First of all I would have liked this Anthology even only for the preface, the story how Jerome Kugan and Pang Khee Teik decided, planned and arrived to publish it. It’s at the same time funny and sad, and a stunning picture of the LGBTQ world in other countries other than USA or Europe. After that, the stories, but without that preface, they would have not probably the same effect on me.

WHAT DO GAY PEOPLE EAT? by Brian Gomez (M/M). This is a wonderful little story, really. It’s not even a gay story, at least not for the main characters point of view: two parents are waiting for the coming back home of their son, but it’s not an entirely happy moment, the son is gay and he is bringing back his boyfriend. This is not the story of how the two parents react to the news, this is probably happened before, this is the story of how the two parents manage to find a balance after the news. We are inside the father’s mind, all his brainstorming, all his struggling to come to pact with the news, the love he has for his son and the difficult he has to digest the news, love against tradition, love against expectations, love against prejudices… love against all, and love wins it all.

BREATHING PURE OXYGEN by Cheryl Leong (F/F). Again a nice story of a homosexual experience that it wasn’t sad or terribly angst filled. It’s a little bio piece, Cheryl, the author and the main characters, retells her coming out experience, how she struggled to arrive to an internal decision first with herself and then with the world. How she carefully planned her coming out, expecting it to be painful and heartbreaking, probably led to that idea from what she read around and how instead she was lucky to have around her supporting and comprehensive friends and family. But probably it was not luckiness; it’s that Cheryl is a balanced and attentive woman, the product of her family and being her like that, she surrounded herself of people like her and like her family. So no, it was not luckiness, it was the obvious outcome of a good upbringing.

ROOMMATES: NOT A LOVE STORY by Sharil Dewa (M/M). More than 15 years after being roommates, a man receives a wedding invitation from his former friend and this leads to a walk on the memory lane. Michael was his first and unrequited love, something he has never really had. Michael was not gay but he was a good friend, and when he found out about his friend’s feelings, he tried to still be only a good friend. It didn’t work, and years later he is still missed and mourned. Seldom is your first love also your forever one and this happens independently of being gay or straight. And the guy in this short story behaved badly not since he was gay, but since he was in love.

THE WEDDING PRESENT by Sonia Randhawa (L/L). No names for this story, probably since this is the story of so many women before. She is one of many children of an ordinary family; not an unloving family, only the typical Malaysian family where the father decides, the mother agrees and the children have no right. For a brief period on her life she was free, at college, and, all in all, it was no good, since she tasted something that it was not for her, she tasted freedom, something it was no planned in her life. Someone else would see that it is not for her.

THE MAN FROM BERALI CARPETS by Maya Tan Abdullah (M/M). A policeman working the street falls in love for he man he doesn’t even know, a blind salesman working at Berali Carpets, a shop on his part of the city. In his line of work being gay is not possible, but I don’t even think that the main focus of the story is for the policeman to be gay; the policeman is tired of all the ugliness he sees around, and the man from Berali Carpets represents his pure love, something he will never touch to not soil him with the ugliness. The policeman can go on with his ugly life only since he knows that, when he is on the edge of craziness, he can go to Berali Carpets and sees the man, the man who is his anchor to sanity.

AND I LOVE YOU by Hwa Yi Xing (F/F). A woman’s brainstorming who is in love and, at the same time, so mad with life. There is not real story, there is not even punctuation, and they are mostly thoughts, and flashbacks, and feelings. All tangled together in her mind, and the only mainstay is another woman, the woman she loves, and hates, and loves.

HAFIZ’S DILEMMA by Ann Lee (M/M). This is a nice story, a moment in time of a couple who can’t believe how good life can be for them. They couldn’t believe it and so one of them is searching for a reason to be upset, but there is no reason. It’s basically a simple and good story. But I had a problem, I didn’t understand the sex of the couple! Are they two men? A man and a woman? Two women? I think they were two men and sometime they referred to each other with a female pronoun; what I didn’t understand is if the author did it consciously or if it was a problem of translation.

DUDE DON’T TELL ME by Kung Khai Jhun (M/M). Another story of denial, a young man, David, is forced to go to the marriage of his best friend and former roommate, Amir, the same man he is silently in love since years. Also in this case friendship seems stronger than prejudice, but in the end, David will have only the consolation to have not lost his friend.

