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/p
Amazon: Broken
Amazon Kindle: Broken
The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/85035
Cover Art by Paul Richmond
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.p
Series: Screen Shots
1) Seduced: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/75169
2) Smolder: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/81253
3) Slinky
The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/85035
When Love Comes Back Around by Lisa Marie DavisThis 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/p
Amazon Kindle: When Love Comes Back Around
What Matters Most by Lisa Marie DavisSilas 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/p
Amazon Kindle: What Matters Most
Unstoppable Force by Lisa Marie DavisThis 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/p
Amazon Kindle: Unstoppable Force
Loving Lucas by Lisa Marie DavisTen 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/p
Amazon Kindle: Loving Lucas
Amazon: Love Conquers All
(print book)Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
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/les
Amazon Kindle: Lessons in Power: Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 4
Series: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery
1) Lessons in Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/41768
2) Lessons in Desire: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/50666
3) Lessons in Discovery: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/64111
4) Lessons in Power
The Rainbow Awards: Third (and last!) Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/85035
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/les
Amazon Kindle: Lessons in Discovery: Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 3
Series: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery
1) Lessons in Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/41768
2) Lessons in Desire: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/50666
3) Lessons in Discovery
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
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-1
The Rainbow Awards - Second Phase: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/82368
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-re
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?boo
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-re
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-h
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-h
Amazon Kindle: Devon Cream
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?boo
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/Ta
The Rainbow Awards: Phase 2: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/82368
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-h
Amazon Kindle: When Harry Met Sal
The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/81134
The Deadly Mystery series by Victor J. Banis is probably the only gay mystery series out there where the romance part of the book is good as well as the mystery one. In the four books we saw the evolution of their relationship, from being casual lovers and probably having no chance to be nothing else, to tentative long term partners, to the almost apex of happiness in book 3. Then the abrupt end of that novel, with a Tom, the strong man in the couple, scarred and for the first time weak. And maybe also a bit castrated from the fact that this time, it was not him who saved Stanley. They have their roles in the relationship, Tom is the protector and Stanley the one in need of protection, you can't change that, otherwise Tom doesn't know what is his place. Tom is a simple person, he is a man who reasons and acts more with his gut (and heart) than his mind, he is not stupid, but he is not one to brainstorming too much. If you take away from him his role, what he is for Stanley, what is his added value to the relationship. But as simple as Tom is, it's also simple for him to realize that even if scarred, he is still the same man as before, and that Stanley need him. It's not Tom's trouble to adapt to the new situation that is the focus of this 4th novel, but more the descending phase of their relationship. Don't get me wrong, it's not a negative descending, but more the natural evolution of a relationship fated to last a long time. You can't be forever newly wedded birds in love, you have to arrive at the time when you question if you are ready to take, or maybe respect, the decision to be IN a relationship, with all that means. And strange to say, it's not Tom who questions it, but Stanley. As I said, Tom is simple, he is a man of heart and gut, and when he decided to be with Stanley, he was well sure of what that would have meant. Already before, with the woman who wasn't a woman, Tom proved that he can be tempted, but he is strong enough to not surrender to temptation. Instead I think that Stanley realized for the first time that he has taken a decision for life. Stanley was infatuated, he was madly in love, and he strongly wanted Tom. More Tom resisted and more Stanley wanted him. Stanley didn't have time to think at what would have happened once his desire was granted. That once he had a man like Tom all for him, he has to be a one to one relationship, it's not possible to go off track, neither for a moment. Tom is a very demanding man, not at words, but as a whole: loving a man like Tom is a full time work, and Stanley is probably scared.
It's not a secret, if you read my previous reviews, that I like a lot Tom; I like also Stanley, but truth be told, my favorite is Tom. And so I'm true, I was a bit annoyed with Stanley, how could he have any doubts on his relationship with Tom? didn't he realize how much Tom changed his life to be with him? Didn't he at least be sure of their relationship and not be distracted by some pretty boys who flirt around? But then I understood that Stanley wasn't really interested in any of them, it was only a way to test his love for Tom. And then it was nothing of dramatic or irreparable, only some passing thoughts, and as Tom put it, if you have an itch, you scratch it with your man, and it's everything all right, even if that itch was caused by another man... see? simple and plain my Tom, no painstaking works on an hypothetical "mind" betrayal.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about the mystery... but is it really necessary? There is a mystery, it's good, I wasn't able to find for sure the killer, even if I have my idea on who they was... well friend, you now that, if you want a review on a mystery novel, this is not where you will find it. An "happy" note this time was that neither one of the victims was someone I care of, it was so sad in the previous books to read of interesting characters that were already dead, or soon be dead. I'm still grieving for that young boy in book 2.
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?boo
Buy at 1 Romance Ebooks
Amazon: Deadly Slumber
Amazon Kindle: Deadly Slumber
Series: Deadly Mystery:
1) Deadly Nightshade: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/49853
2) Deadly Wrong: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/51713
3) Deadly Dreams: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/67447
4) Deadly Slumber
The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/81134
You First by Kim DareThis is one of the most nice novella I read lately. And it's strange since usually I don't like BDSM story, but this one is a very slight shade of D / s play, so light that it's more a real "play" between the two men than a real lifestyle.
Luke is 23 years old and he is in love for the first time, even if he still doesn't know it; he is having a perfect relationship with Justin, an 18 years old boy he met in his usual hook up night club. They meet two days per week, on Wednesday and Saturday, and even if Justin in way younger of his usual dominant lovers, he is always able to make their encounter perfect. He is controlled and confident, he leads Luke with a skill that is almost too much for a boy his age; after sex, he is gentle and caring, and he is actually able to have a conversation other than during sex. He cares for Luke's ordinary life, he kindly asks how was his day, if he is tired or worried... Justin is perfect, too perfect.
Luke is a submissive, no doubt about it, but he feels inferior to Justin in everything, not only during sex. It's not right that Luke, older and more experienced, is always the first to come when they are having sex. Luke focuses on this point as the proof that he is not right for a man like Justin. If he is not able to outlast his lover during sex, he is not good to have a real relationship with him. With time, Justin will realize how inferior Luke is, and he will dump him. There are a lot of self-consciousness issues inside Luke that are boiling, and he is not able to overcome them; he is so full deep under them that he is risking the first and only good relationship he is having in years.
Justin maybe is the one that I found a bit too much unbelievable. I don't know, maybe it's only since, from my point of view, 18 years are too young to be so self-confident. Justin is independent, with a good work, a car, a good life, strong basis and positive attitude toward a steady and long term relationship... maybe too much for his age? But there are little chances that he is coming from a good and positive environment, from a supporting family that allows him to grew in the man he is now. If so, it's possible that he is so mature even at only 18 years old. Justin has that aurea around him, the aurea of a boy who is happy and comfortable with himself, an happiness that usually is something you haven't reached but it grew with you. And when the turning point of the story will reveal that yes, Justin is really an 18 years old boy, it's even nicer, since it will prove that he is not some aloof and detached sex machine.
The author is really good in rendering the feeling without making the story full of angst. Luke's issues are real, but he faces them with a light and funny attitude, almost all the time enjoying himself and being good for his lover. If there is a little pouting for not being able to last longer than Justin, it's soon forgotten when Justin cuddles him after sex. Overall the mood of the story is more fun than angst, but fun doesn't mean that the story is not well plotted and good developed; I find it's always a bonus when it happens in a novella, since I believe it's harder to plot and develop a good story in few pages than doing it in a full novel.
http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?s
Time To Do by Kim DareThis is one of the most romantic love story I have read lately.
Brennan and Rigby are best friends since forever. It's not clearly said, but I have the feeling that they come from middle-class families that probably lived in the same neighborhood and their parents were probably friends. For all their life, where it was Brennan there was also Rigby: schools, holidays and now college, always together and more or less in the same house or room. Even in college they are roommate. Brennan is the wiser and Rigby the happier. Brennan is gay and Rigby is straight. When Brennan came out to his best friend, Rigby said, cool, lets go eat a pizza. Rigby is so comfortable around Brennan that it's not important for him that his best friend his gay; his love for Brennan goes beyond their gender. They love each other so much, that it's almost incestuous to think that something could happen between them.
While Rigby loves Brennan like a part of himself, Brennan is like a brother, better Brennan is a part of his past, present and future, Brennan loves Rigby like a gay man can love another man. Brennan compares every man in his life with Rigby, and every man looses in the comparison. So when Brennan finds a list by Rigby, a "things I have to do" type of list, and he reads that his friend is open to the chance to have sex with a man, Brennan jumps in: he offers to Rigby to be his training ship. Problem is that Rigby doesn't even remember the list, and when Brennan offers himself, it makes Rigby sees his best friend Brennan with different eyes. Brennan has never talked about sex with him even if he has always listened to Rigby's past experiences with girl. Till that moment, Rigby probably has never ever realized that Brennan has a sex life, and that sex life is something Rigby has no part in. It's some side of Brennan's life that he doesn't know, and he doesn't like that: Brennan is him, and he has no right to give himself to someone else.
Now, don't get me wrong, Rigby is not possessive of Brennan in a selfish way; probably if Brennan had a steady relationship with a good man, maybe Rigby could be fond of the idea. But what he is learning about Brennan is about one night stands with strangers in the backroom of some bar. This is no acceptable, Brennan is better than that. Rigby has really at heart Brennan's good, even more than Brennan himself. For example, while Brennan is willing to let Rigby experiment, for the chance to have at least some fond memories, Rigby feels that it's not right for Brennan. What I liked most is that Rigby didn't jump to the obvious conclusion without thinking, he pondered his choice: Rigby had some expectation on his future, a family, children, things that, if he plans a relationship with Brennan will have to change. But again Rigby proves to be more than the happy-to-go guy that he seemed at the beginning of the story: in a way he is way more wiser than Brennan.
The story is a perfect example of two favorite gay romance subgenre of mine, "Friends with Benefits" and "Gay for You". Rigby loves Brennan despite his gender, Rigby is not gay, but he is not even straight; he could be bisexual, but he is planning to have a monogamous relationship with Brennan... so what Rigby is? He is simply a man in love, a man that wants the best for his partner, even if the best for Brennan means that Rigby has to renounce to something he considered important. In the balance of life, Rigby arrives to the conclusion that it's better to follow his heart.
You probably have understood that I'm very fond of Rigby. It's not that Brennan is not a good character, I like also his mix of pretty boy who has the potential to be a strong man; I like how he was always basically faithful to Rigby, if not with his body at least with his heart. I like him above all since he was able to inspire such a devotion in a man like Rigby. But as I said, I think that Brennan is not so wise as he looks, that he really needs someone like Rigby beside him, someone who forces him to face the truth and not to hide; if left alone, Brennan tends to shield against the world closing himself in a ball and not letting anyone inside.
As I said, this is a very romantic story. I like the setting, College, I like how young the characters are, how everything is still possible for them. I like the feeling I had at the end of the story, that this two boys will become happy and strong men, and that probably the life will be good for them.
http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?s
Amazon: Perfect Timing Vol 1
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
First of all, strange events in the publishing industry I'm not aware of, made that the first book in the series was out with Starbook Press, and this second with Cleis Press. True, it's not necessary to read The Cross of Sins to understand and enjoy The Riddle of the Sands, but without it you loose one of the most interesting aspect of this novel, the fact that it's the quintessence of all the gay fantasies, and probably the result of a lively imagination fed with lot and lot of adventures movies and books. There is one for every taste in the Fathom's Five: you like them careless and friendly, like a homemade dish? Shane, the Western modern cowboy is your man. You like them exotic and fascinating, like an ethnic speciality? Eden, brazilian doctor is ready for you. Young and fast, like burger and fries, but served in a china plate? Will, the son of an American ambassador and part time history student, part time pro football player is on the drive through. Traditional and just with that spicy taste? Luca, Italian dongiovanni and former art model, ready to please. And last but not least, you like coffe and donuts? Jake, half mercenary half good hearted man, is always a right choice. All right, now I'm hungry, and Geoffrey Knight's novel is the only one that can satisfy all those fancy ideas. It's useless that I summarize the story, first since I can't do that without giving to much details and risking to spoil the story, and second since, truth be told, the story is classic, like all the adventure books of the last 100 years, there is something to find, there are the good boys who are always first on the place, and there are the bad boys who always follow closely. The good boys are doing that not for money, but for a bigger and worthier reason, and the bad boys are only interested in finding a treasure. What I probably liked best in this second book is that the adventure seemed more innocuous, there were less dead bodies around, and probably there were also more funny moments. I liked very much Will's scenes with his estranged father, and was very interesting in the apparently sweet love story between Jake and Sam, even if, actually, since it is soo sweet (meaning that without sex or anything sexual at all), I didn't understand if Jake has a fatherly interest in Sam or something more personal. My favorite from the previous book, Luca, has only a secondary role here, but I think the author is thinking at something special for him, and I had the strong impression that, the author himself, through the words of Professor Fathom, let the reader know that Luca is also his favorite. Eden and Shane have their own little story going, and it's Shane's turn to have a little sexy story on the side, as Eden had in the previous book; they are important supporting role, and the author is always kind with them, but they have not yet achieved the upper level like Will, Jake and Luca.
