Dec. 15th, 2010

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It’s easy to like, and love, an hot macho man but caring Marine, not so easy to love him when he shows you his human (not so macho) side, and that he, as a man, make mistakes.

If David has to be sincere with himself, the wonderful night he shared with a stranger Marine, Bud, was only that, a one night stand, and nothing more. But David fell in love at first sight, and when Bud came back to him, he was unable to say no. So is Bud’s entirely fault when their relationship took a wrong turn? Truth be told, even after their second night together Bud tried to sneak out without being noticed, so it’s not that he has given many signs to David that he wanted a long-lasting relationship. Now don’t get me wrong, from my words it appears as if Bud is a completely bastard who takes advantage of David who was too much in love to be reasonable. On the contrary, I think Bud is maybe as much as weak as David, above all when you are speaking of true feelings; Bud is a fighter, a good soldier, but he was a foster child without foundations while growing up, and so I think he is a bit “damaged” on an emotional level: he felt the need to bind himself with the wrong person too soon and too young, and now that binding is preventing him to enjoy his love story with David.

But despite the good and bad, Bud is a ray of light in David’s life, and in a way, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. And again I don’t think I will spoil you too much if I’m saying that this is an happily ever after story, after all the author decided to use as a prologue something that to me sounded very much like an epilogue, and so, reading the book, I was sure that I was heading towards an end that I would have liked.

In comparison to other stories about soldiers, and in particular Marine, I noticed that these men cry a lot; that is not something I have never found, they reminded me a bit some characters of Bobby Michaels, and knowing how much that author loves Marine, in novels and real life, I have no doubt that the description done by Drew Hunt is true, or at least for some of these men. And as in Bobby Michaels’ novels (that if my friends don’t remember, I like a lot), these men have sex that is down to earth, very physical and graphically detailed, again another bit of contrast with the emotional turn they sometime have.

http://www.jms-books.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=124

Buy Here

Amazon: Rough Road to Happiness

Amazon Kindle: Rough Road to Happiness

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle
reviews_and_ramblings: (Default)
It’s easy to like, and love, an hot macho man but caring Marine, not so easy to love him when he shows you his human (not so macho) side, and that he, as a man, make mistakes.

If David has to be sincere with himself, the wonderful night he shared with a stranger Marine, Bud, was only that, a one night stand, and nothing more. But David fell in love at first sight, and when Bud came back to him, he was unable to say no. So is Bud’s entirely fault when their relationship took a wrong turn? Truth be told, even after their second night together Bud tried to sneak out without being noticed, so it’s not that he has given many signs to David that he wanted a long-lasting relationship. Now don’t get me wrong, from my words it appears as if Bud is a completely bastard who takes advantage of David who was too much in love to be reasonable. On the contrary, I think Bud is maybe as much as weak as David, above all when you are speaking of true feelings; Bud is a fighter, a good soldier, but he was a foster child without foundations while growing up, and so I think he is a bit “damaged” on an emotional level: he felt the need to bind himself with the wrong person too soon and too young, and now that binding is preventing him to enjoy his love story with David.

But despite the good and bad, Bud is a ray of light in David’s life, and in a way, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. And again I don’t think I will spoil you too much if I’m saying that this is an happily ever after story, after all the author decided to use as a prologue something that to me sounded very much like an epilogue, and so, reading the book, I was sure that I was heading towards an end that I would have liked.

In comparison to other stories about soldiers, and in particular Marine, I noticed that these men cry a lot; that is not something I have never found, they reminded me a bit some characters of Bobby Michaels, and knowing how much that author loves Marine, in novels and real life, I have no doubt that the description done by Drew Hunt is true, or at least for some of these men. And as in Bobby Michaels’ novels (that if my friends don’t remember, I like a lot), these men have sex that is down to earth, very physical and graphically detailed, again another bit of contrast with the emotional turn they sometime have.

http://www.jms-books.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=124

Buy Here

Amazon: Rough Road to Happiness

Amazon Kindle: Rough Road to Happiness

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle
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This will be a little less trivial post than usual. As I have said around, and many of you already know, while I'm really happy about the explosion the LGBT fiction and not fiction had in the last few years (more or less from 2006 and on), I cannot manage to read all books publishers and authors are sending me. Since I'm also a bookwhore, it's difficult for me to refuse a book, but I did also that, if I was really sure the book was not my cup of tea. But if an author/publisher sends me a review request of a book that is inside the genre I like? Well it's like a sweet torture, I'm really not able to say no, it's an addiction.

