Happy Friday

Yay. Even though it was a short week for me, I'm glad to be at the end of it. I'm still enjoying my new job although it's much busier than my old job on top of trying to learn everything. I have to be on a conference call for Europe this Sunday. At 6:00 AM. Ugh. I'll be in my jammies pretending I know what I'm talking about. :-)

I also foolishing volunteered for our United Way Charity campaign. Not because it's not a good cause. My department alone raised over $1.5million last year, but it's suddenly taking way more time. There was a bus tour of centres we've given money to, there are kick-off breakfasts, meetings, training. Ugh. Monday will be 4 hours of my day devoted to this. Come on. I just wanted to hand out forms and remind people. Sigh.

Sunday we are heading to Montreal. It's supposed to be nice weather, and since I'll be up already anyway LOL I thought we would head out. As a bonus, my friend Adam (he of the plaid) will be there with his BF so we are going to get together for lunch. I just have to find a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. *muttersillyvegansmutter* Then Kristen and I are going to an Indiana Jones exhibit. Apparently they have props from the movies and stuff and then it's the Chinese lantern festival at the Botanical Gardens where they have HUGE lanters all set up on the lake by the Chinese pagoda and in the hills around it. It's gorgeous. So we'll be able to walk around the gardens for awhile and then after it gets dark and we see the lanterns, we'll probably grab a bite to eat and head home. It will be a long day but we haven't been for a couple of years and I'm looking forward to seeing Adam and Mr. S. Hope everyone has a great weekend 

So I've done some reading this week. Not tons but a couple of books.

By Any Other Name by Tia Fielding (200 pages)
Dreamspinner Press

This story clicks onto a couple of my fave themes. It's m/m/m and it's a hurt/comfort story. Dru and Thom have been together for 3 years although Thom still has attacks of insecurity as Dru is about 10 years younger. Out of the blue they are contacted by a mental hospital that says Dru's first love and childhood friend who disappeared Skye is being released and has nowhere to go. Seems the "uncle" who took Skye after his family abandoned him, enslaved him and abused him in anyway possible, including sexually. They both agree, despite being nervous, to take Skye in. Eventually Thom realizes that Skye and Dru are in love, but so is he. However Skye is in no place to have any kind of a normal relationship, certainly not sexual and it gets pretty complicated. I liked that there was no magic dick here. In fact Skye wasn't even sure he was gay, or was it only because he was raped and brainwashed. It took time, a lot of time and little things like being afraid to be touched in any way, panic attacks, I thought it was all well done, along with therapy sessions. I wasn't sure I liked their female friend who wanted Skye for herself, but in the end seemed to be scheming to keep them apart, but on the whole I liked how this went and I liked that each character got to tell their story so you knew why they were acting as they were and how they felt. I really enjoyed this. Oh I should add if you're looking for rampant m/m/m sex here, it's not there. Yes, eventually they all do have sex, but it's not like some where it's nothing but variations of the threesome positions through the book, which in this case would have been totally inappropriate and I would have been annoyed if that had shown up.

Notice by M. Raiya (176 pages)

Torquere

As someone noted on GR, this is less a romance than an adventure story with gay characters. Although there is a relationship and Adrian FINALLY pulls his head out of his ass about Josh, his live-in lover, but primarily it's the dragon story-line which leads. Adrian is a high school teacher, leader of his dragon clan and gay man. And never the three worlds shall collide. Although he lives with flamboyant nail polish wearing artist Josh, no one at school or in the dragon clan knows he's gay and neither of those know he's a dragon. He is given notice by a knight in his classroom which means he must now fight for his life, but he won't fight a student although things go bad. Eventually he finds out the student was the son of the last knight he killed who has special powers, and only went after him because the knights threatened his girl friend. It gets very complicated with political intrigue, betrayal, time travel, mystical stuff, but it's all pretty well done and while I was left with a few questions, in general it's not too confusing. Adrian is prepared to do what he has to in order to save his people, even if it means he could die and leave Josh who he finally figured out he's in love with. He faces some truths about his own behaviour and finds out more about Huntington, the student sent to kill him. I loved Josh who was so much more than Adrian thought, he was a bit funny and sarcastic and I did want to smack Adrian for the way he had treated him over the years, like a filthy secret. Thankfully he redeemed himself. If you like dragons or more mystical adventure stories that are light on the romance (but it's still there), it's a good choice.