisoners little person who somewhere in the book refers to herself as a “fat baby with tits and pubic hair.” It’s hard not to love a character like that. I found this a somewhat more serious and touching novel than the “Tales of the City” series, just a beautiful piece of work. --Jim Arnold

Back in the late 1970s a friend gave me a copy of Armistead Maupin’s novel “Tales of the City”, which set me onto a course of coming out as a gay man and writing about gay lives. As I made my way through other gay books by other gay writers, I also made my way through Maupin’s thrilling six-volume odyssey of his family of queer characters at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. These books were lent to friends and passed along to other friends, who lent them to other friends. There were phone calls and discussions at bars and dinner parties on which book we liked best and what character was our favorite. The series ended in 1989, with Michael “Mouse” Tolliver HIV-positive, and in 1989 many of us believed that this was not a good sign; within the eleven-year publishing period of “Tales of the City” and its sequels, life in the gay community had significantly changed because of the impact of AIDS. “Michael Tolliver Lives”, published in 2007, reunites us with Michael almost two decades later, now approaching 55, buoyed by a drug cocktail and “glad to belong to this sweet confederacy of survivors.” This book made me burst into tears of joy — a rare feat. Written in the first person — from Michael’s point of view — “Michael Tolliver Lives” at times feels more like a memoir than a novel to me, perhaps because I harbor the belief that Mouse is an old friend I haven’t heard from in a while (and delighted to find is still around). I could not put this book down, tugged by the glow and melodrama of memories — both Maupin’s and my own. --Jameson Currier

Reading the Tales of the City series when I was a teenager made me want to be a writer. I felt such loss when I finished a book, because the characters had become part of me. I internalized Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, to the point that I still sometimes talk like him. I felt Mary Ann Singleton´s angst when she felt like she couldn´t connect to others upon moving to San Francisco, and I sobbed when characters starting dying of AIDS. To this day, it is my greatest dream to create a world as richly textured and believable as the one Maupin created at 28 Barbary Lane. --Bill Konigsberg

The Tales of the City books, like The Front Runner, were eye-openers and touchstones for me as a young gay man coming to grips with his own identity. Reading this last entry in the series, Michael Tolliver Lives, really resonated with me and touched me, since I am not far behind Michael himself and have experienced many, if not most, of his same joys and sorrows. --Rick R. Reed

What I wouldn’t give to live at 28 Barbary Lane – which is actually saying a lot, considering I hated the fashion of the seventies. I mean really…could they have discovered a more revolting color palette to choose from? I don’t think so! But I’d suffer it all over again to live upstairs with Michael, Mary Ann, & Mona at Mrs. Madrigal’s. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin was the first book I ever read where I was able to see myself, unapologetically staring back at me from the page. The ever-hopeless romantic, trying on new men – praying one of them would fit – never giving up, no matter how many times I wound up heartbroken and alone. While I haven’t tried on quite as many guys as Mouse did, I still to this day can’t seem to drive that wishful-thinking-someday-my-prince-will-come-mentality out of my own ditzy head. I keep trying, but no matter how much sarcasm I put on, it doesn’t seem to help. Go figure? Tales is fun, light, at times wickedly funny, and helped me justify a tiny little piece of my own identity as a gay man by showing me I wasn’t so alone after all. --Ethan Day

I was completely captivated by Maupin’s Tales of the City — a series of books revolving around the inhabitants of an apartment building in San Francisco run by an eccentric landlady, Anna Madrigal, who regards her tenants as her adopted children. Every character, Michael (Mouse) Tolliver, Mary Ann Singleton, Anna’s daughter Mona etc., come to vivid and endearing life within the pages. The series was addictive and hard to give up, and was the inspiration behind my own foray into this crazy world of writing. Many years later Maupin wrote Michael Tolliver Lives when an aging Michael, loving and living with a younger man, finds his past catching up with him as he is forced to face the complexities of his family’s, and long-lost friends’, issues. --J.P. Bowie

There is no denying that Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin is a gay classic, and it works so well because it shows gay people interacting with the straight community rather than being apart from it. The whacky residents of Barbary Lane can be followed through seven books, although you should be warned that as the books move into the eighties they become a bit more sombre when the impact of AIDS is first known. --Sean Kennedy

