Ben Patrick Johnson & Marcellas Reynolds

Ben Patrick Johnson (born June 30, 1969 in Tucson, Arizona) is an American voice-over actor, author and blogger, Foundation Director, and human rights activist. Marcellas Reynolds, who parlayed appearances on Big Brother into a successful career as an entertainment reporter and fashion stylist, met his on again, off again partner Ben at a charity event for Equality California in 2006. “It was lust at first sight,” Marcellas tells AfterElton.com.“We’re each other’s type. He likes ethnic men, and I like big and gentle.”A mutual friend, Marcellas’ then-roommate and Ben’sex-coworker, arranged a date, and the rest is history.

Johnson appears on CBS (promoting Survivor, CSI: NY, Numbers and other shows), Fox (advertising House M.D., Bones, Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and Raising Hope), the cable channels Nickelodeon, Starz!, NFL Network, Big Ten Network, The 101 Network, N3D and others. His voice has been used to promote movies such as Ice Age, Marmaduke, Gulliver's Travels, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Night at the Museum, Hot Tub Time Machine, The Pianist, Minority Report, Signs, and Apocalypse Now and in commercials for Burger King, Kellogg's and Old Navy. (Picture: Marcellas Reynolds)

In 1998, after a brief stint at E! Entertainment Television, Johnson moved to Extra's rival entertainment magazine Entertainment Tonight, where he was ET's signature voice for the next four seasons.

Johnson's newest novel, "If the Rains Don't Cleanse", was published in August 2009 by Havenhurst Books. It is a historical novel detailing the experiences of Johnson's parents while Christian schoolteacher missionaries in Belgian Congo in the 1950s and addressing themes of Christianity, spirituality and European Colonialism.


Ben Patrick Johnson is an American voice-over actor, author and blogger, Foundation Director, and human rights activist. Marcellas Reynolds, who parlayed appearances on Big Brother into a successful career as an entertainment reporter and fashion stylist, met his partner Ben in 2006. “It was lust at first sight. We’re each other’s type. He likes ethnic men, and I like big and gentle.” A mutual friend, Marcellas’ then-roommate and Ben’sex-coworker, arranged a date, and the rest is history.

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

( Further Readings )

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Margery Allingham (May 20, 1904 – June 30, 1966)

Born in the London suburb of Ealing to a literary family, Margery Allingham (Ealing, May 20, 1904 – Colchester, June 30, 1966) began her professional writing career at the age of eight with a story published in one of her aunt’s journals! Her first novel, The White Cottage Mystery, appeared in 1928. With her next effort, The Black Dudley Murder, she introduced Albert Campion, the aristocratic, unassuming detective for whom she is well known. Campion mysteries written in the 1930s and 1940s include: Dancers in Mourning, Death of a Ghost, Fear Sign, Pearls before Swine, and Traitor’s Purse.

She grew up in a Georgian rectory in a little village near Colchester. She was a pupil at the Perse School in Cambridge then went on to study drama and speech training at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London where she learnt to control a childhood stammer.

She is still thought of as one of the three great women writers of the "Golden Age" of crime fiction (even if she is seldom read today), and The Tiger in the Smoke is often described as her best book. She and her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, had lived at D'Arcy House in the Essex village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, near Maldon in Essex, since 1935, and it is there that most of her books were written. She suffered from severe depression and we know now that her husband Pip even had a child by the well-known journalist Nancy Spain who was then a respected lesbian icon. After her death (from cancer) in 1966, her husband went on to write two more Albert Campion books. He had hoped to write more but died in 1969.

Source: http://www.detecs.org/avril.html

( Further Readings )

2013 Rainbow Awards

4 months into submissions period and we have almost reached 200 of them. Still 2 months to submit, and I encourage you to do so before last minute to give judges as much time as possible to read them.

Categories at today are:
LGBT Contemporary General Fiction
LGBT Fantasy
LGBT Historical
LGBT Mystery / Thriller
LGBT Sci-Fi / Futuristic
LGBT Young Adult
Gay Contemporary Romance / Romantic Comedy
Lesbian Contemporary Romance / Romantic Comedy
LGBT Erotic Romance / Erotica
LGBT Historical Romance
LGBT Paranormal Romance
LGBT Biography / Memoir / Non Fiction / Poetry

Awards Guideline: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3455751.html

Rainbow Awards: Cover Contest (May)

This is the first round for the 2013 Cover Contest. Voting on each slot will happen every 2 weeks.

