abgayle

I read this on Teddy Pig's recommendation and am glad I did. Yes, it is dated, yes it's not PC (by many standards) containing as it does instances when the protagonists take drugs and carry on with a number of unsafe sex practices.So let's lay down a few facts in case you are tempted.....If the concept of golden showers and other such things turns you off, don't read this book.If you don't like learning about what it was like to be gay back in the 1970's, don't read this book.If sections like this:Gay guys are the most bewildering people on earth! One minute they can be so damned pleasant—and then turn right around and be the bitchiest bastards you’ve ever seen. It’s like they all had split-personalities! (I kept remembering that kid I'd picked up in Nevada, and the Jekyl-Hyde thing that happened to him.) I don’t know—it’s like gay guys live on a tightrope or something; you never know what’s going to set them off! Like—a guy would come in and order his drink, and usually he’d be smiling and happy, saying “hi” to everyone—and he’d pick out a spot to stand and display himself and cruise; but then, maybe half an hour later, you’d hear him snapping at people, swearing—or go storming out, shoving people out of his way! And who knows what the hell happened? Maybe he cruised someone and got turned down—or maybe he thought things weren’t happening fast enough—or got hungup thinking nobody wanted him! Or, you’re down at one end of the bar and a guy wants to talk—and someone else goes down to the other end, wanting a drink—and no matter what you do then, you’re wrong; they act like you’re insulting them both by not being in two places at once! Or if you’re out of the one kind of beer a guy likes, it’s like you’ve said something against his mother! offends your sensibilities don't read this book.If reading about rape upsets you - don't read this book.While there is a HEA, if you're looking for a sweet m/m romance, don't read this book. Are you getting the picture, yet?However, if you want an honest, no-holds-barred look at the scene back then, check it out.The gay mystery writer Josh Thomas, summed it up in his review thus: In 1969, a few months before the Stonewall Riots broke out in June, a fly-by-night publisher issued a title by Dirk Vanden called "I Want It All" as part of a throwaway series called Frenchy's Gay Line, sold only in dirty bookstores, two bucks a pop. But "I Want It All" turned out to be a real novel, winning a respected place in the history of Gay Lit. The wonder is, it's just as hot and every bit as readable today.I couldn't have said it better myself. Just ignore the exclamation marks.... Wince.

