Lethe's gay titles include an array of
gay-positive novels, poetry,
erotica and literature for gay men & lesbians. In addition, Lethe
has partnered with the White Crane Institute
to bring out new and classic titles in gay spirituality and gay wisdom
under the White Crane Books imprint. Additionally, our imprint, Bear Bones Books, offers fiction and
non-fiction titles about Gay Men's Bear Identity; and the Tincture imprint offers books by and about gay people of color. Lethe is one of the
world's
leading publishers of gay and lesbian spirituality, poetry, and
independent fiction. Below is a partial list of Lethe Press's books of gay
interest.
It is 1899, and young Andrew Wyndham has accepted a position
tutoring the unruly son of wealthy industrialist Duncan Stewart in the
hopes that the work will be brief yet provide an avenue to pay for his
passage to France to study art. But Seacliff is a dark mansion
enshrouded in near-eternal fog, dark mystery and suspicion—perhaps a
reflection of the house’s brooding master. An imposing Blackbeard of a
man, Duncan Stewart is both feared and admired by his business
associates as well as the people he calls friends, for Stewart may have
murdered his own father to gain control of his business. And his home,
in which Andrew Wyndham must now reside, holds terrible secrets—secrets
that could destroy everyone within its walls. For pure gothic escapism
with a decidedly masculine point of view, The Master of Seacliff is an enthralling and satisfying read.
2012 Over the Rainbow selection by the American Library Assoc
Asher Machnik is a teenage boy cursed with a beautiful androgynous face.
Guys punch him, girls slag him and by high school he's developed an
intense fear of being touched. Art remains his only escape from an
otherwise emotionally empty life. Eulalie Mason is the lonely,
tough-talking dyke from school who befriends Ash. The only one to see
and accept all of his sides as a loner, a fellow artist and a best
friend, she's starting to wonder if ash is ever going to see all of
her.... a + e 4EVER is a graphic novel set in that ambiguous crossroads
where love and friendship, boy and girl, straight and gay meet. It goes
where few books have ventured, into genderqueer life, where affections
aren't black and white.
Great Recommendation : Booklist (10/15/2011):
Grades 10-12 *Starred Review* Merey's soulful story of high-school
juniors Asher and Eulalie shows just how tenuous our understanding of
identity, friendship, and romance can be. Neither Ash, a shy, bisexual
pretty boy, nor Eu, a strident dyke with the appetite of a trucker, can
be reduced to a single aspect of their identities. During the few months
of their intense relationship, they share music, a passion for drawing,
and a variety of attempts to socialize with their families and other
teens. Merey introduces questions and complications that don't get
neatly resolved--why does Ash share a bedroom with what seems to be his
nearly twin sister--but instead make the characters and plot all the
more realistic; we truly can't know all of what makes somebody tick. The
impressionistic and beautiful black-and-white images were created with
traditional paper and ink, a salutary opposition to all the nontradition
offered up by Ash and Eu. Although the work appears sketchy at first
glance, every line is clear and every word is clarifying. Without the
story becoming didactic, Ash and Eu become students of human nature as
they teach each other about the possibilities and boundaries of their
lives. These are authentic teens with attitudes, sound tracks, and
sexual curiosity.
Assigned to baby-sit a loose-cannon colonel at remote Wheelus Air Base,
Libya, handsome, hard-charging Captain Joe Harding spends his off-duty
time bedding an enlisted medic and a muscular major, then begins a
nurturing friendship with the American ambassador's teenage son. The boy
swiftly develops a crush on the man, feelings that Joe, a Southern gent
with a strong moral sense, feels he cannot acknowledge or return. Joe’s
further adventures and misadventures during the course of the novel
involve a clerk's murder, a flight-surgeon's drug abuse, a fist-fight in
the officers' club bar, a straight roommate whose taste for leather
gets him in trouble, the combat death of Joe's former lover, and
participation in an all-male orgy witnessed by two very married but
somewhat confused fighter jocks.
In the run-up to the 1967 war, a mob attacks the embassy in nearby
Tripoli and the deranged colonel sets out to attack an Arab
warship. To bring the pilots and their airplanes safely home – and keep
the United States out of the war – Joe has two choices: either come out
to his closest, straightest buddies or know himself to be a coward, a
failure and a traitor to everything that he holds dear.
"With the current debate over the future of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell' a hot topic in Washington, Elliott Mackle’s third novel, Captain
Harding’s Six-Day War, provides an engaging and timely read." Edge New YorkRead the rest of the review
"A modern day adventure set in North Africa prior to the Six-Day
Arab-Israeli War in 1967, Elliott Mackle’s 'Captain Harding’s Six-Day
War,' (Lethe Press, 2011) has more realpolitik and less fantasy, but it
is every bit as much erotically charged with a powerful story to match." Lambda Literary Book Lovers: The 12 Night of Christmas 2011
In the 2011 edition of Best Gay Stories,
editor Peter Dubé reminds gay men that when we step up
to the proverbial microphone and tell our own stories, something
monumental happens. Gone are the monolithic notions that we
all some homogenous culture--go to the same bars, shop in the same
stores, eat in the same restaurants, hold the same kinds of political
opinions, have similar backgrounds, and work the same kinds of jobs
(more often than not urban, and vaguely white-collar.) The
clichés of the gay life fade and a different
voice sounds, or rather different voices are heard. In our writing,
to borrow the old saw of gay liberation movements passed, we are
everywhere. In cities and country, offices and factories and shops and
academies. We work and we fuck, we shout and we steal. We love each
other and, yes, we hurt each other. When we tell our own stories, it
becomes clear that we’ve moved well past the sentimental coming out
story, the boy-meets-boy romance, the dangers and pleasures of sexual
adventure, and we’ve done it without having to abandon them--because
those things still happen and are still important. But we’ve found new
ways of thinking about them, and have more experience to share, a deeper
understanding of them, and we’ve added an array of other stories, from
other parts of our lives, and dreams, and troubles to them. We’ve moved
past the “gay story” and towards “gay stories.” And this anthology is a
testament to all the voices, the power of storytelling, a
chorus of narrative impulses.
