Yes, this is me having a temper tantrum

I'm reposting only the closing sentence of a mail I sent to someone just minutes ago. No name, not preface, the recipient knows all and this is the only thing that counts.

"I don't deserve to be also the recipient of the bad mood caused by other. I don't need it, above all not in this moment. I'm tired to loose people I believed were friends, too many people are teaching me that I have no friends out there."

And now I know that many of you are friends, that you all are out there looking for me, that I have not to worry when something like that happens, that it's normal to remove a friend on LJ. BUT FOR ME IT'S NOT. If you are a common friend, someone who comments once every six months, who came to me since I write review, and then decides you don't like them no more, you can go, and I have no problem.

But if you are someone who called me sister, who claimed to be my friend, who was always ready to give me a good word when I was down, when you have my private email, HOW YOU CAN DELETE me from your friend list without even telling me goodbye, how can I receive that cold message "xxx removed you from their Friends list"? HOW?

I DON'T DESERVE THAT. Not ever, but above all not now, not today, not this week. BTW THANK YOU for chosing the worst week in the year, for doing that. Perfect timing "friend".

Yes, this is me having a temper tantrum

I'm reposting only the closing sentence of a mail I sent to someone just minutes ago. No name, not preface, the recipient knows all and this is the only thing that counts.

"I don't deserve to be also the recipient of the bad mood caused by other. I don't need it, above all not in this moment. I'm tired to loose people I believed were friends, too many people are teaching me that I have no friends out there."

And now I know that many of you are friends, that you all are out there looking for me, that I have not to worry when something like that happens, that it's normal to remove a friend on LJ. BUT FOR ME IT'S NOT. If you are a common friend, someone who comments once every six months, who came to me since I write review, and then decides you don't like them no more, you can go, and I have no problem.

But if you are someone who called me sister, who claimed to be my friend, who was always ready to give me a good word when I was down, when you have my private email, HOW YOU CAN DELETE me from your friend list without even telling me goodbye, how can I receive that cold message "xxx removed you from their Friends list"? HOW?

I DON'T DESERVE THAT. Not ever, but above all not now, not today, not this week. BTW THANK YOU for chosing the worst week in the year, for doing that. Perfect timing "friend".

Thank you again

Thank you again to all people who left a comment to help me going through a bad moment. I, as always, appreciated all of them.

At the same time when I was going through it, the person who did it send me an email, in reply to the one I sent him to ask a reason of what was happening. I can understand his reason, I really can, but I can't understand, or accept, that he didn't feel the need to warning me before. As someone of you said in a comment, I think it's not a sign to have not sensibility or courage, but more a sign that he, himself, was going through a bad moment. But I also think that, even when I'm at my worst moment, I have always to think what my actions do to other people.

At least I know that, as he said and you said, it's not me, or something I did, but for sure I also know that a relationship that I thought was special and tight, has now a loose thread that will always weaken it.

Thank you again

Thank you again to all people who left a comment to help me going through a bad moment. I, as always, appreciated all of them.

At the same time when I was going through it, the person who did it send me an email, in reply to the one I sent him to ask a reason of what was happening. I can understand his reason, I really can, but I can't understand, or accept, that he didn't feel the need to warning me before. As someone of you said in a comment, I think it's not a sign to have not sensibility or courage, but more a sign that he, himself, was going through a bad moment. But I also think that, even when I'm at my worst moment, I have always to think what my actions do to other people.

At least I know that, as he said and you said, it's not me, or something I did, but for sure I also know that a relationship that I thought was special and tight, has now a loose thread that will always weaken it.

The Inside Reader: G.A. Hauser

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir Mitchell

I still remember that first night, when I put down my first G.A. Hauser's book, For Love and Money, how my feelings were are conflicting, first of all the language, a mix of English and American slang, mostly English, that for me rang strange, and the characters, so unrepentant and without shame. I didn't know at the time that I was starting a "reading" relationship with a full pletora of these anti-heroes, trademark of a G.A. Hauser's DOC. So it's with a real pleasure that I'm posting G.A. Hauser's list, maybe we will be able to understand from where those naughty guys come from ;-)

I suppose like most M/M readers, I struggled to find the novels that I craved. Perhaps this is why many of us write what we do today.