I recently read the “All” trilogy by Dirk Vanden: I Want It All, All Or Nothing (also known as “All the Way”) and this one, “All is Well”.The first book was released before the Stonewall Riots, and to quote Dirk: “My books weren’t considered worthy of editing when they were first published.... We were lucky just to get the books published and to get a few bucks for an outright sale.”Once I “got over” the excessive use of exclamation marks in the first book, the other books were fine. There are no more typographical errors or formatting problems than there are in many other ebooks on the market today.Dirk's writing style is fluid, his dialogue natural and his characters are vivid.Drugs feature unapologetically strongly in the book. Both the upside – the euphoric feeling that you had all the answers, understood the essence of life and the universe and then the downside as reality stabbed euphoria in the back and painted black shadows around everything. Apparently, one publisher wanted Dirk to “apologise” for all the drug use in his books, but as he explained it to me in an email: “We were illegal, immoral perverts in those days and anything we could do to our heads to keep from thinking how terrible we were just to have sex with each other and how even more terrible we were to write about it. As a result, I tried marijuana, mescaline and LSD and discovered that they “opened doors in my mind.”” He assured me that: Drug use in Gay bars in the 60s and 70s was as common as beer and cigarettes, and, of course, like nicotine, and alcohol, the drugs were addictive.”The books are set solidly in the late sixties, early seventies, an era famous for its music, its hippies and its drug taking, but still a time when homosexuality was illegal in most States. The times they were a-changing though. The hero’s son, Chuck, sees it as a time when sex was not a big deal, and who you did it with was almost irrelevant.The three books stand alone, each told from the first person viewpoint of a different character. However common characters and a couple of common events link them together.In each book, a man who always thought of himself as straight, discovers he is happier being gay. Remember that in those days, this was a fate considered worse than death. Hounded by the law, consigned to the depths of hell by religion, rejected by family and rebuffed by their peers.Making an apology is another theme in common. In each book, the viewpoint character has to acknowledge and seek forgiveness for a hurtful act. Until this is done, the character can never find peace within himself.I’ve reviewed the other books, but “All is Well” is different. It’s a lot more cerebral for a start. A lot of the “action” takes place inside the hero, Bob’s, head.Being the son of a Mormon Minister, for Bob, religion played a large part in his upbringing. I’ve read two other books that use this religion as part of the plot: James Buchanan’s Hard Fall and Z.A.M. Maxfield’s The Pharaoh's Concubine. While these two authors may have done meticulous research, they don’t capture that overwhelming feeling of guilt and stultifying constriction of attitudes and beliefs that Dirk conveys so well, having been brought up a Mormon himself.From correspondence I’ve had with him, I gather his current attitudes and beliefs permeate the book through the viewpoints of his different characters.Near the end there’s a classic description of why he has little patience for “queens” as he describes why “Sophie” felt uncomfortable in the steam baths. Among these men, in this atmosphere, naked, there would be no way for such a person to call attention to himself—to make such a desperate point of the fact that he was different-by-god-GAY! His sort of posturing and “cleverness” would be totally invalid here, not only unnecessary, but undesirable. An alien from another world would have been no more out of place. All the formalities and socializations had been stripped away; “personalities” had to be hung up with the clothes, left behind in a locked room. He’d been lost, maskless, stripped of his identification.... he probably thrived on rejection...who became disoriented and helpless when something good happened to him, and no matter how much he thought he wanted something good, he had to twist it and torture it until it became bad. Such people were miserable, because misery was their only identification.You can tell Dirk Vanden is also an accomplished artist. His description of the scenery is as vivid as a painting I looked up, straight above me—and fell helplessly into the color of foggy violet! Helplessly into an incredible vastness of sky! As I watched, darkness deepened, creeping up from the east; the color lost its fogginess and became a fantastically soft purple, and then ultramarine; and then a star, just the tiniest pinpoint, started to sparkle, and then more. I felt the light fade from my face. The stars brightened. The sky deepened. The universe opened above me.“All is well” is not for the faint at heart. Not because there are gruesome murders or anything but because we delve into the deepest recesses of the mind of a troubled man.It’s uncompromising; by no means an easy book to read, but worth it in the end. Dirk’s writing makes you care even when the guy is at his worse, wallowing in his misery. You just want him to break out of his funk. I’m not a fan of paranormal, and this is a good example of what you can do without resorting to that level of fantasy. We all have the capacity to do these things ourselves. Be the strong invincible vampire, the werewolf that can change to a form that can vanquish its enemies and we can all harbor the demon from hell within.In some ways, this novel covers the steps of the archetypal hero’s journey, complete with the wrong goal, the black moment and the mentor (in this case drugs). As in all such journeys, the hero has to reach deep inside himself to find the solution to his predicament and confront his worst fears in doing so. I had created the problems myself, however childish or ill-advised I had been, and now I had to solve those problems myself.I don’t know whether this was intentional on Dirk’s part - to follow Joseph Campbell’s prescription, but there are definitely elements there. There’s even the symbolism of the epiphany happening on Easter Sunday when the hero leaves his past behind and is reborn, complete with the biblically significant three day turnaround from the time he leaves San Francisco and returns.None of these literary elements intrude on the narrative. Many readers may not even see the story at this level, but I enjoyed the book that much more after I recognised what had happened.Another theme that ran through the book was: “I had to keep an open mind, adjust myself to the changes in the world.”The world was definitely a-changing. Another book that came to mind as I read was Andrew Holleran’s The Beauty of Men. Set in the nineties, after AIDS had decimated the gay population, the different scenes in steam baths bear comparison. Although there are two very different establishments in “All is Well” neither have that pathetic lost quality that imbues Holleran’s classic.In Dirk Vanden’s time: Here there were dozens of men wandering around, most of them young, and many of them very attractive, manly-looking, well-muscled, with white towels narrowly wrapped around trim tanned waists. One or two I saw were clean-shaven and short haired, but most of them had long hair, moustaches, sideburns, many with full luxuriant beards.While in Holleran’s book, the middle-aged Lark describes it thus:Driving to the baths in 1983 was like going to Valhalla, he thinks as he walks down the hall. Going to the baths in 1995 is like driving to have his tires rotated and oil changed.In the end, the title of the last book takes on a new triple-edged meaning as the different worlds collide and become one. Not only do the three characters come together, but for Bob, the hero of “All is Well”, "all" the facets of his personality converge as well. Very neatly done.There is almost a messianic fervor in the closing pages. The certainty hippies had in the seventies that a New Age was coming: The Age of Aquarius. Forty years on we can see that unfortunately the Roberts of the world didn’t quite lose their grip. And while the Bobs may no longer be jailed for their sexuality, there is still room for more change to happen.“All is Well” is definitely worth reading as a record of the time, but even more so because it and the other books in the trilogy are a “Good read”.Just one final question. Is sex between brothers classified as incest?

