A Summer Place by Ariel Tachna

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Can I confess you something? When I was young I saw and re-saw the television fiction inspired by the journal of Laura Ingalls Wilder, about a family leaving in a farm near a little town. The period was the end of the nineteen century and every day I saw a tale of good feeling and love.

All right, reading A Summer Place by Ariel Tachna I have had the feeling to see another episode in the fiction. She has a way to decipte the little community that reminds me the characters I have loved. The town sheriff, the widow, the bank's clerk, the owner of the store department... Only the town doctor is not of the crew to complete the cast!

Philip is the 27 years old blacksmith of the town. He is homosexual. Not that he has claimed it loudly, but his last lover has dumped him in front of all the city to being murder some day after in a way only a homosexual could be. And now the town sheriff, and old friend of Philip, thinks he could be the next victim and ask Nicolas, an outlander who comes every summer to the island to overseeing the building of huge cottage for rich people, to hire Philip and takes him far away from the town.

Nicolas agrees, even if he has some doubts: also him is homosexual, and has always hidden his sexual preferences during his summer work in the island. But being this near to the handsome blacksmith could be a problem, moreover when other victims are found and the two, Nicolas and Philip, are forced to live in the same house.

I don't know about the strictly correctness of the setting, I only know that the feeling that has left me this novel is of a "thought" novel: it's not only a way to let us read of two men making sex. Really it could be a contemporary novel as a historical one, but I have liked the little glimpse Ariel Tachna has given us to this little community.

Both Nicolas and Philip are strong characters, maybe Nicolas a little to dominant than Philip, but I think it's a right characteritation: a blackmith and a builder cannot be two magnolies... 

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/currenttitles/summerplace/summerplacebuynow.htm

Amazon Kindle: A Summer Place

Amazon: A Summer Place

Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

It's pretty good, and quite long (247 in pdf format). I'm not use to long novel when I read an ebook, I read it before sleeping and always want to finish the story. But sometime, if the book hooks me, I manage to read also a 250 pages book in a night. I think you could like another book very long I read (750 pages): it's A Red Tainted Silence by Carolyn Gray. It's available only as ebook and you will find my review under the tag "Carolyn Gray". elisa

[maxfromathens.livejournal.com]

I think this one haven't many(or any) sex scenes. I got tired with them. Recently I read a gay erotica anthology for the first time. The stories should be fiction. Unlikely. But as far as they are fiction, authors have more choices on setting etc, so write well please!
I'm a bit frustrated with it.

Maximilian

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Mmm, no, neither in A Summer Place or in A Red Tainted Silence the sex is out. You will find it, and plenty of it. Maybe it's better mixed with the story and it's not only the scope. But if you have no problem with a fantasy genre and want to read about a story where the details and setting are more important than the sex aspect, you have to read The Scarlet and The White Wolf series by Kirby Crow, Torquere Press. It's a three books series and

SPOILER

at the end of the first book they kiss
at the end of the second book they make love
during the third book tey barely exchange some touches

but there is plenty of description and the setting is very epic (a medieval fantasy world) and I have no feel the lack of sex, I have feel a sexual tension for all the books.

elisa