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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amazon: Looking For It

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

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


Cover Art by Steve Walker

It's really difficult to disconnect the author, Jim Arnold, from his character, Ben Schmidt. They have so many traits in common and Ben comes out so strong from the page of Arnold's novel, that it was really like reading a personal journal more than a fictional novel.

Ben is a wanna-be-director, with actually a first movie going out on Festivals all around the world, a nice work in San Francisco, an handsome boyfriend,Jake, living in the attic of the Victorian house where he has a first floor apartment, and an affair on the side with Eric, and nice guy who is always ready to have sex when Ben wants something different than maybe too perfect Jake. At mid-forthy Ben seems to have the perfect dream life for every modern gay man, but he is not happy. He has a constant desire to ruin his own happiness, and his relationship wth Jake is a perfect example of that: Ben has the chance to have a perfect life and he is trying to destroy it. If nothing else happened, I think Ben would have never understood that. It was his own right to destroy his life since he has the power to do so.

But then that power is taken off from him. Ben discovers to have prostate cancer. And it's bad. Suddenly his life is crashing around him and he has no power on that. He can't do anything if not wait for the next tragedy to struck. And life is no more good for him. When he is down and without chance to fight back, everything he thought due in his previous life is put at risk: his job, his boyfriend, his passing lovers, even his apartment, with the small threat of mice. When Ben had everything, he didn't know what he really wanted, now that he is on the edge to loose everything, he will have the chance to understand what is really important for him. In a way tragedy helps Ben, freeing him from all the unnecessary things, he will have an enough clear view to see what it really matters.

I didn't expect to enjoy the romance in this book like I did, and truth be told, at first I didn't like so much Ben. But in a way he got better with the story, and I liked that he didn't come out as an hero. There is nothing of heroic in Ben, he is a real man struggling against the world with only the strength of a normal man. And he doesn't cling on his friends, he tries to find the strength inside him. I liked that, amidst all the tragedy, Ben realized that love was the answer, not for the cancer, but at least to give a reason to his life.

Benediction is not an easy book to read, above all if you had an experience with cancer. It's not all roses for Ben, it's not that, since he has cancer, everything else has to go smoothly for him, it's not that people who dislike him suddenly step back. Ben has not only to fight the cancer but also all the other small and big trouble people have in their everyday life. He has to continue to worry for everything he worried before and plus he has the cancer. That is the strength of Ben, being able to face all and take the right decision.

Amazon: Benediction

Amazon Kindle: Benediction

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


Cover Art by Jaime Flores

Peter's Chair is for sure a breaking novel, the fantapolitical novel on a gay Pope: how many boundaries it's throwing down? gays inside the Church, sex outside the marriage, celibacy (or the lack of it). That is probably not fantasy, but it's for sure something no one dares to speak. John Simpson decides to break that rule, and he does it from as a man informed of the facts. It's clear that he knows the way of the Church, its traditions and structure. Even in the simple things, like the use of foreign language, in this case Italian, he never once did a mistake. All the Popes he is referring to, at least until Papa Luciani, Giovanni Paolo I, are real, he only decided to take a different path in history from that event, and changed the name of all the other Popes after that.

For a human decision, the desires of some young Cardinals to change the path of history, or maybe for the will of the Holy Spirit, a 49 years old american man, Brian, is elected Pope. Brian is a man with a strong will and with his own ideas: he is gay and has a 27 years old lasting relationship with William, another priest he met in seminary, who now follows him everywhere as his personal assistant. If you are expecting a naughty tale about sex between men in soutane, change your mind: for all what is regarding Brian and William's relationship, they are more like an old couple than two horny men in love. More, when Brian is elected Pope, William is both worried than scared, he doesn't feel right to continue having a sexual relationship when Brian represents the same structure that condemns both homosexuality than the lack of celibacy among priests. In a way, Brian is more coherent than William in saying that he doesn't see what is changed, if they were having sex before, why not now? But I liked Brian's attitude, it was a way to prove that he really believes in his role as a priest.

Brian and William are very different, but complete each other. Brian is more a leader, but he probably wouldn't have reached that position without William by his side. William makes Brian think, gives him the chance to ponder his choices. On the other side, William has not the strength to be a leader and probably not even the outside image. It's not that William is weak, it's more that he doesn't like to be on center stage. I really liked their relationship, it talked a lot of their past together, without need to speak the words aloud.

