Angel Martinez - Writer, Reader, Woman about town

What can I say? I love a rascal, so I fell in love with Seregil from the start. More fun than I've had in quite awhile with a fantasy novel.

This is a truly amazing series - a world so different, characters so off the beaten track - as a reader I was entranced, as a wrtter I was soothed and gratified. Compelling, exciting and a little on the out-there side - wonderful.

A sweet m/m romance, steeped in the attitudes and issues of the time (post WWI) I thoroughly enojyed this one. Oh, yes, there are some slow spots, especially at the beginning, but the characters are marvelous and the writing transportive.

Before the sexual revolutionm,before 'gay rights' was even a thought, these boys struggle with a society where gay men are shut away in institutions as mentally ill, where they can be arrested simply for talking to someone at a known 'pick up' spot, and where most gay men simply hope to find a moment's happiness rather than dare to hope for anything more.

Most werewolf stories focus on the 'infection' - the events leading up to and following the change, the how and why and the nechanics of it. In Soul Mate, while the were aspect is vital to the story and Kari is perhaps the most lupine character I have ever met, the nitty-gritty of lycanthropy does not overshadow plot and character development.

Ms. Bybee does a wonderful job with the slow reveal, allowing the reader to discover the characters in a natural progression rather than having them dumped in the reader's lap, no mean feat for a short piece. Through dialogue and interaction, we become privy to Kari's necessary wariness, her suspicion, her purposeful walls, while Nick, who appears a touch arrogant and invasive at first, reaveals his courage, hsi persistence and a steadfastness worthy of a tin soldier.

A fast-paced, smoothly progressing read, this is not your typical werewofl story. Laced with humor and moemnts of heated sensuality, it's well worth the time to devour.

This is a marvelous, wild ride of a tale set in an alternate Napoleonic era where both sides are desperate to add more ammunition to their arsenals in the form of...wait for it...dragons.

Peter Jackson's signed on to direct the movie version - read it quick before it hits the theaters!

In honor of the month, it is June, and Pride Month, I wanted to pull a couple of important classics down from the shelf. When we look at the history of modern gay literature, this is a milestone.

Originally published in 1971, this is an angry, embittered tale with good reason. At the time, many of you youngsters might not recall, but homosexuality (often masked under the legal terms 'lewd behavior' or 'indecent behavior') was still illegal, still prosecuted with a vengeance and still targeted by police departments everywhere in the US. Raids on bath houses, known gay bars and public parks to round up gays and lesbians and lock them up was the norm.

This is one of the first novels to address the issue in a searingly candid, no-holds-barred way. Joyce Carol Oates called it "Engrossing, powerful and disturbing."

And it is. But it is an important work. Difficult to read for the compassionate heart. Necessary to know the history. Vital in today's world to know the history or, as they say, we are doomed to repeat it.

While it is a protest novel, it is also the story of one gay man's fight to survive and stay whole. Survive in a physical sense the threats he encounters and survive in an emotional sense in a society that has branded him a criminal and a deviant.

This is serious stuff, kids. Do not expect fluff. But when I was young, it opened my eyes. It was important then, and I think it remains an important work today.

I'll let Cole, the MC, finish up here for me as he relates his sentencing in his ironic way:

"It was sort of like stealing a loaf of bread - I only got six months for that - but because I protested the basic injustice I was sentenced to two more years. And then something else happened while I was in. And that's how the cookie of life crumbles."