Stories by Sandra McDonald / Simon Sheppard / Kevin Killian / Daniel
Allen Cox / Aaron Hamburger / Paul Lisicky / David Gerrold / Tanith Lee /
Steve Berman / Jameson Currier / Wayne Lee Gay / Ernest Hardy / Robert
Gluck / Michael Alenyikov
The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered,
edited by Tom Cardamone, includes appreciations by 28 contemporary
writers of significant gay novels and short story collections now out of
print. The Lost Library
includes an essay on reprints of gay literature by Philip Clark.
Published in March 2010, it features a cover illustration by Mel Odom.
The Lost Library
won the San
Francisco Book Festival's gay category for best book of the Spring
season and was named one of the 10 Best nonfiction books of 2010 in
Richard Labonté's Book Marks column.
Tom Cardamone is the author of the erotic fantasy novel,
The Werewolves of Central Park and the short story collection Pumpkin Teeth. His work has appeared in on-line magazines and journals as well as several anthologies. He has reviewed books for The LAMBDA Book Report and Books To Watch Out For.
You can read some of his fiction at his website www.pumpkinteeth.net.
While there you can drop him a note about any out-of-print gay fiction
you would like to bring to his attention.
Explaining himself to himself and to the man he loves, Ziya tells Adam the stories of his life:
A bilingual childhood and youth in cosmopolitan İstanbul, city of the
world’s desire, and the Aegean resort of Bodrum. A bewildering trip by
ship and train and jet across Europe and the Atlantic to college in
America, that strange and terrifying country. Friendships, passionate
affairs, one-night stands, rape—a richly dissatisfying erotic
education. A wedding, a death, an act of inexplicable violence—a
meeting.
Intricate as Ottoman miniatures, Ziya’s stories reveal a world unsuspected: the world we live in.
“Waiting fifteen years to read something new from Alex Jeffers was well
worth it. This collection is a treasure chest of perfectly-polished
gems, each one radiating an inner beauty brought out by evocative
prose, rich characterizations, and a strong sense of place. A rare
treat indeed, it is over all too soon and leaves you longing for more.”
—Michael Thomas Ford, author of What We Remember
Good, interesting and intelligent review in the Edge network of gay papers
Queer Magazine online review
What other
characters from English literature have captivated hearts and minds as
thoroughly as Sherlock Holmes and his loyal companion John Watson? Many
fans imagine the relationship between these men is deep and more than
platonic. In A Study in Lavender,
the Holmes universe is queered and ten authors have devised stories in
which Holmes and Watson are lovers, or investigate mysteries of inverts
hidden from the laws and cultures of the Victorian era; even the
indomitable Lestrade has his turn at love; and famous actors who helped
put Holmes on the silver screen face trysts they never dared to film.
new tales of mystery and detection by J.R. Campbell • Elka Cloke William P. Coleman • Michael G. Cornelius Lyn C.A. Gardner • Ruth Sims Rajan Khanna • Vincent Kovar Stephen Osborne • Katie Raynes
Filmmaker Wakefield Poole wrote the rules for living on the edge with
no safety net and no apologies. How a respected Broadway dancer,
choreographer, and director became the infamous creator of beautiful,
wildly successful gay porn is just part of a gripping story that takes
us on a whirlwind tour of the early days of the sexual revolution, when
“anything goes” was a way of life. While rubbing shoulders with the
theatrical elite of the day, including Noël Coward, Marlene
Dietrich, Richard Rodgers, Liza Minnelli, and Stephen Sondheim, Poole
created Boys in the Sand, the film that would revolutionize pornography
and gay film, start the “porno chic” trend of the 1970s, and serve as
the ruler by which adult entertainment is measured. The new edition of
Poole’s memoir is an honest and entertaining look at life in the worlds
of theater and gay porn, the perils and joys of success, the horrors of
drug addiction, and the resilient spirit of a man who continually
re-invented himself and survived it all.
This new edition of Dirty Poole contains over 20 photographs and a new afterward by Poole that brings the book up to date.
When Marco Fontana enters his friend's spa on Pine, he doesn't find the
peaceful retreat he expected. Brad, the masseur, is missing. The spa is
splattered with blood and a dead client lies sprawled on the floor.
After a thorough search turns up more questions than answers, Marco
calls the police. They find Brad's body a short distance from the spa
and before long Marco understands that what appears to be a simple case
of murder is anything but. The police want Marco off the case. However,
when the body of a popular journalist is added to the death toll,
Brad's case gets sidelined. Marco refuses to allow his friend's death
to be ignored and convinces an overwhelmed young police detective to
bring Marco into the hunt for the killer. He finds plenty to keep him
busy. Abusive ex-boyfriends, stalker clients, politicians, scheming
businessmen, and Eastern European mobsters swirl together in a
dangerous mix which finds Marco in some of the most serious trouble
he's encountered so Life at home doesn't stop for Marco, either. While
he searches for Brad's killer, Marco's stripper troupe, StripGuyz,
brings him face to face with a stripper's abusive boyfriend and, with
Jean-Claude, a new member of the troupe who innocently comes between
Marco and Anton, upsetting the fragile balance existing between them.