The Riddle of the Sands is a surprisingly easy and fast book to read, I thought to have just started it and when I realized that I was more than half the book away. For me it's a compliment, it means that I was so sucked into the story, that I lost track of the time.
Amazon: Riddle of the Sands
Amazon Kindle: Riddle of the Sands
Series: A Fathom's Five Adventure
1) The Cross of Sins: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/64007
2) The Riddle of the Sands
The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/81134
The first story in the Screen Shots series was nice, kinda sweet if you consider the setting, a porn movie company that sells online video. The basic concept is that 20SomethingTwinks is a family company, the two owner, Katherine and Thom are more interesting in having a friendly and comfortable working environment than doing money, and they want for their boys to be pretty sure of the step they are taking... quite an utopia, but it's nice to dream that it exists. And then there are the boys, all young men, most of them just out of college, till now all of them in needing of an easy and fast way to raise the money they need to survive out alone in the big bad world. This is probably the only real thing that makes an appearance in this novella series, these boys are doing that since they need money, they are lucky enough to like what they have to do, and that they are doing it in a nice environment. Plus all the boys share a friends with benefits bond, in and out the set, but some of them have a special bond, a bond that follows them at home.This time is the time of Brandon, a newbie of the porn movie industry, but really a newbie at everything, even if it's not clearly said, I think he is a virgin. But Brandon has fantasies, pretty hot fantasies, and he is also in dear need of money. So the chance to see his fantasies come true, and plus being paid during that, it's too much to refuse. Like a sacrificial lamb, the first day at work, Brandon is spotted by Gabriel and Dylan, a perfect duo on the set and a real life couple outside of it. The duo is famous for being very intensive alone, and together they are something no one has ever tried. But they want Brandon, at least for his first time, and they don't want to wait for Brandon to go all over the usual step. In a normal context, Gabriel and Dylan would have been the last step, and maybe something no one will ever reach, for Brandon they will be the training ship. Problem is, starting with something so intensive can ruin a man for life.
It's all about sex, pretty good and hard sex, at least in this second novella. But it's not only about that. Willa Okati with this series built a special world, a world where something that usually is paired with dirty and obscure, here becomes a game in the sunlight, a funny and good game, a game where everyone is a winner. A game so good that people playing it are still willing to continue, even out of the set. It's like a community, you can be friends or lovers, but both bonds are important.
http://www.changelingpress.com/product.p
Series: Screen Shots
1) Seduced: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/75169
2) Smolder
The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/81134
Quarterback Sneak by Pepper EspinozaPepper Espinoza loves the unlikely lovers who win over everything. And she loves romance. This last book is a very nice novella, about two football quarterback in love; but it's not one of that story where love suddenly strikes and the two lovers can't do nothing if not surrender, it's the story of two childhood best friend grew together with a common passion, football, but this very passion drew them apart, first in different college and then in different teams. Despite the distance and the need to be discreet, Eric and Cache managed to build a steady relationship, lived inside the wall of their home, far from the eyes of everyone else, family, friends, fellow players and fans.
Eric played football to prove to his father that he was worthy, that he was the best; football for him was not his first choice of career, but he did good, and his father was happy. And after his father he played football for Cache, to have something more that bounded him to the man he loves. Eric is loyal and clever, but he has not a deep love for the game, he would be glad to throw all away to be able to claim his love for Cache, but he played accordingly to the unspoken rule that all football players are straight only to please Cache.
Cache played football since he thought it was the only thing he could do well. His father was a football player, and he always supported his son; probably he would supported him even if he came out, but Cache never did. When Eric almost forced him in a relationship, and not his first experience with a man, he was more worried on having a long-term relationship since it was easier to be discovered. Cache loves Eric, but he loves also football, and since no one asked him to choose, he thinks to can have both. But when his career is on stake for a bad injury and his relationship with Eric lands on the first page of newspaper, Cache has to choose what he loves more, football or Eric.
I like the story, it is a parallel tale of both Eric and Cache's life as young man at the beginning of their career and as two well-known professionals. Without the story of them at the beginning of their relationship, maybe the reader would only side with Eric, and blame Cache for being a coward. But with the tiny insight on their life together, and seeing him also through Eric's eyes, we now that Cache is a good man and that he was and he is good for Eric. The story is both tender and sexy, a very good mix of romance and erotica.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Qu
Amazon Kindle: Quarterback Sneak
Making Waves by Pepper EspinozaThe story is not very long, and it's a shame since one of the characters is my favorite type, an actor. The starting point is pretty common, a famous Hollywood actor, Scott, has to remain in the closet to not ruin his career and he even asked to a woman to marry him. But the night before his wedding he has second thoughts and to find the courage to go on with the fake marriage he decides to get drunk. Andy his the bride's brother, and his sister asked him not only to find Scott but also to bring him to the wedding ceremony in San Francisco. Problem is that Scott, as soon as he sees Andy, makes a move on him and Andy is not enough stoic to refuse the man, since he has a crush on him since his sister introduced them.
As I said the plot is not very original, but it's original as the author deals with it. Nor Scott or Andy are the usual perfect hero: it's necessary very little persuasion to Andy to have an affair with his sister's groom the night before the wedding. Even if Scott knows well that he is making a big mistake, he decided to marry a woman to hide the true from the media, that he is gay. Scott is not at all a brooding character, he is not strong and sure of his behavior, to go on with his plan he needs to get drunk. When they are together, other than having sex more than once, Scott and Andy smoke pot, since Scott wants to try everything he has never done, before marrying his lover's sister.
Reading all this, have you had an idea of both Scott and Andy? have you realized that no one of them is a square perfect All American hero? All right, Andy is openly gay, but he is also a grown man without a steady work, he lives in a borrowed house, he realizes that he is betraying his own sister, but still he does so, and not only, he even tells everything to his best friend! (kiss and tell philosophy...). Actually between the two, probably I like best Scott: all right he is lying to the media, but be honest, can he do otherwise without loosin his career? probably he is only wrong when he decides to marry a woman instead of choosing the bachelorhood, but this is another story, and you need to read the book to know what will happen.
All in all, the story is good and enjoyable, I like the atmosphere of little escapade and also the relationship between Andy and Scott, with all their faults and imperfections; probably, at long distance, a real relationship will be not simple between them, no one of them is strong enough to be the mainstay, but the book covers only two days.http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Ma
Amazon Kindle: Making Waves
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Ho
Amazon: Holding And Hiding
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Even if he now would never admit it, Tim knows that when he met Con for the first time, he found his true love. Problem is that Tim at that time was 10 years old and Con only 12; they still hadn't reached the phase in which someone wonders about being straight or gay, and they had only an year to be together. They were both in boarding school, but then Tim's parents died in a car accident, and Con's father had financial trouble and he went to live with his grandparents. Still they remained in touch, first with letters and then with emails; Con became Tim's internet friend, someone always present, but far enough for Tim to not feel threatened.Probably Tim was already a troubled boy, being sent in a boarding school at a so young age didn't allow him to form the first important emotional bond in life, the one with your parents. And the the accident and the various foster homes didn't help either. Tim repressed all the feelings of abandonment and sadness and became a control freak. He has to have control in everything, above all in his own feelings; as I said, Tim just met the only person in the world who can find a breach in the walls he built around him, and that person is far from him, he even controls that weak side of him, knowing in every moment where Con is and what he is doing. Tim starts to date women, since it's expected from society, but he knows that a woman has no chance to pull down his barriers and so he is safe with them. This is not a "gay for you" romance, first of all since Tim, deep down him, knows that he is in love with Con, and second since Tim is a full-figured virgin, in any meanings of the word: he has never allowed anyone near him enough to tolerate a physical touch.
But now Con has invaded his space and started to work on that breach. He is in Tim's apartment, in Tim's life again, and he is too huge: not only in the physical meaning of the word, but also to an emotional level. Tim freaks out, he feels his control slip out for his hands. What I like of Tim is that he seems unable to be nasty with Con; he is sharp and edging, but he always tries to do the right thing with the man. True, when Con has to go away for a period, Tim tries to rebuild his walls, but at the same time he tries also to understand himself better and his feelings for Con; when everyone around him already knows that Tim is gay, Tim has still some hope that this is not true, since if he is gay, he is in love with Con and he is in big big trouble.
The book is not so simple that the "little" realization of being gay allows to our hero to happily walk hand in hand toward the sunset (don't get mislead by the cover...). That is only the first step and maybe the simpler, it's only stating the obvious; if till this point the book was almost funny (with sentence like "after a month he was always sure to be more gay than not"...), now it turns in something more complex and moving. Even if Tim is a doctor, he has still huge mental barriers that don't allow him to admit that he needs the help of a specialist; on the other hand Con, even if a real good man, is a firefighter, not a therapist; but he tries to help the man he loves, he tries to be supporting and sympathetic. I really like as he comes out as character, since the reader can really understand that he is not like that, he is not for real an always careful and cautious man, but he knows that he has to be like that for the good of Tim, the man he loves... and when he momentarily forgot, the real Con comes out, with his requests of a puppy (when they are both men with eclectic working hours) or for Tim's to take cooking classes (when the man has already his days full with his job and other bigger problems).
Both characters are wonderfully rendered, but Tim comes out in full force. I was really taken by this man that apparently is aloof and detached, but instead has so much to give: I was almost regretting that it was not allowed to these two men to live their childish love, to grew together and being always happy since that tender age... but probably they would have been not able to realize the beautiful love story that now they are living. By Degrees is a very good novel, that mix romance, eroticism and a bit of drama, but that has also a funny core that always warms even the more angst scenes.
http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?m
Amazon: By Degrees
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I remember that I liked Concubinage, I have always had a penchant for Sheikhs and related story, and the fantasy world of the Courtesans of Tajhaan by L.E. Bryce resembles a bit that genre, but I also remember that Concubinage was a bit sad, not exactly a love story, but more the life of two akhari, Inandre and Hanithi, who probably, outside that situation could have been lovers and instead are best friends, and probably the only steady point in each other life. Inandre loves Hanithi, and the proof is that, when he is in dear need of comfort and the warm of someone who really cares, Hanithi is the only one he wants near him. But for how Inandre was raised, it's impossible for him to love another akharu, so impossible that he even considers it. Hanithi could be only a friend, and he is not the one who could resolve his immediate problem. Inandre was raised to be a lover, a companion, an artist, he doesn't know how to do anything else, and if he is not able to find a patron, he will be not able to survive.
Hanithi introduced Inandre to Shapur, a wealthy merchant, not the lesser nobility Inandre was used to frequent before the scandal that ruined his career, but Shapur is now is last chance. At the beginning of the novella, with the only point of view of Inandre and Hanithi, and the clear affection between them, I saw Shapur as an intruder in the possible love story between the two akhari. Then, when Shapur starts to behave a little better with Inandre, my idea of him changed, but still I was thinking and hoping for an end with Hanithi in some role in Inandre's life. But Shapur is a character who grows stronger with the story, and more I read of him, and more I put Hanithi in a corner; the author was so good to make me completely change my mind in the quite short span time of a novella. More, she was able to make me see Shapur from two different perspective: first the one of the akharu who was searching a new patron, and in a second time with the eyes of the lost boy that was Inandre, a boy who disappeared during his training, but that the bad experience he went through has brought him back.
And I was not expecting to find passion between Inandre and Shapur, I was content enough with the sweet and tender story they had, but I'm very glad that instead the passion was there, and that even if we read only about the sparkle, the reader knows that Inandre has a bright future in front of him, a future where he will be no more alone, and where he will be finally loved, as he has always desired, even if not admitted.
http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=D
Amazon Kindle: Dragonfly
Series: The Courtesans of Tajhaan
1) The Golden Lotus: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/18566
2) Concubinage: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/21522
3) Dragonfly
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A.M. Riley is probably one of the two authors who can write of Vampires and Cops, putting together two themes I'm not overtly fond, and make me like the book as I would like the sweetest romance. Not only, she made me love a full angst novel with cheating man (o apparently so), cops toying with BDSM, even a foursome... it's almost like she decides to pick up what a romance reader doesn't like and gives you the tongue, "see? how I write them, you like it". And yes, I have to say that she is right. I read almost all she wrote and was never disappointed.Adam and Peter are not new to her readers, she wrote a short story, a quite twisted Christmas tale, in where newbie vampire Adam, former cop, was still trying to acclimate with his new life, and his old buddy friend, Peter, former and present lover, had to decide what was the best gift for a vampire who has everything. The main interesting aspect of that short story was the "odd" nature of Adam: not the vampire thing, that is no more odd in gay romance, but his apparently bad boy reputation. It was not clear if Adam was a bad or good cop, he could have been even a corrupted one. But since Peter, the perfect good cop, loved him, something good in Adam he should have seen, and the reader had to trust Peter's judgment.
