Road to Love Is Tough

Tough is the operative word in Heidi Cullinan's latest, Tough Love, a novel of love and redemption between two men who've been batted around by life.

After being rejected by his mother for being gay and reviled by his ill father who promised to leave him the old man's Rio Grand Valley trailer after he died, Chenco Ortiz is incensed when his father leaves the trailer to the Ku Klux Klan instead.

Visiting the probate lawyer's office to see if there's anything he can do to keep the trailer which he considers his home, Chenco runs into Steve Vance, a friend of Chenco's older brother, Mitch Tedsoe, the long distance trucker from the first in the series, Special Delivery.

A drag queen in his spare time from his job at a cafe, on the one hand Chenco knows his father was repulsed by his son's onstage alter ego Caramela, but on the other hand, the old man should have been grateful because Chenco paid all his medical bills and the home where he spent his last days.

As Chenco stews about where he will live when evicted, Steve is smitten with him and begins a campaign to get to know him. When push comes to shove, Chenco moves into Steve's spacious hacienda which is also housing Chenco's brother Mitch, Mitch's husband Sam, and their friend Randy, a Las Vegas card dealer, who is married to a casino owner.

Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews.

Two Must-Read Books for Gay Teens

You'd think with only five months left before graduation that Foster High and its senior class would only have smooth sailing. If you really thought so, you haven't been following John Goode's series at all or you haven't been in high school for a very long time.

The previous book in the series, End of the Innocence (reviewed at All About Romance), brought the tales of Foster Texas High School through the first half of senior year when something cataclysmic occurred, an event so horrific that it reverberated through the tiny town of Foster.

Be warned: To get the most enjoyment out of this two-book look at Foster High's senior year, it's imperative to read the the books in order. Although readers will be brought up to date at the beginning of 151 Days, John Goode is making an incredibly important point in these books, a point that is blunted if one reads this book first and then decides to read the previous one.

The event from End of the Innocence is still on everyone's mind as the second half of senior year begins. And this tragedy is causing everyone to look inward.

Brainy Kyle Stilleno and baseball star Brad Graymark are still together, and Foster High's principal still resents their abnormal relationship being accepted by so many students, faculty, parents, and residents of Foster. The stir that Kyle and Brad made coming together has affected more than just the students, and past sins, especially the long ago death of a prominent citizen's son by a hit-and-run driver, are being dug up to join the pall that's fallen over the town from recent events.
Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews.

Booklist reviews in May

Four of my Booklist reviews have been published this month:

***** In Want of a Wife by Jo Goodman -- the latest in her Bitter Springs, Texas, historical Westerns about a mail order bride and the troubled man who just wants love in his life

**** Night Diver by Elizabeth Lowell -- an adventure thriller about deep-sea diving near the island of St. Vincent and the theft of treasure from a sunken ship

** Love or Duty by Rosie Harris -- set in the 1920s Liverpool, about a ditsy upper class woman who takes in a lower class girl when the woman's motorcar knocks over the girl accidentally

** Frisky Business by Tawna Fenske -- a contemporary romance rife with scatological humor and the theft of an ancient Native American dildo

If you don't have a subscription to Booklist, you can read my reviews at Shelfari and LibraryThing.