elisa_rolle (elisa_rolle) wrote,
elisa_rolle
elisa_rolle

2015 Rainbow Awards Winners: Best Transgender Book

And the Rainbow Award goes to:

1. The Burnt Toast B&B (A Bluewater Bay Story) by Heidi Belleau and Rachel Haimowitz
Paperback: 214 pages
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (January 3, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1626492174
ISBN-13: 978-1626492172
Amazon: The Burnt Toast B&B (A Bluewater Bay Story)
Amazon Kindle: The Burnt Toast B&B (A Bluewater Bay Story)

After breaking his arm on set, Wolf’s Landing stuntman Ginsberg Sloan finds himself temporarily out of work. Luckily, Bluewater Bay’s worst B&B has cheap long-term rates, and Ginsberg’s not too proud to take advantage of them.
Derrick Richards, a grizzled laid-off logger, inherited the B&B after his parents’ untimely deaths. Making beds and cooking sunny-side-up eggs is hardly Derrick’s idea of a man’s way to make a living, but just as he’s decided to shut the place down, Ginsberg shows up on his doorstep, pitiful and soaking wet, and Derrick can hardly send him packing.
Not outright, at least.
The plan? Carry on the B&B’s tradition of terrible customer service and even worse food until the pampered city boy leaves voluntarily. What Derrick doesn’t count on, though, is that the lousier he gets at hosting, the more he convinces bored, busybody Ginsberg to try to get the B&B back on track. And he definitely doesn’t count on the growing attraction between them, or how much more he learns from Ginsberg than how to put out kitchen fires.
Honestly, this book blew me away and that's not easy to do. It was hilarious at times and poignant at others and just such a joy to read. It kept me up into the early morning hours until I couldn't keep my eyes open to read "just one more scene." I nearly ran into a bridge support on my daily walk because I couldn't put my phone away to stop reading the book. I loved how Ginsberg's gender, while being an issue...wasn't THE issue. The story was more about Derrick coming to terms with his own sexuality and what that meant in his world. And everything was just so well done. The sex was perfect. The reactions were perfect.. Derrick coming to terms with his parent's death and how well loved he actually is...perfect. And Ginsberg was perfect. I couldn't think of *anything* I would change, hence my score.
Ah, this book had two great characters that I was rooting for the whole way through. Wonderful little book.
Really well written - beautiful characterization.
This was a sweet story exploring a relationship which was very different for one of the MCs, Derrick, who proved to be a kindly man who gained insight into his own past and character as the book went on. His boyfriend Ginsberg, was also patient and kind in how he made allowances for the new situation his partner found himself in. The B&B itself was another character in the story. I don't know how realistic the sex scenes were, but they were nicely unsensational, and gave me food for thought.
Ginsberg, badass stunt double for the star of the show-within-the-book, caught my attention in the first of the Bluewater Bay stories. Ginsberg is a force of nature, and the contrast between his personality and verve, and Derrick's curmudgeonly (yet oddly innocent) viewpoint is highly entertaining.


Runners Up:
2.    Chasing Death Metal Dreams by Kaje Harper   
3.    To Summon Nightmares by J.K. Pendragon
The Errant Prince by Sasha L. Miller
4.    Everybody Knows by Giselle Renarde
A Boy Called Cin by Cecil Wilde   
5.    Groom Of Convenience (Scandalous Whispers Of The Remmington Realm) by Vicktor Alexander



This journal is friends only. This entry was originally posted at http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4769026.html. If you are not friends on this journal, Please comment there using OpenID.
Tags: rainbow awards 2015
Subscribe

  • G&T: italian gay webserie

    When Gay Romance wasn't so popular, I was already passionate about gay love stories, and the only source to fullfill my passion were movies. There…

  • James Steven Handshoe & Jeff London

    Writer, producer, director Jeff London (born January 16) grew up in a small town outside Bakersfield, California, called Shafter. Later his family…

  • Philomena (2013) directed by Stephen Frears

    Philomena (2013) A world-weary political journalist picks up the story of a woman's search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Comments allowed for friends only

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 0 comments