Codes and Roses by Julia Talbot

An Itch to Scratch by Julia Talbot

This is actually the prequel of a short story I read some months ago, The Werewolf Code. I remember that my impression on that story was very good, but it was too short, and I also hoped that the author was willing to write more, above all on how the couple gets together, since it was hinted a very interesting story. Apparently I was not the only one to think that, since here is the story on how werewolf Deke and vampire Kasey meet.

Deke is a vampire bite addicted. Like other people have a sex dependency, Deke has an addiction on the thrill of a vampire bite, never sex is better than when it starts with him in the role of a willing donor. Usually werewolfes are strong Alpha males who reluctantly give up the power; instead Deke loves to take the submissive role in bed; but only in bed, since even if he likes to bottom, he is not a bottom in life.

Kasey is an old and hard to please vampire. He can't imagine to commit to only a man, but when he tastes for the first time Deke, his possessive side takes the lead and he finds himself unable to stay far from Deke for long.

Kasey and Deke are very different and not only as "breed". Kasey is a prim and proper type and instead Deke is a slob. Kasey is a bit aloof, not easy to express his feelings and instead Deke is a pack animals, he is very touchy feelings and he has no problem to voice his needs.

The love between Deke and Kasey is easy and almost funny; there is a lot of sex, but it is always light and joyful. Again the story is not very long, less than 60 pages, but this time I have enough development on the two characters to know them better and to also understand better why they are together and what is the basis of their love relationship.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1535

The Werewolf Code: The Moon by Julia Talbot

Deke is a werewolf, Kasey a vampire. They are PIs and lovers. It's not the first time I read about a pair of werewolf and vampire, but it's the first time that the two breeds seem to cohabitate without problem. Kasey is the mind and Deke the arm. Not that Deke isn't bright, but he is more feral, more instinct, and instead Kasey is cool and calculator: everything can be done at the right price...

They are engaged by a beautiful tall blonde werewolf woman to follow her husband, but soon they discover that Jason, the cheating husband, is not her husband, but a genetic experiment of her father gone mad. Jason has no control, and if they don't stop him, he could spread the virus around.

Unfortunately this is a short story, less than 30 pages, but if only in few pages, the plot is complete and enthralling. I think Deke and Kasey could be worthy material for another book, and maybe also one in which we can read how they meet and became a couple (apparently Deke was a willing donor and Kasey won him on an auction... just let me image that man naked on display...)

Anyway if you like a bit of action and a bit of eroticism (there are one or two scene pretty sexy), The Werewolf Code is a fast and enjoyable reading.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1191

Belling the Cat by Julia Talbot

This is the story of Jonny, the vampire club owner who played matchmaker between Deke and Kasey, and that, if it wasn't for a professional code, wouldn't have minded to take Deke for him. Jonny is an ancient vampire, and maybe he is also a little bored; when he is not behaving like a workaholic, he doesn't know what to do. Living among so many beautiful men and possible lovers left him with a void, no one of them is right for him. When he finds a cat thief on his private room he decides that is time to play a bit: he will make a contract with the werecat, he is free to take what he was searching and in exchange the cat-man will come back to him for six months, every night.

Luc is more used to be a cat than a man, and if Jonny wasn't willing to accept his cat nature, he wouldn't probably have accepted his term. But Jonny is more than willing, and Luc can be a cat, and behave like a cat, for most part of the time they spend together; Jonny is not disgusted, or squeaked when Luc nears him in cat form, or when he wants to groom his partner like a cat would do before napping. Those are probably the most funny, tender and challenging moment of the novella: how much do Julia Talbot dare to push the challenge to overcome the tenderness? it's a quite trickly game of balancing, and I think that not all the romance readers will be up to that challenge. On my side, I didn't mind: what is the reason to read a romance with a shifter character, when that character looses all his animal side in human form?

As I said, Luc is more a cat than a man, and he has a playful nature in both form. His feline side is quite clear in his attitude towards Jonny: once they tight the pact between them, Luc tries to get the maximum from it, even if he was, in theory, the weak partner. But he is weak only since he was forced into it, for all the other aspects of their relationship, Jonny has no interest to tame the cat, and Luc is more a pet than a beast, so there isn't so much to tame in him, maybe only to teach him to not play rough games inside: again a proof that Luc is more pet than man. I wouldn't use for him the word "beast" since it's too strong and wild, Luc's cat is more the cuddling than struggling type.

So yes, if you like a good shapeshifter romance, with a strong accent on the shifter theme, but at the same time, with a funny and playful insight on the genre, Belling the Cat is exactly like that.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2159

Amazon: Codes and Roses

Reading List:

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

Best Overall Non Fiction (1° place): The Golden Age of Gay Fiction edited by Drewey Wayne Gunn

You can face this essay in many different ways (guess what is mine?)...

