A.B. Gayle's Blog, page 10

A Man comes to terms with his Sexuality

Hard as Teak by Margie Church
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hard core m/m readers may be put off by the fact that Hard as Teak opens with a couple of (very short) traditional male/female sex scenes. Don't be. These are crucial to the plot as they immediately show that while Kevin Mark's body might be performing, his mind and heart aren't in it.

What follows is an exploration of self as he heads for the northern part of Minnesota to see if he can recapture the magic that is lacking in both his love life and his other passion -- photography.

Once there, he meets a man who reignites his interest in both spheres, acting as both his muse and initiating him into the pleasure of sex which for him had become a chore.

This story isn't a "gay for you" or even an "out for you", it's a story about a man finding the courage to explore his sexuality.

If Teak had been exclusively gay, the story might have been different, but Margie, by having her second protagonist bi gives him the confidence and experience to know what Kevin is going through.

Reader expectations are going to play a large part in their enjoyment of this book. Personally, I believe in accepting whatever characters a writer wants to use in their story and see how they grow. I don't care if the characters are a hundred percent likeable at the start or not. I don't even care if I don't "approve" of the choices they make as long as they learn from those choices.

While some readers may have their buttons pushed with the notion of a man being unfaithful to their girlfriend, Margie Church has been at pains to limit this reaction. They haven't been living together and while expectations may have been there on Chiyo's side, Kevin has warned her that he is having difficulties, and she hasn't exactly been supportive of him working through these before or after he goes away.

I mentioned this to Margie in a conversation and her comment was: "I've yet to write a book that doesn't have characters with warts."

Margie writes hot, sizzling sex scenes and these need to be seen as such, because it's their raw, viscerality that demonstrate the difference for Kevin once he gets together with Teak. Sex is no longer a chore, it's something he can't get enough of.

But apart from the sex, Margie has a great knack of showing scenes so you feel like you're in them. I especially liked the one where Kevin's fishing with Drew, another gay guy, and the depictions of his photo shoots with Teak. You can feel the easy camaraderie of their interaction as distinct from the on-edge confrontations of his dealings with Chiyo and his manager, Gail.

Other secondary characters jump off the page: Maddy, the redhead who was more Teak's fuck buddy than a girlfriend and Lucien, Kevin's agent.

While some people might query the likelihood of a local paper being interested in exposing Kevin's sexuality, for me if the author says it's so, it's so. The plot didn't hang on this aspect, more it showed another stage in Kevin's growth. In the end, this was the main point of the story to me. Kevin learning to recognise who he is and working out how to fit in with other people, then once he accepted the truth, taking control of his life and rediscovering his passion.

Infidelity and a character suddenly finding they are gay or bisexual are difficult subjects to write about, but I believe Margie has done a great job. Any marks I may have deducted for the occasional typo and formatting problem (if this is an issue for you, contact Margie) are balanced by her bravery on tackling these subjects head on and giving us real characters in a setting not often visited. You can just feel the ice and cold jumping off the page.

As a sort of disclaimer, Margie asked for some feedback from me early on in Hard as Teak's incarnation. The book has almost doubled in size since with changes throughout, so I feel quite justified in rating and reviewing it as a regular reader. Like Kevin, it grew.....

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The Cult Classic, Mr Benson

Mr. Benson by John Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay, this book isn't perfect. I have yet to read one that is. There are a few typos, but not enough to detract from the overall effect, which is what I base my ratings on.

I'd heard so much about this cult classic, and the way it has been a forerunner for the genre, pre-empting many of the latter BDSM slave/master books. I didn't expect to find anything new. Assuming most that have been written since to be derivatives of this.

And when I say I was surprised, I'm not talking here about the plot twist which the author used to make a couple of statements about different kinds of kink.

What I hadn't expected were two beautifully expressed aspects of the whole BDSM psychology.

Firstly from Jamie in that vivid scene where he goes back to the Mineshaft in his leathers and enters the room with the sling and just watches the men circling who want to be placed in it and the hawks against the wall:

"Mr. Benson had taken away my pride, but then he had replaced it with a new kind - the pride of belonging.
But now I was like the rest of them: in such great need that anyone who would pay attention would be the man for tonight. There was no emotional bond to be considered."

This whole scene and the ones following it, resonated with me more than any others in the rest of the book. Not so much Jamie's involvement in them, but because of all the other people depicted. I could imagine the desperation and the boredom so easily. This disconnectedness and sheer want is very obvious to the onlooker, albeit on a less intense scale, at events like the Mardi Gras party. There are a lot of lonely guys out there.

Then later, in the section from Mr Benson's POV, another epiphany came when he says:

But no one ever writes about the cumulative effect of SM. How every time becomes another building block in your respect for a bottom...... Every time I'd present him with a test or an obstacle and he'd get through it, the emotion of my pride would build. It was the constant willingness on his part to work at being worthy of me that created the ever-increasing respect I had for him.

The rest of the scenes in the book fell into line with others that have been written since, but for me, those two sections captured the essence of that need and what people really into BDSM get out of the experience.

For Jamie, it was having an emotional bond and belonging to not just any top, but to Mr. Benson and for Aristotle, it was having someone who trusted him enough to allow himself to be molded to what he wanted him to be.

I'm not saying other BDSM writers don't get this angle. Some do, brilliantly, but I did like the way John Preston presented it all so simply.

The book is not for the squeamish, but after reading "Carried Away" by David Stein, short stories by Barry Lowe and true life accounts by Dirk Vanden, the more intense gritty scenes were not unexpected.

It's a shame the book isn't available as an ebook, and I do thank Kate for the gift.



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Hot Headed Expectations

5 stars

Before "Hot Head" by Damon Suede was published, there was a lot of buzz in virtual space. This was a "first" book by a man who describes himself as growing "up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. He says he has lived all over: Houston, New York, London, Prague, with a few long stretches in New Orleans and Vienna. Along the way, he's earned his crust as a model, a messenger, a promoter, a programmer, a sculptor, a singer, a stripper, a bookkeeper, a bartender, a techie, a teacher, a director... but writing has ever been his bread and butter.

For the most part his book has received unqualified praise, however there are some pretty damning reviews out there which I want to address rather than review the book per se.

Now, I have nothing but respect for the people who made these comments, however I feel that the issues they raise are worth addressing.

It is very difficult for an author to "discuss" reviews of their own book and most publishers recommend that authors don't get into an argument with people who pan their book, so I'm going to do it for him, lol.

