Happy Gay Friday: UK Meet, Gay Mermen & More

This weeks HGF illustration is a video compilation of one of my favorite gay You Tube channels: JJ Prods. This compilation is from three Eating Out movies (3, 4 & 5), which I’ve never seen and which don’t seem to get very high ratings at IMdB… but who cares: there are hot guys kissing hot guys in it. *g*

GayRomLit in pictures & getting ready for the After Party

There are already many GayRomLit posts out there. Yet, I like to add my little contribution, a bunch of pics of the wonderful time I had.

And on top of that, I invited a few friends and authors (all Riptide published) to write a guest post for me with their reflections on GayRomLit. Rachel Haimowitz will kick off the GayRomLit After Party & Riptide Party tomorrow. The other authors that will visit my place are: Cat Grant, Bryl Tyne, Brita Addams, Damon Suede and Aleksandr Voinov.

And the friends that have agreed on doing a blog post for me are the fab girls I shared a house with in New Orleans: Kris, Leontine, Tam, Kassa and Tracy. The seventh friend who was there, Chris, didn’t accept the invitation… Here we are:

Standing (from left to right): Tam, Kassa, Tracy, Chris

Sitting: me, Leontine, Kris

It’s impossible for me to describe everything that happened during the 4 days of GayRomLit. The schedule was packed, with parties, author readings, a book signing boat cruise, a vampire & ghost tour, a lunch with an author (mine was Simone Anderson), a cemetery tour and a pub crawl, among other things.

The most amazing thing for me was meeting the people behind all those names that I only knew from the internet or the books I read. I had so many fan girl moments, it's ridiculous, really. A good second place on the list of awesome things is reserved for the time we spent in gay bars, and not only because of the nekkid guys. ;) The girls and I had so much fun. I miss them and the rest very much!

Patti, me, Leontine

Ethan Day

me, Clare London, Marie Sexton, Kate McMurray

Chris, Tam, Clare London (unsuccessfully hiding behind the pole), Kassa

M.L. Rhodes, me, Stephani Hecht

me & Cole

Tracy, me, Heidi Cullinan, Leontine

Z.A. Maxfield (in blue, reading)

me, Damon Suede (in kilt *swoon*), Leontine

Kris, Tracy, Kassa, me, Tam, Leontine

me & Devon Rhodes

me & John

me, Leontine, Tracy

Rowan Speedwell, me, J.P. Barnaby

 me & Ellis Carrington

Disclaimer: If you want me to remove your picture shoot me an email and I'll remove it asap

~

Happy Gay Friday & The Letter A

And another week went by… My mini-break is turning out to be not so mini at all. In fact, I’m still enjoying the A-Z Reading Challenge and now that I’m not spending as much time online as I used to do, oddly enough my social calendar seems to become a bit overwhelming. Or maybe it’s not so odd…
Somehow invitations for fun dates with friends keep coming in and they’re making my calendar for the month of May look like one big busy feast of colors (since I’m using different pencils for all the dates). It must be the wonderful, sunny and warm weather that we’re having here for weeks now. It makes people want to plan parties, barbeques and other get-togethers. And also, all the national holidays during this time of year are a great cause for fun things, there are plenty of musical and cultural festivals you can go to.
Yesterday for example, we had a national holiday here in the Netherlands what’ll probably translate as ‘Liberation Day’ or something like that (we celebrate the end of WWII because by then, in 1945, most part of our country was liberated by the Canadians and Americans). And we went with a couple of friends to one of the many rock and pop festivals that are organized in the larger cities each year on May 5th.
Between the beautiful weather, all the holiday events and the upcoming deadlines at work, I’m afraid there probably won’t be much time for my online activities left. So don’t start to worry if you don’t see me around much, I’ll be back *wink*. Every now and then…


My reading groove is still not what it used to be, but the A to Z Challenge is at least helping me with picking my next book. I moved on to the B last week, no C books in sight yet, but here are a few reviewettes (not as short as Chris's ones but alas) of the A titles I’ve read:

Anything For You by Ethan Day

This is a hilarious and endearing story which shows realistically and makes very palpable how terrifying it is/can be to come out of the closet. Jason is the first person narrator of Anything For You and he is uniquely funny but extremely in the closet. Finding true love makes brave so that Jason can continue being hot and sweet together with his super hero gay rights activist Chad. Highly recommended! 4.75 stars

Alex's Appeal by Jude Mason & Jenna Byrnes

Book three in the Kindred Spirits series. Cute story about a younger cook winning the heart of an older lawyer who recently lost his lover. Although this books has its own main characters the setting is the same as in the previous books in this series: an inn where ghosts feel happy to show themselves. This time the ghost was the deceased lover of the lawyer Alex, which felt a bit farfetched: I didn’t get why he would ‘show up’ now, one year after he died, and at this place far from home. I did like the bedroom scenes between Alex and Logan but cared less for their insta-love. 3.5 stars

