Blood and Roses is a novella that I think will appeal to the most romantic readers. It’s fantasy, without doubt, but it’s not so clearly bounded by this genre. The world where Arjen, male whore, lives, is an Amsterdam lost in time; from some small details, the use of specific words, the absence of machines, the presence of carriages and other “old-fashioned” elements, all let you think that this is a fantasy world that takes inspiration from a not long ago past, maybe nineteen or eighteen century. Probably if not for the presence of a vampire, the novella could have been an historical romance, and even if there is the paranormal elements, truth be told, it tends to be more historical than other.

Maikel, the vampire, is like a lord among the other men. Again, there is a good reason for him to be a vampire, the author needed probably all the gothic feelings that derives from that fact, but other than that, he behaves more like an aristocrat than an otherworldly being. Him and also the other vampires in the novella, they live among the other people, worshipped and feared, but seldom loved. They are seen like a breed among the others, the lure to be a vampire, and the possibility to gain immortality with them, make this people favourite among the whores who all want to be the chosen one for the night.

All other than Arjen. But I don’t think that for him is really a question of moral or other, I think Arjen is a very proud man, with still a lot of dreams despite his job. He doesn’t want to be with a vampire probably since, if in the end all the legends weren’t true, it would be another disappointed in his life. Arjen has built a thick shell around himself, a shell that protects him from feelings and pains: he doesn’t feel when he is working, he doesn’t feel and so he doesn’t suffer. Having the chance to taste a bit of “paradise” with Maikel, and then being forced to be back to his everyday work as a whore, would be probably create an irreparable break in that shield.

At the beginning probably Arjen doesn’t love Maikel for who he is more than for who he represents. And so, truth be told, Arjen is not so much different from the other people. Instead I think that Maikel is open and loving from the first moment. He is clear in his desires even if he doesn’t speak them aloud. Maikel is probably as much romantic as Arjen, but he is more open to this side of him.

Blood and Roses is a retelling of the One Thousand and One Nights, with Maikel that night after night asks to Arjen to talk to him into sleep, delaying night after night the consummation of their agreement, till the moment I arrived to think that probably Maikel is not really interested in having sex with Arjen, sex is something he can have with everyone, what instead he has with Arjen is something special. And in the end, sex will cause them trouble, since it will level their relationship with all the previous one they had, letting Arjen doubt of Maikel’s words, and destroying Maikel’s image of Arjen. In a way, when Maikel sees Arjen, he doesn’t see a whore, he sees a man with a royal behaviour, he sees the simple things of life, the things he can’t no more appreciate. Being with Arjen, without sex with them, allows to Maikel to think that he isn’t different from all the other men.

Anyway, even when the sex arrives, it’s always almost ethereal, I liked very much the use of words of the author during that moment, she is able to convey completely the moment, and the eroticism, without being too explicit.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/blood-and-roses

Amazon Kindle: Blood and Roses

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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

again this will contain much squeeing and be rambly at best.

this was my final time seeing the show and really its been a great run and i love it so much. I really wish i could have gone more than i did. But i am grateful that i go to see John and Simon three times.

( These Are The Best Of Times )

The winter holidays are full of holiday spirit, friends, and family. Step under the mistletoe for a kiss and enjoy these stories of love around the holidays--from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day--tales warm enough to melt snow, ice, and men's hearts.

Your Christmas present to yourself. A story delivered automatically to your inbox each day in December. Over 1700 pages of fiction selling individually for $94.18. Buy early and save:

November - $49.99

After December 1st, stories will be available individually or as a single downloadable zip file for $64.99.

Available NOW at Dreamspinner Press.

Keep an eye out for mine - if you're tempted! - One Night Stand.

Teddy realizes he drank too much at the office Christmas party when he wakes up in a hotel room with confused memories of a night of fierce, fabulous sex, and a man asleep in bed beside him. He doesn't know how his outrageous behavior will be judged by his boss, but he'll find out soon - when his boss wakes up.

( It had been his hand that had clutched the sheets inside his fist; his fingers that had bruised the skin beneath him with their desperate grip. It hadn’t been non-consensual, he was sure, but he’d barely recognized the sexual aggression released from him. )

This is a fantasy novel but I have the feeling that the author is using the fantasy setting as a metaphor of what was, unfortunately a very common situation.

