This novel is set in the same world of the previous Action! Series by G.A. Hauser, the world of the bold, beautiful, and rich, of Los Angeles. Actually if you read the last book in that series, you already met Danny and Donny, identical twin working on the same firm of Mark and Steven. And in a way you already know their story and some of its development.

What is important here is to know better these two and their reason. As expected, as always I should say, G.A. Hauser’s men are not exactly “perfect” heroes, and in a way, sometime, they are not even so nice. Apparently it seems that they don’t have any moral, but actually there is always a reason behind it. In this case, when you read of two 25 years old guys still living on the shoulders of their parents with little intention to change the situation soon, you can’t really have of them a good first impression. But then you meet their parents, and discover that they are not really pushing their babies to go out of the nest, and so, as Danny and Donny do, you think, why bothering too much? Let them have the time of their life and sooner or later they will discover how it’s the real world. Problem is that sometime, people like them, discover the truth so far in their life when it is really too late to change something. Or maybe, if they are lucky, they never discover it, and they live always happy and unconscious.

Even if Danny and Donny are identical twin, and in many way they are similar, they are not alike in their emotional development. Danny, more shy and quite, is also the one that is readier to take the flight out of the nest. It’s almost like, while Donny spent all his energy in growing and glowing, Danny saved it for the right moment. Suddenly Danny is the savvier, he is the one who is taking serious decision, and Donny is unsettled by it. He feels like he is losing his brother and this cause him some emotional issue, leading him to taking out his frustration during sex with other man. Donny realizes that he is doing something wrong, but what he seems to not realize is that he is hurting other men. This is the point when you, reader, realize that you are reading about a man by G.A. Hauser: in any other novel, by any other author, Donny would probably go under a self-judgement, coming out guilty and repentant. This is what an hero does, this is not what Donny does. Donny is not an hero, as seldom G.A. Hauser’s men are; they are more irresistible villain, the bad guys that everyone, or at least me, love.

For most part of the book, Donny plays the role of the bad twin and Danny is his good conscience. Danny is so good that sometime he is almost boring in comparison to Donny. But then I saw a spark, a bit of that wickedness or naughtiness that his brother Donny is always accused of; and you realize that maybe Danny is only better in controlling himself, that he is probably smarter that his brother Donny. It’s strange but discovering that Donny is more fragile than Danny, at least at an emotional level, made him nicer to my eyes. I’m true, I didn’t like much Donny, at least not in the first part of the book, and even in the end, being him not at all repentant, it was like his happily ever after was not due. But again, as I said, there are some lucky men that have never had to face how the world really is, they are, and they will always be, the bold, beautiful and rich. And if you don’t like it, well, probably you will not like most of G.A. Hauser’s books, since she likes them a lot.

http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Double+Trouble/exact_match=exact

Series:
1) The Physician and the Actor: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/154682.html
2) For Love and Money: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/101976.html
3) Secrets and Misdemeanors: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/180102.html
4) Capital Games: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/210160.html
5) Love You, Loveday: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/288895.html
6) When Adam met Jack: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/300519.html
7) Mark Antonious deMontford: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/463899.html
8) Acting Naughty (Action! 1): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/493312.html
9) Playing Dirty (Action! 2): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/520179.html
10) Getting It in the End (Action! 3): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/656487.html
11) Behaving Badly (Action! 4): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/700268.html
12) Double Trouble
13) Dripping Hot (Action! 5): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/746033.html

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

This novel is less "romance" than expected and probably funnier. First of all the two main characters, from the blurb and even from the cover I was expecting for them to be two young guys with big hopes and few means, and instead they are two partners in crime in a work and love relationship older than 15 years. So between them everything is easy, they know each other and their mutual faults. There is not much romance, meaning that there are not much love scenes (and never once we arrive to a sex scene) but between Chase and Grant there is for sure a love relationship. Here and there you can also have an hint that it was not always simple, that maybe sometime they had to overcome some obstacles in their path, but more or less they were successful in doing that, and I have never had the feeling that their relationship was in trouble.

Problem is that at more or less 40 years old, they are too old to continue to live on expedients, they maybe want to retire or arriving at least near that. And so when Jamie comes to them with a not so legal proposition, Grant sees the chance to hit the big one. Jamie filmed a famous gay actor and activist, Romeo Romero, having sex… with a woman. The tape is worth a lot, the problem is that Jamie lost it! In a cab! From that moment on Grant starts to plan a way to have it back and more he goes on, more people are involved and more I was trying to understand if, once everyone was paid back, something for Chase and Grant’s retirement plan was still available.

As I said, the novel is more a comedy than a romance, and even if it deals with thieves and blackmails, for sure it’s not a mystery or an adventure plot… probably the only mystery is how our heroes manage to not end up in a jail, since they didn’t give me the idea to be real criminals. Chase and Grant are more or less good boys who are trying to survive, and even their crimes usually are petty crimes, that more or less don’t give much trouble neither to their victims: some money here, a stolen car there, nothing of irreplaceable or real life-important.

Other than Chase and Grant, there are other supporting characters that I think in a way stole the scene to them. Lisa, the lesbian real estate agent with a lip-stick girlfriend, Paul the driver, even Will the unwilling blackmailer, or Henry the 41 years old policeman with a crush for the 16 years old “Amber”, no one of them is really “honest”, but no one of them is really a criminal. But who for me shine among them all is Jared, the twinkiest of the twinks: with is out of body-lose in dreams moments and his philosophy of life (every man with money is hot), he is for sure the most funniest and original of all the characters and I really wouldn’t mind to read his own personal story, where of course he would be able to find his hot sugar daddy, with a lot of money and, why not?, who is also an hot guy for real. Who instead had great potential, but among all these characters remained a bit in the shadow was Jamie: again, I think he’s good material for something more.

Amazon: Straight Lies

Amazon Kindle: Straight Lies

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html


Cover Art by Kristine Mills-Noble

E-male is a pure classic romance novel. It has not any pretence to be anything else if not a light romp. Kory Miles is a geeky guy working as waiter while he is trying to build a successful online dating website. He is so good in his work that the website is a endless source of good matching but there is a problem: no complicated algorithm calculates the best matching, it’s all in Kory’s mind and good sense. Problem is that e-male is also starting to “eat” its owner, Kory has not real private life and he is always worried that no one discovers who is really behind the website. So when he has the chance to sell the website to another company following it as a consultant, it’s a perfect solution.

Zac Djorvzac is the owner of a travel agency and he has three rules: No Drama, No Dancing, No Dating. For the owner of a gay travel agency this is like a contradiction in terms, since you can’t have a group of gay men together and not having at least one of the Ds above. When Kory enters Zac’s office with a business proposal Zac never sent to him, Zac thinks the man is another city boy interesting only in partying and “loving”. And it not helps to make him changing his idea that Kory has an impromptu sex session with him on the floor behind the desk.

From a start like this, you would expect for the book to be a sex scene after the other. And this is something that actually I have never found in a Scott&Scott’s novel. Yes, there is sex, and also good sex, but the most important thing is the romance. These partners in work and life write novels that proof to the everyday gay man that also him is allowed to have romance. Since he is also a man, the romance is maybe a bit easier and less flowerily, but it’s not less romantic. Kory believes in true love, it’s the basic rule of his online dating website, but he is also a man who walks around with a condom in the pocket, just in case. Zac is apparently a stoic man, but in the end, he has a behind the should past as party boy.

If the light story and the funny moments weren’t enough to make me like this novel, the multiple references to “Dirty Dancing” and Patrick Swayze as must to seen movie for every respectable gay man and teen girls won me over. The roles between Kory and Zac change abruptly and when they leave for a vacation together to Baytown Beach with Kory’s friends and Zac’s employees (like a school trip among different classes where the main purpose is to gossip and dating), Kory becomes the library/laptop mouse, who hardly leaves his room, and Zac is now the beach boy who knows all the better places and who tries to drag Kory’s out of his shell. The dance lessons in the water or balancing on a rock, remind me too much Dirty Dancing to not love the story.

As I said this is a light story. It’s also maybe a little unrealistic, I can’t really believe that a group of grown men can go back so much to their teen years to consider a beach ball contest the main event of their vacation, but still, the story was nice and romantic, pretty much like a young comedy movie, that type of story that you read to rest and relax.

Amazon: E-Male

Amazon Kindle: E-Male

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

I was wandering a lot around Michael Thomas Ford's novels, never deciding to buy one since, first there were so many to choose from that I didn't know where to start and second I was worried to become addicted and knowing me if I liked one than I for sure I would have bought all of them. So I waited and waited and then in a gay bookstore they were all there, looking at me from the shelves and they are so pretty with those covers that I picked one. The saleswoman told me pick one random, they are all good and my choice was Looking for it.

It's strange, usually I don't like stories with too much characters, I never know for whom to care for and always feel like no one of them has enough space. And above all, at least one of them has not an happy ending. And instead Looking for it made me rethink on my assumptions. It's true, it's the choral story of a groups of friends, all of them gay and all of them represents a way to face gay life. There is Mike, the bartender of the Engine Room, the pub where all of them gather. He seems the more steady of them, always ready to listen to other problems. But also Mike has his bad experience in the past and maybe he is alone since he fears to be burnt again. But Mike is a too good guy to stay alone forever and so enter Father Thomas Dunn, the new episcopal pastor of the S. Peter's Church, the same church where some of the above friends go. So, in a way, Mike and Thomas do the same work, they listen to people problem trying to forget that also them have their own relationship issue. Thomas was in love with a fellow seminarist, a boy he didn't have the courage to love and who died. Since then, Thomas's guilty grew so much that now he is convinced that his punishment is to be alone forever. What I liked of Mike and Thomas' story is that it was without angst; both of them new that it was not an easy relationship but they faced it with an easiness that made it sweet and tender.

The other known couple in the novel is John and Russell, who are facing the classic 7 years love relationship crisis. They love each other, but they arrived in a moment in life and in their relationship, where the other is granted, and you believe that you haven't to prove your love. John and Russell were since the beginning a strange couple, Russell full of joy and life, and John so quiet and shy. Probably this is the reason why they love each other, but living together is a play of balancing, and probably they forgot that. It will be not easy for them to find a way to stay together, but what I liked of their story is that they never stopped to love each other.

Then there is Simon, one of the best character of all. He is 65 years old and recently "widower". His more than 40 life partner died of cancer the year before, and Simon is wondering why he didn't die with him. He has friends, a place to stay but he is alone, and at his age he doesn't believe possible to have a second chance in love. And even if it was, how will he recognize it? He was out of the dating game for so much that the rules are all changed, and he doesn't know if he likes how they are playing now.

The last two men, but not the least important, are Stephen and Greg. In a way they are similar, they both are in the closet but in the opposite way: Greg came out simply living his family and all he knew to live in another city, among strangers who accept him for who he is and not for who they want him to be. Stephen instead is out with his friends but completely in the closet with his family, and living one door next the other it's quite impossible to have a normal relationship. So both of them are limiting their relationship to one night standings, believing in this way to quench the thirst of love they have, and instead gathering so much need inside that sooner or later they will explode.

On a side note there is also the story of Pete, probably the sadder of all. A man who was raised believing that being gay is the worst evil of all, and that has no way to understand his needs and feelings. The only way to claim them is with violence. Even if he is not a "good" guy, I think the author considered him another of his boys, another way to live being gay, I wish this one being the less chosen, but I know that in reality, for many people is the only one. I can't hate Pete, neither after knowing what he did, I can only feel a great pain for him.

On a closing note, Looking for It is a wonderful romance, and it's also pretty sexy, something I seldom have the chance to find in a more mainstream novel. The sex scenes are all good, even the one that serves to the author to prove something, they are enough but not too much, and above all, they are more romantic than free.

And now my only problem is how to choose the next one among the Michael Thomas Ford's novels...

Amazon: Looking For It

Michael Thomas Ford's In the Spotlight post: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/423626.html

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html


Cover Art by Steve Walker

Ghost Hunters – Long Beach by A.M. Riley

If you start this anthology thinking to read something haunting and dark, you would be surprised by the first story, which is almost a sweet romance. James and Rick are best friend since forever, they met when they were still too young to understand what a sexual preference was, and from that moment on they were inseparable. Rick believes in ghosts and James believes in Rick; if Rick wants to go ghost hunting, James is there with him, and so it was for the past eight years. I actually don’t know how old they both are, but due to their “innocence”, I think they are 20-something, so it’s not implausible that they are in that moment of life when they need to take a final and life changing decision. James loves Rick, but he has no courage to come out to his friend, at least not with his feelings. The night before James told Rick he is gay, but he didn’t admit his feelings for him; and since Rick didn’t tell anything, James took that as a rejection, and now he is thinking to give up, to the ghost hunting and to Rick. I think that James didn’t understand that Rick is not a straightforward type of guy and that he probably has no courage himself to come clear with James. But they have a friend in common that maybe will help both of them.

I really loved this story; I have always had a soft spot for young lovers. And the scene where James admits to a “virgin” Rick that he had a sexual intercourse while his friend was away and Rick simply replies that he had noticed a change in him, was so sweet and tender, an admission of love without actually saying the words. I also loved that, all in all, this was not a paranormal story; the only otherworldly event is a nice topping to a more than nice story, I liked it, but it was not essential to the story.

Rousing Caine by Lex Valentine

This story reminded me an old Hollywood movie, not since it was old fashioned but since it faced the “ghost” side at the same way, not giving much explanation and looking at it like another oddity that adds spicy to the love story. Jason was recently dumped by his younger boy toy, a man he met soon after a bad divorce and who was probably only a way to forget that experience. Still, it wasn’t nice to be not only dumped, but also robbed, Chris, the boy toy ran off with his safe money and a priceless painting. And Jason ran off to his beach house to forget. So, when the morning after he awakes with a ghost in his bed, he was probably ready to have an affair without strings attached, and how it could have them when Caine, the man, is already dead? I think Jason takes it so easy since he doesn’t really believe in the story, oh yes, he believes Caine to be a ghost, but he doesn’t believe their story could last. And so troubles come only when both of them start to move on the simple fling and think to the future. More, when Jason realizes that Caine’s feelings are real, and they were so for a long time, that is the moment when all go to hell.

If you consider the love story, the novella is nice. What I’m not sure to like much is Jason’s character; I think he is a bit selfish. Not only he doesn’t try to understand Caine’s reasons, at least not immediately, but even worse, when he thinks to have lost Caine for good, and so he has already done a bad mistake, he even wishes Chris’s death. All right, Chris is not exactly the best of the man, but I think Jason should at least try to understand his reasons, maybe he was a runaway kid, maybe he had inner trouble, and so on. Instead, really, I have the feeling Jason is a bit self-centred. But well, as I always say, it’s better to have an imperfect man as hero than a perfect hero as man, imperfect men are more interesting and usually give better material for a story.

The Day They Closed The Iguana by A.M. Riley

There are light and funny ghost stories and there are very sad one. A.M. Riley tried both; her first story in this anthology was funny so I should have probably guessed than the second would have been not. Billy is a more than thirty year old former wanna-be-actor, not old fashioned theatre owner with ghost attached. The story is not clear, but probably Billy was in love with Seth, Seth was in love with the idea of being an actor and then he died. Since Billy is now thirty, and we are talking of something happened more than 10 years before, Billy and Seth had to be very young, probably Billy’s first love. And you never forget your first love. So Billy spent all his twenty-something year to mourn for Seth, and it was also quite impossible to forget him, when his ghost was there to remind Billy of who he lost. But years passed and nothing changes and Billy realizes that if he doesn’t do something, he will spend the rest of his life alone, if not for a ghost who is not able to warm him during a winter night.

Enter Frank from Montana. Frank is gentle, caring, down to earth and very real. He reminds me of a movie I love, Bus Stop, where a wonderful Marilyn Monroe is sidetracked from her path towards the glittering lights of Hollywood, from a very handsome and very pushing Montana ranch owner. Billy is Marilyn Monroe, he is already in Hollywood, so that is not his impossible dream. The impossible dream is his love for Seth, and instead Frank represents the today, the now, the possibility. He is maybe not the lost dream of his youth, he is maybe not so striking and perfect as Billy reminds Seth to be, but he is real. Now Billy has to decide if continuing to live with his dreams, or being sidetracked in Montana.