A to Z by Marie Sexton

Zach and Angelo's relationship starts out as an endearing friendship, which finally turns into a sweet and hot love story that comes to full bloom in the second half of the book. Their engaging and well-written story is about giving each other space, being able to be yourself, finding your own strength in the other's strength, the balance between give and take, having patience to let trust build and stimulating each other to live your life to its fullest potential. Zach and Angelo complete each other in the most beautiful way and I just loved their emotional interaction and physical chemistry. 4.5 stars

All or Nothing by James Buchanan

This final installment in this series is an explosive finale of Nicky and Brandon’s ongoing relationship which has been a rollercoaster of emotions from the start. Very raw and deeply felt feelings are threatening to destroy them when this moving couple has to deal with the mother of all nightmares. This was one of the most emotional books I’ve read within this genre so far. And yet, despite everything that’s going on in their lives, the author managed to throw in a couple of sexy scenes which involved some wicked rope work again. And these scenes even supported the plot and weren’t just inserted for hotness sake. I’m kinda sad that this was the last of the Nicky and Brandon books (and free stories) I had on my shelves. It’s hard to say goodbye to this unbelievably hot couple. *sob*. The entire series (Cheating Chance and Inland Empire are the previous books) has been an enthralling reading experience. Highly recommended: 5 stars

Happy Gay Friday everyone!

~

Mondays Hot Couple & Sexy, Smutty Scene

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This week’s sexy smutty scene is from As You Are by Ethan Day. It’s an M/M romance, that I want to read soon. I’ve heard many good things about this book.
A few weeks ago I joined this author’s Yahoo Group and every last day of the month it’s Gay Day over there, with lots of excerpts and giveaways. So, that was yesterday and, lucky me, I was the winner of a long short story by S.J. Frost :) I’ll be blogging about her in the near future because I also bought her book Conquest last week…

But this post is all about As You Are by Ethan Day and the smuttalicious scene from page 77-78:

“

“Here, Julian, I'll take those.” Danny stood up and held out his free hand for the dishes.
“All right.” I stood up and faced him, holding the plates for him to take. Danny leaned in and started to kiss me. My entire body went stiff as his lips made contact with mine. They were soft and warm, and as if by instinct, my mouth opened for his. I didn't know what the hell was going on.
When his tongue made its way into my mouth, I dropped the dishes onto the floor, luckily somehow missing our feet. They crashed, silverware clanking across the floor, and I felt Danny's hand slide over my ass. His thick lips were sucking, softly and sensually, as they pressed into mine, his tongue slowly moving in and out of my mouth.
His other hand found its way to my other ass cheek as I slid my hands over his hard-muscled shoulders. He seemed to take that as a sign and pulled me into his body, his mouth more forceful as his tongue waged war with mine. My entire brain buzzed and hummed as if in a trance. I was terrified my head might explode from the sensation of his fingers massaging and kneading my ass.
All the time I'd longed for and waited for this to happen and now, here it was…in living color with high-def clarity. His mouth was salty from the beer and pizza as I worked my hand onto the back of his head. His short, buzzed hair felt prickly and soft at the same time. I felt extremely light-headed as he continued to cover my mouth with his own. It was as if he were sucking the actual air out of my lungs. I thought I might suffocate, and I didn't fucking care.
Danny held me up as I lost the feeling in my legs for a moment, losing my balance. He pulled back, looking over my face. “You okay?”
I looked briefly into his glossed-over, sharp green eyes before covering his mouth with mine. I was apparently kissing him with a bit more force than I realized, since he stumbled back a step from my full-frontal assault. His arms roped around my waist once again as my senses overloaded. We were both beginning to sweat, and the taste of him, the woodsy scent from his soap, his natural musky-man smell—together they almost pushed me over the edge.
A pathetic, almost frantic whimper escaped from me as his hand moved over my hard-on. From that moment, it became a frenetic rush of pulling and yanking one another out of the few clothes we had on. I hopped up, wrapping my legs around his waist, and clung to his body like a spider monkey.
”

Ethan Day’s weblog and website and Yahoo group

Backblurb:
Operation Danny… that’s all bartender and recent college graduate Julian Hallowell has had on his mind over the past year. Julian may have no idea what he wants to do with his life, but he definitely knows he’s in love with the boy next door: The one in next room to be exact: his roommate Danny Wallace.
Danny owns a used text book store just off campus, and while Julian has done his level best to make Danny fall for him, all his hard work appears to have been in vain. Danny doesn’t seem to view Julian as anything other than that…a roommate and friend. So when new-guy-in-town Andy Baker asks him out on a date, Julian can’t seem to think of a good reason to say no.
Julian has already instituted a Reverse Operation Danny plan, which he’s positive will purge all thoughts of love and lust for his roomie out of his head. He’s ready to move on and start looking for his next Mr. Right, and Andy just might fit the bill.