Once again combining two weeks, with links, encouraging readers to try anything that sounds interesting - and buy direct if you can!
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compiled September 10:
1. ‘Best Men’ by Sidney Karger, debut MM from a longtime screenwriter. NYC setting. The POV character is mid-thirties, works in HR in a huge advertising agency, BFF of an aspiring Broadway writer who is now engaged and wants him to be her best man. Her fiance’s brother is to be the *other* best man; the brother is gay; the POV guy hooked up with him once (it didn’t go well); meanwhile, POV guy is still being strung along by longtime partner, but worst of all, the BFF seems to be transferring BFF-ness to the brother. On top of all that, POV guy is having to lay off people at work, which he hates to do. This is slow burn and high conflict, very funny at times, but also dealing with some real emotion all around which was handled well.
2. ‘The Creative Act: A Way of Being’ by Rick Rubin, founder of Def Jam Records (!). My sibling gave me this and it’s a great book for those who occasionally need to be reminded that being creative is worth doing for its own sake.
3. ‘Attack of the Theater People’ by Mark Acito, a follow-up to his roman-a-clef ‘How I Paid for College.’ A farcical year in the life of an aspiring actor who’s been booted out of Juilliard. Very funny but set in 1980s New York and quite blunt about how that looked for a young gay man at the time.
4. [re-read] ‘Crazy for You’ by Jennifer Crusie. Girl, this is a scary motherfucking book!! I’d forgotten just how bad things got. Talk about a hard-won happy ending.
5. ‘Handle with Care’ by Hayden Stone. MM set in England. POV character is an aspiring curator from Canada who’s won a three-month museum internship and arrives on first day only to find they’ve got a second intern, with whom he will be competing for the one permanent job opening. Rivals-to-lovers, slow burn, very well done. My one real complaint was that a missing-exhibit subplot gets wrapped up much too swiftly (how, when, and by whose hands the exhibits got temporarily lost: not answered at all!) given the importance of that subplot to the career & romantic plots.
6. [re-read] my own MM novella ‘Eternal Summer,’ the scenes from a lifetime love one featuring a Broadway writer and his favorite leading man.
7. ‘Darius the Great Deserves Better’ by Adib Khorram. Sequel to ‘Darius the Great is Not Okay.’ In this one, Darius is back home in Portland, OR with his family, now on the varsity soccer team, and has a boyfriend. But the bf is pressuring him for sex, he’s still living with depression, still subject to daily micro (and not so micro) aggressions, his grandfather is slowly dying back in Iran, and his parents are struggling with money. It’s overall a hopeful book, things are looking up at the end, deeply observed and sympathetic.
8. ‘King’s Legacy’ by L.C. Rosen. Second book featuring Tennessee Russo, a gay teenage Indiana Jones who’s a bit famous thanks to the artifact-hunting series he makes with his father. Their new adventure involves a quest for the lyre supposedly given by biblical David to Jonathan. Action packed with a mild degree of mayhem, some bad guys die, lots of clever clues & traps, plus dealing with commercialization and how to remain true to yourself despite pressure to sell out. Lots of fun.
9. ‘Husband of the Year’ by M.A. Wardell. Sequel to ‘Teacher of the Year.’ Cute, sweet, very horny wrap up to the Maine Teachers cycle, this is a bit reminiscent of Alexis Hall’s ‘Husband Material’ in that the prospective wedding is a major source of stress. Chucking one vision of it in favor of a much simplified version helps the men find time and energy for more important things.
compiled September 3:
1. ‘Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy’ by Jacqueline Firkins, which is a FM romance novel despite having “A Novel” on the cover. Girl, we know it’s a novel, stop it. I mostly enjoyed this – it’s about an unhappy academic leaving her awful job and retreating to the falling-down coastal Maine house left to her by her beloved grandmother which is currently tenanted by grandma’s late-in-life writing assistant, who was also her cover model, and … slow burn, all one POV, interfering family, good character development for the FMC, could’ve done better with the MMC.
2. ‘Until I Feel Safe’ by Kirk Holland, MM starring high school students in Texas. One is deeply closeted, very active in his homophobic church but aspiring musical theater student desperate for a way out; the other is out, taking an acting class where they meet, from a supportive & wealthy Mexican American family. High conflict, high risk, loads of family drama, many adults are manipulative trash. Climax is closeted boy’s two brothers helping him stage an intervention for their religion-blinded parents along the lines of, stop this or you will never see any of us again. Hopeful conclusion but a tough read. (suggested double feature companion piece: ‘Unbound’ by C.G. Macington)
3. ‘Time Out’ by Sean Hayes (yes, that one, he played Jack on Will & Grace) with Todd Milliner (his production-company partner) and Carlyn Greenwald (their book-writing partner). Very personal-feeling fiction with romantic elements, again starring a high-school student, small-town Georgia basketball star who decides to come out at a pep rally and is shocked when it goes very, very badly. This kid has a lot of work to do on himself, the family is shaky, his growth is very much one step forward and two steps back. Small scale story with big themes. Another hopeful conclusion, another tough read.
4. [re-read] my own FM novella ‘Drawn Out,’ the one about an animation artist and an interior designer/filmmaker who meet at a film festival where they each have work showing.
5. ‘Yellow Belly’ by Kim Fielding, MM fairy-tale retelling (prince / frog), a little on the dark side for me. The eventual solution’s a good one, but I needed less despair.
6. ‘Burn it All Down’ by Nicolas DiDomizio, more Disaster Teenagers and their Disaster Families. This is a mother/son caper which for risk-averse me was anxiety-inducing because they make many bad decisions and get into very serious trouble. But the book answers the question “why are you like this” quite thoroughly (and affectionately), plus the POV 18 yr old boy does learn and there’s reason to believe the lessons will stick.