Some people have criticised the sex scene, my main problem was the ending.There needed to be more between that scene and the end. I never got to really feel how he processed that in his brain or why they would get together afterwards.It felt rushed.

"First books" by an author are a hard sell.Books released by a small publisher are also hard to sell.In this day when m/m seems to rule the roost, m/f books are hard sells.Books that aren't wall to wall sex are hard sells.Which is a pity because this is a book that deserves to be read.I may be biased because as editor I was so involved with seeing this book come to fruition, but I still feel justified in rating and reviewing the finished product.My role was more of a guide. All the words are C.H. Scarlett's own, all the thoughts, all the characters.For example, you gotta love a character who starts off by saying:Good evening, my delicious, little darklings of darkness. Wyntress Nyght here, serving up your forbidden dose of supernatural crack. So hook up your IVs, roll up the psychic and toke her, or offer up your shot glass for some ectoplasmic delight. For I have the phantasmal kick you have all been jonzing for. No DTs here, my darklings, only the monster of all dragons for you to chase . . . me!Her characters sparkle with originality and wit. After Wyntress herself, my favorite was Jinx:He's a Zombie. They're sort of like the Hannibal Lectors of the Other World. Usually suppressed Vegans in their former lives, they show up here with a, let's say, acquired taste. Nothing like the Night of the Living Dead or anything . . . that is, as long as they're well fed.Jinx is very mischievous and one of the best kleptomaniacs I know. That night, he was dressed in jeans and a baggy t-shirt. His dirty, blond hair was spiked with blue tint in some places. He's kind of punk, kind of hippie and kind of Goth. He was munching on something from a small bag—probably deep-fried, popcorn-sized, brain chunks or cheese–stuffed, intestinal poppers.*Laughs*"Flint said you were chicken shit," Jinx's Irish accent frolicked across his tongue.The plot is complicated enough to keep the pages turning and the dialogue and inner thought diverting to say the least.For a while now, I've just read m/m books as I was so fed up with normal het romance. The alpha male, the beautiful female, the ring, marriage and the kids.I'm not usually a fan of paranormals with their boring shapeshifters and vampires. Well they are both present, but their usual abilities are almost irrelevant in this book. It's their personalities that move the plot along not their innate paranormal strengths.Of all the books I read in 2010, this has to be one if not "the" favorite. Casey has created a world, characters and a voice that are unique.Given the "other world" setting, you can be sure none of the standard m/f tropes are going to apply.To all out there who have despaired of finding a good het read, try "Wyntress Nyght" it will crack you up.

Australia's "Pride" Parade is called the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. This is run by a "not for profit" organisation,the New Mardi Gras committee. My novella is not endorsed by them or linked to them in any way. For the record, they were not happy with me using the term Mardi Gras for the title of the book as they have copyrighted it in Australia. They eventually gave me permission to use it providing I made it clear that I wasn't connected to them in any way.In recognition of the great work they do in holding the parade I am donating half my royalties to the committee.Apart from attending the parade and a number of the special events in Mardi Gras week, I also did a lot of research, including reading a book "What Happened to Gay Life" by Robert Reynolds. I wrote a review on that for Goodreads.It's been great to see that "Mardi Gras" has inspired people to do more reading themselves about the events Mardi Gras commemorates. The photos I took of the parade can be seen in a photo album on my webpage.

I hope readers get as much enjoyment out of this book as I did when writing it. I'm wondering whether Zack's exploits need following.Thanks to all those who helped polish it up for publishing: Don, Arnel, Kate and Karla.

Researching this was fun. Check out photos on my website and on my Facebook page. It chronicles our visit to twelve wineries in the Mornington Peninsula area searching for the Perfect Pinot G.For those not into wine, there is some confusion about the difference (if any) between Pinot gris and Pinot grigios. This book explores that difference.Along the way, we learnt a lot about wine and wine making and met stacks of great, friendly people.Writing the book was a lot harder than writing romance novels. Facts had to be checked and re-checked, information had to be made interesting.I didn't want to write a guide book style wine book. This is really a search in which we were led from place to place by people keen to impart their knowledge and give a real taste of what went into making a good wine.Tacked onto the end are recipes from a four course banquet we held at which guests sampled a few of the wines and gave their verdict.Now to visit some other Pinot G areas. Burgundy? Italy? Hmm, just got to sell a few copies of this one first!