Does every gay man start their gay reading with TALES OF THE CITY by Armistead Maupin? Possibly the answer is yes, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. It’s funny but real, risky but ultimately safe (like a mother’s approving hug), and it captures a moment in time that is the foundation of contemporary gay society. For any gay man who realizes and respects how significant the 70s were for gay life, owning this book is just as important as owning CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC by the Village People or cherishing those Tom of Finland drawings. --Geoffrey Knight

( Armistead Maupin, 1989, by Robert Giard  )

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An interesting Young Adult mystery / thriller, not specifically “gay” but with a plot that turns around the important issue of teenagers and bullying, and the drama it could generate. Eric Matthews, the main character is not gay, but he is investigating on the death of another teenager, Sean Brody, who was. That is the reason why this novel is perfect for every teenager, gay or not, and it can even teach something about acceptance and avoiding living with regrets it would impossible to make right.

Eric, Sean and Chris were best friends until high school; that was the time Sean came out to Eric and Chris and Chris convinced Eric to ban Sean from their lives. At the beginning I wanted to believe the evil kid was Chris, and that Eric was trying to make it right, but that is not the truth. Eric was really mean with Sean, and doesn’t matter if he was a good kid, if he was a good student, good son and that he really didn’t believe he was doing something wrong making fun of Sean, Eric didn’t realize how hurt he could do, and how someone less strong than Sean could have reacted to that cruel teasing. Not knowing the dangerousness of your actions doesn’t make you less guilty, ignorance makes you as guilty as if you was doing it with purpose.

I think the main point of this novel is that Sean is dead, and doesn’t matter what Eric can or will do, Sean will not come back and Eric will always live with the regret that he could do something, but he didn’t, at least not until it was too late to save Sean.

The reader knows Eric didn’t kill Sean, and he will learn the true at the same pace of Eric, clue by clue while Eric is regaining his memory after the accident that caused his amnesia. With the accident Eric lost his memory but gained something else, a special gift that is helping him see things through a different perspective, helping him understand what is good and bad, and above all, who is good and bad. The gift can be something medicine can explain, or can be a miracle, but the author decided to played it down, to atone as much as possible its strangeness, so that, it is useful to the plot, but doesn’t distract the reader too much from the main point. And the main point is not who killed Sean, but more if Sean’s death can change Eric, if he can be better, and if he can do something useful of his life, in the memory of Sean but also for his own good.

Amazon: Sleeping Angel
Amazon Kindle: Sleeping Angel
Reading level: Ages 13 and up
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (March 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 160282214X
ISBN-13: 978-1602822146

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: valarltd please contact me

Today author is Belinda McBride (http://www.belindamcbride.com/)

When I Fall (An Uncommon Whore) by Belinda McBride
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (October 10, 2011)
Amazon Kindle: When I Fall (An Uncommon Whore)

As king, Helios Dayspring is desperate to secure the future of his people and their new homeworld. His lost memories are slowly returning, bringing with them danger and betrayal.

As the king’s consort, Griffin Hawke wrestles with growing isolation from his lover. When Helios’s secrets begin to come to light, Griffin finds that he barely recognizes him anymore. And Griffin is haunted by his own secrets, nightmares that bring torture and death in his sleep.

Surrounded by enemies and allies, seductive aliens and dangerous operatives, Helios and Griffin find themselves tested to their physical and moral limits. Not knowing who to trust, they can only turn to each other.

Will you be there to catch me when I fall?

Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.

Lowell was born into Brookline's prominent Lowell family, sister to astronomer Percival Lowell and Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell.

She never attended college because her family did not consider that proper for a woman, but she compensated with avid reading and near-obsessive book collecting. She lived as a socialite and travelled widely, turning to poetry in 1902 after being inspired by a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe.

