I often heard complaints about how many M/M romance authors are coming from the slash fanfiction world; there is who denied or tried to hide it, and who instead is proudly said yes, I am. And then there is who, like A.L. Turner, turned this into a character and moved her story into the fiction (non-fan) realm.

Vince and Alex are co-stars in a sci-fi serial on national television; it’s big money and as such there is a lot of pressure: even if everyone could see the sexual tension between their characters, the executives don’t dare. It doesn’t help that, in real life, Vince and Alex are living a relationship in the closet, a bit to save their career, a bit to respect Alex’s beliefs: not only he is from a very strict catholic family, he also believes in such values and above all he has already seen in the past his life being destroyed by those “homosexual” behaviours, not once but two time already.

Vince is at the opposite from Alex: he was raised by a supporting family who, yes, was worried by his fate when he came out when he was barely a teen, but who mostly helped him following his dreams. Actually they are more concerned by his choice to be an actor than by his sexual preferences. It speaks a lot of Vince’s love for Alex that he is willing to maintain their relationship a secret, but it’s also true that Vince is young and hot-head, and the willingness will not last long.

If I have to be true, while I like Vince, my favourite was Alex; I think that, if Vince had a little more patience, Alex would have come around by his own. Vince wanted to rush things and in doing so he gambled not only on their careers but also their life.

The plot is not complicated but romantic and I think that many will recognize their own in the fans of Vince and Alex’s characters on television, in the people attending the sci-fi conventions, in the women writing and speculating on the blogs not only on the fictional characters but also on the same Vince and Alex’s relationship. As I said, I think the author penned herself in one of these bloggers, and in a way, even if I was never of the fanfiction world, I can rely with her when she was complaining on how they “ruined” (they the executives, not Vince and Alex) the show: I clearly remember how I more or less stopped to follow a very famous serial on tv when they decided the very bachelor male character, with a very bachelor best friend, had to suddenly have a romantic interest for a woman.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=97&products_id=3265

Amazon Kindle: I Just Play One on TV
Publisher: Torquere Press, Inc. (August 23, 2011)

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