The Bookkeeper

Here are the answers to the trivia questions.

1. “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” by Michael Chabon
2. “Troilus and Cressida”. Troilus says it to Cressida in Act III., scene II.
3. His full name is Dr. John Hamish Watson
4. “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street”. It was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press in 1937.
5. James Hilton in “Lost Horizon”
6. Brunellus
7. A “beautiful auto-da-fé”. See chapter VI in Voltaire’s “Candide”. In the foot notes it says that the auto-da-fé actually took place a few months after the earthquake on June 20, 1756.

   The phrase “auto-da fé” refers to the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment (that is, after the trial). Auto de fé in medieval Spanish (and in Portuguese) means "act of faith". The phrase is used most frequently in English in its alternative Portuguese form auto-da-fé. In the popular imagination, "auto-da-fé" has come to refer to burning at the stake for heresy.
   (Source: wikipedia)

Who answered correctly?

Mish was not right, but her deduction was very observant since Othello also deals with the topic of infidelity.

Gavin’s three answers were all correct. 

Sari was right with Lost Horizon.

Jason was right with the Dr. Seuss question and with the question about the auto da-fé in Candide. 

I wasn’t too thrilled with it. I liked Brandon’s character, but Ramon’s shilly-shallying really grated on me. He wanted to, but couldn’t go through, and that went back and forth for ages. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I just didn’t connect with the story at all.

When Brandon couldn’t have Ramon, he went and looked for one night stands who resembled Ramon. Can’t say I cared for that much either.

Lily from I love books gave this a very favourable review, though. So check it out yourself!

Available at All Romance e-books (Publisher Lethe Press)

Blurb: Four years ago Ryan’s parents disowned him for being gay. To escape their threats, he ran away to Canada. Now his twin sister Nicole is getting married to his best friend Peter, and Ryan will risk anything to attend. Help arrives in the most unexpected form: Peter’s older brother Daniel, the man Ryan had loved from afar.

Review: There are some aspects in this story that I really liked and some that I couldn’t really connect with.

The story is extremely sweet. And when I say sweet I mean it. Nothing destroys the atmosphere, except for a short intermezzo with Ryan’s parents, to which I will come later. Everybody is very nice, understanding, supportive. When Daniel meets Ryan in front of the church, there is an instant connection and nothing can sever it again. The reaction of Ryan’s sister and Peter, her husband and Ryan’s old friend, was just what Ryan needed. I don’t mind sweet stories with only little conflict, so that is not what bothered me about this story.

What I didn’t find so great were the following:

• Daniel went to the church that evening because he followed a gut feeling. Fair enough, we all have them, but it was too vague for me. He just felt like he had to go there. It is possible, but somehow it was mentioned too much in passing only afterwards. I would have liked that to be explained or explored a bit more.
• Ryan’s parents were just horrible, but for such villains they faded into the background too quickly. They kicked him out, disowned him, lied about his leaving, made threats to even harm his friends if he let them help him. Reason for all this: he’s gay. I’m not saying there are no such people, but that was just too much. When Ryan met them at the wedding, there was a short moment where I thought, now is the moment where the conflict will erupt and get settled one way or the other, but it didn’t. The moment went by and nothing… After that they were gone with one more short mentioning of them.
• Daniel and Ryan were both virgins. Possible again, but feasible? I don’t know really, it didn’t feel right.
• Daniel and Ryan have known the other for a long time. Loved each other without knowing that their feelings are returned. Now found each other again. Made love. Unfortunately there was no sexual tension to speak of, at least I didn’t feel any. And without tension there is not much fun.
• Daniel’s proposal came way too fast. He proposed the day after they met again. Even considering that they have known each other for years  before Ryan left, they were only friends at the time. A bit more together time before deciding to get married would have been better.

Even though the initial storyline sounded good, there was stuff that just didn’t work out for me. That’s why the story wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. But if you like it sweet and without any complications whatsoever, this might be for you.

Available at Dreamspinner Press

Sunday Stealing: The ABC Meme

A – An advantage you have – I’m a woman
B – Blue or brown eyes – what if they are green? I’m lucky, I guess – blue
C – Chore you hate – almost anything household related
D – Dad’s name – Johann
E – Essential start of your day – Coffee
F – Favorite color – brownish
G – Greatest thing you’ve ever done that made you feel really good – do these memes always have to be so dramatic?
H – Habit you have – non-smoking
I – Issue you hate that the world tries to make you pursue – Nobody tries to make me pursue anything
J – Job title – I have none
K – Kohls or Target – no clue what you’re talking about, so it’s neither
L – Living arrangements – rented flat
M – Music you like – The Smiths
N – Nicknames – I’m not saying
O – Overnight hospital stay – only when I gave birth
P – Pet Peeve – plenty
Q – Quote that you like most – One of them is “Enjoy yourself.  It’s later than you think.  ~Chinese Proverb
R – Right or left handed – right
S – Siblings – none
T – Time you wake up – around 6, not of my own volition
U – Underwear – yes
V – Vegetable you dislike – almost all of them
W – What makes you run late – oversleeping, that hardly ever happens though, see letter T
X – X-rays you’ve had – teeth, thyroid, lungs
Y – Yummy food you make – Lasagna
Z – Zoo animal – giraffes

On salon.com there is an interesting article “Buffy fans: read this” about Urban Fantasy books, that overlap a lot with paranormal romance. Mainly it talks about Sookie Stackhouse, Anita Blake (definitely not romance, this) and other tough chick heroines. If you read PNR, you should go and have a look at it!