I'll probably be accused of being an apologist who wants to deny reviewers the right to write negative reviews. So, to start with, Damon has no fucking clue who I am, or that I am doing this.

I have also written my share of negative reviews and will defend to the end my right and every other reviewer's right to do so. I have also had negative reviews written about mystories and will likely cop more in the future. Probably deservedly so.

However, some of the points used to justify the low ratings beg discussion.

The two main bones of contention with the plot are: the coincidental "Gay for You" theme and the fact that fire fighters risk their jobs doing porn videos.

Linked into that are queries about the way the book references the tragedy of 9/11.

To sum up, words like contrived, far-fetched and crazy were bandied about the plot.

The other major issues are to do with the lack of emotional tension and romance in the story and the part porn plays in the story.

Alongside these are craft issues such as pacing and point of view and finally the depiction of minor characters and the ending.

Before I start commenting, I'd like to add what my expectations were when I read the book as, to me, "expectations" not being met are at the root of a lot of this criticism.

I deliberately hadn't read any blurb beforehand, or excerpts although I had seen some discussion about the book before it was released.

PLOT: Fire fighters and Porn

Before I opened the book, I assumed the main plot would revolve around their fire-fighting duties. I actually felt a bit ho-hum about that. It's been done to death. So, when I started reading and found the porn angle was so crucial, I was immediately relieved, hooked and interested. Real fire-fighters do appear on calendars in various undressed states. Porn stars dressed as firemen appear in photos and videos. They say they're fire-fighters, but everyone assumes they're lying, right? So, what if they really were firemen? Far-fetched possibly, but not impossible.

Taking the first major criticism then, I didn't have a problem with the plot. Most romances have contrived plots if there is a plot. Many romances are character driven and only cover a few days, thus escaping the need to have gay men in the real world with real jobs and real problems like where to live and the need to earn money. In a world where the reality of being gay still has repercussions and not just in being bashed.

PLOT: Gay for You = Out for You

The Gay for You "problem" was beautifully answered by Damon himself as he quotes the better term is that used by Marie Sexton:" "Out for You". As Damon says, "Out for You" is how most gay men figure themselves out sexually, at whatever age they come to terms with their sexuality. They meet someone who arouses feelings that makes them question their self-image."

This is what the book was all about and to dismiss this as contrived or not working is short-sighted. Maybe in the majority of couples in real life, one of them has come to this realisation a lot earlier than the other and helps them "through it", but there must be cases where this "coincidence" happens.

Perhaps the bond that brought them together in the first place was more than "brotherly love", and they dared not put a name to the underlying physical attraction, but it may have been there all along.

I would guess that "Out for You" happens more often than not. It must still take a lot of guts today to admit you're gay because of not only society's and family expectations but what doing so actually means. Many men never "come out" simply because the thought of missing out on family and kids is too much to give up. Everyone wants to feel "normal" and until society and family see them as normal when they are gay, many will continue to deny their feelings.

Would it have worked if one was knowingly gay and pursued the other? I don't think so. It would certainly have been a different story.

PLOT: Firefighters and 9/11

Perhaps too many readers expected this book to be different and felt cheated when it didn't conform to their expectations. Some commentators thought the plot would have had more impact if tied closer to 9/11. They wanted the fire-fighting to be the main theme of the book. While that might make for a lovely angsty/emotional book, it's not this book.

This book is about the men who fight fires, not the fires themselves. They are a special breed. There is a certain defence mechanism fire fighters use to cope with the reality of tragedies like 9/11 and the many we never hear about. Guys in these situations often find the only way they can deal with it is to "trivialise" it in their mind. Damon has said in interviews etc that he spent a lot of time getting the feel "right" so perhaps, once again, the problem is in reviewers' preconceptions. I know a few Aussie firemen, and they are the most laid back, ironic, brash people you'd like to meet and would fit in very well with what Damon has described.

LACK OF EMOTIONAL TENSION

OK, I'll buy this to a certain extent, but how many people generally can and do express their emotions? Male or female? I like reading stories where two people learn to be happy together. They don't have to tell us why or even show why. Not everyone is able to express themselves emotionally in real life and fire-fighters who learn to put huge walls around their emotions are the least likely to do so.

Emotional tension comes and goes in relationships. I feel it's a female thing. I wonder how many males would say that's what they want? I will admit that this probably sums up why I will never be a writer. I have difficulty putting emotion down on paper.

Criticism was also levelled at the way misunderstanding was used to build tension. The characters themselves were guilty of expectations. Both Griff and Dante assumed the other would reject/hate them for having these feelings. If you aren't comfortable with the fact you're gay, you're hardly likely to expect another person to feel the same way. Admitting the truth to himself was hard enough for Griff.

The emotional tension comes from the guilt Griff has over loving Dante. Damon describes it thus: "I think that Griff uses the idea of brotherhood to defuse his early desire and affection as they grow. (This) is one of the only accepted ways for men to show affection to each other."

So this "love" isn't going to have great "emotion" attached to it. It's claps on the shoulder. Doing things for the other person without being asked. Griff does eventually want more, but society's expectations prevents it from being more.

Some guys work 24/7 at denying they have any feelings. Emotions are for wusses. Anyway  I would expect many emergency response workers are usually emotionally drained after pulling dead kids out of burning houses or seeing comrades die. That to them is emotion. Loving someone who is your best buddy and having that turn into a sexual relationship is possibly classified under a different heading.

A couple of readers noted the rough, masculinity of the males but some felt this was overdone. Criticising men for being men (when there are no females around) makes me shudder. No wonder they like to escape from the finger wagglers. Perhaps they are this way deliberately to show they're men just like women get false fingernails to appear more feminine?

PACING ISSUES and POV

Damon commented: "I tend to like introspective protagonists." Funnily enough, a lot of females who read m/m romance do too. This introspection is a natural reaction for someone who believed being straight was the only option. There would have been non-stop questioning going on. Griff wanted to talk about it with someone else, but didn't know who he could confide in.

If Dante was straight he felt letting him know he was gay would ruin their friendship. So of course he angsted by himself a lot.

One critic also felt that the one-sided POV didn't make Dante engaging or logical or help build the romantic tension. I have a big problem with this attitude, especially in a book where "misunderstanding" was such an important element. If we had been in Dante's head, we would have immediately known he lusted after Griff. The whole point of the story was that Griff didn't know what Dante was thinking.