Anyway this is a prequel, the story of how Adam became a vampire. He is quite the lonely hero in it, Peter is more the good wife waiting at home, they don't have many scenes together, and when they have, they are almost always in bed (or even on the rug in front of the door). That this the strange thing of Adam: he knows that he is not at the same level with Peter, he was not at the Academy nor at work, but Adam seems to believe that Peter is his own property, that he will always be there for him. No matter that he has sex with a man on the way to meet Peter (first scene together), and continuously with two other men for all the rest of the book: that is something different, something he does almost in auto-pilot; with Peter instead is an act of bonding, and for this reason, everytime Adam feels at risk his exclusivity with Peter and on Peter's body, he claims him all over again, with sex that can be without problem compared to a club on the head of a caveman who claims his woman.
It's strange, but Adam's change in nature doesn't change anything in his relationship with Peter: all of above it was happening before Adam's death, and it's happening even now, with Adam as undead. Actually, Adam being a vampire doesn't enter in their routine, not even during sex: true, Adam's senses are higher, and he can desire something, but his particularly bond with Peter was strange even before. Adam was always the one in danger, and Peter was always the one who rescued him. For this reason, even if this is a paranormal romance, the love story between Adam and Peter has instead the feeling of a quite ordinary romance: two men, both cops, with different expectations in life who arrive to compromise to be together; maybe the one who renounces to more things is Peter, but he is clever enough to know that he will be never happy without Adam, so it's better something than nothing. Another thing I loved was how they were both sure, in their way, of their feelings: Adam was commitment's shy, but when Peter gives him a token of his love, he accepts that like a natural, like it is something of less importance; but I know that in his mind, he has scanned all the implications, and he has decided to accept it to not hurt Peter, since hurting Peter is the last thing he wants... in his way Adam loves Peter, as much if not more than how much Peter loves Adam.
I think this is a novel that could appeal to the paranormal romance readers, for the intake in the vampire world, a mix of old legends and "new" technology, but also to who usually is reluctant to read a vampire novel, since, as I said, the vampire nature of the characters is important but it's not all the meaning of the book.
http://www.loose-id.com/prod-Immortality
Amazon Kindle: Immortality is the Suck
Series:
1) What to Buy For the Vamp Who Has Everything: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/45866
2) Immortality is the Suck
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Passion's Victory by K.C. KendricksMicah is the not so young son of the owner of an important architecture firm. At 34 years old he is already a partner in the firm and owner of the 25% of it. Micah is also gay and out, but he doesn't flaunt his sexuality in respect of his older father and grandfather. And then when he turned 30 he suffered from a strange case of tiredness... he is tired of no strings attach relationships and he is searching for Mr Right. To him, Mr Right is an older man with a domineering behavior... like Jonas. Jonas is the "new" employee of the firm, but he is not "young": 48 years old and with a hidden past, he is handsome and more compelling since he is like a treasure to uncover; and the first mystery is to find if he is straight or not. Micah's gaydar doesn't work well with Jonas... well, if for gaydar you mean his penis' reactions, "it" works very well when Jonas is around, but still Micah doesn't know if the object of his attentions is available. It seems like Jonas build a shield around him.
The story is not too short, 70 pages, but it's really two scenes: the first in which Micah and Jonas play the touch and run game to know each other better, adn the second in which Micah and Jonas consume their relationship. But it's not simple, nor the first or the second scene. Jonas is not an easy character, he has a lot of layers and he is touchy feelings; Micah is walking in a minefield and he has to be very careful to not make Jonas run away. Actually if Micah was not so interested in the man, I don't know if he was worthy of all this patience... But Jonas is worthy, he has suffered a lot in the past, both physically than emotionally, and even if he is the older in the couple, he is now like a newborn baby to feelings, he needs to learn again to trust and love.
Even if different in age, Micah and Jonas are very similar characters, both used to be the master in the relationship, but now they need to compromize if they want to be together. But no one of them has to have the feeling to having lost his masculinity.
This is the second time that I like a K.C. Kendricks' story, but that in the end I'd be glad to have more to read. She builds very well plot and growing tension, there is a firecrack explosion, and then the end... why didn't she tell us more about the morning after? In this story there is a lot to say, a may/december relationship, an office affair, a family in the background ready to make its appearance...
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Pa
Amazon Kindle: Passion's Victory
Surrendered Victory by K.C. KendricksThis is a little discovery: little since it's really short, less than 60 pages, and a discovery since I didn't expect to be so enthralled by the story.
Dalton and Reed are dancing around each other since six weeks. Both in the same business field, construction enterprises, they meet every Friday at the same pub. Some beers together, sometime a dinner, a lot of teasing but not touching. Both are aware that it's not friendship that links them together, but Reed is uncertain on what he wants. He is 33 years old and he is still in the denying phase: he has had his string of girlfriends, to prove that he is the son his father wants, but his relationships always end in a bad way. Now he moved in a new city, far from his father, and maybe he is ready to admit what HE wants, and to do something to make it happens. Dalton seems the right man.
43 years old and divorced, Dalton has long ago admitted that he prefers men. He is not openly out, but he is willing to a bit of flirting and teasing, and maybe, if Reed is willing too, to some playful time together. What Reed nor Dalton are expecting is that in the end, their night together is more involving and not so easy to forget and move on.
Almost all the story is the slight mounting of their excitement during the fatal night: from the light teasing in the pub, to the full bloom of their expectations when they are at Dalton's house. It's a game of reach and fly away. Reed wants and fears, but he takes that final step that brings him in Dalton's embrace, and to an experience he cannot deny for long. But when he makes his mind clear, and reaches for what he wants, he is ready to dive into it with all himself. Maybe Dalton instead is ready for a casual relationship, but a full commitment is not what he is expecting; but he finds it and he needs to deal with the new turn of events.
Sexy, deeply erotic, very graphic in details but not vulgar, this story is a very good reading, fast and enjoyable.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Su
Amazon Kindle: Surrendered Victory
Shining Victory by K.C. KendricksShining Victory is a nice May December novella. Stacy is a 40 years old business man; he has a comfortable life, a good job and a beautiful home, but he is alone. Truth be told, he is not searching hard someone to fill the void: when he was 20 years old Stacy was charged for assaulting a 16 years old boy he was teaching martial arts. Obviously Stacy was innocent, but the experience weighted on him and now he is weary when trusting someone else. Even is consciously Stacy tells to himself that he doesn't need a man near him, all his attitude is for finding that one man.
Even if Stacy is 40 years old, he is still behaving like half his age; he lost that part of his youth and I think he missed it. So when he meets Levi, 25 years old but look younger, it's like a second chance to be young. Levi is all strutting and cocky attitude, and that leads Stacy to believe that he is dealing with someone old enough to have a relationship with. Even if they joke on the age difference, Stacy calling Levi "puppy", and Levi calling Stacy "old man" or "daddy", all in all they seem quite on the same level. There is not strict roles in the relationship, no top or bottom, not daddy / boy game.
Till this moment the novella was nice and enjoyable, but average; it was a good read but it didn't give any particular thrill. I was already filing it in the nice reads, when the author chose to give a shift to it: it comes out that Levi is not so experienced as he appears, that he is not out with his family and that probably Stacy is his first male lover. The balanced roles are now shattered, Stacy is facing his worst fear, to be framed once again of corrupting a young man. And this new side of Levi gives him also a deepness that he was before lacking. Truth, the shift brings back the story to a more ordinary may / december theme, but all in all I prefer it like this.
Overall the story is not so dramatic, the main focus of it is for Stacy and Levi to find a way to rebalance their relationship. The point is that, the age difference is there and it matters. Levi, even if he parades himself around like an independent man, is still a young boy who has not had the chance to grow into a full man. On the other side, Stacy is a grown man who wants to still feel the thrill of a 25 years old man. The two together complete each other and give to both of them the chance to have what they want. I think their is a potential good relationship, even if I wonder what will happen when Levi will realize the power he has on his hand, the power of youth. http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Sh
Amazon Kindle: Shining Victory
Amazon: A Taste Of Victory
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Recently I read a gay romance written by a man and my comment was that it was the proof that men can write romance. But still I think their intake on the romance is different from the one of a woman. Woman are more brainiac, they always did things more complicated than necessary. Like in this case: Boys of Summer is basically a simple story, but all the brainstorming happening inside the mind of one of the character makes it complicated only to realize in the end than complicated is not. Now I'm not saying it in a derogatory way, I like both men in this story, but maybe they are behaving more like a woman would do in the same situation, and so perhaps this is the reason why I can identify so much in Hunter's trouble.When the story starts, Hunter and Max have already realized that their story is something more than friendship, after some years they met, one night at the beginning of summer Max kissed Hunter and their love story started. Only that Max, even if handsome, self-assured and wealthy, is still a virgin to sex (both with men than women), and to finally give his virginity to someone else, he wants for it to be a true gift of love, and he wants for it to be with the right man, the man that will remain in the bed the morning after, the man with whom he can build a life together.
Hunter knows he loves Max, but he isn't so sure that he wants to commit to that level. For all the summer they met every night, they did heavy petting, but Hunter left every morning at dawn on his motorcycle (another quite romance image). Hunter and Max are part of a tight circle of friends, Max's childhood ex-girlfriend Louisa and Hunter former girlfriend Veronica are part of it, and so is Max's neighbor Ben... coming out as Max's boyfriend for Hunter means coming out full front with a lot of people and changing all his life. It's not a simple decision, and they decided to go on holiday together, far from all their friends, to see if their story has a future.
So at the end of summer we find Hunter and Max together, and we read the story from Hunter's point of view. There is no doubt in Hunter's mind and heart that he loves Max, and it's not that the problem. Truth be told, I don't think it's even a problem for Hunter coming out, admitting he is gay. I have the feeling that Hunter's trouble is one common to a lot of people, he fears to commit, he fears to settling down with one person, to do the shift from boy to man. I really don't think it's the "gay" thing the problem, I think Hunter is more a good and friendly boy who reached that point in life when he has to do something right. In a way, this made him even more real, more masculine... the fear to commit, to settle down, is very common in young men, maybe the way Hunter brains over it it's more a woman's thing, but aside that, Hunter is all "man" in his behavior.
When he finally decides that he wants something more with Max, he becomes all "boyfriend" attitude, carrying heavy things for his lover, beaming when Max is doting over him cooking or doing other sweet things. For good part of the book, Max has really a "bottom" attitude, he has even the teasing behavior that usually women have when they want something, he even uses the sex card, denying Hunter till the moment the man surrenders to his desires. I like how the author chooses to give also to Max his mainly moment, to scroll down a bit from him the idea that he was a bit too feminine.
Boys of Summer is only a novella, and the first book I read by this author, but I like it. It's sweet and sugar, a bit of an old fashioned romance, and sometime it's refreshing to go back to simple and nice stories like this one.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/boy
Amazon Kindle: Boys of Summer
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Jonty and Orlando go on holiday. It's a nice thing, and so it gives a new light to their story. And it's exactly the feeling I had reading the book, light, in both its meanings, the book is more easier and joyous than the previous one, and, even if the previous setting in Cambridge was a dear one to me, it had a sense of gothic and darkness, that in this new adventure you will not find.Even if at first Orlando doesn't feel comfortable to be outside the protective shell of Cambridge walls, he in the end arrives to enjoy the sense of freedom and the chance to be alone in a double suite with Jonty. They decide to spend in the Channel Island of Jersey, in a little beach hotel with an upper class clientele. During the trip and on the island, the reader has the chance to see a side of Jonty that I don't remember to have notice in the previous book: he is quite protective of his dear friend Orlando, and he, at the same time, pushes the friend to experiment all the possible joys the life can give them, and to share his past with him, a way to exorcise the nightmares that still prevent Orlando to fully love Jonty.
