reviews_and_ramblings

mmmm... I want know what you have read in that blur LOL

And I agree with you. Please, publishers, use the right genre. It's very disappointing buy a book and read something that is not that I wanted. Not for the plot or the characters but the wrong label!

"The ... season has come to Castle .... With the annual influx of family, Prince ..., the last unmarried son of King ..., decides to retreat to the tower he shares with his partner, Prince .... It is there that ... brings ..., the woman he rescues from a shipwreck. Fleeing from a dangerous arranged marriage, she quickly accepts the offer of marriage from ... and .... Almost immediately, their honeymonth takes an unexpected turn. With the loss of her virginity, ... sprouts wings, leading them to the inescapable conclusion that she is half-faery. And once faeries sprout their wings, they require frequent hot sex. ... and ... eagerly meet ...'s new demands even as they deal with the ... celebrations and threats from the evil Prince ...."

So, according to you, can be this a gay romance? Maybe it's a beatiful menage a trois, I don't judge this, and I bet it's also funny, but for me it's not a gay romance, sorry!

Elisa

Not gay AT ALL. I'm not sure which is a bigger turn-off, sprouting wings or het sex in an MM book....

And that synop sounds like a Laurell K Hamilton book, with the magical curse that has the effect of turning the victim into a nympho. Blech.

Menage yes, gay romance no.

Seems to me that the girl is the center. Maybe the princes are lovers but it don't make a gay romance if there is a girl between.

The sprouting wings thing made me smile but not enough to push the buy button. In a way I was more hungry to see the MM tag than anything else. I have some epubs from which I auto-buy, I see the tag and I click buy; this publisher I read and re-read the blurb before making my decision. Elisa

Yes, exactly. For example, the book last night, Awakening by Terry O'Reilly. There is a woman between Nathaniel and Jonathan, and in the end Jonathan remains with her, but the real lovers were Nathaniel and Jonathan. That was a gay romance. Elisa

It is the point of view. If the story talks about the two princes and the woman is in background, then I could understand the M/M but so...

Two men in the same story and in the same bed are not necessarily a gay romance. :P

True. This publisher in particular, claimed in the past that the gay romance is only a passing fashion and that the future was in the menages. So, all right, devote you to publish very good menages, but not tag them M/M, to please, or draw, the readers you decide to not want. Elisa

Remember me about a italian publisher's manga.

I don't understand this. Ok, it's business but the words flies. One time I let go, second time I think very well before to purchase.
Now, I don't know which publisher you talk but I'm sure it is not the only one out there.

If this publisher believes gay romances are just a sort of nine-day wonder, why tag this book, which is obviously a ménage à trois, m/m? I agre with you, it doesn't make sense. It may even be seen as hypocritical. Or maybe they're just negligent.

sara

Exactly, it's not the only one, and truth be told, if not for one or two authors, I will not frequent it at all. Elisa

> It may even be seen as hypocritical. Or maybe they're just negligent.

Maybe one thing, maybe both :-) I believe there is a market for ménage à trois, I don't like them, but I'm not here to judge the taste of others. They have some very good menages title, and it would be better, for me, that they pay more attention on how they tag the books. I'm slowly becoming tired to have to guess what I will found if I buy the book. Elisa

I couldn't agree more. I don't care for menages either (don't ask me why I was talked into writing one, trust me it is the only one). I know several that mark them as gay romances and it irritates me as well.

Shawn Lane

I have two of your books still to read, Sorcerer's Lover and Stone of Wrath... what should I read first? :-) I'm joking, I know that it's not among them, I saw your menages title, but truth be told, I didn't buy it... and the publisher was very clear in tagging it a M/M/F. If the menages is well written I have no problem to read it, but when faced with the alternative to buy a gay romance or a menages, for me there is no choice.