THE FRIENDSHIP DICTATOR by Faizad Nik Abdul Aziz (M/M). I actually had to think twice if listing this one as a M/M story, since it is not basically a M/M or F/F story, or even a straight one. It’s probably a paraphrase of separation: a guy is heading towards his birthday party with a female friend; the night will be spend with a mixed group of friends from work (I believe). While in the car, he explains to Bianca that the previous year he spent his birthday with another group of friends; he doesn’t want to go into details, and the reader has the idea that it’s since the other group his made by gay guys. So this guy is guy and in the closet? This is the first impression. But then something happens, another friend call, a friend who is not of the first or the second group, another friend that the guy maintains separated from all the other. The guy is living in separate compartments, without communication… he is, unconsciously, helping the separation, not since he is ashamed of his friends, but since he is not able to create a whole, supporting and comprehensive, community. And the little separation he is creating in his circle of friends, is reflected in the outside, and enlarged.

MUSLIM 2 MUSLIM by Shanon Shah (M/M). This is the personal journey of the author, not really towards the realization that he is gay, but more towards the man he wants to be. He is Muslim and Gay, but he doesn’t want for these two words to define him; and he also doesn’t want for these two words to deny each other. The author is not struggling to being accepted as “gay” or “Muslim”, he is fighting to be himself, cross-boundaries and cross-definition. He wants to be judged for what he does or doesn’t, not for what he loves or prays.

CREAM OF THE CROP by Pang Khee Teik (M/M). Probably another bio piece, Pang is both the main character than the author. He is attending the funeral of Larry, a guy he knew from school and that, maybe, if they had more time, he would have become something more. But fate was against them, and now Pang is wondering, he has a lot of “ifs” in his mind and no answers to them. Pang is probably mixing art with rebellion, being an artist with being free from conventions, and so being gay. We don’t know if Larry was gay, we don’t know if Pang is gay, probably he is still fighting the idea. For sure, what we know is that Pang feels constricted by the society he is living in, and he would like to escape, like Larry did, only that Larry found death in his escaping.

PIRATE GIRL by Marisa Repin (F/F). This is probably the farewell of a woman to her lover than was never hers. Two girls that everyone considered best friends, that probably everyone considered more than best friends, have not really spoken to each other of what they were. Probably they were too scared of the truth. And when, in the end, the love was too much, the connection too tight, the only solution was to break free of that bond, since admitting its existence was impossible.

GOOD JOB by O Thiam Chin (M/M). Actually I don’t want to think too much to this story; I don’t want to analyze it enough to really understand how old the guy is. A young man has a part-time job during his school holidays working for a friend of his father. And he is having a sexual relationship with said friend. His first sexual experience, the first time he realizes that his body has needs and that those needs tend to be satisfied more with a man than a woman. But unfortunately, like most stories like this, there is not an happily ever after for him, at least not in this relationship. We can only hope that he will not loose his belief in love.

HARRY IS DEAD by Shih-Li Kow (F/F). This was a little dread story, I was almost expecting for it to be “bigger”, bigger in meaning, maybe Bunny is the daughter of some Mafia boss, bigger in genre, maybe this is a paranormal story and now Harry will rise from the dead, bigger than a simple jealousy drama. And so the ending, in its simplicity, was even more dreadful.

THE OLD FIG COUNCIL by Zed Adam (M/M). The love and death of two lovers seen and told on reverse form unexpected witnesses, the little and big animals that are around us, but no one take notice to. This story has an ancient flavour, like some old fairy tales, not the Disney type one, but more the Greek and Latin ones, where seldom the lovers had an happily ever after.

THE WIVES’ STORY by Tan May Lee (F/F). One husband, two wives. The first wife is asked to train the second one, but the training lead to something else, to something completely different. They are not free to love each other, not openly and not outside the marriage they were forced in, but they can love each other, secretly, inside that marriage. And so why I don’t feel like they are happy?

HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON? by Abirami Durai (T). Alex is now Anna and he is coming back home from England. Like often it happens, he does the big mistake to not warn his parents, he thinks to be able to come home, to show them the new Alex, and to be welcomed like a lost child. But neither in fairy tales life is so simple, and Anna will have to search her happily ever after in the tiny details, in the unsaid words.

