Camping in the Backyard: Home on Leave

by Anthony J. Zatti

A passionate romance of hunky, young sailors who consummate their love while home on leave from boot camp and plan a life together.

During boot camp at Ramapo Training Center, Michael, a cute guy from rural New York, meets Jonathan, a sophisticated, hunky, wealthy, young man from Manhattan. They fall in love during their grueling weeks together. While home on leave they consummate their love as they come to terms with their homosexuality. They plan to spend their lives together and covenant to care for each other always. When Jonathan's father is killed, Jonathan and his stepmother, Lillian, take over Taylor Oil. Jonathan helps Michael get started with the training he needs to fulfill his destiny as a world-renowned baritone. During a reckless, macho display on a double date with Michael and his friend, Maureen, at a drive-in movie, Jonathan impregnates Theresa, a pizza waitress. Theresa wants to get out of crappy Mellon and believes she has found the ticket. Gary, Michael's friend from junior high school, feels brokenhearted and completely abandoned when Michael returns to Mellon with Jonathan. He forces himself to move on with his life and runs into Addison, a married, savvy, real estate executive, and enters into a passionate affair. Life in Mellon heats up and leave from boot camp isn't over yet!

292 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2001

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my honest opinion this was pretty boring for the most part. I understand that Jonathan's father died and he had to help take over the company but I think way too much time was spent on Jonathan, his mother, and step mother in the meeting and explaining things. I feel if all of that was cut out and focused more on the stress of Jonathan and Michael having to be separated after having gotten together then it would have been a nicer book. There was lots of lovey-dovey moments between them but not enough drama put into it. Also, I would have liked to known what happened between Gary and Addison. Did Addison eventually leave his wife or did he break it off with Gary? The whole ordeal with Theresa having the baby could have went into further detail as well.