Wow, that is definitely not a gay romance. It might have some m/m contact and may even have a loving, committed relationship between the men. But the moment a third person of the female gender enters the picture and becomes a committed member and not just a quickie, it becomes a menage. If she's just a quickie, one-night-stand kind of a fling, fair enough to list it as a gay romance with a caveat of a menage romp.

While I like to write and read menages, I do want my stories properly listed by genre.

Right. And not it's not a menage romp in a almost all gay romance story. Truth be told, the publisher tagged it also as a menages, and so half the work was done right. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe if there is a relationship M/M/F it can be consider a gay romance, but in this case, from the blurb, this is quite sure a M/F/M, and I don't want to spend my money to search with a lantern the little M/M relationship inside the book. And since it's not the first time, now I don't trust no more this publisher when it uses the M/M tag.

I agree. I buy the gay romances too. But certain publishers (I shall refrain from naming them) lump their menages in with gay romances. As soon as I see a chick on the cover though I stay away. But there was a book recently on a certain publisher's list (okay on of mine) that showed only men on the cover and I almost bought it. Then I read the blurb and realized there was a woman who "completes" them. That's fine if that's what you want to read, but I don't. And honestly, I am not a hypocrite just because I wrote one,ha ha!

:-) I'm like you: first check the cover - no woman checked - second check the blurb - no female name checked - third check the tag - no "menages" warning checked! Then sometime I vouch the author: there was a new book from an author I like days ago; the story has a woman in the middle, but in the blurb it was not clear if she was in the middle of the relationship. The cover didn't help. The publisher, being almost all LGBT, didn't tag. And so I bought the book, and happily discovered that it was a full M/M, and the female was only a friend. I wrote the review and underlight the fact. People said that they had my same problem and bought the book after reading the review.

I would accept an M/M/F menage tagged as both a menage and a gay romance. I know I have a few stories I'm writing that are M/M/F and M/F/M within the same story, but I clearly consider them menages.

It's a shame that all the publishers are not following the same guidelines for the genres.

It depends on the book, certainly. If she's just having sex with two men, then that's menage,but a menage can also be labelled m/m - m/m/f or whatever. A good example is Madelynne Ellis' Gentlemans Wager and its sequel, where the men were in a relationship before, and one of the men is chasing the other - the woman gets in the way and it turns into a 3 way thing - even when they have sex, it's as much about the men pleasing each other as much as it is pleasing her.

It seems to me - if he's already in a gay relationship when the girl arrives, then yes, it's just become bisexual and m/m/f.

It sounds ghastly though and I wouldn't touch it with a faery bargepole.

> It's a shame that all the publishers are not following the same guidelines for the genres.

it would be very useful.

Elisa

All right, so tag it M/M/F, instead the publisher tagged it M/M. It happened in the past that I bought a book tagged M/M without reading carefully the blurb, and I found out that it was a M/F/M with only a very light and not relevant M/M scene. The starting point of the story then was a M/F relationship and the second male was added for pleasing the woman...

My guess would be the publisher wants to ca$h in on the 'fad' of m/m books and is hedging her (his?) bets by tucking a woman in.

Now, I've got a situation coming up in a story where m/m lovers do wind up with a woman. But it's a bit different and I hope my readers don't get upset.

It's the sprouting wings that really puts me off; I don't care what gender the character is, unless s/he is a dragon hatchling. And lizard sex holds no attraction for me.

As I said, if the story is well written, I can read a menages, and then usually your publisher is very careful in tagging the book, no surprise with them. And also the main publisher they will merge with is good as well. Elisa

LOL But then also Trilly has wings, and she is sexy! Anyway this "sprouting wings" thing seems to generate more hilarity than interest :-)

I tend to get technical, thinking about the mechanics of the activity. One partner with wings, on top... okay. Both partners? Unless they mate like eagles, on the wing (tricky to manage indoors,) somebody's likely to wind up with some damaged primaries. I'd rather write stories where the lovin' is so good both partners feel like they're flying.

