Category: Wilde City Press

A Sammy Review: Thunder Snow by Owen Keehnen

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

ThunderSnow_100dpi_cvrJim Franklin lives a life in the closet. With no real connections, he seems to drift as the wind blows him. Where he ends up this time is at Windsor college. He’s got a girlfriend and friends, and while life may not be all butterflies and roses, it’s good enough.

A romantic literature class places Jim and Glenn Martin in each others paths. Glenn is a live-in boyfriend of a rich man. He came from nothing, and now he’ll do anything to hold on to what he’s got.

Snowy nights and alcohol bring them together, but could they also drive them apart?

For the longest time I had trouble distinguishing between a showing narrative and telling one, but this story is the perfect example of full-fledged telling.  Actual dialogue is rare and discussions are often summarized. To make matters worse, there’s no clear point of view, and the story lacks heart.

Within the first few pages I was bored. I didn’t get to know any of the characters, they were all just kind of there. In the end, I didn’t really care what happened to them, but that didn’t stop me from being taken aback with the final chapters. Could the way this ended be more realistic? Absolutely – but the fact is that, like everything else, it was glossed over so easily and without much thought, that it had no effect other than to irritate me.

There was a point in the story where I felt like I was reading the script of a bad soap opera, and I’m sad to say that that’s the impression this book left on me.

So why two stars? Well, there’s a few reasons. The cover art by Wilde City Press is great. It fits the story and was what lured me into reading it in the first place. Secondly, the author must’ve put some effort into the story, even if it didn’t connect with me. And finally, I truly believe that the author has potential. There were some words put together that were lovely, and if you read the bio, it sounds like maybe this author is better placed in a different type of writing – something that isn’t gay fiction for the current M/M fan base. Still, I thank the author for writing the story, and applaud their effort.

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Cover artist:  Wilde City Press.  Just lovely, see comments above.

Sales Links:  Wilde City Press      ARe         amazon             Thunder Snow

Book Details:

Published by Wilde City Press

Release date: 29 October 2014
ISBN: 978-1-925180-58-9
Category: Gay Romance, Erotic, Romantic
Number of words: 15,000
Formats available: ebook only

A Visit with Author Owen Keehnen (giveaway)

Dog trainer coverThunder Snow coverYoung Digby Swank cover

Springtime 1962 cover

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Owen Keehnen has stopped by today to talk about his year of writing, M/M Romance, and much, much more. Owen will be giving away one of the 4 m/m romances e book – The Dog Trainer, Springtime 1962, Thunder Snow, and December 1903, the winner’s choice.  To enter to win, leave a comment along with an email address where you can be reached if chosen.  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

A Year of M/M Romance  By Owen Keehnen

One of my favorite things about being a writer is the creative adventure that it can be. Almost a year ago I ventured into the M/M romance world after having paired with a new publisher, Wilde City Press. Prior to this I had published a number of things – several books on LGBT history, a horror novel, a gay art novel, a book of LGBT interviews, and even a four volume set of interviews with gay porn stars.

When I first began working with Wilde City, I did a humorous gay coming of age novel called Young Digby Swank and followed it with The LGBT Book of Days, a comprehensive guide to the most important dates in LGBT history. On the heels of those two I wrote three hardcore erotic e-books under the name of Ewan Creed. In other words, my oeuvre was all over the place.

Around that time I decided to try my hand at writing M/M romance. When I asked for some pointers I was told about the importance of the partners winning the affections of their beloved and warned to avoid all signs of infidelity. I was also told the sex could be as raunchy as I wanted. I liked that last suggestion. With that advice in mind I hit the ground running.

I was also hopeful that this world of M/M romances would be a new means to implement one of my key interests – the reclaiming of our LGBT past. Maybe it was living through the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic that made me so keenly aware of the fragile nature of personal history, or maybe it was knowing that the lives of LGBT people had been edited from the annals of history. Whatever the reason a creative and personal theme of mine has been a desire to celebrate and reclaim a bit of our gay history. To that end I’d already written several bios on LGBT history and had also been a board member and was actively involved with The Legacy Project, a history-education-arts organization focused on pride, acceptance, and the recognition of LGBT lives and contributions throughout history. The possibilities of pairing history with M/M romance were endless.