Black Candle Reader by William Maltese

I actually don’t know if all the facts in this novella happened by night, but that was the feeling. At the beginning I didn’t understand if I was reading a series of short independent stories or what: there were different characters, two male escort, the narrative voice, without name (an Afro-American hustler) and his lover Jeremy; a clairvoyant, Kenneth, who is eager to have finally a contact with a human body and not with ghosts; a forty-something man, Talon, who thinks he has to pay for his father’s sins; a young hustler, Sammy, who is dreaming a better life; a serial killer, without name. Their stories seem disconnected if not for one thing they have in common, the sex. And the crazy but nevertheless meaningful flow of words that is a William Maltese’s story. This time actually, it’s a little less sex-centred, to be more scaring (I don’t find sex scaring…); this story is darker, and sadder. I actually felt real sorry for one of the above character, and maybe even for another one. Not really for the third of them who will not arrive at the end of the story. The Love Me Dead of the title in this case is not the love for a ghost, but the crazy love (and not the kind of good crazy of above) which brings to death half the men we are introduced at the beginning.

The previous three stories where not at all scaring and most of all romance, with various degrees of that, and instead Black Candle Reader is probably more horror than romance. I kind of find romantic Jeremy and “I”’s love, not a typical sweet and rose love, they are, after all, male escorts still on the job, but I think “I” is looking after Jeremy, and they are only waiting a good time to retire and being an old fashioned couple aging together in a nice cottage. Or maybe I’m trying to paint in pink the darkness of the story… but still, there were sometime, during the narration, that between cum and candles, I really read Jeremy as an innocent boy at play, and “I” an odd knight in shining armour.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=ANTHLVDD

Amazon: Love Me Dead

Amazon Kindle: Love Me Dead

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

I was all for expecting to like this story, I'm not new to Jet Mykles' pretty boys and her work, where western romance blends with yaoi without being overtly influenced. And I was expecting for it to be fun and light. But I wasn't expecting to be surprise to the turn of event and for the reversed role of the main characters. Yes, I'm true, I was expecting the usual "gay for you" book where a strong alpha male, and supposedly straight, falls in love, after having fallen in lust, for a pretty young gay boy, and then happily ever after. So see, nothing complicated and everything good.

But no, the story is not so "straight" (pun intended) as I was expecting. First of all Kevin, the "straight" man, is not an alpha male, far from it. He is more like a lost puppy with melting "puppy" eyes and all. And no, he will not play the role of the sheep fallen in the clutches of the Big Bad Wolf, or of the closeted shy gay boy who was only expecting to be freed by gay superhero. Kevin has all a role, and philosophy of his own. I think Kevin is super-gender, meaning that he likes girls, but has not issue to admit that he can like also boys. Basically Kevin is a man (boy) who doesn't like to take the lead in life, in relationship and in bed. He prefers to be the leaded. So yes, it's entirely possible that Kevin could find a strong girl who will command him in bed, and life, but it's more probable that the role is taken by a man.

And here the second surprise, the above said lead man, Justin. In the conventional scheme of straight Alpha Male meets gay omega boy, Justin has to be your typical flamboyant gay boy, young and pretty. But we have already said that Kevin doesn't fit his conventional role and so doesn't Justin. Justin is older than Kevin, and yes, maybe he is a bit flamboyant, but not so much to outshine poor Kevin. I think Justin was like that when he was 20-25, but not that he is more than 30, he has arrived to a moment in his life when he is looking for Mr Right. And yes, maybe in his mind Mr Right is an older, and wealthier, man, but love has other idea. When Justin meets Kevin by chance, on the street, he is suddenly smitten, and in love.

At first Justin comes out so strongly, that the reader has a bit of trouble to judge Kevin. From the blurb, I wasn't really thinking to like Kevin, I don't know, I had this feeling that Kevin was taking advantage of "poor" Justin. But then, as I said, the reader has the chance to see that basically Kevin is a good boy, that he really doesn't want to hurt Justin in any way, and truth be told, Justin seems a man who is more than capable to look after himself. There is a fine play of balancing, Kevin is the one who needs something by Justin, but Justin is the one who has probably the strongest will, and so I have never felt as Kevin was wronging him.

It's also a pretty sexy story, not so much and so soon as I was, again, expecting. At first it's more kissing and cuddling, more sweet than sexy, but when the sexy part arrives, it's good and fun. Even if Kevin is shy in life, he is not shy in bed, not at all; I have the feeling that Kevin has arrived first to understand his sexual desires than his life-choice ones.

http://www.loose-id.com/Just-for-You.aspx

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html


Cover Art by P.L. Nunn

Yes, I know, when you read a book you should try to judge it for the book itself and not for your personal experience, above all if the book is not fiction, but a memoir. People are different and they behave in a different way in front of the same event. Anyway, I can't read a book about a dying parent, without recalling my personal experience: I lost my father when I was 19 years old, and he was ill, terminally ill, for the last three years. In particular the last year I couldn't do anything if not spending hours and hours near his bed, or in the next proximity, waiting. My father was a very strong man, and even if the illness made him weak, he never once wanted to impose on me or my brother. So no, we couldn't help him, and he rarely spoke. Only twice he acknowledged his illness with me, once when he was still hoping to have a chance to fight it back, we were on car, he driving, and he told me that the last months had been hard, but he was probably good now. He wasn't. The second time it was some month before his death, when he had to go to a funeral of a friend of his who didn't manage to survive cancer, the same cancer my father had. I went with him, losing one day of school but my mother and I thought my father shouldn't be alone, and outside the church, waiting for the service to end (my father was atheist and didn't like to enter churches, neither for a funeral), he told me that he didn't want a funeral, and above all not in church. Now you have to understand that in Italy there is no any other way to have a service if not in church. We haven't funeral home, we usually don't cremate. But this is another story, enough to say that my father had a service on the street, with hundreds of people attending, all standing. I think my father would have liked it.

Sorry for the long preamble but it was necessary for you to understand that no, I wasn't really in the mood to read A Report from Winter, I didn't want to recall all I went through. But I promised that I would have given the book a chance and so I did. And I was soon surprised: A Report from Winter is a total different experience from mine. What Wayne is going through is not the sickening pain of a son who desperately doesn't want to loose his parent, Wayne is so estranged from his family, and his family from him, that he arrives to his mother death bed when she is so far on the illness that it seems she neither acknowledges his presence. And the people who are there, the one that I thought were lovingly taking care of an old dear mum, are more like two block of stone, unmoved by the events, only waiting for the death to arrive to finally being able to go back to their usually routine.

No this is not the heartbreaking narration of the death of a loving one, it's more the journey back to hell of a man who was trying to forget that world still existed. Or at least I thought so at the beginning. Wayne was cold, his relatives were cold, the city was cold, the winter was cold. Like an ice shield around everything in this book, it was almost impossible to break through. And then little by little, the ice around Wayne melts, and the reader has the chance to see a different him, someone who probably is regretting some choices, even if, truth be told, they were the only possible and right, and healthy, for him to do. Also with the arriving of Ralph, Wayne's partner, we have the chance to see another Wayne, and we realize that, the one we met at the beginning, was a little boy who was scared to come back, and that was wearing a ice cold mask to shield himself from any possible hurt.

There is not sudden revelation of an unknown true, there are no miraculously changes, only maybe the realization that, if a little boy thought his mother didn't love him, maybe it was since she herself wasn't loved before, and she didn't learn how to share things. There is maybe a man who remembers that, after all, his mother thought to him, in little things she did. And there is maybe the realization that, no, it wasn't useless for him to come back to say a final goodbye, because if he didn't do that, he would have regretted it for the rest of his life. Wayne had to know that his mother loved him, only she had a way to love him that wasn't the fictional love you are used to see on television or cinema.

I also loved the glimpse in Wayne's story with Ralph, the retelling of their first date, ended without even a kiss, and Wayne's pain afterward, a pain soon soothed by a simple phone call by Ralph, it was sweet and true.

http://lethepressbooks.com/gay.htm#courtois-a-report-from-winter

Amazon: A Report from Winter

Amazon Kindle: A Report from Winter

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

 
Cover Art by Ben Baldwin

Due to the time of release, Hallowen, and the author, Jordan Castillo Price and her vampires and psycops, I was expecting something "paranormal" from this seasonal novella, and instead, to my surprise and delight, it was a very nice, and normal, romance, with a good love story.

Tony was in a bad accident and now, even if he is the younger of the Potosi's brothers, he is also the weaker, the one the other two look after, the one who has to do the less heavy jobs... losing his status of "body", the man who could do everything, is for Tony like losing a bit of his masculinity. Then he does a job for David, the man who bought the old house Tony and his brothers thought haunted when they were young, and when Tony goes there the first time, he doesn't know what to expect. For sure he isn't expecting David, and the sudden sexual sparks the man arise in him and the mutual interest. David doesn't look at Tony like a broken man, he looks at him like a fine piece of meat he can't wait to taste. And Tony is both excited than perplexed. David comes to him in a so strong way, that Tony is almost scared: has David an hidden agenda that Tony can't find out?

There is a little surprising turn in the story, nothing big, but it gives to all the novella a meaning more. Other than that, what I enjoyed was the slightly May/December relationship between David and Tony, and also the reverse play of Top and bottom: David is older than Tony, forty-something against not yet thirty, and he is the one who is straightforward in proposing Tony, actually Tony is the one who asks to step back a bit, to have more time, but when they finally arrive to share a bed, David leaves the upper hand, and position, to Tony. I think that was absolutely necessary for Tony, he needed to prove to another but above all to himself, that he was still "man" enough, that he wasn't broken.

Another thing I liked was Tony's relationship with his brothers Chip and Sal, and their Italian heritage. It wasn't so much developed, but the classical tight-knit Italian family was there, and I wouldn't have minded to read a little more on them, how they deal with Tony's homosexuality, something they know and seem to accept, but that probably was not easy at first.

http://jcpbooks.com/#sympathy

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

Heart Song is a short story that puts a lot in game. Rafe and Charlie were a May and December couple, and plus there was also a difference in social status, being Rafe only a policeman and instead Charlie a wealthy businessman. But Rage really loved Charlie, and since he loved him so much, he had to leave the older man: he felt that that Charlie didn't love him as much as he loved him, there was always something or someone else that kept a big share of the man's heart. When Rage left Charlie for that last time, he was sure this time he wouldn't have changed his mind, but he didn't know that it wouldn't have any other chance to do that, Charlie dies and leaves behind him a lot of unanswered question, and a letter.

Charlie had a son, Stewart, who Rafe didn't know and he meets only at Charlie's funeral. It's not exactly the place to meet a possible lover, above all when he is the son of your just dead one, and Rafe is a too good man to try something. But then Stewart finds him and brings with him Charlie's letter; Charlie knew he was dying and he wanted for Rafe and Stewart to look out for each other. He wanted for them something else? Probably. But that is Rafe and Stewart's choice.

This is only a short story, but I really like all the various layers, all hinted but well managed, the May/December relationship between Rafe and Charlie, their difference in social status that was overcome by their love, the new love between Rafe and Stewart, that someone could see as a way for Stewart to finally have something of that estranged father who left him so many years before... Rafe is not older, he can't be a fatherly figure for Stewart, they have the same age, but he was Charlie's lover, and so, in a way, he was more near to him than Stewart, and now Stewart wants at least a little bit of that love that Rafe had for Charlie, it's another bond to his father.

This is the first story by Jambrea Jo Jones I read, and it's only a short story, so I can't be sure about this author, but, from the little I read, I think there is great potential.

http://www.extasybooks.net/ebjmsite/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ebook_flypage&product_id=6515&category_id=8&manufacturer_id=144&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=44&vmcchk=1&Itemid=44

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

This short story by A.J. Ryan, another pen name for Geoffrey Knight, author of the Fathom's Five series, is a pure fun and naughty sexy romp. Eighteen years old Tommy and his nineteen years old newly stepbrother Dash are all alone for the summer, since they parents left for the honeymoon, and they promise to stay together and look for each other... like asking to the wolf to look out for the sheep... oh yes, Dash will look good for Tommy, but his idea is not to protect the boy. As the author well says, the two boys are very similar... apart that one is blond and the other brunette, apart that one has blue eyes and the other green, apart that one is a wasp boy and the other an Afro-American from the ghetto... yes they are the same in the desire to get into trouble and get into each other pants.

Both Tommy and Dash are into sleuthing and there is a mystery to solve: in a small college twon each month, during full moon, a male virgin is murdered. Dash wants to find the truth and Tommy wants to tag along... there is only a problem: Tommy is a virgin! Obviously there is a way for Dash to protect Tommy, watcha bet how much time will Dash take to understand what he has to do? ;-)

There is really nothing serious in this short story, and even if I had too less pages to fully enjoy these two boys, I can already say that Tommy is one of my favorite character of ever. I don't really know if he is really dumb or if he is the most clever men of all, since, in the end, he obtains what he wants and he is the one who enjoyed all the aspect of their adventures. Tommy is so out of every normal definition of man/boy that I sometime worried for him and his innocence; oh no, not his "physical" innocence, that I was eager to read when he would have finally lost it, but his "inner" innocence; he is so open and friendly that everyone can take advantage of him, but in the end, I don't believe Dash is so much different from Tommy. In the end, the author was right, Tommy and Dash are really the same.

http://www.eternalpress.ca/thedarcyboys.html

Amazon: The Darcy Boys and the Case of the Secret Skulls

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

Broken is, as expected, a story very heavy in the angst side but not overtly dramatic. I poured my one tear or two, but basically, I think the story was more sweet than anything else, and I really enjoyed the fact that it was "physical" without being sexy. Let me explain a bit: both main characters, Eli and Alec, are very aware of each other in a physical way, the love between them is both a match of minds than bodies, and all around them there are people who are in different stage of relationships, but the novel never goes down to the details, never once there is a full sex scene, even if, more than once, the men fall asleep together (and you will have to read the book to know what I mean). So yes, the novel is physical, but it's not sexy, we and they are aware of the men and their sexuality, and so no, this is not a "sweet romance" as the old romance rules state (no sex we are English...), but it's sweet since the author manages to maintain it on a balanced level, not too much of that, not to few of this.

Eli is recovering from a trauma, his life partner was killed in a gay bashing, and 2 years after his impromptu family, the lesbian best girlf friend of his former partner, and two gay roommates they were living with, think it's time for Eli to come out from the self-imposed "widower" mourning. Ilsa in particular decides to take the matter in hand and rent the attic of the house where they are all living to Alec, an American writer and Psychology professor who is searching a place to live in London, after moving from Chicago due to another one of his "usual" heartbroken. Just from that you can understand that Alec is not exactly the classical psycho-therapist, that let me say, I sometime find boring: when a man has all the answers, I think he is not a nice character. Alec, instead, I think he is a man who learns how to understand and comfort people, since he wanted to understand his own fears and doubts. When one of his relationships fails, he moves to another city to completely change his life; it's a run from reality, but he knows it well. And I think that Alec has also some self-esteem problem, he always thinks that the relationship fails due to some fault from his side... unlikely, but the human mind works in a strange way.

Anyway, when Alec meets Eli, he is the only one who understands that Eli has not the need to be pushed out from his mourning, he needs to be taken by. Eli is almost ready, he only needs to find a reason, and maybe the reason can be a new love, Alec. Obviously when you hide to Eli that Alec is a psychologist, and more he is specialized in after-trauma, well, you also understand that troubles are behind the corner.

Eli and Alec are very nice characters, well developed and likeable. The story between them is nice and sweet. What probably is the best part of this novel is that they are not the only ones to be good characters. They can be the main focus of the story, but all the supporting characters around them, from the most important ones, like Ilsa, Lyle and Tony, Eli's roommates, to Casey, Mirabell, the best girl friends, to even the cameo roles like Dray, Reggie and Ray, they all have an interesting background story, they all aroused my interest and made me wonder about them, about their story and its possible evolution. Broken could be Eli and Alec's love story, but it's also a choral book where all the characters have a very important role.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_110&products_id=1627

Amazon: Broken

Amazon Kindle: Broken

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html


Cover Art by Paul Richmond

You can't never forget your first love...

