Genre: Contemporary
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses, Paranormal Romance Guild
Get It On Amazon
About The Book
A slow-burn, age-gap M/M romance novel about reaching for a dream … and finding the person who’ll give you a boost.
When an adult-film director dropped her card in Manny’s guitar case, he was mildly flattered. But he was busy with all his other jobs, and a card wasn’t money, so he forgot about it. When her partner showed up to say they were interested in putting Manny in front of the camera, he started thinking about it again.
Irv thought the spinning trainer was interested. But after a couple weeks without contact, busy with other projects, he forgot about it. Then, weeks later, Manny called to ask if they could talk. He wanted to be a legit actor. Irv said he could learn some skills, if he paid attention and took it all seriously.
It turned out that Manny was very good at paying attention. He took everything seriously, and he learned fast. Pitching him to a casting agent was basically the same as waving goodbye; if the guy got enough legit work, he’d walk away from porn, and from Irv.
A year later, Manny was heading to Mexico to shoot a new historical series. Before he left, he was determined to see if the vibe between him and Irv added up to anything. If it did, Manny wasn’t about to walk away.
Adult situations, themes, and language; 80300 words and a happy ending.
The Review
Once again, Alexandra Caluen’s gentle, elegant style drew me into this book and made me care about her characters. This is a straightforward (if you’ll pardon the expression) m/m romance, but the plot and people are quirky enough to make it special and engaging.
Manuel Figueroa is a Mexican-American guy with stars in his eyes—like so many young men in Los Angeles. He doesn’t have a college degree, but he has plenty of talents, from bicycle racing and yoga to busking with his guitar. He wants to make it as an actor, and is on the lookout for any connections to draw him closer to the world of moviemaking.
Irving Morton, on the other hand, makes movies. Porn, in fact, and meets with Manny in order to see if he might be interested in doing some solo work for his company. Irv is nearly a decade older than Manny, and is instantly taken with this young man and his big, soulful eyes.
What follows is a fairly classic m/m plot, but in Caluen’s hands it is given depth and interest as a study of both the ever-present porn industry within the larger Hollywood industry, and a close look at the characters of the two protagonists. Irv, who is Jewish, as well as black and Puerto Rican (something I don’t think the author made clear until the later part of the book), feels that Manny is way out of his league. Manny, who has been more or less rejected by his family, sees Irv in a different light. It’s not only plausible, but adorable.
There are some wonderful subplots featuring Manny’s various gigs in the film industry, and his emerging friendship with a trans woman named Patrice. The author skirts close to a number of sensitive topics, and handles them with tenderness and respect—something that helped me deal with some personal discomfort.
Four stars.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
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