Before I started incorporating an history into this new genre, I decided that I needed to understand the terrain of M/M romance a bit better. I lost my M/M virginity with an ebook called The Dog Trainer. Who doesn’t love a good dog story? Especially one that involves M/M romance. Richard, my protagonist, was a character I understood. Richard is a neurotic gay urbanite, a serial monogamist with a domineering peer group and a well-paying dead end job. When Richard finds a puppy named Hambone, his life and relationships begin to change and his priorities make a notable shift. Even bigger things happen when he meets and hires a dog trainer named Abe who teaches both Richard and Hambone a few new tricks. This one is a feel good story, relatively simple and very sweet, with some feel good sex thrown in for good measure.

With my next effort, Springtime 1962, I began to inject history into my M/M work. This ebook is set in the landmark of pre-Stonewall gay activity, The Lawson YMCA. I’d wanted to write a history about the gay doings at the Lawson for years, but stumbled along the way. So much of the underground history of the place was undocumented and so many potentially illuminating first hand accounts of life in those hallowed halls have vanished due to age and HIV. Instead, I opted to populate the Lawson with fictional characters and turn history into an M/M romance.

The premise of Springtime 1962 is relatively simple. A diary is found in a used bookstore and the present-day narrator quickly finds himself drawn into the intimate 1962 diary of a man named Joseph. The daily entries soon reveal a passionate gay love story of two retail workers in Chicago during the Kennedy years. Joseph is a middle aged department store employee. One day a young man named Clint is hired at the store. The men soon realize they are both living at the Lawson. They began spending time together, going to movies, exercising in the weight room, taking lunches together at work, etc. Love blossoms despite their age difference. In time Joseph discovers that Clint’s harbors a grave secret which will eventually threaten their relationship as well as their futures. This one screams for a sequel. I’m currently working on the further adventures of Joseph and Clint in Summertime 1962. The diary format offers a great opportunity to capture the lives and struggles of gay men at the time from bar raids to hook ups and even popular culture iconography.

My next M/M e-story was Thunder Snow, a homage to early 1980s academia, something else I had wanted to write about for some time. Romance was again my framework to explore the struggles and circumstances man gay men faced during this pre HIV period of time when Stonewall had already occurred, but the benefits of the gay liberation movement had not yet spread much beyond the major metropolitan areas.

Thunder Snow is the story of Jim Franklin who goes away to Windsor College hoping to leave his formerly closeted gay doings behind. He’s had enough of being an outsider and wants nothing more than to be like everyone else. To that end Jim has joined a fraternity and is dating a girl. Then, without warning, love blindsides Jim when he meets Glenn in his Romantic Literature class. Glenn is the kept lover of a wealthy town resident. When Jim asks for assistance with an assignment, Glenn agrees. Sparks soon ignite and passion ensues, but social constraints and Jim’s fear of being true to his nature prevent any sort of relationship from developing. Things change magically over winter break and what begins as another tryst quickly develops into something more. Both men fall madly in love. But is love, in the otherworldly setting of a college campus during break, enough to sustain the couple in the long run? In Thunder Snow I really wanted to capture the magical early stages of love and explore what happens when that idealism comes into contact with everyday reality, and eventually how we process that sort of conflict in our personal histories.

For my next M/M romance, I focussed on a specific historical event as a backdrop to the story. December 1903, the Iroquois, a Love Story is set in Chicago during the 1903 holiday season. The Iroquois Theater fire was a topic I’d obsessed about and wanted to explore for a long time. I was hoping to make the tragic story of the theater fire which killed hundreds history more vivid by planting two of my characters in proximity to the disaster.

December 1903 is the tale of two men from different worlds. Frankie is an actor working in the current Iroquois Theater production Mr. Bluebeard. One day Frankie makes knowing eye contact with a handsome and dapper stranger on the street. In only a few moments Frankie and “Otto” head off to Frankie’s boarding house. Though Frankie knows nothing about Otto’s life outside of the room, the two meet again the next night, and the next. As the winter wind howls outside the boardinghouse window, the couple make plans to run away and start a new life elsewhere. Frankie buys Otto a ticket to the the show and the men agree to meet behind the theater after the matinee to begin their life together. During that afternoon’s performance tragedy strikes and the deadly inferno consumes the theatre. With this ebook I really wanted to go epic and tell a very passionate story about these two men and evoke not only the era but also bring the devastating facts of this horrible and all but forgotten tragedy to light.

