K.C. Carlton's Blog, page 4

Are lgbt readers too innocent to see this cover?

This is the cover of Winging It:

but Amazon thinks that’s too rude — Oh, No! A young man is about to kiss another young man! We must hide that!

So, on the Kindle version, this is what you see:

Well, I think you’re old enough to make your own decisions about what you can and can’t bear to look at. If you want the Kindle, ePub or pdf version of Winging It and you don’t want to let Amazon tell you what pictures you can look at, download it here. And you’ll find the paperback version here.

To help you decide, here is what some other people have said about Winging It:

There is a naked honesty about this book that is almost frightening. It told me more than I could ever have wanted to know about sex between gay men and if that was all there was to the book I would never recommend it–but what this really is is a testament to the love of God; a love that will not turn its back on anyone, no matter what. S F Hopkins

I was lucky to receive this book for free through goodread’s first reads giveaway

To be honest, I didn’t read the warning about the detailed descriptions of sexual acts included in the book when entering the giveaway. I entered because I was interested in the plot. That’s all. It was only after I had won the book, when I read the warning and was very confused. I usually don’t read those kind of books. I mean: books whose main topic is sexual intercourse. I have tried them. I tried “50 shades” out of curiosity, and got rid of the book after just first 50 pages. Don’t see the point of that kind of descriptions. But it was totally different with this book. I liked it and I enjoyed it, i got involved till the very end. The ending was beautiful and made me rethink once more what i had read in those first pages. It gave a completely different angle to look at things. And it got the job done, it worked my brains. I love the books, which don’t spoon-fead me. This is one more reason I liked the book. Everyone can draw their own conclusions. Evija Kreišmane

I have never read a book with so much detail of this life style. I am thinking this is a true story??? I did love the last part of the book. It was so true about God’s redeeming love. I don’t know if I should recommend this book or not. Freda Larimer

Not many books make me cry, but this one did. Winging It is the story of a man who lives a sinful life and is redeemed through the love of God. I’m not going to give away the ending, but as I read the final chapters I was in tears. They were happy tears, because this is one of the most fulfilling endings I have read in a very long time. It’s well written, the characters are fully formed and convincing but it’s the ending that marks it out from the crowd. I didn’t think I would ever describe a book that describes gay sex so graphically as a lovely book, but that’s exactly what it is. A lovely book. Mary Hargreaves

A reminder; if you want the Kindle, ePub or pdf version of Winging It and you don’t want to let Amazon tell you what pictures you can look at, download it here. And you’ll find the paperback version here.

 

Winging It has a new cover

This does a much better job than the one I previously had here of saying what the book is really about.

Debauching Marcus

The second book in the Taken by Force series, Working Girl, introduced Marcus, a young bisexual whose predilection for wearing girls’ clothes whenever possible will have made him an object of dislike for alpha males – but I found him endearing :-). I said at the end of Working Girl that Marcus would get a book of his own so that readers could see how he came to be the way he is. That book, Debauching Marcus, went live for Kindle last night.

Reviews like this make it worth continuing

 

Evija Kreišmane from Latvia won a copy of Winging It in a Goodreads Giveaway. She has given the book four stars, which was nice of her, but her review is what really makes me feel good:

I was lucky to receive this book for free through goodread’s first reads giveaway

To be honest, I didn’t read the warning about the detailed descriptions of sexual acts included in the book when entering the giveaway. I entered because I was interested in the plot. That’s all. It was only after I had won the book, when I read the warning and was very confused. I usually don’t read those kind of books. I mean: books whose main topic is sexual intercourse. I have tried them. I tried “50 shades” out of curiosity, and got rid of the book after just first 50 pages. Don’t see the point of that kind of descriptions. But it was  totally different with this book . I liked it and I enjoyed it, i got involved till the very end.

It’s not that I suddenly started to enjoy descriptions of the act. I didn’t. I was shocked at first, I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. I kept reading though. And I have to admit that this got the message delivered and helped to form my opinion about the characters, lifestyle they were leading and environment surrounding them. I was there. Fully involved. When I accepted this nakedness around which the story evolved, it totally got under my skin. I was there with those guys instead of being just a passive observer from aside. What I did understand very quickly was that those descriptions were merely a tool of showing the objective Picture not the Picture itself. And the tool was chosen right. I approve of that.

At one point, after about 120 pages I got used to the fact of never ending sexual acts, and it became a little bit boring. Nothing ever changed. I thought to myself, that’s enough. Another hundred pages would just be too much. But it did change.

The ending was beautiful and made me rethink once more what i had read in those first pages. It gave a completely different angle to look at things. And it got the job done, it worked my brains. I love the books, which don’t spoon-feed me. This is one more reason I liked the book. Everyone can draw their own conclusions.

“”The past is another country. They do things differently there”. They do. And the reason they do things differently is that they are different people. When I look back from here at the things I did then, I see them from a perspective that was not available to the young man I was”. This book gave both perspectives to look at the characters life. It was really nice.

I could give 5 stars to this book, but the reason I don’t is that I missed a little bit of psychological analysis. Cause and effect. It led me to a nice journey but it never told me why I am going there. I would have liked to know more about the reasons the main character’s life went the way it went. And I just couldn’t believe that one ride in the car could have gotten him there. There had to be more in his past what formed him the way he was. There had to be more going on in his brains. And there had to be more inner processes happening while he was transforming from gay to straight. More moral dilemmas. You just can’t wake up one day knowing that you are no more a gay. I would love to read more about those dilemmas and thoughts forming in one’s head. Otherwise it was a good read.

I am very glad that I won and read this book because I doubt I would by it on my own. Thank you. 

It feels wonderful to read a review like that because Evija is telling me: “You got it right. You conveyed the message you wanted to convey and you did it by showing me what happened and letting me draw my own conclusions.” Thank you, Evija. I’m so glad you enjoyed the book (even though you expected not to) and so happy to have received such a wonderful review in return.

Winging It is available on Amazon in paperback and for Kindle; you can also get the paperback here (post and packing is included in the price, wherever in the world you may be): http://tinyurl.com/kqutp8g