I really enjoyed White Flag. Having written a romance that touched on the wine industry and a straight travel, wine book with recipes, plus one that had fishing as an aspect there were quite a few hooks that brought me into the story.There, though, the similarities ended. Our writing styles are very different.The tone is very languid and the writing very melodius. Carefully chosen turns of phrases and clever word usage suited the concept that the narrator was a writer. The description and characterisation brought you into the world.I am never one to criticise what a character is like, more how well the character is drawn and the way they fit into the story. This book had two minor characters the cousin and the grandmother. The younger girl's role was pivotal. Some readers may have found her involvement contrived, but I saw her as a miniature of her matriarchal grandmother. To me they were both fine.It was pleasing to read a book where the sex was present but not described in detail. Just enough to carry the mood of the encounter and the impact it had on each participant.The whole book was very cerebral with the long passages of conversation.A common criticism of first person POV is that readers like to know what both people are thinking. Having also written quite a few in first I appreciated how well this was done. It made sense that the narrator, again from his background that involved interviews, would have enough skill to understand and read between the lines so he knew what the other man was thinking most times and conveyed that well to the reader.I didn't need to get into Matthieu's head and using the cousin to spell it out in no uncertain terms near the end reinforced that.I liked this book because it was different. It introduced me to a world without overwhelming me in detail. Something as a writer I need to learn. The author is also a lot better than me at getting into a character's emotions and feelings.So in many ways, my high rating is an acknowledgement of superior technique.If I had one criticism it is that I think it would have worked better if both protagonists were older. Mid thirties, even in their forties. Two men who had seen their fair share of life, with all its disappointments, so when an opportunity came along there was more urgency to act on it. More recognition that this was something different.But this would then have been a different book. So I'll make it 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

First up, I should mention that I helped Charles edit this book. However, I don't think that precludes me from rating it as really the book was there before I started.Sure I helped him tweak a few paragraphs around and got him to expand a couple of sections, but my input was minor.What I really liked about this book was that he got the voice, thoughts, insecurities and motivations of a young man just right.It wasn't an easy job writing a book where the background is the scene of the genre it's set in. Charles manages to tread a fine line between enjoying the people that write in the genre without satirising them. I think he succeeded in doing that simply because he likes and respects his peers.Guys the age of his protagonists don't see the subtleties of a person's nature, so keeping his secondary characters simple (and in some respects cartoonish) worked for me. Sure, Marquerite, might make some people squirm, because she does things we all hope we don't do. But her personality needs to be like that for the plot to work.As a first published story, I think "Jump First" is a brilliant start, and no doubt Charles will soon be helping me like I helped him. That's what critique partners do.The book succeeds in being exactly what the writer wanted it to be, a whimsical exploration of coming out, first love and two people sharing a love of writing.I enjoyed helping Charles add those last little finishing touches.