My soon to be published ebook, The Matinee Idol, is another historical venture. Set in 1933, The Matinee Idol is an M/M romance which takes place in Hollywood during the Depression. Raymond Richmond was a popular actor during the silent era of films and his popularity extended briefly into talkies. However, his sexual indiscretions and drunkenness soon get him fired from the studio. His drinking continues to escalate as his career sinks. Bad investments and spend thrift ways soon cause Raymond to find himself penniless. To make ends meet, he begins working as a hustler for a madame. One night Raymond is hired as a birthday present to set designer Carlton Finn who worked with Raymond back in his heyday at the studio. The two bond. Finn has always had a soft spot for the star and his heart goes out to the down and out man. Soon the two become lovers. In the following weeks, Raymond stops hustling and works at getting sober and getting his career back on track. As a big movie fan, especially from the golden era, I had a blast recreating Hollywood during that mythical time. On a deeper level it was also interesting to explore the ramifications of stardom and what a person is willing to endure and compromise for the sake of their image.

I’ve been on this M/M romance trip now for a year now and understand only some of the things I want to say about relationships and love. Every story seems to reveal something new about love and relationships that I hadn’t really considered or explored before. The entire process is an evolution. In that way, those original guidelines were helpful, but it has become increasingly apparent to me that I need to write the story that is inside me and often the story’s narrative strays from the prescribed guidelines. The sex can be a bit raunchier than the norm and often my characters are not 20 year olds with chiseled physiques and perfect features. In fact, sometimes my characters are middle aged and paunchy. I’ve even done the unspeakable and had characters who are not strictly monogamous.

At first bending these rules caused some concern, but then I remembered that my primary focus should not be worrying how my story is going to be received. To write a decent story my primarily responsibility must be to my characters and allowing them to reveal some truth about romance, love, and sex between two men. Adhering to that means that sometimes my romances don’t have happy endings, but love isn’t always nice and love isn’t always easy. Sometimes love is riddled with complications and even regret. The only given about love is that, if we’re lucky enough to find it, for however long we have it, that there is nothing on this earth that makes us feel more wonderfully and magically alive. And as a writer of M/M romance my priority needs to be on capturing and reflecting that incredible state in all its many forms and stages.

Meet Author Owen KeehnenOwen3

Bio:

Owen Keehnen is the author of the novels Young Digby Swank, The Sand Bar, Doorway Unto Darkness, and the ebook M/M romances, The Dog Trainer, Springtime 1962, The Lawson YMCA, Thunder Snow, December 1903, The Iroquois, a Love Story, and the upcoming The Matinee Idol. Along with Tracy Baim he has co-authored three LGBT biographies – Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow, Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria, and Vernita Gray: From Woodstock to The White House. Keehnen also authored The LGBT Book of Days, a comprehensive guide to key dates in LGBT history. Over 100 of his interviews with various LGBT authors and activists from the 1990s have been collected in the book We’re Here, We’re Queer. He co-edited Nothing Personal: Chronicles of Chicago’s LGBTQ Community 1977–1997, was a contributor to Gay Press, Gay Power, and wrote the foreword and helped edit Mark Abramson’s memoir For My Brothers. Keehnen also contributed several biographical essays to the coffee table history book Out and Proud in Chicago.

Keehnen was on the founding committee and executive board of The Legacy Project and is currently a contributing biographer for the LGBT history-education-arts program focused on pride, acceptance, and bringing proper recognition to contributions of LGBT people throughout history. His essays, short stories, poetry and erotica have appeared in dozens of periodicals and anthologies worldwide. He was the author of the Starz books, a four-volume series of interviews with gay porn stars. He has had two queer monologues adapted for the stage and served as co-editor of the Windy City Times Pride Literary Supplement for several years, and was a co-founder of the horror film website RacksAndRazors.com. He lives in Chicago with his partner, Carl, and his two ridiculously spoiled dogs, Flannery and Fitzgerald. He was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2012.

