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Main Bookshelf: Suspenseful fantasy, historical fantasy, friendship fiction, heterosexual love stories, original gen and original het hurt/comfort and darkfic, fiction recommendations, and nonfiction. Content:
The Three Lands: He vowed himself to his god. Now the god is growing impatient... The Three Lands, a fantasy series on friendship, romance, and betrayal in times of war and peace.
Darkling Plain: Separated in time and place, a young woman and two young men are united in their goal: to protect those they care for from the destruction of battle. The odds are against them. Darkling Plain, fantasy tales about young people in times of conflict.
High Bookshelf: Suspenseful fantasy, historical fantasy, contemporary fiction, friendship fiction, original slash hurt/comfort and darkfic, gay fiction, gay erotic love stories, gay erotica, leather fiction, fiction recommendations, and nonfiction. Content:
Ethernal Dungeon: In a cool, dark cavern, guarded by men and by oaths, lies a dungeon in which prisoners fearfully await the inevitable. The inevitable will be replaced by the unexpected. The Eternal Dungeon, a historical fantasy series set in a land where the psychologists wield whips.
Life Prison: They are imprisoned until death, and their lives cannot get worse . . . or so they think. But when an unlikely alliance forms against their captors, the reformers risk losing what little comforts they possess. Life Prison, a historical fantasy series about male desire and determination in Victorian prisons.
My Review of Mercy's Prisoner 1: Life Prison: Life Prison is a tale on the Mercy's Prisoner series; it's setting in a fantasy world which resembles the Victorian period. In this world, life in prison is regulated as in the Dante's Inferno, every circles (prison's level) hides an atrocity for the prisoners who deserve to be there. Mind this last point: the prisoners are not innocents hold in captivity for some unbelievable injustice, they are guilty and sometime of an atrocity maybe even worst of what they now suffer in prison.
Merrick is a murder of the worst type: he consciously killed his three years old niece. He didn't act on the spur of the moment, he planned the kill; and now he replies it in his memory as the best moment of his life. In prison Merrick is not thinking at freedom, he is thinking at death; he wants to die but the only rule the guards have is to not kill the prisoners, or to not help them to kill themself. Other than, guards can do whatever they want, and they have no problem at follow this rule. Prisoners are no more than free whores for the guard who have them in hold.
To Merrick is assigned a new guard, Thomas. Thomas is young and idealist and the truly thinks that life in prison, even if a forever captivity, could be dignified for the prisoners. The initial incredulity of Merrick turns at first in opportunity: maybe Merrick can manipulate this man, maybe he can reach his purpose. But Thomas, for how young he is, it's not so naivee as he seems. Merrick will learn that a firm hold can be more tight than a strong one.
It's not a romance what happens between Merrick and Thomas, but it's a relationship. They build something together, even if it's not love. Reading the play of minds is almost as good as reading the sexual interaction between the two.
Life Prison is the tale of what the title tells right: the life in prison; it's not a journey toward freedom, or better it's not a journey toward the freedom outside the prison, but it's the journey of a man who learns to "live" in prison. Till he meets Thomas, Merrick is not living, he is waiting to die. Merrick is not a man who can live outside: he finds in prison, and in the confinement of prison, a suitable environment for him; outside he would be a criminal, a reject of the society; inside he is a man.
Michael's House: In a world where temples are dying and sacred theaters have been replaced by brothels, what will happen when a hard-headed businessman joins forces with an idealist? Michael's House, a historical fantasy series set in an Edwardian slum.
My Review of Michael's House: First of all I would like to re-post what the same author wrote to introduce the story: Whipster deals with the ethical issues surrounding youth prostitution in a fantasy setting based on Edwardian times. The novel has no onscreen sex and little onscreen violence. The primary focus of the story is on the interactions between the adult characters.