In the novel there are two boys, Norris and Tom. They both represents two way to be “invisible” in their society: Norris is the fourth son of a middle class family which barely managed to raise and find an accommodation for the previous three, and now practically nothing remains for Norris. It’s not that his family doesn’t love him, on the contrary, I very much liked Norris’ mother, I think she was a very practical woman who tried to do her best for all her sons with the few she had. Unfortunately Norris is born in the wrong position, and maybe at the wrong moment: he is barely fifteen, in other circumstances he should be almost ready to enter the world as an independent man, going to college or finding a good job, and instead he is behind his own age, for study and experience. Norris has a very clever mind, and even without a formal knowledge, he notices that he is not at the same level of the other boys and he suffers for that. Norris is invisible; he is a shadow, not for his fault or choice, but for a play of destiny.

The other boy in the novel is Tom; he is not centre stage like Norris, but we can gather something about him. Two years older than Norris, they went to the same primary school. Tom was a very promising young man, with the right skills to go on in the world and a supporting family that was able to support him on that path. But then Tom disappeared; like Norris he became invisible, but in his case it was for something he did. Tom was not “normal”, he likes boys, and his family disowned him.

Both Norris and Tom, for different reasons, are Shadow People. This is the fantasy element the author chose to use, but as I said, it’s basically a way to highlight that there are people in this world that are “uncommon”, special, and they are a breed apart. They can mingle and live among the others, but they are not like others. They have special sensibility, different skills. They are apparently fragile, but then of they discover the strength inside themselves they can survive to anything; some of them unfortunately don’t manage to, and what is a metaphorical disappearance can become something very much true.

The love story between Tom and Norris is barely hinted, but nevertheless is very sweet and romantic. A kiss, some afterthoughts, and a lot of promises for a future together: this is how love between teenagers should be.

The novel is also a very detailed insight of a middle class family of the nineteen century. The housekeeping economic which is domain of the woman, the struggle to maintain an appearance outside, while you are forced to barely having bread on the table, even the little personal stories of the tenants, what it is said and what it’s not, how they end to live renting a room. This is a picture of a layers of society that seldom is shown to use: they are not the rich, but they are not even the poor… they are in the middle, an in a way, not being on the edge of those two previous categories, they are even more invisible, since no one notice them.

http://www.prizmbooks.com/zen/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=56

Amazon: The Twilight Gods

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


Cover Art by Rose Lenoir

Yes, I'm home, after a weekend in some of Britain's worst weather - "of biblical proportions", according to some newspaper coverage. Typical. I reckon it just waited for me to get to an exposed coast before rolling up to its worst! I had you all in my heart and my fingers on the keyboard and my hat held firmly ON *LOL*. I'll post an update soon. Needless to say, I had more adventures, got less done than I'd hoped, but *loved* the experience - and will repeat it just as soon as I can :).

I'm blogging today, over at Ginger Simpson's Blog about Thanksgiving. It's not a UK holiday, but I think any time is good to give thanks. She's invited a wonderful array of guest bloggers during November, to celebrate the holiday, and it's amazing how we can all give thanks for similar and yet such different things. It's very inspiring and I hope you take a browse through the posts, not just *mine* (which should be up later today I hope).

I'm giving my thanks for WORDS. Not just written, but spoken, sung, emailed, joked, read, texted, whatever. The joy of being blessed with the ability, logistics and education to communicate - to share my fiction, to make and keep in touch with friends, to express myself.

Yes, I'm feeling fairly philosophical today, and grateful for what I have. Please join me!
♥

This week Inside Reader is Alex Beecroft. Enjoy her list!

I've been making up m/m stories in my head since I was 11. At that time—sometime around the period when Stonehenge was built—I believed I was the only person in the world who wanted to read m/m love stories. I thought I was some kind of weird space alien, left on this planet without a number to phone home. Even though I treasured my first author on this list, the fact that she was writing historical biography failed to clue me in to the fact that she might be writing it out of the same impulse as my own.

So the discovery of slash fanfiction on the internet, about 10 years ago, was also the discovery that I was not alone. I might even be—imagine the relief—normal!

I realize now it's both just as simple as that, and a lot more complex, but the fact remains that this is the one community where I have felt that I genuinely belong. It's also the community that has lead me into writing my own books, Captain's Surrender, False Colors, Hidden Conflict and a couple more in various stages of readiness to come. It was the author of the second book on my list who gave me the much needed boot up the backside to stop thinking "one day I might try to get published" and actually do it. But I haven't included her book here because of that. I've included it only because it's genuinely one of my top favourites of the genre.

I should say that this is not a numerically ordered list—that is, it's not arranged in order of how much I like the book. I like 1 as much as 10 and vice versa. All of these books are (IMO) so good that I couldn't choose between them to give them an order of rank.

1) The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. This is the apotheosis of slave-boy fic, in which Bagoas, a noble young Persian youth, is captured by enemies, gelded and then sold as a pleasure slave. Given to Alexander the Great as part of a bribe, he falls in love with the great man, accompanies him on his military campaigns, and schemes to win first place in Alexander's affections from his wife, Roxane, and his long-time lover Hephaistion. My sympathies are with Hephaistion, but that didn't stop me from adoring the lush detail, the amazing historical accuracy, the beauty of the language and setting, the excitement of the plot and the large as life and twice as ugly characters in this book. Justifiably a complete classic.

Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 1988)
Publisher Link: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394751016
ISBN-10: 0394751019
ISBN-13: 978-0394751016
Amazon: The Persian Boy

“It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.”–The Atlantic Monthly. The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexander’s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.

( books from 2 to 11 )

About Alex Beecroft: Alex Beecroft was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the Peak District. After studying English and Philosophy at Manchester University, Alex moved to London to work for the Lord Chancellor’s Department. She married her husband, Andrew, in St. James' church, Paddington—famous for being the church where Oscar Wilde had his wedding. Alex, Andrew and their two daughters live near the University of Cambridge, where they try to avoid being mistaken for tourists. Her first novel, Captain’s Surrender, was published in January 2008. Please visit her at www.alexbeecroft.com.

False Colors
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Running Press (April 13, 2009)
Publisher Link: http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/runningpress/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0762436581
ISBN-10: 0762436581
ISBN-13: 978-0762436583
Amazon: False Colors

1762, The Georgian Age of Sail: For his first command, John Cavendish is given a ship—the HMS Meteor—and a crew, both in need of repair and discipline. He’s determined to make a success of their first mission, and hopes the well-liked lieutenant Alfred Donwell will stand by his side as he leads his new crew into battle: stopping the slave trade off the coast of Algiers. Alfie knows their mission is futile, and that their superiors back in England will use the demise of this crew as impetus for war with the Ottoman Empire. But the darker secret he keeps is his growing attraction for his commanding officer—a secret punishable by death. With the arrival of his former captain—and lover—on the scene of the disastrous mission, Alfie is torn between the security of his past and the uncertain promise of a future with the straight-laced John. Against a backdrop of war, intrigue, and personal betrayal, the high seas will carry these men through dangerous waters from England to Africa to the West Indies in search of a safe harbour.

Phase 3 is started and will last till mid of December but you can continue to vote for your favorite cover art.



32 Covers still in contest, here is the link to covers and poll

http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/2009CoverContest_1_5.htm

the covers are grouped in slot of 10, each slot represent a question in the polls. My suggestion: open the above webpage in a different browser than the poll, and look at the covers while ticking off the ones you want to vote in the poll.

Since this is a "funny" contest, I will allow only votes through LJ accounts, not voting with comments sorry. The good news is that you can vote as many covers as you want for all the length of the contest :-) The cover contest will last for six week: every week the covers will be halved by 50%, to arrive at the sixth week with only 10 covers. The winning cover will be announced at the same time with the winner of the 2009 Rainbow Awards for LGBTQ Fiction and Non Fiction.

( go to poll )

Teacher's Pet (Lost and Found 3) by Syd McGinley

Yes! at the third story, plus some novella here and there, about Dr. Fell and his pets, I have finally closed a book and started to write a post without having to say "well, even if BDSM is not my thing...".

I like Dr. Fell, truly, but I always had this feeling about his stories, something like I should not become too fond of a "pet" since at the end he would be not the one. All the previous stories are always quite angst, but truly romantic: a wounded soul who, in the healing power of love and discipline, finds solace and is born again; a soul that, in the end, is ready to love again, but not John.

Why everytime John is not reaty to live again? why he always needs to break my little pink romance bubble? Yes, I was a little angry with John, and I almost skipped the third chapter in his series. But then, I wanted to give him another chance and I was right about it.

The problem with John is that he always takes care of the others, the wounded pets, but he never heals himself. And to heal himself he needs to give up the control to someone else, someone from his past, that knows him well. Only then he will be ready to love again.

And so in Teacher's Pet, John becomes the pupil, and at the same time he meets who has many chance to be his future pet for good.

Teacher's Pet is at the same time more angst than the previous book and more romantic. John is not so stern in it, he probably is learning his own lessons, and he lets go more: if he is doing that since he is learning to grow on the pain of Rob's loss, or since he has really met his truly pet, I don't know, but I like him better in this way.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=69&products_id=1449

Deeper Submission (Lost and Found 4) by Syd McGinley

From the title of the last novella in the Lost and Found series, you would think that Dave, the new pet of Dr. Fell, is fated to be even more a submissive for the more and more dominant John... and instead I believe that the Deeper Submission of the title is referring to a different type of submission, the one that will see John surrenders to love and to the need to finally have a little family of his own.

Now don't get me wrong, there are no babies or smushy feeling between John and Dave, but there is for sure a different type of relationship than what John is used to. Dave willingly decided to submit to John, but he is not a weak boy who couldn't have a different life if he wants; he is a smart man, with a deep proud, and he will not be the all to dependent man that you usually find in a D/s relationship, and maybe this is the reason why I like this novella, and why I think that finally John has found his match.

John's love for Rob was deep and true, but I don't know if it would have lasted. Rob was the perfect pet, always eager to satisfy his Master, and not only in a sexual way... maybe it would have lasted since John would have not been subjected to years of regrets and ifs. John and Rob together would have been a good item, probably more according the rule of a "classical" D/s relationship. But Rob is dead and John seemed unable to forget him... probably since he searched him in every following pets. When he stopped that uselessly search and accepted a man totally different than Rob, in that moment he starts a new life. Dave is not Rob, and he even wants to be like Rob, and he is exactly what John needs: a man that is young enough to be molded to some of John's quirks, but clever enough to not be totally controlled and dominated.

This is a very nice wrap up of Dr. John Fell's adventures, and the four book is probably the more romantic of them all, since you have finally the chance to see the tender side of John.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1729

Table of Contents:
Teacher’s Pet
Let the Games Begin
Epithalamion
Attitude Adjustments 1-6
Deeper Submission
Attitude Adjustments 7
The Junk Drawer of Dr. Fell
To Your Good Elf
Thank You Letters
Attitude Adjustments 8 and 9
Rinnie-Rønne
Attitude Adjustments 10 and 11
Curtain Fic
Attitude Adjustments 12
Back in the Day

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2323 (print book)

Series: Lost & Found
1) Lost: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/658300.html
2) Found

Reading List:

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

Francis Marshall (1901 - 1980) served as a midshipman during the First World War. Following his discharge in 1920 he spent three years at the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1928 he met Cond Nast and obtained work as an illustrator for British Vogue.



( more pics )

His great interests were ballet, fashion, horses, London life, music, outdoor life, theatre and travel. His sketches in these subject areas were well suited to Vogue's publications and the 'Marshall girl', based on his wife Margaret, became a well-known figure in Vogue's illustrations. During the Second World War he was based in Bath as a naval camouflage officer.

After the War he returned to advertising and was also the principal social and fashion illustrator on the Daily Mail until the 1960s, attending the Paris couture shows. His books included An Englishman in New York, Fashion drawing and London west. He also designed covers for the novels of Barbara Cartland and illustrated volumes of Reader's Digest. He continued as a freelance artist until his death in 1980.

Out of Position is the winner of the popularity contest of the Rainbow Awards for Fantasy Fiction and it's now competing in the third phase.

Kyell Gold wrote to me to let me know about a special he is running this week: he will be at his publisher's this coming weekend, so if anyone wants to purchase an hardcopy of the book and have it signed and personalized, he will be happy to do that.

The catch is that you have to order through Sofawolf:

http://www.sofawolf.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=95

and you have to order this week.

Dev is a football player at Forester University, a small liberal arts college where he and his teammates get to strut around and have their pick of the girls on Friday nights. That's as good as it gets—until he meets Lee, a fox with a quick wit and an attractive body.



Problem is, Lee's not a girl. He's a gay fox, an activist who never dreamed he'd fall for a football player. As their attraction deepens into romance, it's hard enough for them to handle each other, let alone their inquisitive friends, family, and co-workers. And if school is bad, the hyper- masculine world of professional sports that awaits Dev after graduation will be a hundred times worse.



Going it alone would make everything easier. If only they could stop fighting long enough to break up.



With cover and interior illustrations by Blotch.

