I don’t often get responses to my subscriber emails, unless you consider unsubscribing a response, so this one made my day:

We just saw The Skivvies at the Bucks County Playhouse last week for my birthday and LOVED THEM! The band is tight, the voices amazing, the energy infectious. And they’ve made their first album, recorded during the pandemic, available for streaming free. You can also purchase it, which I did to support them. We will absolutely see them again when we can.

About The Skivvies

The Skivvies are Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley, singer/actor/musicians performing stripped down arrangements of eclectic covers and eccentric originals. Not only is the music stripped down – cello, ukulele, glockenspiel, melodica – but the Skivvies literally strip down to their underwear to perform.

Made my day! AudioFile Magazine recommended the audiobook edition of ‘Reservation for Murder: A Kyle Callahan Mystery‘.

From the review:

“This contemporary cozy mystery will please listeners who enjoy a well-constructed story delivered by a promising voice actor. The story takes place in idyllic Lambertville, New Jersey, in The Passion Inn, which is owned by a gay couple who have left the violence of New York City for a life in a community of art galleries, bistros, and charming shops. Then the couple discover that murders can happen alongside picturesque bridges and peaceful canals. Narrator Sean Rhead speaks authoritatively and animates the inn’s guests. The arrogant, deep voice of the first murder victim, a successful gay mystery writer, is especially well delivered. This title is Book 6 in the Kyle Callahan mystery series. It’s worth hearing as an LGBTQ literary work and a clever mystery.”

You can listen to my interview with AudioFile Magazine founder and editor Robin Whitten HERE.

And listen to my interview with narrator Sean Rhead HERE.

By Mark McNease

This review is crossposted from LGBTSr.com

Restaurant reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 meaning put it on your must list, 1 meaning avoid at all costs. 

Talula’s Garden
210 West Washington Square
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 592-7787
Website: talulasgarde.com
Spend Meter: $$$$
Service: Excellent

Imagine finding a new favorite boutique hotel in Philadelphia’s Center City. Then imagine discovering one of the city’s best restaurants barely a block away. It sounds improbable, but that’s exactly the situation we found ourselves in, waking up in that very hotel, having enjoyed what my husband Frank calls “the best meal of 2021.”

The Morris House Hotel is a true gem nestled in the heart of the historic district. Its designation as a historical site means this beautiful, 18th century structure can’t be torn down. It sits like a jewel from another era amid hospital and office buildings, and there’s a quiet defiance to it: I’m old, I’m elegant, I’m not going away. Note: if a modern aesthetic and a streaming vibe are more to your liking, this hotel may not be for you. But if you enjoy a bit of a staid colonial feel decorated to suit the times it was built in, this is a must-try. You can see my full review and slideshow from our last trip HERE.

Halloween is just around the corner, and it’s time for a frightfully good giveaway. My supernatural chiller, A House in the Woods, joins over 30 other authors in a BookFunnel group giveaway. Just sign up for an author’s email list and download one of these spine chillers to curl up with on a cool dark night. You can find us all HERE. Other participating authors include: Nadya Frank, Mark Posey, Jodi Burnett, Jack Rollins, and many more! You’ll receive an ePub, MOBI, or PDF file of your choice, so sign up and start reading! This giveaway runs from October 20 – 31.

About ‘A House in the Woods’

Laurel and Jeremy Calloway have longed for a new life away from the chaos and confusion of New York City. Driving along a country road in New Jersey with a young real estate agent in the back seat, they almost miss it: a small house in the woods for sale. Stopping to take a look at the property, they meet the house’s caretaker, Eileen, and within a few weeks they find themselves the very lucky owners of their ideal home. But is it the house of their dreams, or of their nightmares?

A big thank you to Scott Sheldon, co-owner with Barbara de Wilde of the new Frenchtown Bookshop for letting me know my books are available at Bookshop.org. It’s the perfect way to find a book you can’t put down, while supporting independent bookstores with your purchases. Not only does the site offer a dizzying variety of books to choose from, you can also find a local bookstore with their store search feature. This is the place to order your next book online. Browse and behold!

About Bookshop.org

CLICK TO ENTER!

What better way to start your morning than with some coffee, tea, or your favorite beverage sipped from a custom LGBTSr.com coffee cup! I’ll be giving 5 of them away on my birthday, October 28. If you’re already a subscriber to LGBTSr, you’re already entered! If not, just use the RafflePress entry, type in your email address, and voila! You’ll receive our weekly news roundup with a dash of new content every Friday, and you may win a gorgeous coffee mug just in time for that cool November chill! Please note, this is for U. S. residents only, for shipping purposes.

Crossposted from LGBTSr.com

For almost as long as I’ve had this website I’ve enjoyed sharing author Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trail columns. I often said, if it’s a new month, it’s a new Amazon Trail. I looked forward to each and every one, offering Lee’s wisdom, experience, humor, and passion, as she shared her perspective on the world she’s lived in and the world we share. Lee is not shy, and her candor is among the most refreshing things about her. She’s also a legend in lesbian fiction, most deservedly so, with a Golden Crown Literary Society award named in her honor. My appreciation for her wit, her talent, and her personal generosity is boundless, and I’m most pleased to call her a friend. Some people lead by simply being who they are, and Lee has always been, and will always be, one of them.

You can read many of her collected columns in her book, An American Queer: The Amazon Trail

“This collection of Lee Lynch’s columns chronicles over a quarter century of queer life in the United States, from the last decades of the twentieth century into the twenty-first.

“From the beginning of my writing career, I just wanted to write about lesbian/gay life as I experienced it. Like so many, I came from a place of great isolation. At the same time, being gay filled me with great pride and joy. Writers Jane Rule, Isabelle Miller, Radclyffe Hall, Valerie Taylor, Ann Bannon, and Vin Packer gave me inspiration and even the lesbian companionship I needed as a baby dyke. More than anything, I want to give to gay people what those writers gave me. And I want to do it well enough that my words might someday be considered literature and, as such, might endure because, as open as some societies have become, there are always haters, and cycles of oppression. Our writers strengthen us, offer a sense of solidarity and validation that we are both more than our sexualities and are among the best that humanity offers.”

About Lee Lynch

Lee Lynch is the co-curator, with S. Renee Bass, of the recent collection, Our Happy Hours, LGBT Voices From the Gay Bars, available from Flashpoint Publications. Her  novel, Rainbow Gap, is available from Bold Strokes Books and other outlets. Her book, An American Queer, a collection of “The Amazon Trail” columns, was presented with the 2015 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in Anthology/Collection Creative Non Fiction. This, and her award-winning fiction, including The Raid, The Swashbuckler, and Beggar of Love, can be found at http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/Author-Lee-Lynch.html.

What better way to start your morning than with some coffee, tea, or your favorite beverage sipped from a custom LGBTSr.com coffee cup! I’ll be giving 5 of them away on my birthday, October 28. Yes, it’s my birthday, and I’m doing the giving! This will be for subscribers only, so subscribe HERE, and look for more details in October. I’ll be selecting 5 random subscribers and getting the cups off to them in time to curl up by a November fire. – Mark

I’m delighted to say my friend and fellow mystery author Michael Craft is among the authors featured in this newest anthology from Akashic Books. (You can listen to my podcast interview with Michael HERE.) Michael is among the finest writers you’ll encounter, with a skill and delivery that make his name very fitting: a craftsman and a wordsmith whose writing you’ll want to savor. If you’re not familiar with his fiction, you can start now with Palm Springs Noir!