George Seaton (2)

Set (mostly) in Texas, this novella is about bull riding, two somewhat lost men who help each other define who they really are, and a whole lot of traveling, morally questionable goings-on, and the need to find a home. ‘Shane Thorpe Knew Jesus and Rode Bulls’ (what a title!) is part of the ‘States of Love’ series that offers stories of romance that span every corner of the United States. It gives a great feel for a way of life and a way of thinking more than actual geographical show more information, and that style makes it different from the first two books in this series. The characters are at the center of this story but there are also lots of details that say “Texas” with a healthy dose of Colorado thrown in as a bonus.

Joe is a lost soul in more ways than one. His single mother raised him the best way she is able, he has big plans to go to college, but Fate has other ideas. His mother dies on his high school graduation day, and he ends up leaving Colorado with his best friend, Harley, to chase their dream of riding bulls and living in Abilene, Texas. Harley, having had to grow up quickly to escape his bast*rd of a father, teaches Joe a lot about “real life” – including how to make “withdrawals”. Robbing gas stations and small convenience stores, in plain English. I have to admit I had trouble liking Joe because of this cavalier attitude toward other people’s money. I could see where he was coming from, and he was always “nice” about it – never actually pulling the gun he carried – but still. Despite all of this I found myself liking him when he had to go through Harley dying three years into their trip, and even more when he took Shane under his wing and helped him accept that he is gay.

Shane grew up in a religious household, was told that being gay is a sin, and is only slowly beginning to withdraw from his mother’s clutches. Shane knows he is gay, has even experimented with a friend in high school, but he is scared to admit it and incur the Lord’s wrath. When he meets Joe in a bar right after Harley’s death and rescues him, it is the beginning of a friendship that gradually shows Shane there is another way of looking at his sexuality. The changes are so slow they are almost not noticeable, but it was great to see how Shane grows and changes to the point where he can admit that he likes Joe as way more than a friend and begins to move forward.

The pace of this story is slow, there are flashbacks and lots of back story told after the fact, and even the action part, when a Texas Ranger begins to trace Joe’s “withdrawals”, is in no way hectic. By the time that ranger gets closer to Joe, I was so involved in Joe and Shane’s story that I hoped the ranger would never catch him; Joe had made me into his accessory, and that made me smile.

If you like stories with lots of local flavor and intriguing characters, if bull riders and rodeos are your thing, and if you’re looking for an entertaining character study with a touch of criminal activity, then you might enjoy this novella.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. show less

A holiday story of a different kind, ‘Whispers of the Old Winds’ is mysterious and unusual, suspenseful and emotionally touching. It successfully combines some legends of Native Americans with certain mystic abilities rooted in Catholicism - to create an entirely new outlook on the strange events in Pine County that newly elected Sheriff Sam and his artistic husband Michael find themselves in the middle of. I loved how the first few pages pulled me into what seemed like a contemporary show more murder mystery, only to open up into the mystical realm in small, almost unnoticeable steps until I was left with a tale that can only be explained and believed if you take into the account the supernatural – or something like that.

Sam is a former soldier with more than a few traumatic events in his past, leaving him with demons that still haunt him. His husband of a few years, artist Michael, is of Italian descent and is the only one who makes Sam’s life bearable when the nightmares surface. Sam is all about facts and reality, but Michael clearly has links to something outside what most people perceive. How far this goes emerges slowly as pre-Christmas events unfold in the small town where they live. I loved how Sam didn’t even begin to notice that something was more off than usual until about the last third of the story. And he is remarkably open-minded about the whole situation. It certainly had me fascinated.

If you like holiday stories with a touch of the unusual, if two men who are deeply in love and uniquely suited to help each other deal with the “darkness” intrigue you, and if you’re looking for a read that is as imaginative and even creepy as it is touching, then you will probably like this short story.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. show less

I love finding a new (to me) author whose writing is so beautiful and evocative and poignant and heartfelt that when I pause in my reading, it's to find my cheeks wet with tears. Only my most favourite authors manage to do this. And George Seaton has joined that select group.

Highly recommended!

Even if the book starts and ends with Tom and Stephen, I found that this is really a “shared” novel, shared by the many descendents of some old money Denver families, among which we distinguish Merriweather, Marty and Elizabeth. Marty and Elizabeth, being a lesbian couple, and having a really important role in the story, makes this really a LGBT novel.

More than a romance, Finding Deaglan is a gothic novel. It’s strange since usually Colorado, Denver, or the ancient Native American show more legends are not the stuff of gothic novels, but that is the feeling this novel left me, and I think the author wanted to pay an homage to those novel naming the old family home of Stephen, Gaylord. Gaylord was the title of the main character of Gaywick, which is believed to be the first gay gothic romance, by Vincent Virga.

Stephen, Merriweather, Marty, and all the others, are the descendents of men who did great wrong to the Native Americans and above all to their sacred wolves. One of them in particular was a mystical animal, with great power, and the removing of its earthly body (and that of his pack) was not enough to defeat its power. Wolf is still searching vengeance, and the vengeance has to be taken upon these descendants, even if they are innocents, even when they are still babies, like Deaglan, the baby that Marty and Elizabeth finds on a lake shore, a little, wonderful, intelligent baby. If you think, like me, that is cruel, you have also to consider that Mother Nature is cruel too. I think there is an hidden message here, that if we think that we can do everything to Mother Nature and that she will not be harsh with us since we are her sons, then we are sorely mistaking. Everything we do of bad against the earth, the earth will slash back to use double, in the end.

I had really great difficult to accept the sad fate that was falling upon Stephen and Tom, or Marty, Elizabeth and Deaglan, since they seemed not guilty of the same sins of their ancestors. Stephen and Tom are young and kind, with Oscar, their dog, they have everything that can be reconduct to an ordinary family (and Oscar, being a dog, put them in that share of population believing that also animals have soul); Marty and Elizabeth instead are middle age, again a more than ordinary couple, and Deaglan is their chance to add to that family a child. Both these couples don’t deserve the vengeance of Wolf, but that is, they will suffer it.

Finding Deaglan is very long, like the other book by George Seaton I read, Big Diehl. Apparently George Seaton shares yet another thing in common with those old fashioned novels, the number of pages. But actually for this novel it’s the right length, since, as I said, this is not only the story of two men, Stephen and Tom, but that of many, many characters. All of them would be probably worthy of more words, but in the end, if I have to do my pick, surprisingly enough, my choice would be Marty and Elizabeth, and the beautiful, big eyed Deaglan.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608202976/?tag=elimyrevandra-20 show less