The Bright List

A Lesbian Threesome from Bold Strokes Books. Two are Police Partners!

More than Friends, by Erin Dutton

Erin Dutton has written more than seven lesbian romance titles for Bold Strokes Books, and boy can she write.

This is a cute story of Eveyln, Melanie, and Kendall, two police officers, one landscaper—working class women! Kendall and Melanie are together, but Evelyn and Kendall are police partners. 

Kendall and Melanie are supposed to be the role models for a happy long term relationship, but then they break up. (I won’t ruin the surprise and say why.) All three women have to reevaluate what they want. 

Evelyn wants to be a good friend to both of them, but how can she do that when she starts to fall for Melanie?

I think they just need to have a threesome! 

Narrated by Bright List regular Abby Craden who you may remember from Bold Strokes Books' Too Close to Touch.

--Aretha Bright

James Wolcott in the Seething Fantasia of 70s New York City

Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in the Seventies, by James Wolcott

“The Village Voice in the 1970s, Patti Smith and the punk scene, porno theaters in Times Square, Pauline Kael and her acolytes—New York City journalism at its gossipy best.” 
—Slate

Name a cultural movement still resonating today, and I bet you’ll see it’s roots in New York in the Seventies.

From the New York City Ballet to CBGBs, James Wolcott was sitting in the back of the room quietly observing the artistic revolution. 

With his singularly evocative style, Wolcott takes you from his beginnings in obscurity, to blustering his way into a writing career, eventually ending up the cultural critic for Vanity Fair. 

He may have been lucky by being at the right places and times, but his writing chops prove luck wasn’t all.

“Next door to the Latham hunkers another low-profile holdover, the Prince George, which, before the gold medallions and furry testicles of disco descended, was a popular layover for flight crews whose trim blue uniforms and clippy stride made everybody else on the sidewalk look like clumps.”

"Gold medallions and furry testicles of disco?"—Luck had nothing to do with it.

Narrated by Jeff Woodman who read Life of Pi and was Audiofile Magazine's 2001 narrator of the year.

--Willow Pennell

A Young Man Comes of Age. In Kennewick. The Best Erotic Memoir This Century.

A Common Pornography, by Kevin Sampsell

Kevin Sampsell is the publisher of the micro-press Future Tense Books and also the author of the novel, This Is Between Us, coming out from Tin House (and Audible) in November.  

His memoir,  A Common Pornography, is sad, funny and intimate.

Sampsell hides nothing.

Told in one and two page essays strung together like beads, A Common Pornography came about after the death of Sampsell’s resentful, overbearing father. It was Sampsell’s way of mourning. 

From his childhood in Washington state, through a teenage porn obsession, a girlfriend’s abortion, revelations of a sordid family past that includes shock treatment and incest, Sampsell keeps you present. He makes his experiences meaningful, personal, and humorous in the best way possible by keeping his head and finding the ridiculousness in the horror.

Narrated by Craig Jessen, a playwright who brings his considerable theater skills to Sampsell's Shakespeare in Eastern Washington.

--Willow Pennell

70s San Francisco. The Childhood Logistics of Having an Unstable Caregiver

Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir, by Laura M. Flynn

In Swallow the Ocean, Laura M. Flynn describes what it was like when, as a child, her world fell apart. Her confident, beautiful mother was overcome by paranoid schizophrenia. 

“I lived in her world, and even if none of this was real to other people, the consequences were real to me.”

While there are a lot of mental illness memoirs out there, Flynn’s stands out for her seamless writing, her evocative remembrance of Seventies San Francisco, and her ability to make clear the childhood logistics of having an unstable caregiver.

Narrated by Julie McKay who also read The Afternoons of a Woman of Leisure. What a nice range.

--Willow Pennell

The Gospel According to Cane—How Do You Find Life After the Unthinkable Happens?

The Gospel According to Cane, by Corttia Newland

“What could be a simple, emotive story of grief and redemption becomes, in Newland’s hands, something more complex…The Gospel According to Cane is a page-turner, merging serious literary fiction with social commentary. Those interested in a fresh, vibrant take on contemporary London life should add it to their shelves.”
--Switchback

How do you find life after the unthinkable happens? Beverley gives up her middle class life when her son is stolen from a car park in London. Years later a young man shows up at her door. Is he her son? If he brings her happiness, does it matter?

Author, Screenwriter, Playwright, Creative Writing Tutor, and Literary Activist Courttia Newland writes about the contemporary black experience in England and has a widespread following there. Now it's time to learn what all the fuss is about.

Narrated by prestige voice actress Robin Miles. This is one of those instances when the voice that I heard in my head reading the print copy, is utterly brought to life.

--Willow Pennell

On Top of Spoon Mountain. A Family Farce—John Nichols at His Peak!

On Top of Spoon Mountain, by John Nichols

Jonathan Kepler has a bad heart, serious asthma and has been married three times--he can live with pain.

After a trip to the emergency room, three weeks before his sixty-fifth birthday, he decides to climb Spoon Mountain, much to the chagrin of his family.

Says his daughter, “I feel as if I’m listening to a quadriplegic inform me he’s planning to dance the Lambada all night with Charo.”

What follows is a family farce at laugh-a-minute speed.

Jonathan has alienated his girlfriend, pissed off his children, and ingratiated himself with his granddaughter, and yet, up the mountain they all tromp.

Like Little Miss Sunshine of the Southwest, the family air their feelings, and work it out--as they huff and puff to twelve thousand feet.

Narrated by Brian Sutherland who has read all of Niel Peart's (of the band Rush) travel chronicles.