This novel is set in the same world of the previous Action! Series by G.A. Hauser, the world of the bold, beautiful, and rich, of Los Angeles. Actually if you read the last book in that series, you already met Danny and Donny, identical twin working on the same firm of Mark and Steven. And in a way you already know their story and some of its development.

What is important here is to know better these two and their reason. As expected, as always I should say, G.A. Hauser’s men are not exactly “perfect” heroes, and in a way, sometime, they are not even so nice. Apparently it seems that they don’t have any moral, but actually there is always a reason behind it. In this case, when you read of two 25 years old guys still living on the shoulders of their parents with little intention to change the situation soon, you can’t really have of them a good first impression. But then you meet their parents, and discover that they are not really pushing their babies to go out of the nest, and so, as Danny and Donny do, you think, why bothering too much? Let them have the time of their life and sooner or later they will discover how it’s the real world. Problem is that sometime, people like them, discover the truth so far in their life when it is really too late to change something. Or maybe, if they are lucky, they never discover it, and they live always happy and unconscious.

Even if Danny and Donny are identical twin, and in many way they are similar, they are not alike in their emotional development. Danny, more shy and quite, is also the one that is readier to take the flight out of the nest. It’s almost like, while Donny spent all his energy in growing and glowing, Danny saved it for the right moment. Suddenly Danny is the savvier, he is the one who is taking serious decision, and Donny is unsettled by it. He feels like he is losing his brother and this cause him some emotional issue, leading him to taking out his frustration during sex with other man. Donny realizes that he is doing something wrong, but what he seems to not realize is that he is hurting other men. This is the point when you, reader, realize that you are reading about a man by G.A. Hauser: in any other novel, by any other author, Donny would probably go under a self-judgement, coming out guilty and repentant. This is what an hero does, this is not what Donny does. Donny is not an hero, as seldom G.A. Hauser’s men are; they are more irresistible villain, the bad guys that everyone, or at least me, love.

For most part of the book, Donny plays the role of the bad twin and Danny is his good conscience. Danny is so good that sometime he is almost boring in comparison to Donny. But then I saw a spark, a bit of that wickedness or naughtiness that his brother Donny is always accused of; and you realize that maybe Danny is only better in controlling himself, that he is probably smarter that his brother Donny. It’s strange but discovering that Donny is more fragile than Danny, at least at an emotional level, made him nicer to my eyes. I’m true, I didn’t like much Donny, at least not in the first part of the book, and even in the end, being him not at all repentant, it was like his happily ever after was not due. But again, as I said, there are some lucky men that have never had to face how the world really is, they are, and they will always be, the bold, beautiful and rich. And if you don’t like it, well, probably you will not like most of G.A. Hauser’s books, since she likes them a lot.

http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Double+Trouble/exact_match=exact

Series:
1) The Physician and the Actor: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/154682.html
2) For Love and Money: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/101976.html
3) Secrets and Misdemeanors: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/180102.html
4) Capital Games: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/210160.html
5) Love You, Loveday: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/288895.html
6) When Adam met Jack: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/300519.html
7) Mark Antonious deMontford: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/463899.html
8) Acting Naughty (Action! 1): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/493312.html
9) Playing Dirty (Action! 2): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/520179.html
10) Getting It in the End (Action! 3): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/656487.html
11) Behaving Badly (Action! 4): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/700268.html
12) Double Trouble
13) Dripping Hot (Action! 5): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/746033.html

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

I have still the flu, I'm walking around with pill for headache, watery nose and cough, but today, when I woke up, there was a slightly promise of blue sky and so I really couldn't stay inside my room. I went out like the Michelin man, all covered in different layers of dresses, and took the subway to the city centre... obviously, as soon as I was out of the Metro, it was raining :-( Well, I thought, I'm here, I'm covered, and I want to see the city, and so, I continue my walk, under a rain that was never, fortunately, too heavy to bother me too much. And strange thing, the sky was actually blue, when I could see it behind the clouds! Anyway, I walked for more or less 4 hours, I skipped lunch since the light hours are so few that I wanted to profit of all of them. Today was probably the better day for picture, I did a lot, but I chose to post only 6: I will save the others for my next pic spam appointments ;-)



( more pics )

No, I wasn't particularly interested in the Starsbuck Coffee, I first noticed the building behind and the nice effect of the windows with the blue sky. I was particurarly interested in the style of the building, even if it seems modern, I have the feeling that it's not, if I didn't know that it is quite impossible, I would say that it's a '60 or '70 building. Anyway, I'm like that, I notice the strangest things, and sometime my pictures have no reason if not to save in my memories the passing impression of a nice color, or of tree branches with red berry in front of a pink wall...