FRIENDS OF EVERYONE by Julya Oui (M/M). A gay man thinks to be suddenly able to turn straight. I think it’s more a choice leads by the need to be finally accepted by everyone, not only friends, but also family and strangers, than a real firm belief. He joins a religious groups, the Friends of Everyone, and he starts to happily call all his friends, a straight girls, a gay guy, a transgender woman, and one by one he realizes that, joining the Friends of Everyone, he is losing his friends. Probably you can’t be friend of everyone if you are not first friend of yourself.

MONSOON MASSAGE by Paul GnanaSelvam (M/M). Two former schoolmates meet years later, and one of them is quite changed. Reza is dressing as a woman, has a lover in town and works as masseur. Kumar, married and father of two, thinks to have nothing in common with him, but a raining afternoon under the skilled hands of Reza will help him change his mind.

THE NAKED MEME by Ray Langenbach. I don’t know what exactly think of this short story. It’s the biographical story of Lan Gen Bah, nickname LGB, and her “theorisation of paranoia and queer interpellation”. There are biographical references, and thesis to support it. There are notes and appendixes. There are citations. And I don’t understand if they are real or the outcome of the author’s imagination. Probably they are real, but I have no way to refute them, and if they are real, the life of Lan Gen Bah was at the same time interesting and dramatic.

IN SEARCH OF by Ho Sui-Jim (M/M). Two men meet for anonymous sex in a department store and they were trapped when it closes at night. A little illicit affair seems to turn in an horror, but it’s probably the guilty sense of one of the two men to let him see it like that.

ALVIN by Jerome Kugan (M/M). Two men meet when one of them is in a relationship with another one, and they had an affair. It’s good and nice, but it’s not the moment for something more. The narration is brought on two time level, in contemporary with the development of the affair and in the soon aftermath of it. Then a third level enters the scene, a shift in time when both men are now free to be together. The reader almost has the illusion that it’s a fated love story, that they are destined to be together and happy, when abruptly the story ends with a note for a possible sequel, a note that explains that it’s probably not the time for them, neither this time. And probably it will never be.

SUNSET by Azharr Rudin (M/M). More than a short story, this one seems a screenplay, the script for a slow and almost silent movie, with big sequences and basic colours, dawn, sunset, night… a movie where most of the action is in the eyes of the actors more than in their bodies.

http://mataharibooks.blogspot.com/2009/07/body-2-body-malaysian-queer-anthology.html

Amazon: Body 2 Body: A Malaysian Queer Anthology

Reading List:

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

Tags: editor: jerome kugan, editor: pang khee teik, genre: contemporary, length: novel, publisher: matahari books

Mary Burchell is the pseudonym of Ida Cook (1904-December 22, 1986). She may have also written under the name James Keene. As an author for the Harlequin Romance imprint, she published 73 romance novels. She wrote seven romance novels for the Harlequin Presents imprint.

Ida Cook was born at 37 Croft Avenue, Sunderland. Together with her sister (Mary) Louise Cook (1901-1991), she rescued Jews from Germany during the 1930s.

They had a great courage before the war in seeking out Jewish people in danger in Germany and managing to get them out of the country. They also smuggled out refugees' jewelry often at risk to themselves. On one occasion, a diamond brooch of great size was brought out by Ida wearing it quite openly on an inexpensive Marks & Spencer Jumper, thereby creating the impression that it was of no value, although its subsequent sale maintained its rightful owner for a difficult period before re­establishment in a new life.

It only emerged years later that she turned to writing romance stories to make money as she and her sister, who lived together, used all their wealth during War World II to help those refugees from Germany.

They continued their charitable work after the war was over, hence writing successful romances.

( Read more... )

Tags: romance history

Anthony Russo and his wife Angela offer their clients a full-range of graphic design services including book cover design, fine art and illustration, typography, and logo and package design.

Russo Art & Design has been producing original art work for over 30 years. Under the care and direction of professional artist, Anthony Russo, Russo Art & Design has developed a reputation for quality work and commitment to their clients. They work directly with you, one-on-one, to produce art work that commands attention and provides a high-impact, visual statement.