-Author Contacts-

You can contact Owen Keehnen at:

On Tour with J.K. Hogan and Love and the Real Boy! (contest/author interview)

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Scattered Thoughts is happy to welcome J. K. Hogan here today to talk about her Coming About series and the latest story, Love and the Real Boy.  Along with an interview and except, there is a contest to enter as well.  Now lets get started…

STRW• I really enjoyed I Survived Seattle.  Love and the Real Boy is focused on a divisive character from the first story.  Did you always plan on his redemption being part of this series?

JK:  No, when I first created Rich, I didn’t expect that he would be anything other than an over-the-top antagonist. As I moving towards the end of I Survived Seattle, I started wondering what would cause him to act the way he did—and then he started speaking to me. I knew at that point his redemption would have to be a part of it, because no one would be able to get behind him as the hero in his own story if it wasn’t.

STRW• What is it about wounded characters that make them so appealing?

JK:  That’s a good question. Maybe the idea that someone who’s been kicked around by life, either physically or emotionally, can go on to have a fabulous HEA gives us all hope that it’s never too late or too hard to find our own.

STRW• Boats, sailboats especially, play a large part in this series.  Is that a major love of yours?

JK:  Yes and no. I grew up on a large lake (we always lived on the waterfront) and we were constantly going back and forth to the coast. My dad being a recreational fisherman, we always had motor boats. I learned how to drive a boat when I was just a little kid, and boats have always been as much a part of my life as cars. I’m very at home on the water.

Sailing on the other hand has always been a dream of mine. My family wasn’t really into sailing, although I saw it happening around me a lot living on the lake. The closest I ever got was tagging a ride on my parents’ windsurfer. I’ve been sailing several times, but just as a passenger. I’d really love to have my own sailboat someday.

STRW• Where did the inspiration come from for this series and its location?

JK:  Last year, right after Washington legalized gay marriage, we took a trip to Seattle to attend our friends’ wedding. We had so much fun and all kinds of crazy things happened. Most who know me know I struggle with severe anxiety, and one of my triggers is travel. I decided to explore that in I Survived Seattle, hence the title (I actually said those words to my friend Cardeno C. when I got back, and CC said it sounded like a great book title!). There were too many interesting characters to just stop at one book, so I just kept going!

STRW• Do you know how many books you have planned for this series or it is one that will develop along the way?

JK:  I have at least one more planned for sure, but who knows? Once I write that one, I might get inspiration for more!

STRW• Most favorite childhood story whose impact has stayed with you to this day?

JK:  Oh gosh, this is a hard one because I have an absurdly good memory when it comes to the past—though sometimes I can’t remember what I did yesterday. I guess in this context would say I remember playing with my dolls (probably way longer than I should’ve) by myself. I was perfectly happy sitting there for hours by myself, because I was simply using them as tools to create stories. I would write down what I now know as outlines for plots, character lists, and titles, and proceed to construct an elaborate tale until the whole thing crashed and burned because I ‘wrote’ myself into a corner. It wasn’t until I figured out how to get out of those corners that I was able to turn stories into books.

STRW• If you could live aboard a boat, what type of boat would it be?

JK:  Hmm, live? I’m all about the creature comforts, so I’d say either a houseboat, or a giant fancy motor-yacht like Nic has in I Survived Seattle.

STRW• Most romantic place to sail to.

JK:  Hubby and I took a sailing excursion in St. Thomas on a tiny 6-man sailboat. We tooled around the bay and then went snorkeling. It was pretty darn romantic. 😉

STRW• What is next for J. K. Hogan?

JK:  Well of course I’m working on book 3 in the Coming About series. I won’t say much about that one yet except we’ll get to see all our old friends from the first two books again in some capacity.

I’m also working on something a little different for me: it’s sort of an m/m romantic suspense crime thriller with a light paranormal element. I know it’s kind of a weird concept, there being varying degrees of paranormal, but since there are certain paranormal things that are commonly believed to exist in our real-life society—like psychics, ghosts, and such—it makes sense to me. So this story could probably be enjoyed by those who wouldn’t normally read paranormal. Keep an eye on my website http://www.jkhogan.com for more news.

 Thanks, JK, for the wonderful interview!  Now check out the book, blurb and excerpt below.  And don’t forget to enter the contest! Happy Reading.