Orphaned Crispin Thorne has been taken as ward by Philip Smallwood, a
man he’s never met, and is transplanted from his private school to
Smallwood’s house on an island on the beautiful but coldly remote
Horsey Mere in Norfolk. Upon his arrival, he finds that he’s not the
only young man given a fresh start. Myles Graham and Jude Middleton are
there before him, and as their benefactor is away, they soon form
alliances and friendships, as they speculate upon the sudden
transformation of their circumstances. Who is Philip Smallwood? Why has
he given them such a fabulous new life? What secrets does the house
hold and what is it that the Doctor seems to know?
Trust acclaimed author Erastes to tell a moving story in the field of gay historical romance.
At the height of World War II, a killer preys on the
young men of a quiet Texas town. The murders are calculated, vicious,
and they are just beginning. Sheriff Tom Rabbit and his men are baffled
and the community he serves is terrified of the monster lurking their
streets. The only clues the killer leaves behind are painted snuffboxes
containing notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn
toward a quiet man with secrets of his own.
Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of
the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful
obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his
own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to
it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced,
and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given
a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
This coming-of-age memoir of an ordinary gay boy living in Singapore,
in the form of an online journal, is brutally honest, endearing,
poignant and raw.
Nicky, an insecure youth with a fat past, goes on a journey of love and
self-discovery and soon crashes into an underworld of sex, drugs,
hustling
...and betrayal. After a series of failed romances, he heads for a
breakdown, especially when his three friends, Dexter, Daniel and Dave,
the Triple Ds, who support and guide him, have problems of their own
and cannot help him.
Can Nicky survive the cruel gay world of superficialities? Will he ever find true love?
Nathan Goh is a twenty-one-year-old writer living in Singapore.
“Brilliant.” “Disturbing.” “Unapologetically naked.” Just some of the
adjectives critics have used to describe the work of C. E. Gatchalian.
Collected in this volume are three of the plays that have put
Gatchalian on the map as one of Canada’s most daring and distinctive
young playwrights.
Crossing explores the tormented, sexually charged relationship between
a mother and her teenage son, bound together by guilt and fear over a
horrific incident that occurred ten years prior. Diamond is an
elliptical, metatheatrical dissection of one woman’s intimate story.
Ticks is the frantic, metronome-accompanied monologue of a
self-appointed, disease-stricken messiah, eager to bring a plague upon
the city.
“C. E. Gatchalian’s ambitions lie far beyond those of ordinary
playwrights penning nice narratives. Crossing is far from nice and
Gatchalian is far from ordinary. …the net effect is one of shock and
awe.” —Vancouver Sun
Have a gay Caltech professor and his dying mother uncovered the secrets of the mind…and the universe?
Tom Flaherty's mother is suffering from a strange form of dementia that
causes her to journey back in time; especially when she's housecleaning
and finds personal items that trigger her memory. But Maude Flaherty's
travels—from the Scopes Monkey trial in 1925 to the 1936 Berlin
Olympics to Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963—might be the
evidence Tom needs as a Caltech physicist to develop a unified theory
of space, time, and place—String Theory—and reconnect with a society
he's lost touch with since the estrangement from his sister and the
loss of his partner many years before.
Do You Remember Tulum? --novella in the form of a love letter
by Alex Jeffers
Do You Remember Tulum?
is a story about memory, about learning to love and be loved, set among
the exotic Maya ruins of Tulum and Palenque in southern Mexico. A young
man returns to Mexico, where landscape, art, and memory compel him to
confront the events that shaped him a decade before. A dizzying
travelogue, this short novel maps the geographies of guilt, regret,
hope, desire, and the deep roots of love.
In early 1977, in search of adventure and exotica to fuel his fiction,
a callow young would-be novelist from California relocated to the small
southern Mexican town that gives the ancient Maya city-state of
Palenque its modern name. A few months into his residence, he was
visited by his absentee boss, a prep-school teacher, and ten of her
students on spring break. Among those youths come to explore Palenque
and other sites of the Maya lowlands were darkly magnetic Peter and
sly, secretive Keenan. Over the next few weeks, travelling from
Palenque to the Yucatán coast and back, Peter and Keenan would
overturn the writer’s comfortable expatriate life and make him question
everything he knew about love.
Eleven years later, the writer returns to Mexico on a
spur-of-the-moment memorial trip. At Tulum above the blue Caribbean, he
begins a letter to his boyfriend back in Boston to explain his abrupt,
inadequately explained departure. Over five days and some seventy
handwritten pages, he revisits the dramatic events of that earlier trip
and, one eye always on the future, tries to understand and explain how
a confused and frightened youth became a man capable of love.
Edmund White called Alex Jeffers’s Safe as Houses “a novel as complex
as humanity about how to wrest decency and love out of uncertainty,”
and the Lambda Book Report praised it as a book “about living, finding
ways to define one’s life and one’s loves, about breaking rules to
create new ones.”
"While just a short 170 pages, [Do You Remember
Tulum?] is not an easy read, and those who demand a
traditionally-structured story may want to skip it. I'm glad I didn't.
Four stars out of five." - Bob Lind, Echo Magazine
Closets are for dandy clothes—not for gay essays or fiction
In the newest edition of Best Gay Stories, editor Steve Berman has
selected confessions and stories that range in scope from
“S”—sensational—to “XL”—extra-liberating: a personal remembrance of the
Stonewall Riots; a tale of awkward first love; the allure of Tadzio for
not only Gustav von Aschenbach but every reader of Thomas Mann; the
wisdom of Auntie Mame as one man’s banner—among other explorations of
our community’s desires, heartaches and wants.