I hate it when the reader is told things in these sorts of stories that the main protagonist doesn't know. You want to kill all tension?

NOW WE GET TO THE KILLER EXPECTATION – NOT ROMANTIC ENOUGH

I note that Damon referred to it as a gay romance not an m/m romance. However, reader's expectations are turning the genre into a farce and in the process are actually belittling gay males and males in general.

The ultimate put down for m/m romances is that one or both protagonists were "chicks with dicks". It's not making the protagonists beer swilling, burping males or giving them stupendous physical attributes or have them being aggressive or violent that makes them male. It's the unwillingness to bare their souls and pour out their emotions except as a last resort.

Emotionally constipated is a common and apt description. Men often prefer to show their love in what they do, not what they say or even think. This is where I really feel females are doing a disservice to the genre and gay men, by demanding they pander to female needs for emotional expression of their feelings for each other.

The romance aspect  is becoming derivative and predictable as the readers demand that they be written to a formula and tick certain boxes.

Griff and Dante loved each other before they had the sex. For them, the sex was part of the equation, an important part, but the connection was there to start with. Therefore, you're never going to get the "Some Enchanted Evening" style romance. Which itself is often one protagonist being in love and the other not willing to recognise it. In this case it was two guys too scared to recognise and identify what they felt.

One critic felt the book would have been better with a more sensitive guy in the mix. A "sensitive" guy wouldn't have lasted ten minutes as a fireman. Not that these guys aren't sensitive. They're probably the biggest wusses of the lot, but they lock it up inside. The clues were all there in the writing. They just don't show it or express it openly. A skim through read might miss these.

Many comments dwelt on what readers want in their "romances". Just remember, not all readers are the same.

PORN

Which now brings me to the porn aspect of the whole story.  Again I'm going to quote Damon in full here as it's relevant: "As for the porn, it actually was included for the unsexiness. LOLOL The thing is, porn isn't sexy on the inside. I've dated people in the industry and still have a lot of friends who perform in it. For me the porn addressed falseness and emptiness and dishonesty that had sprung up around all that unspoken desire as the two of them found a way to each other. It's the fakeness and the pose of normalcy that made it essential to the story. Porn is a pose of desire, which people knowingly misread as their own desire. It's only sexy if we submit to the explicit lie of it. Those performers are earning a living and trying to survive as best they can. When I was still stripping, there were times in clubs or in a cage when men would be touching my legs or gazing up with a weird hybrid of lust and anger and I'd realize how disconnected we all were, how artificial the fantasy needed to be to survive. Pretending to engage so that we never actually engaged."

Having watched a fair bit of gay porn (purely in the name of research LOL) I felt what was described was pretty accurate.

In the story, the porn shots were a necessary stage in the whole process. Yes, maybe the fact that Dante knowingly used it as a ploy to reach Griff was far-fetched. He could have just done it without knowing why. It was this progression from straight brotherly affection through the almost "acceptance" in men of porn to the realisation that it was more than porn that is the journey they make.

I'm glad Alek turned out to be a "good" guy. He reminded me of what Corbin Fisher comes across as. Someone trying to encourage males to explore their sexuality. Sure they make money out of it, and possibly have a hidden agenda to turn all good looking straight men gay , but if it gives guys the feeling that, hey, the world isn't going to end if I have sex with a guy, then isn't that a good thing?

Given the number of porn sites that have "straight" guys learning the joys of man-on-man sex, a lot of guys need this "permission" to explore this side of their sexuality.

For female romance readers to criticise a book that has porn as its main theme is again putting female "expectations" onto gay romance, in much the same way they demand male monogamy as being the only expression of love.

Damon admitted this himself when he said: "I'm writing a gay romance for a specific audience with very firm expectations and a very wide disparity of tastes."

Again this is as much a reflection on females demanding males write m/m romances for females exclusively.

THE ENDING

I won't go into the Peter Jackson "Return of the King" style ending. It could have finished earlier, but I feel the author wanted to make a couple of points. He wanted to avoid the cliché stereotypes by showing people what they could and should be like.

What I didn't like? And I'm not dropping a point for it as a decent editor would have red penned it: The vanity adjectives. Griff keeps noting things like the redness of his hair, the massiveness of his thighs or shoulders, also his red-headedness was harped on a couple too many times.

But, I still give this book five stars. I didn't lose interest. As a wannabe writer, there were many scenes Damon did brilliantly and his characters lived and breathed. He is one of those writers that make me want to give up writing as my efforts to do similar things pale by comparison.

Sure the book is not perfect, but it dares a great deal. It's brave. And the fact it doesn't meet up to some reader's expectations probably says more about the readers than it does the writer.

WHY I WROTE THIS

Why didn't I just accept that everyone has the right to their own judgement and point of view without taking issue with it?

Two reasons:

Firstly for the author's sake. Reviewers wield more power than they realize. The majority of authors sincerely take on board well thought out constructive criticism and by and large the negative reviews were well thought out. Authors try to see whether there is a kernel of truth in the comments. This can be a two-edged sword.

I would hate for any author to feel they had to change the way they write to conform to the majority of reader's expectations or the ones that "shouted" the loudest. The charges levelled at Damon were pretty intense when they start listing lack of emotion and lack of romance as reasons for giving a book a very low rating and not justified in this reviewer's mind.

To me, the restricted range of emotion and romance matched the characters perfectly. Authors should not be limited to just writing characters or have a plot to fit reader's expectations. Many times I've felt with popular books I would have resolved the plot differently, but that's my problem, not the author's.

The second reason I feel justified in speaking out is because reviewers' expectations can quickly become publisher's guidelines.

Dreamspinner Press was brave in publishing Sean Kennedy's "Tigers and Demons" without any graphic sex scenes.

DSP actively promote and foster gay men to encourage them to write what they want to write.

If publishers are only interested in books containing a prescribed amount of romance, sexual tension and emotional tension then they will miss out on a lot of books about gay men falling in love and/or finding a loving relationship. Which after all is what this genre should be about.

If not, the genre risks being split into two separate groups: books written for a gay male audience and books using gay males as protagonists that are written for a largely female heterosexual audience with their expectations of what standards should prevail.

Should gay guys add romance to their sex scenes to pander to female readers?

Wouldn't it be better for females to read books that are honest and true to how gay men are and learn to understand them a bit better rather than forcing them to think and behave as females want them to?

