Love You to Death
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Grant Michaels' zany series of adventures starring Stan Kraychik garnered multiple Lambda Literary Awards including a 1991 nomination for Best Gay Mystery. For this new 2019 edition, Carl Mesrobian reminisces about his brother Grant in an exclusive foreword, and Neil S. Plakcy provides an introduction of appreciation.
FreeForm by Jack Dickson
A Jas Anderson Thriller, Book 1 — A tough gay thriller set in the criminal underworld of Glasgow, Scotland. Set in the derelict inner-city of Glasgow’s Dennistoun, FreeForm introduces a tough new gay cop, Detective-Sergeant Jas Anderson. A violent anti-hero, suspended from duty for assault, Jas is the natural suspect when his lover is found brutally murdered. Now on the run and struggling to clear his name, Jas uncovers Leigh’s involvement in a blackmail ring, and even his lover’s identity becomes confused. Film-noir in inspiration, vividly characterised, and authentically exposing the raw nerves of Thatcherite Britain, FreeForm is set to appeal to a wide readership.
Originally published in 1998, this new 2019 edition includes a foreword by Clive King.
Sunday's Child by Edward O. Phillips
A Geoffry Chadwick Misadventure, Book 1 - Lawyer Geoffry Chadwick is 50, Canadian, single, gay and, after a brief struggle with a hustler who tries to shake him down, a murderer. Herein lies the device for this macabre, funny, first novel. Although Geoffry must dispose of the body—which he does by dropping off sections of it around town at night—the trauma of the murder affords him the opportunity to reminisce and ruminate: on the recent termination of his affair with a history teacher; on the not-so-recent deaths of his wife and daughter; on the alcoholism of his mother; on growing old; on being gay. The visit of a nephew and the New Year’s festivities only serve to intensify his thoughts. Although Chadwick is abrasively disdainful early on, he is fascinating when he loosens up. Phillips keeps the reader hopping with throwaway quotations from Donne and scatalogical references and puns.
First published in 1981, and a Books in Canada First Novel nominee, this 2019 edition contains a new foreword by Alexander Inglis.
The Black Marble Pool by Stan Leventhal
When you first notice it, something seems a bit unusual. Then it occurs to you that most, if not all, of the pools you’ve ever seen before were painted blue or white. The Captain’s House pool is black. Not painted black. But constructed of black marble and black tile. The marble has streaks of white that look like lightning bolts in a black sky. There is a sexiness to this pool; a personality. It looks and feels like a warm, wet blanket, surrounding and protecting you like a dark, quiet womb.
There’s a dead body at the bottom of a pool in the backyard of a guest house in Key West. Who is he? And what caused his untimely demise? Maybe it’s suicide. Or an accident. But more likely—murder! And who’s responsible? One of the guests, the people who run the guest house or one of those mysterious women in town?
A Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in 1991, this edition includes a new 2019 foreword by renowned LGBTQ publicist and friend of Stan Leventhal, Michele Karlsberg.
Onyx by Felice Picano
What is the measure of a man’s life? Success? Love? Friendship. Ray Henriques has them all, and more, but lately its not enough. But it is not just Ray who is on a quest for deeper meaning and understanding of life’s extraordinary landscape. For Jesse, Ray’s lover of ten years, it is a quest accelerated by his imminent death from AIDS. And for young married father of two Mike Tedesco, it is a search for the heart of masculinity. The sexual exploration which begins when Ray and Mike meet awakens a restlessness in both men, which resoundingly alters their future paths. As Ray’s life begins to draw him increasingly into the future, a future without Jesse, he attempts to tether himself to the here and now with frequent visits to a past where life’s answers seemed simpler and more meaningful. But when Jesse’s fundamentalist Christian mother rolls into town to take charge of her son’s final weeks, he is yanked from his reverie to face an opponent unlike any he has ever known. Marked by shifting points of view and Picano’s use of humor, descriptive brilliance, and unexpected revelation, Onyx is a multifaceted exploration of inner lives, motivation, love, and the sometimes hollow center beneath a polished surface.
First published to acclaim in 2001, this new 2019 edition features a new foreword by the author.
Coming Soon
Banged Up by Jack Dickson
A Jas Anderson Thriller, Book 2 —Detective Sergeant Jas Anderson is imprisoned and fighting for his life.
Anderson was the violent anti-hero of FreeForm, and ended up in that story, being expelled from the Glasgow police force. Banged Up starts with Jas being framed by his ex-colleagues. He is remanded to Barlinnie prison, and is forced to share a cell with Steve McStay, sentenced for aggravated assault on two gay men. In this all-male environment, inmates don’t divide into gay and straight, but rather into who fucks and who gets fucked. Resilient as ever, Jas forms an unlikely partnership with Steve in his fight for survival.
Originally published in 1999, this new 2019 edition includes a foreword.
The Unfinished by Jay B. Laws
Jiggs, a hearing-impaired gay man tortured by the recent death of his parents, moves into a long-vacant San Francisco apartment. The apartment is revealed to be haunted by the Unfinished, spirits whose lives ended prematurely through tragedy, violence or betrayal. Jiggs's initially adversarial relationship with his spectral housemates soon becomes a partnership when both parties see each other as instrumental to ending their own suffering. The stories unfold via visitations by three Dickensian ghosts offering accounts of their deaths. In one story, a man dying from AIDS confronts the limits of his vanity when he realizes the terrible price of his wish to recapture his looks. In another, a car mechanic's soul is left to ponder how his weakness led to his murder.
Laws’ second and final novel was published posthumously in 1993. This 2019 edition includes a foreword by Sasha Alyson, founder of the celebrated LGBT press Alyson Publications as well as an introduction by Greg Herren.
Buried on Sunday by Edward O. Phillips
A Geoffry Chadwick Misadventure, Book 2 - “One of the problems with weekends in the country” says Geoffry Chadwick's genial host in Buried on Sunday, “is that people feel free to drop in unannounced.” And drop in they do. No sooner has our loveable lawyer hero, a partner in the prestigious law firm of Lyall, Pierce, Chadwick and Dawson—who just happens to be gay—settled in with a spicy Bloody Mary, than hardened criminals on the lam burst in and take Chadwick and his hosts hostage in their own beautiful home.
A tale of mystery and suspense brims with human drama, both poignant and comic: It turns out that one of the other hostages, now married, had once been Chadwick's lover. As the hours of their forced confinement turn into days, a flood of bittersweet memories engulf Chadwick, of an affair whose painful end he could never forget, of a lover who had changed the course of his life. As the weekend moves toward its powerful denouement, Chadwick comes to terms with the road he has taken—and the quite different path, of marriage and convention, chosen by his early love.
First published in 1986, it won the coveted Arthur Ellis Best Novel Award from the Crime Writer's of Canada. This 2019 edition contains a contemporary interview with Phillips on reception of his work and a reminiscence of Edward Phillips' 80th birthday celebration by Toronto author Nancy Wigston.
Dead on Your Feet by Grant Michaels
A Stan Kraychik Mystery, Book 3 — Boston's sassiest hairdresser faces a confusing mix of romance and murder in the world of ballet. Stan's streak of recent bad luck in romance seemed at an end when he became involved with ballet choreographer Rafik Panossian. But bad luck of a different sort dogs his steps when the founder of the ballet company is found brutally murdered and the company's young conductor (and Stan's possible rival for Rafik's affections) is the prime suspect.
A Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in 1994, this edition includes a new 2019 foreword by Charles Michaelson.
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