The labels on these stories are designer, the stitching strong, and the fit, you will find, is perfect.
* Anthony McDonald * Paul Lisicky *
Jeff Mann * Nowell Briscoe * G. Winston James *
Jay Michaelson * Wayne Hoffman * D Travers
Scott * Lewis DeSimone *Richard Bowes * Phillip
Tang * Lee Thomas * Marshall Moore * Jameson Currier *
Chaz Brenchley * Paul Reidinger * Jonathan Kemp
* Christopher Bram * Mark Merlis * Sean Meriwether *
Young Toby spends his days exploring the backwoods
surrounding his UK country home. His imagination not only supplies
adventure but also the exciting promise of lustful embraces and kisses
with the handsome field hand. When Toby's mother, a nurse, brings home
a sickly yet handsome youth, Cymon, to recuperate, Toby finds himself
drawn to the older boy. Their friendship, awkward at first, blossoms as
each offers the other much-needed comfort. Cowboys Can Fly presents a
classic story of gay adolescence, one that is as heartbreaking as it is
triumphant in spirit.
“Woods and boys were born to be together; born to share each other’s
unquestionable beauty. A woods is that special place where a boy’s
quest to be spiritually free is born, a place of magic and mystery, a
wonderful place to fall in love.” --Ken Smith
There's a Five Star review at smashwords; it begins: "Thank you, Ken Smith for this wonderful book. I usually avoid encounters with pathos. Lucky for me, I didn't dodge this one."
Miz Miranda Maracona and Miz Kookie Kombuis – one so fair, the other
so, so dark! – are two enormously talented and hugely endowed
transvestites who run a special service from Soho’s Old Compton Street:
The M K Agency.
Looking for something different? Well, Prince Igor Pisskossovitch
certainly is, and when the girls take on the handsome young
royal as a client, they find themselves in a glorious Ruritanian
operetta in the remote principality of Bejesustan, where camp is the
watchword and coups d’état the national sport.
Divided loyalties and lingering lusts turn would-be assassins and
victims into brothers in arms in Robin Anderson’s sophisticated fantasy
of “courtly” love with a special twist.
“Once again, in La Di Da Di Bloody Da! the dirt-channelling is in fine
filthy fettle as we’re plunged into an heroically hedonistic world that
few of us live in but thanks to Anderson we get to visit. A
risqué ripping yarn of a romp that might not exactly warm the
cockles of your heart, but will heat up the heart of your cock.”
—Gaydar Nation
As editor of a gay newspaper, Henry Thompson thought he had
enough problems dealing with the conservative, old-money owners and the
corrupt mayor of Atlanta—an evangelical clergyman who denies that
African-American men are at risk with AIDS and sees no benefit in
accepting federal safe-sex-education funds just months before welcoming
the world for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.
Henry lost his lover to AIDS and sees the casual sex happening in the
community as almost criminal and certainly lethal. He relies on a good
friend’s skilled Tantric massages to release the tension in his life
and raise his spirits.Then, while taking in a good, voyeuristic sweat
at a men’s-club steam room, Henry finds himself in a tryst with a
handsome local athlete.
What happens to a crusading journalist when he finds himself falling for
a closeted gymnast favored to win gold medals at the upcoming Olympics?
When CNN and Sports Illustrated hound him in their never-ending demand
for sensationalism that threatens careers? Henry must fi nd the answer
to moral dilemmas: integrity versus propriety; passion versus
restraint.
Author Elliott Mackle, himself a former journalist, offers readers a
glimpse back to a remarkable era and events in the life of the Gay South.
Subtle Bodies:
A Fantasia on Voice, History and Rene Crevel
by Peter Dubé
It is Paris, 1935, and the poet Rene Crevel
has turned on the gas stove in his apartment. As death fills the rooms,
Crevel dwells on past events that changed his life and ended the peace
among the Surrealists. Years earlier, Crevel enacted seances for Andre
Breton and his guests. At first, these performances were fraudulent,
but soon Crevel found himself overcome with lapses in memory and time.
Portents made during the seances came to pass as Breton's friends fell
under a morbid influence. While in a trance, Crevel felt his sense of
self expand to new levels, subtle bodies of consciousness. Beings he
named "Interlocuters" began to whisper to him of other worlds, other
times. What at first feels like a revelation soon brings Crevel to the
depths of despair. In this fantastical biography of Crevel,
accomplished Canadian author Peter Dube, explores the famed poet's
desires of flesh and verse and experience.
Augie
Schoenberg is twenty-two, an aspiring filmmaker at a school without a
film school, and desperately single. He's just moved into the Harley
Hutt, the wildest party house on campus, and has fallen hard for his
roommate Victor Radhakrishna, a campus political activist who is, for
Augie, "a practical demi-god: a crusader for justice in skateboarding
shoes." The problem is, Augie is the only gay one in the house - or so
he thinks. This darkly comic novel of sex, betrayal, and cultural
clashes follows Augie's search for love: from the cornfields of
Illinois, to the gay beach and underground clubs of Chicago, and
finally to the ecstasy-fueled nightlife of London, where Victor's
secret threatens to keep the two apart forever. Purchase and download PDF now!
Pay through AmazonPayments
Digital edition priced at $8.99
Lethe Press 332 pages, 113000 words 5.5 x 8.5 trade paperback
978-1-59021-127-4
1-59021-127-8
Sex. Satire. Mystery. Foul Play. True Love. Not necessarily in that order.