Damon has been writing in one form or other all his life, even if not in m/m romance format. I hope he continues to write the sort of books he wants to read and not just the ones to appeal to every female reader.

Fishing, wine, first person of course I liked it!

White Flag by Thom Lane
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed White Flag. Having written a romance that touched on the wine industry and a straight travel, wine book with recipes, plus one that had fishing as an aspect there were quite a few hooks that brought me into the story.

There, though, the similarities ended. Our writing styles are very different.

The tone is very languid and the writing very melodius. Carefully chosen turns of phrases and clever word usage suited the concept that the narrator was a writer. The description and characterisation brought you into the world.

I am never one to criticise what a character is like, more how well the character is drawn and the way they fit into the story. This book had two minor characters the cousin and the grandmother. The younger girl's role was pivotal. Some readers may have found her involvement contrived, but I saw her as a miniature of her matriarchal grandmother. To me they were both fine.

It was pleasing to read a book where the sex was present but not described in detail. Just enough to carry the mood of the encounter and the impact it had on each participant.

The whole book was very cerebral with the long passages of conversation.

A common criticism of first person POV is that readers like to know what both people are thinking. Having also written quite a few in first I appreciated how well this was done. It made sense that the narrator, again from his background that involved interviews, would have enough skill to understand and read between the lines so he knew what the other man was thinking most times and conveyed that well the the reader.

I didn't need to get into Matthieu's head and using the cousin to spell it out in no uncertain terms near the end reinforced that.

I liked this book because it was different. It introduced me to a world without overwhelming me in detail. Something as a writer I need to learn. The author is also a lot better than me at getting into a character's emotions and feelings.

So in many ways, my high rating is an acknowledgement of superior technique.

If I had one criticism it is that I think it would have worked better if both protagonists were older. Mid thirties, even in their forties. Two men who had seen their fair share of life, with all its disappointments, so when an opportunity came along there was more urgency to act on it. More recognition that this was something different.

But this would then have been a different book. So I'll make it 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

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A great m/f read that will "crack" you up!

Wyntress Nyght's Supernatural Crack Exes and Hexes by C.H. Scarlett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"First books" by an author are a hard sell.

Books released by a small publisher are also hard to sell.

In this day when m/m seems to rule the roost, m/f books are hard sells.

Books that aren't wall to wall sex are hard sells.

Which is a pity because this is a book that deserves to be read.

I may be biased because as editor I was so involved with seeing this book come to fruition, but I still feel justified in rating and reviewing the finished product.

My role was more of a guide. All the words are C.H. Scarlett's own, all the thoughts, all the characters.

For example, you gotta love a character who starts off by saying:

Good evening, my delicious, little darklings of darkness. Wyntress Nyght here, serving up your forbidden dose of supernatural crack. So hook up your IVs, roll up the psychic and toke her, or offer up your shot glass for some ectoplasmic delight. For I have the phantasmal kick you have all been jonzing for. No DTs here, my darklings, only the monster of all dragons for you to chase . . . me!

Her characters sparkle with originality and wit. After Wyntress herself, my favorite was Jinx:

He's a Zombie. They're sort of like the Hannibal Lectors of the Other World. Usually suppressed Vegans in their former lives, they show up here with a, let's say, acquired taste. Nothing like the Night of the Living Dead or anything . . . that is, as long as they're well fed.
Jinx is very mischievous and one of the best kleptomaniacs I know. That night, he was dressed in jeans and a baggy t-shirt. His dirty, blond hair was spiked with blue tint in some places. He's kind of punk, kind of hippie and kind of Goth. He was munching on something from a small bag—probably deep-fried, popcorn-sized, brain chunks or cheese–stuffed, intestinal poppers.
*Laughs*
"Flint said you were chicken shit," Jinx's Irish accent frolicked across his tongue.

The plot is complicated enough to keep the pages turning and the dialogue and inner thought diverting to say the least.

For a while now, I've just read m/m books as I was so fed up with normal het romance. The alpha male, the beautiful female, the ring, marriage and the kids.

I'm not usually a fan of paranormals with their boring shapeshifters and vampires. Well they are both present, but their usual abilities are almost irrelevant in this book. It's their personalities that move the plot along not their innate paranormal strengths.

Of all the books I read in 2010, this has to be one if not "the" favorite. Casey has created a world, characters and a voice that are unique.

Given the "other world" setting, you can be sure none of the standard m/f tropes are going to apply.

To all out there who have despaired of finding a good het read, try "Wyntress Nyght" it will crack you up.

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Dirk Vanden's Trilogy about Coming Out in the Seventies

All Is Well by Dirk Vanden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I recently read the "All" trilogy by Dirk Vanden: "I Want it All" I Want It All, "All or Nothing" All Or Nothing and this one, "All is Well".

The first book was released before the Stonewall Riots, and to quote Dirk:" My books weren't considered worthy of editing when they were first published.... We were lucky just to get the books published and to get a few bucks for an outright sale." Once I "got over" the excessive use of exclamation marks in the first book, the other books were fine. There are no more typographical errors or formatting problems than there are in many other ebooks on the market today.

Dirk's writing style is fluid, his dialogue natural and his characters are vivid.

Drugs feature unapologetically strongly in the book. Both the upside – the euphoric feeling that you had all the answers, understood the essence of life and the universe and then the downside as reality stabbed euphoria in the back and painted black shadows around everything.

Apparently, one publisher wanted Dirk to "apologise" for all the drug use in his books, but as he explained it to me in an email: "We were illegal, immoral perverts in those days and anything we could do to our heads to keep from thinking how terrible we were just to have sex with each other and how even more terrible we were to write about it. As a result, I tried marijuana, mescaline and LSD and discovered that they "opened doors in my mind."" He assured me that: Drug use in Gay bars in the 60s and 70s was as common as beer and cigarettes, and, of course, like nicotine, and alcohol, the drugs were addictive."

The books are set solidly in the late sixties, early seventies, an era famous for its music, its hippies and its drug taking, but still a time when homosexuality was illegal. The times they were a-changing though. The hero's son, Chuck, sees it as a time when sex was not a big deal, and who you did it with was almost irrelevant.

The three books stand alone, each told from the first person viewpoint of a different character. However common characters and a couple of common events link them together.

In each book, a man who always thought of himself as straight, discovers he is happier being gay. Remember that in those days, this was a fate considered worse than death. Hounded by the law, consigned to the depths of hell by religion, rejected by family and rebuffed by their peers.