Before “Hot Head” by Damon Suede was published, there was a lot of buzz in virtual space. This was a “first” book by a man who describes himself as growing “up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. He says he has lived all over: Houston, New York, London, Prague, with a few long stretches in New Orleans and Vienna. Along the way, he’s earned his crust as a model, a messenger, a promoter, a programmer, a sculptor, a singer, a stripper, a bookkeeper, a bartender, a techie, a teacher, a director... but writing has ever been his bread and butter.For the most part, this book has received unqualified praise, however there are some pretty damning reviews out there which I want to address.Now, I have nothing but respect for the people who made these comments, however I feel that the issues they raise are worth addressing.It is very difficult for an author to “discuss” reviews of their own book, and most publishers recommend that authors don’t get into an argument with people who pan their book, so I’m going to do it for him, lol.I’ll probably be accused of being an apologist who wants to deny reviewers the right to write negative reviews. So, to start with, Damon has no fucking clue who I am, or that I am doing this.I have also written my share of negative reviews and will defend to the end my right and every other reviewer’s right to do so. I have also had negative reviews written about my stories and will likely cop more in the future. Probably deservedly so.However, some of the points used to justify the low ratings beg discussion.The two main bones of contention with the plot are: the coincidental “Gay for You” theme and the fact that fire fighters risk their jobs doing porn videos.Linked into that are queries about the way the book references the tragedy of 9/11.To sum up, words like contrived, far-fetched and crazy were bandied about the plot.The other major issues are to do with the lack of emotional tension and romance in the story and the part porn plays in the story.Alongside these are craft issues such as pacing and point of view and finally the depiction of minor characters and the ending.Before I start commenting, I’d like to add what my expectations were when I read the book as, to me, “expectations” not being met are at the root of a lot of this criticism.I deliberately hadn’t read any blurb beforehand, or excerpts although I had seen some discussion about the book before it was released.PLOT: Fire fighters and PornBefore I opened the book, I assumed the main plot would revolve around their fire-fighting duties. I actually felt a bit ho-hum about that. It’s been done to death. So, when I started reading and found the porn angle was so crucial, I was immediately relieved, hooked and interested. Real fire-fighters do appear on calendars in various undressed states. Porn stars dressed as firemen appear in photos and videos. They say they’re fire-fighters, but everyone assumes they’re lying, right? So, what if they really were firemen? Far-fetched possibly, but not impossible.Taking the first major criticism then, I didn’t have a problem with the plot. Most romances have contrived plots if there is a plot. Many romances are character driven and only cover a few days, thus escaping the need to have gay men in the real world with real jobs and real problems like where to live and the need to earn money. In a world where the reality of being gay still has repercussions and not just in being bashed.PLOT: Gay for You = Out for YouThe Gay for You “problem” was beautifully answered by Damon himself as he quotes the better term is that used by Marie Sexton:” "Out for You”. As Damon says, "Out for You" is how most gay men figure themselves out sexually, at whatever age they come to terms with their sexuality. They meet someone who arouses feelings that makes them question their self-image.”This is what the book was all about and to dismiss this as contrived or not working is short-sighted. Maybe in the majority of couples in real life, one of them has come to this realisation a lot earlier than the other and helps them “through it”, but there must be cases where this “coincidence” happens.Perhaps the bond that brought them together in the first place was more than “brotherly love”, and they dared not put a name to the underlying physical attraction, but it may have been there all along.I would guess that “Out for You” happens more often than not. It must still take a lot of guts today to admit you’re gay because of not only society’s and family expectations but what doing so actually means. Many men never “come out” simply because the thought of missing out on family and kids is too much to give up. Everyone wants to feel “normal” and until society and family see them as normal when they are gay, many will continue to deny their feelings.Would it have worked if one was knowingly gay and pursued the other? I don’t think so. It would certainly have been a different story.PLOT: Firefighters and 9/11Perhaps too many readers expected this book to be different and felt cheated when it didn’t conform to their expectations. Some commentators thought the plot would have had more impact if tied closer to 9/11. They wanted the fire-fighting to be the main theme of the book. While that might make for a lovely angsty/emotional book, it’s not this book.This book is about the men who fight fires, not the fires themselves. They are a special breed. There is a certain defence mechanism fire fighters use to cope with the reality of tragedies like 9/11 and the many we never hear about. Guys in these situations often find the only way they can deal with it is to “trivialise” it in their mind. Damon has said in interviews etc that he spent a lot of time getting the feel “right” so perhaps, once again, the problem is in reviewers’ preconceptions. I know a few Aussie firemen, and they are the most laid back, ironic, brash people you’d like to meet and would fit in very well with what Damon has described.LACK OF EMOTIONAL TENSIONOK, I’ll buy this to a certain extent, but how many people generally can and do express their emotions? Male or female? I like reading stories where two people learn to be happy together. They don’t have to tell us why or even show why. Not everyone is able to express themselves emotionally in real life and fire-fighters who learn to put huge walls around their emotions are the least likely to do so.Emotional tension comes and goes in relationships. I feel it’s a female thing. I wonder how many males would say that’s what they want? I will admit that this probably sums up why I will never be a writer. I have difficulty putting emotion down on paper.Criticism was also levelled at the way misunderstanding was used to build tension. The characters themselves were guilty of expectations. Both Griff and Dante assumed the other would reject/hate them for having these feelings. If you aren’t comfortable with the fact you’re gay, you’re hardly likely to expect another person to feel the same way. Admitting the truth to himself was hard enough for Griff.The emotional tension comes from the guilt Griff has over loving Dante. Damon describes it thus: “I think that Griff uses the idea of brotherhood to defuse his early desire and affection as they grow. (This) is one of the only accepted ways for men to show affection to each other.”So this “love” isn’t going to have great ”emotion” attached to it. It’s claps on the shoulder. Doing things for the other person without being asked. Griff does eventually want more, but society’s expectations prevents it from being more.Some guys work 24/7 at denying they have any feelings. Emotions are for wusses. Anyway I would expect many emergency response workers are usually emotionally drained after pulling dead kids out of burning houses or seeing comrades die. That to them is emotion. Loving someone who is your best buddy and having that turn into a sexual relationship is possibly classified under a different heading.A couple of readers noted the rough, masculinity of the males but some felt this was overdone. Criticising men for being men (when there are no females around) makes me shudder. No wonder they like to escape from the finger wagglers. Perhaps they are this way deliberately to show they’re men just like women get false fingernails to appear more feminine?PACING ISSUES and POVDamon commented: “I tend to like introspective protagonists.” Funnily enough, a lot of females who read m/m romance do too. This introspection is a natural reaction for someone who believed being straight was the only option. There would have been non-stop questioning going on. Griff wanted to talk about it with someone else, but didn’t know who he could confide in.If Dante was straight he felt letting him know he was gay would ruin their