I can really relate with what happened recently to a fellow reviewer; I can understand the pressure, and maybe there are other reasons behind some facts that we don't know. Plus I totally understand when someone slashes back if he is attacked by multiple sides and he is alone: the net can be real cruel and isolation seems even worse.

So please, readers, authors, publishers, realize that if someone you sent a book has not read it timely, it's not that they didn't like it, it's probably that it's one up and two/three downs, we are only human. If you want, and like, a personal blog due to the coherent trend of one only reviewer, than you have also to understand that that lonely blogger has to make choices (what book to read what book not) that sometime you will not like.

The Devil's Heel by Keta Diablo
Surface Tension by Drew Hunt
All Man by G.A. Hauser
Picture Postcards by J.M. Snyder
All or Nothing by James Buchanan
Trey Number Three by Bryl R. Tyne
Because It's True by Willa Okati
Bewitched by Bella's Brother by Amy Lane
(Boys Of The Zodiac) Taurus: All That You Do by Jamie Craig
Oracle by R.J. Scott
Read more... )
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James Spada is an author, publisher and photographer who has produced two dozen books over the past thirty-five years. He has had three New York Times bestsellers, including his biographies of Grace Kelly and Peter Lawford. He has written both intimate text-only biographies and illustrated coffee-table books.

His first work of fiction, "Days When My Heart Was Volcanic," is a historical novel about six months in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. His fourth collection of male nude images, "Eye Candy," comprises over seventy photographs.

Jim lives in Boston with his husband and two cats.


Black & White Men: Images by James Spada
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Bookazine Company; 1st edition (October 30, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0967990823
ISBN-13: 978-0967990828
Amazon: Black & White Men

Sixty fine-art male nudes, printed in duotone on glossy coated stock, in a 9"x9" hardcover format. This book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award as the best visual arts book of 2000 and was named one of the three best gay books of the year by the Independent Publisher's Association.

more pics )


Edwardian Men: Photographs by James Spada
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Pond Street Press; First Edition edition (August 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0967990807
ISBN-13: 978-0967990804
Amazon: Black & White Men

more pics - WARNING NUDITY - NOT WORK SAFE )

A stunningly beautiful volume of evocative, sensual male nudes shot to look as though they were taken around 1900. Some of today's sexiest young men are shown amid Victorian and Edwardian rooms and gardens, often in much franker poses than would ever have been attempted back in that more circumspect era.


The Romantic Male Nude by James Spada (introduction by Michael Thomas Ford)
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Abrams Books; First Edition edition (September 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0810993716
ISBN-13: 978-0810993716
Amazon: The Romantic Male Nude

more pics )

What makes a male nude romantic, as opposed to merely erotic? The more obvious attributes might be soft focus, soft lighting, silk bedding, sylvan settings, roses, lace curtains, moonlight. Perhaps it is the look of a model, or the expression on his face; maybe it is the warmth of the embrace between two lovers, or the longing in a young man’s eyes.

Each of the images in this book, the first anthology to bring together a group of celebrated photographers to thematically celebrate romance in the male nude, stirs the imagination to create a story around it—a story of youthful yearning or an idyllic day, a story about the blossoming love between two men, or even about the rapport between a photographer and his model.

The photographers represented here—among them Reed Massengill, Kobi Israel, Tom Bianchi, Ed Freeman, David Vance, and Michael Childers—live and work in places as disparate as Israel, Guatemala, England, Cuba, Brazil, France, Hong Kong, Greece, Sweden, and Germany, in addition to the United States. Their diversity proves that romanticism flourishes everywhere in the world.



