Event: A Reading with Thomas James

Date: 11/06/2010
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 pm
Place: Giovanni's Room
345 South 12th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107

Thomas James is the author of Into the Stars (LuLu, $15.99 pb).

Thomas James spins a heartfelt tale about a man who has given up on love just as it comes trying to knock his door down.

Orlando Lafayette had his heart shattered early on in life by the supposed love of his life, Derek, who left him high and dry with their young daughter, Arianna. And while he continues to try and piece his life back together, the chance of a lifetime and a means of therapy appear as his best friend pulls some strings to produce the play he wrote years earlier. Father and daughter are soon whisked away to New York City where he meets Angelo, the attractive father of his Arianna’s classmate.

Through book club meetings, chance encounters, and a few timid dates, Orlando becomes more at ease Angelo and willing to trust with his heart once again. As always, though, things are not what they seem, and secrets are being hidden from Orlando as whispers of Derek haunt his new life.

http://www.queerbooks.com/event/reading-thomas-james

Paperback: 266 pages
Publisher: lulu.com (April 15, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 055737507X
ISBN-13: 978-0557375073
Amazon: Into The Stars

Is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all? Let me explain. I just moved to New York City with my daughter, Arianna, to direct a play I had written to get over my ex, Derek. He left me ten years ago. Because of my friend, Sekoya, I have to smile at the images of how things should have gone between Derek and me. However, my move to the city wasn’t a complete mistake. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met Angelo, the hunky father of Arianna’s classmate. He’s showing signs of interest, but I’d been badly hurt by Derek, I don’t know if I can trust someone with my heart again. I have to remember that he is not Derek, though. He’s kind, considerate, and…Did I mention attractive? Am I misreading his signs? Is he the man that will help me forget about Derek and love again? I’d love to believe that’s true, but I can’t help but feel that heartache is right around the corner. My name is Orlando. This is my story.

Event: A Reading with Thomas James

Date: 11/06/2010
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 pm
Place: Giovanni's Room
345 South 12th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107

Thomas James is the author of Into the Stars (LuLu, $15.99 pb).

Thomas James spins a heartfelt tale about a man who has given up on love just as it comes trying to knock his door down.

Orlando Lafayette had his heart shattered early on in life by the supposed love of his life, Derek, who left him high and dry with their young daughter, Arianna. And while he continues to try and piece his life back together, the chance of a lifetime and a means of therapy appear as his best friend pulls some strings to produce the play he wrote years earlier. Father and daughter are soon whisked away to New York City where he meets Angelo, the attractive father of his Arianna’s classmate.

Through book club meetings, chance encounters, and a few timid dates, Orlando becomes more at ease Angelo and willing to trust with his heart once again. As always, though, things are not what they seem, and secrets are being hidden from Orlando as whispers of Derek haunt his new life.

http://www.queerbooks.com/event/reading-thomas-james

Paperback: 266 pages
Publisher: lulu.com (April 15, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 055737507X
ISBN-13: 978-0557375073
Amazon: Into The Stars

Is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all? Let me explain. I just moved to New York City with my daughter, Arianna, to direct a play I had written to get over my ex, Derek. He left me ten years ago. Because of my friend, Sekoya, I have to smile at the images of how things should have gone between Derek and me. However, my move to the city wasn’t a complete mistake. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met Angelo, the hunky father of Arianna’s classmate. He’s showing signs of interest, but I’d been badly hurt by Derek, I don’t know if I can trust someone with my heart again. I have to remember that he is not Derek, though. He’s kind, considerate, and…Did I mention attractive? Am I misreading his signs? Is he the man that will help me forget about Derek and love again? I’d love to believe that’s true, but I can’t help but feel that heartache is right around the corner. My name is Orlando. This is my story.

Snow on the Mountain by P.D. Singer

Like for the previous book in the series, Fire on the Mountain, the description of a lifestyle that is completely different from mine is so vivid that I was really into it and had almost the feeling to be an expert at the end of the novel. And it’s strange since the men are the same, the experience is completely different.

In Fire on the Mountain, Jake and Kurt are mountain fire rangers for the summer season, and their experience in that book was almost claustrophobic, two men alone in the mountain for six months with very little chance to meet somone else for the whole season. If I remember well, both Jake and Kurt were attracted to each other, but Jake was not completely out and he was not certain of Kurt’s mutual interest; on the other hand, Kurt, more experienced and less shy, was teasing Jake, inviting him to do a move, probably not understand that Jake was still a naïve in the seduction game.

Same men, completely different habitat: now Jake and Kurt are respectively ski lift operator and ski instructor in a fashionable ski resort; the place is full of people, but it’s the same claustrophobic, since everybody knows everybody, and Jake and Kurt are not yet so confident in their relationship to be out and proud, or at least Jake is not. Kurt indead surprised me, since I remember he was the one with more experience on the facts of life, and here he naively got stuck with a job that is the screen for an escort service.

Maybe for insecurity, maybe since they are still in the training period, it takes a bit to Jake and Kurt to resolve a situation that apparently was pretty simple; and what at first was almost a bad, but funny joke, will turn into a nightmare and there will be even a dead man. This was something I remember also from the previous novel, these stories start with a quiet and peaceful setting, a simple and sweet romance, to turn in a thriller, with unexpected consequences. Due to the different setting, even if the characters are the same, the feeling was not of a repetition, but more of a variation on the same theme.

The main difference is that in Snow on the Mountain, also Kurt has his own voice, something that instead in Fire on the Mountain you had to imagine. In this way the reader has a chance to better understand him, and to confirm my first impression: Jake is a bighearted and nice, but the real brain of the couple is Kurt.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2308

Amazon Kindle: Snow on the Mountain

Series:
1) Fire on the Mountain: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/751165.html
2) Snow on the Mountain

Reading List:

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