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Hostage
Three suspense-filled stories from a trio of the best authors in the M/M genre bring you tales of danger coupled with high intensity romance. What would you do if your lover had been kidnapped and you had to fight to get him back? "Dangerous Ground" By Josh Lanyon, "Burn Card" by Laura Baumbach and "A Classic Story of Good and Evil" by Sarah Black all visit the danger and passion of love and life torn apart by unforeseen circumstances. This book also includes a bonus short from Sarah Black, "The Second Indian Wars".
Aspiring astronaut Daniel survives a helicopter wreck only to disappear into Vietnam's bamboo jungles. Armed with little but rage, Hutch dismantles the undergrowth to find him.
Federal agent Will Brandt walks at gunpoint into California's High Sierras after witnessing the murder of his partner, Taylor MacAllister. Somebody's going to be sorry.
Sam Adams visits the Navajo reserve to shoot pictures with his vintage camera. He hardly expects to become a political prisoner - or meet the passionate young man who'll rescue him from loneliness.
And, Las Vegas criminalist Cody Baxter struggles to save himself and his kidnapper before Cody's lover, Gil, finds him - and rescue becomes revenge.
Aspiring astronaut Daniel survives a helicopter wreck only to disappear into Vietnam's bamboo jungles. Armed with little but rage, Hutch dismantles the undergrowth to find him.
Federal agent Will Brandt walks at gunpoint into California's High Sierras after witnessing the murder of his partner, Taylor MacAllister. Somebody's going to be sorry.
Sam Adams visits the Navajo reserve to shoot pictures with his vintage camera. He hardly expects to become a political prisoner - or meet the passionate young man who'll rescue him from loneliness.
And, Las Vegas criminalist Cody Baxter struggles to save himself and his kidnapper before Cody's lover, Gil, finds him - and rescue becomes revenge.
Paperback
First published April 26, 2008
109 people want to read
About the author
Laura Baumbach
48 books311 followersLaura Baumbach is the best-selling, multi-award winning, acclaimed author of short stories, novellas, novels and screenplays. Most recently, Mexican Heat, written in collaboration with Josh Lanyon, has been chosen as a FINALIST for Best Gay Romance in the 2009 Lambda Literary Awards, a FINALIST in the 2010 EPPIE Awards, and has received an Honorable Mention at the 2009 San Francisco Book Festival. Laura was nominated for Best GBLT Author 2008 in the LRC's Best Of Awards for 2008. Her adventure story The Lost Temple of Karttikeya won the 2008 EPPIE Award for Best GLBT novel. Her sequel to the best-selling novel A Bit of Rough, Roughhousing, was 2007 Reviewers' Choice Award Winner.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 1, 2012
Decent writing, but not my cup of tea
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.
Disclaimer(s):
* Many of the "cons" in this review are the result of my personal preference for (a) longer stories that have time and space to develop the characters more fully and (b) stories that are just different--in setting, in development, in subject matter, etc.--than these are.
* I prefer to read romances that are more about feelings than sex. If a book has lots of lust-filled, dispassionate sex, I'm not impressed. If the sex is a manifestation of love, bring it on.
"Dangerous Ground" by Josh Lanyon - 7/10
Pros:
- Good depiction of the despair of losing someone you love.
- A few funny moments.
- Exciting plot.
Cons:
- Sex scenes that for some reason just didn't quite do it for me; one of the guys is in love, and the other is rather standoffish emotionally. (This is fixed by the end, of course.)
- Too open an ending for me.
"Burn Card" by Laura Baumbach – 6/10
Pros:
- Good (if abbreviated) descriptions of what it must feel like to be kidnapped and tied up.
- Brief development of the characters' background, but still managed to convince me how deeply they cared for each other; when one of them was kidnapped, I felt the anger/depression/hopelessness of his partner immediately.
Cons:
- Not an open ending per se, but not terribly satisfying either. The conclusion was more in line with a slice-of-life short story than a short novella, which is what this is.
- Simplistic plot (but again, with a good depiction of the emotional impact of the kidnapping itself) with next to no mystery regarding the kidnapper's identity.
"The Second Indian War" by Sarah Black – 4/10
Pros:
- Pretty (and accurate) descriptions of a canyon/mesa setting at sunset.
- Well written flash ending.
Con:
- Not my kind of story - political, very short, no romance (but with an odd kiss that felt out of place).
"The Classic Story of Good and Evil" by Sarah Black – 6/10
Pros:
- Characters I cared about by the end of the story. For someone as critical as I am of character development, that's an achievement in as little space as Black had with this story.
- Sappy ending that I liked a lot.
Cons:
- Jumpy plot--short scenes with choppy description and little development. (I am, however, willing to admit the possibility that Black wrote the story like this on purpose to capture the fleeting, volatile atmosphere of the Vietnam War.)
- Flashback-type accounts of the characters' previous encounter(s) that I found hard to follow. Even after reading the story a second time, I wasn't sure what the exact state of their relationship was supposed to have been at the beginning of the story.