A few novels I have read in the past have tantalized me and given me the desire to keep searching for what I was missing. Unfortunately this list was short, and as I see from previous posts, many of us had read the same novels. It’s ironic that a few authors broke the barrier for us, and they have influenced so many of today’s contemporary writers of the genre.

My list includes non-fiction, for there were a few books of historical significance that also had an influence on me, verifying facts of nature and life that I truly believe are part of every human. Normal and Healthy behavior.

Though this list does not include every author who made an impression on me, it does list most of the ones whom I loved and admired.

1) Mary Renault, The Persian Boy. Which writer of gay erotica has not read this fabulous tale of lust from the queen of gay literature? Mary Renault was so far ahead of her time, that no one quite got the fact that she was writing gay fiction, or surely she would have been censored. Out of her Alexander trilogy, this is by far my favorite.

Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 1988)
Publisher Link: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394751016
ISBN-10: 0394751019
ISBN-13: 978-0394751016
Amazon: The Persian Boy

“It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.”–The Atlantic Monthly. The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexander’s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.

( books from 2 to 10 )

I wish all the authors out there in the gay erotica community continue to write and battle ignorance. It’s what we do best.

About G.A. Hauser: “I was born in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline in the suburbs of New Jersey in the sleepy town of Fair Lawn. I graduated Fair Lawn High and went to college in Manhattan at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and graduated with honors with bachelor's degree at William Paterson College. After graduating with a degree in Fine Arts I gave up the idea of being a starving artist and headed for Seattle. For over a decade I lived in Rain City, and the last eight of those I wore a blue police uniform working for the Seattle Police Department as a patrol officer. I’ve been writing since 1990 but it wasn’t until I reached the wet British Isles that I published my first book, In The Shadow of Alexander. I lived in Hertfordshire, England for six years and from there I was able to travel and see the wonders of the world. I am back in the good ol’ USA once again and believe me, there’s no place like home.” G.A. Hauser

A Man's Best Friend by G.A. Hauser
Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: The GA Hauser Collection (November 9, 2009)
Buy Link: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-amansbestfriend-395541-144.html
ISBN-10: 1449592775
ISBN-13: 978-1449592776
Amazon: A Man's Best Friend 

Ronnie Caruso wanted to be a father, so badly he ached. Ever since he could remember, the idea of having children was of paramount importance in his life. There was one little problem to his plan of matrimony and offspring, he was terrified of commitment, and…he wasn’t sure he was truly interested in being intimate with a woman. As Ronnie debated thoughts of adoption, surrogacy and unplanned pregnancy, two things happened in his life; he met an incredible woman, Carrie Archer, and his best friend Heath Sherwood seduced him when he was drunk at a wild party. The morning-after filled Ronnie with regrets. Ironically, not regretting being sexual with his best friend Heath, but the fear that he was going to want that man in his life, permanently. The big ‘C’- Commitment. Heath had no hesitation to give Ronnie his heart. He told Ronnie he was in love with him since they met, and Heath also knew it was the physical part of their connection that Ronnie craved as much as he craved fatherhood. As Carrie begins to win Ronnie’s attention with her kindness and warmth, Ronnie still keeps her at arm’s length. If he chose Carrie to be his partner it would dissolve his inner fears of everything that came with an alternative lifestyle. Ronnie hated conflict. All he wanted was for life to be easy, to be happy, to have a baby, and that included enjoying the devotion of his best friend. Was that too much for any man to ask? Unfortunately it was. And jealousy and doubt began to rear its ugly head.

The Inside Reader: G.A. Hauser

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir Mitchell

I still remember that first night, when I put down my first G.A. Hauser's book, For Love and Money, how my feelings were are conflicting, first of all the language, a mix of English and American slang, mostly English, that for me rang strange, and the characters, so unrepentant and without shame. I didn't know at the time that I was starting a "reading" relationship with a full pletora of these anti-heroes, trademark of a G.A. Hauser's DOC. So it's with a real pleasure that I'm posting G.A. Hauser's list, maybe we will be able to understand from where those naughty guys come from ;-)

I suppose like most M/M readers, I struggled to find the novels that I craved. Perhaps this is why many of us write what we do today.