- in round 1 there will be 12 slots, 1 for each month in the Submission period (from September 2012 to August 2013).
- in parallel with the poll, a special jury will vote the covers; the jury is composed by: Ali, Anne Tenino, Brent Hartinger, Dylan Rosser, Jodie, Julie, Linda, Mitzie, Tammy, Zahra Owens.
- you can vote as many covers as you want, using the poll in this post

Last week, most voted cover was:


The Mystery of Ruby Love (Catt Ford)

will pass to round 2:
Angel on the Ropes
Aria of the Eclipse (Trace Edward Zaber)
The Battle for Jericho
The Bitter Comet
Bullheaded (Catt Ford)
The B Word
The Escape Artist
The Gay Agenda 2013
Gay Seattle
Indecent Exposures
The Marrying Kind?
Murderous Requiem (Brooke Albrecht)
The Mystery of Ruby Love (Catt Ford)
A Romantic Mann (Crawford Barton)
The Unlikely Hero (Beau Schemery)
White Piano

All the covers are here:

http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/2013CoverContest_09.htm

and here is the poll:

[Poll #1921639]

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: J.L. Merrow - Slam

Slam! by JL Merrow
Publisher Samhain Publishing (April 1, 2014)
Language English
ISBN-10 1619217155
ISBN-13 978-1619217157
Amazon: Slam!
Amazon Kindle: Slam!

Limericks, lies, and puppy-dog eyes…

Jude Biggerstaff is all the way out and loving it—mostly. The Anglo-Japanese university graduate is a carnivore working in a vegan café, an amateur poet with only one man in his life. His dog, Bubbles.

Then there’s “Karate Crumpet,” a man who regularly runs past the café with a martial arts class. Jude can only yearn from afar, until the object of his affection rescues him from muggers. And he learns that not only does this calm, competent hunk of muscle have a name—David—but that he’s gay.

Jude should have known the universe wouldn’t simply let love fall into place. First, David has only one foot out of the closet. Then there’s Jude’s mother, who lies about her age to the point Jude could be mistaken for jailbait.

With a maze of stories to keep straight, a potential stepfather in the picture, ex-boyfriends who keep spoiling his dates with David, and a friend with a dangerous secret, Jude is beginning to wonder if his and David’s lives will ever start to rhyme.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: J.L. Merrow - Damned If You Do

Damned If You Do: The Complete Collection by J.L. Merrow
Publisher Riptide Publishing (June 24, 2013)
Language English
ISBN-10 1626490236
ISBN-13 978-1626490239
Amazon: Damned If You Do: The Complete Collection
Amazon Kindle: Damned If You Do: The Complete Collection

Some sins are worth the price.

Sexy male succubus Rael has an insatiable appetite for men that gets him into all kinds of trouble. And he’s just found his favorite flavor: hunky blond detective Lars Thornsson. When those cool Nordic looks combine with Rael’s smoldering dark charms, all Hell could break loose.

Lars’s job at the Paranormal Enforcement Agency means he’s supposed to be policing demons, not falling in lust—or love—with them. But there’s something about this feisty little sex demon that hits all his buttons.

With no shortage of deadly sinners in his city, from serial-killing succubi to drug-dealing demons, all Lars can do is try to keep his private life from interfering with his work. But Rael has a knack for getting mixed up.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Rhi Etzweiler - Fragile Bond

Fragile Bond by Rhi Etzweiler
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (February 16, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: Fragile Bond

Sniper Sergeant Marc Staille and his trusty rifle, Mat, are on bodyguard duty at a mining operation on a backwater planet. The resource-rich valley is crawling with tawnies, the native dirt-colored predators. Huge things that hunt in packs and kill as well with tooth and claw as Marc ever has with Mat.

The rules change when a tawny uses an unexpected weapon: pheromones.

Commander Hamm Orsonna, leader of the fefa clan, is determined to chase off the invading aliens. The one he sets out to capture for intel is scrawny and hairless, not very intimidating—until it takes out his entire squad. Seasoned warriors, felled from halfway down the valley by its metal death stick.