Book Name: Love and the Real Boy (Coming About, Book 2)
Sequel to I Survived Seattle (Coming About, Book 1)
Publisher:  Wilde City PressHogan600x600Banner

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22756605-love-and-the-real-boy

Author Name: J.K. Hogan

Author Bio:

J.K. Hogan has been telling stories for as long as she can remember, beginning with writing cast lists and storylines for her toys growing up. When she finally decided to put pen to paper, magic happened. She is greatly inspired by all kinds of music and often creates a “soundtrack” for her stories as she writes them. J.K. is hoping to one day have a little something for everyone, so she’s branched out from m/f paranormal romance and added m/m contemporary romance. Who knows what’s next?

J.K. resides in North Carolina, where she was born and raised. A true southern girl at heart, she lives in the country with her husband and young son, a cat, and two champion agility dogs. If she isn’t on the agility field, J.K. can often be found chasing waterfalls in the mountains with her husband, or down in front at a blues concert. In addition to writing, she enjoys training and competing in dog sports, spending time with her large southern family, camping, boating and, of course, reading! For more information, please visit http://www.jkhogan.com.

Author Contact:

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJKHogan, https://twitter.com/JK_Hogan, http://www.pinterest.com/jkhoganbooks/, http://officialjkhogan.tumblr.com/

LATRB_JKHogan_CoverTitle:  Love and the Real Boy by J.K. Hogan
Publisher: Wilde City Press
Cover Artist: JK Hogan (KHDGraphics.com)

Sales Links:   Wilde City Press     Amazon

 

 Love and the Real Boy Blurb:

How­­ much heartache can one man take before he breaks? Rich Langston asks himself that question every day.

A Seattle advertising exec who uses his designer suit and showy car like a suit of armor, Rich refuses to let the world get to him. His traumatic childhood has ruined any faith he had in people, friendship, and love. After a meltdown that led to him alienating everyone in his life, Rich agrees to help with the restoration of an antique sailboat as a form of penance.

Roped into heading up with the boat repair by his mother, marine restorer Patrick O’Dowd finds himself having to babysit a moody, spoiled rich boy with absolutely no carpentry experience. His easy-going nature is sorely tested, but he quickly realizes that things are not always what they seem; sometimes a fancy suit is nothing but an elaborate deflection from what’s real.

Through unavoidable personality clashes and fierce attraction, both Rich and Patrick explore their hidden pain and inner demons, and they end up finding with what really matters—love.

 Love and the Real Boy Excerpt:

Rich forced himself to relax. Why shouldn’t he give his brain a little mini-vacay? He was of a stressful nature—he had to constantly stress over work, over making enough money to keep himself in suits and expensive toys to remind himself he wasn’t homeless anymore, that he wasn’t going to end up like his mother. He stressed over the wrong people finding out he was gay, while stressing that he might just go mad from lack of companionship—and that was just the tip of the crazy-berg.
Underneath it all sat his pent-up grief, anger, and guilt from his stolen childhood, cowering like a beast in the dark, a sleeping monster. That was Rich’s biggest, most constant fear—that one day he would no longer be able to contain it. What would happen then? Would he lose his mind?
So all things considered, why shouldn’t he just let it go for one night? What was wrong with letting a big, burly Irishman take him in hand—heh—and drive the boat for a while.

Categories per the author: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance

HoganBadgeTour Dates/Stops:

9/17: Havan Fellows
9/18: Iyana Jenna, Cathy Brockman Romances
9/19: Amanda C. Stone
9/22: Andrew Q. Gordon, Elisa – My Reviews and Ramblings
9/23: Prism Book Alliance,
9/24: Butterfly-O-Meter
9/25: Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
9/26: Parker Williams
9/29: Cathy Brockman Romances, Nic Starr
9/30: My Fiction Nook
10/1: Romance the Night
10/2: Jade Crystal
10/3: The Hat Party
10/6: Because Two Men Are Better Than One, Regular Guys, Hot Romance
10/7: Love Bytes, Carly’s Book Reviews
10/8: Velvet Panic
10/9: Foxylutely Book Reviews
10/10: Multitasking Mommas
10/13: Queer Town Abbey
10/14: MM Good Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Rants, and Raves

Contest: Rafflecopter Prize: E-copy of ‘Love and the Real Boy’. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter. Use the link provided for the entry form and for additional contest details.