- as one who was there and reading all the books and authors named in it, has that common feeling of "oh, yes, I remember that", or rather than, "wow, I almost forget that it was like that".

- as one who was not there, but that for all his life has loved and searched for the things from the past, a past that maybe seems better than the one he is living in. And all the vintage covers you will find inside the book will make your inner collector gone crazy, you will probably print copy the final references page, Index of Fiction Discussed, and start to doing the check, I have, I haven't.

- as one who did it, maybe it's even named among the authors, or maybe not, maybe he did not have the courage to do the same things those authors did, and now he is regretting the choice.

- as one who wants to understand better what was before, a newbie that, till last year believed that the gay romance was a recent phenomena, maybe even thought it was something who was fated to decline, and now realizes that it's only another roar of an old lion, who was only taking a nap.

Maybe the last one is not represented among the crowd of authors who contributed to this essay, but all the others are. There is love in this essay, love for an era that was your own one, or that you consider as inspiring. And there are different perspective: for example there is who love an author, and another one who thinks he was sugary and unrealistic, there is who dissects the genre trying to find an hidden meaning, and who, more or less, said that those paperbacks were the only flight from a reality that was not the one he wanted to live in.

There is not hate in this essay. Yes, maybe there is a bit of proud in the words of some authors, stating that, "hey, I was there way before someone started to speak of "Gay Literature"", but more or less, to everyone who contributed in the field of the Gay Fiction was given the right credit.

Who has to read this book? the newbie gay author who wants to write the Great American Novel? it could be useful, it's always useful to know who was before you. But most of all, this essay is directed to the questioning mind, to who is fascinated by those names, by those authors who have at least 20 pen names, who wonders, "how it was to live and write in a world where there wasn't internet?", when to find those novels you had to do miles and miles, maybe to that only bookstore you knew had in store the books you wanted. When you were judged not for who you were, but for what you read... Wait, Am I speaking of 40 years ago, or of today?! See time is passed, but things maybe are not changed so much. And so yes, you can still learn something from an essay like The Golden Age of Gay Fiction.

And no, I will not summarize all the essays inside it as maybe some of you are expecting, and I will not say who was my favorite: they are all my favorite, I love the presentation, the layout, all those little covers scattered around. I love the writers, they made me feel the love they have for the genre. And now I'm also damning them, since my "to read" list is bigger than ever!



http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=GOLDAGE1

Amazon: The Golden Age of Gay Fiction

The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/811346.html


Cover Art by Paul Richmond

And since I loved it, Victor Gadino's original cover for The Lord Won't Mind by Gordon Merrick:

( Cover Art by Victor Gadino )

Codes and Roses by Julia Talbot

An Itch to Scratch by Julia Talbot

This is actually the prequel of a short story I read some months ago, The Werewolf Code. I remember that my impression on that story was very good, but it was too short, and I also hoped that the author was willing to write more, above all on how the couple gets together, since it was hinted a very interesting story. Apparently I was not the only one to think that, since here is the story on how werewolf Deke and vampire Kasey meet.

Deke is a vampire bite addicted. Like other people have a sex dependency, Deke has an addiction on the thrill of a vampire bite, never sex is better than when it starts with him in the role of a willing donor. Usually werewolfes are strong Alpha males who reluctantly give up the power; instead Deke loves to take the submissive role in bed; but only in bed, since even if he likes to bottom, he is not a bottom in life.

Kasey is an old and hard to please vampire. He can't imagine to commit to only a man, but when he tastes for the first time Deke, his possessive side takes the lead and he finds himself unable to stay far from Deke for long.

Kasey and Deke are very different and not only as "breed". Kasey is a prim and proper type and instead Deke is a slob. Kasey is a bit aloof, not easy to express his feelings and instead Deke is a pack animals, he is very touchy feelings and he has no problem to voice his needs.

The love between Deke and Kasey is easy and almost funny; there is a lot of sex, but it is always light and joyful. Again the story is not very long, less than 60 pages, but this time I have enough development on the two characters to know them better and to also understand better why they are together and what is the basis of their love relationship.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1535

The Werewolf Code: The Moon by Julia Talbot

Deke is a werewolf, Kasey a vampire. They are PIs and lovers. It's not the first time I read about a pair of werewolf and vampire, but it's the first time that the two breeds seem to cohabitate without problem. Kasey is the mind and Deke the arm. Not that Deke isn't bright, but he is more feral, more instinct, and instead Kasey is cool and calculator: everything can be done at the right price...

They are engaged by a beautiful tall blonde werewolf woman to follow her husband, but soon they discover that Jason, the cheating husband, is not her husband, but a genetic experiment of her father gone mad. Jason has no control, and if they don't stop him, he could spread the virus around.