( more pics )

All book covers are not created equal. The first moments in viewing a book cover are critical in capturing the imagination of a potential reader and creating an incentive to purchase. Russo Art & Design offers you everything you need to complete your project. They provide clients with advice and direction in all aspects of cover concept, design execution, and final mechanical. They are highly experienced in photography, illustration, and typography and they are dedicated to providing the highest quality professional work. They design all aspects of a book's cover including the face, spine, back cover and flaps (if a hard cover). If you don’t have a printer for your book, they will find a printer who can assist in determining the best and most economical means to produce your book. If you need special effects, and or foiling, they can also assist you.

http://russoartdesign.com/

Tags: behind the cover

I was expecting to read a romance, maybe even a bit on the sad tone like Brokeback Mountain, and instead I read an erotic romp. Mack and Justin, the two heroes seem almost like they are training to auction for a x-rated movie, and their recovery time is unbelievable.

Joke aside, there is a lot, lot of sex here, and if you like two men who can being emotional without being weak, who are able to cry while at the same time having hot and wild sex, Breaking the Devil is exactly what you are searching.

Mack and Justin were best buddy friend when they were teenagers; there was something between them, but they didn’t have the courage to acknowledge what it was. Then one blissful afternoon the passion was too much and they did break free of any boundaries. They were young and passionate and they vowed to love each other, only to find the day after Justin breaking Mack’s heart and going away.

Twelve years later Mack is still mourning his lost lover, and when Justin comes back in Mack’s life like he hadn’t even gone away, Mack’s mind and heart would like to kick him off, but Mack’s body has other idea, it welcomes Justin with all its passion and asks for more. The first encounter, with a triple performance from both men, led to another and to another one. There is even one moment when Justin would like to explain his reason to Mack, and maybe Mack would like to listen, but again, the bodies seem to overcome the minds, and with the voice Mack is saying that he is willing to listen, but with the hands he is already undressing Justin.

Between a sex scene and the other, the reader has the chance to understand that Justin and Mack love each other, that they are more or less on the same level, no one is really the top or the bottom, that maybe Mack is easier on explaining his feelings, and that Justin is easier to heat up like a firecracker, but in the end, both of them are romantic at heart. I even like Justin’s jealousy, quite unacceptable from a man who was away for 12 years, but it gave a romance taste to the very much erotic story.

There is a story there, with some points that I wouldn’t have minded to see developed, like, what Justin did in the past 12 years? Yes, we know that he enlisted in the Marines, but what was of his personal life? Problem is that this is a novella, and we catch up with Mack and Justin right in the moment they meet again after 12 years, and Mack is quite horny, so they haven’t much time to tell us their life, there are more important things to do. Maybe if we come back in a month or so, they will resurface to breath.

http://www.loose-id.com/Breaking-the-Devil.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Breaking the Devil

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

Tags: author: bailey bradford, cover artist: anne cain, genre: contemporary, length: novella, publisher: loose id, review, theme: cowboys

In Pure Sex, like often in D.J. Manly’s books, sex is approached almost like a recreational activity. I’m not saying it in a derogative way, the men in this book, and in all the previous I read by this author, enjoy sex, a lot, and they are quite open (no pun intended) about it. But probably the main difference from a lot of other similar books is that those men are also able to fall in love, and when it happens, they are like new-born child, sex becomes something completely different, like it was the first time they try it.

Lance is a high maintenance escort. There is no other way to describe him; he hires himself out to wealthy businessman to provide companionship and sex in exchange of the chance of living a live well above the average. But even if he has sex for money, Lance is almost naïve, he is not greedy and he really cares for the men he is with; in his two previous “contracts” Lance was lucky, both man cared back for him, and he was treated like a precious thing. To this kindness Lance gave back all of him other than one thing, his heart. Lance doesn’t believe in love, as an orphan he had nothing, and now he thinks that material things are the only important things in life, since they give him security and comfort, love is not something he needs. As I said, Lance is naïve, he didn’t realize that, even if he didn’t love those men, the men loved him and treated him well. And Lance is innocent, since he is plain and clear in his “contracts”, he is not selling love or illusions, he is selling only his body and time.