Paul is the perfect All American Boy of a small town USA. Quarterback, Golden Boy, wealthy and handsome, he was the dream of every girls in high school, but also of one boy, Randy. Randy was from the wrong side of the city, he was a bit of a goth and plus he was also gay. Not that he could do nothing in the small town he lived, other than dreaming about Paul. And he would never imagine that also Paul dreamed about him.

But eighteen years old are too few to have the courage to do something and so Randy chose to leave the town and made a own and successful career in the IT department. And Paul returned back to home after college to be a lawyer in his father firm and to become the perfect city major with a barbie doll girlfriend.

Now twenty years later they meet again at the school reunion. Randy is a millionaire businessman who admitted to be gay to colleagues and friends, but not with his mother, his only live relatives. And Paul is still denying his homosexuality. But when Paul meet Randy, denying is not more an option, and Paul needs to find the courage to coming out with his parents, but also with all the small town, and Randy with his mother. But a little surprise is waiting our two heroes.

This one is maybe the most romantic novel I have read by Shayla Kersten. It's a very classical romance, with all the little things that make squeeze a romance lover. And then I always have had a thing for first love turning in everlasting love. Plus both Paul than Randy are very nice characters, and Randy is perfect in his behaviour, he knows when to push Paul, but also when to stepback and give him enough room to make his own choices. My only regret is that this couple has to wait twenty years to be together, but maybe is better in this way, cause they are both enough mature to know what they really want in their life.

A very sweet romance, highly reccomended to who wants to see the world throught pink glasses, and sometime this means to have a better disposition toward life.

PS: HOT HOT HOT cover by Les Byerley, I would buy the book only to have this cover, and since the book is very good, the cover is a very appreciated plus!

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-7722-past-lies.aspx

Amazon: Past Lies (Ellora's Cave Spectrum)

Reading List:

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

The third in the Screen Shots series is probably one of the most kinky, and for a series set in the porn industry that said a lot. Ross, the All American Boy Next Door of TwentySomethingTwinks is what you would call a training ship: he is steady and sure, he doesn't miss a shot (punt intended), but maybe he is a bit too much vanilla. He doesn't like any pinchbeck during sex, just two guys, a bed and condom and lube.

Then arrives Maddox, a mix of new age guru in a biker boy body; he is handsome but "altered" by tattoo, piercings, dyed hair and outrageous clothes. He seems not the match for Ross, but Maddox entered TwentySomethingTwinks only for him. From day one is a play of teasing and playing kiss or dare with Ross. And Ross is both attracted than perplexed, he doesn't understand why he is interested in a guy who is the opposite than him... for someone who works with sex, he doesn't know much about life, does it?

When the new age yoga skill of Maddox unveils a potential flexibility in the man that is the forbidden dream of most teenager, Ross is hooked, but he wants his revenge: it will be not Maddox to seduce him, but Ross will knock him to the ground and have his way with him... problem is that it's exactly what Maddox wants.

As I said, this is a very kinky little novella; it's all about sex, but the strange thing is that, despite all the tattoo and piercing, Maddox is a real down to earth guy and the sex they have is good and very much normal. The kinkiness is almost vanilla, like Ross: just a man, Maddox, who knows how to use some strategically placed piercings. Story after story I'm more and more enthralled by this series, that is light and funny, and really gives the idea of young and healthy boys at play.

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1229

Series: Screen Shots
1) Seduced: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/751693.html
2) Smolder: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/812531.html
3) Slinky

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

Blessed Isle by Alex Beecroft

There is a mix of all the best novels by Alex Beecroft in this novella. Of course there is, the setting is the same she loves so much, a military ship sailing in stranger seas, and there are two men, two officers, who fall in love. Where is the difference? Well maybe in the way the story starts, they are safe and in love in Rio de Janeiro, retired from the Army and enjoying an almost “marriage” bliss. So here is the main difference, we can read of their story, and fear for them, but we know that, in the end, they will find a way to stay together.

And at the beginning I also thought that Alex Beecroft had become more daring, the first scene, with one of them sleepless at night looking at his naked lover in bed was quite erotic, was it the prelude to a sexier story? But no, as usual, there is a lot of hidden eroticism, desires and forbidden thirsts, but all happens behind a closed door.

The very nice thing of this novella is the narration path. First Harry, the captain, and then Garnet, his lieutenant, tell their own story from the different perspective they saw it. And from their narration you can understand the men. Harry is conservative and almost shy, despite his rank, he is not arrogant, and maybe he is also a bit naive; when he realizes his feelings for Garnet he is both tempted than troubled, and above all he thinks to be alone in his desires, that he could almost corrupt the lesser officer. And then we read Garnet’s point of view, how he almost seduced Harry, how he was always aware of the forbidden desire of the man, that were the same as his. Garnet in a way fill the voids Harry’s narration left and he is also the spirited one, who probably gives a bit of spice to the entire story.

Not to Reason Why by Mark R. Probst

When you are telling a story set in the middle of the war between Army and Native Americans, 1876, and you are aware of how tragic it was, it’s quite difficult to have an happily ever after romance. Plus, if you add to that that one of the main character is married and apparently content of his life, the quest for romance is even harder.

Brett and Dermot are fellow officers, but Dermot has also the sacred fire for his mission and instead Brett was forced into it. Dermot has all settled in front of him, a long and satisfying career in the Army, a wife who is willing to wait for him, and a good friend in Brett. On the other hand, Brett has nothing sure, the only thing he certainly knows, since it is eating him alive, is that he is in love with Dermot and that love it’s not only forbidden, it’s also impossible.

From the first pages the reader knows that the story is heaving on angst, the only thing that console him is that, in the end, Brett finds the courage to express his feelings for Dermot, and Dermot proves to be the good man Brett thought he was and the reader had the chance to see. And maybe, there is even a little possibility that a romance for Brett is at hand.

I like that, for once, it wasn’t the “gay” character the perfect one; if you compare Dermot and Brett, probably Dermot is a better man, he is not only a good officer and a good husband, but he is also able to accept Brett for who he is, a good friend, and not for who he loves, another man. On the other hand, I think Brett is a very troubled man, and not so strong: he is not a bad man, but he is for sure not perfect like Dermot. And in the end, if I have to choose, I probably prefer him to Dermot, not since he is gay, but since I have always preferred the imperfect one; but some of Brett’s actions are not exactly what I would expect from a novel’s hero.

No Darkness by Jordan Taylor

Again I had the feeling from the beginning of the story that I wouldn’t find an happily ever after here. I don’t know, but every story I read involving the WWI has never had an happily ever after. I remember my history professor told us that the WWI marked a passage in the way men did was, they lost their quality of men to become meat to slaughter. And the men in command lost their quality of knights to become even more detached from the simple soldiers.

Darnell is a lieutenant, and Fisher a simple soldier. There is no reason for them to be together if not for the war and a bomb that traps them in a cellar of an abandoned farm. In the hours they are forced to be together, Darnell and Fisher learn that they have more in common of what they thought; it’s not a clear discovery, more a play of unsaid words and uncompleted motions. Fisher is more open than Darnell, even in his childish memories the reader seems to find some sign of what Fisher is trying to communicate to Darnell, and instead for Darnell it’s more a play to understand what he is not saying: he is married but doesn’t want children. He has a good wife but he doesn’t seem to miss her so much other than missing the simple life they had together. There is a lot of possibilities for these two men, and they come out from the “darkness” in a strong way to the reader, but still, in the end, the darkness is stronger than them.

The reader is aware that Darnell and Fisher can be something more for each other. And this is the reason why, sorry, I don’t understand why the story has to be so tragic, to be faithful to the history? Since the war was so cruel that it couldn’t have been different? I can understand that, but still, I prefer to have at least a smallest chance to a better future, for how much unbelievable it could be.

Our One and Only by E.N. Holland

This is probably a very unexpected pleasure to read. Unexpected since ab absurdo, this was the most sad of all the story above, one of the two lovers of the story is already dead at the beginning of it, and from that moment on, all we read is how the remaining one has to cope with his pain, a pain he can share with only few people, the one who were aware that Philip was not only a dear friend of Eddie.

This story had me almost in tear, above all since I was not seeing any chance of happiness for Philip. Every chapter is 10 years in his life and chapter after chapter I was finding him always alone, 10 years older and with that pain still strong, so strong to blind him to any other possibility. And to make thing worse, Eddie, even if dead, chapter after chapter was coming out like a wonderful man, someone who Philip was right to mourn. How was it possible for him to forget and going on with his life?

So no, in the end I was not expecting an happily ever after for Philip, but I didn’t feel cheated by it; the author was plainly clear from the first page, Eddie was dead and there wouldn’t have been no coming back of the good soldier for relieving Philip of his grief. The only thing I was expecting was for Philip to find a way to be at peace with his pain, to find a way to stop to believe in an happily ever after. Oh guys, I’m in tear right now, writing this sentence, since I can still feel Philip’s pain and it’s so strong, but I can also feel Eddie’s love for him and also it’s stronger, so stronger that even 40 years after, he is still able to give an hope to Philip, the hope that also him can have an happily ever after. In a way, to be happy again, Philip had to finally being angry with Eddie, for being an hero, being angry with him for the exact reason why he loved and still loves him so much.

So in the end, if the purpose of this anthology was to make me cry, well it reached it. I didn’t cry for Alex Beecroft’s story, in a way it’s a sweet and light story with little angst; I didn’t cry for Mark Probst’s story, I enjoyed the setting, but not so much the characters; I maybe almost cried for Jordan Taylor’s story, but as I said, there was an oppressive atmosphere, and truth be told, the love between the two men was only hinted (the scene in the darkness when Fisher tries with all his remaining strength to reach for Darnell, that was the scene that almost brought me in tears)… but boys, how I cried and still am crying for E.N. Holland’s story! If you want a reason to read the anthology, well this story is your reason.

http://www.bcpinepress.com/ (ebook)

http://www.cheyennepublishing.com/books/hidden.html (print book)

Amazon: Hidden Conflict: Tales from Lost Voices in Battle

Amazon Kindle: Hidden Conflict: Tales from Lost Voices in Battle

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

This is quite a controversial short story, it plays a lot on the squicky feelings people have with shapeshifter stories and it's also very hot, being very graphic in details when arriving to the sex scene.

Scott lives inside a park reserve. He is used to share the park with bears, he knows them well and knows how to avoid trouble. But then poachers start to kill the bears and the beasts become unpredictable. One night, after a very near proximity encounter with one of them, Scott finds the same bear wounded in his stable and calls Luke for help. Luke is a park ranger, a different type of "bear", but one Scott is bringing a torch for long time.

Scott is gay and he has no trouble with that, when he wants sexual relief, he goes into town and finds someone. But the one night stands he has are always with ordinary man, like him, and instead he likes the "bears" (not the beast but the big and strong hairy men), and in particular he likes one bear, Luke. So when fate brings them together, and Luke is not against the idea to share warm with him in a cold night, nature takes its course.

But there is a little catch, the wounded bear in the stable that disappeared and the equally wounded naked man, Bjorn, Scott found in his place. The strange familiarity Bjorn has with Luke, and how Luke doesn't seem to notice nothing of strange in Bjorn's behavior...

Short story, so there is nothing more to say, if not that, I'm not really sure to like so much the closing sentence: it's true, it's an hint more at what I said in the beginning, the fact that the author is very well aware that she is playing with a controversial matter, what's the point to write shapeshifter stories if the shapeshifter characters don't behave a bit like animals? There are some primordial instincts that you have to consider and preserve, otherwise the shifter nature of the characters has no meaning to exist.

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/TheBear.html

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

In a futuristic world where people went back to live like in the nineteen century, it's like the industrial revolution never happened, and the work of engines is done by slaves. Slavery is also legal, all cons, at the third conviction, lost their freedom rights and are sold into auctions. Jacob is the wealthy owner of a farm that not only utlize the work of those men on his land, but profits also of their well-endowed body in beds. When David arrives to his farm injustily framed of theft, Jacob suspects that he is innocent, but nevertheless decides to enjoy his new slave in bed.

This is probably the most interesting point of the short story: I really don't know if I like so much Jacob, he is not a nice man. But I think that this gives deepness to his character. I have the feeling that Jacob has never had a trouble in his life, even if it's not said, I think he was born wealthy and raised as a spoiled child, everything he wanted he had to have. So Jacob is not a bad man, he is only selfish. And he doesn't see anything wrong in owning slaves, since this is what he has always seen and learned as the only right thing to do to manage the new turn of his futuristic world. When he sees a slave he doesn't see a man, he sees a beast. Even when he starts to care for David, sometime he still refers to him as a stud, a beast, a pony. It's both a way to play kinky, but also his innate perception of things.

On the other hand, truth be told, David is not so strong or independent to help Jacob seeing him in a different way. Oh, he is strong in body, but as attitude, he is very much a submissive. Even the way he was convicted and condemned, I didn't feel like he fought hard to avoid it. He sometime seemed to me a martyr, someone who accepted his destiny since he thought it was right for him to go through all of that. It's not that the story is a real BDSM story, but it has its hints to that: the bench, the almost non-con sex, even if David enjoys his first experience and he doesn't protest, nevertheless he didn't agree to it, and he has no other chance.

The story is really short, less than 40 pages, but I think that, even in so few pages, it manages to build an interesting alternative reality, worthy maybe to be further explored.

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=500

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

This is a claustrophobic novel (and BTW I'm not saying it in a derogatory way, I think it was a quite hard psychological work for the author to write it), and how it can't be seeing that it's almost all set in a isolated cabin in the woods in winter? At the end of the previous book, Tyler told Dan that they would have been gone on a travel, to see the ocean: quite the feeling of freedom, isn't it? And so, when the reader starts this sequel, he is all for the moment when Tyler and Dan will leave the cabin to explore the world, and maybe test their relationship. And instead, chapter after chapter they are always there, in the cabin, making loving and quarelling, yelling to each other or kissing. From the most unimportant reason to life change decision, there is always a reason for one of them to be mad and for the other to try to make peace.

Due to the difference in age between Tyler and Dan, more or less fifteen year, you could expect that the one mad would be Dan and Tyler the one always trying to be the balanced one, and instead, in this second novel, we understand that Tyler "needs" Dan, probably as much as Dan needs him. Dan is the anchor to reality, and the reason why Tyler can constantly and firmly refuse to come back in service. And now it arrives another element that adds to the claustrophobic feeling of the story: actually Tyler comes back in service, but all his work is brought on by home, using the internet and his inquisitive mind. Again a claustrophobic feeling, seeing that all the action happens inside Tyler's mind. It's like the outside world doesn't exist, like if they leave their safe haven in the woods, only bad things can happens. The cabin is, at the same time, shelter and prison, and Dan is the first to realize that, if they don't have each other, there is no way he could survive alone there.

Dan is growing in this sequel, he is not yet at his full development as a man, but he is near. You notice that not only from some behavior, like not running away when he is mad, but trying to talk it off, but also in their sexual encounters; more than once Dan takes the lead during sex, and Tyler lets him do so. More, I think that Tyler needs it. When he has too much things swirling in his mind, letting it go, not being the one in control, it's probably the only thing that saves Tyler from going totally nuts.

In a way Dan and Tyler are equal, the difference in age is shortened by their own faults: Dan not yet a man, with still a baggage of insecurities and Tyler with all his nightmares, regrets and fears.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2275

Series:
1) Wild Raspberries: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/339025.html
2) Wintergreen

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

I have always found that Cameron Dane's books have an high emotional level impact and this last one is not different. What maybe I found different was that the story is "normal", nice and sweet, without paranormal elements, and so maybe more linked to reality.

