The Novel Approach

Reviews, Ramblings, and Randomness

Archive for the month “July, 2012”

Lashings of Sauce by UK MAT

“Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.” – William Cowper – The Task and Other Poems

• Post Mortem by Jordan Castillo Price
• Dressing Down by Clare London
• Et Tu, Fishies? by JL Merrow
• Zones by Elyan Smith
• Sollicito by Charlie Cochrane
• A Few Days Away by Elin Gregory
• Vidi Velo Vici by Robbie Whyte
• Shelter From Storms by Sandra Lindsey
• Faulty Genes by Rebecca Cohen
• Lost in London by Tam Ames
• My Husband by Zahra Owens
• Waiting for a Spark by Lillian Francis
• Social Whirl by Emily Moreton
• School for Doms by Anne Brooke
• Dragon Dance by Josephine Myles
• Reclaiming Territory by Becky Black

Lashings of Sauce is an anthology that is truly a celebration of LGBT fiction and all its diversity, with sixteen equally fantastic short stories that run the gamut from lighthearted to erotic to poignant, as each author places his or her own personal and memorable stamp on this collection, giving me something to love about every story, whether it was the characters who made me laugh or those who touched my heart as they struggled to find an identity in a world where pronouns and Self are sometimes at conflict with one another.

Some of these authors are new to me, some are reliable favorites, but whichever the case they all delivered in a big way. It would take forever for me to list, story by story, what drew me into the lives of each of these characters, but suffice to say there’s something for everyone, whether you’re a fan of historical, paranormal, or contemporary fiction, and regardless of how you identify.

There are stories of new love, lost love, and renewal; stories of temptation and unrequited love; stories of healing and hope; stories that made me laugh out loud, smile, sigh, brought a lump to my throat, and a few of them were just flat-out, unapologetically sexy. Whatever the case, whatever the conflict, whatever the course, each of the characters found the way to the beginning of their happy ending. These are stories of loving unconditionally and finding the perfect someone who makes you feel perfect in yourself, discovering a common bond that makes you feel an uncommon joy.

I read this book, expecting with each story that I couldn’t possibly love the next as much as the previous. This is one time I can say I’m so glad I was wrong.

Buy Lashings of Sauce HERE.

When the Music Stops by John T. Fuller

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.” – Isaac Asimov

I love books that make me feel like a hypocrite. When the Music Stops is most definitely one of those books.

There is a line between doctor and patient that is never to be breached. That line becomes even more solidly defined when the patient is incapable of speaking for himself, making decisions for himself, providing for his own wellbeing, but that is exactly the line that’s crossed in John T. Fuller’s perfectly compelling, atmospheric, and provocative story of Daniel Archer, a physician at Link Hill mental institution.

Mr. White is the young man who unwittingly instigates the doctor’s slow decent toward perdition, in this tale that questions what is moral and what is right when sexual attraction toward a patient crosses the line into sexual action. Where is the line drawn between compassion and ethical conduct, restraint and desire? Is a man capable of consent when he may not understand what’s being asked of him? Does it matter if the doctor is motivated by love and mercy for a young man who is incapable of defending himself, especially when it’s in defense of those who would seek to maim him in the name of science?

If this were a real world situation—a doctor pursuing a psychologically impaired patient—I’m not sure I could look at it so charitably, but in When the Music Stops all I could do was to stand behind Dr. Archer and watch and hope that he could touch Mr. White both emotionally and physically, to draw the man out of himself and to let love heal the young man’s broken mind. I couldn’t react any other way because the author drew me into the story and made these characters and their challenges real and sympathetic, even though I questioned my feelings the entire way through. Dr. Archer and Mr. White were complex and magnetic, even though Mr. White didn’t utter more than a single word throughout the story—a single word that came to mean everything to him for the rest of his days with Daniel.

There was a Victorian Gothic feel to the narrative, and the horror was all too real in an asylum where humans played test subjects to all manner of experimentation in the name of curing their afflictions. I loved this historical romance, from its somber beginning all the way to its bittersweet ending.

Buy When the Music Stops HERE.

Shane and Trey (Enemies to Lovers, #1) and a Bonus Short, Get It by Anyta Sunday


“Lovers may be—and indeed generally are—enemies…” – Lord Byron

Shane and Trey, book one in Anyta Sunday’s Enemies to Lovers series, begins as a story of unrequited love and ends as a story of unexpected love between two young men who began as anything but friends.

Outing himself in front of his best friend Ryan—the object of his affection—his twin sister June, and his sister’s boyfriend Trey was the furthest thing from Shane Watson’s mind when it happened in a spontaneous burst of emotion, but that single monumental event was the catalyst for everything that happens for the remainder of this turbulent story of family dysfunction, accidental romance, friendship, and unconditional love between a brother and sister.

A years long friendship destroyed in a single moment by homophobia, an intimidating reaction from an enemy, and the support of his sister greet Shane’s outburst in the weeks just before they all leave for college. It was Shane’s revelation of his sexuality that instigated a transformation in Trey Brennan, the boy who’d once bullied Shane, which ignites the spark of a potentially destructive relationship, a relationship that puts a sibling bond to the ultimate test. And, in fact, it’s June’s unwitting interference that throws Shane together with her boyfriend, who has now become Shane’s greatest temptation.

Shane and Trey is a story of both the healing and destructive power of love and the tenuous bond of family and friendship. It is a story of acceptance and trust amidst the insecurity of a future that cannot promise forever, and of accepting each moment as the gift it is. It’s a story of misunderstandings and overcoming doubts and of finding a way to repair the past. It’s a sometimes bittersweet but ultimately hopeful drama that Shane charmed me through as he navigated his way along on a journey with no direction, only following his heart toward the boy who loves him.





Get It is a bonus short story at the end of Shane and Trey that follows the unrequited love theme in a friends-to-lovers story that proves blindness is in the eye as well as the heart of the beholder.

There is a vapor-thin line that exists between loving someone and being in love with him, and it’s a line that Benny Reece and James Stewart walk on opposite sides of, loving each other on different sides of the spectrum of friendship.

Both men are suffering the pangs of unrequited love, though James’ suffering has further reaching implications. Losing Benny is far too high a price for James to pay, and their friendship isn’t something he’s willing to gamble away on something with such long odds, even knowing the payoff could be infinite, so he keeps his feelings sheltered within the comfort of the status quo. But the longer he yearns for Benny and watches him pursue a guy who really just isn’t that into him—couldn’t possibly ever be as into him as James—the harder it becomes for James to hide.

And all it takes is a single, simple moment of clarity for Benny to finally open his eyes and heart to the possibilities that’ve been right there in front of him all along.

Between the wanting and the waiting and the getting, there was a lot to love in this short little story. The mounting frustration and tension built naturally into James and Benny’s relationship played out wonderfully and made me wish for just a bit more when it ended.

Buy Shane and Trey and Get It HERE.

*Note: This book is FREE to Amazon Prime Members.*

Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony by L.B. Gregg

Meet Mark Meehan and Tony Gervase: my new addiction. Actually, I suppose that will apply to all the men of Smithfield, Connecticut, once I’ve had the opportunity to meet the rest of them. No, not all. There are a few resident dirtbags there, but for now, I’ll focus that addiction squarely on Mark and Tony.

If ever there has been a couple doomed to poor timing, it seems it’s these two, as life and circumstances continued to wear away at the very foundation of their connection—a friendship that could’ve been so much more if Mark hadn’t been too young and Tony hadn’t been too scared, and if there hadn’t been another man standing in the way (see: dirtbag) who ended up causing no small amount of trouble for both Mark and Tony, and kept Mark so utterly oblivious to the obvious—the fact that Tony has been and always will be there for him because, hello, Tony loves him. I guess there’s a reason they say love is blind.

Albert Einstein once said, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once,” but boy, does Mark put that theory to the test because as soon as he walked into church and concussed the hell of out his suddenly ex-boyfriend, Jamie Dupree—with a Bible, no less (which is also the precise moment I started loving hard on Mark)—it seemed like that’s when time and trouble tangled into a big ball of Mark not being able to outrun or out-think any of it. But he did discover one thing in the whole process: he had Tony, and that’s really all that mattered in the end. Well, that and the fact that he survived in spite of it all.

I loved this book, loved Mark’s voice, L.B. Gregg’s humor and style and the way she provided just enough backstory for Mark and Tony’s relationship to hook me without getting bogged down in too many flashbacks to build the foundation for their romance. I love exposition as much as the next person, but sometimes I need it more than others to buy into a connection. With Mark and Tony, that bond was almost tangible and in this case, seeing really was believing, so I didn’t feel at all as if I’d been deprived of anything that’d come before. All I know is that what happened during was fun and manic and sexy, and now I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of the Smithfield men. I don’t know if I’ll be seeing Mark and Tony again along the way; if I don’t, I sure will miss them.

L.B. Gregg is re-releasing the Men of Smithfield series with Carina Press, beginning August 6, with Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony. There is no Pre-Order/Buy Link available at the time of this post.

The Three Hour Man (Manlove at the End of the World, #2) by James Cox

“Lust’s passion will be served.” – Marquis de Sade

The Three Hour Man (yes, it means exactly what you think it means) is the sequel to James Cox’s The Last Cowboy, the series set in a post-Plague world where a majority of the world’s population has been decimated by a deadly virus, leaving only the strongest to survive in a wasteland of loneliness and pent-up desire.

Deon and Chase were introduced at the end of book one in this series, where their story was set up to tell and which now goes back in time, roughly six months earlier, to explain how the two men met. I debated on whether or not to say this could be read as a stand-alone, but I think it is important to read the books in order, if not for the character set-up, then for some of the world building that’s done in The Last Cowboy, just to set the mood for what’s happening in this present dystopia.

Vigilantism and extremism are de rigueur, it seems, as the social structure of the country begins to crumble under the strain of survival and the compulsion to procreate and repopulate the earth, and those who suffer the most are those whose desires run contrary to the mania of the few who are bent upon fulfilling the mandate to be fruitful and multiply. This is where Deon meets Chase, as the young man is set to be hanged for his refusal, not to mention his inability, to breed on command.

On a steady diet of loneliness, then suddenly not being alone anymore; on a steady diet of denial, then suddenly having what you’ve most craved within reach, lust and sex become the things upon which these two men feast and ultimately forge a bond where their desires extend to the idea of creating a new Utopia where people will live together peacefully and in acceptance of each other’s differences.

I’ll be honest, reading these books from a woman’s POV has been…interesting, to say the least. This series is unapologetically erotic; it’s the contrast of uninhibited and joyful and frenzied sex set against a backdrop of a world that no longer holds much joy but does hold the promise of a better future. These men explore and expose all their feelings on the surface; they’re direct and end up the better for it because they’re no longer afraid to reach out and grab whatever measure of happiness they can find. I’m afraid that some of the…uh…well, let’s just say that I’m not sure I have the right equipment to fully appreciate the view James Cox is giving me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy looking.

Buy The Three Hour Man HERE.

The Amethyst Cat Caper (Birthstone, #1) and Two Small Gems – When Love Walked In and Lost in My Waking Dream by Charlie Cochet

“The riches that are in the heart cannot be stolen.” – Russian Proverb

The Amethyst Cat Caper could easily have been subtitled, “or the Case of the Stolen Hearts,” for as much as the Gentleman Thief scarpered with said cat from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, it was Hawk and Remi who absconded with the true treasure in this quick-fire romance wrapped within the mystery of an Ancient Egyptian statue that is mistaken for a forgery when it unexpectedly lands in Tom Winchell’s Antiquities and Oddities shop.

Stanley Hawk is the hardboiled Pinkerton’s agent with the soft gooey center who is hired to solve the case of a break in at Tom’s shop, where he discovers that Remington Trueblood may very well be at the core of the mystery. And he is, just not in the way Hawk had originally expected. It was easy for Hawk to jump to some conclusions about Remi, based on the limited evidence that’d turned up before he met the younger man. Unfortunately, it was also easy for Hawk to underestimate Remi after they met, which led to a fair share of problems between them. Remi is essentially Hawk, turned inside out, as Remi’s beautiful surface conceals the heart of a lion who is much stronger than he appears. One thing these two men didn’t get wrong, however, was the spark of attraction that lit the moment they set eyes upon one another.

