Holiday Tale Is Better than Most

Unwrapping Hank by Eli Easton
Rating: 5 stars

I absolutely hate holiday romances.  I don't know why, really.  I don't hate the holidays.  For some reason, the fact that these books are built around a holiday--be it Easter, Fourth of July, Veteran's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or even birthdays--seem to resonate with a false sense of cheer to me.

I know, I know.  It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

So going into this search for an acceptable holiday book was painful.  All those jolly people who are slinging gift wrap and ringing bells.  I'm the person who thought Scrooge's story was much more poignant than Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim's.  Give me a Scrooge I can love every time.

Fortunately, Eli Easton jumped in my path.  Big, growly, in-the-closet Hank Springfield makes a wonderful holiday hero.  Hank's the sore thumb in his brother Micah's fraternity at Pennsylvania State University.  Hank belies his philosophy major by saying he wants bong parties, loud music, and crowded rooms of drunks after midnight.

Hank hates the frat's token gay, Sloane, even though everyone else in the frat loves him.  When frat president Micah orders Hank to work with Sloane in coming up with the best frat holiday party ever, Hank balks.  But Micah is adamant, and Hank and Sloane reluctantly team up.

When the find they both love murder mysteries, they come up with a workable and popular Who-Killed-Santa theme.  In the process, Sloane crushes on Hank, who isn't quite so sure about Sloane.

After Sloane's academic parents extend him an off-hand invitation to join them in Israel for a wedding over the holiday break, Sloane resigns himself to staying either at school or somewhere close by.

Micah, however, won't hear of this, and invites Sloane to his and Hank's rural Pennsylvania home for the holidays.  Sloane accepts.

Author Easton magically melds a Scrooge tale onto a cheerful holiday story here, and also adds a little bit of suspense to what starts out to be a linear romance between A and B.   Turns out Micah has the hots for Sloane as his brother Hank begins to fall for him.  So A (Sloane) has his choice of B or C (Hank or Micah).  This brings a bit of spice to a holiday story that looks fairly predictable at the beginning.

All in all if a reader wants something a little different in a holiday tale, I wholeheartedly recommend Unwrapping Hank.

Older Men Rock

After reading as many gay romances about young, randy men who have no inhibitions about their sexuality and acting on their sexual impulses, I find it refreshing to get a review book with two mature men who share their attraction in a somewhat restrained way.  This doesn't mean they don't have sex.  It's just that they aren't hopping from hookup to hookup like bunnies.

K. C. Burns' Rainbow Blues is a particularly wonderful example of this.  Here's a bit of my review which went live today at The Romance Reviews:

Love between two mature men who are ready and willing to settle down isn't all fireworks and grand displays, but rather gentle like the purr of a cat. Or so implies K.C. Burn in this thoughtful romance that explores the attraction of two dissimilar, but intriguing men.

 At 43, construction foreman Luke Jordan has been divorced two years, having been a faithful, hard-working, but closeted husband since his wife got pregnant in high school and he felt obligated to marry her. While he's had a few gay flings during his married years, Luke is a pretty laid-back homebody who doesn't make friends easily and doesn't know how to find a companion now that he's free.

 For Christmas, his 24-year-old college senior son Zack gives Luke a membership to Rainbow Blues, a very loose organization of gay blue-collar workers, and urges his dad to go to their events. Luke agrees and goes to a play where he spies romantic lead Jimmy Alexander and is immediately attracted to him. When he shyly meets the 38-year-old amateur actor after the production and takes him out, he learns that Jimmy's day job is high school science teacher.

 Through a series of dates, the even-keeled Luke and high-strung Jimmy realize they love each other and are perfect for one another. Sure, they have bumps in the road--Zack originally fears Jimmy's a gold-digger looking for a sugar daddy and warns his father, for example. But the primary ingredient in this enjoyable romance is the wisdom of maturity.

Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews: http://glbt.theromancereviews.com/viewbooksreview.php?bookid=14362

Emotionally Satisfying and Incredibly Thought-Provoking

I haven't been completely blown away by a romance novel in a while, so reading The River Leith by Leta Blake was a joy.

My review of it was posted today, and here's a sneak peek at my All About Romance Desert Isle Keeper review:

Get out your tissues for this incredibly moving and superbly poignant gay romance that explores the lost and found qualities of memory loss on two men in New York City.

When Leith Wenz is dealt an illegal blow to the head during a boxing match and goes into a coma, his lover, friends, and family are devastated. They rejoice, especially lover Zach, when Leith awakes.

The good news is that he'll live. The bad news is that he's can't remember the last three years of his life - three years in which he got out of prison, his father died, and he met and fell in love with Zach.

In fact, he doesn't remember Zach at all.

Told with interludes of Zach's on-going vlog posts, the story is one of grieving. Leith is horrified that so much of who he is has been stripped away. He's lost and terrified that he'll never find his way back to being a whole person again. Fortunately, he has a loyal brother and a good psychologist to help him along the way.

His lover Zach also wants to be supportive, but Leith's memory loss is akin to Leith's death as far as
Zach is concerned. Every time Zach sees him, Zach is hit by how much he's lost, how much they've lost. So in a sense Zach is also grieving, just as Leith is.

For those like me who don't know, the River Lethe in Greek myth is the place in the underworld where the dead drank the water in order to purge the memories of their lives before they crossed the River Styx into the afterlife. The name Zachariah, on the other hand, translates to mean "memory of the Lord.” But before Leith's doctor tells him of the myth and the definition, Leith must rediscover that he's gay and his friend Zach is in fact his lover since all of these revelations came to Leith in the three-year period he's lost.

Read the rest of my review at All About Romance.

I Want to Eat at Rick Reed's House

Rick R. Reed is a man of many talents as far as writing goes.  Some of his books, like Raining Men for example, are hard-hitting and nearly painful to get through.  Others, like his latest, Dinner at Home, can nearly be compared to cozy mysteries.  Dinner at Home is a cozy gay romance, with its charming protagonist, spunky little girl, and well-meaning former drug addict who's trying desperately to stay clean.

If that isn't enough, Reed includes very tempting description of mouth-watering dishes throughout the story and then gives the recipes for them at the end of the book.  Who knew that a man whose writing seemed to reflect a dark spirit actually was a jovial Italian chef as well?

I noticed on some of the review sites that this book isn't gleaning the five-star reviews Reed's other work has gotten.  I think this is the stun factor.  His writing and this story aren't any less wonderful, but I don't think readers expect this of him and are rating their confusion rather than the quality of his work.

Here's an excerpt from my 5-star review that was posted on The Romance Reviews today:

Readers should be ready to grab their pots and pans and be ready to cook while savoring Rick R. Reed's latest gay romance.

Talk about a bad day. At breakfast, Seattle ad executive Ollie D'Angelo finds his boyfriend has had another lover for six months and now wants Ollie to move out, then when he gets to work, he finds his position has been eliminated.

A perpetually upbeat person and cook at heart, Ollie rallies to decide this is his chance of a lifetime to do something he's always wanted. With his savings, he starts Dinner at Home, a catering service for people who are too busy to cook dinner at night.

As he's unpacking after delivering a meal one evening, down-and-out Hank Mellinger sees Ollie's open car and enters it, bent on stealing something. When the bigger Ollie catches Hank and finds out the man needs money for rent and food for himself and his niece, instead of turning him over to the police, Ollie takes Hank and his niece home with him.

A former crack addict, Hank is now clean and trying desperately to stay that way. His twin sister is in prison on the East Coast and his mother refuses to take responsibility for four-year-old Addison, a swearing, too-old-for-her-age little girl.
Read the rest of the review at The Romance Reviews.