When it’s time for Lance to find a new patron, he sets his eyes on Jackson, a 40 something businessman. Jackson has no problem to accept the contract Lance is proposing, the problem is that Jackson has many of them on, his house is full a pretty boys he uses like playthings. One of them in particular, Tobias, is tired of that life, but he has money obligations he can’t afford without Jackson’s salary. Tobias should be happy to see Lance’s arrival, the pressure on him should diminish, but it’s not like that. After the first initial dislike, Tobias starts to understand that Lance has not understood the “prison” he is ended in, and this is the time that, if he doesn’t do something, Lance will loose forever that innocence he has preserved all those years.

It’s strange to talk of innocence and naïveté in a book where men are having sex in 2, 3 even 4, and everyone is doing everyone else, but that is sex, pure sex, and love is not involved. Both Lance and Tobias are innocent when it’s time to speak of love, and between a sex scene and another, this is a love story. Only that you have to search the love in the most unexpected places.

http://www.extasybooks.net/ebjmsite/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ebook_flypage&product_id=6402&category_id=3&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=44

Amazon Kindle: Pure Sex

Reading List:

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

Tags: author: d.j. manly, genre: contemporary, length: novel, publisher: extasy books, review, theme: hustlers, theme: menage

As often when dealing with the gods of Olympus, this story is not a romance but more an erotic escapades, like most of the myths where it seems that all actions and resolutions are driven by sex.

The story starts quite abruptly, Stephen is an archaeologist whose reputation was destroyed from the useless research of an artefact, the Aphrodite’s necklace. When Alex, one of his assistant, comes to his room claiming to have found the necklace, Stephen has nothing to loose to follow him to the ancient Minoan ruins. From that moment on, all worlds, up and under, break loose, and Stephen is not more in command of his mind and body.

When Stephen and Alex were in the “ordinary” world, I had the feeling that Stephen was the upper hand in their relationship; maybe since Alex was his assistant, maybe since I had the feeling that Alex was younger than Stephen. But when they are dragged in the underworld, Stephen immediately loses any appearance of independence, to become almost a sex toy. Everyone seems to want to use him for sex, various mythological figures enter the scene, and everyone wants a piece of Stephen.

In all of this Alex plays the role of supervisor, he is a bit jealous of Stephen, but not since he doesn’t want other men to have sex with him, but only since he wants to be there to direct the scene. If Stephen is willing, and ready, Alex has nothing against the idea to “borrow” him, even sometime to participate. Sex is the main event in this story, and the normal sexual boundaries of modern time are not applicable here. There is no knowledge of exclusivity or betrayal, at least not with a sexual meaning. There is neither actually a concept of straight, gay or even bisexual, sex is sex, in every possible pairs, or with as many partners at once.

There is even a plot, a mission to accomplish, but it’s not the most important event in the story. So no, if you want to read a romance, a love story, this is not your book. But if you want to read about mischievous gods or semi-gods and playful humans more than willing to amuse them, in this story Stephen finds out a side of himself, that he was not aware of, that being a sex toy could be at the same time dangerous and satisfying.

http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-7795-229-for-olympus-sake.aspx

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Dar Albert

Tags: author: shayla kersten, cover artist: dar albert, genre: fantasy, length: novel, publisher: ellora's cave, review, theme: elves

Readers of Regency novels say that Elizabeth Mansfield was the heiress to the literary crown of Georgette Heyer, the high priestess of Regency novels. But Elizabeth only smiled at the appellation. After all, she was the writer who admitted, "I received a Master's degree in English lit, but I secretly read Georgette Heyer in the bathtub."

She believed that the love story has been with us ever since people began telling stories, and it will continue to be with us until the world ends.

"I was born and grew up in New York City," said the freshfaced blonde, who was born on March 13, between the years of the Depression and World War II. "I teach freshman students in a local community college one day a week. I used to teach full-time, but now I have too many deadlines to meet. At the moment I'm teaching Jewish-American literature of the twentieth century. Writing is so quiet; I need to teach to get me but of the house arid talking," she added with a grin.

Elizabeth Mansfield's happiest girlhood hours were spent sitting out on a fire escape in the Bronx, eating apples and reading. "I had to practice the piano an hour a day, but I kept a book in the piano bench in case my mother stepped out of the apartment."