In a case of lust preceding trust, Hawk makes a promise he has no intention of keeping, although he does it under the best of intentions—to keep Remi safe from the elusive and thoroughly cunning man who is set on acquiring the statue in Remi’s possession but who also seems to have a keen personal interest in Remi himself. Hawk’s betrayal, however, is one that Remi is unfortunately all too familiar with, and one that might not be easily forgiven or forgotten. Until, that is, something far more priceless than the statue is stolen from Remi, right in plain sight.

The intrigue unfolds quickly in this first book of the Birthstone series, as does the romance between Hawk and Remi. It was love at first sight for the two men, and whether there were forces far more powerful at work than an irresistible attraction, it’s hard to say; nothing is impossible where the gods are concerned, I suppose. And it seems there are far more treasures yet to be discovered in Tom Winchell’s curiosity shop, which I look forward to discovering along with Hawk and Remi, hopefully sooner rather than later so I can see their relationship grow as well.

Buy The Amethyst Cat Caper HERE.




When love walks into your life, you don’t ask why; you just take it for the gift it is, and for Bruce Shannon and Jace Scarret, it’s the best Valentine’s Day gift ever in When Love Walked In.

When one door closes, another opens, and in Jace’s case, doors have been slamming shut in his life to the point that it’s left him broke, homeless, starving and without hope. But it’s a single door that’s left open by mistake, by chance, by whatever you want to call it, that’s nothing less than serendipity for Jace because it’s the door that leads to Bruce, and it was his compassion and generosity, along with maybe a little bit of feline intervention that paved the way to romance for these two men I’d love to know so much more about.

It was the door to Bruce that allowed Jace to finally close the door forever on the past in this sweet and romantic little story that, even though we don’t get to see it, sure does promise a happy ever after.

Buy When Love Walked In HERE.




“The future is a convenient place for dreams.” – Anatole France

If ever there was a book I’ve wanted a sequel to, it’s Lost in My Waking Dream, the historical/futuristic/sci-fi/time travelling story of a man, George Fitzpatrick, who fought in and survived World War I, though he didn’t manage to come away from it entirely unscathed. George suffers from post traumatic stress episodes that he has managed to survive only because of the voice he hears inside of him, the voice of a man, Noah Baxter, who lives more than a century away from George’s present.

In the time that George is, he has a fiancé he can’t love enough to marry, and an ongoing arrangement with a male prostitute who plays Noah’s stand-in because when you can’t have the real thing, you make do with what you’ve got. In the time that George belongs, the time when his heart exists and a place where he could live and love openly, Noah is working tirelessly to find his way to the man he loves. The question is can he cheat the seemingly insurmountable triad of time, space, and death to bridge the gap that has kept them apart for so long?

George is all too painfully aware he can’t pin his hopes on an impossible dream, a life he can’t possibly grasp in a future over a century away, so he wanders the life he has, lost and wanting so desperately what he can’t have, making choices he’d never considered before and fighting a losing battle simply because Noah said, “I love you,” and tore George’s world apart.

This is a story filled with melancholy and promise, one that I’d have loved to see expanded into a full length novel, but really, I’d just be happy with a sequel…okay, a full length sequel; that’s not asking too much, is it? I felt an immediate sense of connection to George and Noah and couldn’t wait to see how Charlie Cochet wrote them out of their terrible and tragic predicament. The only sense of disappointment I felt was in the fact that their story had to end.

Buy Lost in My Waking Dream HERE.
*Note: If you’re a regular Amazon customer, avoid buying this book from that site as there are terrible formatting issues with it. I had to return it for a refund and re-purchased the book directly from Torquere, which was fine. :)

Circuit Theory by Kirby Crow and Reya Starck

It seems the more I read, the harder it gets to find unique, so I feel really lucky that I’ve discovered more than a few books lately that have set themselves just that little bit apart from the standard in their originality; Circuit Theory is definitely one of those books.