Unfortunately this is a short story, less than 30 pages, but if only in few pages, the plot is complete and enthralling. I think Deke and Kasey could be worthy material for another book, and maybe also one in which we can read how they meet and became a couple (apparently Deke was a willing donor and Kasey won him on an auction... just let me image that man naked on display...)

Anyway if you like a bit of action and a bit of eroticism (there are one or two scene pretty sexy), The Werewolf Code is a fast and enjoyable reading.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1191

Belling the Cat by Julia Talbot

This is the story of Jonny, the vampire club owner who played matchmaker between Deke and Kasey, and that, if it wasn't for a professional code, wouldn't have minded to take Deke for him. Jonny is an ancient vampire, and maybe he is also a little bored; when he is not behaving like a workaholic, he doesn't know what to do. Living among so many beautiful men and possible lovers left him with a void, no one of them is right for him. When he finds a cat thief on his private room he decides that is time to play a bit: he will make a contract with the werecat, he is free to take what he was searching and in exchange the cat-man will come back to him for six months, every night.

Luc is more used to be a cat than a man, and if Jonny wasn't willing to accept his cat nature, he wouldn't probably have accepted his term. But Jonny is more than willing, and Luc can be a cat, and behave like a cat, for most part of the time they spend together; Jonny is not disgusted, or squeaked when Luc nears him in cat form, or when he wants to groom his partner like a cat would do before napping. Those are probably the most funny, tender and challenging moment of the novella: how much do Julia Talbot dare to push the challenge to overcome the tenderness? it's a quite trickly game of balancing, and I think that not all the romance readers will be up to that challenge. On my side, I didn't mind: what is the reason to read a romance with a shifter character, when that character looses all his animal side in human form?

As I said, Luc is more a cat than a man, and he has a playful nature in both form. His feline side is quite clear in his attitude towards Jonny: once they tight the pact between them, Luc tries to get the maximum from it, even if he was, in theory, the weak partner. But he is weak only since he was forced into it, for all the other aspects of their relationship, Jonny has no interest to tame the cat, and Luc is more a pet than a beast, so there isn't so much to tame in him, maybe only to teach him to not play rough games inside: again a proof that Luc is more pet than man. I wouldn't use for him the word "beast" since it's too strong and wild, Luc's cat is more the cuddling than struggling type.

So yes, if you like a good shapeshifter romance, with a strong accent on the shifter theme, but at the same time, with a funny and playful insight on the genre, Belling the Cat is exactly like that.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2159

Amazon: Codes and Roses

Reading List:

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

Best Overall Non Fiction (1° place): The Golden Age of Gay Fiction edited by Drewey Wayne Gunn

You can face this essay in many different ways (guess what is mine?)...

- as one who was there and reading all the books and authors named in it, has that common feeling of "oh, yes, I remember that", or rather than, "wow, I almost forget that it was like that".

- as one who was not there, but that for all his life has loved and searched for the things from the past, a past that maybe seems better than the one he is living in. And all the vintage covers you will find inside the book will make your inner collector gone crazy, you will probably print copy the final references page, Index of Fiction Discussed, and start to doing the check, I have, I haven't.

- as one who did it, maybe it's even named among the authors, or maybe not, maybe he did not have the courage to do the same things those authors did, and now he is regretting the choice.

- as one who wants to understand better what was before, a newbie that, till last year believed that the gay romance was a recent phenomena, maybe even thought it was something who was fated to decline, and now realizes that it's only another roar of an old lion, who was only taking a nap.

Maybe the last one is not represented among the crowd of authors who contributed to this essay, but all the others are. There is love in this essay, love for an era that was your own one, or that you consider as inspiring. And there are different perspective: for example there is who love an author, and another one who thinks he was sugary and unrealistic, there is who dissects the genre trying to find an hidden meaning, and who, more or less, said that those paperbacks were the only flight from a reality that was not the one he wanted to live in.

There is not hate in this essay. Yes, maybe there is a bit of proud in the words of some authors, stating that, "hey, I was there way before someone started to speak of "Gay Literature"", but more or less, to everyone who contributed in the field of the Gay Fiction was given the right credit.

Who has to read this book? the newbie gay author who wants to write the Great American Novel? it could be useful, it's always useful to know who was before you. But most of all, this essay is directed to the questioning mind, to who is fascinated by those names, by those authors who have at least 20 pen names, who wonders, "how it was to live and write in a world where there wasn't internet?", when to find those novels you had to do miles and miles, maybe to that only bookstore you knew had in store the books you wanted. When you were judged not for who you were, but for what you read... Wait, Am I speaking of 40 years ago, or of today?! See time is passed, but things maybe are not changed so much. And so yes, you can still learn something from an essay like The Golden Age of Gay Fiction.

