Christmas Comes Early for Eli by Sienna Bishop

The story is short but I really like the style of this author, with one of the main character that in first point of view tells us his story. Eli is a rocket scientist, maybe a bit geeky, but not the asocial type; he also had a lover till the year before, but it was not the love of his life and when it ended for Eli it was not the end of the world. He took a dog from the kennel, and he likes the pet a lot, but it's not the same as a lover. And above all with Christmas time all around. Eli would like to share his life with a man, and he has in mind a man in particular, Jonas. Jonas is the owner of the liquor store Eli passes by every day returning back home from work; Jonas is handsome and gentle, but he is always flirting with a woman when he enters the store. And then one day, soon after Christmas, Eli enters the store and Jonas talks to him instead: it's love at first sight, Eli understands that. From that moment on the story, now love story, flows easily and smooth toward a nice happily ever after.

I like Eli's character since he is a nice man, an average man, but not for this insecure or sad. He is aware that he has a simple life but that he can be a good partner for the right man, and while he is dreaming on an apparent unreachable man, he is not depressed and he doesn't let go: when he sees the chance of happiness, he is ready to catch it. Of Jonas we don't know much, but he seems gentle and caring, a good man and the perfect partner of Eli. Both Eli than Jonas seem at easy with who they are and what they want, and this made them both very interesting character.

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

Reading List:

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

Christmas Comes Early for Eli by Sienna Bishop

The story is short but I really like the style of this author, with one of the main character that in first point of view tells us his story. Eli is a rocket scientist, maybe a bit geeky, but not the asocial type; he also had a lover till the year before, but it was not the love of his life and when it ended for Eli it was not the end of the world. He took a dog from the kennel, and he likes the pet a lot, but it's not the same as a lover. And above all with Christmas time all around. Eli would like to share his life with a man, and he has in mind a man in particular, Jonas. Jonas is the owner of the liquor store Eli passes by every day returning back home from work; Jonas is handsome and gentle, but he is always flirting with a woman when he enters the store. And then one day, soon after Christmas, Eli enters the store and Jonas talks to him instead: it's love at first sight, Eli understands that. From that moment on the story, now love story, flows easily and smooth toward a nice happily ever after.

I like Eli's character since he is a nice man, an average man, but not for this insecure or sad. He is aware that he has a simple life but that he can be a good partner for the right man, and while he is dreaming on an apparent unreachable man, he is not depressed and he doesn't let go: when he sees the chance of happiness, he is ready to catch it. Of Jonas we don't know much, but he seems gentle and caring, a good man and the perfect partner of Eli. Both Eli than Jonas seem at easy with who they are and what they want, and this made them both very interesting character.

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

Reading List:

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

Touch Like Breathing by Theda Black

If I remember well, at the end of the previous book, After Anna, the blossoming relationship between Will and Tyler had a suddenly stop soon before the book's end. It was a right end, since as I said before, Will and Tyler are not traditional gay characters and for them, accepting to have a sex relationship it was not simple: not only people around them probably wouldn't understand, but also them were not ready for it. Will needed time to digest all and to realize that he is in love with Tyler, totally in love since he not only cares for Tyler as a friend, but also as the partner of his life.

Problem is that Will has a lot of trouble to admit it to himself, and when they start again, and then again, and then again, they always surrender to the evidence that they can't stay apart, that they need each other, but they always do that almost as a defeat, they never let it go easily and happily. It's not a simple and smooth relationship, there are big mistakes from each side of the relationship, at first it is Will that surrenders, involving Tyler in an almost buddy fu*k relationship, then the same Will betrays Tyler, and it's not clear if he went beyond the boundaries they put to their relationship, then it's Tyler that reacts in an almost violent way.

Both Will than Tyler know each other too well, and even if things seem never going well between them, they also know that the other will always be there, and that between them it will never end. It's a pull and push game, almost a chess play: one makes a move, the other reply, and so on. But as the main characters, also the reader knows that they will find a way to be together, maybe not in an happily ever after way, maybe not in a pink glasses perspective, but nevertheless together. And at least this time, the relationship is between Will and Tyler, and there aren't any third party elements to distract them from each other (apart the "cheating" episode of Will, but luckily it's short and fast...).

I feel the need to warn the readers: for me it's essential to read the previous book to understand this one, otherwise the reader will be thrown in the middle of a fight not having the necessary elements to understand both side reasons.

http://www.extasybooks.net/ebjmsite/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ebook_flypage&product_id=4258&category_id=8&manufacturer_id=103&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=44

Amazon Kindle: Touch Like Breathing - Sequel to After Anna

Series:
1) After Anna: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/262100.html
2) Touch Like Breathing

Reading List:

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

Touch Like Breathing by Theda Black

If I remember well, at the end of the previous book, After Anna, the blossoming relationship between Will and Tyler had a suddenly stop soon before the book's end. It was a right end, since as I said before, Will and Tyler are not traditional gay characters and for them, accepting to have a sex relationship it was not simple: not only people around them probably wouldn't understand, but also them were not ready for it. Will needed time to digest all and to realize that he is in love with Tyler, totally in love since he not only cares for Tyler as a friend, but also as the partner of his life.