Lowell was said to be lesbian, and in 1912 she and actress Ada Dwyer Russell were reputed to be lovers. Russell is reputed to be the subject of her more erotic work, most notably the love poems contained in 'Two Speak Together', a subsection of Pictures of the Floating World. The two women traveled to England together, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, who at once became a major influence and a major critic of her work. Pound considered her embrace of Imagism to be a kind of hi-jacking of the movement, and among his friends he referred to her as the "hippo-poetess". Lowell has been linked romantically to writer Mercedes de Acosta, but the only evidence of any contact between them is a brief correspondence about a planned memorial for Duse. (Picture: Ada Dwyer Russell)

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Lowell

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Robert Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City as well as on Captiva Island, Florida until his death from heart failure on May 12, 2008.

Rauschenberg was born as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur, Texas, the son of Dora Carolina (née Matson) and Ernest R. Rauschenberg. His father was of German and Cherokee ancestry and his mother of Anglo-Saxon descent. His parents were Fundamentalist Christians. Rauschenberg studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Académie Julian in Paris, France, where he met the painter Susan Weil. In 1948 Rauschenberg and Weil decided to attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina.



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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg

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Joan Nestle (born May 12, 1940) is a Lambda Award winning writer and editor and the co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. (Picture: Lesbian Herstory Archives co-founder Joan Nestle, right, with filmmaker Joyce Warshow, who captured Nestle’s life in the documentary "Hand on the Pulse.")

Nestle's father died before she was born, and she was raised by her widowed mother Regina Nestle, a bookkeeper in New York City's garment district, whom she credits with inspiring her "belief in a woman's undeniable right to enjoy sex". She attended Martin Van Buren High School in Queens and received her B.A. from Queens College in 1963. During the mid-1960s she became involved in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, travelling to the Southern United States to join the Selma to Montgomery march and to participate in voter registration drives. She earned a Master's degree in English from New York University in 1968 and worked toward a doctorate for two years before returning to Queens College to teach.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Nestle

( Joan Nestle, 1987, by Robert Giard  )

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Michael Bronski is senior lecturer in the Women's and Gender Studies Program and in the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth College. He has written extensively on LGBT issues for four decades, in both mainstream and queer publications.

A Boston native, Bronski made several contributions to the gay liberation movement of the 60s participating in activities and contributing writing to a variety of gay and lesbian publications.

In 1984 he published the pioneering and oft referenced book Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility which traced gay sensibility from Walt Whitman to the onset of AIDS. His writing reflected the changing face of the gay male subculture in writings he published in the anthology Flashpoint: Gay Male Sexual Writing in 1996.

Bronski's lover was Walta Borawski from the mid 70s until Borawski's death from complications of AIDS in 1995.

His book Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps won a Lambda Literary Award in 2003.

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Source: http://now.dartmouth.edu/2012/02/professor-michael-bronski-wins-prestigious-stonewall-book-award/

( Michael Bronski, 1987, by Robert Giard  )

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Dick Leitsch (born on May 11, 1935 in Louisville, Kentucky), three-term president of the Mattachine Society of New York City, was also its reigning power. Leitsch was one of the first Mattachine leaders and pre-Stonewall activists who dared to use his own name - to seek publicity to expose oppression, and to use the courts to sue for homosexual rights. He was also charming and charismatic, a well-polished Kentuckian who presented a much-needed "regular guy" image. In addition, he had what many of the later, more radical gay leaders lacked: a sense of humor.

His parents had been among the first white members of the NAACP in Louisville. Leitsch greatly admired Martin Luther King's nonviolent methods in forcing integration, and he attempted to emulate King in his own political sphere. On April 21, 1966, Dick Leitsch and two other members staged the Sip-in at Julius bar on West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. This resulted in the anti-gay accommodation rules of the NY State Liquor Authority being overturned in subsequent court actions. These SLA provisions declared that it was illegal for homosexuals to congregate and be served alcoholic beverages in bars.