A few novels I have read in the past have tantalized me and given me the desire to keep searching for what I was missing. Unfortunately this list was short, and as I see from previous posts, many of us had read the same novels. It’s ironic that a few authors broke the barrier for us, and they have influenced so many of today’s contemporary writers of the genre.

My list includes non-fiction, for there were a few books of historical significance that also had an influence on me, verifying facts of nature and life that I truly believe are part of every human. Normal and Healthy behavior.

Though this list does not include every author who made an impression on me, it does list most of the ones whom I loved and admired.

1) Mary Renault, The Persian Boy. Which writer of gay erotica has not read this fabulous tale of lust from the queen of gay literature? Mary Renault was so far ahead of her time, that no one quite got the fact that she was writing gay fiction, or surely she would have been censored. Out of her Alexander trilogy, this is by far my favorite.

Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 1988)
Publisher Link: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394751016
ISBN-10: 0394751019
ISBN-13: 978-0394751016
Amazon: The Persian Boy

“It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.”–The Atlantic Monthly. The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexander’s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.

( books from 2 to 10 )

I wish all the authors out there in the gay erotica community continue to write and battle ignorance. It’s what we do best.

About G.A. Hauser: “I was born in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline in the suburbs of New Jersey in the sleepy town of Fair Lawn. I graduated Fair Lawn High and went to college in Manhattan at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and graduated with honors with bachelor's degree at William Paterson College. After graduating with a degree in Fine Arts I gave up the idea of being a starving artist and headed for Seattle. For over a decade I lived in Rain City, and the last eight of those I wore a blue police uniform working for the Seattle Police Department as a patrol officer. I’ve been writing since 1990 but it wasn’t until I reached the wet British Isles that I published my first book, In The Shadow of Alexander. I lived in Hertfordshire, England for six years and from there I was able to travel and see the wonders of the world. I am back in the good ol’ USA once again and believe me, there’s no place like home.” G.A. Hauser

A Man's Best Friend by G.A. Hauser
Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: The GA Hauser Collection (November 9, 2009)
Buy Link: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-amansbestfriend-395541-144.html
ISBN-10: 1449592775
ISBN-13: 978-1449592776
Amazon: A Man's Best Friend 

Ronnie Caruso wanted to be a father, so badly he ached. Ever since he could remember, the idea of having children was of paramount importance in his life. There was one little problem to his plan of matrimony and offspring, he was terrified of commitment, and…he wasn’t sure he was truly interested in being intimate with a woman. As Ronnie debated thoughts of adoption, surrogacy and unplanned pregnancy, two things happened in his life; he met an incredible woman, Carrie Archer, and his best friend Heath Sherwood seduced him when he was drunk at a wild party. The morning-after filled Ronnie with regrets. Ironically, not regretting being sexual with his best friend Heath, but the fear that he was going to want that man in his life, permanently. The big ‘C’- Commitment. Heath had no hesitation to give Ronnie his heart. He told Ronnie he was in love with him since they met, and Heath also knew it was the physical part of their connection that Ronnie craved as much as he craved fatherhood. As Carrie begins to win Ronnie’s attention with her kindness and warmth, Ronnie still keeps her at arm’s length. If he chose Carrie to be his partner it would dissolve his inner fears of everything that came with an alternative lifestyle. Ronnie hated conflict. All he wanted was for life to be easy, to be happy, to have a baby, and that included enjoying the devotion of his best friend. Was that too much for any man to ask? Unfortunately it was. And jealousy and doubt began to rear its ugly head.

Caging the Tiger by Michelle Houston

Again, as always, Michelle Houston is able to concentrate an entire full story in less than 25 pages. Kyle is an orphaned boy that, at the age of 17 started a pen-pal relationship with Mark, a magician travelling the world. Mark helped Kyle going through the loneliness of his youth, more when the boy realized that he was gay, and being also Mark, he became a distant big brother to whom the young boy could refer. When Kyle discovered his shapeshifter nature, obviously he couldn’t reveal it to Mark, but nevertheless Mark was there to help him.

