2008-12-18

reviews_and_ramblings: (Default)
2008-12-18 11:37 am

Gifts of the Season by Jenna Hilary Sinclair

This is really an original short story since it's not actually a romance, but more a coming of age from two point of view, mother and son.

In 1990 Elaine is a young mother with a four kids, one of them a teen. Elaine is divorced and remarried with a nice man, but her previous husband was abusive both with her than with their kids. As a consequence, Elaine is very worried for her older son's behavior, so close and brooding. It's not the usual behavior of a teen, Elaine knows that her son wants desperately tell her something but he has no courage. Having moved in a small town probably didn't help since Danny, her son, has real few chance to mix with a variety of people to open him to the world. So when Elaine hears the gossip town about Mike and Harry, two openly gay men who live in a nearby ranch, Elaine listens carefully, eager to maybe learn something that can help her son.

Christmas is near and Elaine and Danny are driving home when they have a car accident; marooned in the snow they are rescued by Mike and bring home with him. Suddenly the point of view switch from Elaine to Danny, who is now the one eager to learn, to finally see how two gay men live together. For sure in his teen mind, they have sex each moment, they have an exciting life, they are... they are perfectly normal, to middle age men who share a quite and lovely life, trying to not listen to the gossip town.

It's a very nice tale, in both its part, when we follow Elaine's musing and worries for her son's care and when we discover along with Danny that being gay is not a so big drama, and that he probably can have the courage to talk with his mother, and his mother probably will not throw him away for not being the perfect son he thought she wants.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/advent.htm

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle
reviews_and_ramblings: (Default)
2008-12-18 11:37 am

Gifts of the Season by Jenna Hilary Sinclair

This is really an original short story since it's not actually a romance, but more a coming of age from two point of view, mother and son.

In 1990 Elaine is a young mother with a four kids, one of them a teen. Elaine is divorced and remarried with a nice man, but her previous husband was abusive both with her than with their kids. As a consequence, Elaine is very worried for her older son's behavior, so close and brooding. It's not the usual behavior of a teen, Elaine knows that her son wants desperately tell her something but he has no courage. Having moved in a small town probably didn't help since Danny, her son, has real few chance to mix with a variety of people to open him to the world. So when Elaine hears the gossip town about Mike and Harry, two openly gay men who live in a nearby ranch, Elaine listens carefully, eager to maybe learn something that can help her son.

Christmas is near and Elaine and Danny are driving home when they have a car accident; marooned in the snow they are rescued by Mike and bring home with him. Suddenly the point of view switch from Elaine to Danny, who is now the one eager to learn, to finally see how two gay men live together. For sure in his teen mind, they have sex each moment, they have an exciting life, they are... they are perfectly normal, to middle age men who share a quite and lovely life, trying to not listen to the gossip town.

It's a very nice tale, in both its part, when we follow Elaine's musing and worries for her son's care and when we discover along with Danny that being gay is not a so big drama, and that he probably can have the courage to talk with his mother, and his mother probably will not throw him away for not being the perfect son he thought she wants.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/advent.htm

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle
reviews_and_ramblings: (Default)
2008-12-18 08:42 pm

Mark Antonious deMontford by G.A. Hauser

Mark Antonious is a bit of a Tom Jones character. Setting in England in 1713, it's the story of the wondrous adventures of Mark, an orphan who was raised by his uncle in a farm, never knowing who were his real parents. When he is 19 years old his uncle decides to take innocent Mark to London, to visit a dear cousin. The woman is an beautiful middle ages woman with a son of the same age of Mark and a husband always away to his duty toward the Parliament. When Mark enters the big London mansion, his fate is signed: that very night he is deflowered three time, first the mother, than the son and finally the father. Our poor guy has his life twisted, but at first he is almost willing to become the toy of the lustful family. But when he discovers that he is the bastard son of a Venetian patrician and an English opera singer, he suddenly feels necessary to go and find his root. He "whores" himself during a country party to some different English aristocrats (two dukes, a lady and a baron) and raises enough money to reach Italy; during the way he employs an Italian prostitute as interpret, bodyguard and lover.

Francesco is shocked and enthralled by this young man that is not aware how much beautiful he is and how much exposed to danger. Francesco is a man who is used to live day per day, he followed his lover to England only to be dumped and appeals to what he does so well to gain his life. But to Mark he is beginning to feel something more, even if the boy is still like a child in a candy store, and everything he sees he wants, soon and fast. It's not that Mark doesn't love Francesco, but Mark loves, and needs, to be desired, to be the object of lust of so many people, women and men alike: being desired by so many make him feel better to have been refused by his parents so many years ago.

Mark blames his mother to be an "easy" prey, but he himself is not better. It's true that, after he starts to feel love for Francesco, his chosen profession becomes a burden, and probably he will not go on with it if his "customers" were old and unattractive, but since he seems to draw only beautiful men and women, why not? And when he instead wants to "experiment", he involves Francesco, to not let the man alone... All right, I believe that you have understood that Mark lacks a bit in moral, but well, he is so shamelessly pretty, that I can't be too hard with him, and then, don't forget that also Francesco is not a saint.

Anyway, while other men in his same situation, passed through a lot of nasty thing, Mark passes only between a lot of sheet in his adventures, never lacking for food or roof thanks to his good look. And so more than a life discovery journey, he makes a sex discovery escapade.

Mark Antonious deMontford tells the story of an ancestor of the modern Mark Antonious, main character in Capital Games. And yours truly Elisa was Italian language consultant for Francesco, who is also from Padua like me: I didn't know that the novel was an historical so if Francesco said a bit too much "bello mio" (it's correct but I don't know if they used it in the XVIII century), it's all my fault! But all the other words he said are perfect :-)

Amazon: Mark Antonious deMontford

Amazon Kindle: Mark Antonious deMontford

Series:
1) For Love and Money: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/101976.html
2) A Question of Sex
3) Miller's Tale
4) Capital Games: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/210160.html
5) When Adam met Jack: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/300519.html
6) Acting Naughty (Action! 1): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/493312.html
7) Playing Dirty (Action! 2): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/520179.html
8) Getting It in the End (Action! 3): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/656487.html
9) Behaving Badly (Action! 4): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/700268.html
10) Man to Man (Heroes 1): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/891687.html
11) Two In, Two Out (Heroes 2): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/932718.html
12) Top Men (Heroes 3): http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/945549.html
13) Double Trouble: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/871851.html
14) Going Deep
15) Mark Antonious deMontford

Reading List:

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