Making an apology is another theme in common. In each book, the viewpoint character has to acknowledge and seek forgiveness for a hurtful act. Until this is done, the character can never find peace within himself.

I've reviewed the other books, but "All is Well" is different. It's a lot more cerebral for a start. A lot of the "action" takes place inside the hero, Bob's, head.

Being the son of a Mormon Minister, for Bob, religion played a large part in his upbringing. I've read two other books that use this religion as part of the plot: James Buchanan's "Hard Fall" Hard Fall and Z.A.M. Maxfield's "The Pharoah's Concubine" The Pharaoh's Concubine. While these two authors may have done meticulous research, they don't capture that overwhelming feeling of guilt and stultifying constriction of attitudes and beliefs that Dirk conveys so well, having been brought up a Mormon himself.

From correspondence I've had with him, I gather his current attitudes and beliefs permeate the book through the viewpoints of his different characters.

Near the end there's a classic description of why he has little patience for "queens" as he describes why "Sophie" felt uncomfortable in the steam baths.

Among these men, in this atmosphere, naked, there would be no way for such a person to call attention to himself—to make such a desperate point of the fact that he was different-by-god-GAY! His sort of posturing and "cleverness" would be totally invalid here, not only unnecessary, but undesirable. An alien from another world would have been no more out of place. All the formalities and socializations had been stripped away; "personalities" had to be hung up with the clothes, left behind in a locked room. He'd been lost, maskless, stripped of his identification.... he probably thrived on rejection...who became disoriented and helpless when something good happened to him, and no matter how much he thought he wanted something good, he had to twist it and torture it until it became bad. Such people were miserable, because misery was their only identification.

You can tell Dirk Vanden is also an accomplished artist. His description of the scenery is as vivid as a painting

I looked up, straight above me—and fell helplessly into the color of foggy violet! Helplessly into an incredible vastness of sky! As I watched, darkness deepened, creeping up from the east; the color lost its fogginess and became a fantastically soft purple, and then ultramarine; and then a star, just the tiniest pinpoint, started to sparkle, and then more. I felt the light fade from my face. The stars brightened. The sky deepened. The universe opened above me.

"All is well" is not for the faint at heart. Not because there are gruesome murders or anything but because we delve into the deepest recesses of the mind of a troubled man.

It's uncompromising; by no means an easy book to read, but worth it in the end. Dirk's writing makes you care even when the guy is at his worse, wallowing in his misery. You just want him to break out of his funk. I'm not a fan of paranormal, and this is a good example of what you can do without resorting to that level of fantasy. We all have the capacity to do these things ourselves. Be the strong invincible vampire, the werewolf that can change to a form that can vanquish its enemies and we can all harbor the demon from hell within.

In some ways, this novel covers the steps of the archetypal hero's journey, complete with the wrong goal, the black moment and the mentor (in this case drugs). As in all such journeys, the hero has to reach deep inside himself to find the solution to his predicament and confront his worst fears in doing so.

I had created the problems myself, however childish or ill-advised I had been, and now I had to solve those problems myself.

I don't know whether this was intentional on Dirk's part - to follow Joseph Campbell's prescription, but there are definitely elements there. There's even the symbolism of the epiphany happening on Easter Sunday when the hero leaves his past behind and is reborn, complete with the biblically significant three day turnaround from the time he leaves San Francisco and returns.

None of these literary elements intrude on the narrative. Many readers may not even see the story at this level, but I enjoyed the book that much more after I recognised what had happened.

Another theme that ran through the book was: "I had to keep an open mind, adjust myself to the changes in the world."

The world was definitely a-changing. Another book that came to mind as I read was Andrew Holleran's "The Beauty of Men" The Beauty of Men. Set in the eighties, after AIDS had decimated the gay population, the different scenes in steam baths bear comparison. Although there are two very different establishments in "All is Well" neither have that pathetic lost quality that imbues Holleran's classic.

In Dirk Vanden's time:

Here there were dozens of men wandering around, most of them young, and many of them very attractive, manly-looking, well-muscled, with white towels narrowly wrapped around trim tanned waists. One or two I saw were clean-shaven and short haired, but most of them had long hair, moustaches, sideburns, many with full luxuriant beards.

While in Holleran's book, the middle-aged Lark describes it thus:

Driving to the baths in 1983 was like going to Valhalla, he thinks as he walks down the hall. Going to the baths in 1995 is like driving to have his tires rotated and oil changed.

In the end, the title of the last book takes on a new triple-edged meaning as the different worlds collide and become one. Not only do the three characters come together, but for Bob, the hero of "All is Well", "all" the facets of his personality converge as well. Very neatly done.

There is almost a messianic fervor in the closing pages. The certainty hippies had in the seventies that a New Age was coming: The Age of Aquarius. Forty years on we can see that unfortunately the Roberts of the world didn't quite lose their grip. And while the Bobs may no longer be jailed for their sexuality, there is still room for more change to happen.

"All is Well" is definitely worth reading as a record of the time, but even more so because it and the other books in the trilogy are a "Good read".



Just one final question. Is sex between brothers classified as incest?

View all my reviews

What Happened to Gay Life

What Happened to Gay Life? by Robert Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I learnt so much from this book.

At first glance, the subject matter may seem irrelevant to people who aren't interested in Mardi Gras (Australia's equivalent of other country's Pride Parade). However, by using interviews with participants in subsequent years, the book gives glimpses of how society and the gay community has changed since 1975 when the first protest march was held through the streets of Sydney in commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall riots.

I read the book as research for my novella "Mardi Gras", and while I don't discuss the issues in detail, the insight into the way people's attitudes have changed did help me get a handle on my two characters with their May-November age difference.

In "What Happened to Gay Life", Robert Reynolds shows how, over time, the parade and its participants reflect the changing world around them.

At the start, when sodomy was a crime, being gay almost required you to be politically active, either overtly or covertly, to protest and protect your right to be who you were.

As each battle was won, the fight changed.

Next HIV became a factor and a new enemy was on the scene, needing new tactics and a different attitude.

In Reynolds interviews with participants from subsequent generations a picture is built up of how each, in a way, feels alienated, not understanding the other generation, mainly because their fight has been different.

For example, the "clones" fought the concept that being gay equated to being a fairy, being effeminate.

Later, when this battle was won with muscles and pride, a new enemy appeared on the horizon, the right to be seen as a person first not as a homosexual.

