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.

Finding Yourself in Freshman Year

The first year of college is always a year of change for eighteen-year-olds. For Lewis, it's a year of revelation as well in Jay Northcote's Not Just Friends.

Lewis moves from Kent to Bristol where he meets his flatmates, all of them freshmen. One young man in particular catches Lewis' eye. Max is an out-and-proud gay man which intrigues Lewis who has called himself straight rather than buck the tide.

As he hangs out with Max, Lewis begins to feel the latent twinges of homosexuality that he's been repressing since he had a crush on one of his lower form friends. Suddenly Lewis is questioning whether he's gay or not, and coming up with the answer that he is.

Meanwhile, he's hanging out with Max and agrees to be his friend, only to watch the handsome, charismatic Max get a boyfriend who, after a few nights together, dumps Max. Now when Lewis is ready to get serious about Max, Max decides he's off boyfriends and only wants to be Lewis' really good friend.

Jay Northcote explores the ups and downs of freshman year and the changes young people go through as their world expands. Because it's based on the British school system, the book will be particularly interesting to Americans who are in college or who've been through it since some events and people are quite recognizable and some are completely different. This is an added dimension to a sweet story that isn't terribly remarkable, but definitely enjoyable.
Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews.