Tag: Own Voices

Books

Book 970: Heartthrob (Honeywood #1) – Noah Steele

Geoff W

Book cover of "Heaththrob" with Amazon Affiliate linkOMG, ya’ll this is an author to keep an eye on. That’s not something I usually say when it comes to a self-published author I come across via Gay Romance Reviews.*

More often than not I’m complaining about the quality of either the story, the writing, or the editing (or all three or some combination), and don’t get me wrong there were a few issues with this one but Steele can definitely write and I’m already looking at his back catalog to see what I want to read next.

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Books

Book 959: The Dove in the Belly – Jim Grimsley

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Dove in the Belly" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen I finished re-reading Dream Boy back in May, I did a quick search to see what Jim Grimsley was up to these days and stumbled across this upcoming release. I reached out to the publisher for a copy and crossed my fingers it wasn’t going to be as traumatic or emotionally draining as the others I’ve read.*

The Dove in the Belly is the story of Ronny and Ben. It takes place on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in the 1970s and that’s the main reason I wanted to read this, Grimsley went to UNC and having it set on the UNC campus intrigued me as I also went to UNC and remember some of the history around the early LGBT organizations and experiences on campus.

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Books

Book 946: Just by Looking at Him – Ryan O’Connell

Geoff W

Book cover of "Just by Looking at Him" with Amazon Affiliate linkIf I’m 100% honest I first was drawn to this book because of the cover art, a cropped version of Henry Scott Tuke’s The Critics (Wikiart). Tuke does water like no one else and they pumped up the blues and greens on the cover.

Then when you add the title of the painting to what the main character does for a living: mind blown. So THEN I realized this was the same Ryan O’Connell who created, wrote, and starred in Special on Netflix, and of course, I requested a copy.*

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Books

Book 930: The Fake Boyfriends Debacle (Frat Brats of Santa Barbara #1) – Hayden Hall

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Fake Boyfriends Debacle" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen this popped up on the Gay Romance Reviews site I requested a copy since I’d been watching Hall’s social media and book releases for some time.* I figured why not give him a go and see what I thought.

Unfortunately, for me, this was a miss. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t poorly written or anything and honestly, it probably had better copy-editing than most of the self-published books I’ve read or received via GRR. It just didn’t work, but more on that later.

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Books

Book 929: Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li

Geoff W

Book cover of "Portrait of a Thief" with Amazon Affiliate linkI’m punching myself for not reading this book earlier AND for goofing off (aka knitting and Minecrafting) while reading it instead of blazing through it as it deserved. I’ve been sitting on this since November of LAST YEAR when someone in marketing at the publisher reached out with it.* I forced myself to wait until late March/early April to read it because I had a feeling I would really enjoy it and that barely covers my enthusiasm for it.

The premise was fascinating to me even if I was a bit wary of the Boston setting (I have bad experience with books being set where I live/have lived), but international art theft by college students, critiques on colonialism, BIPOC author, and characters, discussion of diaspora, ummm obviously I was going to say yes to it. I found out while reading the acknowledgments, that this has already been optioned by Netflix and I cannot tell you how much I’m ready for that!

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