This week’s Weekly Geeks:

Though I’m really not very good at it, I love trivia. Put books and trivia together and you’ve got a perfect match. So I thought it would be a fun Weekly Geek activity for us to come up with some book trivia questions to ask each other.
So take a moment, don’t stress about it all, and write down five to ten questions that pop into your mind. You could center all your questions around a particular theme or genre, maybe something in which you specialize. Or ask questions about one certain book. Or teach us about your favorite author through your questions.
You could do really easy ones that you know we’ll all get or really hard ones that will challenge even the best of us.

I love trivia. This is going to be fun…

Right, here we go. Since 7 is a good number I go with seven random questions.

1. These are the first lines from a book. Which one and by whom is it?

At the beginning of the summer I had lunch with my father, the gangster, who was in town for the weekend to transact some of his vague business.

2. What Shakespearian play is this quote from?

“This is the monstruosity in love, lady, – that the will is infinite, and the execution confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.”

3. What is Dr. Watson’s middle name?

4. What was the first book Dr. Seuss wrote?

5. Who invented Shangri-La and in what novel?

6. In “The name of the rose” what is the name of the Abbot’s horse that William of Baskerville deducts correctly?

7. What measures did the Portuguese take to prevent further earthquakes? What was the infallible secret to hinder the earth from quaking?

Please post your answers in the comments and visit other weekly geeks’ trivia. I’ll post the solutions to the questions later on in the week.

The fairly new GLBT bookshelf, a community for everyone and everything GLBT book related (created out of frustration about the infamous amazon fail) has released its press release with more info.

Bestselling gay author Mel Keegan has masterminded a web-based cohesive organization combining the skills of writers, publishers, editors, agents, reviewers and artists in the GLBT community to provide an unprecedented public access portal to independent- and small-publisher titles. GLBT Bookshelf is an online resource designed to counter the perceived discriminatory practices of major players in the book retail scene.

Read the complete GLBT bookshelf press release

A really sweet story. The office atmosphere was pretty realistic. All the secretaries being hot for Tim, yeah, those UPS guys have something going for them. Mark was so shy and self-conscious, you just had to love him. Again, as I already said in my review for Fool for love, two guys take it slow and mean it. Nice change! A lovely and quick read.

Available at Freya’s Bower

Blurb: When Luzien Bascombe finds himself lost in the middle of more snow than he’s ever seen in his life, he starts to expect things he’d rather not. Like death. What he doesn’t expect is to find someone like Win out there in the middle of nowhere, and he really doesn’t expect to find himself falling for Win so quickly.

Winston St. James doesn’t know what to make of the young man he finds on his doorstep; not even when Luz makes it clear that he wouldn’t mind a bit of fun in Win’s bed. He does know that Luz has a life to get back to, though, which becomes harder and harder to accept. The world is never perfect, so when Luz has to go, he tries to make the best of things. Will Luz and Win get past their old hurts and take a chance on each other, Win or Lose?

Review: It seems to me that TC Blue has a preference for the lovers getting separated for some reason or other at one point in the story. And even though I know this and don’t like it I keep going back to reading her stories nevertheless. Why do I do it? Because the scenes when the two guys finally get back together again are irresistible. TC has a knack of writing love scenes that just work for me. Period. No matter what else happens in the story – and I am not saying that the storylines don’t work, they do – the love scenes alone would be making it worthwhile. I can’t put my finger on it, but for me they just do it.

The same here. Win and Luz (I’m pretty slow, I must admit, I only got the pun with the title when it was explained in the story, ) are so great together and feel so much for each other, it’s a pleasure to read about them. Once again they wouldn’t admit it to each other and it takes some time and work for them to figure everything out. In fact I had a slight problem with that because from what happens in the story they actually knew what was going on. At one point this happens:

Win wasn’t sure of how he was going to make things work, but he for damned sure would. Even if it meant closing up shop and moving to the city. Any city. There was no way he could give this up.

Only a little later Luz picks up this:

Win was just making an offer, Luz figured. Sort of. He thought Win was just putting it out there that if Luz was interested, he would be willing to see what might happen.

So, this should really settle the whole thing. Win wants more, offers it tentatively to Luz and Luz recognizes it for what it is. Luz knows that he, himself, is interested. So, what’s the problem? Why does he leave without admitting to wanting more if he knows that this is what Win wants, too? Win might not have been aware of the fact that Luz returned his feelings, because he never expressed them that openly, but Luz should have been aware of Win’s. But this was only a minor thing, and possibly I’m just pernickety.

This is a sweet story that pretty much focuses on the couple and their feelings and thoughts.

If you like cabin romance with hot love scenes and great guys, get it!

Available at Torquere Books

You would think that this story has a lot of potential for conflict. A middle-aged, blind businessman and a young rent-boy hired as a reader. There is an age gap, difference in backgrounds, outside pressure. All those could make both their lives miserable, but there are almost no problems whatsoever. A slight disturbance with the usual evil ex, which is resolved quickly and we go back to the regularly scheduled program. If you like a typical Sean Michael story, get it.

Available at Torquere Books