Buddy Holiday by Willa Okati

This is one of those seasonal romances authors write with their favourite characters. They usually don’t add any drama or novelty to the original story (in this case TomCat Jones), but simply “play” with the existing dynamics of the couple to create a warm and joyous romance, perfect for the season (in this case around Christmas).

Thomas Cattrell Jones, T.J. for short, has only one trouble remaining in his life now that he is the familiar of the wannabe wizard MacGowan, he has to find the courage to ask him to move in (actually not a far distance move since MacGowan is living on the ground floor while T.J. occupies the upper floor). But in any case it’s more a proof of their commitment, almost a marriage. And their friends are happy to collaborate leaving the house empty for them alone.

That is how long this novella last, one long night during which T.J. and MacGowan share love and sex, and magick; actually they are not alone, since a group of undines is upsetting T.J., and his feline nature would like to go hunting and killing them, while instead MacGowan find them cute, and in a home where there is a cat, only one “cute” being is allowed, and so there is no place for T.J. and the undines in the same room.

Most of the time T.J. is in his human form, and even if he preserves some “feline” attitude, like being overly cuddling if in the mood, but snapping when irritated, all they do is perfectly human and with no magic involved (if not for letting an hot tub appearing in the bathroom). So this is not really a paranormal story, maybe just a little fantasy, but it’s basically two boys in love sharing the warm in a cold winter night.

http://www.loose-id.com/Buddy-Holiday.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Buddy Holiday

Karma Chameleon by Willa Okati

Willa Okati can do funny and she is probably at her best when she does it. As the previous two books in the series, Karma Chameleon is light and good and something more. I have to admit that I'm quite fond of Arden and Shayne, probably more than T.J. and MacGowan, maybe sine, even if I love cats (and what there is not to love in a domestic tomcat), the idea of Arden who is so crazy inside and out to not being able to decide in what anumal he has to shift is too cute to resist.

I love also Shayne, so big and strong, but at the same time caring and tender, the first one to do the love talk, he is exactly what Arden needs, even if he will never admit that. The proof of this love is that Arden is shifting in the less cuter animals you can think of (well platyplus was a little bit cute), but nevertheless Shayne wants him and tries to fix him. Now don't worry, the wanting is only emotional, no kinky sex in odd shifting forms. But when both men ARE men, then the sex is plenty and good.

Karma Chameleon does almost the impossible, being the third books in a series and almost stealing the scene to the main characters of the previous two book, T.J. and MacGowan. But really, already in book 2 the relationship between Arden and Shayne, a little hint there another hint here, was good, Arden the perfect bottom boy who was able to lead Shaybe by the .... well, you can imagine by what. Here we have some details more, how Arden is relationship shy and how Shayne is instead the long-term type of guy; how Arden, apparently careless and selfish, is able to perfectly read his strong man, maybe even better than his best friend MacGowan. The result is a sweet, sweet light romance, a joy to read.

http://www.loose-id.com/Karma-Chameleon.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Karma Chameleon (Tomcat Jones)

Amazon: Buddy Holiday (includes Karma Chameleon)
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Loose Id, LLC (December 6, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1607379147
ISBN-13: 978-1607379140

Series:
1) Tomcat Jones: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/612985.html
2-3) Buddy Holiday & Karma Chamaleon

Reading List:



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




Cover Art by Marci Gass

Buddy Holiday by Willa Okati

This is one of those seasonal romances authors write with their favourite characters. They usually don’t add any drama or novelty to the original story (in this case TomCat Jones), but simply “play” with the existing dynamics of the couple to create a warm and joyous romance, perfect for the season (in this case around Christmas).

Thomas Cattrell Jones, T.J. for short, has only one trouble remaining in his life now that he is the familiar of the wannabe wizard MacGowan, he has to find the courage to ask him to move in (actually not a far distance move since MacGowan is living on the ground floor while T.J. occupies the upper floor). But in any case it’s more a proof of their commitment, almost a marriage. And their friends are happy to collaborate leaving the house empty for them alone.

That is how long this novella last, one long night during which T.J. and MacGowan share love and sex, and magick; actually they are not alone, since a group of undines is upsetting T.J., and his feline nature would like to go hunting and killing them, while instead MacGowan find them cute, and in a home where there is a cat, only one “cute” being is allowed, and so there is no place for T.J. and the undines in the same room.

