The Lonely War


Alan Chin - 2009
    The man Andrew loves will die without proper medical treatment. To save his life, Andrew makes a choice that could destroy not just his future but his life.

Strange Meeting


Susan Hill - 1971
    For three weeks, he had been afraid of going to sleep . . .'Young officer John Hilliard returns to his battalion in France following a period of sick leave in England. Despite having trouble adjusting to all the new faces, the stiff and reserved Hilliard forms a friendship with David Barton, an open and cheerful new recruit who has still to be bloodied in battle. As the pair approach the front line, to the proximity of death and destruction, their strange friendship deepens. But each knows that soon they will be separated . . .'A remarkable feat of imaginative and descriptive writing' The Times'The feeling of men under appalling stress at a particular moment in history is communicated with almost uncanny power' Sunday Times'Truly Astonishing' Daily Telegraph

We Think the World of You


J.R. Ackerley - 1960
    Ackerley as “a fairy tale for adults.” Frank, the narrator, is a middle-aged civil servant, intelligent, acerbic, self-righteous, angry. He is in love with Johnny, a young, married, working-class man with a sweetly easygoing nature. When Johnny is sent to prison for committing a petty theft, Frank gets caught up in a struggle with Johnny’s wife and parents for access to him. Their struggle finds a strange focus in Johnny’s dog—a beautiful but neglected German shepherd named Evie. And it is she, in the end, who becomes the improbable and undeniable guardian of Frank’s inner world.

Queer Fear (Queer Fear #1)


Michael RoweWilliam J. Mann - 2000
    These dark, often disturbing tales expand the boundaries of the horror genre; the sexuality of the protagonists is a point of reference for the "horror" of otherness that defines and, at times, divides us.Cover painting: Detail from The Ambassador of Obloquy by James HuctwithContains the following stories:"The Nightguard" C. Mark Umland"Piercing Men" Douglas Clegg"The Siege" Michael Marano"Bear Shirt" Gemma Files"Little Holocausts" Brian Hodge"The Sound of Weeping" Thomas S. Roche"Hey Fairy" Edo Van Belkom"The Spark" William J. Mann"Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)" Caitlin R. Kiernan"The Perpetual" David Quinn"Genius Loci" Becky N. Southwell"Goodbye" Michael Thomas Ford"Tabula Rasa" Robert Boyczuk"You Can't Always Get What You Want" T.L. Bryers"The Bird Feeders" David Nickle"No Silent Scream" Nancy Kilpatrick"Second Shadow" Joseph O'Brien

True at First Light


Ernest Hemingway - 2000
    Edited by his son Patrick, who accompanied his father on the safari, True at First Light offers rare insights into the legendary American writer in the year of the hundredth anniversary of his birth.A blend of autobiography and fiction, the book opens on the day his close friend Pop, a celebrated hunter, leaves Ernest in charge of the safari camp and news arrives of a potential attack from a hostile tribe. Drama continues to build as his wife, Mary, pursues the great black-maned lion that has become her obsession. Spicing his depictions of human longings with sharp humor, Hemingway captures the excitement of big-game hunting and the unparalleled beauty of the scenery -- the green plains covered with gray mist, zebra and gazelle traversing the horizon, cool dark nights broken by the sounds of the hyena's cry. As the group at camp help Mary track her prize, she and Ernest suffer the "incalculable casualties of marriage," and their attempts to love each other well are marred by cruelty, competition and infidelity. Ernest has become involved with Debba, an African girl whom he supposedly plans to take as a second bride. Increasingly enchanted by the local African community, he struggles between the attraction of these two women and the wildly different cultures they represent. In True at First Light, Hemingway also chronicles his exploits -- sometimes hilarious and sometimes poignant -- among the African men with whom he has become very close, reminisces about encounters with other writers and his days in Paris and Spain and satirizes, among other things, the role of organized religion in Africa. He also muses on the act of writing itself and the author's role in determining the truth. What is fact and what is fiction? This is a question that was posed by Hemingway's readers throughout his career and is one of his principal subjects here. Equally adept at evoking the singular textures of the landscape, the thrill of the hunt and the complexities of married life, Hemingway weaves a tale that is rich in laughter, beauty and profound insight. True at First Light is an extraordinary publishing event -- a breathtaking final work from one of America's most beloved and important writers.

The Rope Swing: Stories


Jonathan Corcoran - 2016
    The residents left behind in this tiny hamlet look to the mountains that surround them on all sides: The outside world encroaches, and the buildings of the gilded past seem to crumble more every day. These are the stories of outsiders—the down and out. What happens to the young boy whose burgeoning sexuality pushes him to the edge of the forest to explore what might be love with another boy? What happens when one lost soul finally makes it to New York City, yet the reminders of his past life are omnipresent? What happens when an old woman struggles to find a purpose and reinvent herself after decades of living in the shadow of her platonic life partner? What happens to those who dare to live their lives outside of the strict confines of the town’s traditional and regimented ways? The characters in The Rope Swing—gay and straight alike—yearn for that which seems so close but impossibly far, the world over the jagged peaks of the mountains.

Anything Could Happen


Will Walton - 2015
    Which makes it hard for him to be in love with his straight best friend. For his part, Matt is completely oblivious to the way Tretch feels – and Tretch can’t tell whether that makes it better or worse. The problem with living a lie is that the lie can slowly become your life. For Tretch, the problem isn’t just with Matt. His family has no idea who he really is and what he’s really thinking. The girl at the local bookstore has no clue how off-base her crush on him is. And the guy at school who’s a thorn in Tretch’s side doesn’t realize how close to the truth he’s hitting. Tretch has spent a lot of time dancing alone in his room, but now he’s got to step outside his comfort zone and into the wider world. Because like love, a true self can rarely be contained. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN is a poignant, hard-hitting exploration of love and friendship, a provocative debut that shows that sometimes we have to let things fall apart before we can make them whole again.

Kamikaze Boys


Jay Bell - 2012
    Find yourself a kindred spirit. Then you can start fighting back.They say Connor, the one with the crazy eyes and creepy scar, tried to kill his old man. Lately he’s been seen hanging out with David, the gay guy who always eats lunch alone. They make an odd pair, the loser and the psychopath, and bad things happen to people who mess with them. Not that Connor and David are looking for trouble. Even when taking on the world, they seem more interested in each other than fighting.Kamikaze Boys is a story about breaking the chains that bind you and using them to beat down anyone that gets in your way. Better yet, it’s about holding hands with the guy you love while doing so.

The Fire's Stone


Tanya Huff - 1990
    Clan Heir, he has fled his people when his beloved was slain by his own father's command, abandoning his training, duty and beliefs to become a thief. A master of his trade, he now dared the odds in Ischia, city of the volcano, where the price of being caught was death.DARVISH. Prince of Ischia, third son of a king who had no intention of giving up his throne. The prince was a drunkard, a lover, and a wastrel, yet was gifted with sword skills and with the ability to charm all around him. But not even his charm could free him from the political marriage now being planned.CHANDRA. Born a princess, she had chosen to become a Wizard of the Nine, that rarest of beings, able to master all the forms that sorcery could take. Now, promised as Darvish's bride, she undertook a desperate journey to Ischia to convince him they must not wed.Aaron, Darvish, Chandra—three strangers whose fates were about to become interwined. For someone had stolen The Stone, the magical talisman which stood between Ischia and the volcano's wrath. And unless the three could learn to work together on a quest to find the Stone, Ischia would drown in a sea of lava.