The arguments continue between generations who sometimes find they have little in common, firstly within the gay community and also with the rest of society, many of whom still find it hard to accept them as they are.

Robert Reynolds captures this confusion but doesn't try to answer the question, because in a way there is no answer. You may as well ask "What Happened to Society"?

My "answer" in my fictional novella "Mardi Gras" based around the parade is to accept this diversity which has eventuated over time and remember the common thread that binds them together because without this memory, "gay life" risks being divided again.

View all my reviews The author Robert Reynolds, currently Macquarie University Associate Professor and acting Head of Modern History, Politics and International relations is giving a talk at the Australian Museum entitled: 50 years of gay life in Australia: the unfinished revolution.

I'll give a report in my next blog.

A Free Read from Redemption Reef - Episode #12

Miles Sutherland and some Rapatokan natives (friendly and otherwise)
with mention of Aiden Parker and Carter (Gil) Gillespie

__________________________________________________________

Morning 25th January, halfway between Rapatoka and Mystery Islands

Miles moaned and opened his eyes. What the? Two large feet filled his vision. Wet gritty sand rubbed against the side of his face as he moved slightly. Pain ricocheted through this body and the image morphed into a pink and brown blur. He shut his eyes. Ah, that was better; now he could identify the culprits. Left temple, back of the head, both shoulders… Shit, everything hurt. Added to that, he was trussed up like a bloody turkey: hands and feet tied together into a neat bundle, ready for roasting. He tried to roll over and sit up. The world rocked alarmingly and loud incomprehensible yells stung his ears. He stopped moving. The canoe, for that's what he worked out he was in, lurched forward again, travelling even faster than before.

Damn. Even if he did manage to overturn the flimsy craft, what would that achieve? From the air, the dark blue in the centre of the lagoon suggested the water was bloody deep. He didn't want to test how deep or whether his Houdini impressions were as good as Roofie's. With the amount of weight he'd packed on, he wouldn't need cement shoes to do the job properly.

"Ah‐hee noo‐oh."

"Low‐ah‐hee noo‐oh"

The unfamiliar phrases shot back and forth over his head repeatedly in time with the rhythmic splash of paddles.

Two men.

Memory returned. It had been a boat pulled up in the shade, an outrigger of sorts. Good one, Miles, seeing the locals are far from friendly, let's hope for once the missionaries did come a'calling on their door‐knocking tour of the Pacific all those years ago. He didn't fancy being "long pig" on the communal barbie.

What now?

He fumbled with the cord at his wrists. By the looks of things his captors had woven some fibres together into a makeshift rope. Shouldn't be too hard to get it off. He flexed his wrists in and out, trying to loosen his bindings. Normally when Darren had tied him up for a little BDSM, getting free was the last thing he wanted to do. Unfortunately these guys didn't look as if a little spanking was on their minds. Pity, because from the looks of the muscular calves and the size of the feet, the guy sitting on the bench above him was a strong enough bastard to deliver a good whack.

Miles snorted softly under his breath. As soon as he made it back to civilisation he was checking himself in to see a shrink. One minute he was getting all touchy feely, thinking he might have hurt Gil's feelings by fucking him, now he was conjuring up all sorts of deviant ideas about anonymous sex with guys who were probably more interested in eating him and not in a good way.

He yanked at the cord, rejoicing in the sudden snap. A startled yell greeted him, followed shortly after by a searing pain in his temple, the right one this time, and the world went dark… again.

@—}–}—–

Miles stared up at the ceiling above him. Patches of black mould stained the areas where paint no longer clung to the surface. The soft, dry mattress beneath him told him he was no longer in the canoe.

His head felt as if he'd just gone ten rounds with Anthony Mundine, or two rounds with Mike Tyson. He wasn't sure which would have been worse. Both temples felt tender, one where the butt end of a paddle had crashed down on him seconds after he'd managed to free himself and the other where he'd hit his head on the root of a tree after being felled from behind.

A triple whammy. His eyes drifted shut.

"Are you alright?"

The female voice was slightly accented, possibly New Zealand but not quite. At least she spoke English. Miles opened his eyes and carefully turned his head to one side. The woman in the other bed grimaced as she propped herself up on one elbow.

"Lucas."

Miles was about to correct her, when he realized she wasn't talking to him but calling out to someone else. A young man came towards the bed and stood there shyly watching him as she fired a string of incomprehensible words. He was young, fourteen or fifteen maybe? Big dark eyes; long, curly black hair; smooth, mocha‐coloured skin; handsome—perfect jail‐bait, in fact. When she finished, the teenager smiled, nodded and left without speaking. Moments later he returned with a basin of cold water and wet washcloth which he used to dab ineffectually at the swellings on Miles' head.

Miles grabbed the basin and cloth from his hand and swung his legs off the bed, making the room do a passable impression of the cha cha. Bile rose in his throat for a second as his brain threatened to explode. He lent forward and upended the bowl over his head. As the water trickled through his hair and down his beard, he folded the cloth lengthwise so it could cover both temples and buried his head in the damp material.

By the time the coolness had disappeared he found his world had settled enough to face the music again. Sometimes surviving hard knocks as a rugby prop forward came in handy. His coach had always said his head was as hard as a rock, or had he said he had rocks in his head? Same thing.

The lady on the opposite bed was lying prone again. The edges of her mouth twisted up as if in pain. Shit. He might have felt like death warmed up, she looked like death warmed up. Probably in her early forties, not that much older than he was, but care or life had worn her down. Miles took a deep breath and winced as a familiar smell entered his nostrils.

No, her problem was more serious. A torrent of words reminded him that the young boy she had summoned was still there. Miles didn't have a clue what he'd said, but a few gestures told the story. The boy pointed to his leg and mimed something snapping in two. The way his gaze darted between the prone figure on the bed and Miles showed he was worried about her.

With good reason. From the smell of things, gangrene had set in.

Miles gingerly looked around and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the bag with its big red cross sitting on the end of his bed. Hopefully nothing inside was broken. Given the way he'd been manhandled, the chances weren't good.

Should he do anything? These were the people who had kidnapped him. Not too long ago he'd even thought he was in danger of being eaten. The acrid smell from the woman's bed was starting to turn his stomach, but the worried look on the boy's face and the way she'd summoned help for him stopped his dithering. One touch on the women's forehead showed she had a temperature. Not raging, but significant. He threw the cloth and basin at the startled boy and pointed at the woman. Maybe he wasn't as bad at charades as he thought. The boy ran out of the room and soon after, he heard the sound of running water.

