Charity Sips #4

Woohoo, I've been flying along on the Charity sips, with proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders. Each one has a theme of doctors or healing in someway. You can click on the cover below to get to the site, you can buy them separately or all at once. I've been trying not to over-do it and get burned out but I find they are all so different it's easy to keep powering through.

Dreggers Deep by J. Rocci (30 pages)
Tulley is the right hand man for a mine owner. He has been tasked to take the new doctor down in the mines to treat the men. He is shocked to find it's his old lover Edmund. He's shocked and a bit pissed but does his job which includes fighting off thieves who attack them in the night and he is injured. This is a steampunk short and I think it did a pretty good job of getting the steampunk feel in a few pages, along with old lovers with hurt between them reuniting.

The Pavilion by Tracy Rowan (20 pages)
Eliot is an ex-pat Brit who now works in a clinic in Chicago. He's starting spending more time at a local diner where he's become attracted to Jamie, the young son of the owner. (Young being 27 or so.) Jamie finally makes a play for him and despite both of them saying no strings, that lasts about 15 min. There is a whole back story of why Eliot came to the US and his heartbreak. The story hops around between 2003 and 2010 and some in the middle. I'm not sure it couldn't have just been told in chronological order, but it was a nice story about a second chance at love.

Borders by Kathryn Scannell (25 pages)
Kevin works for Doctors without Borders in Gaza City. He finally gets a break and goes to Tel Aviv where he hits a gay bar. Things aren't going great but he finally meets a guy that he recognizes from Gaza City who was disguised as a woman. Seems David is an Israeli soldier in a top secret unit. Because Kevin knows, will he have him arrested or kicked out of the country? A very interesting setting with the threat of death for being gay in Palestine and yet David was very open about being gay with his fellow army buddies and the general public. Not sure it's really that way in Israel, but I thought the story was very well done.

Eyes Wide Shut by Meredith Shayne (29 pages)
Adam is a fly in doctor to the mining area in Australia. He recently broke up with his BF Chris who works at the mines. You find it out primarily because Chris refuses to be open about their relationship. When Adam is involved in a mine cave-in and they don't know if he's alive Chris has a chance to get his priorities straight. Another nice story set in another location. I felt for Adam as he coped with being a dirty little secret.

On Call: Crossroads by PD Singer (28 pages)
This is the continuing story of Dante and Keith and very timely in light of what's happened in the last few weeks with the rash of young men committing suicide. Keith is devastated that he couldn't help a young man who died and he suspects killed himself for being gay. He feels maybe he should be doing something more useful like going abroad to help and Dante informs him that he'd go with him which sets off another chain of events when the two men take their relationship to the next level of commitment. This was very touching and as I said, I'm sure when the author wrote this she couldn't have known that these last few weeks would have the issue so in the news and in everyone's consciousness. Very touching.

You Don’t Need a Doctor by Julia Talbot (15 pages)
A gun shot victim comes into the ER and doctor Andy finds it very odd, the wound is festering, the bullet appears to be working it's way out and the guy is very hairy. He gets the bullet out and the guy takes off, only to show up in his apartment eating Popeye's chicken a few days later. Despite being freaked, Andy sleeps with him and oops, Shiloh bites him. Uh oh. Andy finds out that werewolves, vampires, pixies and others creatures aren't just the stuff of fairy tales. There was a touch of humour in here which made it an enjoyable story, a few more pages might have improved it even more, but on the whole it was a nice light break from more serious themes.