Jonah and Christian were foster kid in the same home. Not really kid truth be told, more young men, at 14 and 16 years old. Maybe since they were similar in age, or maybe since she saw ahead of them, Marisol, the woman who took care of them, put them together in the same room and asked to Jonah, the older, to be as an older brother for Christian, to play as role model. That last part didn't work right, and Jonah made the bigger mistake of his life and went in a juvenile prison. But before he was taken by the cops, Christian shout out his love for Jonah to everyone who could hear him. That was the last time Jonah and Christian were together in the previous 15 years, even when Jonah came out of prison, he didn't come back to Christian, on the contrary he tried to cut off any bond he had with him other than Marisol. But now Marisol is dead and she asked him to help Christian to renovate her home and then sell it for raising money to donate to child care. Jonah can't deny this last wish to the only woman who showed him love, and so now he is again in front of Christian.

Jonah is the typical abused child. Having no one shows him love for the first 14 years of his life, doesn't teach him as to do it. The only person he thought was his only love bond, even if an abusive love, turned him to the system. And when Marisol entered his life, it was too late for him to learn how to love. What he felt for Christian is not exactly love, it's more a protective feeling: even if Christian had his problem with his own family, there are still hope for him to grown and become a good man, and so Jonah reflects in him what he knows he can't achieve. Christian becomes Jonah's hope for the future, he will have the good life he can't have. But Jonah doesn't achieve his goal becoming Christian's protector, on the contrary, he decides to leave him: Jonah considers himself not worthy of Christian's love since the man deserves someone better than him.

Years later Jonah is forced to face again Christian; in the last 15 years Jonah hasn't really had any relationship with another human soul, nor friendship or love. He is like an half man, like the single wing he has tattooed on the shoulder, he is not complete. Probably if Christian had a good life for his own, he would let him in peace, but Christian is alone. At first Jonah continues to deny what he and Christian himself really desire, but then he rushes to the center of it: from not wanting Christian to almost trying to hiding him to the world to have him all for himself. There is a rollercoast of emotion in the book, no half measure, and there is definitely a changing in the characters: at first Jonah appears to be the one in charge, he is the one who decides if starting or not the relationship, but for real, I believe that is Christian who sets the pace. Jonah is always on an edge, his feelings are raw and primitive, and Christian always soothes him. He did that in the past when they where teens, and he does it again now, both in their day-to-day life than during sex; Jonah bounces and Christian welcomes, and with his welcoming he is also dictating the relationship, and this evolution is reflected also in their lovemaking: at first Jonah is only able to take, to be the one in charge, but more their relationship evolves, and more Jonah becomes the one on the receiving side.

In Jonah's first attitude I really can see the foster kid, the one who has nothing and to whom all was stripped away; Jonah has the urge to take and hide (even the sperm of his lover!), and to do that in an hurry, since maybe someone else could arrive and take it from him. More the soothing presence of Christian arrives to him and more he starts to relaxe and to enjoy what the life has in reserve for him.

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-A_Fostered_Love-905.aspx

Amazon: A Fostered Love

Amazon Kindle: A Fostered Love

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

When Love Comes Back Around by Lisa Marie Davis

This book can be easily define a sweet romance. The story is pretty classic: small town, two sweetheart lovers, one from the most important family of the town, the other orphaned and raised by a drunk, the rejected of good society. They never should be friends, even less lovers. And to add problem to problem, they are both male.

Caleb is the golden son (even if he has dark hair...) and his father wants for him to be a politician. But when he is 13 years old he meets Royce, new in town after the death of his parents. Royce lives with his uncle, an abusive man, and the friendship with Caleb is his only escape from horror. When they are both 16 years old, friendship becomes loves and for four years they bring along a clandestine relationship. Caleb always swears that they will leave together, after college, they will go where they can claim their love. But when the moment arrives, Caleb cheats out, and Royce goes away alone.

Now after ten years, Royce is again in town, but he has no intention to meet Caleb, since he knows that he still loves the man and he will not survive to another farewell. Instead Caleb wants to see again Royce, even if for few minutes, since his life since their departure was an hell and he needs to be with the man he really loved, and actually the only man, or woman, for him.

The story is not so long, 70 pages, and as I said before, it's almost a sweet romance: there is a lot of talk about love, but not even one sex scene. Both Caleb than Royce treasure their memory, but the reader is not put apart of their thoughts. The story flows smoothly, it's easy to read, but since both characters are 30 years old now, I wouldn't mind a bit of more action. Anyway sometime is refreshing to read a sweet romance, and I'm always fond of the bad boy-good boy next door pair.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_95&products_id=1039

Amazon Kindle: When Love Comes Back Around

What Matters Most by Lisa Marie Davis

Silas was always a strange boy. He saw imaginary friends, or so he thought. When he was a bit older he understood that what he saw were the souls of dead people who had something other to do before leaving, and they asked to Silas for help. Even if so young Silas knew that it was not normal for him to see souls, and from his parents he didn't have help. Lucky him his paternal grandfather, an old Irish man, taught him about the "sight" and that their family sometime gives birth to a special man like Silas.

To add strangeness to oddity, Silas soon realized that he was gay, and as he never hid the sight, he didn't hide his being gay. For his parents it was too much and Silas found himself alone at a very young age. With only a money help by his father he moved in a new city and began the life of a ordinary clerk, and at the same time he continued to help the souls. Always open in all the aspect of his life, when he became friend, or lover, with another man, Silas didn't hide the spiritual side of his life, and this lead to him being alone, since no one actually believed him. Silas got the fame to be handsome and sexy, but a bit odd.

When he spends a one night adventures with Josh, and the morning after he discovers that the man is very much in the closet and without any intention to come out, Silas tries to go on with his life, but Josh's mother has other idea... the problem is that Sarah, Josh's mother, is a soul and help her in her last wish means reveal to Josh that he can see the souls of the dead.

The story is an odd mix of hanging atmosphere and lustful sex. Silas is almost double faced, one side the cool and serene man who sees souls and calmly helps them, on the other side the man who picks up a man for a one night stand and makes passionate love; these are two side that almost crash, but that in a way melt together to draw up the character. Josh instead is a problematic man, with a abusive father and a weak mother, a grown man with still the mind of a child; sadly he needs an authoritative figure beside him, since alone he would not be able to break free from his father's clutches.

Even if there is sex in this story, it's almost like an ethereal experience... again that hanging feeling; the overall sensation of the story is of a continuous flow of energy, without the up and down that usually characterize a romance. In a way, for a story which deals with souls, it's quite a right sensation.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_95&products_id=1041

Amazon Kindle: What Matters Most

Unstoppable Force by Lisa Marie Davis

This book has written "Cinderfella" all over the pages... there is also a fairy godmother in the guise of the very special male escort agency owner who matches Cinderfella alias Pretty Man Cale to Multi-Millionaire Prince Charming Ethan.

So, see, I can't be too hard with this story, since it's all about romance, and I can't not like a romance; doesn't matter if the story is unbelievable, if the cynical in me continued to say that a man like Ethan will never and never fall in love with Cale, I want the romance and I get the romance.

Ethan is a very handsome and very wealthy business man; at the beginning of his career he was a runaway guy with a skill for software and a pretty, even if rough, look. With the help of both his virtue, he manages to warm the bed of a middle age and wealthy man who in exchange, taught to Ethan how to be a successful business man. When the man moved on to another young lover, Ethan was enough skilled and independent to make his own success life. Today Ethan isn't searching for commitment, he likes to play the field, and so he usually buys the service of an escort agency when he is in the mood.

Cale is another runaway boy; escaping from an abusive stepfather who unfortunately taught to Cale that he is only worth for sex, Cale ended in the clutches of a little mafia criminal who, at his eyes, was a big treat. Managing to escape also from him, Cale now is under the shelter of fairy godmother Gwen, who sends him to Ethan. It's a match made in... bed? but Ethan pampers Cale like a prince, trying to instill a bit of confidence in the pretty man (and in this case I mean pretty as beautiful, since Cale is really beautiful even if he doesn't realize it).

A little trouble to resolve the issue of Cale's past does nothing to ruin the fairy tale atmosphere and the obviously path toward an happily ever after; if only life would be so simple...

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_95&products_id=1043

Amazon Kindle: Unstoppable Force

Loving Lucas by Lisa Marie Davis

Ten years before Lucas was a young high school teacher just out of college; he was the classical teacher who liked to be more a friends than a authoritative figure for his students, but he did that without second thoughts. Problem was that one of his student was an unstable teen who probably would need a psychiatric help and instead his family didn't take with the right seriousness the problem. Riley, the student, approached Lucas and when the man refused him, all went to hell: Lucas was raped and left for dead in a burning cabin. He managed to survive and to denounce Riley, but he also lost his life and his lover, who couldn't suffer his scarred body.

Now Lucas has a new life in a little small town where everyone loves him, above all the local sheriff; Nicholas is an handsome man, with plenty of choice if he wants, but he sets his eyes on Lucas. When they met five years before, Lucas was still too traumatized by his past events and he was not ready for something serious, and so Nicholas accepted the second choice to be his best friend. But now Riley is out of prison and both Lucas than Nicholas know that the man will come for Lucas, and Nicholas is not willing to let the man take the most important thing he has, Lucas; since Nicholas has no doubt that Lucas is his own.

The story is not very long and there is not mystery, since it's clear since the beginning that Riley will try to harm Lucas once again. It's more interesting to read and see how Nicholas will convince Lucas to accept not only his help but also his love. Truth be told, I think that Nicholas takes advantage of the situation to force Lucas to accept something than in other condition it will be years before they arrive to the same point. Probably Nicholas is tired to wait (but not enough to renounce) and above all he is tired to be judge by someone else actions. And this is maybe the point that I understood less: it's true that Lucas is scarred, but only on his back; in his everyday life, with dress on, he is a very beautiful man, and no one can notice his scars. All right, being a gay man, maybe having is back all scarred is a bit more important than a straight man (naughty Elisa, I know), but is it enough of a reason to dump someone? Lucas is clever, handsome, with a good work, is it possible that someone dumped him for some scars? And even if it happened, is it possible that he chose 10 years of chastity upon the action of only one man?

Anyway, the story is quite tender and the sex is good, something I noticed in the previous books by the same author: she mixes well the two elements, never letting the sex take the main role in the story, always letting the tenderness and love being in first line.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_95&products_id=1045

Amazon Kindle: Loving Lucas

Amazon: Love Conquers All (print book)

Reading List:

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

Well, Jere Myles, with the second book in his Murder Mysteries series, got me totally fooled. I was sure of only two things at the end of book 1, that I liked very much Mieko and Jon's characters and that I was sad to see them gone so soon. Actually nor Mieko or Jon were really gone, Mieko in particular, even if already dead at the beginning of the story, was one of the main character of the novel. His words and his love for Jon were the fuel for Jon and all the people who believed in him.

Murder Behind Closed Doors start were Murder at the Pier ended, with the Murder at the Pier of a lonely runner. It's strange, the title of both books refers to the last episode that happens in each of them, the murder of the first book at the Pier is the last scene of that book and we really don't know what happened if not in the second book, and the murder behind closed doors is a possible murder that will take place in book 2, and again, we will probably don't know the killer and the victim if not in book 3. It's like a chain, a ring at the end of the first book links the second, and so the second with the third. As it happened with book 1, I'm expecting to have some surprises in book 3, what I believe to have understood of Murder Behind Closed Doors it's not probably all right, I suppose.

Probably Murder Behind Closed Doors is more simple than Murder at the Pier. The characters are not new, and so we are already acquainted with them. The story flows also in a more "normal" pattern, there are fewer flashback than in the previous book, and in a way, book 2 serves to the reader to answer a lot of the unanswered questions from book 1. If you are thinking that I'm not enough clear, that I'm not giving enough clear statement, it's since I can't really give you the answer, otherwise I will give up entirely the meaning of Murder Behind Closed Door.

On comparison to book 1, Murder Behind Closed Doors ends with less open points: I think it's right, since book 3 will be the final book in the series, and so probably the author is preparing the readers for their last story. Other than answer to some question, book 2 changed also the perspective the reader had on some character from book 1: Rich and Tony, for example, I was sure they would have been main characters in Murder Behind Closed Doors, and it's like that, but I was totally wrong on their role in this story.

In the end, I think that, if the author's purpose was to entice enough the reader to continue to follow this series, he plenty reached it; I, for once, am not sure of what will be the wrapping up of the story, above all since, what I believed for book 2 was not right, and so now, I don't dare to suppose anything for the third and last mystery.

Amazon: Murder Behind Closed Doors

Amazon Kindle: Murder Behind Closed Doors

Series: A Murder Mystery
1) Murder at the Pier: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/666029.html
2) Murder Behind Closed Door

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

I was really surprised, after reading the previous book and posting about it, to discover that The Katman's Mate was so popular among the M/M romance readers. And no, it was not a surprise due to the fact that the book was not good, as I said in my previous post, despite some typo errors, I really enjoyed that story, but I really thought it was not a story for all. There are some squeack factors that I thought would have taken aback some readers, especially male readers, and instead I have a first hand experience of a male reader who said it loved it... so, maybe, even if I try not to, also I have some preconceived ideas that are wrong.

The Katzman's Mate, and Dream Mate even more, are male pregnancy stories. I couldn't say it clearly in the previous post, since the male pregnancy of the main character was the final surprise of that book, but here instead is the central event and even the starting point: Demyan, mate of the Katzmen ruler, Chellak, is pregnant and he wants a doctor from his own planet. Chellak, who dotes on his mate, sends one of his warrior, Trajan, to fetch a suitable doctor. When Trajan arrives on Elquone and sees for the first time Saris, the chosen doctor, he knows that he has found his mate. Saris was a bruter, a genetically changed man who is able to give birth, but he didn't like the side effect, being a property of the sire of the babies, and chose to be a doctor for them, instead. Even if he doesn't like the idea to be the property of a man, also him recognizes Trajan as his mate, since he is the man he dreams at night.

From this moment on the story follows the usual path: the two fall in love, they have to overcome some perils, in between they have the chance to deepen their relationship, even to "mate" a time or two, and then the happily ever after, with full accessories. Again I think the story is very much as an old classic futuristic romance, when I read story like this one, I always think to Johanna Lindsey and her Warrior's Woman, and it's a compliment I'm paying to the books, I loved that old savage futuristic romance.

What struck me is that a story like this one could be of appeal for a man. All right, I can understand the appealing for a woman, seeing a man going through the labor (pun intended) of a pregnancy is like a little vengeance; no, I don't think it's much the idea to "womanize" the man, it's more a thing of "see what it means?". But for a man? maybe the appeal is the idea that, even if in a fictional way, the men are now independent from women, even for that "little" particular that is pregnancy (again reverse pun intended).

What probably it's less "squick" here than in the previous story, is that Saris is a little less feminine; not in body, he is, like Demyan, lithe, small and beautiful, almost cute like Trajan thinks, but at least in behavior he is stronger; he is also more independent than Demyan, he has a strong core that let me think that he would be able to take care of himself even alone, something that I didn't feel for Demyan.

Anyway, again, the story was surprisingly easy to read, and this comes from someone like me that usually is not very fond of Futuristic/Fantasy setting. Truth be told, I was expecting a sequel to the previous book with the two main characters of before as central characters here, and instead this second book is focused on another couple... nevermind, we have still the chance to see what happened to Demyan and Chellak, and from the plan of this story, I think that the author is not yet finished, there are at least 2 other men that could probably be future main characters in other sequels.

http://www.bookstrand.com/product-dreammate-15000-192.html

Series:
1) The Katzman's Mate: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/776839.html
2) Dream Mate

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

This is by this time the fourth book I read with this fellows, and so now they are for me as familiar as old friends. I know them and I don't need to find new hint to understand them, but, it's strange, they seem always a bit different from book to book.

Jonty has always been the more easy of the two, in everything he did, job, life and love. Both Jonty and Orlando had bad experience in the past, but Jonty probably had the more traumatic experience, he was abused when he was a young boy at school. Despite this, he grew up as a good boy and with a joy of life that seems untainted by what happened years ago. And instead in this book, where he has to investigate in the murderer of the same two men who abused him, we discover that Jonty is very good in wearing a mask. A mask that, for a bit, he is unable to lift even with Orlando, who is the real love of his life.

