Scrap Metal by Harper Fox

Scrap Metal is a very particular book, quite long in length if you consider recent standards, more than 300 pages, that doesn’t mean that is filled with action, on the contrary, the major feeling of the plot is of peace and learning to joy the basic element of life.

The setting is wonderful, the Isle of Arran in Scotland; I hadn’t the chance to visit this particular island, since it’s connected to mainland through a ferry service, but I did visit the Isle of Skye, and I think the feeling is probably similar, a place where you can still lose yourself in the moors, where everyone knows everyone else, in good and bad.

Nichol left the island to go to college in Edinburgh and he loved the experience; a gay boy with a closeted boyfriend, the freedom of Edinburgh was wonderful, but a tragedy forced him to come back home. Now he is the only help his more than 70 years old grandfather has to manage their sheep farm and sincerely things are not going well, they are almost at bankruptcy point. And then the luck of the farm comes back, in the form of Clover, a small black kitten, and in that of Cam, a drifter young man they found in the barn.

The love between Nichol and Cam is natural and passionate but it blossoms slowly and steadily. The passion is there since the first moment, but due to Cam’s reticence, they didn’t consume the physical side of their relationship if not later on. Actually Nichol is quite “sexual” in his expression, I felt like Nichol really needed the physical approach, maybe due to his self-imposed isolation; that is the reason why, before his relationship with Cam becomes real and important, Nichol will almost resume his former relationship with Archie, his closeted ex-boyfriend.

Language and setting are probably the most important points of this novel, they are both well researched and perfectly matched, giving the right poetic feeling to the whole story.

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/scrap-metal-p-6707.html

Amazon Kindle: Scrap Metal
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (March 27, 2012)

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

Lord of the Trash by Sarah MacManus

Lord of the Trash is only a novella, but I really enjoyed it and when I arrived at the end I was really hoping for more. It’s not strictly a gay romance, it’s maybe more a Young Adult story, but basically it’s the story of two brother and sister who need to know each other and what they want to be in their life. While for Sam, 17 years old, this is normal, for Dana, 32 years old, that was time.

Dana and Sam have the same father but different mothers, and when Sam is orphaned of both his parents, Dana is legally his caretaker. Dana, an army nurse, has little of maternal in her, she is more a soldier than a mother, but she knows what a due is, and there is no question that she will take Sam for the year that is missing to his college time.

Dana is living in a rural country, far away from the city, and when Sam arrives, with his skinny jeans, tight shirts and pink scarf, she is a little worried, not by the idea that Sam is gay, but that he will be ostracized by the other boys and girls. I don’t know if Dana is denying it, or if for her is really no issue at all, but the “gay thing” never crosses her mind, she never once used the word gay to refer to her brother, never when a twenty years something young man knocks at her door searching for Sam.

Sean, apparently Sam’s boyfriend from Chicago, installs himself in Dana’s house, sleeping in Sam’s room, starting to behave like a 100% house husband, and neither then Dana’s question her brother’s sexuality, or having a doubt on the fact his brother his underage and the other guy is not. Again, not since she knows they are having sex and she doesn’t care, but since the thought of sex never crosses her mind, when it does, she is the first to point the finger to Sean and to the fact that Sam is underage.

So yes, this is an unusual coming of age story, almost innocent in its way, but really nice.

Amazon Kindle: Lord of the Trash
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

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