Brian, as Pope, is more a political chief than a man of the Church, but sadly that is the true. Vatican is a little state, but it has a lot of power in the matters regarding the free choices of people all around the world, and so the work of a Pope is more a political issue than that of a shepherd of God. Peter's Chair is a a lot of adventure / thriller novel and not so much romance, but it has its sweet moments, like the day to day romance between Brian and William, made of little habits honed by years of cohabitation (Brian is not a morning person, William is a bit on the stubborn side, and so on), and the naughty side of the sex relegated to more younger men, like Brian's personal bodyguards. But still, the sex is not really the main element of this book, and I think that is right like that.

It can be said that John Simpson has a deep knowledge of the recent political history and in particular all regarding the Church. It's also clear that he has is idea and he has no problem to expose them. And, little side note, it's also clear that he doesn't like so much Italians or Italy: some remarks by Brian on how he wants all American things around him, also the smallest things like a tv programs, made me wonder what we did to him ;-) Italians and Italy are not so bad after all, at least not all of us.

http://devinedestinies.com/shopdevine/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ebook_flypage&product_id=270&category_id=36&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=52

Amazon: Peter's Chair

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

I usually don't like to much mystery, it's not my genre, but this one is different, I have the feeling that the main character, Michael, more than trying to solve a mystery is trying to find himself, and for a 47 years old man it's probably the time.

When Michael was 22 years old, he was the classical good son of an upper class family, English teacher in a private school, already married with a family friend, it seemed a perfect life. But then Ronnie entered the picture, 17 years old and American refugee in Canada, officially to avoid the war in Vietnam. Even if Ronnie was underage he was way more experience than Michael, and Michael didn't know that. To the young boy it took not so much to convince closeted case Michael to leave job, family and respectability and living as a bohemian in a little apartment: sex as food for love was enough. But the fairy tale didn't last, another man entered Ronnie's life, and Michael was soon forgotten, apparently.

25 years later Ronnie is dead, AIDS complications, and Michael is named executor. It's not something he likes, he wasn't so near Ronnie anymore, and I have the feeling that Michael wanted to remember Ronnie as that 17 years old, the boy who still loved him. The man who is now dead is a stranger and looking through his things is like starting to destroy the image of that 17 years old boy to substitute it with the adult Ronnie. To help that destroing process, Michael finds a mummified corpse in a trunk inside Ronnie's apartment, the same apartment the man always lived in and stubbornly refused to leave. Someone could think the reason was that it was difficult to remove a corpse and it was better to stay there near it, instead I think that, like Michael, also Ronnie wanted to remember the time when he was happy, when Michael was there with him, probably the only man he loved and was loved back.

As often happens when I read a novel with a deceased character, who can't speak for himself, I try to imagine what his voice is; I like Ronnie's voice, probably since, despite the fact that Ronnie dumped him and they didn't speak for years, Michael still loves him and can't believe that he is a murder. Since Michael is a good man, there should be a reason if he thinks so highly of Ronnie. Of Ronnie himself we have only some pictures, in different moments of his life and a diary, where he mostly talks of his great love, Michael... what happened to Ronnie to renounce to that love?

This is what wants to know Michael: it's not a question to discover the true to have some sort of justice, most of the people of that time is not more alive, Ronnie is dead, the corpse is obviously dead and no one seems to have missed him in 25 years... To Michael is important to know the truth since, if he mistook to judge Ronnie, he probably mistook all his life. And in the search of the truth he will grow: at first he is still anchored to 25 years before, when he was hardly a man and loved a boy. And so, even if he is now 47 years old, he still loves a boy, Ryan, someone that maybe remembers him Ronnie, a runaway kid without family to back him, someone who needs the comfort and steadiness of a man like Michael. But Michael is no more 22 years old, and as I said, he grows during the story and he grows tired also of Ryan. To excuse him, Ryan is not exactly a saint, and not even a boy in dear need, and so it's no hard blow for the romantic readers. Instead I found way more interested the other two men who gravitate around Michael, Jaym and Logan. Actually I really wondered about Logan, the straight friend, who was like a Jimmy Cricket for Michael, even if he didn't give advice but only borrow a friendly ear.

The story is all about Michael, and I like very much how it wrapped up. I'm still a little sad for Ronnie, but he was already dead when the book started, so there was no hope for him... but he is anyway the strongest voice in the novel, Michael is more the silent type, pondering and doing always the right thing.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=DQCD0001

Amazon: Drag Queen in the Court of Death

Amazon Kindle: Drag Queen in the Court of Death

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VGL Male Seeks Same by Rick R. Reed

This is quite a tender tale for a writer that usually I associate to more "creepy" tales. Ethan is a 42 years old very "normal" looking guy. He has a good job, a love for quite and comfortable thing, a nice apartment in a nice neighborhood... everything perfect if not for the fact that Ethan is lonely. He is past the age to go cruising in the gay club, and even when he was in the age, he didn't like it. The type of man you can pick in that place is not the man Ethan is searching: he wants someone to share a life, to spend time together other than in bed, to be proud to take home... Ethan wants romance. But romance seems unattainable, but Ethan persist and try one last time, with an dating online website. Ethan is sincere, he posts his real profile, his life and a nice pic of him, and he gets no reply. Than he leaves all the same other than the pic, and he finds his mailbox full. Among the more than forgettable emails he finds one worthy: Brian is a 45 years old man, who likes almost the same things Ethan likes, who wants all the same things Ethan wants, and who is as very good looking as Ethan's new profile pic... that it's not as Ethan really looks.

The story is very nice, not so short, 59 pages, but still short enough to be read during a lunch break :-) It's even more nice since it's sincere, I believe it describes an event more common than not, but it has also an ending that appeals to the romance's lover that is in me. As I said it surprised me, since I believe this is the first time I read a Rick R. Reed's book with an happy ever after ending... but it let me also perplexed, since to be the end really true to the story, Brian's behavior should be a little different or at least I should have an explanation by him on his reasons. Anyway this is a problem of mine, maybe sometime the realist that is in me won over the romance's lover!

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

Amazon Kindle: VGL Male Seeks Same

NEG UB2 by Rick R. Reed

In more than 2 years that I read gay romance, I have never read about a HIV+ character; I read about man who worried about it, who waited for the diagnosis, and happily it was negative, I read about man who lost friends, I read about man who were uber-safe... but where are all those men who are HIV+ and still deserves a romance? AIDS was, and sometime still is a deadly virus, but there are more and more cases today of men who can "living positively", enjoying their life with a little more of precautions than before, precautions that probably it would be better to always take, but this is the life and you have to face it.

In VGL Male Seeks Same, Ethan was a 40 something years old man who finally found the love of his life. Everything was perfect, above all since it was not a too much pink glasses perspective on the world: Ethan found his love on the net, like probably many men today, and Brian was not a prince charming, but more a best friend type, but nevertheless, the love and sex were great, and Ethan and Brian walked toward the sunset together and happily ever after... almost. Now months later, Ethan finds out he is HIV+... since he was almost celibate before, and truth be told, he met Brian online, and you all know what this means, the most obvious explanation is that Brian passed the virus to him. Was he aware of it? Or maybe Brian cheated on him and, worst than the cheating itself, he was not safe?

We follow Ethan's difficult first days after the discovery, wondering what it was and what it will be; his working of mind is sincere and true, Ethan passes from being angry to scared to lonely. He has no family and so he searches for comfort and assurance on the net, the same place where probably he also "found" the virus, but it's the only place where he can go, and for once, the net replies to his plea of support.

And we follow Ethan deals also with Brian, the man to hate... at first Ethan is all for denial, denial that what happened to him was not his fault; Brian is the evil man, it's all his fault. But then Ethan realizes that Brian is someone like him, Ethan, someone that didn't gave the right importance to this plague of the XX century. Even if Brian is guilty this doesn't mean that Ethan is innocent, they both have their faults.

This is a novella that is really true, sincere and open, without loosing the romance; it's a light in the blackness that falls down upon whom discovers to be ill, and it gives hope. It doesn't give an answer, and I like that, even in the end, it doesn't explain who is wrong and who is right, the important thing is to cope and move on, always thinking positive to live positive.

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/NEGUB2.html

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/M4M.html

Amazon: M4M (A Collection of Gay Erotic Romance)

Reading List:

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It's always an hard task to write a good novel from a very good movie, and I think that most of the time you like one of them, the novel or the movie, but not both. So I was hesitant to read "Boy Culture" since I think the movie is one of the most wonderful gay romance movie out there. But the book is even better! Maybe since it's not an adaptation, but it was a novel way before it was made into a movie?

I think that the novel is better since the main hero, "X", has an innocence that was lost in the movie; the movie was also more "Hollywood" style, in the break and following declaration of forever love (wonderful scene with the two actors making out on the stairs), that X and Andrew actually don't have: their love story is more intimate, and it evolves nicely, there is no dramatic event that pushes X to take his decision to retire from being an hustler, he does it since he loves Andrew and I prefer this reason, for me it's a real proof that his love his sincere, he doesn't change who he is to "please" Andrew, he changes since he wants to be a better man "for" Andrew.

A thing I didn't like of the book is the output of X's relationship with Gregory, the octogenarian trick who tells X stories, and who helps him to realize he is in love with Andrew. Like in the movie, Gregory lies to X, but in the novel X is not able to forgive him... I feel sad for Gregory, I think it's not his fault if he was like that, it was a generation gap. But probably X has to break with Gregory since of all his tricks, he is the only one with whom X really betrays Andrew.

For being an hustler, X has a strange concept of betrayal and fidelity, something I'm not sure it came out from the movie. X's first love was a cousin of him, the boy who took his virginity when he was 13 years old and who broke his heart soon after. From this very bad first experience X learned two things: to associate true love with being a bottom, it's like you give yourself totally to another person, it's a so intimate act that it's scaring, and second that having sex without love is simple and better if done with an older man, less chance to fall in love. So X as an hustler tops only, and in a way, he remains pure and innocent, he is not selling love, he is selling something (being a bottom) that he will not share with his real lover, so it's not important. When X starts to think that it would be nice to have a boyfriend, to find Mr Right, he falls for his roommate Andrew, a man that in the book is stronger than X, both in body that in morality. It's so tender to hear X's thoughts when he said that he is no longer a virgin, he did everything with his body, but he is still virgin in one thing, no one ever really loved him. Only for this thoughts I think he is a lot stronger than what he thinks.
 
The book closes in a nice way, in a way that makes me think if there is not something of the author himself in X... All in all, thinking that this is a novel published in the '90, I'm surprise of how much a romance it's (there is even a reference to Fabio, the romance cover model...): I'm used to find gay romance good like this one now, but I didn't expect it in this one.

Amazon: Boy Culture: A Novel

Reading List:

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


Cover Art (photography) by Brian

The tagline of this novel is "A love story", but how can be a love story if one of the lover is killed at the beginning? well, it all depend on what you consider love, and then don't forget that the most famous love stories in the world haven't an happily ever after (Erich Segal was only one of the last...). Ahah, now some of you are thinking, so this novel has not an happily ever after? wrong, and again, it all depend on what you consider happily ever after.

Donald and Mark are happy and in love. They are actually still in the apex of their story, a six months old couple, a love at first sight that led to a sudden life in common. They are talking of the future, they are building a future. There is quite a wide age difference between Donald and Mark, something that Donald briefly considered, at 50 years old he didn't like to play the role of the daddy, but Mark won his every resistance. They would have been probably a very happy couple, but it's not fate to see it. Mark is killing during a gay bashing and Donald is left with his memories. And strange to say, I believe that the fact that they were a quite "new" couple allows Donald to survive; he is in pain, he misses Mark, but he is not thinking to kill himself, something that probably he would have thought if the one to die was his long-term partner. Instead Donald has still a life other than the one he shared with Mark, their relationship was still fresh enough to allow Donald to move on after a right mourning period. And maybe it helps that Mark didn't really leave him, he is still a steady presence in Donald's life, not exactly a ghost, but more the projection of Donald's love for him, an output of Donald's mind who speaks through Mark's image to tell Donald what he has to do.

