Best Gay Erotica Contemporary (3° place): The Wine-Dark Sea by A.J. Llewellyn
This was almost an haunting book, I had the impression that Daniel, the main character, had to go to the hell and back to find happiness, and for most of the story I was not sure he would have been able to in the end. A series of wrong lovers, no one of them Mr Right, on the contrary men who seem to only take from Daniel and never give back, but in a way or the other Daniel was not able to get rid of them. The only one who had potential was apparently a murderer.
After the first chapter, I really had the feeling that Daniel was trying to punish himself for something, because I didn’t understand how he could accept to live with Francois, who was clearly sucking Daniel’s life source, or to continue to frequent Alain/Alana, a transgender woman, who, when she was a man, treated Daniel like a piece of s…. At one point I thought that Daniel had an Oedipus complex at the contrary that his father was a role model to whom he compared all his lovers, and no one of them was up to the level. Indeed Daniel’s father is probably one of the few supporting characters that I really like, along with his fiancé Lu, probably because they were also the only ordinary ones.
All the story is set in a not so common Paris, meaning that Daniel, as a stranger to the town, is not filling the reader with the usual clichés, Eiffel Tower, Montmartre and so on, but instead he was giving little details (on the account that he is a travel guide writer) that I, as a traveller, would have liked to try (such as the hotel into the hospital, or the odd art exhibition around the city).
I cannot really say much on the love story, since it’s part of the appeal of the book, there is a turn on the middle of the story that can surprise, but I can assure you, it’s a good surprise. What I can say is that what sex Daniel is having is good, even if he has issues to resolve with his partner, sex is not one of them. Or maybe, at some point, sex is the only reason why Daniel sticks to that specific partner. There are three men in his life, a former lover, that would like to remain in Daniel’s life even if he cannot be what he was for Daniel, a present lover, that is claiming Daniel is his life and he cannot live without him, and a future lover, who is not asking anything to Daniel, and probably for that reason is the one I like the best. Alana and Francois are really needy and obsessive, always involving Daniel in something they have no right to: if they have done specific choices, they have also to have the strength to pursue those choices.
In the end, what probably surprised me was that The Wine-Dark Sea was not at all a light book, and it was everything other than simply erotica, something that is not common in the Ellora’s Cave production.
http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8452-the-wine-dark-sea.aspx
Amazon Kindle: The Wine-Dark Sea
Publisher: Ellora's Cave (June 25, 2010)
Reading List:
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This was almost an haunting book, I had the impression that Daniel, the main character, had to go to the hell and back to find happiness, and for most of the story I was not sure he would have been able to in the end. 
I have already said it before, I really like when J.M. Snyder plays with her boys, meaning that when her stories are about boys not yet men that are playing with life. This is the feeling I have of Carey’d Away, even if it’s not specifically said, I think all the characters in here are really young, probably young men just out of college or maybe even little more than teenagers. 
Sandra Canfield is a pseudonym for Sandra Kay Patterson Canfield (November 21, 1944 - January 23, 2003) aka Karen Keast and Sandi Shane. 
) and a RITA in 1991 for Romantic Suspense (
). 
I have already said it before, I really like when J.M. Snyder plays with her boys, meaning that when her stories are about boys not yet men that are playing with life. This is the feeling I have of Carey’d Away, even if it’s not specifically said, I think all the characters in here are really young, probably young men just out of college or maybe even little more than teenagers. 
A love story between a Basque farmer and a Peruvian immigrant. 
A love story between a Basque farmer and a Peruvian immigrant. 
Role/Play (2011) directed by Rob Williams 
Role/Play (2011) directed by Rob Williams 
The first time I read a book by this duo, McKinney and Wylis, I was surprised by the romance in it; actually it took me a bit to read that book because it was about two FBI agents falling in love under dangerous situations, and I was not sure that was an environment where the romance could grow strong but romantic. I was surprised that time, and so I was not this time. The setting is more or less the same, again two FBI agents, again two men who know each other in a office contest but that haven’t had the chance to build a personal relationship. But on the contrary of the previous book, the dangerous situation was totally removed, and only the romance remained. 
The first time I read a book by this duo, McKinney and Wylis, I was surprised by the romance in it; actually it took me a bit to read that book because it was about two FBI agents falling in love under dangerous situations, and I was not sure that was an environment where the romance could grow strong but romantic. I was surprised that time, and so I was not this time. The setting is more or less the same, again two FBI agents, again two men who know each other in a office contest but that haven’t had the chance to build a personal relationship. But on the contrary of the previous book, the dangerous situation was totally removed, and only the romance remained. 