I wanted to repost the same words, since, even if in a fantasy setting, the author chose to not use the easy way to have only boys "of legal age" to act as "whores". In his fantasy world, a boy in age to be an apprentice could be "sold" by his parents to a whorehouse; sex between adult paying customers and underage boys (between 11 and 21 years old) is not only allowed, but in some case also promoting by the government. Said boys, obviously, should immediately interrupt their profession once they reach the 21 years age, and find another job... that it's quite impossible since they are shunned by society and most of the time they end to beggar or worst.
Michael was one of those boys; having him a strong will he survived through his teen years, with the help of two other boys: the fellow whore Hasan, a boy two years younger than him, and the good boy Janus, the son of an important family who decided to go against his same family to befriend a whore. And when Michael is forced to "retire" to the "old" age of 21 years old, Janus and Michael open their business, a whorehouse. It could sound strange that Janus, a man who only has in mind the good of the boys, accepts to be the one who whores them, but probably he accept the lesser evil: giving them an healthy house, the chance to study and the possibility to save some money during their apprentice, could allow them to not end on the street when they are of age. These are Janus' reason. And Michael? he claims to not having heart, but in all the book, I never see him mistreat a boy, but truth be told, I didn't find a reason for him to open a whorehouse if not that it's the only thing that he knew; and maybe also since in this way he has a reason to bind Janus to him.
Between Janus and Michael there is not a classical love story, but it's not only a friendship. Michael says that Janus is his conscience, and maybe, if Janus asked, he would allow the man to being intimate with him, but they have not that type of relationship. Michael is not able to "physically" love, for him sex is not love, and so he can't associate it with Janus. And then there is Hasan: Michael loves also Hasan, and so neither with him he can have a physical relationship. In a way Michael needs both men: Hasan represents his past and Janus his future, and so he needs both of them in his life, but no one of them can't be "touched" and "defiled" by sex.
On the other two characters, I believe that Hasan, if asked in the right way, would allow his relationship with Michael to enter a new personal level, and instead I don't understand Janus. I really believe that he loves Michael, but probably Janus can't see possible a physical relationship with a man: Janus is like some of those men who see love as a pure relationship, and so something beyond the sex gender; he loves Michael, and he can understand that Michael has "needs" and so, probably, he accepts Hasan by his side, above all since Hasan himself said to Janus that Michael is a better man for having near him a friend like Janus. So Janus knows that, in Michael's heart, he is on a upper level than Hasan, and this is the only important thing for him.
In a way Janus is too perfect for me to fully like him, I always prefer more faulty characters like Michael and Hasan; for Janus is simple to be perfect, since he is born perfect; for Michael and Hasan was an hard way, and so, even if they are not fully perfect, I like them better.
Prison City: What will happen when a youth from a bay island boarding school ends up in a futuristic prison? Prison City, a retrofuture series based on the Chesapeake Bay oyster wars, homoeroticism in British public schools in the 1910s, and 1960s visions of things to come.
Master/Other: Masters come in many forms. Some don't even know they're masters. Master/Other, gay fantasy and science fiction about prisoners, slaves, liegemen, and love.
Loren's Lashes: Leather is a world of rich pleasure palaces and endless sensual delights, where dreams can be pursued without limit, provided that a man has the strength to stand the test. . . . But in the rural town of Mayhill, population 32,000, leather life is a little different. Loren's Lashes, a retro series about a Midwestern community of closeted leathermen.
http://www.lulu.com/content/multimedia/love-in-dark-settings-omnibus/6666590
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Director: Greg Osborne 
Director: Greg Osborne 
Painting from Life is a story of obsession, like it should be when you are talking of art, since only a work born from an artist who suffered to create it is worthy of that name. But in a almost Dorian Gray's twist, the artist of this short story takes strength from his art while his muse is slowly dying.
Painting from Life is a story of obsession, like it should be when you are talking of art, since only a work born from an artist who suffered to create it is worthy of that name. But in a almost Dorian Gray's twist, the artist of this short story takes strength from his art while his muse is slowly dying.
