36 ratings | 22 reviews | avg rating:4.78

Harry’s Year In Books

Harry’s 2024 Year in Books

Take a look at Harry’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.

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Harry F. Rey’s Followers (96)

Harry’s Bookshelves

to-read (81)
currently-reading (21)
read (34)
gay-classics (36)

Harry’s Friends (372)

Mark Kwesi

2,215 books | 700 friends

Julia Ember

239 books | 819 friends

Amy Cousins

889 books | 403 friends

Eden Winters

570 books | 409 friends

Alex Helm

94,832 books | 1,326 friends

Shelly Campbell

150 books | 196 friends

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3,903 books | 231 friends

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169 books | 4,197 friends

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Harry F. Rey

Goodreads Author

Born

in Glasgow, The United Kingdom

Website

https://harryfredrey.wixsite.com/harryfrey

Twitter

Harry_F_Rey

Genre

Gay and Lesbian, Fiction, Science Fiction/fantasy

Influences

Alan Hollinghurst, Isaac Asimov, George R.R. Martin

Member Since

September 2017

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/harryfrey

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Harry F. Rey is an author of over a dozen fiction novels. He's a graduate of Penguin WriteNow 2020, a member of the TV Foundation's New Writers Collective 2024, and has been Pushcart-nominated for his short stories.

Harry's main works include the MM royal drama series The Line of Succession from Deep Desires Press, the queer sci-fi series The Galactic Captains from Nine Star Press, the WWII-era gay historical novel Why in Paris? from Encircle Publications and the historical romance Six Days in Jerusalem.

His debut young adult gay romance - Of Gods and Boys - from Deep Hearts YA recently topped the Amazon teen charts. His other works include the rom-com All the Lovers from Deep Desires and the forthcoming sci-fi thriller The Dorvethan Conspi ...more

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Harry F. Rey’s books

Average rating: 4.16 · 797 ratings · 232 reviews · 30 distinct works • Similar authors

	Six Days in Jerusalem 4.29 avg rating — 108 ratings — published 2022 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Line of Succession 3.80 avg rating — 97 ratings — published 2018 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Why in Paris 4.58 avg rating — 64 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Siege Weapons (The Galactic Captains #1) 3.43 avg rating — 83 ratings — published 2018 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	All The Lovers 4.23 avg rating — 56 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Acts of Treason (The Line of Succession #2) 4.34 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2019 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Interregnum (The Line of Succession #3) 4.55 avg rating — 31 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rex v. Regina (The Line of Succession #4) 4.69 avg rating — 29 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Of Gods and Boys 3.76 avg rating — 34 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Forbidden Pursuits (The Galactic Captains, #2) 4.04 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2018 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Harry F. Rey…

34 posts
Harry F. Rey's Blog

Who was Roman Emperor Caracalla from the movie Gladiator II?

Ridley Scott's sequel to Gladiator gives us a relatively accurate portrait of a moment in time in around 210 AD. Two crazed, lunatic emperor brothers, Caracalla and Geta, are terrorizing Rome, while the scheming Macrinus waits in the wings.

While the five years or so of Caracalla's short yet influential reign are condensend into a two and a half hour movie (which I have seen and was fantastic, Read more of this blog post »

View more on Harry F. Rey's website »

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Published on November 17, 2024 00:15

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Series by Harry F. Rey

The Line of Succession (5 books)
by

Harry F. Rey (Goodreads Author)

4.19 avg rating — 216 ratings

The Galactic Captains (6 books)
by

Harry F. Rey (Goodreads Author)

3.84 avg rating — 173 ratings

The Cruising Chronicles (3 books)
by

Harry F. Rey (Goodreads Author)

4.08 avg rating — 49 ratings

Harry is Currently Reading

Harry Rey is currently reading

Memoirs of Hadrian

by Marguerite Yourcenar

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Mar 29, 2024 03:57AM

Harry Rey is currently reading

A Strong and Sudden Thaw (A Strong and Sudden Thaw, #1)

by R.W. Day

bookshelves: currently-reading, gay-classics

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Jun 30, 2023 11:37PM

Harry Rey is currently reading

Sacred Lips of the Bronx: A Novel

by Douglas Sadownick

bookshelves: currently-reading, gay-classics

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Harry Rey said: " '“Impatient with all the gay men dying before they know who they are,” Tahar adds.
One manifesto a day, please.'