Now 5 years later, Kyle has the chance to see face to face Mark, and also to find out if what he is suspecting, it’s true: Mark does a trick on the stage with him turning into a white tiger, and Kyle is suspecting that it’s not at all a trick. Maybe Mark is a shapeshifter like him, and that would mean that Kyle is not alone in the world.

There is obvious a parallelism between being gay and being an otherworldly creature. Kyle feels lonely and like a misfit not only for being gay but also for being a “strange” creature. In a world where, hopefully, being gay is no more the tragedy it was before, the author adds the shapeshifter nature of Kyle to put a heavy burden on his shoulder. A burden that Kyle hopes Mark will help him to discard.

The short story is sweet and nice, and there is a very romantic feeling when Kyle is swept away by Mark, who has not the white stallion, but he has the black cap like a true romance hero.

http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Caging+The+Tiger/exact_match=exact

Amazon Kindle: Caging the Tiger

Reading List:

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

Caging the Tiger by Michelle Houston

Again, as always, Michelle Houston is able to concentrate an entire full story in less than 25 pages. Kyle is an orphaned boy that, at the age of 17 started a pen-pal relationship with Mark, a magician travelling the world. Mark helped Kyle going through the loneliness of his youth, more when the boy realized that he was gay, and being also Mark, he became a distant big brother to whom the young boy could refer. When Kyle discovered his shapeshifter nature, obviously he couldn’t reveal it to Mark, but nevertheless Mark was there to help him.

Now 5 years later, Kyle has the chance to see face to face Mark, and also to find out if what he is suspecting, it’s true: Mark does a trick on the stage with him turning into a white tiger, and Kyle is suspecting that it’s not at all a trick. Maybe Mark is a shapeshifter like him, and that would mean that Kyle is not alone in the world.

There is obvious a parallelism between being gay and being an otherworldly creature. Kyle feels lonely and like a misfit not only for being gay but also for being a “strange” creature. In a world where, hopefully, being gay is no more the tragedy it was before, the author adds the shapeshifter nature of Kyle to put a heavy burden on his shoulder. A burden that Kyle hopes Mark will help him to discard.

The short story is sweet and nice, and there is a very romantic feeling when Kyle is swept away by Mark, who has not the white stallion, but he has the black cap like a true romance hero.

http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Caging+The+Tiger/exact_match=exact

Amazon Kindle: Caging the Tiger

Reading List:

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

Preditors & Editors Poll: Review Site

So I ended in the Top 10 of the Preditors & Editors poll, and if you consider that this is not a poll for M/M review sites, but for all genre of books, also not romance (even if romance has the lion share), I think this is a good result. The Top 10 are:

1. Bitten By Books - The Paranorma Fiction Reivew Site With Bite
2. Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
3. Alternative-Read.com by Sassy Brit and her Gang
4. Night Owl Reviews
5. The Romance Studio
5. TwoLips Reviews
6. Dark Diva Reviews
7. Coffee Time Romance
7. Elisa - My Reviews & Ramblings
8. Long and Short Reviews
9. Romance Junkies
10. AussieAuthors.com

There are 29 positions, with a lot of tie positions, and here are some friend sites I recognized:

14. Joyfully Reviewed
19. Literary Nymphs
20. Rainbow Reviews
21. Well Read
21. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
22. Bookwenches
23. Reviews by JesseWave
24. Dear Author
24. Erotic Horizon
24. Speak Its Name
26. Book Utopia

Contratulations to you all and thank you to all the people who voted for me

Preditors & Editors Poll: Review Site

So I ended in the Top 10 of the Preditors & Editors poll, and if you consider that this is not a poll for M/M review sites, but for all genre of books, also not romance (even if romance has the lion share), I think this is a good result. The Top 10 are:

1. Bitten By Books - The Paranorma Fiction Reivew Site With Bite
2. Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
3. Alternative-Read.com by Sassy Brit and her Gang
4. Night Owl Reviews
5. The Romance Studio
5. TwoLips Reviews
6. Dark Diva Reviews
7. Coffee Time Romance
7. Elisa - My Reviews & Ramblings
8. Long and Short Reviews
9. Romance Junkies
10. AussieAuthors.com

There are 29 positions, with a lot of tie positions, and here are some friend sites I recognized:

14. Joyfully Reviewed
19. Literary Nymphs
20. Rainbow Reviews
21. Well Read
21. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
22. Bookwenches
23. Reviews by JesseWave
24. Dear Author
24. Erotic Horizon
24. Speak Its Name
26. Book Utopia

Contratulations to you all and thank you to all the people who voted for me

Tangled Web by Lee Rowan

I don’t know if this was the final purpose of the author, or if it came out “naturally”, but I think that Tangled Web is the most “romance” of the M/M Romance in the new line by Running Press (truth, I still have to read one, but will do soon). Anyway Tangled Web fulfils plenty the promise in the description, a Regency romance. If not for the sex, I would have no problem to consider it “classical” Regency, since the setting, the characters, even the trouble in which the hero finds himself in, all resemble an old fashioned Regency plot.

Young Brendan is a prim and proper gentleman with “only” a slightly fault: he prefers the company of men to that of the young misses, and it’s not only a question of camaraderie. History student at Oxford, third son of a noble family, so with no real obligation, Brendan is in the enviable position to be able to do nothing in life. Other lesser young men would be ruined, living as rake and gambling the few money their annuities allow them, but Brendan instead is a quiet gentleman who would be happy to discretely share his townhouse apartment with a male companion. It’s not actually said, but I think that he “chose” Tony as companion since the man is not noble, son of a wealthy merchant, and so, in a way, more willing to embark in such clandestine relationship. Yes, even if Brendan is really a good and nice boy, I feel a bit of aristocracy in him, a slight aura of snobbery, snobbery that leads him to judge even himself for his own sexual preferences. And so when Tony put Brendan and himself in a very dangerous situation, Brendan has no second thoughts to abandon his scandalous behaviour and going back in the family and far from temptation.

But obviously the danger follows him, and Tony is soon begging help to avoid the right consequences of his act. Again Brendan proves to be a proper gentleman, and even if he doesn’t “confess” his sin, he asks advice to his elder brother, the heir, who promptly directs the brother to a fellow officer, Major Philip Carlisle. An handsome widower, and a clever mind, Philip not only helps Brendan but becomes also the new object of desire for the young man, who this time, has probably chosen better, since Philip is even more prim and proper than Brendan himself. If the two will have the chance of having a “special” relationship, for sure there will be no leak of undesirable and dangerous proofs.

There are two “adventure” subplots, the possible scandal for Brendan, and a smuggler problem for Philip, but neither one of them is real a so impeding danger to distract the reader to the real story, that is a quite realistic and possible evolution of a clandestine homosexual relationship in Regency London. Not the usual plot of having one of the lovers so high in the social status to be “above” of the law, not even the one of hiding the relationship behind a fake marriage, but simply the easiest of the solution, discretion. A solution that, in that time, was the panacea for all trouble, everything could be hidden behind a “discrete” veil. Nor Brendan or Philip have obligation and no one will question if they will not marry, a marriage was not a thing of love, it was a contract, and none of them two is bond to that type of contract.

I like very much as the author builds the two main characters, so perfectly gentlemen. They are not cowards or weak; they simply have a noble upbringing and value that above anything else. They are not even damsel in distress, it’s true that Brendan prefers men, but that does not make him a woman; a little example: when his sister asks him an opinion on his fiancé, a man that Brendan himself finds attractive, he says that he was the “finest bat at cricket” in college, and when his sister lament that she “fails to see what difference that makes in his potential as a husband”, Brendan thinks that “he could have given no higher praise”. Brendan is not a woman in the body of a man; Brendan is 100% a man, with the mind of a man.

Brendan is maybe a little more developed than Philip, but also the older man is a fine example of gentleman. It seems that other than sexual desire, also the love for horses commons the two men, and I don’t know, I have the feeling that the older man sees in Brendan the chance to have a companion for the rest of his life, a companion that his simpler to deal than most of the women. I don’t think that Philip would even consider marrying again, but Brendan is a very good solution.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that this book lacks of romance, remember what I said at the beginning, this is probably one of the finest Regency romance I read lately, it’s only that the author perfectly describes how two Regency gentlemen should be, and they are like that, prim and proper. An appropriateness that they are able to forget when they are behind the safe door of a bedroom.

http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/runningpress/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0762436840

Amazon: Tangled Web: An M/M Romance

Amazon Kindle: Tangled Web: An M/M Romance

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Larry Rostant

Tangled Web by Lee Rowan

I don’t know if this was the final purpose of the author, or if it came out “naturally”, but I think that Tangled Web is the most “romance” of the M/M Romance in the new line by Running Press (truth, I still have to read one, but will do soon). Anyway Tangled Web fulfils plenty the promise in the description, a Regency romance. If not for the sex, I would have no problem to consider it “classical” Regency, since the setting, the characters, even the trouble in which the hero finds himself in, all resemble an old fashioned Regency plot.

