Daring Desires by Deirdre O'Dare

The Chap In Chaps by Deirdre O'Dare

At the beginning of the twenty century, Charles, a classical Englishman, inherited a ranch in Arizona. He is glad of the distraction, since his "gentle" friendship with another man in England is not ended in a good way, and he wants something new. Maybe also a new man... maybe a commanding one, what his noble friend was not.

When Charles arrives in Arizona, he understood since the first moment that the real boss at the ranch is Sombra, an handsome and dark man, with a lot of secrets and hidden layers. Sombra is not a rough and simple cowboy, he is right the man Charles is searching, and lucky him, Sombra is more than happy to give to Charles what he needs.

The story is very very short, 40 pages. It's always strange to read an historical so short, since I'm always expecting for it to be longer, to have enough space to describe the setting, to give the details I need to immerse myself in a different era. Here there is very little, some hints to the fact that in England Charles needed to be discreet with his sexual preferences, another hint about a scandal in Sombra's past life... but other than that, there is very few to make this an historical romance.

The same thing that left me perplexed about the book, probably is also the thing that make it right. Without giving too much details, the book also doesn't make mistakes, and so you can read a romance setting in another era without cringing for the historical mistakes.

As for the story, it's quite simple: the two men meet, they like each other, they have matching needs, and so no problem with their romance. This is a fast and enjoyable reading, smooth and simple.

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/ChapChaps.html

Amazon Kindle: The Chap In Chaps

Amazon: Daring Desires

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Blood in the Water by Eric Del Carlo

This is the classic apocalyptic futuristic tale. In the previous book, Nickerson, an enhanced paid assassin for the government, was sold for an illegal hunt from his employers; Nickerson is more than forty years old and for the legal government he is too old to do the job, and so, since he has feline genes in him, he is the right target for an illegal hunt. Only that Nickerson was not of the idea to willing go to death, and with the help of a streetmuscler, BalqJaq, a young con who lived in the underneath city, he fough against his old alleys and won.

The story is set in a three way world: there are the underneath cities, almost an hell where people try to survive, there is the superficial terrain, a wild zone abandoned by human beings, and there are the space colonies, the civil and "legal" new world. The last book dealt with Nickerson and BlaqJaq's adventures in the underneath world; this one is the tale of their experiences in the superficial world... I have the impression that the next one will be set in the new space world.

Nickerson and BlaqJaq are at the opposite. Nickerson is older, wiser and more experienced, while BlaqJaq is younger, impulsive and a bit naivee, even if he has seen more thing a boy of twenty should see. On the other hand, BlaqJaq is stronger, with a very impressive body, while Nickerson has the grace of the felines of whom the genetic is in his body. Those counterbalanced elements make them a complete couple: no one of them is the master or the slave, no one is the boss or the boy; they have their own duties, Nickerson put the experience, BlaqJaq the refreshing thirst of life, something that Nickerson thought to have lost.

There is sex in this tale, but it's not the main event of the story, it's almost a pass by event, something that is good, but not something that you absolutely need to enjoy the story.

Again the story is not too long, less than 120 pages, and again it has an open ending, to make you want to read the next book in the series.

http://www.loose-id.net/detail.aspx?ID=763

Series:
1) Steel Sleet: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/206359.html
2) Blood in the Water

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading+list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Anne Cain

Leading Man by Gabrina Garza

All right, with this one Gabrina Garza broke one of the sacred rules of romance, can't say what since in a less than 60 pages book it would be like telling all the story, but enough to say that I'm still perplexed...

Xander and Lil are Hollywood sweatheart, both actors, both young. Xander in a stasis phase, with his career that is not going nor up or down, and instead Lil trying to climb the Hollywood Hills. There is no much fidelity between the two, but Xander would never leave Lil, both for public reason than for a strange sense of responsibility: Xander knows that Lil is like she is since she fought the artificial world of the show business and in a way or another she managed to survive. Probably Xander also admires the woman, even if she is no more the person he wants beside him. More and more Xander is realizing that he is attracted to men, even if he couldn't possibly give up to temptation. Till the night Angus knocks to his door.

Angus is a young uprising actor. He always had a thing for the handsome Xander, like a fan for his favorite actor. And when he has the chance to be near him, he drops all the inhibitions. But Angus is too naivee for the show business world, and Xander knows better.

Actually the book is all in a night, from mid-afternoon to the wee hours of the night. A lot happens but at the same time nothing happens... I'm too cryptic?

I'd not against the idea of the author to pick up again this trio, Xander, Angus and also Lil, and tell us a bit more on them and their story.

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/LeadingMan.html

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

The Art of Ted Fusby

Ted Fusby is born in California in 1943, and currently living in Tucson, Arizona. He has a bachelor degree in Architecture at University of California at Berkeley, class of 1966. Has taken individual classes in drawing and watercolor, but mostly he is self-taught.



( more pics )

"Male nudes are such a visual feast that it is a shame that so many people are reluctant to buy them, show them off, or paint them.  I like to use them not only for visual pleasure, but to tease the viewer with an unexpected context. I like to show saints as carnal creatures, and I like tweaked versions of ancient Greek myths. I like modern gay leathermen mixed in with traditional Christian myth. I like ambiguous subjects, such as martyrs who may or may not be saints, and S/M situations which may or may not be Christian.  The art museums of Europe are filled with depictions of torture and S/M, which people accept as religious art.  How different is it when the saints' attributes are removed?

All of my recent drawings and paintings are done in watercolor and colored pencil, sometimes with additions of metallic watercolor, gouache or ink.  The resulting works are both drawings and paintings, and so I use the terms interchangeably when I refer to my own work."

http://www.tedfusby.com/

More Artists at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art