Riptide Presetns http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/burnt-toast-bb
Blurb
After breaking his arm on set, Wolf’s Landing stuntman Ginsberg Sloan finds himself temporarily out of work. Luckily, Bluewater Bay’s worst B&B has cheap long-term rates, and Ginsberg’s not too proud to take advantage of them.
Derrick Richards, a grizzled laid-off logger, inherited the B&B after his parents’ untimely deaths. Making beds and cooking sunny-side-up eggs is hardly Derrick’s idea of a man’s way to make a living, but just as he’s decided to shut the place down, Ginsberg shows up on his doorstep, pitiful and soaking wet, and Derrick can hardly send him packing.
Not outright, at least.
The plan? Carry on the B&B’s tradition of terrible customer service and even worse food until the pampered city-boy leaves voluntarily. What Derrick doesn’t count on, though, is that the lousier he gets at hosting, the more he convinces bored, busybody Ginsberg to try to get the B&B back on track. And he definitely doesn’t count on the growing attraction between them, or how much more he learns from Ginsberg than just how to put out kitchen fires.
Review
Wow! Not what I was expecting.
Better!
Ginsberg is a transgender stuntman who got injured on the job and needs a cheap place to recuperate. He finds Derrick’s B&B and signs on for a room.
Derrick is a closeted gay man who has huge, huge, huge gender issues. He thinks being gay is not masculine. He thinks bottoming is not masculine. He thinks cooking and cleaning is not masculine. So… his job, his sexuality, his desires… all not masculine – so he hates himself and his life.
Ginsberg does what he can to try to save the B&B despite being subjected to every inconvenience known to man (Derrick’s trying to get him to leave so he can close the place down.)
In a very unlikely match, Ginsberg and Derrick finally realize they meet one another’s needs and start an affair only to have Derrick ass-out and make him leave the only place Ginsberg’s ever identified as “home”.
Finally, with some help from his ex, Derrick realizes his mistakes and makes amends – just in time!
**
This is not your typical m/m storyline. It’s quirky. Sometimes dark and painful. It covers topics we don’t see all that often (transgender) and though we have seen gay men who hate themselves, I haven’t seen it quite this fiercely before.
Anyhow, when they do finally connect physically, its amazing and awkward and funny and tender … again not your typical hot and horny man on man action. (I, for one, would have liked to see some more of this – if only to really emphasize how love and sex are unique to each couple and not constrained by society’s “normal”. I love the “bonus hole”! and wish it could have seen more action 😉
All in all I thought it was a great book, a lovely continuation of the Bluewater Bay Storyline (we get to see some of the old characters like Eli and Carter), and a really nice look at subjects not normally seen.
4 of 5 hearts