--Willow Pennell

Secrets & Wives—Mormon Polygamy from the View of a UK Reporter

Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy, by Sanjiv Bhattacharya

Sanjiv Bhattacharya began writing this book from personal interest in subcultures and fringe groups. He had no axe to grind, nothing to declaim, and nothing to defend.

As a reporter he shows the big picture of what it means to be a part of a polygamous sect and what these sects look like as a whole.

As a writer, his gift for self deprecation and finding the humor in a tense situation kept me listening and laughing minute by minute.

An East Indian with an English accent and a Jetta, Bhattacharya’s clearly marked as an outsider, not to be trusted. But he ingratiates himself with the families of Colorado City, former home of Warren Jeffs earning their confidence. 

The gossip and dishing with the Mormon wives is PURE GOLD.

Bhattacharya stays sensitive to the dignity of the human beings who live in the community but is unafraid to call a nutjob a nutjob. 

Expertly narrated by the author. He's a natural, I hope we'll hear more stories from him soon!

--Willow Pennell and Aretha Bright

What Doctors Feel—For Every Dr. Stevens, There’s a Dr. House

What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine, by Danielle Ofri, M.D.

What Doctors Feel is Danielle Ofri’s doctors’-eye view of patient treatment.

You'll  get a behind the scenes look at medical practices and hospitals, biases doctors have, how their tribulations affect their interactions with patients in bad--and good ways, and what can be done to improve things.

Grey’s Anatomy was not that far off.

Ofri confirms that all those mean jokes they made at the expense of obese patients and drug addicts are du jour in hospitals. 

She also talks candidly about politically incorrect stereotypes doctors hold about patients, Asians are stoic, Hispanics: hystrionic.

At the same time, Ofri offers cases where doctors go out of their way to help patients whom they care for. One of Ofri’s patients in the book needs a new heart, but can’t get one because she’s undocumented. Ofri cares for her for eight years trying to make her life as comfortable as possible.

The inside details about what medical students are taught, go through, and what happens in the hospital are fascinating; so many different schools of thought! For every Dr. Stevens, there’s a Dr. House.

Narrated with genuine compassion and humaor by Andi Arndt.

--Aretha Bright and Willow Pennell

Six Delicious Gay Romances from Michael Thomas Ford on Audible!

Michael Thomas Ford  has published superb material in nearly every genre from children's literature, to criticism, mystery, killer gay humor, and memoir.

For your summer listening pleasure, here are six of  MTF's suspenseful romances that cover the full spectrum of gay experience in the U.S.

 

Last Summer

"At thirty-three, Josh has become tired of his life, leaving his old self behind with the hope of making a fresh start. Toby, who is only nineteen, finds himself moving to Provincetown to seek solace after his family has kicked him out of his Midwestern home. Reilly, who has been a lifelong resident, is still unclear about his own sexuality and has long wondered what his fantasies about other men might mean.

"Everything is about to change when Reilly meets Joshua and the two strike up an odd friendship--that's when Reilly knows, for sure, that he isn't just fantasizing anymore."

What We Remember

"James McCloud, a Seattle district attorney, gets an early-morning phone call from his sister Celeste announcing that their father's body has been found. Police officer Daniel McCloud disappeared years ago - but this discovery proves that he was murdered. When James returns home to Cold Falls, New York, he's reunited with his mother Ada and his troubled, gay younger brother Billy. His brother-in-law Nate is the town sheriff and the mistrust that has hovered between them since school still simmers. As the truth emerges, so do powerful secrets."

The Road Home

After an accident, a Boston photographer must reluctantly recover back in his childhood room in his home town.

While he convalesces, he uncovers a local Civil War mystery that reaches in to the present day with implications for his strained relationship with his father.

"Compelling, frankly funny, and often wise, The Road Home is the story of one man's coming to terms with who he is, what he wants out of life, and where he belongs--and the complex, surprising path that finally takes him there."

 

 

Full Circle 

Following friends and lovers, Jack and Ned from their childhood together in the '50s through their college years in the '60s, the AIDS crisis of the '80s and beyond, Full Circle is at once a sweeping overview of gay popular culture through the late 2oth century, and an intimate character study of a life-long friendship with all the issues of trust, betrayal and love that come with it.

 

Looking for It

"Mike Monaghan is the bartender at the Engine Room, a meeting place for the small but thriving community of gay men in Cold Falls, New York. As Mike pours beer, wipes glasses and hears everything, he's also witness to the men who come here looking for what they need--sex, direction, friendship, spiritual fulfillment, and love."

Changing Tides

A Monterey marine biologist with a troubled teenage daughter helps a grad student with his research of a possible romance between John Steinbeck and Ed "Doc" Ricketts.

The biologist and the grad student find that they each have qualities that can help each other with their own personal demons, and a romance blossoms.

 

Each of these novels was narrated by Blake Somerset. He brings a note of deep experience to each story.

Next month, we'll bring you Ford's parody of Jane Austen as a vampire, Jane Goes Batty. Michael Thomas Ford can write circles around anything...and now you're going to be part of the cult.

--Willow Pennell and Susie Bright

Journey Down The Path of the Green Man

The Path of the Green Man, by Michael Thomas Ford

One often associates witches and women with Wicca and Paganism, but where do gay men fit into this ancient tradition?

It turns out that there is a long history of gay men in Wicca, and there is a deep well of meaning to be found.

A combination primer on Pagan spirituality and practice, and how it relates to gay men, and account of Ford's own personal journey, The Path of the Green Man is a keeper for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding of Wicca. 

Narrated By James Patrick Cronin who narrated Daniel Duane's Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast.

--Willow Pennell