Fat Ladies and Swans Sing

My life as a book reviewer at All About Romance, Booklist, and The Romance Reviews has come to an end. 

I pulled the plug a couple of weeks ago when it suddenly occurred to me that if I was going to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a published author, I needed to stop reading so much and start writing.

I'm sure to most people this sounds like common sense, but obviously I had to come to this astounding conclusion the long, painful way.

Truth be known, Dreamspinner Press can take a little credit for my decision.  I signed a contract with them for my novella, "What's in a Name?," to be published right after the first of the year.  It seemed like a conflict of interest that I was reviewing some of their books after signing the contract.

So after kicking the review habit and vowing to work on my fiction writing career, I also contacted my former colleague and friend Shawn Hansen and will be getting together with her in the near future to see what she has to offer as far as promotion is concerned, not only for the novella, but also for the first book in the Vampire's Food Chain series.

But what about the Swan Song, you ask.

A core collection list of gay and lesbian romance novels has gone public in the September 15, 2014, issue of Booklist.  I suggested running a list of "must have" books to editor Donna Seaman earlier this year, and she took my list of 15 proposed titles, whittled it down, added lesbian romances, and voila! a list was born.

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.

Reed's Sequel to Hungry for Love

I absolutely love the passion that leaps off the pages of Rick R. Reed's books.  His Legally Wed isn't as gritty as his Raining Men or as sappy as Hungry for Love, but it shows how completely vested he is in his story just as the others also demonstrate that trait.


Having been married to a gay man for a year and having left the marriage bitter and resentful because he wasn't up front about the fact that he was gay, I empathized with Marilyn in Legally Wed a little more than I think Reed did.  But then how could he know some of the thoughts that go through the heads of the Marilyns of the world?


This is one of the few times I've wished I could have been in on a writer's creative process and possibly helped the writer turn a really good book into a great one.  Between what I know as the wife of a gay man and what Reed knows as a gay man, I think we could have turned out a terrific romance.  (LOL)


As it was, Reed was on his own, writing an interesting and impassioned novel.  Thanks for another good read, Mr. Reed!

Another Hit from Reed and Reviewing Gay Romances Update

Rick R. Reed's gay romances are often the highlights of my reviewer pile.  Hungry for Love is no exception.

Reed travels from the general to the specific, making his almost painful story not just a story about how two guys hook up for more than sex but also a story about meaning of love in general.  As he says in the book,  "Love was also about taking a leap into the unknown, making yourself vulnerable. It was a chance taken. It was a cosmic gamble. It was faith. It was a belief that happy endings could happen and did, every day."  The novel is a messy, all-too-human example of that.

In other news, my days as a reviewer of gay romance may be numbered.  I bought a great majority of the gay fiction I've reviewed for AAR, a review job that is unpaid.  But after reviewing over 40 gay novels, my retirement budget no longer supports that approach, and having publishers reluctant to send me galleys, I think it's time to go back to picking review books from the pile of those sent to AAR or those posted on NetGalley that sound interesting and are okayed by my AAR editor.

I'm pretty sure that Dreamspinner, Rip Tide, and the other gay publishers won't miss me.  Perhaps some of the authors will.  But who knows?

Rick R. Reed Reigns

The first Reed book I read, Chaser, was refreshing in that it didn't idealize gay men's perfect bodies, handsome (always handsome) faces, and generally perfect physical attributes.  In fact, Kevin's chubby, not svelte or built, and Caden, his eventual lover, is turned on by chubby.

The roadblock to their HEA is a thoroughly unlikeable guy named Bobby, who my mind's eye saw as the kind of guy Matthew Lillard played in the movie She's All That only with a mean edge.

So when I read that Reed was going to use Bobby as his next hero, I knew Reed had his work cut out for himself.  I also knew that Reed has been writing for quite a while, so meeting the challenge might not be as daunting as it first appeared.

Consequently, when I read Raining Men, I wasn't so much surprised that it was such a spectacular book as much as I was pleased.  Like a lot of gay fiction, Raining Men isn't an easy story to digest, but it's an honest and hard-hitting one, and I'm proud to be able to bring it to romance readers' attention with a Desert Isle Keeper review today.