Even if in the previous book both Jonty than Orlando's past were presented to the reader, I really haven't had an idea of them outside the college. There were some hints on Jonty's family and some memories of Orlando's parents, but it's only in this new book that I have a whole idea of them, and at the same time, understand better the reason why Orlando seems unable to be completely involved with Jonty; I know, and appreciate, that the author is faithful to the period, and I understand that Jonty and Orlando would never be able to have an open relationship, but when they are inside their room, with the door locked, at the college, or at Jonty's house, or even there in the hotel, before reading of Orlando's reasons, I never really understood why he wasn't comfortable with Jonty's proofs of affection. There is that very first night, when Jonty almost implores him to share the bed, and Orlando stearnly refuses, that I would like to knock him on the head; but then he is so tender with Jonty and from that very first night Orlando seems to blossom to new life, accepting Jonty's dares that become every day more challenging and intimate.
There is obviously also a mystery, but I'm not good at describing it, I never know if I'm giving too much details with the risk to spoil the story... so I will let you discover it all by yourself, I will only say that it's good and with a very surprising ending.
Comparing the two books, I have to say that this second is way better than the first. In the first book both characters were nice, but they almost remained captive in themself, like the wall of the college protecting them from the outside world in a way were also shading them from the reader. Instead in this second book both characters shine, they are in the open, they walk in the sun, and in this way they are displayed to the reader. Also the sexual relationship between them evolves and it's more clear to the reader, but always with privacy: it's not necessary to give much details, when a word here and there is enough to give you the idea of the whole.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/les
Amazon: Lessons in Desire
Amazon Kindle: Lessons In Desire: Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 2
Series: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery
1) Lessons in Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/41768
2) Lessons in Desire
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Jonathan Stewart, Jonty for the intimate friends, and Orlando Coppersmith are both young professors in one of the Cambridge's college at the beginning of the twenty century. They are at opposite in work and behavior, Stewart a literature professor and Coppersmith a mathematics, Stewart open and friendly, both with students than colleagues, Coppersmith aloof and always lost in his mind. They also had very different family, Coppersmith now orphan and with two very cold and distant parents, Stewart still surrounded by a loving family.But they are both rather young and so they click together. Jonty has no problem to admit that he has also a personal interest in Orlando, being him not new to feel a maybe not appropriate moving for another man. Instead Orlando is more hesitant, but not since he judges inappropriate that feelings, but since he never before has felt something similar for a man or a woman. Orlando was taught to avoid any personal emotion, to suppress any physical urges, so soon and so strong in his youth that he never allowed himself to disobey that teachings.
When Jonty tentatively tries to introduce Orlando to such physical contacts, Orlando believes that kissing and cuddling is the greatest extent of what two men can do together, not having any knowledge of what happens in bed between man and woman let alone between two men. But Jonty, even if in love with Orlando, can't be satisfied with simple being a little more than a dear friend for Orlando, and gently pushes for something more.
Just when Orlando is letting go a bit, a string of murders targets the students, and all the victims are men who were known to prefer the company of men. To Orlando's inhibitions is now added also the fear of what it could happen to Jonty if someone should know of their "particular" friendship.
The story is a good mix of romance and plot; the relationship between Orlando and Jonty has the lion share on the plot, leaving the investigation on the killing in second line, never interfering with the development of Orlando and Jonty's exploration of love. Even if the relationship reaches and deepens to a sex level, it's never in graphic details, always maintaining a sweet romance grade.
The setting is the same of the previous tale by Charlie Cochrane, the Old University buildings of Cambridge, with its all male atmosphere where women are only seen as intruders.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/les
Amazon Kindle: Lessons in Love
Amazon: Lessons in Love
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Elected by Pepper EspinozaThis is a really short, 35 pages, but really nice story. Sam and Owen know each other. More, they probably spent more than one night together knowing each other better. But Sam and Owen can't be friends.
Sam is a Republican strategist while Owen is a Democratic news producer; and even if it's not clear if Sam really believes in what he promotes, it's more than clear than Owen is a Democratic for passion and not only for convenience. In the only 35 pages we had, it's not said how they met, probably for work related reasons, but Owen knows very well and in a very intimate way Sam, and Sam is more than willing to prolong this acquaintance, if they are discreet. Sam is also willing to make some changes in his life, to find a work that allows him to be near Owen, even to behave as Owen's boyfriend in their private life, if he could maintain his public face. And their attraction is so strong, and truth be told, Sam's behavior when they are alone is really good, that Owen is willing on his side to let go the "little" facts that he absolutely doesn't like Sam's boss, Sam's work, Sam's public face.
The story is a really good example of how you can't choose the person you love. And that it's better to try to fit together you different personality rather than be sturdy and wait for the other to change. Being extremist only led you to be alone in your bed.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/El
Peanut Butter Kisses by Pepper EspinozaAs the candies in the title, this romance is sweet like sugar.
Peter is a big pastry chef, he is at the top in every competition, but always second. He is again competing at a national level and again he has as an assistant Josh. Josh is a young chef who looks with starry eyes upon Peter: for Josh everything Peter creates is perfect, and when Peter loses, for Josh is almost a personal matter. Obviously Josh is in love with Peter but he has never had the courage to make a move on Peter, both since he doesn't judge himself worthy of the love of wonderguy Peter, and because he really doesn't know if Peter is gay, since the man never express an interest in him, other than for work.
But this time Peter seems a bit more interested in Josh as a man than in Josh as a pastry assistant...
The story is short, less than 40 pages, but really really sweet. I like above all the fact that Peter is really not a special guy, maybe he is even a bit overweight, and he is really a sweet guy; but for the loving eyes of Josh he is wonderful.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Pe
Amazon Kindle: Peanut Butter Kisses
The Obsolete Man by Pepper EspinozaThis is a really, really, really nice short story... I have said to many really? well sorry but it's what I was continuing to replay in my mind while reading this book.
James is an average man; good looking, nice, beautiful eyes, probably if he was a little more self-conscious he could be the classical successful man, and instead he is quite and maybe even a little shy, he doesn't consider himself worthy of more than he has and he settles down to a life that maybe it's not what he dreamed, but that is good and so why change? There is a part of James' life that remains obscure, and it's how he ended married with a woman when he is clearly attracted by men. Anyway James being a nice man as I said, has never thought to cheat on his wife, even if he has noticed the handsome man on the 7.23 a.m. train he takes every morning to work.
But if drama didn't hit James' life, he would probably have continued with his daily routine till the end of his working life to then settle down again in a retirement routine, letting that handsome man slip in a hidden closet of his mind. But in a blink of a moment, James becomes an obsolete man: at 45 years old he is too old to learn again how to be printing technician in the publishing firm he has worked for 25 years and he is fried; his wife, that probably has never shared passion with him, has not enough patience to support her husband in a life change, and leaves him. Without his daily routine of going to work and coming back home, James is lost, and the only solution he sees is to end his life "using" that daily routing, throwing himself under the 7.23 a.m. train.
In the spur of the moment, and since he has really nothing to loose, James decides to devote his last day to realize his secret fantasy, approaching the man of his dreams, the handsome stranger on that train. He is nicely surprised when Chad not only welcomes the approach but confesses that also him had noticed James before. There is no question on the fact that Chad is gay, maybe since we are at San Francisco, and Chad has "that" attitude, maybe only since he welcomes James' approach in a way a straight man wouldn't do, anyway James chooses the "straight" way (pun intended) and asks Chad to follow him in an hotel and share a morning of sex. And Chad accepts.
Chad's character is not really full developed, at least not as James' one. He is a nice man, he is gentle and caring, and from the things he says, we can understand that he is not selfish; he not only noticed James since he was a nice looking man, but he also noticed when the man stopped to smile, so in a way, he noticed when life started to spiralling down for him. He is not so unselfish to refuse an offer of easy sex from an almost stranger, even if Chad knows that something is not right with the man, but then he is really nice, trying while having sex, to also understand James' reasons and troubles.
I don't believe that James really wanted to commit suicide, he only needed a nice gesture from someone; but if that gesture hasn't come, probably James would have gone on with his intent, the author is really good in mounting the tension till the break point.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Ob
The Prince Who Never Smiled by Pepper EspinozaLeopold is the prince of a fantasy medieval kingdom. He has never smiled and so people think that he is deformed or maybe cursed. Recently his mother is not well and her only wish is to see her son's smile and so the king, who is deeply in love with his wife, sends out a decree: the first person who will make his son smile will marry him.
After being subjected to all the type of "show" from a string of wanna-to-be princess, Leopold takes a break and goes on an hunting expedition in the country, and here he meets Dexter, a young peasant who is going to court in search of a well-paid job to help his family. Leopold, who actually prefers the company of men, even if, till this moment, neither men were able to make him smile, as soon as he sees Dexter, can't help the smile on his face. Why is not exactly clear, if not a sudden case of love at first sight, since Dexter hasn't done anything of really funny.
This is the classic example of Cinderfella's story, with also a bit of breeches rippers: Leopold is besotted by Dexter, and he claims that he only wants to please him for once, since till this moment people only pleased him. But truth be told, Leopold bends upon a full debauching plan to strip Dexter of his virginity, and there is a bit of droit du seigneur in this story, with Dexter that feels as he can't deny anything to Leopold since he is his prince. But Dexter is not so against the idea, and once Leopold shows him what they can do together, he is more than a willing participant. He almost forgets that he has a family at home waiting for him.The story is a quite enjoyable novella, a funny romp between the sheets with a fairy tale atmosphere (even if nothing of really "strange" or out of ordinary happens), but all in all it's more tender and romantic that real funny, with almost a little core of sadness.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/Pr
Amazon: It's Only Love
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The Screen Shots series is a woman perspective on the gay porn industry. Here Willa Okati imagines that a former female porn star, who likes to see man on man action, and her gay best friend, have founded a porn producing company, Twenty Something Twinks. They manage it like a free sex community, in a small farm just outside the city, where both producer, director and actors are happy to go every morning, like it is a day at play more than work.The new addition to this odd family is Cody. Cody is just out college with a degree in philosophy that didn't help him to find a job. Take like that, you could think that he decided to try the porn industry path since he was desperate for a job, but it's not exactly like that. Cody is bi-curious, and even if he has never had a same-sex experience, he is not against the idea, and why not earn also some money? For Cody is simple, he has never had trouble with his sexuality.
Not of the same attitude is Aaron, Cody's roommate. Aaron was never at ease to share his sexual exploits with Cody, and now that is friend is doing it for work, it's even worst. Aaron is feeling something, maybe jealousy, and the worst thing is that he really likes the guys with whom Cody is working. If Cody was working with some ugly men in a sad environment, maybe there would be the chance for him to stop, but like that? No way. And so, if you can beat them, why not join them?
The turning point of this story is, can you really love a man, but share him with a bunch of other guys just only for sex? Apparently yes, otherwise all the porn stars would be single. The story is a funny romp, easy and enjoyable, and it's almost sweet to read the common life of Aaron and Cody, both of them so unfit to the simplest housekeeping chores, not exactly the epitome of the flamboyant gay guy, more boys in need of a mum to look out for them.
http://www.changelingpress.com/product.p
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All right, I'm sincere, I don't know if I personally like how the series evolved in the last chapter. Please take a good look to that "personally" word, this is an opinion of mine, and it's totally based on my personal taste, it's not a judgment on the value of the writer or the story.The two cops in this series, Gary and Dan, both evolves in reverse flow. Gary starts like a very troubled man, who is not sure of his sexuality or his life at all. He was a molested child, he denied his homosexuality for a long time, and when he finally admitted his love interested to Dan, he found out that he probably was bisexual, not homosexual. At first both Gary than Dan probably thought that it was a remainder of that denial period, or maybe an hint that Gary was not ready or willing to seriously commit to only one person... but more the time passes, and more Gary realizes that he is not complete with both Dan than Kim by his side. If he is forced to choose, his love for Dan is stronger, and in book 3 he tried to commit to that love only, giving up his relationship with Kim.
On the other side Dan started like a very strong and self-conscious man. He was gay and proud, he was a cop by the book, he knew what it was right and wrong. He was the steady man that Gary needed to heal and flourish... or not? Being Dan so "straight" (no pun inteded), so convinced of his own idea, makes him quite inflexible. To live with Gary you have to comprimise. In the last three book Dan went through all the rollercoast that is a relationship, the happiness, the sadness, the denial of love and the realization that you can't live without. Now it's time for Dan to decide if he is willing to accept Gary as a faulty man, or if he wants to be alone with the icon of a dream man that is not real.