Problem is that Will has a lot of trouble to admit it to himself, and when they start again, and then again, and then again, they always surrender to the evidence that they can't stay apart, that they need each other, but they always do that almost as a defeat, they never let it go easily and happily. It's not a simple and smooth relationship, there are big mistakes from each side of the relationship, at first it is Will that surrenders, involving Tyler in an almost buddy fu*k relationship, then the same Will betrays Tyler, and it's not clear if he went beyond the boundaries they put to their relationship, then it's Tyler that reacts in an almost violent way.

Both Will than Tyler know each other too well, and even if things seem never going well between them, they also know that the other will always be there, and that between them it will never end. It's a pull and push game, almost a chess play: one makes a move, the other reply, and so on. But as the main characters, also the reader knows that they will find a way to be together, maybe not in an happily ever after way, maybe not in a pink glasses perspective, but nevertheless together. And at least this time, the relationship is between Will and Tyler, and there aren't any third party elements to distract them from each other (apart the "cheating" episode of Will, but luckily it's short and fast...).

I feel the need to warn the readers: for me it's essential to read the previous book to understand this one, otherwise the reader will be thrown in the middle of a fight not having the necessary elements to understand both side reasons.

http://www.extasybooks.net/ebjmsite/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ebook_flypage&product_id=4258&category_id=8&manufacturer_id=103&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=44

Amazon Kindle: Touch Like Breathing - Sequel to After Anna

Series:
1) After Anna: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/262100.html
2) Touch Like Breathing

Reading List:

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

Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories by Craig Laurance Gidney

This is really a strange anthology and not a romance at all; some of the characters are gay men, both modern or myth or figures from the past, but it's not them being gay that linked all the story, it's more the unexpected and the legend, the faith and the myth mixed together.

The Safety of Thorns: Israel is a slave boy who lives in a plantation; he is very young (don't know exactly the age but he is still working little jobs around, so I believe he is nothing more than a child). One day, near the briar patch he sees a strange man. Israel believes him to be the Devil, even if the man reassures him that it's not true. But from that moment on, Israel's life is no more the same and terrible things happen around him. Maybe the man was not the devil, but probably he opens Israel's eyes to who he is and where he stays, and that was worst than a damnation.

Etiolate: Oliver is an African American artist; as an artist, with an artist's eyes, he likes the pretty thing, above all the pretty boys. But Oliver is not an handsome man and he is not even wealthy and famous, and so the pretty boys don't like him. One more night he sees the reject in the eyes of one of that boys, and probably his desire is so strong that he unveal something terrible, a curse or similar... or maybe he only frees his true self, one who sees the beauty also in the horror of death.

Her Spirit Hovering: Howard was a young man with big dreams of becoming a famous and adored artist. He had the skills, he was good, but he had also a overbearing mother who always crushed his dreams. Not only that she also managed to ruin every important relationship Howard had, first with Kamela, a young Indian girl he met at school (and being of a different culture was not good for his mother) and then with Ned, a talented man he lived with (and obviously being a man was not good for his mother). Now his mother is passed away, and Ned is probably thinking that he know can start living, but grudge and regret are bigger than the wish to start, and the weight of his presence is almost as present as when she was alive. But it's true that it's all his mother's fault, or maybe it's Howard that doesn't have the courage to take his life in his hands?

Come Join Me: Aime is a young boy with a gift, he can see the spirits of his dead relatives. But only his grandmother thinks at that like a gift, all the others, his mother first, want to cure him. Will Aime learn to live with his spirit friends, or will he join them?

Sea, Swallow Me: Jed has always searched for something, someone bigger than life. And maybe he finally meets him in a seaside village, in the deep of the sea.

Circus Boy Without a Safety Net: C.B. is a boy with a wonderful voice and a love for the old stars, in particular Lena Horne. When he was young his parents supported his dream allowing him to dream day and night about his favorite star, but when he became a young man, a teen, and this passion still was wih him, they feared him being gay and try to repress his dreams. He was a good singer, but he couldn't be himself in the choir of the church. When C.B. finally will leave home and enter the unknown world of New York, so far and strange in comparison to his little town, will he be finally free?

Strange Alphabets: in this short story the author romances a moment in the life of Arthur Rimbaud, when he first left his family home and his mother to find his true self in the big and alluring Paris. Arthur will learn that being free it is not always so good, and great pain will wait him, but the lure of poetry and the extasy of flesh is too strong to resist.

Magpie Sisters: a little scene on a little thief girl who is drawn by shiny little thing.

A Bird of Ice: Ryuichi is a Japanese monk; he lives in a peaceful monastery along a lake and one day he "saves" a swan which is drowning. Despite the warning of his brother, he takes care of the animal, and he is strangely attracted but it. And when the animal leaves, it marks Ryuichi with a kiss / bite. From that moment on Ryuichi is no more the same and he will have to see deeply inside himself to understand what he wants and who he is.