Also Orlando changes a bit in this book. He has always been the shier of the two, the one who always worried for the future, who was always skittish to express their love through a physical manifestation. And instead now, he is very much physical, almost if he understands that Jonty needs the material assurance that a warm body gives. And he is also very protective, but always in a quiet and good way, even if he has all the reason to hate the men who abused Jonty, he realizes that he can't have an outburst of rage, it would be worst for Jonty than everything else.

As you all know, I'm not much for the mysteries, so, when I read one, I notice other things ;-) This time for example, my attention was caught by two different things: the setting, and with that I mean the various habitat where Jonty and Orlando move, like they restored Georgian cottage or Jonty's family country house. The author describes them in such a detailed way, that it almost seems to the reader to be there, living with them. The second thing I noticed where the supporting characters, that were as nice as the main ones, and sometime take the center stage; above all, Jonty's mother, Mrs Stewart and her husband, but also Jonty and Orlando's housekeeper, Mrs Ward, and finally, but not last, Rex Prefontaine and Matthew Ainslie, this last a character I would really loved to see having an happily ever after of his own.

I like this series, since it has a suspending feeling, it's an historical, obviously, but it is set in a time that it's not so far from us, and so we can identify in the men. How they live, how they think, how they love. Orlando maybe, is a bit too innocent, but I think he would be the same even in a modern setting, Orlando is an innocent at soul. And Jonty needs him to be like that, to cancel the ugliness of his past experiences with men very much not innocent.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/lessons-in-power

Amazon Kindle: Lessons in Power: Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 4

Series: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery
1) Lessons in Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/417687.html
2) Lessons in Desire: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/506663.html
3) Lessons in Discovery: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/641112.html
4) Lessons in Power

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

I suspect that Charlie Cochrane is a little prude as her character Orlando; and since I like Orlando, don't take this as a complaint, it's only that Charlie Cochrane's books are not notorious to be overly erotic, but more subtly sexy. The first book in the series was almost chaste, with some hints here and there that something was happening between Orlando and Jonty, but not real explicit proofs. In the second book it was expected for them to move on in their relationship, to deepen it... now, don't think that they jumped in bed and replayed the Kamasutra, but well that time something happened.

And in the third book? It's not in the nature of these characters to be daring, or at least not from Orlando's side, and so Charlie Cochrane adopted a trick that Monopoly's players well know, the "start again" penalty. And so at the beginning of the book, Orlando opportunely suffers from amnesia and Jonty has to start all over again his seduction play. It's indeed a nice play, and I enjoyed all over again the very prim and proper behavior of both characters, not only of Orlando; also Jonty is quite conservative: for example, when he finally manages to have Orlando again in his bed, he lets himself being swerved from his seduction plan for a coughing attack... and all end with both of them in their respective beds in separate not only rooms but even buildings... not exactly the behavior of a man overcome by passion.

But indeed Orlando and Jonty are right like they are, the nice stereotype of the two English professors of the beginning of the XX century, clever and full of knowledge, but maybe too often with their heads on the clouds instead of the ordinary things of life. They are allowed to being in that way since they live in a quite protective environment, the walls of Cambridge. In this case for them those walls are not a "prison", but their shelter, Cambridge is like a natural reserve where people like Orlando and Jonty can thrive where instead, outside those walls, they would perish. Some of Orlando's behaviors made me want to knock him on the head, but then I realized that I was thinking with a XXI century mind, and instead Orlando, and all his reserves, is the consequence of his upbringing in a very strict late XIX century family; we have to comprehend him and allow him to live in his safe world inside those walls, that are not only the physical walls of Cambridge, but also the mental walls he erected to protect himself, and that maybe are also one of the reasons for his amnesia.

I like also the new mystery they undertake in this new book; if it was another real murder, I would have suspected that Orlando and Jonty were like some unlucky charm, and I would have suggested to people to avoid them to not ending dead... And instead this time their investigation is aimed to resolve a more than 400 years old mystery, an investigation that is led through papers and legends, deciphering codes and making assumptions, some of them during a Christmas holiday spent with Jonty's family, they solve a mystery like modern families play at Cluedo. The mystery this time is more playful and less angst, above all since regarding people long ago dead and not directly involved with the heroes.

The new Cambridge Fellows Mystery confirms to be a nice and enjoyable book, with a very sweet romance, and two endearing characters.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/lessons-in-discovery

Amazon Kindle: Lessons in Discovery: Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 3

Series: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery
1) Lessons in Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/417687.html
2) Lessons in Desire: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/506663.html
3) Lessons in Discovery

Reading List:

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

If you decide to read this book, plan it when you have time, since it's more than 240 pages long and probably you will not want to let it down till the end.

Joey is a spin off character from Diving in Deep: he was Noah's ex boyfriend and in that book he was in a new relationship with Mark, a leatherman with the body of a bear and the character of a teddy bear... despite the apparently happiness of that couple, when Collision Course begins, Joey has just moved in a new city and moved on his relationship with Mark. Mark is now ex boyfriend number ten... someone could think that Joey is a bit of a slut. And instead he is a social worker, a man who really likes kids, someone who always cares for the other, he probably wants so much a family... is it true? or maybe Joey is fearing commitment like he is accusing his new boyfriend to do? Despite his independent attitude, for me Joey has still some personal issues to resolve before he is ready to build something steady with a partner.

Yes since Joey is always ready to jump from an ex boyfriend to a new one, and he did so also this time; the lucky chosen is Aaron, a paramedic he meets when he is involved in a car accident, the first of a series of accidents that convince Aaron that it's better if Joey remains with him till he is not again in full health. But Aaron has a pretty bad past experience with social workers and he doesn't like when Joey tries to psychoanalyze him: if Joey wants to stay with him and share his bed, good, but when it's day everyone toward their different path and not mingle with personal matters (like if sex wasn't personal...). Joey is very good to convince himself that he can accept Aaron's rules and still doing is undercover psychological diagnosis, but when he is too involved it's not easy to be an impartial judge.

As I said the story is very long and so it's not easy to summarize all the nice things that made me like it. For example, I liked that Joey, despite his curiosity, didn't use his work influence to dig on Aaron's past before the man feels the desire to talk to him. Another thing I like is that the past is the past and Joey doesn't have a magic wand to undo all the previous mistakes and turn Aaron's family in a perfect fiction happy family. And I like that the book doesn't end when Aaron and Joey discover that they love each other, since love is not the cure for all the problems, and they still have to deal with the fact that they are two independent adult, with different behavior, that need to work out a way to live together.

There is also a lot of sex, actually Joey and Aaron begin their sexual marathon day first and go on, even when they are mad at each other, even when it seems that only when they are having sex they aren't arguing. Sex between them is always easy and good, and so it's for the reader, or at least for me that I didn't skip neither one of their encounters...

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/collision-course

Amazon: Collision Course

Amazon Kindle: Collision Course

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

On Wings, Rising by Ann Somerville

My friends know that I'm not an huge fan of futuristic romance, but I can be "converted" if the book is good. And On Wings, Rising is very good. Ann Somerville recreates an entire universe and mixes up legends and technology.

The setting is a post apocalyptic colony planet where people have to live more or less like in a country village of the nineteen century. Energy is a rare goods, things work most thanks to human and animal work, people live on barter but there are still the tax! and also very high! Homosexuality is not a crime, but unnecessary: in a world where procreating means having more hand at work, a man or woman who choose not to gave birth are only weight for the community. Dinun is one of that men, and even if he had three kids with a woman (it's not really said, but probably through artificial insemination...), he didn't marry, mostly since the woman didn't want a man in her bed, and since Dinun prefers to be alone if he can't be in a same sex relationship. He jokes that the childs are tax relief, since a man with offsprings pays less tax.

During one of his searching trip (Dinun collects stones and furs to barter in the village) he makes a stunningly discovery: a injured angel. Angel in Dinun's world are mythical creature but not the fairy men of our tales: they are bigger than an human, with white fur all over their body and leathery wings; their bones are lighter than human ones, and so even if they are stronger than an human, they actually are lighter and apparently delicate... very much like birds I should say.

Hundreds years before, Dinun's forefathers chose to mix Angel's DNA with the human's one to create a stronger breed, a breed who can live in the harsh condition of the newborn colony planet. They were right, since the new breed survive, while the full-blood humans wither and die; with the lost of technology, chimerical humans also lost the knowledge, and so Angels become myth and no one see them again.

Now Dinun has in front of him an Angel who can't speak like him but only shrill, who can read his mind and send him flash of image to communicate, an Angel who was harvesting his child in a pouch like a kangaroo when he was injured by a full-blood human from off-world who stole his child. When Moon, the Angel, is nursered to health, Dinun and him discover that other five Angel childs were stolen and their fathers killed. Dinun sets himself to help Moon, for the good of the stolen childs but also since he is starting to feel something for the beautiful creature.

Moon is not a simple characters; apparently playful and sexy, he is behaving like his similar: Angels live in small pack within the village, they share bodies for comfort and relieve, they don't know the concept of couple like family. Sex is not only a way to procreate, it's also a way to voice joy and belonging: when Moon starts to see Dinun as a fellow companion, it's only natural and right to share also their body. Moon is also young, he is still not a grown Angel, and so it sounds right that his character is somewhat more playful than the others; but the impression the reader can have of him as a tender "puppy" is soon shattered when we see him in battle (probably the scene that gave me more problem...): but again, Moon is behaving like his people always do, according to a natural law that found its fundamentals more in the Nature course rather than in beliefs instilled by traditions.

Dinun is an easy character to like; he is tender and caring, he follows the rule, live and let live. Even if he is alone, he is not really mistreated by the villagers, maybe he is only considered a bit odd. I believe that his loneliness is more due to his own decision rather than to a real ostracism. Sometime I found him a bit too detached from his own relatives, something that maybe allows him to be more at ease when he is far from them.

In the end I would like to add something on the erotic part of the book. I believe that in the past Ann Somerville's works was sentenced as too much cold and not enough graphic detailed... I haven't find lacking on that department this book. It was not an easy task, since we are speaking of men with real different characteristic (fur, wings, pouches...), but I really enjoyed all the sex scenes, but also the playful erotic teasing of Moon... maybe I would like to read something "more", since technically, Dinun is still a virgin, at least in one way as I said in my tags... read no anal sex. But this is book one in a series and then I'm the one who skip the sex scenes if they are too much in comparison to the plot!

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/on-wings-rising

Amazon Kindle: On Wings, Rising: Book 1 of the Encounters series

Reaching Higher (Encounters 2) by Ann Somerville

In the previous book the pair of lovers were in a way "naivee": Dinun, even if adult in age, was still new to love; being gay in a farmer society where all that matter was how many children you can have, made him a different from his similar, and so it was quite easy for him to accept to share his life with Moon, a wild Angel, a breed of men with white fur and wings.

In this story there is another type of diversity, due to the "alien" nature of one of the main character. More, he is not only "alien", he is also the villain, one of the men that in the previous book tried to kidnap the Angels' babies to study their DNA. To Raelne is now given a chance: life imprisonment or cooperate with the government to retrieve the lost technology knowledge; in exchange of that cooperation, Raelne has a very slim possibility to repair the spaceship and return back home. Since Raelne has just realized that what they did is not exactly an honorable thing, he accepts and as interpreter and colleague he has Suaj. Suaj is an human like Dinun, a breed of men with mixed blood, human and angel together. But in Suaj the Angel DNA is more remarkable, and he is like them, with almost black skin, white fur and he would have also a pair of wings if they were not surgical removed as an infant.

The relationship between Raelne and Suaj is not easy at first; Suaj can't hide the fact that he is not very fond of Raelne's people and what they did. Even if he is not a wild Angel, he looks at them like his real people, and so, in a way, he takes upon himself their rage on Raelne. Raelne instead is fascinated by Suaj, I believe both as a potential lover (even if his interest is a bit fetish like) than as a friend, since Raelne has a very curious mind, and Suaj stimulates his desire of knowledge.

It's more a battle/meeting of mind than body; probably if there was not an intellectual interest, Raelne and Suaj would never come to have also a sex relationship, and the intellectual nature is what lead all their future encounters: neither of them will never arrive to let their heart take their decisions, the rationalism will always be first. Even if, in the end, if really faced to a choice, it's possible that for once...

Again there is still the fascination of a relationship between two very different men, not only in culture but also in shape. This time the difference is not so strong, Suaj lost most of his original physical traits, and maybe the author is a bit more reserved in describing him, helped also by the fact that Suaj is dressed (less details to give). Also the language barrier is no more a problem, and so the reader can concentrate more on the characters than on the setting: the two of them and their interaction is not so different from a "normal" one, they bicker like an all too normal couple, and also feign to despise what they really want.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/reaching-higher

Amazon Kindle: Reaching Higher: Book 2 of the Encounters Series

Amazon: Encounters

Reading List:

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




Cover Art by Anne Cain

The Night Hunters by Jacques L. Condor: “Lights in the sky, circles in the snow and stolen moose carcasses…in the Alaskan wilderness two former lovers stand together in the face of the unknown.”

Frank and Pete are more than 80 years old and former lovers. They are still living together on the account that they haven't any other place where to go. At the beginning of the XX century they moved to Alaska, built an isolated cabin and probably started a life together in a place where no one cared if they were lovers. In the '60 they "divorced", meaning that they decided they were no more in love and tracked a red line in the middle of the cabin. For the following years they continued to live together bitching and questioning, but, for me still loving each other, they have only to find a reason to understand that the love is stronger than the habit.
The "sci-fi" elements in this story are only a nice side effect, the main focus are Frank and Pete and their story. In few words the author told us a whole lifelong experience, and Frank and Pete came out as two wonderful characters. At the beginning, I was thinking for them to be only supporting characters, I'm true, I didn't think to more than 80 years old men as possible "lovers", and so I thought it was their friend Dill to be the hero. And instead Frank and Pete, with all their years, and with their past history, stole the scene and headed together towards a very nice happily ever after... again!

Borrowed by R.J. Bradshaw: “In Borrowed, Pete’s average working day takes a bewildering turn when his hot neighbour pays him an uncharacteristic visit.”

This a very short story and it’s quite funny actually. Pete is a 20 years old guy living in a small country farm village, and he has nothing to do if not fantasizing on his neighbour, Walt. Problem is that Pete has not courage to come out, at least with Walt, and so his situation is without hope. But then he receives an unexpected help from an alien who borrows Walt’s body. As in the previous story, I had the feeling that the sci-fi element was not the main aspect; more in this case, I even felt an old-fashioned taste, like an alien’s story of the ’50, when the alien were still “simple” creature and not the monster of recent imagination.

The Communion Fields by Trent Roman: “Around the world, a group of people find themselves in a strange dreamland when they go to sleep, where the laws of physics are suspended and something lurks over the horizon.”

In Trent Roman’s story, the gay character represents only one of the various examples of misfits in the real world. Michael, as others, sometime awakes in a different world, what he calls the Communion Fields. It’s not a dream, he actually made friends with some of the people he met there, persons he had the chance to meet also in the real world. But till this night, he didn’t understand why him, or the others, have this particular experience. Maybe this story is a bit more alternative dimensions than the previous ones, but still, it’s a very sophisticated type of sci-fi, and again it has an old fashioned feeling, this time more ’70 type, like 2001 Space Odyssey or some other cult movies.

Stargazing by Inga Gorslar: “The journey might just be the reward.”

In a world where soldiers were turned in half human half beast for being better at fight, Jack has no more a place where to stay. The war is ended, and Jack at 36 years is too old to go back home, a place he left 20 years before. He is now a drifter, without a place, and only a friend, Andy, an android he saved from destruction. Jack and Andy are at the opposite, Jack was a ground trooper and to be so he was given claws and special sight, and scales instead of skin, they made him loose his humanity. Andy instead has the body of a perfect man, but it’s a robot. Both of them now don’t have a reason to exist, if not that they are the only other contact for each other. Wandering together from small town to small town, Jack is trying to regain his humanity and Andy to learn it; in the meantime, they maybe will find also something else, that where no real human will want to be with them, they can be for each other also lovers other than friends.