Miles grabbed Darren's emergency medical kit and rummaged inside. Thank God the morphine ampoules had survived. He quickly prepared the injection site and slid the needle into her arm. As he did, she lifted one eyelid and struggled for a second, pointing to her leg, trying to tell him something. She'd stopped speaking English, though, reverting back to her native language. He shrugged and nodded. Heck, most people would have been screaming by now. This woman was one tough customer.

As he took her pulse, he glanced around. He'd been in hospitals in third world countries enough times to recognise that despite the simplicity and lack of equipment, he was in one now. A couple of stands for IV solutions, some urinals lying around and beds covered in luridly patterned sheets jutting out from each wall. There was no sign of his captors, though. The young man who had returned with the refilled basin was nothing like the big men who'd been in the outrigger with him.

Miles wet the cloth and bathed the woman's face for a second and gestured for the young man to do the same. As the boy worked, Miles pulled off the sheet covering her and turned his head as the smell of rotting flesh escaped. Just as well the morphine had taken effect. No way would she have been able to bear the pain if she'd been conscious.

The young man flinched, his startled gaze darting to Miles. He tried to give his best 'I can work miracles smile' but he'd got out of practice with those. Reassuring people about their ingrown toenails and high blood pressure wasn't quite the same.

Miles retrieved the basin from the boy's nerveless fingers and placed it on the bedside table. The young man was shifting from foot to foot as if anxious to be gone. There was no way Miles could fix this alone. He needed help, fast. Miles mimicked paddling and stuck two fingers in the air. A flicker of recognition flashed in the young man's eyes. Miles repeated the action and then pointed to the bed and shouted, "Now."

The boy disappeared. Hopefully  the message got through.  He sighed as he drew back the woman's traditional hospital gown. Definitely a break in her lower leg, the area had been covered by a loosely applied bandage. It was moving.

As soon as he'd exposed the wound, Miles took a step back and stared at the squirming mass that swarmed in the open wound where the snapped tibia had penetrated the skin. That's why she wasn't as sick as he'd expected her to be. He smiled and looked admiringly at the woman on the bed. Apart from a few sections of dead tissue, the maggots were doing a superb job. They couldn't fix the break though. Someone here knew what they were doing, and he  was prepared to bet his bottom dollar, it was the woman herself.

Gil would have been having a fit, wanting to hook her up to IV infusions and checking her vitals every few minutes. If he'd had the young paramedic here, Miles would have been glad of the help, but every minute counted. The leg had to be reset and fast.

A loud commotion at the door made him glance up. The cavalry had arrived. Now he could get a good look at his captors, he didn't wonder at the pain in his head. Tweedledum and Tweedledee stood before him. Two Pacific Island giants, almost identical. He may be over six foot tall, but these guys made him feel small. Good, they'd brought their paddles.

Miles beckoned to them and they shuffled forward. He wasn't sure whether they were scared of him, the woman on the bed or the maggots feeding on the necrotic tissue in the wound. Possibly all three.

After tipping out the water, Miles used tweezers to carefully relocate the maggots to the empty bowl, then used some saline to wash the wound. The broken bone was clearly exposed, but the tissue around it was nicely pink, only a few traces of black remained.

After grabbing some bandages, and putting everything else he needed on a sterile sheet on the bed, he pulled one of the waiting men forward. Gripping his shoulder gently but firmly he pointed to the unconscious woman, and showed him where he wanted him to stand. He did the same to the other then barked at them: "Stay". Their glances kept shifting to the door, and he detected a whiff of alcohol on their breath, but the command seemed to work as well on them as it did Roofie. Good.

Miles gestured to the two men to hold the woman's shoulders as he had shown them. They did so reluctantly as if they were scared of her which was crazy given the fact she was tiny in comparison to them. As soon as he was sure his patient was as immobile as possible, Miles took hold of her lower leg. Good the pulse in her foot was still present; the artery wasn't trapped. He made sure they were both looking at him. "Ready," he warned, "now."

He pulled the leg toward him and grunted with satisfaction as a quick twist settled the bone into the correct position. Thanks to the flesh that had been eaten away, at least he could see what he was doing. The splintered bones meshed in as well as could be expected barring proper pinning and plates.

His patient regained consciousness briefly during the violent procedure but quickly slipped back under. After snipping away a couple of pieces of dangling flesh, Miles returned a few of the smaller maggots to the wound and covered the wound with some open mesh gauze to ensure the little critters could breath and didn't escape. Now for a splint. Placing one of the paddles between her legs, he strapped her limbs together above and below the wound.

His captors grabbed the remaining paddle and left as soon as his back was turned. Ideally, he would send her off to a proper hospital now, in the meantime he would have to monitor the situation and ensure her condition didn't deteriorate. Otherwise he might find himself in that pot.

Okay, so it's not a review or interview but I thought you might like a taste of our free online m/m soap. You can find more here: http://redemptionreef.wordpress.com

An excellent example of the Unreliable First Person Narrator

Stray by Ash Penn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I nearly didn't finish "Stray" because the narrator seemed such a prick. Then I did something I blush to admit. I read the end of the book and saw who he ended up with.

Then it was a case of WTF. So I kept reading. I soon learned that here we had a classic case of the first person unreliable narrator. Yes, our hero, Terry did some pretty despicable things and was out and out shitty to Daniel, but he was his own worst critic.

In these sorts of stories, nobody can be taken at face value, or in this case the narrator's value. Most of all themself!

People have commented on how impossibly sweet Dan is. Yes, because that's how Terry sees him. Right from the start you get phrases like this:

The boy studied me from beneath dark lashes, his fair hair contrasting with the black shirt hanging loosely from his shoulders.

That phrasing and word choice immediately shows someone he's attracted to or he wouldn't notice those things. Again:

His eyes, I noted, were a stormy shade of blue-grey. His face verged on the cherubic

and then a bit further on:

He raised his face, all flushed cheeks and glowing smile.

So, he says he's not interested, but he continually betrays the fact that he is, right from the start.

The kid is keen on him and isn't backward in coming forward. Like one of those puppies who doesn't know the meaning of rejection. So Terry feels he shouldn't be attracted to someone like him, so he pushes him away as hard as he can, by being as horrible as he can. Still the kid persists.