Roleplaying games aren’t a new concept, but the internet has elevated roleplaying to a virtually realistic medium that has pulled gamers away from game boards and placed them in a room in front of a computer, where they are alone together with millions of other people on the World Wide Web.

The internet has been vilified as a killer of interpersonal relationships and communication skills; it has been heralded as a medium that has shrunk the world and drawn people of all walks of life together. It is a global village where a person can be as anonymous or as conspicuous as he wishes to be. It’s a cyber world where a person can portray himself the way he wishes he truly were; he can be an entirely different persona from the one he sees when he looks in the mirror and from the one who points and clicks his way through the affectation, no one the wiser.

For Dante Hera and Byron Koro, the realm of codes and bytes and bandwidth has taken the concept of partnership and drawn it into the construct of a virtual world where they can be lovers and form an emotional and physical connection in a way they could never do in the lives they live outside of Synth. Outside the world of Synth, they are separated by thousands of miles of land and ocean, so they work to form a bond of hearts and minds as their avatars compose and orchestrate a relationship inside a realm where physical contact isn’t of the flesh but of the fantasy.

Inside Synth, virtual people succumb to all the insecurities of fitting in and trusting and building relationships among fellow gamers playing sometimes exaggerated digital versions of their ideal selves in a pseudo-society that, to them, is very real. It’s a world that’s as unreal as it is meaningful to the people who choose to inhabit it, and is the only place in their world that exists where Dante and Byron can love and touch and have an intimate relationship with each other.

Don’t expect to get to know much about “the real” Dante and Byron. In fact, don’t expect to get to know too much about the virtual Dante and Byron either. But I think that’s the point of this story—that sense of disconnect in a life connected by cables, modems, and typos. How much do you really know about the person to whom you’re tied when that tie is ephemeral and can be cut by nothing more than a glitch or click of the mouse button?

Circuit Theory is a short story that really made me think about how the internet has become such an integral part of social relationships. It’s interesting and intelligent science fiction that truthfully isn’t so far from reality. I liked and disliked it at the same time for making me realize that staying connected and being part of a collective can still be a lonely and temporary business.

Circuit Theory is available for Pre-Order HERE and will be available for purchase July 30, 2012.

King Perry (The Lost & Founds, Book #1) by Edmond Manning

How is one supposed to find the words to review a book in which the author has already exhausted (Vin might love the irony of that x in such a lethargic word) all the most brilliant words in the English language to tell his story? Come to think of it, Vin might like the word lethargic. Maybe he’d think it’s a word that has rocked itself to sleep on the letter c. But I digress…

You just take a deep breath and hope to do your best, I suppose.

King Perry is, simply put, a spectacle of storytelling. It is a forty-hour-long journey narrated by a man the likes of which I’ve never encountered in all my years of reading. Vin Vanbly says, at one point, “Found Kings love paradox. Lost Kings love irony, the shadow of paradox.” If that’s true, then Vin is both the Lost and the Found, and though he calls himself the Human Ghost, if I were to try to find a way to describe him, I’d say he is the King of kings because he is the Storyteller King, and he who holds the power of words, sits upon the throne that rules the world.

Honestly, I just want to pour all the words out of this book and into my brain so I can keep reading it over and over again in my memory. I want to stand in the middle of its pages and shake it like a snowglobe until all the words skitter around me in an exhilarating (x!) swirl of luminosity. I want to bathe in these words until I exude exuberance (x, x!) in such vigorous doses that people can smell the ink seeping from my pores. That’s how much I loved this book. (Vin would probably be a little miffed at me right now for getting the word vigorous stuck on a continuous loop in his brain. For that, I’d apologize, but he’s right. It’s a wondrous word.)

Imagine if we all, Kings and Queens alike, were born into a Neverland where we become the tourists on the journey of life. We, the potential Peter Pans, incorporate all of life’s experiences in different ways, some of us holding on to the miracle and wonder of a mish-mashed childlike grownup innocence, while others of us have forgotten, or rather, lost the ability to remember what it once meant to feel warm, safe, oblivious to all the aches and disappointments life has to offer—the Lost ones. Now, imagine Vin Vanbly is the navigation system and the mechanic, the man who uses the cardinal points on the metaphysical compass of being to redirect the lives of those who need rescuing from the break-down lane of life’s highway. He is the tour guide and the technician who helps the Lost find their inner Kings and Queens again, and he does so by making himself the magnetic North toward which his Lost ones gravitate, even when they sometimes fight against the pull he has on them.