The Prettiest Girl in the Room by Mallory Path: “Duster Mann adores women–especially when they have XY chromosomes like the woman he fell for at first sight and has been searching for ever since. ”

This is probably the most “futuristic” of all the previous stories, the one I usually refer to as “Apocalypse Now”. The setting is an oppressive and dark future world, that I really hope we will never reach. The difference between people are thinner, there are no more men or women, black or white, but there is still the sex. Duster is a man with a mission, and is mission is called Lyre. Lyre is a whore, she/he works with Faye and they are responsible for Lolly. All of the three “girls” are in between, not yet men or women, not yet adult but no more boys. Probably the story is not your classical M/M romance, as I said, the gender of the characters are very much “uncertain”, and so you can’t define it as gay, lesbian or transgender, it is all of it and at the same time no one of them. It’s also quite sad, I’m not sure if I liked the sadness, I would have probably preferred for an happily ever after, at least a “for now” one.

Time Now by C.S. Fuqua: “Mattie will do anything to change the past… but what if the past won’t let her?”

This is quite a strange story. Mattie and Abby are lovers, but Abby is not stable, she is always on the brink of suicide till the day Mattie arrives too late to save her. But Mattie and her college professor, Dr Davies are working on a time portal and maybe Mattie is not really too late to save Abby. Again another perspective in how you look at sci-fi: here is more a psychological one, and also, probably, the affirmation that destiny somewhat is stronger than science.

The Man in the Mirror by Lacey Louwagie: “In a world of declining male birth-rates, Gina moves to a Ranch searching for love. When Gina’s marriage fails, her best friend Andi takes drastic steps to make sure Gina’s dreams of love still come true.”

This is probably the most sincere of the stories: what are you willing to do for love? Not always the answer is everything. Andi loves Gina since forever; they went school together, they grew up together, and Andi thought Gina was everything she wanted, but for Gina was not the same. In the future world where they live, women outcome men 10 to 1, and finding a man is a so small chance that lesbian couple are an ordinary thing. But Gina wants an old fashioned relationship, doesn’t matter if there is no love in that. She is wrong obviously and in the end she comes back to Andi, with a daughter they can bring up together. But again, Gina is not happy, and Andi thinks that she can do the latest sacrifice, loosing herself for the love of Gina.

The Toti by Michael Itig: “Where can the gay man who has everything find fulfilment? There’s only one possible place: in the arms of a toti....”

This is a very cute story. In a world were everything is synthetic and “fake”, people give birth to people through clones. You are what your “fathers” or “mothers” are, and so, if your father is gay you are gay. Being homosexual is common, as it’s having open relationship. Jay, our hero, has 6 husbands and he is such a good husband himself that he has never had a divorce. But he is lonely. When the story starts, the reader has the idea that Jay isn’t accepting what society is expecting from him, to be gay. He is having payed sex with a woman, but there is something more of sex that he is searching, and only at the end the reader will find his answer, one that is surprisingly as it’s simple: Jay wants to be a normal man, and this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to be homosexual.

The Visitor by Fiona Glass: “Can love follow a person through time? When Madoc meets a man from the future he little realizes it will be the catalyst to change his world.”

The Visitor is a strange silver romance. Madoc is a fifty years old man who is searching for a dream. Thirty years before he falls in love for a man, Josh, who was a visitor from the future. He couldn’t stay and when he left, Madoc was only 20 years old and full of life. The world was a bad place where to live and Madoc fought to make it better. Now, 30 years after, the world is better, and Madoc is still alive, but will his love for Josh be enough? I liked a lot this short story, in a way, I think Josh would have been the right man for 20 years old Madoc. Now Madoc is a more interesting man, and maybe, this is exactly what Josh wanted.

Zoogarish by John Randall Williams: “Cole’s panic attacks aren’t about to keep him from a Zoogarish. He fights his fears only to find the hallucinations generated by this Zoogarish are something different, something deadly.”

Cole is living in a world that it’s not real, probably a place where he can be what in reality he has not the courage to be. And in that fake world, Cole is able to do things that real Cole will never do. I don’t know if I like so much “fake” Cole, I think I prefer real “Cole” and his stuttering, and his simple crush for simple and ordinary Johnny.

The Future of Dr Lole San Paulo by A.J. Astruc: “High above the morals and laws of the civilized world, a disgraced geneticist finds a new lease on life when an unusual thief comes to him with an indecent proposal.”

Lole isn’t whole and Bink isn’t real. Lole is a genetic scientist, the type of man that will not stop in front of anything, above all not life. He is quite the mad scientist and he got punished for one to many mistakes with the amputation of his limbs. When Lole meets Bink, he doesn’t know if loving or hating him, Bink is a clone and he can grow again flesh and bones. Together they have a dream, to make enough money to realize their dreams, but the problem is that their dreams don’t match, and the border between love and hate is too thin. More than a sci-fi, this is almost a futuristic Frankenstein and it has an horror side that overcome everything.

The Sister Bush by Joel Best: “A young woman from the distant future, plagued by strange dreams, learns that love and profit can be at odds with one another.”

I think the most interesting aspect of this short story it’s that it’s like reading poetry in prose. It’s not an easy story to read, and I think it has very little hope in the future; it’s also very dark and oppressive, but it’s a lyrics in it that made for a very strange experience to read.

Plumbing the Depths by Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks: “Washed-up Space Exploration Rangers, Cliff Cody and his husband Jake, are sent on a mission to the earth’s core, only to have the nature of their world and relationship shaken.”

Cliff and Jake were space warriors and both of them got seriously injured during a fight. They survived but other than losing limbs and other exchangeable body part, they lost something irreplaceable, their third husband Frank. Now retired officers, they survive but they don’t really live. Jake is resenting Cliff, but above all himself to be alive and Frank not. When they are called back into service, Jake thinks it will be the end of their relationship, and instead, maybe, it will be their only chance to happiness. I really liked this story, above all since it focused more on the relationship between Cliff and Jake than on their space adventure, that, in the end, was even more funny than dangerous.

Off Course by Logan Zachary: “Disaster leads to a close encounter of the best kind.”

Paulis is a space traveller, he flights alone with the only companionship of his computer Martha. He is the perfect man of the future, but there is nothing of futuristic in his passion for Ruark, a very much old fashioned big and strong man who helped him when he is derailed from his original route. I like how from a very aseptic and futuristic setting the story evolves in a very familiar and sexy story, with even the appearance of a mother, who proves that Paulis is not at all so modern as he at first appeared.

Eurydice by James EM Rasmussen: “Eurydice: a world filled with fanatics, lunatics and isolationists where they’d rather kill you than say hello. The perfect holiday stop, only if you’re still young enough to feel immortal…”

This is a very complicated story, but basically I think that Micael doesn’t accept himself, he is always searching for something more, something different. And even if he can have the love of Dary, a perfect man, for that exact reason he can be content with it: Dary is perfect and Micael is not, he wants to change, he wants to be a different man.

Whatever the Risk by Erastes: “Paroche is one planet Teless never wants to go to. When his partner and Captain announces that they are going to be trading there on their next jump, Teless knows it can only end badly.”

Here be Gardens by David Edison: “Jaime’s been living off world when the death of an ex-lover draws him back to Earth–or does he have a different motive for leaving the herbaceous Dyson Sphere he’s called home for two years?”

Jamie’s travel is accompanied by Henry’s letters, the letter of a dead lover. It’s a strange relationship, but stronger than the one Jamie is having in real life, where whose he thinks to be a friend is instead a traitor. Is Jamie’s coming back home to fulfil the last desire of a man he loved, or to find instead his true path?

http://www.queeredfiction.com/queerdimensions.htm

Amazon: Queer Dimensions

Amazon Kindle: Queer Dimensions

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

I really enjoy the shapeshifter short stories by Michelle Houston, usually they always have something special, a detail that made it worth to read them. In this case she plays a bit on the classical elements of the genre, the Alpha males and omega men. Ben is a turned shapeshifter, meaning that he didn't born to it but was turned by a rogue werewolf. In this paranormal world, otherworldly creatures like shapeshifters law themself with a Council, and that Council first killed the rogue werewolf and then "trained" Ben to be a "good" werewolf. If Ben wasn't able to fit, he would have been killed. Lucky him he fit but there is a catch: Ben is gay and there are no gays in the born werewolves. So he decided to live in an self-imposed isolation in a remote cabin.

Years later he receives a call: another innocent man was turned and Ben has to teach him how to behave or he will be killed. Nathan is young and cute, and gay... I don't know if Ben is more interested in training him to avoid him to be killed or for the fear to loose is only chance to have a mate.

This is really only a short story, probably I summarized all the story in those two sentences above. But as I said, it was very nice, and above all I liked Nathan's character: he is a sweet omega werewolf, so sweet and tender that he can be the perfect mate for Ben, that is not a real Alpha male. In a bigger contest, Ben would have been not the leader, but there, in their isolated cabin, he is the king. And as I said, Nathan is perfect for him; for a real Alpha, probably Nathan doesn't fit, he is not enough perky, he is too sweet-tempered, but for Ben he is right like he is.

http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Taming+the+Wolf

Amazon Kindle: Taming The Wolf

The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/850354.html

Conquest is one of those books that you like despite yourself. Personally I didn't like nor Jesse or Evan, the two main characters, but this is exactly the reason why I liked their story. Jesse and Evan are two young rock star, Jesse still a struggling one, but he is only 20 year old, so he has time to succeed, and Evan is a burnt star, he started when he was only 17 years old and now at 27 he seems to have lost the passion for it. They are moody, hot tempered and arrogant, in few word they are the perfect rock star.

Jesse is young and full of life, he has not supporting parents, they kicked him out when he told them he was gay, but his brother Brandon is playing the role of perfect older brother-substitute father. And so at 20 years old, Jesse only real trouble is how to find the money to produce his first album, his love life is still like he was a teenager, no really life burnt there, and Brandon is trying his best to protect him from the big bad world. I think Jesse is not yet a fully man, he has not really had bad, he is spoilt and too much self-conscious, but in a way, I like that in him: why someone has to suffer to be a good character? Jesse is lucky enough to have someone who takes care of him, and when he meets Evan, he only changes protector, from his brother Brandon to his lover Evan, and again, he didn't suffer in the shift.

Evan on the other hand is a full arrogant piece of... man. And as he said he was arrogant even before being a rock star, so his behavior only worsen in the change. He went in a self-imposed exile after a very bad experience, but again the experience was mostly his own fault. Evan has no one to blame if not himself, and to add badder to bad, it's not that the exile changed him so much. Basically he is a temper tantrum artist, and you have not to be on his path. But if you are on his right side, than Evan could be the perfect best and boy friend. In comparison to Jesse, maybe Evan had some trouble while growing up and also during his career, but again, I don't feel like he is a fully grown man, I still see him like an overgrown child playing with fast cars but still needing the comfortable embrace of a loving family, something he has lost and still miss. So when he finds Jesse, and his brother Brandon, Evan thinks to have found it all, and doesn't think twice to make them his own makeshift family... and here again, in a way, he is behaving more as a selfish man than a really caring lover.

I'm too harsh with them? I don't think so. See for example the little details, the safe sex issue. Jesse is a virgin, and his brother Brandon is always pestering him about being safe when he finally will do that. Jesse always replies like he is having that "boring" lessons, but you think, he, at least once, listened to that? And then, first time he has sex with Evan, he forgets it all. And Evan? he is older, wiser, responsible? No. Maybe, you think, he knows he is safe, but what lesson he is teaching to Jesse? They met that same night, I don't think they could play the exclusive card, and so? That is only a little detail that made me look at them more as child than really adult men.

Anyway, the story is one I like, I have always loved the show business setting and despite their fault, Evan and Jesse are cute, it felt more like I was reading about boys playing with their parents clothes, but still, they were sweet. Both are not macho men, they tend to be very emotional, and there is also a lot of sex, but again, I think it's in their characters. At the end of the book there is sneak peek on the sequel, so maybe Evan and Jesse will have the chance to grow in their second book.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=CONQUEST

Amazon Kindle: Conquest

The Rainbow Awards - Second Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

I don't know if Ethan Day, the author, is like one of his characters, but I like to think so, since Julian from As You Are, Aden from Dreaming of You and Davis from Self Preservation, are men that I'd like to know, and they have all one thing in common, they firmly believe in Love, in The One that will make you happy, and despite the age, or the time spent waiting for him, they know that sooner or later the happily ever after will be there also for them.

Ethan Day and his men also represent perfectly the common idea people have of a mid-twenty, thirty-something gay men: good looking but not gym butch, cultured and bright, with a deep passion for all his glamour and fashion, a love for the old divas like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (if they are a bit more radical for Katherine Hepburn, more European leaning, for the "other" Hepburn, Audrey). It seems a stereotype? I can already listen some of you say, "this is not real, this is how people tag the gay community, but reality is way more different?" Right? Wrong! The gay community is "also" it, but not only. If you want to read a gay romance, you have to know that you gay character can be like Julian, not all are some Alpha Males or omega men.

I like Julian, he is a man who knows his own faults but likes them. He is a bit crazy, very much lazy and easily distracted. He is almost thirty years old and he is still living on his parents shoulders, even if he went out of home at 18 years old to attend college. He has a job as bartender to pay his tuition (for the fourth time trying to finish a degree), but the car he drives is his father's gift, the credit card he uses to buy clothes is his mother's, and so on. Is Julian's repentant to live like that? No, and why should he be? His parents are all right with that, his roommate Danny is more than happy to share the living expenses and Julian has all day full with his best friend Gabby, his mother's visits and whatever else catch his very shifting attention, most of the time dreaming of finding the right man and settle down.

There is a problem: he is in love with Danny. And Danny is a man-heater that brings back a different boy every night. At first Julian dreamed that sooner or later Danny will awake one day to the realization that he was in love with Julian, but when that day never came, Julian behaved like a child to whom was refused a toy he wanted... the toy is not so good after all. And so now Julian wants to show to Danny that he can have a good man by his side, and the good man has to be Andy... but even if Andy kisses as a pro, and is handsome and with a wonderful job, he is also Republicans and very religious, two things that Julian is unable to move over on.

In all of this maybe Danny is a little on the backstage: it's not that he is a bad character, it's only that Julian shines so much that he overwhelms a bit his counterpart. Danny is probably like most of the mid-thirty men out there (and no, I'm not meaning gay men, this is common to all men), he is comfortable with his life as it's, he doesn't see why he has to change that, but then he has not yet realized that, in 10 years or so, finding new young chicken every night will be harder and harder, and also that, probably, it's better to come home to always the same person, who knows and loves you. Sound boring? To me it sounds happiness.

All the novel is a big one question: will Julian renounce to his dream of Mr Right, and settle down for a Mr Not-so-much-Right-but-almost? And it's funny and light and so good to follow him, again, I had the feeling to really see the author in this novel, this is probably the best of the three I read. Ethan Day is growing with his novels, and in a way, I think he stopped to write what he thought people wanted to read, to finally write what he likes, and in doing so, he is gifting us with Comedy books that are the paper version of the Comedy movies I love so much.

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-As_You_Are-1021.aspx

The Rainbow Awards - Second Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

Rase Illion is a forthy something (maybe fifty) multimillionaire business man. He has not made his fortune, he has inherited it, but he was very good in manage and multiple the millions. A friendly ex wife, a son in college, a new trophy wife, he should be the happiest man, and instead he is living an half-life. He always had an inferiority complex with his father, he was never the son his father wanted him to be. First of all he was gay and second he liked to be dominate; when his father discovered it, in the worst way after he finished in hospital due to a too rough scene, Rase again tried to be the perfect son. He married, he had a son to perpetuate the family name, he took care of business family... for thirty years he tried and he was never good enough. Then his father died without giving to Rase the acceptance he craved, and five years later Rase is still in a limbo, not yet realizing that he finally can be what he wants.

Gabriel is a young lawyer who lost his work; he makes both ends meet as stockboy for Race's firm and he draws Race's attention when he is found with a pair of cuffs in his pocket. When Rase goes to him in search of relief, Gabriel thinks the man is like all the others, men who believes to buy him, and he unloads on Rase all his hunger. Rase takes all and ask for more; only one night with Gabriel is enough to trigger a series of events that will change Rase's life.