So, this is a menages... no way to avoid the definition. At least the author wrote it as I like it, with the male/male pair stronger, but nevertheless it's a menages. Kim is also a nice character, and in a way, the fact that she really is in love with only one of the two men, Gary, make all the story more real... Kim is in love with Gary, there is no competition inside her, like Dan is in love only with Gary. There is no relationship between Kim and Dan is not friendship... giving that, it's still a menages? Nice point of discussion.
http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?m
Series: Moment of Truth
1) To Serve and Protect: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/56010
2) Choosing the Light: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/67573
3) Missing the Ocean: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/70982
4) Learning to Love
Reading List:
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I'm too old and it's too much time I'm around. Or maybe it's only that I read too much. Z.A. Maxfiled wrote a parody about a man who wrote a parody... I think I'm able to recognize to whom Z.A. Maxfield identifies herself in the novel, enough to say it's not the writer (too simple), and I recognized who was the writer she is paying homage to. The story is actually a comedy of errors: Jae is a literary critic working for an LGBT Magazine, The Adversary (quite clear reference to The Advocate...); Jae is an half Caucasian half Asian man, and his full name is Jae-sun, but he goes for Jae, and this sometime leads people to think that he is a female. Often writers who are pissed off from one of his reviews accuse him to be a woman, and so to being unable to understand a real good piece of Gay Literature. You would think that Jae would be the first to defend himself claiming that he is a man, and instead he has always let it go, finding useful to have the change to play the double role, male or female when it is necessary. Like in this case: Jae is real angry since a woman, Kelly Kendall, dared to write a parody of one of Jae's favourite coming of age novel, Doorways. Doorways was like The Catcher in the Rye or some other breaking coming of age novel for Jae, and seeing a trashy novel like Windows taking and ridiculing it, it's too much. Above all since the author who did it is a woman! (payback is hard to digest…) How does she dare? She can't understand how important that book was for young Jae.
Problem is that Kelly can truly understand, since he is not a "she", he is Kelly Mackay, alias Kelly Kendall, alias Kieran Anders, the author of both Doorways than Windows. He wrote Windows to fulfil a bet with Will, his houseboy / dogs boy, a 20 years old former hustler who he welcomed in his home as secretary and buddy friend with benefits. Where Kelly was probably the angst teenager in Doorways, Will is probably the slut teenager in Windows... they are two different perspective on the same story, and Kelly is also probably overgrown on the teenager he was. At this point I also recognized another gentle homage Z.A. Maxfield probably did, to the movie Finding Forrester; not only Kelly Kendall has the same Irish/Scottish origin of the character in the movie, William Forrester, but he has also the same problem to being trapped by his first novel: people adore Doorways so much, that Kelly is scared to writing something else. To do so, he changed completely the genre and went under another pseudo. Plus Kelly suffers of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and he avoids like a plague everything that is not ordinary or stranger.
Jae is bent on "outing" Kelly Kendall as not only a woman (his publisher maintains the mystery around him) but also a plagiarist. He starts to pestering Kelly with emails from a supposedly female fan, StrawberryFields, mails to which Kelly replies with gentleness but avoiding giving details. Only that, email after email, both Jae than Kelly start to realize that they have much in common, and that they like to talk with the other online... is it possible that a so good online relationship turns in something real? Yes, it’s, since Jae is used to have things to easily, and dating Kelly it’s not easy at all. Someone could say that Kelly is a nut case, but I think that he is only a very special man, and he needs someone to take care of him. Don’t get me wrong, Kelly is not retarded or similar, he is only a man with a lot of odd customs, but it’s what makes him a special man, and he has not to change; he only has to find a man who can deal with him. And learning to deal with Kelly maybe will teach to Jae to see things less in Black and White, to see the shades, to be more flexible, and learning that, to be a better man. Not always being a crusader is a good thing, sometime crusade did a very poor job to humanity.
When I said that being a crusader is not necessarily a good thing, I’m not only referring to Jae’s fight to “out” everyone who hides his homosexuality (which negative side we read in the fate of an actor at the beginning of the book); take Kelly’s OCD… someone like Jae, so strong and used to see only the right and the wrong, probably would try to cure himself, to force nature to submit to human’s will… and doing so you would destroy the real Kelly. The real Kelly it’s not the “healthy” man, the real Kelly is the obsessed one, the troubling one, he is special since he is not normal, level him to the rest of the world, means to kill him.
I like also as the author dealt with Kelly and Will's relationship; true, they are having a sexual relationship, but not from Kelly's side or Will's one there is a real emotional commitment. Both of them know that what is between them it's not real love, problem is that Kelly doesn't know if real love exist, at least not until Jae. I like that, even if at the beginning the author let us in the more intimate details between Kelly and Will, when Jae is becoming something more than an email address for Kelly, that relationship slowly but steadily turns in a real friendship, without benefits. It's made in a way that I don't feel bad for Will, on the contrary, I believe that he needs more Kelly as a friend rather than as a lover. Not only Kelly finds his love, but it happens at the same time when Will's past is revealed (a past of child molestation), and in a strange play of destiny, it's actually a better thing for him that Kelly, who can be a fatherly figure for Will due to the age difference, becomes totally sexually detached.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/epi
Amazon Kindle: ePistols at Dawn
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Cover Art by Anne Cain
With the third chapter in the Moment of Truth series, the author almost made me think that I didn't understand anything of the story... the second book ended with Gary who confessed a betrayal to Dan, he said that there were someone else. Dan stomped out of their home to drawn his sorrow in the alcohol, but he receives the advice to not let it go. Meanwhile Gary was again thinking to suicide, but this time he is stronger and he is able to weight the good and bad side of life. When Dan comes back to him, Gary is also able to let Dan understand that it's not only his fault if their relationship is having trouble, and that Dan has to take upon himself his responsibility.Now if you haven't read the story and don't like to be spoiled, stop to read NOW.
If not, please continue... at the beginning of the relationship Gary was straight; he was a former abused child, and he denied his homosexuality. In fact he acted as and more than a normal straight man, he had girlfriends and he was quite popular. Then he met Dan and thanks to his love for him, he was able to consider a gay relationship. As often in a "gay for you" themed book, Gary has no interest for other men, he is in love with Dan, and only due to that love, he can have also a sexual relationship with a man. But basically Gary never stopped to like women. And Dan had this fantasy to see him with a woman... it was like putting the straw near the fire! Now Gary has feeling for a woman, and Dan has to decide if he loves enough Gary to share him with another person, a woman... or maybe he has to decide if he loves Gary so much that he can't even consider to share him. According to you, what Gary wants? For someone who doubts to be a good partner choice for anyone, he would prefer that Dan accepts to share him, or he, instead, would like to hear from Dan that he can't share his love? Dan is facing a test, and the more romantic readers just know the answer to the previous question.
http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?m
Series: Moment of Truth
1) To Serve and Protect: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/56010
2) Choosing the Light: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/67573
3) Missing the Ocean
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
Walk Among Us by Vivien DeanI appreciated in the past Vivien Dean's originality, when she gave a twist on an unusual vampire romance. Now she creates another terrific (or horrific...) novel about an former priest who sees demons...
Calvin is back on his hometown near Chicago for his father's funeral. But Calvin is not mourning the loss of his father, since the man was an homophobic who kicked him out when he found his son was gay. But Calvin managed to build a good life in New York as an appreciated artist. Actually he doesn't know why he bothers to come back, since no one in the small town seems to understand his detached behavior. And then during the funeral a sniper killed a man and Calvin sees him perfectly. Matthew is a very handsome man with a brooding behavior and tormented eyes. The artist in Calvin is immediately attracted by this perfect image, and the man in Calvin is attracted by the handsome man.
In an usual romance, you would expected that Calvin is horrified by Matthew's action, but like Calvin is detached by his father's death, he seems to be detached by all the little world around the man. Calvin doesn't know the man Matthew killed, and he is more interesting in Matthew, than in the act he did. Probably Calvin closed something in his soul when his father kicked him out, he hid in the safe of his heart all the emotions, and now he has like a shield around him. A shield that protects him from the demons.
The demons prey on the mourning souls, and this is the reason why Matthew was at the funeral of Calvin's father. Matthew is only a man, not an hero. He is not thrilled by the idea to have the skill to see demons, and if possible, he avoids the crowd, so he has less chance to see demons. But here and there, Matthew's conscience nags him and he needs to do something to stop the demons. So he goes to funeral, the likely place to find mourning soul. But this time is not a relative of the dead who is mourning: Calvin doesn't regret his father's death, and so he is not the target for the demon.
The book is not very long, less than 90 pages, but it's very well plotted. It mixes very well the demon's matter with the erotic part, and the two erotic scenes in the book are really good and arousing. Calvin's character is a bit more developed than Matthew, even if probably Matthew is the most intriguing. All in all another very good book by Vivien Dean.
http://www.samhainpublishing.com/romance/w
Amazon Kindle: Walk Among Us: A Calling of Souls story
If All the Sand Were Pearl by Pepper EspinozaFirst of all the setting: I would say a fantasy world... there are not high-tech elements to make it a futurist novel, and the only "modern" intrusion, is the presence of some plastic dildos... in the past there were dildos but they are made of wood, I believe. So yes, I will go for the fantasy.
Anyway, in this fantasy world, same sex marriage is not forbidden, even if it is not common for the simplest reason: wealthy families needs heirs and in a same sex marriage a natural heir is not possible. Jag is the last son of a once wealthy family; since he was born when all his other siblings were just betrothed or married, he was left with a decision: become a scholar or a priest. He set for priest and he was happy with the decision at 12 years old, but later one thing of priesthood left him "unsatisfied": chastity. Anyway he has never had a chance to be sexually active and so he really doesn't know what he is losing. He only knows that he dreams of the hard body of a man rather than that of a woman. So when financial problems push his family to negotiate an arranged marriage also for him, the only choice he is left is the gender of the betrothed... and he chooses a man.
Jag has never seen before his betrothed and he fears the wedding night. He is not sure of what expecting, and since he is rather young, also the physical appearance of the man is a huge problem for him. And then, is he enough attractive for the other man? Jag is lithe and small, he has the body of a scholar and he only knows that his betrothed is a big man used to work outside. The more innocent problems swirl in his mind, the same questions a virgin maid would have in the same situation.
Brace lost the hope to find a suitable partner long ago. He prefers man and no noble family would allow him to marry one of its son. And now he has a last chance. But he doesn't want to marry a man compelled to take a decision he doesn't like. And so he sends to Jag a gift, a very rare pearl, worthy enough to buy back his freedom and allow to him and his family a comfortable future. With that pearl in his possession, if Jag will decide to marry him, he will do that only according to his real desire.
Brace is a good man; he has no problem to find a willing partner for a one night tryst, but he wants a long term relationship. He doesn't want an husband to fill his nights, he wants a man to fill his days. Brace is true and simple like the life he likes: his horses, his travels... More than a lover he needs a companion.
In the end, you would expected for Jag to be the brooding one, the scholar type, and instead Jag unveils to be a young man waiting to be freed, and Brace could be the key to his freedom.
The story is pretty classic, and in this case "classic" is the right term, since this novel has an old fashioned style, but it's also erotic, the sex scenes are good and explicit, but always in line with the mood of the novel, even if that plastic dildos make them a bit kinky.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/if-a
Amazon Kindle: If All the Sand Were Pearl
No Fear in Love by Jamie CraigThis is the second story I read in the A Calling of Souls anthology by Samhain Publishing, and like the other one is a story about a night which changes forever the life of two men.
Weston and Mark were buddy friends since they were teenagers; from a small English village, they share everything since they both feel stranger among other people. Probably Weston realized before his friend what that strangeness was, he loves his friend Mark, and it's not a friendly love. But Weston probably is more cautious and probably he fears to leave the comfort of his small village life and so he searched shelter in the church and in the chastity: he became an Anglican pastor. He removed passionate love from his life and most of the time he is content with it. Not when he is with Mark.
Mark chose to leave the small village for the big city, for London. He still returns back sometime, mostly to spend time with his best friend Weston. Also Mark is gay, but he has not chosen chastity... instead he tried to search his love in a lot of men, only to realize that he has just found it, and he is Weston. So now Mark is determined to spend a night with Weston, to prove him how it could be between them, and to have at least that night for them.
And so Mark consciously seduces Weston, he destabilizes his friend beliefs, and he puts the seed of doubt in his mind; is the church only a substitute of what Weston really wants? can he risk his comfort life for the uncertainty of a life with Mark?
I like both Weston than Mark, but in both of them I found something to blame: why Weston didn't dare to fight for his love and instead chose the easy way of becoming a priest? if he knew that his friend was gay (and he knew it since he said that Mark went to him the first time he was with a man), why he lied to himself?
On the other hand Mark... perhaps he didn't realize to be in love with Weston before moving to London and realizing that he was searching the man in other partners. I could think so, and thinking in that way, I find him nicer than Weston, since he decides to do something, he decides to risk their friendship in the hope to obtain love.