Rafflecopter Code: a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Review: My Favorite Uncle by Marshall Thornton

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

My Favorite UncleMartin Dixon lives a life of quietude and certainty.  Having reached the age of almost 50, Martin has his job and his friend Ricky, his condo, a failed love affair in his past which continues to torment him (as he often tells others), and not much else.  But he is content or at least he thinks he is.  Martin has not kept in touch with his family since his coming out, so no one is more surprised than him when his 18 year old nephew, Carter, shows up unannounced on his doorstep.  Carter is hungry, dirty, and in need of a place to stay and Carter intends that place to be with his Uncle Martin.

Martin doesn’t know what to do.  He hasn’t seen his nephew since he was in the single digits and he has never been all that fond of kids, no matter whose they are. Then Martin finds out that his brother turned ultra Christian conservative and when Carter was discovered with another boy, Carter’s parents turned him over to a mental hospital hoping to “cure” Carter of his “gayness”.  With that fact in his possession and his gay nephew eating in his kitchen, Martin knows he  can’t turn Carter away.  But what is he to do with Carter, someone who has always been home schooled and kept away from society at large?

And the situation is further complicated because both uncle and nephew irritate the heck out of each other.  But they are more alike than they know when each decides the way to the other’s heart is to provide them with a boyfriend and romance.  Can things get more complicated?  Why yes, they certainly can!

How I wish I liked this book half as much as I love its cover.  By all accounts, I should adore My Favorite Uncle.  The premise is priceless…almost a guaranteed shoo in to my affections.  The writing by Marshall Thornton?  Wonderful.  He has a way of writing snark that will have you smiling, the narrative flows with a rhythm that works with dry comedy and that cover?  Hell to the yes, I am almost singing the Brady Bunch song just looking at it.  So why the long face, girl, as they say?  Well…that would be the characters who I like about as much as they like each other.  And that’s not a lot.

Basically Martin is an old codger at 50 (almost).  His life is as dry as a Texas gulch in summer.  He works on close captioning for a profession at home, he has a friend with whom he goes about a limited schedule of things he wants to do and places he wants to go.  He’s intelligent and semi happy with his life.  And when his nephew pops up unannounced at his door, expecting sanctuary, or at least a shoulder to cry on and a place to live, Martin is profoundly unhappy.  That’s not the problem.  Who would be thrilled under those circumstances?  That’s a typical human reaction to a stranger, albeit a relative, arriving needing help. Thornton even has Martin aware that his reaction to his nephew is as small hearted and cold as it appears  to  Carter and the readers.  But this reaction continues throughout most of the story, and while I was waiting for Martin to warm up to Carter, I was equally aware that I was unable to warm up to Martin.  I could understand his reactions and predicament. Martin didn’t want his orderly life upset.  Got it.  I just couldn’t find it in myself to like Martin who continued more out of guilt than  a sense of compassion.

Carter too is a special case as far as a character goes. He’s a naif who finds himself in a sort of gay Disneyland or in this case Long Beach.  Want sex because everyone knows gay men have sex like a gazillion times a year?  Get told to stand outside a gay bar at closing time and take your pick and do it!  Carter’s assumptions about what it means to be gay are both hilarious and sad.  I  really liked Carter. His unformed personality actually made sense.  Thornton kept that persona true to a teenager isolated in a conservative Christian household (or any ultra religious household, doesn’t matter what religion) where any connection to society and modern cultural milestones is kept at a minimum.   His family’s reaction to finding out Carter is gay?   Send him off to a mental hospital to be “de gayed”.  How true and horrific that this continues to be legal.  But that’s another issue for me here.  What happened to Carter is undercut by the manner in which it is brought up and brushed off for most of the story.  Only towards the end does that segment of Carter’s life get the appropriate attention. And by then its almost too late.  But Carter is that character who won’t be suppressed and he bounces back and right into the reader’s heart.

Is this a light, dry comedy? Realistic family drama?  Bit of both, as it should be. But for that to work in a story it has to flow seamlessly and realistically between the two, incorporating it into the plot as just one more thread amongst  many in a tapestry.  Instead both are highlighted here by the author’s treatment and it feels more jumbled than a realistic messy whole.