She majored in English literature at Hunter. "But," she confessed, with a shake of her blonde curls (all Regency heroines have curls, you see!), "I guess those early romances remained in my blood even though I believed I'd grown out of them."

( Read more... )

Source: Love's Leading Ladies

Tags: romance history

So this week my Men Candy are not models but actors; actually one of them is a model tryig to become an actor, but he is young, he has time ;-) So, what linked them together? (did you notice that my triplet of men candy always have something in common?). Cillian, Steve and Colton played a gay role (in a movie or in an editorial) but they are not gay, better it doesn't matter to them if they are or they are not gay, probably they would prefer for people to judge them for being a good or a bad actor, not for who they sleep with. In particular, I thought a lot if posting Colton Haynes' pictures, truth be told I even wondered if they are real, he seems so much younger in them, but then I thought, if he did them, he probably had a reason. So enjoy!

Cillian Murphy (born 25 May 1976) is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes.



( Cillian Murphy )

A native of Cork, Murphy began his performing career as a rock musician. After turning down a record deal, he made his professional acting debut in the play Disco Pigs in 1996. He went on to star in Irish and UK film and stage productions throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, first coming to international attention in 2003 as the hero in the post-apocalyptic film 28 Days Later. Murphy's best-known roles are as villains in two 2005 blockbusters: the Scarecrow in the superhero film Batman Begins, and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye. Next came two contrasting, widely acclaimed starring roles: his Golden Globe Award-nominated performance as transgender outcast "Kitten" in 2005's Breakfast on Pluto and a turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in the 2006 Palme d'Or winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley. In 2009, Murphy stars in Perrier's Bounty, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

( Read more... )

@Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cillian_Murphy

Steve Sandvoss (born June 23, 1980 in New York City) is an American actor. Stephen James Sandvoss grew up in suburban New York City. He attended the Saint Thomas Choir School in Manhattan and The Taft School in Connecticut where he was a member of the rowing team. He went on to study at Harvard University and graduated, cum laude, in 2002.



( Steve Sandvoss )

At Harvard, he was active in the artistic community, pursuing amateur photography, studying poetry and American prose, and often choosing edgier roles in student-written plays as well as in such classics as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar and Bertolt Brecht's Galileo and Ba'al.

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@Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sandvoss

Colton Haynes, born in 1988 in Wichita Kansas, is an American actor and model, best known for his role as Brandon Fox on "CSI Miami." Haynes grew up in Kansas and moved around throughout his whole life. At the ripe age of 15, he got his start working as a model in New York. He quickly got his big break when renowned photographer Bruce Weber photographed him in major campaigns for "Abercrombie & Fitch" that put him on the map.



( Colton Haynes )

Soon after, Haynes landed campaigns for "Verizon Print", "Kira Plastinina", TV commercials for "Ralph Lauren/JC Pennys 'American Living'"' and appeared in several magazines including "Teen Vogue", "Vogue Homme International", "Seventeen Magazine", "Mens Health", "Arena Magazine” and "Elle Magazine" (with Gwen Stefani)."

( Read more... )

@Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Haynes

Tags: man candy, model: cillian murphy, model: colton haynes, model: steve sandvoss

Good to Know is a classical romance, also a bit old fashioned. Lonely and grumpy artist living in a isolated ranch finds himself guardian of a 10 years old orphan; lonely and tender-hearted teacher thinks to march arms in hand to the rescue of a little boy to then fall in love for the guardian. It’s probably the most classic love-story, what made it special was that both main characters are, for once, well past their young age: Jerry, the artist, is nearly 50 years old, and David, the teacher, is past 40 years old.

It’s quite obvious for everyone, reader, friends and family, that David and Jerry are fated to be together and to raise William in a loving family; the problem is for them to understand it. This is basically a romance, there are little obstacles for them to overcome, and probably it helps a lot that both of them are wealthy and independent men, working low salary jobs only for pleasure and not for necessity. There is also little doubt that Jerry will be William’s guardian, even if he is openly gay, Jerry is also the only living relative of the kid, and if you look to the cynical side of it, being also a wealthy man makes things even easier.

So no, the right of the two men to have William with them was never questioned, the little trouble they had was due to the fact that, even if in the more permissive Canada, they were having a homosexual relationship in front of an “impressionable” kid. This is the only trouble and angst element of the entire book, and to know how they dealt with it, I will let you read the story. A story that, unexpectedly, was pretty sexy.

