Personal Saviors by Wesley Gibson

I did try to do my homework to discover if the author, Wesley Gibson, shares the same Southern upbringing as Paul, but I was not really able to tell; my feelings is that yes, Personal Saviors is someway a fictionalization of the author’s own experience of growing up gay in a small southern community. So what we are reading are like the telling of someone going through some old polaroid, with the color so faded that everything seems green and orange… or maybe indeed everything WAS green and orange at the time! In any case I imagine the adult Paul wondering how he managed to go through that and escaping somehow “sane”.

Paul is a misfit, and he knows it. He knows he is gay, he knows he is in love with his pastor (even if I’m unsure if he is in love with him since he is a man OR since he is a pastor, and so, to his eyes, someone who is nearer to God). But all these discoveries, all this uncertainty, is not presented to the reader like a logical flow, but, as I said, like snapshots of self-consciousness, every step, to our eyes unrelated, is instead a step Paul is doing towards his adulthood.

There is a carousel of supporting characters, and all of them will contribute to Paul’s discovery journey, all of them, misfits like Paul, will give the feeling to Paul that he is not alone in this world. Again it’s important to pay attention to every little detail since Paul’s interaction with the other characters, is not plotted like a perfect intertwined cloth, but it’s more a plain canvas, where Paul is adding a spot here and there, and then he is trying to connect each other.

Personal Saviors is really a brainstorming of Paul’s memories, and considering they are the memories of an 11 years old boy, you cannot really pretend they are perfect lined up one after each other, and moreover, what stuck more in an adult mind of their pre-teen years, is what let you a scalding mark on your inner being.

http://www.chelseastationeditions.com/gibson-saviors.html

Amazon: Personal Saviors
Amazon Kindle: Personal Saviors
Paperback: 188 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions (October 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0983285136
ISBN-13: 978-0983285137

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

Closer (A Bay City Paranormal Investigation 4) by Ally Blue

It took me a long time to arrive to this novel since, as I told for the previous book, you really have to read them in order to fully grasp the evolution of Bo and Sam’s story. There is a slow, but direct change in focus, from the paranormal elements of the story towards the more romance novel. That is clear from the beginning of this book, when we find Bo and Sam’s sharing a vacation together as a couple, far from their careers as paranormal investigator and far from Bo’s family obligations. This is an important detail since from the previous novels, it can appear that Sam is rejecting Bo’s family, wife and sons, seeing them as the reason why Bo is not committing with him and their relationship. So it’s important that they share this vacation, but it’s also important that, later in the novel, the author will present proofs that Sam is not trying to distancing Bo from his sons, on the contrary, he is trying to help him regain a relationship with them.

In a way, I think the author is trying to make both Bo than Sam more appealing to the reader, since, well, they are not really “nice” characters. I have always found Bo’s reluctance to commit a little unnerving, and in a way it helped me to understand Sam’s behavior, that sometime was all the same unnerving, especially when it seemed he was letting go of Bo and their relationship too easily, like he was not fighting for it too much. This novel helped me to understand that both Bo and Sam believe in their love, and that it’s only a question to understand how they can overcome all the obstacles to their story, both ordinary than paranormal.

If you considering I’m reviewing this book 3 years later its release, maybe this comment is not so important, but for the first time in the 4 series books I had the feeling there was a closing point between Sam and Bo; not totally is perfected, and right in the last pages the author opens a new possible thread related to Sam and Bo, but not focused on them as a couple. I’m not totally sure we will not find these two in other books, maybe this time as supporting characters.

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/closer-p-2567.html

Amazon: Closer (Bay City Paranormal Investigations)
Amazon Kindle: Closer (Bay City Paranormal Investigations)
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (April 28, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1605041440
ISBN-13: 978-1605041445

Series: Bay City Paranormal Investigation
1) Oleander House: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/31109.html
2) What Hides Inside: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1222558.html
3) Twilight: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1252373.html
4) Closer

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

All Lessons Learned (Cambridge Fellows Mysteries 8) by Charlie Cochrane

I was dreading to read this chapter in the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, because it was the one I was expecting and at the same time I didn’t want to happen. For the last few books I was counting the years, 1906, 1907, 1908… it was like an ominous dripping towards those dreadful 1914 and the IWW. From the like Orlando and Jonty, it was obvious they wouldn’t step back, and the IWW was such a bloodbath, more like men sent to the slaughter than a noble war, and these fellows can only play with honor.

So when I read the blurb of this book, 1918, end of the war, and Jonty lost in war, I thought that is, the worst happened, and how I can find the heart to read this novel? Sure the author told me not to worry, that she had everything planned for both of them, but still… it was not until I didn’t see there was a book 9 that I found the courage to consider book 8. Hands up, I’m a coward, yes, I am.

But I didn’t come out unscathed from the experience of reading this book, since, well, the losses are more than what I was expecting: Jonty’s parents, those wonderful parents who not only supported their own son, but welcomed Orlando too, are lost as well; I felt these losses as much as I felt that of Jonty, so much they were part of this series. It’s really sad to think I will continue to read this series knowing they will not be there, with their love and welcoming embrace; they are probably one of the main reasons why Orlando even considered to share a life with Jonty, knowing they were not scandalized by the love between them; if good people could look at them and have love in their heart, then Orlando could look as well to what he had with Jonty and not being afraid.

All in all the novel was less tragic then what I was thinking, meaning that, it basically skipped all the gory details of the war, to plunge you directly in the aftermath, when hope was blossoming again; actually it was almost warm, comfort-like, the light at the end of the dark tunnel that was the war.

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/lessons-learned-p-6245.html

Amazon: All Lessons Learned (Cambridge Fellows Mysteries)
Amazon Kindle: All Lessons Learned (Cambridge Fellows Mysteries)
Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (January 3, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609283996
ISBN-13: 978-1609283995

Series: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery
1) Lessons in Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/417687.html
2) Lessons in Desire: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/506663.html
3) Lessons in Discovery: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/641112.html
4) Lessons in Power: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/857346.html
5) Lessons in Temptation: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1047057.html
6) Lessons in Seduction: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1160121.html
7) Lessons in Trust: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1284002.html
8) All Lessons Learned

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