Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks ~ Heart Of A Forest
From: Ellora’s Cave

I have three that I’m inordinately fond of right now. But Heart of a Forest is my favorite. It was the easiest and fastest to write and the easiest to edit. It’s the only one I never got sick of re-reading. Usually, I have to wait several months before I go back to a released book and try to read it. But Heart of a Forest didn’t have that delay. I think we captured the spirit of the Robin Hood movies and the voice is, while not obviously “Victorian Forsoothly,” a higher style than our normal slightly snarky, very modern narrator voice.

1. Brian Daley ~ Han Solo And The Lost Legacy This has been one of my favorite reads since it came out in 1979. It has informed everything from characterization to how I write action scenes to plotting. There’s a romance subplot, but it doesn’t go anywhere. ***Teddypig ~ Not Available In eBook***

2. Julian May ~ The Many-Colored Land Julian May’s Pilocene Exile saga (The Many Colored Land, The Golden Torc, The Nonborn King, The Adversary). This was my first encounter with GLBT characters that didn’t leave me going EWW! (I was very religious and a little immature in my teens) Felice’s doomed love for Amarie. Gert and Hansi. Stefanko. Johnny and Lee. Even Mr. Betsy. They all played a role in normalizing same sex relationships for me. Her Milieu trilogy goes even farther with same-sex couples marrying. This is operatic science fiction/fantasy (yes both) and has a number of romances, successful and un. ***Teddypig ~ Not Available In eBook***

3. Elusive Lover: Alternate Visions Cara J. Loup, editor. It may be bad form to include fanfiction, but this zine was what made me really want to write same-sex romance. It’s a Han/Luke alternate universe zine, and exceptionally well written and edited. Some of the stories are more romantic than others. ***Teddypig ~ I like fanfiction in fact I started reading it with Farscape.***

4. Laura London ~ The Windflower This was another non-squicky same-sex relationship, although it turned out to be only a pseudo-relationship. Rand Morgan was a big old flaming queen and the toughest pirate on the seas. Also, Devon and Merry were ridiculously hot and have undue influence on what I do with wine in sex scenes, but I was more interested in Morgan and Cat. ***Teddypig ~ Not Available In eBook***

5. Kiernan Kelly ~ Change Of Heart was one of the first stand alone m/m romances I read, where the focus was not on the fandom or on another pairing, but on the men. Kiernan is still one of the first authors I read in an anthology and one whose releases I keep up on. Available as an e-book.

Angelia

Naomi Brooks & Angelia Sparrow ~ Glad Hands
From: Ellora’s Cave

You know what I hate? You know what I really hate?

Here I was reading probably one of the few M/M Scifi Romances I have read lately featuring a hot sexy Native American Truck Driver (I LOVE THAT!) and OK OK so the love interest is this poor abused young runaway kid. The cover while it is hot does not show this huge age difference too well by the way.

Anyway, so it’s a road story with lot’s of miles to cover and it’s excellent because let’s face the fact these can be boring stories but this so works here because of the Scifi stuffs. You guys did a superb job world building and a great job writing these characters with depth and the action parts were fun.

Up to and including chapter 10 I can easily say this story was so getting a Grade B or even the rare Grade A.

Then you tacked on 6 more chapters of WTF.

Why?

I just did not understand why we needed to see all the mundane aftermath and to drag it out like that… I mean who the fuck cares if the runaway kid needs to get tested for STDs? Or how he called into some radio talk show to recount his adventures? Do we really have to see it? Did it really add anything? I don’t think it did.

Could we have wrapped up everything that happens after the heart pumping great escape in a epilogue or something? I hate to be such a party pooper. It’s not like you are the only writers out there that have done this. I was just enjoying the story so much and was disappointed to see it go so far past the natural ending. I skimmed through like the last three chapters and I don’t think I missed anything important. Grade D