After the First Taste of Love by Talon Rihai & Salome Wilde

This story surprised me because, well, I was expecting to have to suffer more for these boys to be together. Nick and Angelo grew up together, both gays and misfits, and everyone was expecting for them to get together; and instead Nick ran away with the first guy showing a real interest in him, leaving Angelo, big bro, the one who, maybe, was only waiting for Nick to be old enough.

Both Nick and Angelo are from eclectic families, not bad, but maybe not steady and safe like a sheltering environment is supposed to be. Angelo, the older and more grounded, played the big brother role, but truth be told he wasn’t so much experienced and sure than Nick. Or strong. And when Nick decides to leave, obviously following a fake star, Angelo let him go. Now Nick is back, and Angelo is sure that he doesn’t want for him to have a chance to go away again. Like Angelo, also the reader was probably expecting a fight, maybe a little denial, but Nick surprised both, Angelo and the reader, taking the lead and seducing Angelo in the shower the very first day of his coming back.

From that moment on, I was waiting for the bomb to explode, and indeed there are some firecrackers, but nothing really destroying; Angelo and Nick are indeed made for each other, and once they both admit it, it’s only a question to find the right equilibrium. More than the story of how they got together, this is a series of vignette on their life as a couple. Some of what are probably the passions of the authors (yaoi manga and co.) are turned into the main characters, but it’s more to play than anything else. So far so good.

What I really like is the intimacy Nick and Angelo have with each other, how they are able to reach a deepness in their relationship so soon and so fast thank to their past history. In a way, I even understood Angelo’s passion for jocks, a type completely different from Nick: since it was impossible for him to fall in love with someone so different from Nick, it wasn’t like he was really betraying Nick, he was only passing the time waiting for Nick to come back.

http://www.stormmoonpress.com/books/After-the-First-Taste-of-Love.aspx

Amazon Kindle: After the First Taste of Love (Nick and Angelo)
Publisher: Storm Moon Press LLC (November 16, 2012)

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


Cover Art by Yana Goya

Greg Louganis & Johnny Chaillot

Gregory Efthimios "Greg" Louganis (born January 29, 1960) is an American Olympic diver and author who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games on both the springboard and platform. He is the only male and the second diver in Olympic history to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympic Games. In 1984, he received the James E. Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States.

Louganis is of Samoan and Swedish descent. His teenaged parents gave him up for adoption when he was eight months old and he was raised in California by his adoptive parents, a Greek-American couple. He started taking dance, acrobatics and gymnastics classes at 18 months, after witnessing his sister's classes and attempting to join in. By the age of three he was practicing daily and was competing and giving public performances. For the next few years he regularly competed, and performed at various places including nursing homes and the local naval base. As a child he was diagnosed with asthma and allergies, and to help with the conditions he was encouraged to continue the dance and gymnastics classes. He also took up trampolining, and at the age of nine began diving lessons after the family got a swimming pool He attended Santana High School in Santee, California, and Valhalla High School in El Cajon, California.

As a Junior Olympic competitor Louganis caught the eye of Sammy Lee, two-time Olympic champion, who began coaching him. At sixteen Louganis took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian sport legend Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event with the help of coach Ron O'Brien. In 1978, he accepted a diving scholarship to the University of Miami where he studied theater, but in 1981 transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.

Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but an American boycott of the games prevented him from participating. Louganis won two titles at the world championships in 1982, where he became the first diver in a major international meeting to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events.



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

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