Why? One: maybe he's not as white as the driven snow that Terry makes him out to be. He was after all the king of cock sucking back at school and did survive on the street for quite a while.

But maybe it's more that he sees in Terry a similar spirit. But one in denial. In fact Terry is more like the neglected mongrel in the pound who has been abused and hurt and snarls at any attempt to be kind. In a way they end up protecting each other.

Terry also sees his friend, Marc, as the love of his life. If Terry was as much a prick as he makes himself out to be, why then has Marc hung around all these years?

True, Marc, isn't exactly your strong, sensitive character, even if he may be so physically. Perhaps it is this aura of strength that attracts Terry. He admits he likes his men to have:

thick, solid muscle, ropy veins, and enough stamina to pound me into a weeklong orgasm.

He, himself, though was small:

he and I were more or less the same size. In a more charitable frame of mind I might have offered to lend him some of my clothing.

So Terry had toughened himself up over the years in order to survive. He thought Daniel needed to do the same, but when it came to the crunch, he stepped in to protect him, not once but twice.

Time and again, circumstances left him smelling less than rosy, but instead of defending himself he encouraged Dan to believe the worst to help keep him at arm's length.

There are faults in the story eg at one point, as quoted above, Terry says that he likes men who pound him into an orgasm and yet later we get this statement:

It had been a good few months since I'd last got fucked, and I'd always preferred to pitch, but what the hey? It was his birthday. "Go for it."

The other bits that made me pause were his sudden change from protestating that he didn't want to help Dan and be nice to him and immediately doing so when he felt Dan was being encouraged to feeling ashamed about being gay. Perhaps a little more insight as to why he felt so protective of Dan at those times might have helped.

Anyway these are minor quibbles and are easily outweighed by the courage of Ash in creating guys who aren't perfect and yet makes them sympathetic. She has also created a pretty believable world for them to live in. They go to work, they lose their jobs, they have to clean up. The mundane is as much a part of the story as the angst is.

One of the biggest lessons writers need to learn when they write these "nasty" anti heroes (think Hans Solo) is that they must have a "Save the Cat" moment (google it under Blake Snyder). In this instance, we don't get this until this bit:

I never brought anyone back here. Never had, never would. This was our home. And Marc had no right to do this to us.

From that inner thought we learn that Terry is not as insensistive as he likes to pretend he is. He has standards. He's also very aware of when he's crossing Marc's line and in a way fears the consequences of doing so.

This story also exemplifies the power of the first person narrative. This story would not have worked if we had seen things from either Marc's or Dan's point of view. The story I find most similar is Clare London's "Freeman", another excellent example of unreliable first person narrative.

If you read "Stray" and had some problems with one or other of the characters, re-read it (as I did in the end) and see all the clues that are scattered about regarding their real characters and judge them then through your eyes and not those of the viewpoint character.

View all my reviews

Redemption Reef an online m/m soap

Our online m/m soap "Redemption Reef" the spin-off from Remmy Duchene's soap "Haven Falls" is being launched on Saturday 22nd January.

Dr Miles Sutherland, Aiden Parker, Lyle Ashley Tate and Carter (Gil) Gillespie have been told to meet at Lyle's place at 9pm. They don't know why they're being summoned as all they have in common is their friendship with Flynn Archer, the town's resident hothead and former bouncer.

Last we saw of Flynn, he was being airlifted to the nearest major hospital, unconscious and lucky to be alive after hitting his head on the edge of a shelf after a short but violent fight with the town's mortician, Henry Vale, who Flynn killed by stabbing him in the eye with a fountain pen.

Flynn had snuck into the mortuary in an attempt to free his lover, Aiden, from his prison in a hidden room in the basement where he'd been tortured. Vale was using him to get at Flynn whose parents he had already killed. It was the discovery of two severed hands belonging to Flynn's father that set the whole saga in motion.

The town's former assistant mortician, Stan Riley, had detached them from his corpse in an attempt to expose Vale's use of the mortuary to cremate his victims and dispose of the evidence by mixing their remains with others left for burial.

Stan himself became the latest to be disposed of in that way, and if it hadn't been for his planting of the hands and leaving cryptic clues in a diary that he hid inside a sealed frozen dinner package, Flynn might have been left to fight Vale alone.

However, Miles, an Aussie Doctor, and his work colleague the young British paramedic, Gil, had been in the park with Flynn when a scruffy dog unearthed the first hand. Seriously out of condition and overweight, Miles adopted the stray, in the hope that taking him for walks would help him get fit again. He called the dog, Roofie, sensing that instead of sleepless nights grieving for his late husband, Darren, he'd have no trouble falling asleep on the couch .

To complicate matters, Stan's replacement as assistant mortician, Lyle Ashley Tate, having run foul of the Italian mafia is himself in hiding under the watchful eye of the Agency.

It was only when Aiden's dog, Dante, turned up in the backyard of Miles' house that Miles and Gil realized that Aiden and Flynn were missing. Accompanied by the two dogs, they ended up at the funeral home just in time to save Flynn's life.

While all this drama was being played out, the men's personal lives have been a tangle of mixed emotions and hot encounters.

Needing more living space, Gil has only recently moved in to live with Miles as his own flat had been too small for the active and energetic young man. He had also become involved with Lyle, who is in the last stages of a sex change operation.

Miles is perplexed by his own attraction to Gil as he is still grieving Darren's tragic death from AIDS. Despite harboring unrequited strong feelings for Miles, Gil has also caught the eye of others in the town, especially the Sheriff, Lance Peabody.

Even though they haven't seen much of each other, the chemistry there had been hot and instantaneous. In fact no-one had seen the Sheriff for some time which was lucky for Gil as he already was finding it difficult juggling his feelings for both Lyle and Miles.

Written in joint live role-playing sessions, the soap is moving to a new location both on the web and in the story. It's envisaged that when the characters settle down, there will opportunities for guest authors to take turns bringing their own characters into the mix for a few episodes.

Who knows what is going to happen. The characters are certainly unsure of their future, and their writers aren't much better. All they know is that writing the saga of The Hands was so much fun that they didn't want it to end.

The current team of authors: Andrea Speed, Jessie Blackwood, JJ Levesque, Jen Swanson, Katisha Moreish and I are  posting our stories free on the web as thanks for all our current readers and those who might be inspired by our writing to check out our other books. From time to time we will suggest a different charity that readers, if they are so inclined, might like to donate money in recognition of our effort.