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Source: http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biol2/leitsc01.html

( Dick Leitsch, 1999, by Robert Giard  )

( Further Readings )

Here is the Bestsellers List on Amazon I'm referring to for the challenge:

Bestsellers in Gay Romance

And here is the actual situation (in bold the books I read with link to the review and marked as New the books entering the Challenge this month):

1) Frog by Mary Calmes
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007XAFECY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 24, 2012)
2) Who We Are by TJ Klune
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613724608/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 27, 2012)
3) Play It Again, Charlie by R. Cooper
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613724527/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 20, 2012)
4) Redemption by Olivia Duncan Craig
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007QERCAO/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: ODC Press (April 1, 2012)
5) Redemption by Fire (Redemption by Fire Series) by Andrew Grey
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ZSFMD0/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (May 1, 2012)
6) Unintended by M.J. O'Shea
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007U1QKDI/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services (April 13, 2012)
7) Coming Home by M.J. O'Shea
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/161372442X/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 9, 2012)
8) One Small Thing by M.J. O'Shea & Piper Vaughn
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080HKOTW/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (May 3, 2012)
9) Country Mouse by Amy Lane & Aleksandr Voinov
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007WIEFHW/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (April 21, 2012)
10) Scrap Metal by Harper Fox
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006H9B70U/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1575408.html

( books from 11 to 100 )

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: lisa_thecat please contact me

Today author is Marshall Thornton (http://www.marshallthornton.wordpress.com/)

Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries by Marshall Thornton
Paperback: 212 pages
Publisher: Torquere Press (June 8, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1610402332
ISBN-13: 978-1610402330
Amazon: Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries

A former police officer turned private investigator, Nick Nowak is haunted by his abrupt departure from the department, as well as the traumatic end of his relationship with librarian Daniel Laverty. In these three stories set in Chicago during the early eighties, Nick locates a missing young man for a mysterious client, solves a case of arson at a popular nightspot, and goes undercover to prove a dramatic suicide was actually murder. When he isn't detecting, and sometimes when he is, Nick moves through a series of casual relationships. But his long suppressed romantic side surfaces when he meets Detective Bert Harker. Will he give love another chance? Or, will he continue to bury himself in the arms of strangers? Stories include Little Boy Found, Little Boy Burned, and Little Boy Fallen. Marshall Thornton is an award-winning author, playwright and screenwriter living in Long Beach, California. Author of the Boystown detective series, he holds an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA. While there he received the Carl David Memorial Fellowship and was recognized in the Samuel Goldwyn Writing awards.

Best Mystery Series 2011 - Well Read Reviews

Bonus ebook: Little Boy Dead: A Boystown Prequel. This is a novella length intro to the series which is available on Amazon for 99 cents, but there will be a free giveaway on May 11th and 12th for all to access.

Édouard Roditi (1910–1992) was an American poet, short-story writer and translator. He was born in Paris and subsequently studied in France, England, Germany and the USA. He published several volumes of poetry, short stories, and art criticism. He was also well regarded as a translator, and translated into English original works from French, German, Spanish, Danish and Turkish. He had an affair with African-American Harlem Renaissance poet and artist Richard Bruce Nugent.

In 1961, Roditi translated Yaşar Kemal's epic novel Ince Memed (1955) under the English title Memed, My Hawk. This book was instrumental in introducing the famed Turkish writer to the English-speaking world. Memed, My Hawk is still in print.

In addition to his poetry and translations, Roditi is perhaps best remembered for the numerous interviews he conducted with modernist artists, including Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Oskar Kokoschka, Philippe Derome and Hannah Höch. Several of these have been assembled in the collection Dialogues on Art.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edouard_Roditi

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James Falconer Kirkup, FRSL (England, 23 April 1918 – Andorra, 10 May 2009) was a prolific English poet, translator and travel writer. He was brought up in South Shields, and educated at South Shields Secondary School and Durham University. He wrote over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Kirkup came to public attention in 1977, when the newspaper Gay News published his poem The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name, in which a Roman centurion describes his lust and attraction for Jesus after his death. The paper was successfully prosecuted in the Whitehouse v. Lemon case, along with the editor, Denis Lemon, for blasphemy by Mary Whitehouse, then Secretary of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. (Picture: Maurice de Sausmarez, Portrait of James Kirkup, Gregory Fellow in Poetry (1951). Oil on canvas. University of Leeds Art Collection P1/1951. Reproduced with permission of Jane de Sausmarez ©.)