I said unexpectedly since usually more the characters are older, less they seem interested in sex. And instead here sex was up front and probably the first thing that bonded David and Jerry. Jerry is basically a don juan; maybe now he is almost retired, but when he sees a man, an attractive man, the first thing in his mind is, bed him and then talk, and maybe you can even skip the talk part. So when he is faced with the prospective of being a father, Jerry doesn’t know what to do; it’s not that he doesn’t want the kid, it’s only that has never passed in his mind to have a kid. I have the feeling that Jerry himself hasn’t had a loving family from which learn how to raise a son, and so he is scared to try.

On the other side there is David. As Jerry, David probably didn’t have a good childhood, and he was disowned by his family when he came out, but David has imprinted in his genes how to be a good father. In every thing he does, even in his chosen career, David screams the desire to be a father. I think that, at first, his dislike of Jerry (truth be told, soon forgotten), was more due to the fact that he envied Jerry’s luck to have found William than anything else. David wants William with all his heart, and instead Jerry seems reluctant to take in the kid.

As I said, sex helped the two to find an agreement, and I think it’s a right perspective to read the story. Nor David or Jerry are young starry eyed men, if they are interested in someone else, they are self-confident enough to admit that it’s probably a physical thing, that they are attracted to the other man. Sex arrives quite soon, probably before love, but again, it’s probably a right choice for the story: the romantic development of the story probably would have suggested for them to be together for the well-being of William, maybe ignoring their personal differences. Instead, in a real world, David and Jerry have to test their relationship, to see if they can work together, and then, maybe, they can consider to involve William and try the “family” thing.

Good to Know is a sweet romance without being too much pink glasses perspective, it has the right dose of reality to not being too sugary, and the sex adds spicy to the mix.

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Amazon: Good to Know

Amazon Kindle: Good to Know

Reading List:

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Cover Art by Paul Richmond

Tags: author: d.w. marchwell, cover artist: paul richmond, genre: contemporary, length: novel, publisher: dreamspinner press, review, theme: art world, theme: cowboys, theme: silver romance

Director: Glenn Gaylord

Writers: Phillip J. Bartell (written by)
Q. Allan Brocka (characters)

Date: 9 October 2009 ((Outfest Film Festival, USA)

Genre: Comedy

Plot: Casey (Daniel Skelton), is new to the gay scene, refreshingly cute, geeky, and extremely shy. When bombastic Tiffani (Rebekah Kochan) befriends Casey and takes him under her wings, his adventures have only just begun!

Casey accompanies Tiffani to the Hollywood GLBT Center where they meet Harry (Leslie Jordan), along with Casey’s mentor Zack (Chris Salvatore), and for Casey it’s love at first sight.

Tiffani persuades Casey to create a phony GaySpace page representing himself as her straight ex bf Ryan (Michael Walker) and Zack suddenly becomes smitten with his online relationship with Casey (who continues pretending he is really Straight hottie Ryan). However, when Zack discovers Casey’s deception, he immediately writes Casey out of his life for good.

Meanwhile, Casey’s Aunt Helen (Mink Stole) does her best to nurture Casey, and watch over him in his relocation to Hollywood.

Will Casey eventually convince Zack of his true and undying love, only “straight” Ryan unknowingly holds the key to a surprising solution!

@IMDb
@Amazon: Eating Out: All You Can Eat
@Netflix
@Wolfe Video

 

( more pics )

Cast (in credits order)
Daniel Skelton ... Casey
Chris Salvatore ... Zack
Michael E.R. Walker ... Ryan
Rebekah Kochan ... Tiffani von der Sloot
John Stallings ... Lionel
Maximiliano Torandell ... Ernesto
Rick D'Agostino ... Shirtless Stud
Julia Cho ... Tandy
Mink Stole ... Helen
Leslie Jordan ... Harry
( rest of the cast )


Casey & Zack

( more pics )

( Eating Out: All You Can Eat Trailer - clean version )

( Eating Out: All You Can Eat - Official Trailer )

( Eating Out: All You Can Eat - Teaser )

Tags: director: glenn gaylord, gay romance movie, video