The story is not very long, 60 pages, and since it's mostly a one night story, there is not much space to develop the characters. They haven't the chance to interact with other people, the issue of Weston being a priest is not so much a problem, if not for him, there is not judgment from outside. There is also no space to develop Mark and Weston's relationship as friends, to let us know how they were as young gay teens in a small village. The story is appealing and I'd like to read something more both before than after the central night.http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/no-f
Amazon Kindle: No Fear in Love: A Calling of Souls story
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/a-c
Amazon: Calling of Souls
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Cover Art by Anne Cain
Cover Art by Anne Cain
Cover Art by Anne Cain
With this last book, G.A. Hauser pushed a bit the boundaries between romance and erotica, and also between reality and fantasy. Her characters are actually behaving badly, walking even more on the border, edging on the verge of a nervous breakdown; if before her characters were "bad" and too emotional, in this last book they reach the final step, they go all crazy, but it's a craziness for love, and so, again, I can forgive them. I actually don't read a G.A. Hauser to have a true and accurate book on gay life, I read one of her books for the glitter of the show business, for the hotness of cops in uniform, for reading of a man that is unsteady and emotional like and more than a woman, who makes mistake, and cries, and in all his craziness, can admit that he is a wrench, but his man loves him all the same, or maybe right for that reason.Mark has made a descending parabola from the first books in which he appeared. He is still handsome and loved, but he starts to feel the weight of his age. First he had to prove himself having first a threesome and than a foursome with his partner and two very young actor (Acting 2). The he had to be sure of Jack's undying love for him, and to do so, he involved Jack and his partner Adam in another foursome with Steve (Action 3). Actually, this last experiment, other than confirming him that he has a lot of men loving him, served to Mark to convince him that he is still desirable, same reason why he started to modelling at the age of 38. After a youth and young age spent trying to force himself to love women, Mark now seems to not have boundaries, he is becoming all gay, and a bottom, arriving to refuse to top in bed. He has still big issue of self-esteem, and sex is the only way for him to bond people to him. It's not a chance that everytime he fights with Steve, he then enticed him to bed parading himself all naked in front of his lover.
Mark has barely started to regain a bit of self-esteem and stability with his partner Steve, than another brick falls on his head: a 18 years old boy knocks at his door claiming to be his son. And since Alexander is the spitting image of his father, there is no doubt of it. For Mark is both a dream and a nightmare: he is fiercely protective of his new found son, he wants to give him everything he lacked, above all the love of a father, even more when he discovers that also his son is gay, but at the same time he is scared; Alex represents everything he is losing, youth and beauty, and having him in the same house with Steve is a torture. On the contrary of Mark, Alex retorts to his stepfather's refusal of his sexuality flaunting it, emphasizing all his twinky trait... in a word, Alex is a born teaser and a sex fiend.
If at first Alex comes out like an unpleasant boy, with all his teasing toward Steve and Jack, little by little the reader understands that he is really very young and in deep need of love. And that probably he has not the right perspective on sex; in the past he used sex to "buy" love, now that he doesn't need it to gain the affection from the people around him, Alex is lost. But he will find a young boy, a virgin, that will teach him that sex without real love means nothing. After all, this is a romance ;-)
http://www.lindenbayromance.com/product-b
Series:
1) The Physician and the Actor: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/15468
2) For Love and Money: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/10197
3) Secrets and Misdemeanors: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/18010
4) Capital Games: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/21016
5) Love You, Loveday: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/28889
6) When Adam met Jack: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/30051
7) Mark Antonious deMontford: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/46389
8) Acting Naughty (Action! 1): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/49331
9) Playing Dirty (Action! 2): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/52017
10) Getting It in the End (Action! 3): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/65648
11) Behaving Badly (Action! 4)
Reading List:
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The lasting impression I have, after reading this book, is of young and sexy, of men that could be on a glossy magazine. It's an erotic dream and the author well know this, since she herself wrote that her characters can be an erotic imagery of both gay guys or straight girls. For gay since it shows two "apparently" straight boys that are hot for each other... it gives hope, isn't it? If the object of your desire is a straight man, reading about two straight men who realize that they can be attracted by another man let the gay guy believe that it can happen also to him, to find a straight man that can be "turned". And instead if you are a girl, it's sexier to read about two real "men" getting busy together; as the author wrote, the male fantasy about two women in bed is never played by lesbian, but always by the male idea of a beautiful woman. Evangeline Anderson also plays along the "gay for you" theme that already explored in "The Assignment": Maverick and Duke are two college students and jocks. They met as freshmen in the same soccer team and they went to live together as roommate. They are real buddy friends, and Mav learned from Duke to be more open and friendly: the son of divorced parents, Duke replaced his lost family with a lot of friends, of every shades, straights, gays and in between. Mav, coming from a conservative family, has never thought to be possible to be like that and he is fascinated by his roommate; from looking to him in a perplexed way, after four years Mav actually respects his friend, and maybe he also envies him.
Duke is also a very touchy feeling guy, one who seems unable to don't couple his words with a hug, a massage or some other touch. Being him like that with everyone, Mav got used to it, and he has no trouble at all if not that lately he is starting to respond. He is starting to wonder how it would be to do something more, to go a step further. They start to play gay chicken, getting always more intimate and daring to other to give on first. At first I had the idea that the "gay for you" character was Duke, it seemed to me that it was Mav that started to question their friendship and to wonder. But then I realized that there was something strange, Duke was always to eager to start the dare. I realized that he had planned a slow seduction of his best friend, and Mav was trapped, and he didn't understand when it happened.
It would have been a perfect plan if Duke wasn't so eager and he didn't rush exactly when he was near the goal... not a right move for a skilled sportsman. Luckily for Duke, this is the romance, and the author doesn't ruin the mood; usually the "gay for you" themed novels have a heavy mood, but not this one, it always remains light and sexy.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/str
Amazon Kindle: Str8te Boys
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Sometime you wonder how much of the character there is in the actor who played it. Jesse Archer is the actor who played Luke in two romantic comedies, Slutty Summer and A Four Letter Word. Luke is a burst of colours, someone capable to love to an extreme level without the necessity to change his lover, probably since he himself is not someone who wants to change, not even for love. You Can Run is the journal of Jesse Archer's adventure in South America, from 1999 to 2001, when he was in that phase of life where you decide what will be your future: a degree in hand you have a lot of possibility in front of you, but all of them expect you to settle down and decide something. You want to be an actor? You can, go to Los Angeles and work hard waiting table or doing something else while attending every possible audition. You want to be a writer? You can, go to New York and work in some related fields, learning the job and spending night after night writing the next Great American Novel. Or, in alternative, You Can Run, from all of this and from any possible commitment. But if you are Jesse Archer, you can't simple run with a backpack and two pair of shoes, you have to do that with style... and so I believe that Jesse Archer and his travel companion are the first persons I heard that start a trekking in South Africa with wine in the backpack instead of bottle of pesticide.
At 24 years old Jesse is on an on / off relationship with Zane. He loves Zane, but as you can love someone that knows you well, that was there with you when you were developing the man you are now. It's not brotherly love, since it would be border on incest, but nevertheless you know that it's not your true love, also since you still don't know if true love exists or if you are ready for it. But still Zane is the only man who will follow Jesse on this adventure without questions. If you are expecting reading this journal to discover that Jesse was wrong and that Zane is his true love, you are wrong. Since Jesse was not wrong from the beginning, he has no open ends with Zane, the basis of their relationship are clear: they are travel companion and when they are not travelling, they can have separate lives, always knowing that, when one of them is starting the travel again, the other will be ready to follow. It's not love that bonds them together, it's the travel. And when one of them is starting to be too serious with someone else met during the journey, it's not the betrayed lover who is jealous, it's the abandoned travel companion.
There is a logic time sequence in all the chapters, but not a continuum. It means that every single chapter is an independent little story, a little piece in the whole puzzle that was the entire journey. Sometime the story concerns a character, sometime a place. Hardly a place recurs for more than one story, since it reflects the fact that Jesse was often in motion, hopping from one place to the other, and the discontinuous trend is well reflected from that, at the end of a chapter Jesse is in a country, and at the beginning of the other he is in another one, the reason why he left one to move to another one seldom are explained, as often are not detailed all the work he had probably done to settle in a new place. It's like being inside Jesse's mind, reading is memory, and so, only the more important things are available; Jesse chose to "run" not to write a travel guide, but to live, and I don't believe he spent most of his time taking notes of what he did or what he saw, probably he filled a journal of what in that moment made a great impression to him, and when years later he went through that notes, he filled the gap with something else from his memory. The result is a travel journey that maintains the eclecticism of the man who did it.
A bit of stability in the instability that essentially is Jesse, is given by the men in his life... how strange isn't it? But actually they are the only constant in his life and they are basically two. As I said before, Zane, his travel companion, that sometime took his own path but always came back, or Jesse went to him: their relationship as travel companions was like their relationship as lovers, in and off, open or exclusive, always without regret. There is a moment in which I wondered if Jesse or Zane said something, maybe that relationship would have changed in something else, but no one said something, and Zane took a bus headed on a direction opposite to Jesse, and that bus in a way set the path for their future life; it was not a physical farewell, both of them knew that they would meet again, but it was the definitely farewell to their relationship as lovers.
More or less at the same time of this farewell, maybe since Jesse felt "free" (you can say with your mouth that you are not committed, but your heart maybe has other idea...), Jesse meets the second important man of this story, Walter. Walter is Argentine, and for a bit he will replace Zane; again for Jesse is not a real commitment, and again I think that if it was, Jess would have run on the opposite way. Even if Jesse is enjoying his time in South America, I always felt like this was a "foreign" adventure for him, and that, sooner or later, he would return in the United States, leaving behind all his "temporary" bonds, like Walter. Walter stands out from all the others only since, like Zane, he hops in and hops out from Jesse's life in more occasion than one, and Jesse considers himself "involved" with him for more than a passing adventure, but on the contrary of Zane, Walter doesn’t conquer a special place in Jesse’s life; Walter represents the moment, Zane is the past, the present and the future, a future that is all to write.
Amazon: You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America (Out in the World)
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Cover Art (photography) by Walter Kurtz
With the second book in the Moment of Truth series, A.J. Wilde closes a door and opens a gate: Gary and Dan are now together, more in life than as partners. Gary needs to recover to an unhealthy act he did to himself, and above all, he has to make peace with his paste. Problem is that to do that, he needs to close for good that chapter and only a final gesture can do that. At first Gary, alone without Dan's love, thinks that the only way to do that is to close the thing from his side. Dan helps him to understand that he was the victim and not the guilty, and that he is strong enough to face everything.Good you would think, Dan admits his love for Gary, Gary had a strong partner and lover beside him that will help him to go over any obstacle, past and future, now they should be happy together? But life is not simple, and I believe that, deep inside, Gary is not yet recovered by his past drama, and he has not yet reached his full development. Gary is really gay, or he was influenced by his past? He really loves Dan, or maybe he loves the safe nest that he has found in Dan's arms? And when he will start to heal from his past, his feelings for Dan will be still so strong or they will fade?
While Gary is probably going through all this questions in his mind, I believe that Dan underestimated a bit too much Gary's situation. It's not possible to simple sponge Gary's past off removing the cause; the damage is done, and it would have been probably better to deal with it with a specific help. Instead Dan thought that love was the better cure, and that he could have been an happy family with Gary like two ordinary people who met, loved, and moved together.
Choosing the Light moves a bit further in Gary's discovery journey of himself, but it's not yet the final destination.
http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?m
Series: Moment of Truth
1) To Serve and Protect: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/56010
2) Choosing the Light
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The Deadly Mystery series by Victor J. Banis is addictive! I finished the first book thinking, well, this was good, maybe with a little more romance... ended the second book thinking, wow, I wasn't expected from Tom to be a so good romance hero, he was nice in the first book but in the second, he is soo good. And now, closing the third book, I'm happy like a duck in her pond, since this is the most romantic of the three books, but also the one where I finally had the chance to see Stanley and Tom as a real couple, partners both in work than life. The third book is a discovery journey for both men, Tom is trying to fit in his new life, and Stanley has to rethink something in his past. Tom is really a good romance hero, but not since he is perfect, he is good since he is NOT perfect. Tom is mostly a straight man, as I just said in the past, he didn't find himself gay all at once, he found himself in love with a person (even if he, as a good tough man, don't use the big word love to define what he feels), and it happens that that person is a man. So, for the transitive law, if Tom loves Stanley, and Stanley is a man, Tom is gay, right? Wrong. Tom is still fighting with this idea, he doesn't like to be tagged, and then, truth be told, he still finds women attractive; I really liked this side of the story, Tom "chose" to be with Stanley, he is more involved with his mind (and I believe also with his heart) than with his body. Actually more the series goes on and more it becomes sexually explicit, but nevertheless, it's not only a physical thing for Tom. But even if Tom is fighting with himself and with the idea to be in love with a man, he never once in all the series, throw in Stanley's face his trouble; Tom is always the perfect romance hero toward Stanley, he is always protective and nice, always ready to listen to him and to change his life to make Stanley's one easier. Can you understand that I like Tom?