Most of the time T.J. is in his human form, and even if he preserves some “feline” attitude, like being overly cuddling if in the mood, but snapping when irritated, all they do is perfectly human and with no magic involved (if not for letting an hot tub appearing in the bathroom). So this is not really a paranormal story, maybe just a little fantasy, but it’s basically two boys in love sharing the warm in a cold winter night.

http://www.loose-id.com/Buddy-Holiday.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Buddy Holiday

Karma Chameleon by Willa Okati

Willa Okati can do funny and she is probably at her best when she does it. As the previous two books in the series, Karma Chameleon is light and good and something more. I have to admit that I'm quite fond of Arden and Shayne, probably more than T.J. and MacGowan, maybe sine, even if I love cats (and what there is not to love in a domestic tomcat), the idea of Arden who is so crazy inside and out to not being able to decide in what anumal he has to shift is too cute to resist.

I love also Shayne, so big and strong, but at the same time caring and tender, the first one to do the love talk, he is exactly what Arden needs, even if he will never admit that. The proof of this love is that Arden is shifting in the less cuter animals you can think of (well platyplus was a little bit cute), but nevertheless Shayne wants him and tries to fix him. Now don't worry, the wanting is only emotional, no kinky sex in odd shifting forms. But when both men ARE men, then the sex is plenty and good.

Karma Chameleon does almost the impossible, being the third books in a series and almost stealing the scene to the main characters of the previous two book, T.J. and MacGowan. But really, already in book 2 the relationship between Arden and Shayne, a little hint there another hint here, was good, Arden the perfect bottom boy who was able to lead Shaybe by the .... well, you can imagine by what. Here we have some details more, how Arden is relationship shy and how Shayne is instead the long-term type of guy; how Arden, apparently careless and selfish, is able to perfectly read his strong man, maybe even better than his best friend MacGowan. The result is a sweet, sweet light romance, a joy to read.

http://www.loose-id.com/Karma-Chameleon.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Karma Chameleon (Tomcat Jones)

Amazon: Buddy Holiday (includes Karma Chameleon)
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Loose Id, LLC (December 6, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1607379147
ISBN-13: 978-1607379140

Series:
1) Tomcat Jones: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/612985.html
2-3) Buddy Holiday & Karma Chamaleon

Reading List:



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




Cover Art by Marci Gass

Georges Eekhoud (May 27, 1854 - May 29, 1927)

Georges Eekhoud (27 May 1854 – 29 May 1927) was a Belgian novelist of Flemish descent, but writing in French.

Eekhoud was a regionalist best known for his ability to represent scenes from rural and urban daily life. He tended to portray the dark side of human desire and write about social outcasts and the working classes.

Eekhoud was born in Antwerp. A member of a fairly well-off family, he lost his parents as a young boy. When he came into his own he started working for a journal. First as a corrector, later he contributed a serial. In 1877, the generosity of his grandmother permitted young Eekhoud to publish his first two books, Myrtes et Cyprès and Zigzags poétiques, both volumes of poetry. In the beginning of the 1880s Eekhoud took part in several of the modern French-Belgian artist movements, like Les XX (=The Twenty) and La Jeune Belgique (=Young Belgium). Kees Doorik, his first novel was published in 1883, about the wild life of a tough young farmhand who committed a murder. The renowned free-thinking publisher Henri Kistemaeckers brought out a second edition three years later. Eekhoud received some guarded praise by famous authors like Edmond de Goncourt and Joris-Karl Huysmans who both sent Eekhoud a personal letter. For his second prose book, Kermesses (= Fairs, 1884), not only Goncourt and Huysmans praised him, but also Émile Zola, about whom Eekhoud had written an essay in 1879.

In 1886 his novel Les milices de Saint-François (= The Soldiers of Saint Francis Xavier) was published. By now Eekhoud's established subject was the rural Campine, a poor farmers' district east of Antwerp. He had a distinct style permeated with enthusiasm for the roguish young farm labourers and their rough-and-tumble lives. His most famous novel, La nouvelle Carthage (= The New Carthage) was published in its definitive form in 1893, and many times reprinted. It has also been translated in English, German, Dutch, Russian and Romanian. The rustic Campine was in this book replaced with the brutal life of love and death in the Antwerp dockland metropolis and its dirty industry.

In 1899 Eekhoud offered to his readers a new and daring novel, Escal-Vigor. This is the name of the castle of its protagonist, count Henry de Kehlmark, but it conveys the name 'Escaut', French for the river Scheldt, and 'Vigor', Latin for Power. Many of these readers were shocked, because the book is concerned with love between men. According to Eekhoud's biographer Mirande Lucien, Escal-Vigor was the book of a man who wanted to speak about himself in all freedom. Escal-Vigor is a homogeneous, linear text. The story goes without detours to its final scene of the martyrdom, the moment that the tortured bodies testify of the justness of their cause. As for its composition, Escal-Vigor is the least decadent of Eekhoud's works. Eekhoud makes much less use of the elaborate and old-fashioned words that make the reader stop and wonder.