This reminds me an English writer (Jules are you listening me...) who got techinical when writing a sex scene with shapeshifter dolphin... reading that scene I was fearing that one of the partner was drowning! Anyway she gave all the right reason for the scene to be like that. Moral: if you write something be prepared to justify it! Elisa

*sporfles* Yes, well - yes. That clinched it for me, too!!

:)

Actually there is a futuristic gay romance dealing with half lizards men, but it's still in my reading list, guess why...

There is no love for the B in GLBT...

But I agree, m/m/f is not m/m, usually.

yes, you are right to say that the B (but also the T...) is not much loved. But if the genre is LGBT or M/M/F or M/F/M there would be no problem and no rant... the rant is born since the tag was menages and M/M... forgetting the F! Elisa

Not new here, Elisa. I was fooled a few times and just delete the e-book when it turned up M/M/F! Too mad to even keep it! Does not matter if it is well written. I just do not go for M/M/F.

Oh Lee, I am upset as I have been waiting for your next release :(

Well, this doesn't happen in Eye of the Storm, which is the new book due out January 1, so you don't need to worry anytime soon.

I've never set out to write formula romance, though. I think it's important to give my characters a believable happy-ever-after, and the best way for two men to be safe in the early 19th century is for at least one of them to be married to a woman they can both trust. Just bear in mind that "menage," in its broadest interpretation, doesn't necessarily mean 3 or more in a bed ... and that's all I'll say on that subject for now.

I have a completely different book for a different publisher in progress right now. There's a more-or-less bisexual chap in that one, but he's not one of the main characters.

I don't really care that much whether a story is m/m or f/f/, f/f/m, m/m/f, etc. so long as the characters wind up together for some better reason than "gawd, s/he's hawt." The quality of the writing, the believability, is what counts. Human beings with human motivations, that's fine.

I have no problem with the idea of polyamory, for someone else, but the logistics of it...! One partner is about all I can keep up with, even if I do appreciate teh pretteh boys. And the practical intrudes, again... whoever got stuck in the middle would have a tough time getting to the bathroom at 3 in the morning.

*laughs* Sod that - I'd just clamber! But I agree, there's nothing I like less than INSTANT SUE JUST ADD WATER.

It's almost a question of trust, I can read menage, but if I decided to do so. Elisa

But it depend how much different... give to Lee another chance :-) Elisa

This is quite the way chose by Terry O'Reilly in Awakening (almost not the same) and I like that book. Elisa

You should read Big Enough for Five by Willa Okati (it refers to the bedroom)... they had only one bathroom, if I remember well, and there is a sequel with a sixth man! Elisa

I get impatient at those too, and mislabelling in general. If it's two guys who are both sexing up the girl, there's nothing gay about that. I notice the blurb said that the two men were together, but unless they're shown together, actually having sex With Each Other some significant number of times, then it's not primarily a gay book.

One has to wonder just what benefit the publishers think they'll get from mislabelling books, no matter what the deception might be. If book type A is labelled B, then fans of B will buy it and be disappointed (and probably angry at the deception), and fans of A won't buy it because they think it's B. So they've got people who won't like their book buying it and getting angry, and people who would have liked their book not buying it. So the point was... what again? [sigh]

Angie

Maybe they didn't read the book they labelled? but no, I think they hope to reach a wider target, but you are right, I believe they only gain angry readers. Elisa

That's all I can think of too, that they're trying to reach the larger audience. I think the m/m audience is larger than the menage audience, so they went for the bigger of the two. But I don't see how that can benefit them if they just end up making people angry. How many of those people who wanted m/m and instead got menage which was primarily m/f will go away and never buy one of that publisher's books again? It's a ridiculous move for them to make; they're cutting their own throats, and all the while are probably patting themselves on the back over how "clever" they are with their marketing. :/

Angie

I notice that lately this publisher is making some big mistakes, not only this one... they are big, no doubt, and for what I know, they have good deal with their authors, but I'm wondering what is happening behind the curtains, since some step they made are really bad. Elisa

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