Young Brendan is a prim and proper gentleman with “only” a slightly fault: he prefers the company of men to that of the young misses, and it’s not only a question of camaraderie. History student at Oxford, third son of a noble family, so with no real obligation, Brendan is in the enviable position to be able to do nothing in life. Other lesser young men would be ruined, living as rake and gambling the few money their annuities allow them, but Brendan instead is a quiet gentleman who would be happy to discretely share his townhouse apartment with a male companion. It’s not actually said, but I think that he “chose” Tony as companion since the man is not noble, son of a wealthy merchant, and so, in a way, more willing to embark in such clandestine relationship. Yes, even if Brendan is really a good and nice boy, I feel a bit of aristocracy in him, a slight aura of snobbery, snobbery that leads him to judge even himself for his own sexual preferences. And so when Tony put Brendan and himself in a very dangerous situation, Brendan has no second thoughts to abandon his scandalous behaviour and going back in the family and far from temptation.

But obviously the danger follows him, and Tony is soon begging help to avoid the right consequences of his act. Again Brendan proves to be a proper gentleman, and even if he doesn’t “confess” his sin, he asks advice to his elder brother, the heir, who promptly directs the brother to a fellow officer, Major Philip Carlisle. An handsome widower, and a clever mind, Philip not only helps Brendan but becomes also the new object of desire for the young man, who this time, has probably chosen better, since Philip is even more prim and proper than Brendan himself. If the two will have the chance of having a “special” relationship, for sure there will be no leak of undesirable and dangerous proofs.

There are two “adventure” subplots, the possible scandal for Brendan, and a smuggler problem for Philip, but neither one of them is real a so impeding danger to distract the reader to the real story, that is a quite realistic and possible evolution of a clandestine homosexual relationship in Regency London. Not the usual plot of having one of the lovers so high in the social status to be “above” of the law, not even the one of hiding the relationship behind a fake marriage, but simply the easiest of the solution, discretion. A solution that, in that time, was the panacea for all trouble, everything could be hidden behind a “discrete” veil. Nor Brendan or Philip have obligation and no one will question if they will not marry, a marriage was not a thing of love, it was a contract, and none of them two is bond to that type of contract.

I like very much as the author builds the two main characters, so perfectly gentlemen. They are not cowards or weak; they simply have a noble upbringing and value that above anything else. They are not even damsel in distress, it’s true that Brendan prefers men, but that does not make him a woman; a little example: when his sister asks him an opinion on his fiancé, a man that Brendan himself finds attractive, he says that he was the “finest bat at cricket” in college, and when his sister lament that she “fails to see what difference that makes in his potential as a husband”, Brendan thinks that “he could have given no higher praise”. Brendan is not a woman in the body of a man; Brendan is 100% a man, with the mind of a man.

Brendan is maybe a little more developed than Philip, but also the older man is a fine example of gentleman. It seems that other than sexual desire, also the love for horses commons the two men, and I don’t know, I have the feeling that the older man sees in Brendan the chance to have a companion for the rest of his life, a companion that his simpler to deal than most of the women. I don’t think that Philip would even consider marrying again, but Brendan is a very good solution.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that this book lacks of romance, remember what I said at the beginning, this is probably one of the finest Regency romance I read lately, it’s only that the author perfectly describes how two Regency gentlemen should be, and they are like that, prim and proper. An appropriateness that they are able to forget when they are behind the safe door of a bedroom.

http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/runningpress/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0762436840

Amazon: Tangled Web: An M/M Romance

Amazon Kindle: Tangled Web: An M/M Romance

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Larry Rostant