Life is also helping Donald to move on, a new neighbor, Walter has moved upstair, and Walter is friendly and gay and willing... They have sex, and someone could question the choice of Donald to "come" out from his mourning period so soon, but actually it's not the real Donald, but, ab absurdo, the type of man that in their ill and twisted minds the gay bashers were targeting. Mark and Donald were an ordinary couple, they were exclusive and committed, they were talking of adopting a puppy. All right, they were coming out from a leather club, but they were in a gay friendly neighborhood, and they had just spent a nice night out and were heading home. Now, I'm not saying that, if they were different, the gay bashers would have been some reasons more, absolutely not, I'm saying that, where one of the basher was obviously a criminal and totally crazy, not even for one moment I feel pain or remorse for his wasted life, the other one, Jeremy, is a boy that probably, with the chance to have a different perspective in life, he would have seen the thing in a different way. If he would have been allowed to see Donald and Marc in their everyday life, maybe he wouldn't have been there taking part to the murder of a man.

When Donald looses Mark, for a bit he behaves like the man Jeremy thought he was, a man without moral, a man who changed partner every night and without real strings to life. Jeremy takes out his hate on gay men, but actually his rage comes from his family, from his mother who behaves exactly in that way, considering her son only a burden; and the only person who care for him, his uncle Walter, is gay... now I will let out a quite hazardous theory: since his mother neglects him in favor of her relationship, Jeremy has a special bond with Walter, who is gay; Walter is gay and so he has no women in his life, and little boy Jeremy didn't know about gay relationship, and so he thought uncle Walter was all "his" own property, someone who will never leave as his mother. But when Jeremy realizes that being gay means that his uncle Walter will have relationship with other men, he starts to develop hate for all gay men, since they are all possibile competitors for his uncle Walter's love. And more they are "sexually" active, more they are guilty... Risky theory, isn't it? But I believe it's not all wrong, and it explains also why this book has to be "sexier" than Reed's usual work.

So, coming back to that tagline, "A love story"... there are more than one love story here, Donald and Mark, but also Jeremy and his love for his uncle, Donald and Walter... maybe even Donald and his sister Grace, they are all different type of love, but nevertheless love stories.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=BASHED01

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Amazon: Bashed

Amazon Kindle: Bashed

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Painting from Life is a story of obsession, like it should be when you are talking of art, since only a work born from an artist who suffered to create it is worthy of that name. But in a almost Dorian Gray's twist, the artist of this short story takes strength from his art while his muse is slowly dying.

The artist (without name since this is a first point of view perspective) is an unhappy married man and a struggling artist; probably the struggle for his art also caused the problem in his marriage, in a way or the other, he never seems able to reach that bliss an artist feels when he knows that he is doing something wonderful, at least at his eyes. And then, during a weekend in a seaside village he is spending with his wife trying to patch their marriage, the artist sees a very old man sitting in a bench in front of the sea; the combination of the interior loneliness of the artist, with the loneliness of the shore out of season, and the loneliness of that old man, all of them push the artist to ask the man to be his model for a day. But the artist already knows that the obsession is started and the positive answer that first paintings received is only an incentive for the artist to ask for more. I believe that, even if it was a flop, in any case the artist would have asked to Peter (this is the name of the old man) for more. In his artistic frenzy, the artist doesn't realize that Peter is dying and that being his model is only heightening his distress and probably fast pacing his decline.

On the other hand the beginning reluctance of Peter slowly dissipates, since he already knows that he has grasped all the life has to offer to him, and what few remains, he can give it to the artist. Peter is not searching for a friend or companionship to fill the void of loneliness, he is already at peace with life, he maybe only wishes to end it as it's without further changes. And so at first, maybe he sees the artist as an intrusion in his life, but then he understands that the man needs him, way more than Peter needs him, and he willingly gifts the artist with all of him, from his body (but only for an artistic purpose) to his remaining life force. From Peter's side it's not love, neither a love for art, it's more maybe a fatherly thing; from the artist's side, I don't know, maybe it's love, but that type of love that borders in obsession and that doesn't allow you to see the thing from a right perspective, everything is distorted to justify what you want to see. For now, Peter and the artist's relationship is perfect, at least from the artist's point of view, the problem will arrive when life will ask his toll on Peter.