Paul Lavarnway thought he had settled into comfortable, middle-aged domesticity in Kansas City with his husband Eric.
So how is it he finds himself confined with four other men at East Oak
House, a spooky old mansion from which they can see the rundown,
off-season resort of Two Piers, Maine, with its single pier and silent
Ferris Wheel? He can't remember. Is it the drugs? The group therapy
meant to help Paul and his housemates learn to be happy ex-gays?
While winter deepens outside the windows, Paul and his companions and
their sweetly sinister mentor Brian explore the past and the future
without ever quite understanding their present in the hot-house
atmosphere of East Oak House. As memory comes to the surface, Paul
discovers truths about himself, his husband, the man who came between
them, and the accidental lover whose death looks more and more like
murder.
Shifting with surreal grace from profound emotion to shallow sex to
mystery and horror to outrageous comedy to redemption (maybe), Tales My Body Told Me is a novel like no other.
Born into an extraordinarily talented family, 29-year-old Michael Van
Allen is the gay son of a well-known concert pianist and an equally
famous painter. All his life, he has yearned for the talent and
creativity that should have been his birthright but have somehow been
denied him. When he wakes up in a mental hospital, his memory gone, his
former life erased, his doctor tells him of his screaming breakdown
during one of his father's performances. Van Allen's Ecstasy is the
story of Michael's journey in search of his former self. As he pieces
together his forgotten life, Michael uncovers jealousy, obsession, and
secret desires that threaten to destroy his sanity once again.
Lethe Press 200 pages 5.5 x 8.5 trade paperback
978-1-59021-216-5
Ask the Fire blends the high tech culture of modern espionage and the
highly politicized social culture of Washington, D.C., the capital of
the world, with the secret of the Knights Templar, courtly love and
Freemasonry in the architecture of the D.C. streets. Add a dash of 60s
hippiedom, and plenty of urban gay and post-gay culture, and readers
will discover a new trans-mythological, but deeply spiritual, vision of
the meaning of human life in the charged world of the 21st century.
“I had a friend who was a spy.” So begins a story of terrorism and
espionage, featuring a brilliant, almost enlightened, but emotionally
jaded and politically cynical secret agent, a gay Mati Hari who’d
seduced secrets out of Arab rulers and now struggles to prevent the
start of the Terrorist Wars. It’s a story with a vast sweep that places
spying—and spiritual vision— within the larger history of heresy and
homosexuality in Western culture from the Crusades to contemporary
Islamic fundamentalists.
"Dennis Paddie’s Ask the Fire (Lethe Press) is too complex to
describe in a few sentences. Its plot is a fictional recreation of the
events leading up to 9/11; one of its several protagonists is a
Texas-born spy who infiltrates the group responsible and dies on the day
of the attacks. The novel sets forth an unusual argument about the
decline of America and its failure to understand the rest of the world,
particularly the Middle East; it meditates on the power of homosexuality
(including its particular usefulness in espionage) and, most
strikingly, it grounds its plot in esoteric history." — Wayne Gunn, Lambda Literary
A writer of whimsy and passion, Sandra McDonald has collected her most
evocative short fiction to offer readers in Diana Comet and Other
Improbable Stories. A beautiful adventuress from the ancient city of
New Dalli sets off to reclaim her missing lover. What secrets does she
hide beneath her silk skirts? A gay cowboy flees the Great War in
search of true love and the elusive undead poet Whit Waltman, but
at what cost? A talking statue sends an abused boy spinning through a
great metropolis, dodging pirates and searching for a home. On these
quests, you will meet macho firefighters, tiny fairies, collapsible
musicians, lady devils and vengeful sea witches. These are stories to
stir the heart and imagination.
McDonald's stories have appeared in many national, small press and
online magazines and anthologies including Asimov's, Strange
Horizons, Realms of Fantasy and Best New Paranormal Romance. She
is the author of a series of novels—The Outback Stars, The Stars
Down Under, and The Stars Blue Yonder—about an Australian military
lieutenant, her handsome sergeant, and their adventures in deep space.
In
Alleys & Doorways, editor Meredith Schwartz has brought together
stories of the odd and mysterious ways that queer life happens in the
city. Covering a wide range of styles, moods and emotions, from the
poignant and erotic to the whimsical, these tales from a roster of
acclaimed authors strive to create new legends for gay urbanites.
Featuring several stories that were finalists for the Gaylactic
Spectrum Award, this anthology promises to enchant you. Be wary where
you read these stories... that train ride, that bus, that sidewalk may
lead you to someplace Else... but be assured that your destination in
these new alleys, these new doorways, will be an exciting one!
Meredith Schwartz • Rose Fox • Valerie Z. Lewis
B.A. Tortuga • M. Decker • Steve Berman
JoSelle Vanderhooft • Wendy Barnum • Julia Talbot
A.J. Grant • Abbie Strehlow • Sean Michael
Elspeth Potter • Abbie Strehlow • Ann Stocce
Meredith Schwartz’s fiction has appeared in Reflection’s Edge and
Strange Horizons. She has reviewed speculative fiction for Publishers
Weekly and Library Journal.
Peter Bauman, a forty-five-year-old divorced gay painter, plunges into
the personal ads just prior to the Internet in his quest for the
perfect partner.
He dates a colorful cast of characters from a Connecticut physician, a
rabid Republican, to a Texas-two-stepping, tattooed punk. Next there's
the heavier-than-advertised geek who arrives with a bag of sex toys,
but Peter is more serious with a handsome, stern Maine woodsman,
followed by a British aristocrat patron who declines further intimacy
because of his AIDS.