friendship. So of course he angsted by himself a lot.One critic also felt that the one-sided POV didn’t make Dante engaging or logical or help build the romantic tension. I have a big problem with this attitude, especially in a book where “misunderstanding” was such an important element. If we had been in Dante’s head, we would have immediately known he lusted after Griff. The whole point of the story was that Griff didn’t know what Dante was thinking.I hate it when the reader is told things in these sorts of stories that the main protagonist doesn’t know. You want to kill all tension?NOW WE GET TO THE KILLER EXPECTATION – NOT ROMANTIC ENOUGHI note that Damon referred to it as a gay romance not an m/m romance. However, reader’s expectations are turning the genre into a farce and in the process are actually belittling gay males and males in general.The ultimate put down for m/m romances is that one or both protagonists were “chicks with dicks”. It’s not making the protagonists beer swilling, burping males or giving them stupendous physical attributes or have them being aggressive or violent that makes them male. It’s the unwillingness to bare their souls and pour out their emotions except as a last resort.Emotionally constipated is a common and apt description. Men often prefer to show their love in what they do, not what they say or even think. This is where I really feel females are doing a disservice to the genre and gay men, by demanding they pander to female needs for emotional expression of their feelings for each other.The romance aspect is becoming derivative and predictable as the readers demand that they be written to a formula and tick certain boxes.Griff and Dante loved each other before they had the sex. For them, the sex was part of the equation, an important part, but the connection was there to start with. Therefore, you’re never going to get the “Some Enchanted Evening” style romance. Which itself is often one protagonist being in love and the other not willing to recognise it. In this case it was two guys too scared to recognise and identify what they felt.One critic felt the book would have been better with a more sensitive guy in the mix. A “sensitive” guy wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes as a fireman. Not that these guys aren’t sensitive. They’re probably the biggest wusses of the lot, but they lock it up inside. The clues were all there in the writing. They just don’t show it or express it openly. A skim through read might miss these.Many comments dwelt on what readers want in their “romances”. Just remember, not all readers are the same.PORNWhich now brings me to the porn aspect of the whole story. Again I’m going to quote Damon in full here as it’s relevant: “As for the porn, it actually was included for the unsexiness. LOLOL The thing is, porn isn't sexy on the inside. I've dated people in the industry and still have a lot of friends who perform in it. For me the porn addressed falseness and emptiness and dishonesty that had sprung up around all that unspoken desire as the two of them found a way to each other. It's the fakeness and the pose of normalcy that made it essential to the story. Porn is a pose of desire, which people knowingly misread as their own desire. It's only sexy if we submit to the explicit lie of it. Those performers are earning a living and trying to survive as best they can. When I was still stripping, there were times in clubs or in a cage when men would be touching my legs or gazing up with a weird hybrid of lust and anger and I'd realize how disconnected we all were, how artificial the fantasy needed to be to survive. Pretending to engage so that we never actually engaged.”Having watched a fair bit of gay porn (purely in the name of research LOL) I felt what was described was pretty accurate.In the story, the porn shots were a necessary stage in the whole process. Yes, maybe the fact that Dante knowingly used it as a ploy to reach Griff was far-fetched. He could have just done it without knowing why. It was this progression from straight brotherly affection through the almost “acceptance” in men of porn to the realisation that it was more than porn that is the journey they make.I’m glad Alek turned out to be a “good” guy. He reminded me of what Corbin Fisher comes across as. Someone trying to encourage males to explore their sexuality. Sure they make money out of it, and possibly have a hidden agenda to turn all good looking straight men gay , but if it gives guys the feeling that, hey, the world isn’t going to end if I have sex with a guy, then isn’t that a good thing?Given the number of porn sites that have “straight” guys learning the joys of man-on-man sex, a lot of guys need this “permission” to explore this side of their sexuality.For female romance readers to criticise a book that has porn as its main theme is again putting female “expectations” onto gay romance, in much the same way they demand male monogamy as being the only expression of love.Damon admitted this himself when he said: “I'm writing a gay romance for a specific audience with very firm expectations and a very wide disparity of tastes.”Again this is as much a reflection on females demanding males write m/m romances for females exclusively.THE ENDINGI won’t go into the Peter Jackson “Return of the King” style ending. It could have finished earlier, but I feel the author wanted to make a couple of points. He wanted to avoid the cliché stereotypes by showing people what they could and should be like.What I didn’t like? And I’m not dropping a point for it as a decent editor would have red penned it: The vanity adjectives. Griff keeps noting things like the redness of his hair, the massiveness of his thighs or shoulders, also his red-headedness was harped on a couple too many times.But, I still give this book five stars. I didn’t lose interest. As a wannabe writer, there were many scenes Damon did brilliantly and his characters lived and breathed. He is one of those writers that make me want to give up writing as my efforts to do similar things pale by comparison.Sure the book is not perfect, but it dares a great deal. It’s brave. And the fact it doesn’t meet up to some reader’s expectations probably says more about the readers than it does the writer.WHY I WROTE THISWhy didn’t I just accept that everyone has the right to their own judgement and point of view without taking issue with it?Two reasons:Firstly for the author’s sake. Reviewers wield more power than they realize. The majority of authors sincerely take on board well thought out constructive criticism and by and large the negative reviews were well thought out. Authors try to see whether there is a kernel of truth in the comments. This can be a two-edged sword.I would hate for any author to feel they had to change the way they write to conform to the majority of reader’s expectations or the ones that “shouted” the loudest. The charges levelled at Damon were pretty intense when they start listing lack of emotion and lack of romance as reasons for giving a book a very low rating and not justified in this reviewer's mind.To me, the restricted range of emotion and romance matched the characters perfectly. Authors should not be limited to just writing characters or have a plot to fit reader’s expectations. Many times I’ve felt with popular books I would have resolved the plot differently, but that’s my problem, not the author’s.The second reason I feel justified in speaking out is because reviewers' expectations can quickly become publisher’s guidelines.Dreamspinner Press was brave in publishing Sean Kennedy’s “Tigers and Devils” without any graphic sex scenes.DSP actively promote and foster gay men to encourage them to write what they want to write.If publishers are only interested in books containing a prescribed amount of romance, sexual tension and emotional tension then they will miss out on a lot of books about gay men falling in love and/or finding a loving relationship. Which after all is what this genre should be about.If not, the genre risks being split into two separate groups: books written for a gay male audience and books using gay males as protagonists that are written for a largely female heterosexual audience with their expectations of what standards should prevail.Should gay guys add romance to their sex scenes to pander to female readers?Wouldn’t it be better for females to read books that are honest and true to how gay men are and learn to understand them a bit better rather than forcing them to think and behave as females want them to?Damon has been writing in one form or other all his life, even if not in m/m romance format. I hope he continues to write the sort of books he wants to read and not just the ones to appeal to every female reader.

