Showing results by narrator "Vance Bastian" in All Categories

Tyler doesn't overthink pleasure and avoids complications. He knows it might be stupid to get involved with his closeted boss, but the temptation is too great. At first, the cold and beautiful Joel Sandstrom seems to loathe Tyler's guts. Except, one late night at the office, his reasons become clear...and his control breaks.

Men and chocolate are the two pleasures Micha enjoys most in life. His sex life has been nonexistent for some time, though. After a particularly bad hookup, he keeps mostly to himself. That leaves chocolate. Luckily, he works surrounded by the most delicious, extravagant produce in Gothenburg. Beside his job at the chocolaterie, his main source of excitement is his online friend, Magnus, whom he stubbornly refuses to meet in person. A customer turns up at the chocolaterie one day - tall, shy, and charming. He could be just the right man.

Dr Simon Mráz is a respected specialist and lecturer at the Charles University in Prague. He is a serious man, responsible. His students call him "The Cruel Doctor Frost" not because he's unkind, but because of his unwavering, ice-cold composure. As a psychiatrist, he values sanity. And sanity can be found in work, restraint, and self-control. But not many know of that one time in the past when The Cruel Doctor Frost lost his cool.

Shax, the demon prince of thieves, has reconciled himself to exile. He has a grand time careening around the galaxy as a high-end, intergalactic purloiner of pretties. Everything's going just fine, thank you very much. All right, fine, the anti-gravity cows are a bit problematic and some of his buyers are bad for his health, but he manages until he comes across an injured angel in a psychedelic alien jungle.

Alexander Popescu is a university lecturer in a quiet German town. He’s a respectable man in his 30s who stays fit, has a decent career, and travels alone — his only vice is an occasional greasy meal. And beer. And violent computer games. Nobody has to know about the other Alex — the acclaimed smut writer. His ingenious fantasies earn him good money and keep his capricious mind harmlessly entertained.

When Shax stumbles across rumors of an experimental house that responds to the occupant’s brain functions, creating scenarios to please and delight, naturally, he wants to steal it. But with the return of a troubled and hunted Julian Parallax and an overabundance of Poe references, even Shax’s scheming may not be enough to get the Brimstone crew out alive this time.

Before Ness, before Corny, before Leopold and Heckle and Mac, there was just Shax and Verin and a newly stolen, er, acquired cargo ship. Join Shax on his first adventure in space in which a pampered demon prince has a lot to learn. When a steel trap of celestial and infernal politics threatens to close around them, Shax and Verin flee Earth’s system in a stolen ship, leaving everything behind. It’s an elegantly simple plan, with a new ship and a new life as carefree brigands.

The boys desperately need a vacation. With the not-quite-ill-gotten gains from the Frog incident, Shax takes the Brimstone's crew to the exclusive resort planet, Opal, for some much needed rest and relaxation. The resort has everything a demon prince and his crew could want, but an incident on the Trauma Ball court sends Ness stalking off in anger and sends events swiftly spiraling out of control.

Someone abandons a pedigree hellcat right where Shax can conveniently claim her and sets off a cataclysmic domino line of events. It's time for the other shoe to drop since the Brimstone has a shadow cabal after them - partly due to Shax's own, er, interesting decisions and partly due to the presence of Agent Julian Parallax onboard.

While Shax recovers from a near fatality, his shipmates have been busy. He's rather proud of them taking the initiative and finding them a lucrative cargo run. His pride turns to outright horror, though, when he finds out what sort of cargo. Unfortunately, he'll soon discover that a healthy fear of frogs doesn't prevent frog-driven disasters. Time travel has never been so messy.

Hayden Moore's life was destroyed when his husband, Malcolm, was murdered. Giving up his job as an assistant district attorney in Boston, Hayden moved to the little burg of Maplewood to recover. A new life. A fresh start. However, something underneath the water is stirring. Something rotten. A deadly secret wakes underneath the black waters of Lake Veronica so disturbing it haunts the nightmares of the local residents.

Love’s colors are many. David is a fortyish corporate lawyer. Handsome. Successful. With the seemingly perfect life in a northern Detroit Suburb. Despite all this, David is miserable when he finds out that his wife has been sexting his best friend. David - who is struggling with his sexual identity - files for divorce and plans on crashing on the couch in his office in a high rise building downtown. The trilogy of stories follows David and Aaron as they cross each other’s paths and, reintroduce each other to the joys of sex, conversation, and human intimacy.

December in Detroit is normally unforgiving, but an unexpected blizzard puts David and Aaron on a course toward each other. Despite the frozen ground and battleship gray sky, these men find heat together. It’s intimate and illicit, stretching what was supposed to be a one night stand into something more. Sometimes, the touch of a stranger, however forbidden, is just what we need when we enter the gray.

Artist Ted Armstrong lives a solitary and eccentric life. The survivor of child abuse disguised as religion, Ted has cut himself off from the world. Then Ted meets Anderson Taylor, and it’s like being struck by lightning. Anderson is a cardiac surgeon whose passion for his work has consumed him. He fears he’ll never find a partner—until he sets eyes on Ted. It’s happening fast, but both men know what they feel is right.

The first of two groundbreaking volumes on gay history in Wisconsin, We’ve Been Here All Along provides an illuminating and nuanced picture of Wisconsin’s gay history, from the reporting on the Oscar Wilde trials of 1895 to the landmark Stonewall Riots of 1969. Throughout these decades, gay Wisconsinites developed identities, created support networks, and found ways to thrive in their communities despite various forms of suppression.

Abandoned to freeze to death in a winter forest by his father because of his homosexuality, Jonathan desperately struggles to survive, until he accidentally stumbles upon Dan, who owns a cabin in the woods. Dan has been fighting his own demons since the death of his lover Sean. Having retreated from big city life, he is content to live in solitude, but he never counted on meeting Jonathan.

The winter storm has passed, and David and Aaron emerge from their weekend of passionate humanity to take stock and face the rest of their lives with hope. Their bond continues to grow, but they both carry heavy burdens from pasts that return to haunt them. Each faces the specter of former lovers who bring devastation in their wake.

Weathering storms together is the entire purpose of a relationship. Sure, it’s hot sex and lofty goals at first, but when the rubber meets the road, love just makes the bad stuff more bearable. Such is the case with Aaron and David. They’ve dealt with storms, both literal and metaphorical, when life shows up in a big way. This time, however, as a storm bears down on them, David and Aaron’s lives are at risk, and they’ll lose all their worldly belongings.

Being a nobody isn’t Duncan Alexander’s life goal, but it’s worked for him. He has a nondescript job, a few good friends, and overall he’s content. That’s until one fateful trip to San Jose, California, where he is “Called” to meet the mysterious Juliet de Exter. Juliet is a beautiful, wealthy, powerful Immortal who is undertaking The Calling—a search for a human to join her world of Immortals. Inexplicably, Duncan’s calling is more dangerous than any of the Immortals, even Juliet, ever thought it would be.

Coming Out, Moving Forward, the second volume in R. Richard Wagner’s groundbreaking work on gay history in Wisconsin, outlines the challenges that LGBT Wisconsinites faced in their efforts to right past oppressions and secure equality in the post-Stonewall period between 1969 and 2000. During this era, Wisconsin made history as the first state to enact a gay rights law prohibiting discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. It also became the first state to elect three openly gay/lesbian persons to Congress.