As Peter negotiates his new gay identity, his best friend, Barry,
counsels and supports him at every step, especially as Peter deals with
a health crisis. During a decade of sex and shenanigans, Peter,
encouraged by his ex-wife, daughter, and son, examines his life and, at
last, discovers his soul mate.
Five Star review by Indigene on Rainbow Reviews: “The
Decade of Blind Dates” by Richard Alther is not only a story of man in
search of the perfect love, but also very much a journey of
self-discovery and self-acceptance. And in the end Peter finds both
love and self. I highly recommend this rich and textured novel that is
written with intelligence, humor, emotional honesty and depth. Read the whole review
When Allen Pasztory discovered he was likely to die
before his time, he realized that what he could pass down to the people
he loved was stories. Stories of and for his families – the family he
was born to and the family he stumbled upon and fiercely embraced.
The hearing child of parents raised in the inhumane surroundings
of a state school for the deaf, all along Allen knew he and his family
were different. His sister tried her best to become ordinary, as if it
were possible, but Allen knew better. He would be ready to offer
sanctuary when an ordinary family cast out his nephew Kit.
Allen fell for freelance artist Jeremy’s talent and looks, but it was
Jeremy’s unanticipated bravery that supported them through the years
while they nurtured their new family. Despite hostility from without
and threat from within, they created a secure and loving home for
Jeremy’s precocious son Toby and, later, Allen’s nephew.
But safety can’t be guaranteed. Ill, Allen must tell himself stories to
survive, stories that may explain his life to the boys he’s
raised, for “your life is never only your own story, and what you
don’t know for sure you must invent, using all the clues you can
gather.”
Eighteen
tales showing the handsome face of gay writing. Noted editor Steve
Berman has spent the past year reading page after page to bring
booklovers a collection of the finest stories featuring the range of
emotions every gay man feels in his lifetime--
the pain of first love, the mischief spent as a wayward youth, the
desires and fears of maturity, and the comfort of old lovers, a life
told from the perspective of wistful essays, engaging fiction, and
poignant confessions.
Stories by: Steve Berman, Richard Bowes, Jameson Currier, Craig
Laurance Gidney, Rhys Hughes, Raphael Kadushin, Jeff Leavell, Trebor
Healey, David Levithan, Jeff Mann, Sam J. Miller, Christopher Schmidt,
Aaron Shurin, J.M. Snyder, Jeff Solomon, John Stahle, John Morgan
Wilson. Richard Zimler
For more than three decades, clinical psychologist, Don Clark, has
been speaking to the hearts and minds of gay people, their families,
friends, teachers and helpers in the many editions of Loving Someone Gay.
With compassion he has promoted communication across generations
as well as revealing a path of understanding and reconciliation for
parents, siblings, husbands and wives—as well as among religious
leaders, teachers, librarians, legislators, judges, and law enforcement
agencies. Most important he has provided vital insight into the
psychodynamics and sociology of individuals, the gay men and lesbians
who have been and continue to be misunderstood and abused in societies
around the world.
E.B. Boatner - Lavender Magazine, MINNEAPOLIS:
"Grab your towel, some SPF 60 lotion, and these first two of author
Mark Abramson's highly entertaining Beach Reading series. He introduces
protagonist Tim Snow, Minnesota-born, expelled by his family after an
"incident," taken in by his Aunt Ruth, and now comfortably ensconced in
the heart of the Castro, where he has lived for some time. Beach moves
along briskly, incorporating a homophobic preacher, a gay icon,
joint-toking oldsters, a jolt from Tim's past, and a bevy of characters
you'll meet again in Cold Serial Murder, including Aunt Ruth. Cold
Serial is littered with corpses, one of them Tim's ex-lover. Beach
Reading is exactly what it promises. Abramson's witty dialogue; vivid,
sexy characters; and comprehensive knowledge of gay SF, its flora,
fauna, and idiom, captivate the reader. Number three, Russian River
Rat, will be out later this fall. Don't worry - it will be as much fun
to read under an electric throw as on a beach blanket."
San Francisco has never been more romantic or
adventuresome as portrayed by this debut novelist. A bit of magic and a
lot of local lore makes for an exciting and fun read.
Cold
Serial Murder
Book 2 in the Beach Reading series
By Mark Abramson
Tim Snow expected to show his visiting Aunt Ruth the wonders of San
Francisco, but never expected one of the sights of the city would be
the body of his ex-lover. A killer is on the loose in the Castro
district. Meanwhile, Tim’s cadre of quirky friends and neighbors makes
life all the more interesting with their drama of weddings and lost
(and found) loves. Cold Serial Murder continues the story of one of the
Castro’s most adorable characters. Can Tim and his Aunt uncover who the
killer is before it’s too late? (Read
about Book 1: Beach Reading)
Bob Lind in ECHO Magazine
writes:
In this second of his "Beach Reading" series of light thrillers,
Abramson further develops the likeable and relatable characters he
introduced in that enjoyable first book (same name as the series), and
again provides a story that perfectly captures the cohesive spirit of
the Castro community. While mystery purists may prefer a few more "red
herrings" to complicate the solving of the crime, the author obviously
intends for the series to entertain rather than challenge, and it
succeeds wonderfully on that level. A clang from a streetcar, and five
golden stars out of five!
Tim Snow is sure he's finally found the perfect man, a handsome
guy with a successful greenhouse business by the Russian River.
With his beloved Aunt Ruth now moved to San Francisco, his life should
be worry-free.