During World War II he was a conscientious objector, and worked for the Forestry Commission and on the land in the Yorkshire Dales and at the Lansbury Gate Farm, Clavering, Essex. He taught at The Downs School in Colwall, Malvern, where W.H. Auden had earlier been a master. Kirkup wrote his first book of poetry, The Drowned Sailor at the Downs, which was published in 1947. From 1950 to 1952 he was the first Gregory Poetry Fellow at Leeds University, making him the first resident university poet in the United Kingdom.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kirkup

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Brian Bouldrey is a United States writer. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Northwestern University's English Department. He is also a Visiting Writer at Lesley University.

Brian Bouldrey, is the author, most recently, of The Sorrow of the Elves (GemmaMedia, 2010). He has written three nonfiction books Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica (University of Wisconsin Press, September 2007), Monster: Adventures in American Machismo (Council Oak Books), and The Autobiography Box (Chronicle Books); three novels, The Genius of Desire (Ballantine), Love, the Magician (Harrington Park), and The Boom Economy (University of Wisconsin Press), and he is the editor of several anthologies.

He is recipient of Fellowships from Yaddo and Eastern Frontier Society, and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation, a Lambda Literary Award, and the Western Regional Magazine Award. He is the North American Editor of the Open Door literacy series for GemmaMedia. Teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, and literature.

Source: http://www.english.northwestern.edu/people/bould.html

Almost any Gay male who grew up in a strongly religious—or at least, professing--household will recognize himself in some part of this story, The Genius of Desire, and will immediately grasp the instinct for simultaneous self-preservation and self-discovery reflected in the title. Funny and sad in the best senses of those words, parts of it may seem dated now but the emotional truths it tells still ring clearly for me. I was surprised to find that I could not find a current image for the cover of this book, but the images it called up for me have remained and still resonate. --Dan Stone

( Further Readings )

Reading the bio of this author, you learn he is indeed leaving in historic Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and so I assume the feeling of this small town is real life experience, a real life experience that would be nice to enjoy.

It’s not that there is no drama in Carlisle, it’s only that every drama seems manageable, something you can face and deal with your own strength and with a little help from your friends. Losing a job, dealing with an illness, growing without a parent, graduating and having a successful career, opening your business… everything you want, you can.

Robert is only 30 years old and he is already a judge for his county. He is also gay and a virgin, having spent all his earlier years committed to his studies and career, and maybe being also a little shy. Sebastian is more or less same age, but he played the field; he is no stupid at all, and from a good family, who supported him, but he decided to skip college and enjoy life.

Robert and Sebastian balance each other, even if, actually, Sebastian’s worry is that Robert will want to play the field as well before setting down with one man; and moreover, that Robert will realize that a simple waiter is not match for a county judge. But Robert sees in Sebastian everything he wants and desires, and Sebastian is really patient and kind with him, letting him take the steps at his own pace, kindly pushing him when it’s necessary but also stepping back when Robert has the feel they are hurrying too fast towards the unknown paths.

As I said, each drama is manageable, like when public opinion will try to question Robert’s private life; but this is not a big coming out story, there is no huge scandal and tears and separation. Sure, it’s not easy for Robert, and above all not pleasant, but they will manage together to overcome also this situation. Same for the illness of one of their friends or for any other trouble, the right solution is always there, ready for them to catch it.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2309

Amazon: A Serving of Love
Amazon Kindle: A Serving of Love
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (May 23, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1615819096
ISBN-13: 978-1615819096

Series: Taste of Love
1) A Taste of Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1319033.html
2) A Serving of Love

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Voting on each slot will happen every 2 weeks.

- in round 1 there will be 12 slots, 1 for each month in the Submission period (from September 2011 to August 2012).
- in parallel with the poll, a special jury will vote the covers; the jury is composed by: Damon Suede, Dylan Rosser, Jodie, Julie, Max Rhyser, Mitzie, Tammy.
- you can vote as many covers as you want, using the poll in this post or "liking" the cover on FB (I prefer the poll, it's easier for me, and you can vote logging with FB, Twitter or other accounts)

Most Voted Covers last round:


Shadowboxing (Reese Dante)


Delsyn's Blues (Reese Dante)


Revolutionary (Anne Cain)


Bonds of Earth (Justin James)

All the covers are here:

http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/2012CoverContest_06February.htm

or here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.362983103735778.88558.100000722741394&type=3&l=b2c141d654

and here is the poll:

( poll )