It’s funny how one little thing can throw off my whole routine. We had a weekend involving yard-work-friendly temperatures, and now that it’s late enough in the year to take down the stalks of various things in the pollinator garden, things were taken down. With the result that I forgot about certain blog and newsletter-related chores. OOPS. Anyway, here’s last week’s reading roundup. Only one link this time, but if any of the others sound interesting, do search them out. And buy direct if you can!
‘Second Chance for a First Dance’ by Katey Hawthorne, MM novella; you can guess why I picked this up (anything with Dance in the title gets a look). Not bad in terms of story & character, but overloaded with smoking, drinking, & swearing.
‘The Ghost Slept Over’ by Marshall Thornton, MM feat. a failing LA actor who inherits everything from the older NY playwright who was, briefly, his boyfriend. The love interest is the estate attorney, the setting is small town, and the ghost is not a metaphor. It’s all played for laughs, which didn’t quite work for me, but I liked the actor character’s development as he relaxes into the possibilities of a new life.
‘A Kind of Forever’ by Marie Sinclair, first in a trilogy, MM 2nd chance set in SF. Both MCs are lawyers, they had a love affair while at Harvard, then one of them was coerced into conversion therapy. This is a high-angst, high-conflict story that deals quite thoroughly with the psychological effects on both men of what happened in the past and of their reunion/reconciliation.
‘Stag Dance: A Novel and Stories’ by Torrey Peters, DNF. The two stories are effing brutal, so I was already miserable by the time I got to the novel, and it just felt like more of the same. Had to quit it. Very good writing, though.
‘Confessions of a Bookseller’ by Shaun Bythell, who runs a secondhand shop in rural Scotland. Diary format. Didn’t really connect with this guy, his approach to his business & employees, or those employees. The town itself sounds like a nice place.
‘Nothing Like Forever’ by Marie Sinclair. 2nd in trilogy. Takes a twenty-year on-off love affair, between an alloromantic (MC1) and an aromantic, into a happy ending. MC1 is a musical theater professional until a severe injury, then he pivots to flight attendant. MC2 is a lawyer introduced in the first book. Lots of family drama. This is a long book with many graphic sex scenes in which much of the emotional communication happens. Overall, a bit fatiguing but I could well believe it would take this long for these people to achieve understanding and devise a way to be happy together.
‘Forever After’ by Marie Sinclair, 3rd in trilogy, feat. characters introduced in previous books. Lots of conflict here, too, but it’s lighter as most of the conflict-generating issues are external and both men are good communicators. I thought all three were good books, but this was my favorite. (And a Lambda Literary Award finalist.) Author site HERE
[re-read] my own MM novel ‘Beat,’ one that is strongly centered on dancing. These MCs end up training to go to the Gay Games for Dance Sport. Talk about fun research!