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This is the classical high emotional story, maybe not much realistic, but for sure romantic. Holland is a former baby actor who spent all his childhood and youth in front of a camera. He had not a normal life, and he believed his image was the only thing that counted. Holland was also gay, and he knew that, but gay was not something that matched good with his clean-face image and so he repressed his feelings. Out of his teenager years he had finally the courage to play the role of a gay kid struggling and winning, but the consequences was a mad fan who scarred Holland for life. I don’t know, but maybe that was a sign for Holland that coming out was a mistake, that there was no place in the world for a scarred actor whose only worth was his beauty, or maybe everything was too much for him to bear… Holland decided to retire like an hermit in an Maine island and managed his money from afar. 15 years later Ruby, a young personal assistant is sent to help Holland for the summer. Ruby is interested in the charity foundations Holland can finance, but it doesn’t hurt that he had a crush for the actor when he was a teenager. Only that, the man he finds is not the one he expected. It’s not Ruby, young and penniless, who succumbs to the handsome actor, it’s Holland who is like a virgin maid in front of temptation: not only Holland has had not human touch in 15 years, but he has always denied to himself the man touch he craved. Ruby is young, pretty and like fresh balm on Holland wounds.
Thanks also to a storm that isolates them for some days, Holland and Ruby tighten a bond that is almost visceral, it’s not only love, it’s need: Holland needs Ruby and he is totally open to emotions without any shield. Holland who was so good in hiding his feelings when he was a young man, now as an adult he seems unable to do that. Holland cries, asks for help, pleads for love; and Ruby is there, open arms for him. But the paradise can last only some days, and both Holland than Ruby have to go back to their lives: Ruby the one he left only some months before, Holland to the one he abandoned 15 years before.
At this point the story shift on romance; but you all know that this is not a bad thing for me. Probably the resolution is even too romantic, the acceptance maybe unrealistic, but it’s nice to dream of a perfect ending for a good love story, the type of ending that usually you have for heterosexual romance, and that I hope there will be for same sex relationship.
http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/SolitudeSeaGlass.html
Amazon: Solitude & Sea Glass
Amazon Kindle: Solitude & Sea Glass
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
This is the classical high emotional story, maybe not much realistic, but for sure romantic. Holland is a former baby actor who spent all his childhood and youth in front of a camera. He had not a normal life, and he believed his image was the only thing that counted. Holland was also gay, and he knew that, but gay was not something that matched good with his clean-face image and so he repressed his feelings. Out of his teenager years he had finally the courage to play the role of a gay kid struggling and winning, but the consequences was a mad fan who scarred Holland for life. I don’t know, but maybe that was a sign for Holland that coming out was a mistake, that there was no place in the world for a scarred actor whose only worth was his beauty, or maybe everything was too much for him to bear… Holland decided to retire like an hermit in an Maine island and managed his money from afar. 
Blind Eye Books, in cooperation with Weightless Books, is pleased to announce their first digital release. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Blind Eye Books, in cooperation with Weightless Books, is pleased to announce their first digital release. 
1 & 2) The Geography Club by Brent Hartinger and Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez: I consider both these books to be ‘must reads’ for gay or questioning teens and their parents —and for everyone else as well. The stories follow the lives of gay teens, trying to find their place in the world, bonding with unlikely friends, and coming to terms with their sexuality—in some cases, a slow and painful realization. Both books are beautifully written, and tug at the heartstrings without being overly sentimental. 
Reading level: Young Adult 
Murder Above Fourth by J.P. Bowie 
1 & 2) The Geography Club by Brent Hartinger and Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez: I consider both these books to be ‘must reads’ for gay or questioning teens and their parents —and for everyone else as well. The stories follow the lives of gay teens, trying to find their place in the world, bonding with unlikely friends, and coming to terms with their sexuality—in some cases, a slow and painful realization. Both books are beautifully written, and tug at the heartstrings without being overly sentimental. 
Reading level: Young Adult 
Murder Above Fourth by J.P. Bowie 
I admit that I was not yet a M/M romance reader in the ’70s when probably William Maltese wrote the majority of his pulp fiction, those little books you probably could find hidden in some shelves (read The Golden Age of Gay Fiction by Drewey Wayne Gunn for references), and then, even if I was, they are not exactly the type of romance (if they are romances at all), that a young “impressionable” lady would read ;-) Then in the ’80s, William Maltese, alias Willa Lambert, took another path, the Harmony style romances, albeit not so prim and proper as some of those ‘80s romances were, and I think that a bit of that romance got stuck in modern William, and so lately, his novels were indeed more suitable for those “impressionable ladies of above. But naughty William is still there, and it’s clear in every one of his books. But even more in this first book in the “I” series. 
I admit that I was not yet a M/M romance reader in the ’70s when probably William Maltese wrote the majority of his pulp fiction, those little books you probably could find hidden in some shelves (read The Golden Age of Gay Fiction by Drewey Wayne Gunn for references), and then, even if I was, they are not exactly the type of romance (if they are romances at all), that a young “impressionable” lady would read ;-) Then in the ’80s, William Maltese, alias Willa Lambert, took another path, the Harmony style romances, albeit not so prim and proper as some of those ‘80s romances were, and I think that a bit of that romance got stuck in modern William, and so lately, his novels were indeed more suitable for those “impressionable ladies of above. But naughty William is still there, and it’s clear in every one of his books. But even more in this first book in the “I” series. 
This is the second book I read by Mary Calmes, and while the first one was good, but maybe I felt still like it was a debut novel, The Guardian feels way more accomplished. As in the previous novel there are strong yaoi influence in the novel, but not the usual seme / uke pair, maybe more that yaoi novels where the innocent young boy discovers that his pet is not exactly what it seems. Only that here, the young boy is not so young, but he still preserves all the physical traits of that pretty boy. 
This is the second book I read by Mary Calmes, and while the first one was good, but maybe I felt still like it was a debut novel, The Guardian feels way more accomplished. As in the previous novel there are strong yaoi influence in the novel, but not the usual seme / uke pair, maybe more that yaoi novels where the innocent young boy discovers that his pet is not exactly what it seems. Only that here, the young boy is not so young, but he still preserves all the physical traits of that pretty boy. 