A clear and resolute novel about homosexuality, Escal-Vigor was heading towards trouble. Although it was well received by most critics, like Rachilde and Eugène Demolder, a lawsuit was launched against it. However, a storm of protest, especially vociferous because of numerous literary celebrities, and a cunning lawyer with literary aspirations, Edmond Picard, did their part in acquitting Eekhoud.

Later novels and stories, like L'Autre Vue (1904) and Les Libertins d'Anvers (= Antwerp libertines, 1912) also contain notions of homosexuality or sometimes only hints of admiration for masculinity, e.g. Dernières Kermesses (1920). Eekhoud corresponded with Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen and contributed to his sumptuous literary monthly Akademos (1909). Also, he influenced young Jacob Israël de Haan, who authored several poems on themes of his older Belgian colleague, especially La Nouvelle Carthage and Les Libertines d'Anvers. Eekhoud for his part wrote the preface of De Haan's sadomasochistical novel Pathologieën (= Pathologies, 1908).

Eekhoud continued to be a well-respected author until he put on a firmly pacifistic stance in World War I that ravaged Belgium, after which his star declined. In the twenties his books started to be reprinted again, although he died in 1927 at Schaerbeek.

Eekhoud left a voluminous diary (1895–1927) of some 5000 pages, that has been bought by the Royal Library of Brussels in 1982. Various Belgian libraries contain extensive collections of correspondence.

Nowadays, especially the homosexual aspect of his works has enjoyed attention. Escal-Vigor has been reprinted in 1982, and Eekhoud's partly homoerotic correspondence with the journalist Sander Pierron was published ten years later (Eekhoud, Georges: Mon bien aimé petit Sander, suivies de six lettres de Sander Pierron à Georges Eekhoud. Lettres de Georges Eekhoud à Sander Pierron (= My much beloved little Sander). Lille, GKC, 1993). This book, a full-scale biography (Lucien, Mirande: Eekhoud le rauque (= Eekhoud the hoarse). Villeneuve d'Ascq, Septentrion, 1999) and a choice of his works were edited by Mirande Lucien.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Eekhoud

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (February 17, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393326497
ISBN-13: 978-0393326499
Amazon: Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century

"A brilliant work of social archaeology....A major historical contribution."—Adam Goodheart, The New York Times Book Review

The nineteenth century was a golden age for those people known variously as sodomites, Uranians, monosexuals, and homosexuals. Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America. Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance. He describes the lives of gay men and women: how they discovered their sexuality and accepted or disguised it; how they came out; how they made contact with like-minded people. He also includes a fascinating investigation of the encrypted homosexuality of such famous nineteenth-century sleuths as Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes himself (with glances forward in time to Batman and J. Edgar Hoover). Finally, Strangers addresses crucial questions of gay culture, including the riddle of its relationship to religion: Why were homosexuals created with feelings that the Creator supposedly condemns? This is a landmark work, full of tolerant wisdom, fresh research, and surprises (31 illustrations).

Extract from the book: Legan intervention was relatively rare, which, to judge by the fame of banned works like Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal or Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, was not necessarily a boon for homosexual literature. Eekhoud's Escal-Vigor (Paris, 1899), in which two noble lovers in the Hamlet-esque castle of Escal-Vigor (a partial anagram of "Oscar Wilde") are murdered by a mob of local women, was banned in 1900, then translated into German and English (as Strange Love). Most gay novels never had the chance to be prosecuted. When Jacob Israel de Haan published his tale of two students, Pijpelijntjes (Amsterdam, 1904), his fiancee and the model for the main character, Dr. Arnold Aletrino, who had defended Uranists at a medical conference, bought all the copies they could find and destroyed them.

Many gay writers repressed their own work. Georges Eekhoud asked his Belgian publisher to print no more than 200 copies of Le Cycle patibulaire (1892), to charge a high price, not to advertise it and not to display it in bookstores. For Imre (1906) - one of the first truly happy novels of gay love - Edward Prime-Stevenson used an obscure press in Naples whose typesetters could not read English. When the Scottish-German anarchist John Henry Mackay issued the first two books of his series on "nameless love" in 1906, buyers were required to give their names and addresses and to sign a statement saying that they were disinterested "lovers of art".