This is Vin Vanbly—the man whose own innocence was stolen from him as a child, but who loves so deeply and lives so passionately that he can’t bear to witness a fellow human being wandering aimlessly on his own journey. Vin is the alchemist and his love and his words are the quicksilver he uses to transmute the base metal of a Lost King into the Golden Found. His methods are more than a little unorthodox (how’s that one, Vin? Unorthodox?), and it’s difficult to predict where he’s going from one moment to the next, but the end result is all that matters, and the end result for Perry Mangin is that in a world that honors sameness, he dared to be different when it mattered.

There is a recurring theme in Perry’s life before he meets Vin: ”I always said I would, though.” Perry lives in a world of could’ve/would’ve/should’ve/haven’t, so Vin guides him through a series of adventures that will end with, no matter how outrageous and impossible to believe, the been-there-done-that marvel of flicking an emotional spinner and watching the needle land somewhere between crippling fear and liberating joy (hey, Vin, maybe that’s the definition of vigor), which results in Vin honoring Perry with the gift of healing his inner child and giving rise to his King.

Imagine standing in front of a painting and staring at it for hours, studying it, admiring it, absorbing it to the point that it imprints upon you so completely that when you close your eyes, it’s all you see on the backs of your eyelids. That’s kind of the way this book resonated with me, but I also get the feeling this is the way Vin has imprinted upon Perry, and vice versa. When they each close their eyes at night, they will see the other as shape and form and substance but also as color and sparkles and light and feelings and scent and the sounds of the love that evolved over their forty hours together, as Perry is destroyed and rebuilt into, not a new Perry, but certainly an improved Perry. Oscar Wilde once said that “every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” Maybe the Forgiver King and the Human Ghost are reflections of the personal brushstrokes Edmond Manning used to give these men substance.

King Perry is not a romance yet it is exceedingly romantic. There is not a traditional happy ending yet it ends happily. It’s part of Dreamspinner Press’s Bittersweet Dreams collection, yet I found it to be far less bitter than sweet. And finally, it is a journey of self-discovery and the pursuit of forgiveness of the Fates that cheated a boy of his father and made him afraid to open his heart.

I don’t want to diminish the brilliance behind this book, but Edmond Manning makes this storytelling business look effortless. There are words that thread together to tell a passable story; then there are words that layer, one on top of the other, like the bricks of a fairy tale castle with secret passageways and peaked turrets and even dungeons where dragons lurk in the shadows. Each and every sentence of this story builds upon the next to create an extraordinary and magical adventure. It is subtle yet overt, textured with humor and passion and compassion and eroticism. It is seductive and enchanting and I was completely charmed by the writing, the characters, and the story this author told so impeccably.

If you said to me, “Wow, you really loved this book,” there’s only one reply I could give, to quote Vin Vanbly:

”You’re probably right.”

Buy King Perry HERE.

It’s An Eden Winters Friday – The Wish (2nd Edition), The Newly Re-Released Tinsel and Frost, And A New FREE Short, Valentine Wish

Two years and two months ago, I was brand new to the M/M romance genre, and it was two years and two months ago, with a book that I stumbled upon quite by accident in my frenzy to discover more, more, more books to feed my newly reawakened passion for reading, that I became a fan of Eden Winters and her novel The Wish, which, later that year, also made my Top Picks of 2010 list at Michele ‘n Jeff Reviews.