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

Amazon: Painting from Life

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Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey

Two men are together for more than fifty years, but one of them has a progressive illness who cause him to forget even the more simple things. But a little sign by him will prove that love will be never forgotten.

This is one of the most beatiful short story I have ever read. There is all the elements to make it a wonderful book and they are all packed in few pages. Henry and Jim spent years together and they are happy years, but now Jim is progressively forgotten those moments (probably due to illness), and Henry fears that, with the lost of the memory, maybe also the love will be lost forever.

I don't know if I loved so much this short story since it's true and being true it doesn't have a solution for all the bad things in the world, or since it allows me to feel the happiness Henry and Jim shared in all those years together. Knowing that they were so good together, allow me to accept that now they are old, and with the age comes also the consciousness that they will be separated, but not for long, since I have the feelings that, where one will go, the other soon will follow. This is not a story of two young men in love, this is the story of two very old men, but still in love, and this is the most wonderful thing of all.

And even if for small thing, the force of love still allow some little miracles. Absolutely recommended.

http://excessica.com/index.php/books/henry-and-jim-by-jm-snyder/

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Taking Work Home follows soon after the end of the previous book. Mark and Steven are lovers, but they still live on their own and work together. They spend most of the weekends together, but Mark is maintaining his space while they test their relationship. But now is time for Mark to meet all Steven's family and not only his parents: New Year's Eve is the planned day and it will be also the day in which Steven will announce to his family that he not only wants to live with Mark, he also wants to marry him.

As the previous one, I like a lot this book since it satisfies one of my kinks, my love for May / December relationship. Here at its full, with Steven being a 46 years old wealthy man, and Mark a 26 years old young man just out of college. Steven takes the lead of their relationship not only in bed but also during their day-to-day routine, and Mark is more and more becoming the perfect secretary wife; he is careful of Steven's needs at work but also in his private life, he supports him with comfort and sex when needed, even when Mark himself is not receiving sexual satisfaction from the act.

This is one of the aspect I found interesting in the book. Sometime sex was more than an erotic interlude to entertain the reader; sex was part of the reason Jules Jones gave the reader to understand Mark and Steven's relationship. Mark could be younger than Steven, but he is an old "younger": he is not more in that age in which sex is everything and more is better; he can fill a stab of annoyance when he didn't obtain what he is trying to reach, but he is wise enough to know that if it's not now, it will be later. Of the two, Mark seems to be the wiser, above all in the matter of living together, and so the unbalancing given by the age difference, is a bit covered by their completing personality.

Another thing I found really charming is the English feeling of the novel, with our characters, both main than supporting ones, who always think that a good cup of tea can be the answer to a lot of problem. So English that, even when they are arguing, they are polite and kind. No loudy tone, no bloody reactions, but a cool composure and bitter reply... sometime words can wound more than a sword.

If you fancy a silver romance, Taking Work Home is really a good choice, even if now I'm waiting to read of their marriage and of all the organization before it.

http://www.loose-id.net/detail.aspx?ID=765

Series: Lord and Master
1) Lord and Master: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/46959.html
2) Taking Work Home

Waiting Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

I absolutely love the last romance by Jules Jones!

Mark is a PhD scientist student who accept a job as PA of an oldest scientist, now CEO of his own company, Steven. Steven is gay, like Mark, and during the job interview makes clear that people will gossip about their relationship in and out the office. Steven is older and richer, and Mark is prettier and younger so thing is clear, who want who and why...

But really the love between the two grow slowly and strong during the time. The sex arrives very soon, but in the first time is a friend type of sex, good for both, enjoyable and quite. I have appreciated a lot the sex scene descriptions cause they seem to me real (also the fact that maybe Steven, at forty four years old, can't have sex ever and everywhere...)

In the first part of the book I have a strange feeling about the character of Steven: he is nice and handsome, but also distant. He makes sex with Mark but seems to me like his emotions stay out of the whole thing. But when the two make clear their mutual feeling, the love blossoms in full color and emotion.

This is not a fastpace reading, you have to savor it: it's like a vintage wine and it will stay with you long after you have finished it.

http://www.loose-id.net/prod-Lord_and_Master-406.aspx


Cover Art by Anne Cain