Their sacrifice may be worth it, though. The alien male smells like he’s interested in making things right. He smells of other things too, but nobody else seems to notice. Before long, Hamm finds himself fighting off his own kind to defend the alien, who might be his people’s only hope for peace, and Hamm’s only chance for happiness.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: L.A. Witt - Finding Master Right

Finding Master Right by L.A. Witt
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (June 15, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: Finding Master Right

Chase has just arrived at a much anticipated leather convention, and he’s about to lose his mind. Not only is his ex attending, but Chase is also rooming with Derek, a submissive he’s been dying to top. Although Derek is in search of a Dom, he made it painfully clear when the two of them hooked up for a very hot—but very vanilla—night just before the convention that he wasn’t interested in submitting to Chase.

Derek isn’t stupid. No matter how desperate he is to submit to Chase, he wants no part of a rebound relationship. As long as Chase is still pining after the sub who broke his heart a few months ago, Derek’s keeping him at arm’s length. Besides, there’s another Dom at this convention, the gorgeous Master Raul, who Derek is determined to attract.

But when Chase and Derek are confronted with all their kinks, from ropes to leather, bondage to flogging—not to mention each other—they can only ignore their mutual attraction for so long.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: L.A. Witt - Meet Me In The Middle

Meet Me in the Middle by L.A. Witt
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (August 20, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: Meet Me in the Middle

Fool me three times…

Dale Ramsey is looking forward to his twenty-year high school reunion except for one small problem. Adam O’Connor, his old friend—and old flame.

Twice before, Adam has disappeared from Dale’s life. Once after a graduation night fling, and again after a hot reunion years later. When Adam resurfaces this time, single and on the verge of retiring from the Navy, Dale wonders if he’ll want to mend fences…and maybe tear up some sheets.

The spark between them is alive and well, but Dale resists. After all, Adam only seems to come around when his life is in flux, and Dale is through being a placeholder until something better comes along. He wants his friend back, but not if he’ll be deserted a third time.

Inevitably, though, their attempts to rekindle their friendship wind up igniting something much hotter, and stirring up emotions too strong to ignore. Making Dale wonder if he should put his heart on the line…or if this time he should be the one to walk away.

Warning: Let’s face it, Dale’s been sitting quietly (well, kind of) on the sidelines since The Distance Between Us, and he waited patiently through The Closer You Get. Dude is seriously ready for some scorching-hot action, so keep a fire extinguisher and some ice handy. These boys are gonna need it…

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Catherine Ryan Hyde - Where We Belong

Where We Belong by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (June 26, 2013)
Language English
ISBN-10 1490536388
ISBN-13 978-1490536385
Amazon: Where We Belong

"Hyde is a remarkable, insightful storyteller, creating full-bodied characters whose dialogue rings true, with not a word to spare." -Library Journal

Fourteen-year-old Angie and her mom are poised at the edge of homelessness... again. The problem is her little sister, Sophie. Sophie has an autism-like disorder, and a tendency to shriek. No matter where they live, home never seems to last long.

Until they move in with Aunt Vi, across the fence from a huge black Great Dane who changes everything. Sophie falls in love immediately, and begins to imitate the "inside of the dog," which, fortunately, is a calm place. The shrieking stops. Everybody begins to breathe again. Until Paul Inverness, the dog's grumpy, socially isolated owner, moves to the mountains, and it all begins again.

Much to Angie's humiliation, when they're thrown out of Aunt Vi's house, Angie's mom moves the family to the mountains after Paul and his dog. There, despite a fifty-year difference in their ages, Angie and Paul form a deep friendship, the only close friendship either has known. Angie is able to talk to him about growing up gay, and Paul trusts Angie with his greatest secret, his one dream. When the opportunity arrives, Angie decides to risk everything to help Paul's dream come true, even their friendship and her one chance at a real home--the only thing she's dreamed of since her father was killed. A place she can never be thrown out. A place she can feel she belongs.

By the bestselling author of DON'T LET ME GO, WHEN I FOUND YOU, and WALK ME HOME, WHERE WE BELONG is a poignant, heartfelt, and uplifting story about finding your place in the world, no matter how impossible it seems.

