Review: I had heard good things about this author but I had never read anything by her before, I shall certainly be changing that now.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 4, 2014
4.5 of 5 stars~ Review by BeverleyFor original review see Prism Book AllianceThis is a wonderful novel about the dangers of living without self knowledge and the explosion that occurs in your life when you discover your true nature. Lily Velden knows how to wield words as a visceral weapon or a soft caress. I read a short story before this good length novel, and was put off by the flowery, cheesy dialogue surprised when I found out a man had written it. I recommended a friend, who happens to be a gay man, read it and tell me what he thought. Likewise, he thought it had been ‘written by a woman who didn’t know men’.I then copied various paragraphs of this novel to him and he thought it was written by a gay man. In this context it is a great compliment. This book is very sexy. It has desperate need, sexual awakening, fear from new arousal and understanding of self. It also has some quotable gems,His cock was definitely a star. His heart and lungs were merely its life support system, his nerves its communication system, and the apex of his thighs its home address. Though I wouldn’t mind if he called my ass home away from home.When Noah’s sexual awakening occurs he behaves like a teenager, who has just discovered the sexual pleasures out there, he is unable to put the genie back in the bottle and is aroused by men everywhere. His first attempts to assuage his permanent arousal and experiment are at a gay bath house, but it is the cache of home videos and the sexual images of someone he has never met, which have him desiring more. Because this is a story about a man in his early thirties it means every feeling and event, in his coming out, is heightened for him.Noah’s awareness of how he has been half alive for three decades makes discovering love for the first time feel more poignant. When he finally meets the true object of his desires he has his first gay kiss,That one kiss was the best sex I’d ever had.This novel starts off with some descriptions, which my previously mentioned friend said rang really true. He himself has been out and proud since a very young teen, but knows men who have felt, as described by Lily Velden, when depression overcame them whilst in the closet for decades,I was living a monochromatic, black- and- white photograph of a life where everything was a shade of tedious. I wasn’t sure how it happened, or even when it happened.It just had.It crept up on me, like a slow-spreading parasitic vine, gradually sapping the vibrancy from my life. One day I woke up and everything was gray, dull and lifeless.This novel impressed me, entertained me, aroused me and gave me everything I enjoy in a believable romantic story between two men. Additionally no women had to be insulted or stereotyped to do this and I think I’ve already sold it to my friend.