Rase's character is pretty good developed. We know why he acts like he does and what are the reasons for his insecurity and desperate need of love. Even if I can't relate with his need to be hurt, and badly hurt, it's probably something linked with his relationship with his father, some unanswered questions he needs to close like that. Rase is lucky to find someone like Gabriel, someone that care for him enough to hurt him physically, but not to hurt him emotionally.

Gabriel is a strange and interesting character. He is not a main hero in the story, the story is almost all about Rase. And so we have some bits of information on Gabriel, but not all his story. Why he is without work? What happened in his past? Was he really a whore, as he called himself, or was it a metaphoric expression? Why he wanders around with a pair of cuffs in the pocket?

For how much strange it can be sound, I found Uneven a really tender story. Rase is a very good man, someone easily to hurt in his feelings (it's too simple to hurt him in body, he asks for it) and Gabriel seems to understand it, and even before deciding if he wants or not a relationship with the man, he tries to be careful and not to hurt him.

The sex is good, a bit "hard", with a lot of masochism play, so maybe not for all, but as I said before, in someway it's a caring love.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1441

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2273 (print book)

Reading List:

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

This is another twincest story and so probably no up for everyone out there. I actually don't mind read them, as I said, probably due to the simple fact that, being both men, there is no chance of an unwilling pregnancy that could be quite risky. And so, for me, a twincest has a reason to be if the two men involved are in love, and I don't believe it's so hard that it happens between identical twins, as one of the two men in this story thinks in his mind, it's like loving yourself, a modern version of Narcissus.

Plus Dominic e Mason, the two twins, have one reason more to be in love of each other, they have been always two alone against the world: abandoned by their mother when they were still children, abused by their father, Dom and Mason went away to find their path as soon as possible, always together, always relying on each other. They have also one another thing in common, other than the physical appearance, they are both gay, and they live in a small town USA where it's not so easy to find a partner. Or at least so they tell to themself, maybe to hide another truth: they are in love with each other but that love is forbidden.

Of the two, Mason was the first to realize the truth; the shyest and smaller of the two, he was also the one for whom was always easy find a boyfriend. But Mason is hiding behind his "easiness": he is in love with Dom and he knows that, and he is searching to replace his brother in his heart with other men. When that doesn't happen, Mason finds a way to have at least something from Dom: anonymous sex in a bathroom, with Dom that doesn't know who is on the other side of an hole in the wall. But when Dom finds out the true, it's time also for him to finally recognize that truth: why he has never had a steady relationship? Why does he always compare other men to his brother?

This is only a short story, barely a night in the life of the two brother, but it's a very intensive and changing life experience. I like that the author tried to give an explanation to the two brothers' love for each other other than a sex thing. The story has a bit of background, but due to the length, it has not a future evolution: the twins and the reader know that it will be not simple for them, but we don't know, or read, what will happen. It's left to the reader's imagination.

http://excessica.com/index.php/books/tempestuous-relations-by-amanda-young/

Buy at 1 Romance Ebooks

Amazon Kindle: Tempestuous Relations

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

This short story is a big teaser, and I'm not sure I'm using the word in a positive meaning :-) Joke aside, I like it but after having just finished one of the nicer sex scene I read lately, I'm here eager to read more and the short story is ended, just like that, in a blink of an eye. (big pout).

First teasing: the cover. Have you seen that? well obviously you have, I'm posting it very big so you can see it. The cover is actually a big teasing even if it's not fully respectful of the main character, Ankerite is more a lost puppy than a dangerous killer like he appears in the cover. Nevertheless the cover served its scope, since it teased me into getting this short story, even if I usually don't read the shorts by this publisher.

Second teasing: the story. Yes, I know, many of you are skittish when dealing with human and "animal", and thinking at a boy/man who is not fully man and not fully wolf, a guy with eyes, ears and tail like a wolf and all the rest like a man, makes you cringe. Me? it makes me interested. What can I say, I find it cute. Even more when the guy not only has "external" evidences of his nature, but also some inner "urges", like the need to mating, and get all excited around his mate, Linden. And Linden is more a big mutt than a dangerous wolf... right, he can be dangerous if he wants, and he is an Alpha for his pack, but with Anke he is more a both lover than "brother", he represents all the family the boy lost and now he desperately needs.

Third and last teasing... big one this one: the end. Actually also the beginning and all in between. The reader is plunged in the middle of a story, there was something else before, and it seems really interesting, Anke's original family. They need to be wealthy, they hired a bodyguard for their "freak" son, and this bodyguard was a nice man. What happened? where is that nice man? Why Anke felt the need to leave his family when he was only 16 years old? And then what happened before?

On Linden's side: what is his story? Who is Darren? and Cole and Ron? what is his life before that made him such a nice, but strong man? And now that he has found his mate, what will happen to them? This story is just too short to fully satisfy me, I see a lot of potential in this setting, I really hope this is only an excerpt of something longer, just a taste to tease the reader to come back for more. To me, it worked perfectly.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_77&products_id=1477

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html


Cover Art by Evelsys

When I was young there was a cartoon here in Italy that I liked very much. It was about an ipothetical daughter of Apollo, god of Sun, Pollon, and it was Japanese I believe. It arrived in Italy after passing through the censorship and actually very few of the original cartoon survived; I say so since, from what remained, you could understand that the main idea was that all the Olympic gods were highly sexually driven men and women, who practically have sex with everyone (and sometime everything!) was around. Their actual roles were always forgotten and you had to wonder how the human world could function if its gods were like that!

From this childish memory, it remains to me a passion for all the related stories about Gods and similar deity, and I enjoy, here and there, a story that mix ancient legends with modern time (see Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenion).

Venus Envy is something similar to that cartoon, it's setting in Rome instead of Mount Olympus, but basically the gods are the same. Venus in particular, and that is right with her role, thinks to herself like a gift for everyman, and when she is rebuffed by Sancus, god of honesty, she doesn't think twince to curse him with the help of her son Cupid. Now Sancus seems unable to desire, and have sex, with everyone he loves, but has an uncontrollable urge to have sex with evey man he crosses on the street. Being Sancus a good god, with actually a moral, he doesn't find the situation very appealing, even less when he falls in love for Aurelio, a nice man he met one night and is unable to "satisfy" the morning after.

This is only a short novella, so there is nothing much to say. I like one thing in particular, something that is often taught to us in school: in the common imaginary, the Greek gods, and their correspondent Roman version, are always seen as debauched and unstable, always ready to "party" and easy to be enraged, and so also vindictive; the "original" Roman gods instead, always represent something useful and "ordinary", they are more near to the human world than their Greek colleagues, and seems to care more for down to heart things, like jobs and homes and everything related. This is fully respected by this novella, where Venus is a bitch in heat and instead Sancus is more like a library mouse who finds himself in a very embarrassing situation for him.

http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/venusenvy.htm

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

The Vampires in this novella by Mychael Black are fashionable and charming like runaway models. They are all beautiful, alluring, wealthy... the perfect dream men. It's not surprise that "poor" humans are not at all worried by the prospective of being their lovers, what is a pint of blood in exchange of living with them?

Jason, wanna-to-be rock star, is not that different. He was a struggling artist, and alone. Now he is living in a beautiful house, he can devote himself to his art, and to top things with a cherry, he has a willing and beautiful lover, Julian. Their play in bedroom is very much like a gothic porn show, blood is not only the life source for Julian, but becomes also the main focus of their sexual encounters, and Jason learned to enjoy giving it to his partner, more he is eager to do so. Like in the title of this series, Julian is "blood", and so he is cool/cold (if not warmed another source), thick, something of continuous and life bearing, and instead Jason is "fire", impulsive, hot, unsteady and dangerous, but he himself the source of life if rightly used.

But not all is perfect in their life and an unknown stalker is creating big trouble in Jason's life. To help Julian arrives another vampire, Gabriel, another beautiful and alluring creature... those vampires are not all all scaring!

This is only a novella, but I like the mix of innocence and sex: even if it seems strange, I feel like Jason is "innocent", he is young and pretty, full of life and still a kid to life. He thinks to be independent and all grown, but in reality he still needs someone to protect him, someone wiser like Julian. And don't worry, even if "innocent", Jason is a more than willing partner in bed, and so there are a lot of nice sex scenes.

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1249

Series: Blood & Fire
1) Blood & Fire: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/649436.html
2) Blood Curse

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

Cooking with Ergot by Luisa Prieto

Dominic is a good witch; most of his enchantments are spent to create beautiful haunted gingerbread house he presents during a cooking show in a private television channel. His life is good and happy, he has a soul familiar in the form of a stuffed tiger he animated when he was eight years old. Everything is perfect if not that there is a cooking books author who is murmured to be a witch hunter, and he will be his next guest in his show.

Instead of waiting for Carter to come to search for him, Dominic decides to do the first move and goes in search of Carter. And what he finds is Carter threatened by his cousin Simon, the real witch hunter. And he finds also out that probably Carter is his chosen, his soul mate.

Writing a book like this one it could be really difficult since it would be easier to push on the "funny" elements, and get on the right side of the most romantic reader, or push on the creepiness, and make an enemy of that same reader. This book instead balances very well both elements and even when it's obvious that we are reading the funny side, we are always aware that there is a danger outside, but the danger remains always on the edge and for me it's better, since I'm that reader, or spectator of an horror movie, that hides behind her hands when there are the most bloody scenes...

So talk about the funny things: what about a stuffy tiger as a soul familiar? and a stuffy tiger that when is speaking as an old fashioned English accent and behaves like a real high level butler? Or what about the fact that all the magical stuff turns around kitchen and cooking factors? The witch is a pastry chef and the witch hunter is a cooking book author; and after sex the first thing that comes in mind is to cook!

Speaking of the characters, both Dominic or Carter arrive to me as "little brothers" type of man; they are not domineering, they are not alpha males, they are more the supporting character type more than the full hero one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they are not interesting, but only that they need their cozy habit, made of comfort and warm, to shine; they would be lost in a big bad adventure, they need the coziness of a little book with stuffy tigers and gingerbread house.

http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/new-releases/cooking-with-ergot/prod_220.html

Buy at 1 Romance Ebooks

Amazon Kindle: Cooking With Ergot

Bittersweet by Maura Anderson

Actually there is nothing of "bitter" in Maura Anderson's story: it's really a classical and good romance, and the setting in the middle of a wedding makes it even more sweet.

Brandon is a bad boy type if you only look him, but he is instead a very sweet man; the owner of a chocolatier shop, he spends his days and nights creating sweet treats for his customers and he is specialized in "sexy" chocolate, a thing that goes well with weddings and similar events. But even if Brandon has a lot of love around, he is alone, still mourning the betrayal of a past lover.

David is an happy-to-go guy, good job and good friends, he has not trouble in life. When he meets Brandon doing a favor to his soon-to-be bride best friend (David is the "man of honor"), he falls immediately in love. Like a teenager with his first crush he can't spend a minute without thinking or talking of Brandon, and then finally, finds the courage to come back to the shop... only to be brush off by a skittish Brandon, who can't believe that a successful business man like David is interested in him.

A kiss and a wedding will help the two men to be together, and if not for an hot encounter during the rehersal of the wedding, there would haven't been neither a sex scene in this very romantic story... the sex scene was nice, don't worry, but this story was more romantic than sexy after all.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=HCANTH01

Buy at 1 Romance Ebooks

The Shape of a Heart by Kimberly Gardner

Kimberly Gardner is another of those author who likes to play with stories more centered around the characters than the plot.

In The Shape of a Heart the focus shifts from Zach to Keith letting them have their emotional development. Zach is the mourning owner of a coffee-bookstore (and this gave me a pang in my heart, people who knows me since a bit know why...). Mourning since two years before he lost his lover Jay, and he is still grieving from the loss. Like often in these cases, Zach is basking in his pain and has no intention to let the memories go; who suffered a lost like him, recognizes all the signs, like when you are always expecting for your lover to enter the room, and when you think something, your first reaction is to tell it to him, only for suddenly realizing that he is not there, and to be stabbed again by the pain of the loss. But that pain is almost welcomed, since it's the only sign that you are still alive, that you are not dead like the man you still love.

And since you cling to these feelings like your safe anchor, Zach doesn't welcome well Keith in his life. Keith apparently is younger (apparently since he is really 29 years old to the 38 years old of Zach) and pain-free. He is always smiling, gentle and caring, and for Zach every smile is a stab more. Zach doesn't want to care for Keith, since it would mean to betray his lost lover Jay.

Keith is the new bartender of the coffee-shop. Zach was the librarian and Jay the coffee maker, and so, when Jay passed away, the coffee shop languished away. Now Rhonna, Zach's partner, hires Keith and Zach has no really reason to go against this decision if not that looking at the man is too painful.

As I said, at first the focus is Zach, he seems the only to have a past, and a painful one, but little by little we realize that Keith is not a simple character as he appears. At first it doesn't ring wrong that he is hired to be a bartender, since the reader thinks him to be young, and maybe he is still a student and this is a job to makes the ends meet. But then we realize that he is not so young, and that he is obviously too skilled for the work, and so who is he really?

The story is nice, but as always when the story is nice but not so long, I have a regret: the second part, soon after we are starting to realize that Keith is more complex than expected, it seems a bit rushed. All right, usually I'm not very fond of the fully drama stories, but I really believe that this one would be gain the up-level from nice to very good, with only some pages more. And maybe Keith's character suffers a bit from the lack of those pages more.

But nevertheless, it's for sure above the average of most of the story around, the sex is very good, just that bit of naughty that makes it arousing but not embarrassing, and the characters are also good.

http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/new-releases/shape-of-a-heart/prod_227.html

Giving Thanks by Maura Anderson

Troy and Derek are lovers since two years and they also share an home full of joy and comfort. They would be the perfect happy couple if not for the fact that Derek is not out with his family and this means that, at every family reunion, Troy has to play the role of the "roommate" with Derek's family. But Troy loves Derek and he would do everything for him, and so he is approaching once again the Thanksgiving festivity with the same good disposition as before.

But this year something changes: it's Derek that can't bear no more to listen to his father complains on his private life and how he undervalued Troy's role in Derek's life; so he snapped the day before Thanksgiving, and since he also works in the family's restaurant, he finds himself at the same time without family and work. But Derek wants to give the best Thanksgiving to Troy, and so we read of all the preparations to have a huge Turkey and everything else around only for two.

I like the story: it's nice and tender. Troy and Derek, despite Derek's reluctance to come out, are a very communicating and supporting couple; Troy never once makes Derek feel wrong for not presenting him as lover to his family, and never once let Derek without his support, even when Derek is stubbornly invading the kitchen with an huge amount of food they can't possibly eat in two. On the other hand Derek is very comprehensive of Troy's work, and how it's very tiring for his lover, and so he tenderly takes care of him in the best way possible: even when he is suffering for his father's reject, he still finds time to take care of his lover and to be always open and "straight" to their relationship. Derek doesn't hide to suffer alone, he shares his pain with a gentle smile on his face.

The story is not very long, 51 pages, but it's a very nice fast reading in the warm atmosphere of the holiday season.

http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/more-hot-reads/giving-thanks/prod_182.html

Amazon Kindle: Giving Thanks

Devon Cream by Jet Mykles

I will not make this a rule, but usually Jet Mykles' characters are always paired with a very self-conscious man and another one that is cute, funny, maybe straight, or at least he believes so (Heaven, Faith...). In Devon Cream I found again that pair, but with some interesting differences.

Steven should be the self-conscious gay man, the one who has everything clear in his life. But Steven is also the mother-hen of the story, the man who can't help himself to help everyone around him, from feeding neighbors to collecting stray cats. Steven is a really nice man, and even if he is alone since eight months, he is not the type of man who I see alone for a long time. He is so nice and generous, that sooner or later someone will snatch him away. So Steven is not the male version of a spinster, he is not in desperate need of love, his love towards Devon is not as it was his last chance to happiness, and for this reason I read it as more sincere.