Why? What made The Wish stand apart from so many of the other books I’d read that year? If I had to name a single defining point that makes The Wish all that it is, I’d have to say it’s because of the singularly romantic, epically wondrous theme that, as William Goldman said in The Princess Bride, “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

The Wish, you see, is a novel about two men, Paul Sinclair and Alex Martin, who share what I’ll call an unintentional bond with each other. They are men who couldn’t be more opposite in personality or lifestyle, as opposite, really, as up is from down and dark is from light. Theirs is, in fact, a hate-at-first-sight story based solidly in misperception, jealousy, suspicion, and outright mistrust of each other’s motives. But, oh but do they have one glorious commonality that will eventually enlighten their shared suspicions and dislikes, then lay them to waste—and that is a capital L kind of Love, a Love that has been both personified and exemplified to each of them individually since they were just boys. And that is the Love that could not be weakened even by death. If anything, rather than destroying that Love, death empowered it, and it is that kind of Love that Paul and Alex so desperately want; although it takes no short amount of time, as well as a bit of intentional interference from several interested parties, for the two men to reach the starting line of their long race toward a happy ending.

So, who are the men whom Paul and Alex hold in such high esteem and whose Love has set the bar against which all other love is measured? That would be their uncles, Byron Sinclair and Alfred Anderson, and their May/December romance is the Love that transcends the boundaries of what lies beyond.

Although Byron is never alive in the pages of this book, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist as a wholly developed and important presence in the story. I’d even go so far as to say he’s the life of this story; at least, he was for me because it’s his death that is the starting line for Paul and Alex and for Alfred, as well. It is the stepping off point for everything that follows, as Byron is the beginning and the end and then a new beginning for Alfred on the journey toward an eternal bond with the man who’d been his touchstone for nearly thirty years.

So see, where most other books offer only one love story, in The Wish I got two, and while one of those romances got off to a shaky start, it’s how it withstood the journey that counted. I can say with complete honesty that it unfolded beautifully and now that I’ve had a second chance to visit these characters, I’m reminded why they remain among my all time favorites; because their stories touched the sometimes cynical part of me that needs reminding true and forever love does exist.

**As an added bonus, Eden has offered a FREE short story, Valentine Wish that takes place in The Wish-verse and centers around two of its minor characters, Isaac Lewis and Thierry Guillaume, and it’s an after-Wish sweet that’s a lovely way to finish off the main course.**

Buy The Wish HERE.

Download Valentine Wish HERE.





“When the music changes, so does the dance.” – African Proverb

Before a car accident rerouted the direction of his life, before Tony became Tony and he was still Anthony, he was an accomplished ballet dancer and the stage was his world. But as the musical score of his life changed from Tchaikovsky to the pounding rhythms of the strip club where he now dances for tips, Tony learns a valuable lesson: if you give a man a tip, he dances for a day; if you give a man love, he dances for a lifetime.

This short and glorious little story is a tale of two Tonys and how far he travels from the spotlight of a celebrated ballet career to the footlights of a stage where wolf whistles and grasping hands and suggestive comments punctuate the bump and grind he does with his dance pole partner. Stripping can be an aggressive business, especially when there are those in the audience who can’t take their eyes off you, while all the time they’re looking down on you as an object to be groped and demeaned.

Tony’s first set may very well have turned out to be the lowest point of his dancing career if not for the fact that it resulted in the best gift he could’ve ever gotten that Christmas. Meeting Johnny “Frost” Davis might not have happened under the best of circumstances, but it turned out to be a pretty amazing event and one that revealed a lot about how truly wonderfully made these two men are.

What can I say? I want more Tony and Frost. Tinsel and Frost is sweet and sexy and just whetted my greedy little appetite, and I’d love to see more of their before and much more of their after someday soon.

Buy Tinsel and Frost HERE.

Grab Some Tissues And Watch…Just…Watch

I don’t surf the net much. Hell, I don’t even watch television much. I’m too busy reading, so I may be the last person on the planet to have seen this video. Okay, maybe not the last, but nearly three-million people have seen this video before me, so yeah, I’m a little slow on the uptake.

This is the story of two men, one from right here in Indiana, that should cause everyone who opposes Gay Marriage to sit back and take a good long look at that position, though based on some of the comments on YouTube, the ignorant and bigoted are still determined to out themselves publicly, every chance they get.

This story is tragic and heartbreaking but has also become the catalyst for a project by Hollywood producer Linda Bloodworth Thomas that one can only hope will advance the march toward equality for everyone who wants to formally commit themselves to the person they love.

Shane and Tom’s story is difficult to watch, but well worth the time:

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