But Tom is not the only one that has to face some hard moments in his life. Stanley discovers that his parents, his now dead parents lied to him, and that lie now is resurfacing and it could case big damage to Stanley, but above all to Tom. Where the second book was more centered around Stanley, I believe that the third one is more centered around Tom, and it's strange, since actually the fulcrum of the story, the mystery, is all about Stanley. But I felt as Stanley has yet reached the deepest desires of his heart, he is living with Tom, and it was Tom that proposed, and even if Tom is not suddenly turned in the perfect gay partner, at least when they are in company, he is the perfect man inside their home, and in the tight circle of their relationship. So, yes, I felt as Stanley didn't need anything else, and this time is Tom who needs to do a bit of rethink on his personal life.
I don't want to say nothing more on the mystery of the book, I don't like to give up the story. Let me only say that again I found that Victor J. Banis gave a deepness even to the villain of the story Andrew; he should be the negative character, but there were time during when I was almost hoping in a strange turn, that in a way even Andrew could have a chance to redeem. There are reasons why Andrew is like that, and for those reasons I feel for him... what is that in Victor J. Banis' works that he manages to always make me have feeling for all the characters, from the dead one (like in the second book), to the villain (like in this one)?
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?boo
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Amazon: DEADLY DREAMS
Amazon Kindle: Deadly Dreams
Series: Deadly Mystery:
1) Deadly Nightshade: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/49853
2) Deadly Wrong: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/51713
3) Deadly Dreams
Reading List:
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The quality of some new authors (new at least for me) it's always amazing, Elle Parker's first book has the feeling of some old classic spy story, like those B/W movies with Humphrey Bogart, but at the same time the sparkling atmosphere of a sunny beach in Florida, that I read is one of the "gayest" place in United States. Like Coffee and Doughnuts I believe refer to the two main characters, Dino Martini (yes, yes, not so hidden reference to Dean Martin), and Seth Donnelly: Dino is like an expensive but full of savor coffee mix, the one that when you open the pack smell like paradise and sunday morning, and Seth is like a chocolate doughnuts, all messy and unhealthy, but you can't avoid to eat them and then lick your fingers. Coffee / Dino is old fashioned like the real Italian coffee (sorry, American coffee is not the same...), and like the coffee, you have to stop and savor it, you can't drink it while hurrying somewhere else; Doughnut / Seth is a burst of energy, hyper-calories that you have to run a marathon to digest. Can two men as different match and love? yes, as well and good as coffee and doughnut go together.Dino and Seth are best friends; it's not clear how two men as different, also in age, Dino 42, Seth 33, met, but now they are buddy friends. Dino always goes to Seth when he needs an helping hand, and Seth never denies his. Apparently Dino is the safe and steady friend, but actually, if you think at it, it's always Dino who is asking for something and it's always Seth that is putting out (no pun intended) for Dino. Dino plays the role of the "adult" man, the one who doesn't do flings and who is probably waiting for the real thing, man or woman is not important, Dino is more looking to the right soul mate, regardless the gender. Seth instead is for the "now and soon" theory, and everyone is willing is good; again man or woman doesn't matter, even if probably Seth has a penchant for men.
On the outside, not Dino or Seth are the typical gay out and proud, but actually the one who is less flickle, is the one who seems gayest to me: Dino, with his Martha Stewart's attitude, the tendency to build a nest everywhere he poses, is the one who more seems to me the perfect poster boy for the flamboyant gay guy. Dino is the one who can cook, who spends a lot of time in front of the mirror deciding what to wear, who actually knows the difference between dress for work and dress to date. Dino is the wine and homecooking type, Seth is more the beer and takeout one.
From all of this, you will expect from Dino to be the one to make the first move, to be adult enough to recognize that Seth is the perfect man for him, and that, above all, Seth is years that is waiting for him to make that move. And instead, even if younger and sluttier, it's again Seth who proves to be the more open with his feelings. I believe Dino has some inner complex still unresolved, he is buying himself with the story that he is not the type for flings and that he wants a real relationship, but I think that it's more the case that Dino fears to commit. Maybe Seth is rushing a bit the thing, maybe with all his bursting energy, he is scaring away Dino, but all in all, I like his approach to life, he is like a thunderstorm, and you can hardly stop him.
As usual I was carried away from the characters and how much I like them and I said pretty nothing on the story... well I started saying that this book remind me an old PI movie, and it's true; all the right step to have a good PI story are there, and Dino plays well the role of the unwilling hero, he is more the PI to do the job behind a laptop, but when faced with a real case, he knows his things around it. The crime sub-plot is nice, even if remains down-tuned, like all the story: this is not a novel for gunshot and car-racing, this is more a novel for quiet shadowing and nice morning after in bed together.
http://www.lyricalpress.com/like_coffee_
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This is a very nice novella, pretty simple in the story, but really romantic. It's the classical friend with benefits starting point: Jim and Michael are roommates, Michael was just dumped by his selfish boyfriend and he is grieving; Jim doesn't like to see him in that way and decides to do a bit of comfort work: taking him out, giving him a bit of self-esteem and in the end, ending in bed with him. Jim doesn't plan this last turn, but truth be told, it's not something that he doesn't like.Till that moment Jim was the full-mode party boy, 3 nights a week out clubbing, more or less a new boy every week; Michael was instead more the couch, good movie and cuddling type. Even in body they are different and in their character type: Jim tall, big and broad shoulders, Michael the nerdy type, lithe and skinny, big nose and glasses. When Jim first met Michael, he saw what everyone else sees, an average guy who you wouldn't turn to look on the street; but Michael is the man you get used to, that insinuates himself in your heart and takes possession of it. And this is exactly what happened to Jim: when Michael was thinking to commit with his former boyfriend, Jim was jealous, he thought that the reason was that he didn't judge the ex enough good for his best friend, but the real reason was that he wanted to be at his place. And when Michael is again on the market for a relationship, Jim snatches him away with the excuse of comforting him, but really trying to stake his claim. Problem is that Jim is not clear with his feelings, and even if sex is great, Michael has still big trouble to understand why an handsome and popular man like Jim wants to be with an average guy like him.
In a way, to fully believe in their love, Michael has to test himself with other people, it's not enough that Jim tells him he is perfect as he's, he has to have the same confirmation from other people, who are not his best friend. But fortunately this is a romance, and the happily ever after is at the horizon. And in the meantime, you have also a lot of nice sex between Michael and Jim, with Michael that proves that the old motto, big nose big c... is not only a myth. I like also the setting, almost all played in Jim and Michael's building apartment, with them moving up and down from their home to that of their lesbian couple friends, to the neighborhood clubs and little shops, it gives an intimate feeling to all the story.
http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?m
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Pure Fully is an historical romance with a bit of gothic and eroticism thrown in the middle to spice the things. Alastair is the second son of a noble and wealthy family and even if it's not exactly said in the book, I have the feeling that he both regrets than enjoys the freedom he has from being a second son; no one is expecting something from him, his mother is not pressuring him to marry, his father is not insisting he does something worthy in his life, he probably has an allowance that let him live in a comfortable way, he can do whatever he likes inside the boundaries of good society, and he doesn't know what to do! Better something he knows, he is in love with Jude, the soon-to-be fiance of his cousin Charlotte, but loving Jude is not something he is allowed to do, neither if he is a second son and so it's not asked from him to produce an heir.Truth be told, Alastair doesn't exactly know what loving a man means; he has sexual fantasies on Jude, but for him it's a first experience, and he is deeply convinced that it's a sin, and so he tries to shun the idea from his mind and body. Probably due to his tentative denial, Alastair doesn't realize that the attraction is mutual and that Jude is not at all the unaware object of his desire. Jude knows and actually he is waiting for Alastair to loose his battle with his conscience. But when that battle lasts too long, Jude looses his patience and forces a bit the hand; when a bet with Charlotte and Viola (Alastair's sister) dare both men to spend a night in a gothic temple in the garden (a pure folly of the time, both the temple than the bet), Jude plans to seduce Alastair if the man will not willingly surrender to his inner desires.
Most of the story is a pure historical romance, without any paranormal event; but almost to the end, a secret in the closet of Alastair's family comes out in the most unexpected way, a ghost who claims his toll after years of denial, and Alastair is the man who has to fulfill that request. I like that the paranormal event arrives so late in the story, since this novel is a very good historical novel and I prefer for it to be defined more from the historical genre than the paranormal one. Alastair's struggle with his inner demons, the fear for something unknown that prevents him to see that the interest his mutual, is dealt with a good hand for a novella; probably Alastair would never allow to his desire to become clear, not realizing that what he felt was not some sinful deviation of his mind, but something that could be common among his peers: Alastair has never had the chance to be in contact with that reality.
On the other hand, Jude had time to digest and analyze the matter; when he was still young he was "molested" by an older man, but even if he didn't particularly like the man, he liked the act. He had then another chance to "taste", and this only reinforce his belief that he actually prefers men over women. But unlike Alistair, Jude has to marry and produce an heir, and so he is planning to do it as soon as possible to then spend the rest of his life as he prefers. Here probably is the big difference between Alastair and Jude, in the way they "feel", Alastair so strong and impulsive, Jude more daring but at the same time more calculator; they are both probably an example of how a man in that period would face the matter, someone like Alastair would flight abroad or live in denial for all his life, someone like Jude would build a safe nest around him, far from society, but maintaining the privileges from being a member of it. The author chooses to not tell us who is wrong or who is right, probably since there is nor wrong or right, and so both men, Alastair and Jude, come out as likable characters (even if, if I'm to be true, I prefer the impulsive Alastair, who, in a way, would have preferred to not compromise for their love) and the final solution is a real and possible one.
http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?s
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Turner and Turner: One Good Turn by Amber GreenThis is the second book I read by Amber Green and for the second time I have the feeling that I'm plunged in the middle of the story, with all a past behind me that I have to rebuild collecting clue here and there and a bigger future ahead of me that I'm reaching at a fast pace and I haven't the brakes.
Kendall Turner (KT) is the spoiled son of a very wealthy family; I haven't really understood if his family his old wealth or mafia style, in a way or the other, KT is the black sheep, the gay boy who tried to loose himself in alcohol and the only thing he gained was a bad experience in jail, an experience that his rich father didn't save him from since he had to learn his lesson. After that big demonstration of fatherly love, KT decided that he would be better alone and took his separate way. He is now a quite complicated young college professor, with a strange circle of friends, not exactly a perfect life, but at least it's his own life. Only that someone decides to blackmailing his family using a video in which KT plays the unaware role of porn star, and the family decide to let the matter in the hand of Turner Kendall (Turn) Scott (yes same name, reverse order), the poor cousin who entered the family when KT was still a child and became not only his father's favorite, but also the protagonist in all KT's teen wet dreams. Turn disappeared for a long period when KT was still a teenager, but now it's again inside the family, and once again the perfect son for his father, something nor KT or his brother Dean manage to be.
I believe that the instability that permeates the book is a mirror of the instability that is KT's life. KT seems unable to stay put, he is always in an hurry, probably he is running away both from his family than from himself. Neither Turn, who is maybe the only constant in KT's life, is able to stop him, and KT has the uncanny ability to always end in some trouble or dangerous situation. KT is not exactly a weak man, he is quite clever and able to collect all the clues he needs, but his inner unsteadiness causes him to put himself and the people around him in danger. Turn seems to be a nice character, but actually I have the feeling that he is not fully developed, we learn something of important about him practically at the end, and we have not enough space to fully understand it and its implication: is Turn gay? is he in love with KT?
This is only a first part of a series and due to the open ending, I believe that also the second book will focus on KT and Turn, and so probably we will have time to better understand Turn.
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The Men of Smithfield: Gobsmacked by L.B. GreggMark and Jamie are in-live lover in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Problem is that no one had the courage to tell Mark that perfect boyfriend Jamie was cheating around and Mark finds out in the worst way, unexpected coming back home and finding Jamie screwing someone on their bed. At first Mark doesn't react but then, as in a perfect play setting in a small town, he attacks Jamie during mass in the main church ot the town... telling about washing your dirty laundry in public...