A snarky twenty two year old gay amateur sleuth with a quick recovery time who's happy to fuck anything that moves in his bumbling attempts to solve a crime.Worked for me.

This book is available in a Kindle edition.Set in London between the two World Wars, this tale of sex and debauchery is an amusing and often poignant picture of life at the time and the hypocritical figures that populated the upper echelons of society and the arts.The book is as much a social commentary as a tale of Paul’s sexploitation. The sheer variety of all the different personalities he fucks, not just their size or sexual proclivity adds to the enjoyment. The chapters on the Russian artist, Boleslavsky, and the inspiration behind some of his “masterpieces” are amusingly droll.A rake’s progress or in this case a whore’s progress, the narrator grows from a rebellious eighteen year old run away, through a life of ease and fame, back down again to be reborn as an adult going off to war.While I enjoyed his better known book “The Back Passage”, I found this one had a lot more meat to chow down on.

The Secret Tunnel transports us into the world of trains, theatre, gay royalty and fascists. It also has to have one of the few instances of the anal sphincter being used to transmit morse code. In this case, S.O.S, but the possibilities are endless as a means to transmit information without detection.The gay amateur detective, Edward “Mitch” Mitchell, has his mind constantly in the gutter, thinking, dreaming and sometimes even starting to have sex with just about everybody he comes across, friend and foe alike. So, be warned, if infidelity turns you off and you like your man-on-man sex, romantic, warm and emotional, steer well clear. Yet, there is love for his fellows and not just the sexual kind: fondness, shared loyalty and even respect.Once again, editors let the writer down, not picking up an instance where Lear wrongly used the name of the main villain instead of one of his accomplices.The increase in complexity of the murder solving part of the plot prevents it from being as easy or as enjoyable read as the first book in the series, but it’s still an amusing way to pass a wet afternoon.