But San Francisco Chronicle's best-selling author Mark Abramson
can't stop with telling lively mysteries—Tim starts having troubling
dreams; a drowned body haunts his boyfriend, who may be less than
perfect; and there are men from both their pasts who might be deadly.
"Book
Three of Abramson's Beach Reading series finds protagonist Tim Snow's
beloved Aunt Ruth moved to San Francisco and Tim himself finally in
love with the perfect man. Oh, really? Tim and Nick begin the "If he
really loved me, he'd call first" dance, against the background hum of
murder and intrigue, plus the ongoing lives of the wonderfully quirky
denizens of Abramson's Snow's Castro. Then, Tim finds more anomalies in
Nick's background: a Big Easy cop cousin who turns up as the drowned
body fished out of the Russian River, and lurkers from the past out to
destroy... whom? Abramson can tie more complicated knots and entangling
nets than a 19th-Century sailor, his catch prolific and entertaining.
Don't mind that temperatures are falling (especially back in Tim's
native Minnesota) "Beach" is a state of mind, and Beach Reading can be
done as enjoyably under an electric throw by the fireside as slathered
in SP 40 by the lapping waves."
In the fourth release in the San Francisco Chronicle's best-selling Beach Reading
series of mysteries by author Mark Abramson, find that not all is well
in the City by the Bay. Tim Snow, recently recovered from a
debilitating accident, finds himself aimless
and troubled over waning feelings for his boyfriend. And
just when he wants to escape all the troubles in his life, new
complications arise... three M's worth of trouble: mayhem (a
visit from his bigoted and big-haired cousin from Texas), men (a
handsome fashion model who's sending mixed signals), and menace
(body parts found in the dumpster of Artie's, the restaurant where
Tim's works as a waiter). As if the investigations of
the police aren't disruptive enough, secrets are soon revealed
that affect not only Tim's family by blood but also the treasured
souls of the Castro he's made an essential part of his life.
When San Francisco's cattiest television personality Rosa Rivera
sponsors a gay wedding contest, Tim Snow's boyfriend begins pressuring
him to get hitched. Life for his friends in the Castro becomes comic
and chaotic as the lavish ceremony is promised to be held at the
restaurant where Tim works. Meanwhile, his beloved Aunt Ruth has been
harboring a homeless woman. Is she protecting her nephew from some
family secret? As the city's golden boys walk about shirtless in dapper
collar n' cuffs with the annual Gay Pride Parade, the drama and the
laughs intensify. Will Rosa's meltdown bring the parade to a
standstill? Who is being sent to a ritzy detox center? Only San
Francisco Chronicle best-selling author Mark Abramson could tell such a
captivating story with shares of both delight and intrigue.
A delightful take on death in the halls of academia.
-- Boston Globe
Lev Raphael delivers literate, witty, suspenseful goods. -- Publishers
Weekly
Curiosity turns to obsession at the State University of Michigan.
Professor Nick Hoffman can't understand how his supercilious new office
mate Perry Cross beat out other candidates for a brand new position in
the department. How did Cross get hired when he's
under-qualified? But Nick's curiosity changes to a jealousy when
he learns that his longtime lover, Stefan, shares a past with
Cross. When Cross is found dead and the verdict is murder, Nick
becomes a prime suspect since he was one of the last people to see
Cross the evening he was killed. Nick has no choice but to investigate
on his own. Only acclaimed author Lev Raphael can spin such a tale
of twisted academia.
Gunned down in the street, author Helmut Brandt’s life ebbs away and
puts a chain of events in motion placing P.I. Marco Fontana on a
collision course with the Church and local community.
Brandt’s research into the decades old death of Pope John Paul the
First made him serious enemies within the Catholic Church. As Fontana
digs into the case, he finds Brandt also had rivals in his work and in
his love life. Rivals with motives for murder.
Dueling with the Catholic hierarchy and combing through seedy gay
hangouts, Fontana encounters dangerous characters and powerful forces
intent on stopping him. When Fontana himself is attacked, he knows he
must find answers before any more lives are lost. The web of intrigue
and deceit is intricate, tangled, and deadly.
Fontana deftly balances his work as a P.I. with his position as owner
of StripGuyz, a troupe of male strippers; he must also negotiate the
intricacies of love and relationships which he has been avoiding all
too long.
Will the solution uncover a decades old plot to kill a pope or will
Fontana find that jealous rage or academic rivalry caused Brandt’s
death? The only thing Fontana can be certain of is that Brandt's
enemies have killed once and won't hesitate to murder a private eye who
gets too close to the truth.
"This is a terrific read, and a bit of a departure
from your typical gay mystery novel, in that while the story is set in
the present, at its heart is another, decades old, mystery – did dark
elements within the church assassinate Pope John Paul the first? So,
then, consider this the kind of book Dan Brown might write, if Mr.
Brown were just a little more gifted as a writer – and of course,
supposing Mr. Brown wrote gay mysteries." from Review by Victor J Banis
"Though this was a bit lengthy, it is a
well-written, suspenseful story that will satisfy even the most picky
mystery fan. A bubbling Philly cheese steak, and five stars out of
five!" from Review on OurBookShelf Yahoo Group by Bob BigBearPhx
Review by Ruth Sims: "Murder on Camac is a fast, entertaining
read. I expect we will be seeing more of Marco Fontana in the future,
with or without the G-string. I give it five Sherlocks and a Watson.
A Report from Winter
is a death-in-the-family story, a love story, and a meditation on the
meaning of “winter”—as a season and as a metaphor for family
relationships.
It’s January 1998, and southern Maine is recovering from one of the
worst ice storms in history. Into this unforgiving environment comes
the author, flying “home” from Kansas City after a ten-year absence.
