More Waistcoat-ripping!!!

Posted // 2009-03-06 - After Transgressions, the folks at Running Press have sent us another "M/M romance," False Colors, a story populated by many strapping sailors (oh, yes, we like the sound of this!). False Colors follows the exploits of John, the obligatory puritanical closet case, as he charts a course for love with Alfie the spicy Spaniard:

    "Helm hard a-starboard!" shouted John, as the Meteor, too, turned, presenting her broadside.

Oops! That's not a steamy love scene after all--just a bit of nautical action. Let's see ... OK, here's an excerpt from John's encounter with a musclebound, working-class lout who entertains random seamen at a London brothel. For some reason, the brute (described as "a big man, burly as a blacksmith, with a fist-flattened nose and shoulders that strained the seams of his frock-coat") goes by the name "Sweet Bess":

One-armed, Bess lifted him out of his seat until he was draped across the bigger man's lap, and the hard pressure of thighs beneath his, the mound of a straining prick against his arse, two layers of fabric notwithstanding, made him whimper with need. He didn't wait to be asked, but spread his legs and rearranged himself so he was riding the man's lap as if it were a horse. Bess stroked him hard and pulled him further on, his own hips rising in little jerks that lifted John's feet off the floor.

Wow, 18th-century rough trade is hot!

---

According to a press release, the publisher intends these books to be shelved in the romance section, not as erotica—which clears up a thing or two: Since few men venture into the Harlequin section of the bookstore, who, exactly are these books for?

Initially the phenomenon of women reading gay male romances flourished in the anonymity of the internet, where fans could have instant access to a spirited, diverse and ever-growing community. ... The success of 2005's Brokeback Mountain demonstrated the lure of the subject for a female audience.

Ah, they're being marketed to women.  Who better to appreciate the "lure of the subject" of hot blacksmith-on-sailor action than bored housewives? (Gotta love publicist Melissa Appleby's choice of words like "anonymity" and "lure." It makes dude-on-dude fiction seem so ... deliciously taboo.)