But the cheating is not the only thing that Jamie was doing to Mark, he finds out that his bank accounts are cleaned out and that they didn't pay the last months rent, and this means that Mark is also without an home thanks to dear Jamie. Among all this disaster the only rock for Mark is old friend Tony, the local cop and his first crush. Actually this is a point I didn't understand so well: apparently Mark had a crush on Tony when he was 14 years old and Tony 17. Tony obviously didn't act upon that crush since they were too young, but then, when they were both adults, and Tony was available, Mark wasn't. Worst, when Tony was in need of a friend due to some family issue, Mark instead started a relationship with cheating Jamie, a man that no one in their circle of friends seem to like. I can only think that Mark is a bit selfish, not too much mind you, but he is the type that first of all think on himself and what he wants and likes, and then, if what he wants and likes is in common with his possible partner, only then he is willing and ready for a relationship. Mark is the classical man who needs a caretaker, he is not at all the strong side of a relationship, he is not able to take reasoned decision, he tends to have emotional reactions. Tony is perfect for him, since he was young, he always takes his decision considering all the consequences, and he always puts Mark's interests in front of his own. Maybe I would like for him to be a bit more selfish (on the contrary of Mark ;-) ), and for example, interferes when Mark started a relationship with a man that was obviously wrong for him.
Anyway, as first attempt from a new author, the book is nice and easy to read. Maybe Tony should have more space to develop, but you have to consider that the book is only 140 pages long.
http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/more-h
Amazon Kindle: Gobsmacked (Men of Smithfield)
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Amazon: Smart Ass: Close Quarters
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Mark Antonious Richfield is the summa of all the faulty characters by G.A. Hauser; he is weak, flirty, fickle and so damned beautiful and innocent that all his faults are nothing compared to his look, or maybe they only add something to it. But his look is also his damnation, Mark is almost trapped inside it, he has all the men around (and a good handful of women too) in love with him, but it's never enough, he always has the feeling that he is not good looking enough, not submissive enough, not "available" enough. Mark has a strong complex with his late father, a man who always criticized him for being to feminine, not a real man. For a good part of his life Mark tried to play the role of the straight man, arriving even to almost marry. Now that he is in love with Steve and his father is long dead, you would think that he should be happy, but years of mind conditioning took their toll, and truth be told, I don't believe that Mark will ever be a "stable" and "safe" man to love. He is almost like a nympho, he has the urge to seduce every men he meets, and above all, he has the need for every men to love him, not only in a physical way, also the real L word, the unconditionally love. Mark has to provide to the loss of love from his father with the love from his lovers, and don't let me start on the freudian implication of this.Anyway, if I'm to be true, I didn't like the evolution in the previous book, with Mark and Steve in a foursome with Keith and Carl, not since I didn't like Mark, but since I didn't believe Keith and Carl were the right "men" for Mark. Those two are young and hot, but they are still on the beginning of their life, they take all like a big game. Mark instead needs strong and reassuring men, sorry to continue with the example, but probably he needs a fatherly figure. Steve in a way understands that, and he also understands that, if he wants to take Mark for him, or better with him, he needs to allow him to sometime sidetrack from their relationship. And he adopts the philosophy that it's better to be there to see than eat his liver wondering what it's happening. The other man who Mark needs it's obviously his best friend, and long time chaste lover Jack. Already in the past, when we read about Jack and Adam's story, someone probably wondered about the strange relationship between Mark and Jack, with Mark being almost jealous of his best friend Jack, almost wanting for him to not finding a real love for his own since it would have meant for him to loose his exclusivity. Now in this book, Mark seems to get what he wants, what remains to understand is what role will play Adam in all of this.
There is no doubt that this is a book that not all the most conservative gay romance readers will like. But try to read it from Mark's point of view: he is not a normal man, he will never been a normal man; he learned years ago that, to survive, he had to lean on the people near him, and he clings to them like a safe anchor. One man is not enough, two probably will be, but more are better, since more people around are telling him he is beautiful and unique, more it's probable that he finally will believe it. And if you understand that, you will enter in the fan club of Mark Antonious Richfield, made up of people who decided to judge Mark with a parameter all for him.
http://www.lindenbayromance.com/product-g
Series:
1) The Physician and the Actor: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/15468
2) For Love and Money: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/10197
3) Secrets and Misdemeanors: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/18010
4) Capital Games: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/21016
5) Love You, Loveday: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/28889
6) When Adam met Jack: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/30051
7) Mark Antonious deMontford: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/46389
8) Acting Naughty (Action! 1): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/49331
9) Playing Dirty (Action! 2): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/52017
10) Getting It in the End (Action! 3)
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Apparently this was a "light" book, at least from the blurb if not from the cover (that it's quite "dark"), but after few pages I realized that it was not.It's a first point of view narration seeing through the eyes of Mike that for the umpteenth time is helping his friend Jay to move; there is even a creepy aspect on it, since Jay is used to move since a) he always chooses men who dump him b) if they don't dump him, they die. It's obvious that Jay chooses men that are not for him, and the reader starts to think that he is a bit of a butterfly and that he is blind to not see that the right man, Mike, is always there for him, near enough to be catch. On the other hand it's not that Mike chooses his partner in a better way: from having relationship with men who aren't even sure to be gay, to flirt with women well knowing that he prefers men. Both of them are in denyal, but not about who they are, but who they love.
But this time things are different, Darren, Jay's lost lover, was not one other desperate case in Jay's path toward self-destruction; Jay is really upset from his death, and Mike for the first time is jealous... and so the reader starts to sense that things are not simple as at first he though. It's not Jay who doesn't want to commit, it's Mike who always pulls back: if Jay chooses the wrong men, Mike is always sure that in the end he will come back to him, and so Mike will always be the real love for Jay, even if he hasn't to commit or speak the L word. Doesn't matter that there is no a physical relationship between Mike and Jay, the only thing Mike needs is the exclusivity on Jay's heart: a proof that Mike doesn't "think" to Jay in that way is that Mike has never realized that Jay is a dominant lover.
Mike always prided himself to be available for Jay when his friend needs him, and he probably thought to be the answer to all his trouble; but this time Mike is not able to help Jay, this time Jay realized that, doesn't matter how many men he tries to love, doesn't matter how many little pieces of their life he retains for himself, doesn't matter how many unfulfilled dreams he makes own, Jay will always miss Mike, and it's now or never with him. And Mike has to finally take that final step.
As I said the book is a little more angst than expected, and at first I was a bit disconcerted to be thrown in the middle of the story, in full play mode, but then I started to collect hints and bits here and there and ended this novella length book having enough details to comprehend the reasons of both men.
http://www.freyasbower.com/index.php?mai
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In the best James Bond or Indiana Jones tradition, the Fathom's Five are five handsome, skilled and clever gay men working for Professor Fathom as treasure hunters. Almost half the book is spent to introduce us to the five:- Jake Stone, the newest member of the group, is a bit of a lone wolf; he is "for hire", means that if you pay him enough, he will find everything you want. Jake is not a bad man, he is only used to take care of himself, and only himself. His only Achilles' heel is young Sam, a street kid he shelters in his New York loft.
- 19 years old Will Hunter is the spoiled and neglected son of an American diplomat; he has everything he wants in life, but it's never enough. Will is young, friendly and careless and in this moment he has nothing and noone important in his life (well he is only 19 years old!) and so he can play like if life is a big game.
- Shane Houston is your classical western hero, hat and horse and all of it. Always ready for an adventure, he faces every new challenge full front, caring very less for his own safety, but as an old fashioned cowboy, you can always count on him when you are in trouble.
- Dr Eden Santiago is the high head levelled of their group; he seems always in control, always ready to face every events. The less playful of the group, he is probably the one that has less open endings in his life and so, for this reason, he is the more reliable of all of them. Everyone can count on Eden, and loving him will never being an hazard.
- Luca da Roma is the most beautiful of all of them, he is beautiful like an angel, and in fact he has a very special relationship with God. Luca is an orphan and he was raised by three nuns in a remote Italian convent. He doesn't know who were his parents, but, after all, he hasn't had a bad life. When he was still a teen he went in Rome and he became the muse of a lot of artists, on the canvas and on the sheet, and as they took from him inspiration, he drank from them the love for arts. But Luca seems never to be happy, he has quite a mourning attitude and he seems in searching of something that always slips from his hands.
The new quest for this five heroes is to track down an ancient holy cross, a Renaissance artwork who caused the death of his creator since it was framed as sacrilegious. To recover the artifact our heroes have to find two stone tables and an ancient book, the three pieces together will lead them to the treasure. But obviously they are not alone in this hunting party, and their enemies know well how to hit them where it hurts, and I'm not speaking of body parts.
The book is really good in mixing fun, sex and adventure, playing all around the World, from Tonga to Italy, from Turkey to England. Our heroes, when not running away from gunshots and explosions, are involved in sexy escapades along a swimming pool or in poshy five stars hotel. There is a bit of "naughty" talk during sex, but it's never too much to ruin the sophisticated feeling that permeates all the book, and, on the other hand, the fun and careless sex helps to balance the adventure part, so that even a less adventurous reader will find it enjoyable and interesting.
All five heroes are enough developed that the reader could care for them, but from my side, my favorite is Luca, maybe since he is Italian. I have no problem to say that I will look forward to the following book in this new exciting series.
http://www.starbookspress.com/search.php?I
Amazon: Fathom's Five Volume One: The Cross of Sins (v. 1)
Reading List:
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The best word to describe Angels of the Deep is "dark"; it started in the dark, both literally than figuratively, to continue always in the dark. Even when it's daylight, the darkness is there, and sincerely I always had the feel, reading this book, that there was like a cloud covering the sun, and even if the events take place during the day, no real sunlight was allowed in the story. The only light I perceived was the artificial one of neon, a light that was cold, in this way reinforcing the darkness and also the coldness. No sunlight means no natural warm. All in this book was dark and icy.I realized that I concentrated more on the feeling it left me than on the story, but it's also hard to give you a short summary of the story without giving up the end, but I will try. At the beginning of the book Beck is an orphan, a ward in the hand of a priest; unfortunately Beck is suffering an unspeakable hell living with the priest, a pedophiles who calls Beck his Angel. As expected in this situation, Beck is escaping reality building a world of his own, till the day an ancient woman appears and "frees" Beck from his hell. Jump ahead in time, Beck is now an adult, married man and soon-to-be divorced. It seems that he loves his wife, Cat, but not in the way he should love her; Cat is a good woman, but when Beck is near her, I feel more friendship than love passing between them. On the other hand, Beck is feeling something strong for someone he should not, Sean, his partner in the police facility they both work for.
Also Sean is aware of the feelings between them, and he would be willing to try, but Beck is unwilling. He finds all the right excuse, he is married, he can't do that to Cat, Sean is a co-worker... strange enough one of the excuse is not that he is not gay, as if the gender of them is not important... Anyway I had the feeling that the real reason was that Beck is still traumatized by what happened to him when he was a child. Beck is the exactly profile of an abused child, unable to tighten real bond with a lover, reluctant to speak of his problem, ready to lie to therapists when they near the real problem. The only thing that I will not add to the other typical thing is Beck being gay, since, first of all it seems not to be one of his "trouble", and second, as I said before, his relationship with Sean is strange, and being both men seem not to be the real problem between them.
All right, telling you these things, I covered more or less 50 pages of the more than 300 pages of the book, and I can't say more, since from this moment on the reader is plunged inside the story right in the middle of the event and will resurface only in the end. The author don't prolong the broth with water to make it last, but serve the main course and let the reader to deal with it in full play mode. The story takes is direction and goes straight to the end without hesitation and not leaving to the reader neither the time to breath. I was turning the page hoping to find a moment to stop, and instead there wasn't neither one. The book is 300 pages long, but no one of these pages is an embellishment, they are all center stage events.
Kirby Crow is not famous for being sexy, she is more famous to be a teaser (she will never be free of that title after letting me suffer for one very long book, Scarlet and the White Wold 1, for a kiss, and for another even more long book, the second in the series, for a sex scene...), and Angels of the Deep confirms it; even if, truth be told, there is sex in the book (and not only in the last chapter) and there is also a continuous running of eroticism in all the pages, all the characters, not only Beck and Sean, are all very physical, and their body reactions are pretty clear and described. So the only moment that the icy cloak I felt on the story is raised, is when that sexy running surfaces here and there.
http://www.mlrpress.com/ShowBook.php?boo
Buy at 1 Romance Ebooks
Amazon: Angels of the Deep
Amazon Kindle: Angels of the Deep
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