Best Gay Paranormal / Horror (2° place): Blacque/Bleu by Belinda McBride

Blacque/Blue is a fantasy paranormal urban novel. It basically imagines that in our current time there is a small town in US, Acarda, where paranormal creatures are living together in a sheltered environment. And humans as well. I actually hadn’t understood if humans are aware they are living among paranormal creatures, unless they are not in a relationship with them, mostly since paranormal creatures are not behaving any different from humans. That is the main point of this novel and what I found the most interesting as well.

Blacque is a 30 years old werewolf; he is also gay and in the closet and for that reason he is also a virgin, a 100% virgin since Blacque has never had any interest in women. Now try to imagine a big and strong auto mechanic, all tattooed and pierced and a virgin! He has a sweet core given by his innocence that is a perfect contraposition with his bad guy looks. Blacque is attracted by Blue, the vampire next door; while Blacque is an auto mechanic, Blue does custom upholstery, and if in their jobs they are a perfect match, usually werewolves and vampires don’t match, they have a “polite” cohabitation, but sexual relationship are not common.

Only that Blue is ill, affected by a chronic insomnia that is preventing him to sleep during the day and he is not even “eating” in a right way, meaning that he is not sucking enough blood to sustain him. Blacque is like a banquet to Blue, rich and wealthy werewolf blood in an hot and ripe to be picked body. When Blue finds out Blacque is as innocent as a newborn baby, his first instinct is to “hunt”, but then Blacque shows him his kind side, the one who wants to nurture and protect, and Blue is lost.

I like the play of contraposition between Blacque and Blue; Blacque is innocent where Blue is experienced, and so Blue leads in bed; Blacque is strong where Blue is weak (at least now), and so Blacque leads in life; Blacque is an Alpha for his pack, but he is a little submissive in bed with Blue; Blue is an ancient vampire, older than Blacque, but in any case Blacque feels as he has to protect Blue, to make him one of his own pack, to give him shelter in many way, with his home, his body, his love.

I really liked this story, it has almost an “ordinary” mood in a paranormal world; Blacque’s struggle to come out was very much similar to what a gay guy would face if he was born in the “wrong” side, in a place where being gay equal to being weak; Blue and Blacque’s relationship has nothing of extraordinary, even if one is a vampire and the other a werewolf, they are simply two guys in love when they are together.

http://www.loose-id.com/BlacqueBleu.aspx

Amazon: Blacque/Bleu
Amazon Kindle: Blacque/Bleu
Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: Loose Id, LLC (August 29, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1611183626
ISBN-13: 978-1611183627



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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

Best Gay Paranormal / Horror (2° place): Blacque/Bleu by Belinda McBride

Blacque/Blue is a fantasy paranormal urban novel. It basically imagines that in our current time there is a small town in US, Acarda, where paranormal creatures are living together in a sheltered environment. And humans as well. I actually hadn’t understood if humans are aware they are living among paranormal creatures, unless they are not in a relationship with them, mostly since paranormal creatures are not behaving any different from humans. That is the main point of this novel and what I found the most interesting as well.

Blacque is a 30 years old werewolf; he is also gay and in the closet and for that reason he is also a virgin, a 100% virgin since Blacque has never had any interest in women. Now try to imagine a big and strong auto mechanic, all tattooed and pierced and a virgin! He has a sweet core given by his innocence that is a perfect contraposition with his bad guy looks. Blacque is attracted by Blue, the vampire next door; while Blacque is an auto mechanic, Blue does custom upholstery, and if in their jobs they are a perfect match, usually werewolves and vampires don’t match, they have a “polite” cohabitation, but sexual relationship are not common.

Only that Blue is ill, affected by a chronic insomnia that is preventing him to sleep during the day and he is not even “eating” in a right way, meaning that he is not sucking enough blood to sustain him. Blacque is like a banquet to Blue, rich and wealthy werewolf blood in an hot and ripe to be picked body. When Blue finds out Blacque is as innocent as a newborn baby, his first instinct is to “hunt”, but then Blacque shows him his kind side, the one who wants to nurture and protect, and Blue is lost.

I like the play of contraposition between Blacque and Blue; Blacque is innocent where Blue is experienced, and so Blue leads in bed; Blacque is strong where Blue is weak (at least now), and so Blacque leads in life; Blacque is an Alpha for his pack, but he is a little submissive in bed with Blue; Blue is an ancient vampire, older than Blacque, but in any case Blacque feels as he has to protect Blue, to make him one of his own pack, to give him shelter in many way, with his home, his body, his love.

I really liked this story, it has almost an “ordinary” mood in a paranormal world; Blacque’s struggle to come out was very much similar to what a gay guy would face if he was born in the “wrong” side, in a place where being gay equal to being weak; Blue and Blacque’s relationship has nothing of extraordinary, even if one is a vampire and the other a werewolf, they are simply two guys in love when they are together.

http://www.loose-id.com/BlacqueBleu.aspx

Amazon: Blacque/Bleu
Amazon Kindle: Blacque/Bleu
Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: Loose Id, LLC (August 29, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1611183626
ISBN-13: 978-1611183627



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


Cover Art by Anne Cain

News Relases: High quality LGBT Non-fiction

Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America by Christopher Bram
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Twelve; 1 edition (February 2, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446563137
ISBN-13: 978-0446563130
Amazon: Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America

In the years following World War II, a small group of gay writers established themselves as literary power players, fueling cultural changes that would resonate for decades to come, and transforming the American literary landscape forever.

In EMINENT OUTLAWS, novelist Christopher Bram brilliantly chronicles the rise of gay consciousness in American writing. Beginning with a first wave of major gay literary figures-Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, and James Baldwin-he shows how (despite criticism and occasional setbacks) these pioneers set the stage for new generations of gay writers to build on what they had begun: Armistead Maupin, Edmund White, Tony Kushner, and Edward Albee among them.

Weaving together the crosscurrents, feuds, and subversive energies that provoked these writers to greatness, EMINENT OUTLAWS is a rich and essential work. With keen insights, it takes readers through fifty years of momentous change: from a time when being a homosexual was a crime in forty-nine states and into an age of same-sex marriage and the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman
Paperback: 373 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press; Reprint edition (February 14, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0231074891
ISBN-13: 978-0231074896
Amazon: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America
Amazon Kindle: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America

As Lillian Faderman writes, there are "no constants with regard to lesbianism," except that lesbians prefer women. In this groundbreaking book, she reclaims the history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America, tracing the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from early networks to more recent diverse lifestyles. She draws from journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, media accounts, novels, medical literature, pop culture artifacts, and oral histories by lesbians of all ages and backgrounds, uncovering a narrative of uncommon depth and originality.

The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (February 6, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0520264770
ISBN-13: 978-0520264779
Amazon: The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination
Amazon Kindle: The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination

In this gripping memoir of the AIDS years (1981-1996), Sarah Schulman recalls how much of the rebellious queer culture, cheap rents, and a vibrant downtown arts movement vanished almost overnight to be replaced by gay conservative spokespeople and mainstream consumerism. Schulman takes us back to her Lower East Side and brings it to life, filling these pages with vivid memories of her avant-garde queer friends and dramatically recreating the early years of the AIDS crisis as experienced by a political insider. Interweaving personal reminiscence with cogent analysis, Schulman details her experience as a witness to the loss of a generation's imagination and the consequences of that loss.