Devon is the young boy who moved upstair Steven's apartment. Devon is handsome, physically he is also more imposing than Steven, tall and muscular, but he has those puppy eyes that practically melt Steven's resistance. Devon is not used to live alone, he was kicked out from his parents house since he failed college, and now he has to take care of himself, a task that at first he is obviously not ready for. And so Steven starts to take care of him, and yes, maybe he exaggerates in doing so since he is infatuated of Devon. But the things are clear between them till the first day (thanks to his noisy other neighbor Patty): Steven is gay and instead Devon is straight, so no way that Steven could have his way with Devon.

Said that, I don't believe that this story could be classified as a 100% "gay for you" one; there is not tortured decision in Devon, not an almost painful realization... Devon is only really young, and he hasn't had any chance to "experiment", so he is really a "virgin" to love in absolute, both male than female (even if he is not "really" a virgin, mind you). Jet Mykles is really good in planning Devon's slow but sure path towards his adult life, and along the path we see Devon's changes: they are both physical (he blushes less, and he acquires a "feral" look, from puppy to wolf) than behavioral (he starts to do things before people tell him to do so).

Steven didn't set up a plan to seduce Devon, I really think his truly idea was to help a boy in need, but it's like putting a match near the straw, at the first spark the fire is uncontrollable. What I like of Steven is that he didn't hide his feelings, or at least he didn't do that to whom has eyes to see (since maybe, as I said, Devon is too young to read the signs); Steven likes Devon, and he almost accepts his caretaker task as a torment of Tantalus, having near something you can't reach. On the other side, there is no malice in Devon, he didn't parade himself around Steven to tease him, even if he parades and a lot!

This story is a funny sexy romp, the sex is good and just the right dose, Devon has the right dose of cuteness without being a female in a male body and Steven is a believable gay man without being flamboyant. Nice contrast in Devon being the pretty thing of the couple without having the physique du role, he is the taller and stronger in the couple.

http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/more-hot-reads/devon-cream/prod_218.html

Amazon Kindle: Devon Cream

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=HCANTH01 (print anthology)

Amazon: Hot Comfort by Maura Anderson, Kimberly Gardner, Jet Mykles & Luisa Prieto (print anthology)




Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey

This is the classical example of short story that makes me love so much J.M. Snyder: it's a sweet and tender story, a bit naughty but not too much, and there is no sex at all. It's erotic without being pornographic, and it's all about the feelings, feelings that are simple and warm, like a homemade pie with a spicy taste.

Chris and Lee were old time friends, they met when they were still children and never be apart from that moment. Chris is the smaller of the two, in age and body, but he is actually the leader: what Chris wants, Lee does, and every single desire of Chris is like a duty for Lee. It's obvious that Lee is madly in love with Chris, but Chris doesn't really see his friend. Lee is like an old blanket, comfortable and warm, something you always search in the colder nights, but then, the morning after, you leave it at home while you go on with your day-to-day life. And Lee is too shy and unselfish to pretend more from his best friend, it's enough for him that Chris always comes back to him.

But something is changed, Chris has a boyfriend, and now, it's Barry that always comes first. It's on Barry that Chris, a tattoo artist, wants to try new things, Barry is like a blank canvas and Lee instead is already full of their past history together, an history that's inked on Lee's body. Lee is like Chris's photobook, instead of pictures of Chris in different stage of his life, there are his tattoo, from the beginning to the last, all on Lee's body.

Now Chris has to realize that what he has always wanted is right there and he hasn't to search for new shores, he already met the love of his life 20 years ago.

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/TattooedHeart.html

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

This is actually a book that won me over in time and not from the first pages as usually a book does. I'm very much the reader that, if at page 5 is not yet taken by the book, goes back to the blurb to see if I missed something, than read the last page, maybe the before the last page (I know, I know, shoot me on the place!) and then, if nothing else happens, I close it and open another one. No friends, I'm not such a martyr to finish a book I don't like, and so I don't post of book I don't like at all.

Said that, Stand and Deliver arrived to me with a big handicap, it's a menages a trois. Usually I don't read them, but this was an all male menages and plus it was an historical romance, so, well, I decided to give it a try. Another handicap was the starting point of the story, a young earl kidnapped by two highwaymen who becomes their private sex toy... well, a part from the "highwayman" factor, it didn't seem an accurate historical romance, and I have my idea: or you are perfect in what you write, full details and all, or you are at the opposite, the historical setting is barely there, and you instead focus on the characters. Scarlet Blackwell chose the second way.

Lucien is a young earl indeed, comes to his wealth maybe too soon. At nearly 30 years old, he spent all his life doing nothing, and now he is obviously bored. When his coach is cut off by four masked men, Lucien should be scared, and instead he is bored. He doesn't need the money he has with him, he could be very well give them to the men and being happy and alive, but he instead decides to not "stand and deliver". He dares one of the two leaders of the group and obviously he looses the challenge, managing only to see in face the other man. The same man who now forbids to his fellow highwayman to kill Lucien and instead kidnaps him.

Ambrosius is the man who saves Lucien and instead Dante is the one who would have preferred to kill him. They have a strange relationship, a man linked them, Sebastian, Ambrosius' lover and Dante's best friend, and now that he is died, the two men seem to find in each other comfort. But Dante is full of rage, and he thinks all the wealthy men he robs are the enemy, and instead Ambrosius is more the mourning type. With them there are also Robert and August, two lovers who play the role of silent best friends, usually characters that are not fated to last in the story, but don't worry this is not the case. All four of them live in a cottage in the forest, and no, it's not a retelling of Robin Hood, they don't rob the richer to give to the poorer, from what I gathered that is simply another job for them.

The main focus of the story it's not the "strange" career chosen by Ambrosius or Dante, or the tiredness of life that distresses Lucien, it's instead the play of domino among the three men (and even a bit with Robert and August, even if this couple remain exclusive). Lucien thinks to be in love with Ambrosius, but lusts after Dante. Lucien believes Ambrosius and Dante to be in love, and so he would not be against the idea to be third in the menages, if only for the chance to be with Ambrosius. Dante wants first to kill then to bed Lucien, but at the same time he behaves like he is trying to please Ambrosius, like if he is gifting him with a new toy to distract the man from the pain of losing his former lover. In all of this Ambrosius is the perfect mourning romance hero, with an aurea of sadness and imploring eyes, always trying to "say" something to Lucien, but actually never saying.

That's, the play between the three it was what kept me reading. Oh yes, there is sex, a lot of sex, even a threesome, and it was probably good, but the sex wasn't the main event in the story. The sex was always a tool, to persuade, to comfort, or to barter, and it was always used in the right way. The sex was not free and in this way it was right.

I usually don't like when the sex is too much in comparison of the story, and I'm true, I wasn't expecting for Stand and Deliver to balance it as good as it did. Lucien is for sure the better character, above all since he didn't change: he was and is and will be always a bored son of the aristocracy who has found a new toy; Dante and Ambrosius can believe that Lucien is their captive, but Lucien and the reader know better.

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=581

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

This was a strange book for me to read since it was a discovery after other. When I browsed my reading folder to pick up a book, my eyes caught the name of Maia Strong: it was not a new name for me, I read another book, a fantasy gay romance, and I remembered that I liked it, so I picked that one. Usually before starting I go to the publisher website to read the blurb (not reviews, I don't like to be even unwillingly lead on my judge): the blurb serves me to be mentally ready to the story, it's a contemporary, a paranormal, a fantasy, it's a romance, a thriller, it's angst, light... something like that. The blurb in this case was strange, it seemed an ordinary story about a man from a very religious jewish family who has not the courage to come out to them. Nothing strange or odd there. But then there was a word, brothel... I'm not so skilled in the matter to know if "brothels" are legal or not in every country of the world, I know they aren't in Italy, but I think they are in some northern European country, even if maybe they are not called brothel. So first question on my mind: where the book was set? and in which era? Then there was the issue of the law, a changing in love troubled the main character, a clear reference to homosexuality and prejudice... so again, my question was: I was starting a contemporary romance? or an historical? or something other? Knowing, if if slightly the author, I had an advantage point, I knew it was possible that the book was a fantasy. The cover didn't help, it was "neutral", even if, I don't know, that cover makes me thing to a contemporary romance... it's something in the men, the hair cut, even the physique.

Anyway, long preface to say that Client Privileges is a fantasy romance; more, it's setting in the same universe of The Ballad of Jimothy Redwing, the previous fantasy romance I read by Maia Strong, and one secondary character, that has only a reference cameo here, is a main character in the other story, and an event that happens here is also a main event in there. The time span of the two story is in parallel, so they are both stand alone, but I think that, if your read the previous one, and you liked it, it will be nice for you to read this one, and viceversa.

There are common elements in the two stories, above all the way the author deals with the fantasy setting. It's actually an "ordinary" way, she seems so familiar with her universe that she feels like unnecessary to spend time in details, the city, the environment in which the characters live, is out there, plain and clear, without forced imaginary. It's a point of strength for me, I actually don't like very much fantasy or futuristic novel since usually I'm bothered by all the heavy set around: more the author build a complicated universe, more he needs to explain it to the readers, and more he risks to overdo. Maia Strong built a fantasy universe that is basically a feudalism society, each municipality is ordered by a town council or by guilds; the overall feeling is of something neat and pleasant to live, even with its trouble. There is poverty, there are difference in social status, there is prejudice.

There is also an hanging feeling, it's very hard for me to explain: it's like the setting is "ancient" but the characters are modern. People move in a town where houses, shops, and vehicle are "old", but they behave and think with a "modern" mind. It's not a criticism, I think it's a very difficult balance to maintain, and not an easy task to write a believable story, something I think the author reached. These words, balance, believable, are the essence of the story, this is not a "rollercoast" type of story, but more a pleasant travel in a coach along the country.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2160

Series:
1) The Ballad of Jimothy Redwing: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/317025.html
2) Client Privileges

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

First of all, big warning: if you don't like a chick with masculine "characteristics" (don't let me go into details), you will not like this book. I think we have to be quite sincere, there are books written by men for men AND women, there are books written by women for women AND men, and then there are books written by men FOR men and by women FOR women. It's not impossible that men could enjoy romance only for women, I know there are out there men who read, for example, Danielle Steel, and more recently, Suzanne Brockmann. But they are aware that they are entering an exclusive playfield, a playfield that is open to special admission nevertheless.

Enraptured is a romance by women for women. It's a man on man story, but the I would not say that it's gay. True, being setting in a futuristic world where "homosexuality" is not more an issue, there is not even the smallest problem for the "all male" nature of the characters. More, being an inter-breed story, between Demons and genetically modified Humans, the issue is more the difference in race than the same-sex relationship. To add spicy to the thing, the Demons are an all male breed, their women all died for a virus centuries before, and they naturally modified their genetics to be able to reproduce between males. So yes, there is male pregnancy in there, and that is another plus factor for the submissive male to be more a chick than a rooster.

Said all that, it's a good romance? IF you try to read it knowing the purpose for which it was written, then yes: Enraptured is a funny romp, the futuristic setting is light and easy and the story didn't fall in the overadorned style that usually these stories have. The futuristic world is very much like a medieval "romance" setting, not the real Middle Ages, but more the fictional rendering that you often find in a romance novel; the plot is classic, the bastard son of a king raised in a monastery and subject to the lascivious attention of a villain, a powerful mage. Just when the evil father promised the innocent son to the villain for a much abhorred mating, an handsome stranger prince comes to the rescue of the "damsel" in distress. Only that the prince is not exactly a "prince charming", but more a demon with black leathery wings.

Where is the originality of the story? I think it's in the lightness, all events, even when dramatic, are more funny than angst. This is more a sexy romp than a sci-fiction novel. There are also a lot of kind homages to similar fiction out there: the human princes have long and colorful hair, they have to be virgin till they come to age, and so on.

So yes, if read with the right perspective, this debut novel by Scarlet Hyacinth is very nice, and I think I will read also the following books in the saga.

http://www.bookstrand.com/product-enraptured-15672-252.html

The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/823682.html

I remember reading on the blog's author that he wanted to write a romance from a man's perspective. He was tired, in a very kind way, to see men behave more like women in the romance he read. His point was that, men don't behave in the way he read in romance, but it doesn't mean that they don't believe in romance at all. And so is born When Harry Met Sal, a romance for men and women from a man's point of view.

The story is pretty simple and clear from the first pages: Harry and Sal met the last day of college, when both of them are ready to start a new life in the Big Apple, both of them freshly graduated from Stanford. Sal needs a lift for New York City, and Harry has a car and he is driving all alone across the country. Both of them are young and free, or almost: Sal had a fling with Harry's best girlfriend, but it was nothing serious from both side and there was a mutual agreement that the story will end with Sal's leaving; Harry is in a 2 years old relationship with Mark, but truth be told he is getting tired, and maybe the move to New York City will help having a clean break. So no, they are not exactly free to jump on each other bones, but there is not actually a real impediment.

First difference between man and woman: being Sal the former boyfriend of Harry's best girlfriend would be a very big impediment for a woman, she would be there brooding over the smallest chance that Sal didn't really forget the other woman, a woman to whom, in a way, if Harry was a woman, she would be bound to be honest with, and this would mean not to steal her boyfriend, even if it's really a former boyfriend... and on and on like that, one chance to thousand that in the end a woman is able to clear enough her mind to actually do something with a man she just met... Harry? He was in bed with Sal from night one and for the two following nights till they arrive to NYC. True, Harry did try to put up a bit of resistance, something like, I have a boyfriend, you are straight (since bisexual is not really something Harry understands, or you like girl or you like guy...), but it's soon forgotten as soon as he has a glance to Sal's quite substantial package...

Second difference, the bisexual point. A woman would have stressed Sal till death, trying to psychoanalyze him and finding a reason why he can't choose between men and women, she wouldn't have accepted his simple statement that for him there is no difference, since that statement doesn't collide with her idea. Harry? He takes it like it doesn't matter to him, and it really doesn't matter, it's Sal's choice and to him is all right like that, in the moment Sal is with him, and he is a good lover, what happens tomorrow is all another question.

Third difference, Sal and Harry have no problem to clearly state each other faults, in particular Sal, always hinting to Harry's ability to talk non stop, but it's like water over rock, it washes down without burning, Harry can pout a bit, but both of them are not able to take a grudge for too long, above all when there are much nicer things to do. And they are also similar when they have to talk about each other partners, and their faults, Harry can borrow a friendly ear to Sal, but he will never say to him what is right or what is wrong, it's Sal's choice... a female friend would be never able to stay shut.

And finally the love story. When Harry Met Sal the first time, it was not the right moment, they were both young and about to start a new life, it was not the moment for a serious relationship. And even if they probably recognized that they had something special, at the end of their three days together, they left with only a pain of regret, no drama, no years of thinking and hurting. They went on with their life. When they meet again, the time is again wrong, Sal is in love with another man. But being in love doesn't mean that he is not able to admit that he is still attracted to Harry, and that they can be friends with benefits. If love is not in the middle, they don't hurt no one, above all they don't hurt Braden, Sal's love interest, who is more interest to have sex with as many men as possible at the same time. But where is the romance in all of this, a woman reader is probably asking to herself? Oh, the romance is there, in that little point I made: "if love is not in the middle"... but love is in the middle, and first one man and then the other will realize that it's not possible to be friends with benefits, or they are all for each other or they are nothing at all. This is where the romance enters, when you realize that you can have sex as many time as you want, and enjoy it, but if you really want the best experience of your life, then you have to make love, not have sex. In the end, women and men are not so different at all.

This is not my first romance by Ryan Field, and short or long, I always liked his stories. But I think that When Harry Met Sal it's probably the best at today; it's well-finished and smooth, I didn't have the feeling of reading something too far from my habit like I had with Pretty Man (even if I liked the story, sometime while I was reading I did wondered if everything in it was possible); true, in some sex scene of When Harry Met Sal I had the feeling that they were a bit too much big bam boom, but that is in line with my "pool theory", women linger on the edge of the pool, men directly dive on the center. But even if direct, all the sex scenes were realistic and enjoyable, I didn't skip neither one of them, as sometime I do with other books.

Did the author reach his point? Did he write a romance from a man's point of view without loosing the romance? I think so.

http://www.ravenousromance.com/m/m/when-harry-met-sal.php?flypage=0

Amazon Kindle: When Harry Met Sal

The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/811346.html