And no, I will not summarize all the essays inside it as maybe some of you are expecting, and I will not say who was my favorite: they are all my favorite, I love the presentation, the layout, all those little covers scattered around. I love the writers, they made me feel the love they have for the genre. And now I'm also damning them, since my "to read" list is bigger than ever!



http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=GOLDAGE1

Amazon: The Golden Age of Gay Fiction

The Rainbow Awards: First Week results: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/811346.html


Cover Art by Paul Richmond

And since I loved it, Victor Gadino's original cover for The Lord Won't Mind by Gordon Merrick:

( Cover Art by Victor Gadino )

Milk (2008) directed by Gus Van Sant

Director: Gus Van Sant

Writer (WGA): Dustin Lance Black (written by)

Release Date: 28 October 2008 (San Francisco, California, USA) (premiere)
23 January 2009 (Italy)

Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance

Tagline: His life changed history. His courage changed lives.
Never blend in

Plot: MILK is director Gus Van Sant's riveting biopic about slain gay rights activist and San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk. Based on the politically resonant and thoroughly timely screenplay of Dustin Lance Black, Van Sant follows the arc of Milk's political awakening, from closeted Brooklyn insurance executive to doyen of San Francisco's Castro district's burgeoning gay mecca in the 1970s.

Sean Penn portrays the film's hero, melting into the role with an affable flamboyance that is both spirited and eminently engaging. James Franco plays opposite Penn as Milk's supportive and easygoing boyfriend, Scott Smith. The couple's cheerful and loving rapport lends buoyancy to the film's overall message of hope as Milk ascends from grassroots community organizer to a galvanizing figurehead in the push for gay civil liberties.

When Moral Majority crusader Anita Bryant forms an initiative to root out gay teachers and their supporters from public schools (Proposition 6), Milk is pitted in a bitter battle against fellow City Hall supervisor Dan White, played by Josh Brolin. While Van Sant does not deviate from the expository conventions that have defined other biopics, MILK sticks to biographically pertinent details that serve the film's underlying message of one man's idealism and conviction in the face of repression and bigotry.

Awards: 2009 Oscar as Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Sean Penn) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Dustin Lance Black), Academy Awards, USA
( other awards )

@IMDb
@Amazon: Milk
@Netflix
@Wolfe Video



( more pics )

Cast (in credits order)
Sean Penn ... Harvey Milk
James Franco ... Scott Smith
Diego Luna ... Jack Lira
Emile Hirsch ... Cleve Jones
Josh Brolin ... Dan White
Boyd Holbrook ... Denton Smith
Brent Corrigan ... Telephone Tree #3
Dustin Lance Black ... Castro Clone
( rest of the cast )

Sean Penn & James Franco

( more pics )

Milk (2008) directed by Gus Van Sant

Director: Gus Van Sant

Writer (WGA): Dustin Lance Black (written by)

Release Date: 28 October 2008 (San Francisco, California, USA) (premiere)
23 January 2009 (Italy)

Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance

Tagline: His life changed history. His courage changed lives.
Never blend in

Plot: MILK is director Gus Van Sant's riveting biopic about slain gay rights activist and San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk. Based on the politically resonant and thoroughly timely screenplay of Dustin Lance Black, Van Sant follows the arc of Milk's political awakening, from closeted Brooklyn insurance executive to doyen of San Francisco's Castro district's burgeoning gay mecca in the 1970s.

Sean Penn portrays the film's hero, melting into the role with an affable flamboyance that is both spirited and eminently engaging. James Franco plays opposite Penn as Milk's supportive and easygoing boyfriend, Scott Smith. The couple's cheerful and loving rapport lends buoyancy to the film's overall message of hope as Milk ascends from grassroots community organizer to a galvanizing figurehead in the push for gay civil liberties.

When Moral Majority crusader Anita Bryant forms an initiative to root out gay teachers and their supporters from public schools (Proposition 6), Milk is pitted in a bitter battle against fellow City Hall supervisor Dan White, played by Josh Brolin. While Van Sant does not deviate from the expository conventions that have defined other biopics, MILK sticks to biographically pertinent details that serve the film's underlying message of one man's idealism and conviction in the face of repression and bigotry.

Awards: 2009 Oscar as Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Sean Penn) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Dustin Lance Black), Academy Awards, USA
( other awards )

@IMDb
@Amazon: Milk
@Netflix
@Wolfe Video



( more pics )

Cast (in credits order)
Sean Penn ... Harvey Milk
James Franco ... Scott Smith
Diego Luna ... Jack Lira
Emile Hirsch ... Cleve Jones
Josh Brolin ... Dan White
Boyd Holbrook ... Denton Smith
Brent Corrigan ... Telephone Tree #3
Dustin Lance Black ... Castro Clone
( rest of the cast )

Sean Penn & James Franco

( more pics )