Another Winner from Josephine Myles

I was talking to a friend this week who was saying that she read the review of a gay romance novel she was interested in getting.  Since I thought of Janene almost constantly while I was reading Stuff by Josephine Myles, I thought she was talking about it.

But, no, that wasn't the book Janene meant since my review hadn't been posted at All About Romance yet.  Here's an excerpt from my review that was posted today.  (Janene, I'm telling you you'll love this book!)

Stuff, The second Bristol Collection novel after Junk, celebrates the artfully quirky as an ultra-outgoing optimistic British commoner and an upper-class recluse find love over an odd collection of stuff.

When Tobias “Mas” Maslin ducks into Perry Cavendish-Fiennes' Cabbages and Kinks hodgepodge emporium in order to elude a another store's security guard bent on capturing him, Mas is immediately struck by the racks of vintage clothes and other intriguing artifacts.

Perry, who has inherited the store from an aunt and must keep it open for a year in order to get his inheritance, has a more proprietary air about his inventory; for example, he shuns price tags because they mar the items.

The jobless Mas strikes a deal with Perry: If he can organize the shop and make a profit on the stuff for sale, he can have room, board, and a share of the profit. Reluctantly Perry agrees, mostly because Perry would rather spend time creating his art than running the shop.

Each man in his own way is delightfully fanciful. Mas is the irrepressibly out-and-proud gay man who luxuriates in his joie de vivre. He loves sex and sexual innuendo, irrepressibly tossing suggestive bon mots into his conversation like so much confetti.

The much more conservative-looking Perry sparkles through his metal sculptures - strange, often mechanical, animals and hanging fairies. His assemblages are part steampunk and part Day of the Dead, using skulls and vintage metal bits and pieces as fodder for their exoskeletons.

At first Perry is suspicious of the sprightly, boastful Mas, but soon learns that while Mas is a British P. T. Barnum, he's also a hard, determined worker. Soon the slender, shorter Mas has organized the bits and pieces in Perry's shop and is planning an open house event to announce the new, improved Cabbages and Kinks to Bristol.

Read the rest of the review at All About Romance.