I would classify this book as a love story set in a fantasy world rather than erotica or BDSM even though it is about a whorehouse of boys for men and whips play an important role. All of the sex and s/m elements take place behind closed doors.The relationship between the two men who own the whorehouse, Michael and Janus is one of those unforgettable pairings that will live with the reader long after they finish the story.Catana's review sums up the plot really well.The world building is well structured and by basing her social attitudes on Edwardian times, the background morality holds an integrity that comes from fact.The research for Dusk's writing is always meticulous and well documented, but it never gets in the way of the story.At the end, you're left wanting more, as although there has been one emotional arc completed, none of the participants in this highly unusual triangle have what they really want. Yet, even if the status quo prevails, they will all have a certain degree of happiness.Highly recommended for those who want to read about love between men, but don't bother if you're just looking for romance (in the Harlequin form of the word) and/or sex.

Okay, this book isn't perfect. I have yet to read one that is. There are a few typos, but not enough to detract from the overall effect, which is what I base my ratings on.I'd heard so much about this cult classic, and the way it has been a forerunner for the genre, pre-empting many of the latter BDSM slave/master books. I didn't expect to find anything new, assuming most that have been written since to be derivatives of this.And when I say I was surprised, I'm not talking here about the plot twist which the author used to make a couple of statements about different kinds of kink.What I hadn't expected were two beautifully expressed aspects of the whole BDSM psychology.Firstly from Jamie in that vivid scene where he goes back to the Mineshaft in his leathers and enters the room with the sling and just watches the men circling who want to be placed in it and the hawks against the wall: "Mr. Benson had taken away my pride, but then he had replaced it with a new kind - the pride of belonging.But now I was like the rest of them: in such great need that anyone who would pay attention would be the man for tonight. There was no emotional bond to be considered." This whole scene and the ones following it, resonated with me more than any others in the rest of the book. Not so much Jamie's involvement in them, but because of all the other people depicted. I could imagine the desperation and the boredom so easily. This disconnectedness and sheer want is very obvious to the onlooker, albeit on a less intense scale, at events like the Mardi Gras party. There are a lot of lonely guys out there.Then later, in the section from Mr Benson's POV, another epiphany came when he says:But no one ever writes about the cumulative effect of SM. How every time becomes another building block in your respect for a bottom...... Every time I'd present him with a test or an obstacle and he'd get through it, the emotion of my pride would build. It was the constant willingness on his part to work at being worthy of me that created the ever-increasing respect I had for him.The rest of the scenes in the book fell into line with others that have been written since, but for me, those two sections captured the essence of that need and what people really into BDSM get out of the experience.For Jamie, it was having an emotional bond and belonging to not just any top, but to Mr. Benson and for Aristotle, it was having someone who trusted him enough to allow himself to be molded to what he wanted him to be.I'm not saying other BDSM writers don't get this angle. Some do, brilliantly, but I did like the way John Preston presented it all so simply.The book is not for the squeamish, but after reading "Carried Away" by David Stein, short stories by Barry Lowe and true life accounts by Dirk Vanden, the more intense gritty scenes were not unexpected.It's a shame the book isn't available as an ebook, and I do thank Kate for the gift.

This story is very dark with its tale of betrayal. The story flips back and forth in time, making the story complex.Probably though the most telling part for me was the section where the Commander is questioned about why he invaded the other lands.Time, it seemed, was going backward. Quentin-Andrew could now see the scenes he had witnessed before – the wide arc of destruction growing narrow and yet more narrow, until it began to center on its origins: particular places, particular acts, particular men. The Great Peninsula no longer held any trade routes; this was due to the greediness of the Commander's troops, who plundered the goods of merchants. The Great Peninsula no longer possessed ambassadors or peace treaties; this was due to a peace oath that had been broken long ago by one of the Commander's emissaries. The Great Peninsula no longer contained mighty men and women, capable of upholding the law; their graves could be seen, or in some cases simply their bodies, when the Commander had not bothered to order their burial."This makes no sense." The Commander's voice wavered. "How could the gods punish me? What I did in the war, I did for their sake, to bring peace. War is evil – I always said that – but I had no choice in my methods. My enemies forced me—"... Quentin-Andrew looked over at the Commander. He was on his knees, hiding his eyes; he had not witnessed the final scene. "I had no choice," he whispered."No choice, sir?" Quentin-Andrew allowed his voice to take on a note of scorn. "You had no choice but to do what you did – is that what you are saying?"He waited. With any other man, he would have supplied the answer, but the Commander was capable of doing so on his own.The Commander's response was a long time in coming. Quentin-Andrew, shivering, wondered how many centuries were passing by. Finally the Commander said in a broken voice, "I could have retreated. I need not have continued the war. But if I had done that – if I had let Koretia exist under rulerless anarchy or if I had let Emor continue under a tyrant . . .""They would have been worse off than under your protection." The old excuse given by many a leader who blinds themselves to the consequence of their actions.The story is also about sacrifice, as the Lieutenant finally redeems himself by going down that road.