Review: Masc by Marshall Thornton

Title: Masc

Series: Sequel to Femme

Author: Marshall Thornton

Length: 217 Pages

Category: Contemporary

At a Glance: Marshall Thornton delivers another great story about this sweet couple with issues that lead to heartbreak, love and a lot of humorous chaos.

Reviewed By: Marshall Thornton

Blurb: Lionel and Dog are back in this follow-up to the Lambda finalist, Femme. Almost six months have passed and, after taking an online quiz, Lionel believes their relationship is doomed because they have nothing in common. To save their future together, the pair joins a gay bowling league and discovers that Lionel is an excellent, if somewhat eccentric, bowler.

Meanwhile, Dog gets profiled in a work newsletter. He’s excited that he’s out at work, but doesn’t immediately realize that by fawning over Dog’s masculine nature the writer was also putting down all femme guys. Lionel takes it personally, which leads the to a crisis in their relationship. Attempting to make it up to Lionel, Dog makes a grand gesture—which backfires spectacularly.

Will the two manage to put things right? And will a night in jail, a morning of drag bingo, an afternoon of day drinking, and a month of moping make things better or worse?

Review: Lionel and Dog (Doug) are just the greatest couple. Or maybe not so much, when Lionel gets caught up in re-evaluating their relationship and starts to feel like they have nothing in common besides sex. Dog is kind of oblivious to it, though, because he’s happy with Lionel, loves him, and is more than happy with the sex. Dog, being into sports and thinking it would give them something in common, gets Lionel to join the bowling team along with friends Tim and Fetch.

There are all kinds of situations Dog and Lionel run into in their search for commonality, and in doing so their relationship becomes fragile. Dog and Lionel have to face that love happens differently for different people: For Dog’s dad, it was love at first sight, but not for his mom. Tim and Fetch were friends and had no idea they could be a couple until they were. Maddy has a silly sense of humor and has odd ideas about her own relationship with her very different husband, Arthur. And Carlos (Carlotta), who has just discovered porn on his cell phone, is always looking for that someone special.

There are many lessons to learn in this entertaining novel. One of the more important is to just be yourself. The relationship between Lionel and Dog is still blooming, but they both know, deep down, it’s love that keeps them together. Dog sometimes has difficulty expressing himself, and it leads to trouble—not only with work but especially with Lionel. Lionel has some deep seated personal issues, and he doesn’t really share his feelings about them with Dog. Dog and Lionel are opposites, but they have a wonderful chemistry going on, and it leads to many warm and humorous situations. The connection with Dog’s family is somewhat chaotic, but heartwarming and fun too. There are many interesting characters throughout this series, and they are bound to make you smile.

Marshall Thornton delivers another great story about this sweet couple with issues that lead to heartbreak, love and a lot of humorous chaos. The author has a way of spinning humor along with serious issues into his writing. One of the more serious issues involving sexual harassment and the embarrassment and worry of not being believed when admitting it, which introduces the disturbing perception of a man being femme or masculine.

I was really intrigued by Thornton’s writing style in the Pinx Video Mysteries series, so I decided to give Femme a shot, which is the first book about Lionel and Dog, and I highly recommend it. The author made them one of my favorite couples, and I was more than delighted to see Masc come out. I hope there will be more books in the series.

You can buy Masc here:
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