I liked the end.  All were family although not friends.  Some things don’t change.  Never did enjoy being in Martin’s company, I had hope for Carter and his furture, and liked his adopted group of friends/family.  Ernesto, his mother, Ricky, and all the rest. That was nice and even familiar.   That’s how I feel about My Favorite Uncle.  It was mostly nice, while parts of it were wonderful, consistently funny and dry.  Other segments are so detached that the reader is kept at arm’s length away from any emotional attachment to the characters and their fate.

If you need to feel intimately connected to characters and their stories, then the almost indifferent air to the narrative here might make My Favorite Uncle not the story for you.  But if you find that fine writing, interesting characters, no matter how detached or impartial you might feel about them, and a terrific premise are all you need, then My Favorite Uncle is right up your Kindle!  I will leave the choice up to you.

Cover art by Wilde City Press.  OK, I love that cover.  Shear perfection!

Buy Links:   Wilde City Press                 Amazon                 My Favorite Uncle

Book Details:

ebook, 220 pages
Published June 25th 2014 by Wilde City Press
ISBN139781925180176
edition languageEnglish
urlhttp://www.wildecity.com/books/gay-mainstream/my-favorite-uncle/#.U61yfLG4O8Q
charactersMartin Dixon, Carter Dixon
settingLong Beach, California (United S

Review: Hero by Heidi Cullinan

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

Hero coverHal Porter left his family and home believing that his large Catholic family would never accept his homosexuality.  In fact, Hal is not even sure he accepts it.  But he thought that a new city, new apartment and job would bring a new perspective.  Instead it brought more questions, long hours as a construction worker and loneliness.

Strange things are happening at the construction site Hal is working on.  There’s a huge empty lot in the middle of the job that all avoid.  A lot on which a strange bar appears and disappears at will.  And at times Hal swears he sees a crystal tower and a balcony on which stands the most beautiful man Hal has ever scene.  Something about that lonely figure calls to Hal like nothing ever has in his life.

When a strange fox like woman approaches Hal from the bar, she has a quest for Hal.  A long enchanted shape shifter needs saving, needs a hero…and Hal is that person chosen to save him.  But can Hal be the hero when all his life he has been told he is nothing special?  And when love approaches in the form of the shape shifter, will Hal be able to accept his homosexuality in time to save them both?

Hero is large in heart while short in length.   I loved so much about this story that I wished it was as large in length as it was in emotions and depth of storyline.  Heidi Cullinan took this “prince in a tower needing to be saved” story and gave it quite a few marvelous and fresh twerks, not the least of which is a prince instead of a princess who needs a hero.

Some of the wonderful surprises Heidi has in store for the reader are things that should be left as elements to wonder at when you come upon them in the course of the tale.  But others, like choosing the kitsune as the shape shifters and Japanese lore as a foundation for those magical beings are both charming and new.  I wish Cullinan had gone a little more in depth into the kitsune legends but what is here is marvelous and intriguing.

And then there is the bar/tower.  Such an amazing idea and construct.  This aspect of Hero almost made the entire story for me.  But the figure of Hal Porter must always remain at the top.  He is such a lovely, gentle man.  A Catholic who is wrestiling with the church’s idea of homosexuality versus his love of men, Hal is a man divided between the mother and family he loves and being true to himself.  Cullinan brings Hal and his internal monologues into sharp focus.  We love Hal for the decent, caring person he is and understand the insecurities and lack of self esteem his upbringing has caused.  Hal Porter is a wonderful character and we are happy to follow in his footsteps towards acceptance, bravery and love.

This book has not yet been released yet  (August 13) by Wilde City Press but when it is, grab it up and start reading.  I think you will be as charmed as I was by Hal Porter, the kitsune prince and the quest for love no matter where you find it.

Cover art by Wilde City Press.  That is an unbelievable cover.  One of the Best of 2014 for me.  And it works perfectly for the story in every way!

Buy Links:         Wilde City Press                  All Romance eBook (ARe)                        Amazon  – links to come

Book Details:

Sequel to MILES AND THE MAGIC FLUTE

Length: 60,000 words
Link: http://www.wildecity.com/books/gay-mainstream/hero/#.U9Mhys3OjFM
Release Date: August 13

ebook, 2nd Edition
Published May 27th 2014 by Wilde City Press (first published December 4th 2009)
original titleHero
edition languageEnglish
urlhttp://www.heidicullinan.com/books/hero