How does one categorise loss? Loss of a relationship, of friends, of partners of friends, of pets, of grandmothers, of languages, of memori '“Impatient with all the gay men dying before they know who they are,” Tahar adds.
One manifesto a day, please.'

How does one categorise loss? Loss of a relationship, of friends, of partners of friends, of pets, of grandmothers, of languages, of memories, of neighbourhoods, of memories of neighbourhoods, of whole lives lived in whole worlds which no longer exist?

Sacred Lips of the Bronx is a searing, transcendent novel which seeks to contain within it a journal of all of that loss. Loss so enormous it cannot be comprehended, so is presented in slivers of life of the main character, Mikey. In LA, he is losing his ten year relationship with Robert among the holocaust which they are both living through. Aids in the early 90s. They’ve already lost so much.

In Mikey’s memory of youth in the Bronx, he is losing his grandmother Freida, a Yiddish woman among a world of holocaust survivors and families of the same. Amongst it all, Mikey fears he is losing his mind.

The noun of loss is absence. Sadownick’s paired-back character-roster in both timelines is emblematic of the feeling of loss and actuality of absence which Mikey lives through. In the Bronx, the Jewish enclave is rapidly shrinking, to be found almost completely gone by the time of his present-day return. In LA, the tragedy of his floundering relationship stews in the desolate wasteland that is a gay man’s social life in the early 90s. Friends are dead. Lovers and potential lovers are dying or dealing with their own loss.

The dual timeline is two sides of the same character. Mikey is his Yiddish grandmother Freida. That’s what she was trying to tell him all along. The family she lost is the family he lost. She clung to her Jewish secrets shoved into Bronx closets, while he explored the tried and tested gay lifecycle of shifting from one love affair to the next. Jewish and gay life cycles occurring again and again, loss into life, memory into tradition, tragedy to tragedy.

Sadownick captures the generational trauma of what it means to be a gay and a Jewish man, of this particular generation and hereafter. Taking on the reins of life just as the dark threat of death begins to hover, threatening to wash away all attempts at self-actualization, or, as Tahar mentions in the book, people who will die before they know who they are.

Because who we are is a sodden mix of memory and tradition, of prejudices and prides baked into us through childhood. Of uncovering the hidden light breathed into us by a creator, then swamped with the smog of a busy road wafting through a chipped window into the bedroom in which we dreamed our first dreams. Who we are are the losses we have suffered. Our first loves, romantic and familial. Our brothers who left and parents who fought. The people who we craved to be, and those who we were not. The choices we made, and those we did not.

In the haunting final chapters, Freida shows Mikey all of the choices made, or not. The losses he had, or avoided.

But is something lost if it is remembered? In the start of the novel, Mikey frets about having lost his Yiddish and his memories of his grandmother. But, through a particularly gay, yet effective form of therapy, he remembers. He fears he has lost his love, but through memory, Mikey tentatively regains the muscle memory of how to love, and how to fall in love.

In a novel so painfully about loss, we are also shown the pathway forward. The noun of loss may be absence, but its antidote is memory. To remember means we do not lose our loved ones, even if they have passed from the physical world. Their memories can be alive, just as their impact on our lives can live, if we remember.

Just as we continue to learn from lives lived and lost in the holocaust by holding onto memory, so must we do the same through other holocausts, and in particular our own gay holocaust which stole so many lives, and created so much absence in its wake. Sadownick’s novel deserves to sit among the high table of Aids-era memories, an antidote to all of the gay Jews we lost. ...more "

Jun 10, 2023 02:02PM · see review

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