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Down and Dirty by G.A. Hauser
Apr. 26th, 2012 10:52 pm
Again I had the feeling that G.A. Hauser “matured” with this novel, or maybe she decided that she doesn’t care of what people think romance should be and she wrote what she likes. Jean is a modern Alice in the Wonderland who falls into a hole, figuratively speaking but also for real; when he enters D&D’s tattoo shop, what he thinks he wants is a small tattoo in a place no one will see, especially now that Jean is single and without prospect partners around; what he finds are two hot men plus one to spare who are more than ready to show Jean a completely different world.Harry, the shop owner, is 29 years old, very handsome and a little brooding; he had a very bad experience in the past and now he is very careful to give his heart. Clyde, Harry’s adoptive brother, his 39 years old, wanna-be porn star, and as open as Harry is closed; Clyde is very possessive of Harry and not in a brotherly way, and where I know I shouldn’t like his character, he is yes possessive but also obsessive, I think he is the more fragile of the two. Clyde helped Harry when he was down, but at the time Harry was only a teenager, now instead he is a grown man, and he grew stronger and steadier than Clyde. The spare guy is Sam, who joins Clyde and Harry when they want to play, and the new play thing is Jean.
There is a lot of sex, down and dirty sex, a little on the BDSM side, but mostly for the fun not as life choice. Jean at first has this idea of romance, made of courtship and bed of roses, and instead he finds immediate sex and satisfaction and a dungeon to play… the guy is fast to change is idea and to understand that this is his chance and he hasn’t to let it go. Champagne and roses can wait, in the meantime he will enjoy the immediate gratification.
The story is more complex than the sex, the one between Harry and Jean is the easier relationship, what gives complexity to the plot is the bond between Harry and Clyde, made of love and hate, tenderness and irritation. It’s strange since it’s Clyde that pushes Harry to let it go with Jean, but then he is the first to try to stop him when things get serious, like he wasn’t expecting for Harry to follow his push.
G.A. Hauser are not romance for all, but if you manage to enter her world made of real gay men, every novel is a discovery.
Amazon: Down and Dirty
Amazon Kindle: Down and Dirty
Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace (August 18, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 146351073X
ISBN-13: 978-1463510732
Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
I knew Kari Gregg as an author before reading this book and I knew she likes her submissive to be VERY submissive and her Dominant to have a protective streak. In a near future, a genetic mutation whose purpose was to inhibit aggression had instead highlighted the Dominant side of most, men and women alike. But among them there are some anomalies, 1 out of 1000, who instead have become more submissive, wanting the touch of a Dominant lover, better craving it. Connor is one of them, and IT director who already before the mutation was a kind and nice guy, but now he is like honey for the bears. When the change happened, Connor was in a relationship, but his partner became aggressive, so aggressive that he had to me forcedly removed from Connor and not the poor guy is without a Master, i.e. prey to everyone who is daring enough to claim him. David, Connor’s CEO on the firm, understands that he is in danger and decides to temporarily claim him, until he will be able to find a suitable Master. David is straight, soon to be married to Hannah, and even if he is attracted to Connor, he cannot be what Connor’s need. Problem is that, to David’s eyes, Emmett, the right Master, is not good enough for his precious Connor, not until the time Emmett will not prove to David to be worth of Connor, and to do that he has to court Connor, to cherish and protect him like David is doing. Between them Connor is not able to think straight (no pun intended), David is a safe shelter, warm and comfort, but Emmett is like a volcano, hot and sexy. If only he could have both their qualities in one package…
In a way, The Prince’s Boy by Cecilia Tan is an old fashioned novel… now people are thinking what the hack I’m saying, a BDSM fantasy gay romance couldn’t be “old fashioned”. Yes, you are right, but I was more referring to the plot development than the theme of the story; I still remember my literature classes, when I read about the Charles Dickens or Alexander Dumas’s novels, this books were serialized in weekly magazines, and readers were eagerly waiting for the next instalment since the author always left them hanging on some edge, often with the life of the main characters in danger. That was the main rule, maintaining the attention of the reader very high, and that is the reason why, to a today reader, who reads the story from beginning to the end, sometime it results in a rollercoast reading, from low to high every chapter, with your heart that is bumping up and down with the misadventures of the heroes.
In Spinning Jaime Samms introduced her two heroes, Mikko and Kenny. The world in which they are living is 100 years in the future, and it’s a dark and new gothic environment, the waste of energy today world did caused for our descendants to live in almost total obscurity, especially when natural light is down. The obscurity is reflected also in their approach to life, news and research tools are hard to find, and people is slowly going back to a way of life that is mostly conduct to real connections more than through the online net.
At the end of the nineteen century, two lovers have to face the worst of separation, death. They are both men, but this is not the story of how difficult it was for them to be together, when the story starts they are a couple and they would be happy if not that Philip is deathly ill, consumption, and day after day he is fading away. Jonathan, who is also the wealthier of the two, decides to bring Philip in a big mansion just outside New Orleans, not in the hope to see him better, but to alleviate his last months; in the isolated place, with only the servants as witnesses, Jonathan and Philip are building memories that will serve to Jonathan to survive losing his lover. 