His mother, Jennie, is dying of cancer. She is receiving excellent care
in a nursing home, but has lost the ability to communicate.
Needing support, Wayne makes an SOS call to Ralph, his longtime
partner. Ralph boards a plane to Portland for his first exposure to a
Maine winter, and to Wayne’s family as well, including a feisty aunt
and an emotionally distant brother. The contrast between a nurturing
gay relationship and dysfunctional family bonds is as sharp as the wind
sweeping in from the sea.
Stubbornly unsentimental, A Report
from Winter weaves childhood memories of winter with the harsh
realities of living in a family where there’s not enough love to go
around. The memoir is a tribute to hard-won relationships built on
mutual trust and understanding, defying an uncaring world.
How do you react when your lover is kidnapped by terrorists and held
hostage for over a year? How do you react when you are the man chained
to the wall? In Martin Foreman’s moving novel, first published in 1996,
Andy McIllray in the Peruvian Andes and Tom Dayton in rural England
face that reality every day—each reliving his past and each fearful of
the future.
At fourteen, Kit St. Denys brought down his abusive father with a
knife. At twenty-one his theatrical genius brought down the house. At
thirty, his past—and his forbidden love—nearly brought down the curtain
for good.
A compelling Victorian saga of two men whose love for each other
transcends time and distance—and the society that considers it an
abomination. Set in the last twenty years of the 19th century, The
Phoenix is a multi-layered historical novel that illuminates poverty
and child abuse, theatre history in America and England, betrayal, a
crisis of conscience, violence and vengeance, and the treatment of
insanity at a time when such treatment was in its infant stage. Most of
all it is a tale of love on many levels, from carnal to devoted
friendship to sacrifice.
His career as a concert pianist ended by a war injury, Sutton Albright
returns to college, only to be expelled after an affair with a teacher.
Unable to face his family, he heads to New York with no plans and
little money—only a desire to call his life his own.
Jack Bailey lost his parents to influenza and now hopes to save the
family novelty shop by advertising on the radio, a medium barely more
than a novelty, itself. His nights are spent in a careless and
debauched romp through the gayer sections of Manhattan.
When these two men cross paths, despite a world of differences
separating them, their attraction cannot be denied. Sutton finds
himself drawn to the piano, playing for Jack. But can his music heal
them both, or will sudden prosperity jeopardize their chance at
love?
Steve Berman has selected twenty
stories--some moving essays, some splendid works of fiction--from the
prior year that best feature the lives, loves and losses of gay men.
With tales by fresh voices and established writers, Best Gay
Stories offers readers indiscretions, poignant trysts, and
reminiscences that are as evocative as they are imaginative.
Authors:
M. S. Allen Holly Black
Richard Bowes Tom Cardamone
Jameson Currier Peter Dube
Erastes Greg Herren James Klise
David Levithan Raymond Luczak
Joseph Manera Jeff Mann Billy
Merrell
Ethan Mordden Paul Reidinger
Charles Rice-González Paul Russell
Aaron Shurin Robert Warwick
When first they meet, Neil and Zach
discovered a sexual and emotional chemistry that could not be denied.
Then, as mental illness consumes one, each must grow, repair himself,
and work to become stronger and more independent to ultimately conquer
the life-crushing consequences wrought by mental illness and emotional
dependency. Chemistry is the story of attraction between lovers, the
brain chemistry that determines personality and mood, the medications
needed for regaining mental health, and the relationships between
people who care for one another. DeSimone debut is an enthralling novel
of courage, liberation, and self-realization.
The author of the perennially popular and life-changing
book, Loving
Someone Gay, recounts his own life journey from shame, failure,
guilt
and fear to pride, self-confidence and understanding of true feelings.
Sharing how he made the transformation himself, the first officially
openly gay psychologist in the U.S. and "father of gay-oriented
psychotherapy" points the way for others to claim gay identity and gay
pride and follow him to happiness, meaning, love and success.
Two Spirits: A Story of Life With the Navajo By Walter L.
Williams
& Toby Johnson
Twenty years after publishing his
ground-breaking The
Spirit and the
Flesh, anthropologist Walter L. Williams breaks his silence and writes
another book on Native Americans. Together with award-winning writer
Toby Johnson, he has produced a work of historical fiction striking in
its evocation of Navajo philosophy and spirituality. Set in the Civil
War era of the 1860s, this novel tells the story of a young Virginian
who finds himself captivated by a Navajo Two-Spirit male. This book
illuminates the truth of what the United States did to the largest
indigenous people of this nation. A novel full of suspense, plot
twists, and endearing romance.
"What can I say about this book. It was
AWESOME. I felt like I was there among the Dine, in the Sweat Lodge, in
Santa Fe watching Joelle sing. I could see the mountains and feel the
hot air and all the glory of the Southwest. I would highly recommend
this book for anyone who loves historical fiction with gay characters
in it. I'd give this book 10 stars if I could, but definitely 5 stars."
"Lastly, I want to encourage those of you who, although you might think
that this story sounds wonderful, are afraid to read it. It is true
that this story is far from a typical story in the M/M genre, but the
two essential things that make up a romance are present here: a
sweeping love story and a HEA [Happy Ever After]. Yes, I admit I cried several times while
reading this, often in frustration and sometimes with joy. I won’t say
that it was an easy story to read, because it isn’t. I often had to
put this book down and take it up later. But that was the key: I
always wanted to pick it back up. And more than anything, I felt like I
took a journey with the characters and they became my friends. What
more can you ask for in a book?"
Purchase and download PDF now!
