General Fiction Books

It’s Aaron’s big coming of age/coming out party! Date: 1967. Place: El Paso’s Rancho Sonora Motel, near Juarez, Mexico. Come early and Dollie or Scott (mother/son owners of the Rancho) will check you in; come late and Larinda (the night clerk) will show you around. Check your room for spy holes, though, unless you like to be watched! Tallulah and Jayne Mansfield are there. Meet Aaron’s favorite prostitutes and strippers. Rick (Aaron’s first infatuation) is there. In Hollywood, Aaron hangs out with TV star Mark and his brother Isaac. Mark can be playful, Isaac can be deadly with his 11-inch…knife. Meanwhile, back at the Rancho, what's with all the cars? Is Scott trying to buy the affections of our boy, Aaron? Come to the party where all will be revealed!

“Different is a brave thing to be,” a mother tells her five-year-old daughter. During the 1960s and 1970s, when things for gays and lesbians were starting to change in larger cities, in the Midwest, different was not a safe thing to be. A memorable cast of characters, a sympathetic, believable, tight-knit community of friends and rivals, fill out the interconnected stories with butches, femmes, go-go dancers, and drag queens who try to find their way in an unaccepting culture by becoming a family of choice. Anyone who has ever been on the outside looking in will feel at home on “the levee.”

Reprint

Jonathan Maxwell’s life can’t get any better as the drummer of the world’s hottest glam rock superstar, Izzy Rich. Despite the money, the nonstop excitement of touring, and the groupies, Jonathan wants something more. He wants Izzy to be his lover. 

Unbeknownst to his team, his fans, and the world, for fun, Izzy transforms in drag for Jonathan, becoming a songwriter/songstress called Holly. Though meant to happen for only one day, Jonathan and Holly’s relationship lasts for weeks. Until one day, Izzy rids himself of Holly forever.  

Transitioning from boyfriend and girlfriend to boyfriends, Jonathan and Izzy are on cloud nine. Their love is still a secret, but they couldn’t be happier. Until the tour jumps across the pond to America, where a bold, teenaged fan-girl, Roxanne Shengyi, will impact their relationship—and their lives—in ways that none of them can imagine.

A school in turmoil over its senior play, a sly career as a teenage gigolo, an unpredictable girlfriend with damage of her own, and a dangerous housebreaker tied up downstairs. Any of these would make a great plot for budding filmmaker Eric's first movie.

Unfortunately, they're his real life.

When Julien, a handsome wannabe actor, transfers to Eric's class, he's a distraction, a rival, and one complication too many. Yet Eric can't stop thinking about him. Helped by Eric's girlfriend, Mary, they embark on a project that dangerously crosses the line between filmmaking and reality. As the boys become close, Eric soon wants to cross other lines entirely. Does Julien feel the same way, or is Eric being used on the gleefully twisted path to fame?

Seaton French and Dustin Marley strive to hold on to each other and preserve their bond of love against an array of terrifying enemies. Faced with devastating threats, Sea and Dusty struggle to unravel the conspiracy and expose the conspirators. While dire events unfold, shock and terror trigger Dusty's personality shifts, and Sea must cope with his beloved's multiple personalities.

Dusty and Sea descend through dissociative psychological states as the conspiracies against them grow stranger and appear to make less and less sense. During their attempts to unravel the threads of the conspiracy, the lovers explore bizarre religions and secret societies that could have ominous consequences. In the end, Dusty and Sea discover the appalling source of their problems and learn that they must survive minute by minute in the grip of soul-shuddering conditions they are powerless to change while they seek redemption in the heart's eternal desire.

Never have there been only two gendersmale and female. A third gender, denied by society and hidden by the medical community, has always existed, and that is what Sophie Schmidt discovers when, at the age of fourteen, she learns the truth of how she was born. Sophie then embarks on a journey to learn more about her true self and to find others born like her. When Sophie moves to New York City, she enters the world of gays and lesbians, as well as those who are transgender and transsexual. Searching for her own place in society, her journey leads her to Alice Parker, and Sophie takes the final steps to accept herself enough to allow another to love her.

Joaquin Moreno and Mark Crowden have an ambiguous relationship because their disputes with each other are undermining their vows of friendship, love, and truth—the three links and the chief tenets of the Odd Fellows, a secret society formed in 1819.

Along with their friend, Theodora, and Joaquin's dog, Mister Dangerous, these two odd fellows drive to San Felipe, Mexico, to open a bed and breakfast in a rundown Victorian mansion on the Gulf of California.

Upon their arrival, they meet a real estate agent, Felix De la Santos, and a traveling British citizen, Lord Leighton, who become their first guests. Over a span of eight days, all their plans go awry and they must confront an evil force intent on killing them—with only friendship, love, and truth as their weapons.

An anthology of short fiction featuring the finalist selections from the 2013 Saints + Sinners Literary Festival.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction by Felice Picano
• What Took You So Long? by Vince Sgambati
• It Only Occurred to Me Later by Anne Laughlin
• Bruno's Last Supper by Jeff Lindemann
• The Favor of a Reply by Joe Landrum
• Thou Shalt Not Lie by N.S. Beranek
• In a Chamber of My Heart by Sandra Gail Lambert
• Mountainview by James Russell
• Looking for Philip by George E. Jordan
• Bucky and the Woods Cop by Jim Stewart
• Silver Pumps and a Loose Nut by J.R. Greenwell
• Stained Glass by Karis Walsh
• Sky Blue by 'Nathan Burgoine

Justin Holt is a lonely barista living in Chicago. He spends his days in college and his evenings working at Clouds, a coffee shop owned by his lesbian boss and best friend, Starsky. When Diego Delgado, the hot Latin guitarist for the rock band The Jetsetters, wanders in for a cup of coffee, a spark is instantly ignited between the two young men. As The Jetsetters skyrocket from obscurity to superstardom, Justin fights with everything he has to make certain his new relationship survives, despite the chaos surrounding them. When the demands of instant fame and an unexpected tragedy take their toll on Diego and threaten his flourishing career, Justin is forced to make a difficult decision.