Catch Him by the Toe: Sambo is an African tamer and Simba is his beautiful Asian tiger; Sambo and Simba, Africa and Asia, man and animal, they are both strange and beautiful. Maybe too strange and beautiful for the little American town of Azalea, which can't see beyond its own fear of what is unknown and extraordinaire.

As I said, the anthology is not simple, but it's mesmerizing. It's full of color and flavor, an intoxicating mix that catches you while reading and lingers afterward. All the tales are mostly sad, but not without hope; the romance is not the target of the characters and so it's not even the final point of the stories; they are almost all self discovery journey, and the ending point of the journey not always is a light and beautiful paradise.

Amazon Kindle: Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories

Amazon: Sea, Swallow Me And Other Stories

Reading List:

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

Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories by Craig Laurance Gidney

This is really a strange anthology and not a romance at all; some of the characters are gay men, both modern or myth or figures from the past, but it's not them being gay that linked all the story, it's more the unexpected and the legend, the faith and the myth mixed together.

The Safety of Thorns: Israel is a slave boy who lives in a plantation; he is very young (don't know exactly the age but he is still working little jobs around, so I believe he is nothing more than a child). One day, near the briar patch he sees a strange man. Israel believes him to be the Devil, even if the man reassures him that it's not true. But from that moment on, Israel's life is no more the same and terrible things happen around him. Maybe the man was not the devil, but probably he opens Israel's eyes to who he is and where he stays, and that was worst than a damnation.

Etiolate: Oliver is an African American artist; as an artist, with an artist's eyes, he likes the pretty thing, above all the pretty boys. But Oliver is not an handsome man and he is not even wealthy and famous, and so the pretty boys don't like him. One more night he sees the reject in the eyes of one of that boys, and probably his desire is so strong that he unveal something terrible, a curse or similar... or maybe he only frees his true self, one who sees the beauty also in the horror of death.

Her Spirit Hovering: Howard was a young man with big dreams of becoming a famous and adored artist. He had the skills, he was good, but he had also a overbearing mother who always crushed his dreams. Not only that she also managed to ruin every important relationship Howard had, first with Kamela, a young Indian girl he met at school (and being of a different culture was not good for his mother) and then with Ned, a talented man he lived with (and obviously being a man was not good for his mother). Now his mother is passed away, and Ned is probably thinking that he know can start living, but grudge and regret are bigger than the wish to start, and the weight of his presence is almost as present as when she was alive. But it's true that it's all his mother's fault, or maybe it's Howard that doesn't have the courage to take his life in his hands?

Come Join Me: Aime is a young boy with a gift, he can see the spirits of his dead relatives. But only his grandmother thinks at that like a gift, all the others, his mother first, want to cure him. Will Aime learn to live with his spirit friends, or will he join them?

Sea, Swallow Me: Jed has always searched for something, someone bigger than life. And maybe he finally meets him in a seaside village, in the deep of the sea.

Circus Boy Without a Safety Net: C.B. is a boy with a wonderful voice and a love for the old stars, in particular Lena Horne. When he was young his parents supported his dream allowing him to dream day and night about his favorite star, but when he became a young man, a teen, and this passion still was wih him, they feared him being gay and try to repress his dreams. He was a good singer, but he couldn't be himself in the choir of the church. When C.B. finally will leave home and enter the unknown world of New York, so far and strange in comparison to his little town, will he be finally free?

Strange Alphabets: in this short story the author romances a moment in the life of Arthur Rimbaud, when he first left his family home and his mother to find his true self in the big and alluring Paris. Arthur will learn that being free it is not always so good, and great pain will wait him, but the lure of poetry and the extasy of flesh is too strong to resist.

Magpie Sisters: a little scene on a little thief girl who is drawn by shiny little thing.

A Bird of Ice: Ryuichi is a Japanese monk; he lives in a peaceful monastery along a lake and one day he "saves" a swan which is drowning. Despite the warning of his brother, he takes care of the animal, and he is strangely attracted but it. And when the animal leaves, it marks Ryuichi with a kiss / bite. From that moment on Ryuichi is no more the same and he will have to see deeply inside himself to understand what he wants and who he is.

Catch Him by the Toe: Sambo is an African tamer and Simba is his beautiful Asian tiger; Sambo and Simba, Africa and Asia, man and animal, they are both strange and beautiful. Maybe too strange and beautiful for the little American town of Azalea, which can't see beyond its own fear of what is unknown and extraordinaire.

As I said, the anthology is not simple, but it's mesmerizing. It's full of color and flavor, an intoxicating mix that catches you while reading and lingers afterward. All the tales are mostly sad, but not without hope; the romance is not the target of the characters and so it's not even the final point of the stories; they are almost all self discovery journey, and the ending point of the journey not always is a light and beautiful paradise.

Amazon Kindle: Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories

Amazon: Sea, Swallow Me And Other Stories

Reading List:

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