I FINALLY finished salixbabylon's much belated birthday present. Sorry about the delay. Life has a way of bulldozing me these days. But this first section of the story is done, and the rest will have to be posted as it gets done but rest assured, this part is sufficiently climactic to satisfy even a greedy girl like Salix. *strokes and hopes to inspire greed greed greed* And don't worry, babe - I cooked it up just the way you like it - thinky, kinky and with a good dose of the raw...

This way to the thinky kink, in which McKnight decides it would be a good idea to have a part of his body taken care of in a way it has never been taken care of before, and Grimes has to wrap his head around the idea, before he wraps other things around, um, other things...

Psst, there is SHAVING involved... eventually.

Happy belated.... geez, it's really fucking belated, isn't it? This is practically a Happy Thanksgiving gift. Are you thankful for SMUUUUUUUUUUT?????

I knew you were.

This novel is less "romance" than expected and probably funnier. First of all the two main characters, from the blurb and even from the cover I was expecting for them to be two young guys with big hopes and few means, and instead they are two partners in crime in a work and love relationship older than 15 years. So between them everything is easy, they know each other and their mutual faults. There is not much romance, meaning that there are not much love scenes (and never once we arrive to a sex scene) but between Chase and Grant there is for sure a love relationship. Here and there you can also have an hint that it was not always simple, that maybe sometime they had to overcome some obstacles in their path, but more or less they were successful in doing that, and I have never had the feeling that their relationship was in trouble.

Problem is that at more or less 40 years old, they are too old to continue to live on expedients, they maybe want to retire or arriving at least near that. And so when Jamie comes to them with a not so legal proposition, Grant sees the chance to hit the big one. Jamie filmed a famous gay actor and activist, Romeo Romero, having sex… with a woman. The tape is worth a lot, the problem is that Jamie lost it! In a cab! From that moment on Grant starts to plan a way to have it back and more he goes on, more people are involved and more I was trying to understand if, once everyone was paid back, something for Chase and Grant’s retirement plan was still available.

As I said, the novel is more a comedy than a romance, and even if it deals with thieves and blackmails, for sure it’s not a mystery or an adventure plot… probably the only mystery is how our heroes manage to not end up in a jail, since they didn’t give me the idea to be real criminals. Chase and Grant are more or less good boys who are trying to survive, and even their crimes usually are petty crimes, that more or less don’t give much trouble neither to their victims: some money here, a stolen car there, nothing of irreplaceable or real life-important.

Other than Chase and Grant, there are other supporting characters that I think in a way stole the scene to them. Lisa, the lesbian real estate agent with a lip-stick girlfriend, Paul the driver, even Will the unwilling blackmailer, or Henry the 41 years old policeman with a crush for the 16 years old “Amber”, no one of them is really “honest”, but no one of them is really a criminal. But who for me shine among them all is Jared, the twinkiest of the twinks: with is out of body-lose in dreams moments and his philosophy of life (every man with money is hot), he is for sure the most funniest and original of all the characters and I really wouldn’t mind to read his own personal story, where of course he would be able to find his hot sugar daddy, with a lot of money and, why not?, who is also an hot guy for real. Who instead had great potential, but among all these characters remained a bit in the shadow was Jamie: again, I think he’s good material for something more.

Amazon: Straight Lies

Amazon Kindle: Straight Lies

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


Cover Art by Kristine Mills-Noble

As expected I didn't have much time to visit around, during the week I stay at work till 9 p.m. and when we are back at the hotel we need to do a recap of the day. So more or less my time is all spent inside an office or at the bar of the hotel. And the hotel is outside the center of Moscow so, even if we would like to take a walk, we are pretty much stuck inside it. Plus I have a bad flu and so I'm not really in the mood to go out. But this morning I forced myself to at least go to see a near park, a former hunting reserve for the Zars with a small artificial island in the middle and a cathedral in the centre. It was a nice place, with maybe a bit the feeling of an abandoned place, but still, it was worth the visit. After that I went to a near craft market: I suppose people made me pay much for the little gifts I bought, but well, it was all the same a good experience and the market was a crazy place. Pity the time is not good and so in the end, I decided to come back to the hotel.



( more pics )

The second picture is the view from my hotel room, the morning I woke up with the snow... and yes, that is morning light ;-)