More Photographers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

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There is a theme in my tag list that I’m not using often, but indead it’s very popular, the “pirates”; pirates, like sheikhs, cowboys and similar dream lovers were very popular among the women who knew about the world only through the books; pirates were of course always men with a noble soul (if not a noble birth) and the perfect lover for a damsel in distress. Of course when we have two men, the balance has to change a bit, but in The Devil’s Heel the change is minimal: Rogan Brockport, nobleman and pirate on the side, is an handsome rogue and he has a quest, to conquer again Drew Hibbard, former lover who dumped him to marry a woman. And also this is not an uncommon situation, in a story that is set at the beginning of the XVIII century, it’s even a common trend.

But Drew is not exactly your typical gay romance hero who surrenders to the society laws (and not only society…): Drew’s betrayal is a reaction to an act of the same nature, he is in love with Rogan, so much that for him is impossible to share. The first impression you have of Drew, from Rogan’s point of view, is of an extremely handsome man with a mourning soul; I had the feeling he was also strong, and that Rogan had a contendant of his same strength in him; I was building a story around a battle of wills with the winner who was uncertain. But when the reader has the chance to “meet” Drew, you realize that he is a completely different man from Rogan; he is very emotional, easy to take abrupt decision, not always right decision, and more or less a man that tends to be led by other men around him. If you add to this the fact that the sexual relationship with Rogan is a mix of rough and dominant behaviour, it’s not surprise that this novella can easily be classify also a breeches ripper, and in this case you have also all the right to do that, since the breeches ripping actually takes place.

One strong point of the story is that, despite being only a novella, it ranges widely, from ballrooms to ships, from bedrooms to cabins, and it introduces also some nice supporting characters. It’s probably a story that is more suitable to the romance lovers than the real historical fiction readers, but as I said at the beginning, the pirate lover is one of the most common in the romance imaginery.

https://www.nobleromance.com/ItemDisplay.aspx?i=122

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle
reviews_and_ramblings: (Default)
There is a theme in my tag list that I’m not using often, but indead it’s very popular, the “pirates”; pirates, like sheikhs, cowboys and similar dream lovers were very popular among the women who knew about the world only through the books; pirates were of course always men with a noble soul (if not a noble birth) and the perfect lover for a damsel in distress. Of course when we have two men, the balance has to change a bit, but in The Devil’s Heel the change is minimal: Rogan Brockport, nobleman and pirate on the side, is an handsome rogue and he has a quest, to conquer again Drew Hibbard, former lover who dumped him to marry a woman. And also this is not an uncommon situation, in a story that is set at the beginning of the XVIII century, it’s even a common trend.

But Drew is not exactly your typical gay romance hero who surrenders to the society laws (and not only society…): Drew’s betrayal is a reaction to an act of the same nature, he is in love with Rogan, so much that for him is impossible to share. The first impression you have of Drew, from Rogan’s point of view, is of an extremely handsome man with a mourning soul; I had the feeling he was also strong, and that Rogan had a contendant of his same strength in him; I was building a story around a battle of wills with the winner who was uncertain. But when the reader has the chance to “meet” Drew, you realize that he is a completely different man from Rogan; he is very emotional, easy to take abrupt decision, not always right decision, and more or less a man that tends to be led by other men around him. If you add to this the fact that the sexual relationship with Rogan is a mix of rough and dominant behaviour, it’s not surprise that this novella can easily be classify also a breeches ripper, and in this case you have also all the right to do that, since the breeches ripping actually takes place.

One strong point of the story is that, despite being only a novella, it ranges widely, from ballrooms to ships, from bedrooms to cabins, and it introduces also some nice supporting characters. It’s probably a story that is more suitable to the romance lovers than the real historical fiction readers, but as I said at the beginning, the pirate lover is one of the most common in the romance imaginery.

https://www.nobleromance.com/ItemDisplay.aspx?i=122

Reading List:



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

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