"Hyde has a sure touch with affairs of the heart." -Publishers Weekly

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Layce Gardner - A Perfect Romance

A Perfect Romance by Layce Gardner
Publisher Bella Books (May 21, 2013)
Language English
ISBN-10 159493343X
ISBN-13 978-1594933431
Amazon: A Perfect Romance
Amazon Kindle: A Perfect Romance

Love at first sight. How perfectly romantic!

When Dana meets Ellen she’s not entirely honest because she doesn’t want to look foolish. If she explained that she’s wingman to her BFF Trudy, who is trying to pick up men at an AA meeting, then Ellen would quite reasonably want to back away, slowly.

The only way to see Ellen again is to keep going to the meetings and try really hard not to dig herself a deeper hole. But on the day Dana was born the good Lord was handing out shovels and whichever idiot said the course of true love was easy, well, they flat-out lied.

If love wasn’t funny there’d be no way we’d survive it. Join Goldie winner Layce Gardner for A Perfect Romance.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Kiki Archer - Binding Devotion

Binding Devotion by Kiki Archer
Publisher lulu.com (March 9, 2013)
Language English
ISBN-10 1291338675
ISBN-13 978-1291338676
Amazon: Binding Devotion
Amazon Kindle: Binding Devotion

“What’s more important … the bond of marriage or the pull of desire?”

“But what’s more powerful?”

Andi Armstrong is the 29-year-old CEO of the UK’s largest LGBT campaigning organisation, Proud Unity. She’s a public figure, an empowering speaker, a devoted boss and a loyal wife. Or so she thought.

Having spent the past seven years fighting for the marriage rights of same-sex couples, she can’t imagine that her own civil partnership might actually be failing. She committed for life. She’s bound by law. She’s an example of how it works … Andi Armstrong knows that she has to make it work. She wants it to work.

But what happens when desire takes over ... when the pull is too strong? Should Andi sacrifice everything, her beliefs and her loyalty … for desire, for excitement, for happiness ... for love?

For someone who isn’t her wife?

“Binding Devotion” is a saucy and topical lesbian fiction novel that will leave you questioning the intricacies of commitment in the face of unexpected infidelity.

Best Gay Historical: Purgatory by Jeff Mann

Purgatory was the dark horse of last year Rainbow Awards, winning in a competitive category like the Historical Fiction, competitive since it draws the best pieces of fiction out there. Dark horse because, sincerely, not many had heard about this book, or at least not in the “usual” circles. I read something by Mann, mostly short stories in collective anthologies, and I have always found his pieces to be lovely, because he manages to deliver hot and sexy with classy, even the more dirty situation, presented with his lyrical style, become poems.

Jeff Mann is also a poet, or maybe he is mainly a poet borrowed to fiction; he is also a bear, something that you often found reflected in his own characters. He also writes of places he knows, or times he researched, and Purgatory is a summa of both. It’s not an easy novel, it’s about torture, and a time that was not pretty; I was also scared to read this novel because I like my happily ever after, and I was fearing there was no chance for these two to have one. But I think that, deep down, or maybe not even so deep, Mann is a romantic man (pun intended and citation of Mann’s poetry book, A Romantic Mann), and so, even if he was writing of torture, and pain, there was his lyrical language alleviating the whole, and the feeling that he loved his characters and wanted for them to have that impossible chance.

For what I can tell, not being an expert of the Civil War, this is also a wonderful piece of historical fiction, the time and the custom, the men at war and the places they visit, are beautifully rendered; sure it’s hard to think that war prisoners maybe went through what Drew did, I hope that is where the literary freedom enters the picture, but again, as I said, I’m not an expert of that period and maybe that was even possible in reality, unfortunately it’s not the first time I read of tortures inflicted in war time that rival with the worst medieval Inquisition.

There is romance, historical fiction, erotica and BDSM, all wrapped up with a writing style that is a pure form of poetry. Purgatory by Jeff Mann is destined to become a classic of the Gay literature.

http://lethepressbooks.com/gaybear.htm#mann-purgatory

Amazon: Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War
Amazon Kindle: Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War
Publisher Bear Bones Books (March 5, 2012)
Language English
ISBN-10 1590213750
ISBN-13 978-1590213759



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