Overall comments: Probably not for you if you're looking either for heartwarming (or heart-pounding) romance or for graphic/erotic sex (with the exception of the Lanyon story).
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.
Disclaimer(s):
* Many of the "cons" in this review are the result of my personal preference for (a) longer stories that have time and space to develop the characters more fully and (b) stories that are just different--in setting, in development, in subject matter, etc.--than these are.
* I prefer to read romances that are more about feelings than sex. If a book has lots of lust-filled, dispassionate sex, I'm not impressed. If the sex is a manifestation of love, bring it on.
"Dangerous Ground" by Josh Lanyon - 7/10
Pros:
- Good depiction of the despair of losing someone you love.
- A few funny moments.
- Exciting plot.
Cons:
- Sex scenes that for some reason just didn't quite do it for me; one of the guys is in love, and the other is rather standoffish emotionally. (This is fixed by the end, of course.)
- Too open an ending for me.
"Burn Card" by Laura Baumbach – 6/10
Pros:
- Good (if abbreviated) descriptions of what it must feel like to be kidnapped and tied up.
- Brief development of the characters' background, but still managed to convince me how deeply they cared for each other; when one of them was kidnapped, I felt the anger/depression/hopelessness of his partner immediately.
Cons:
- Not an open ending per se, but not terribly satisfying either. The conclusion was more in line with a slice-of-life short story than a short novella, which is what this is.
- Simplistic plot (but again, with a good depiction of the emotional impact of the kidnapping itself) with next to no mystery regarding the kidnapper's identity.
"The Second Indian War" by Sarah Black – 4/10
Pros:
- Pretty (and accurate) descriptions of a canyon/mesa setting at sunset.
- Well written flash ending.
Con:
- Not my kind of story - political, very short, no romance (but with an odd kiss that felt out of place).
"The Classic Story of Good and Evil" by Sarah Black – 6/10
Pros:
- Characters I cared about by the end of the story. For someone as critical as I am of character development, that's an achievement in as little space as Black had with this story.
- Sappy ending that I liked a lot.
Cons:
- Jumpy plot--short scenes with choppy description and little development. (I am, however, willing to admit the possibility that Black wrote the story like this on purpose to capture the fleeting, volatile atmosphere of the Vietnam War.)
- Flashback-type accounts of the characters' previous encounter(s) that I found hard to follow. Even after reading the story a second time, I wasn't sure what the exact state of their relationship was supposed to have been at the beginning of the story.
Overall comments: Probably not for you if you're looking either for heartwarming (or heart-pounding) romance or for graphic/erotic sex (with the exception of the Lanyon story).
June 18, 2015
There are four stories revolving around a general theme of being taken hostage and involving gay men.
The Stories
Josh Lanyon's "Dangerous Ground" follows a tense period in the lives of two FBI partners trying to come back from an almost fatal shooting of one of them. Will is feeling guilty. That his rejection of Taylor is one of the reasons that Taylor stopped that bullet. This hike into the mountains for the weekend is meant to help them get back in sync. Only, the gang who robbed the Black Wolf Casino has other ideas.
Good story about friendship and the miscommunications and expectations friends can experience.
Sarah Black's "Second Indian War" is about a reporter whose hobby is old landscape cameras and Sam has been wanting to photograph the area around Tsegi Canyon on the Navajo Reservation for a very long time. Only his occupation and fortuitous appearance at the diner makes his trip the ideal hostage opportunity for a trio of Navajos trying to gain publicity about the government's stall tactics over paying reparations to the Navajos affected by the uranium mining on the reservation.
This is more of an environmental and reparations exposure than it is about a gay hostage. A sad story about the lengths government and business will go to avoid responsibility.
Laura Baumbach's "Burn Card" is such a sweet story about a couple who are very much in love. Cody Baxter is a policeman working CSI in Las Vegas while Gil Turko is a media darling and in his fourth? working incarnation, this time he's providing bodyguards.
It's an unfortunate night when one of the clients Gil's company is guarding is murdered and Cody just happens to be the unlucky CSI on scene.
Sarah Black's "Classic Story of Good and Evil" points up the stupidity of "don't ask, don't tell" in the military. Lieutenant "Hutch" Hutchins and First Lieutenant Daniel "Dog" Dawson are both Marines and hotshot helicopter pilots. Hutch wants Dog and Dog is deep in denial. He has a dream about being in the Apollo program and his being outed as gay will kill that dream. Meantime, both men are who you want to pull you out of a hot zone in the jungles of Vietnam.
I did enjoy Hutch's analysis of the classic Western, LOL.
The Cover and Title
The cover is pretty cheesy looking with a slender, but muscled man wearing jeans and tied up to a chair. Floating in the background to the left is an enlarged image of a man's face, a hat brim shading his eyes so we only see a blur of his nose and mouth.
There are many ways a person can be held Hostage when his sexual orientation is involved.
The Stories
Josh Lanyon's "Dangerous Ground" follows a tense period in the lives of two FBI partners trying to come back from an almost fatal shooting of one of them. Will is feeling guilty. That his rejection of Taylor is one of the reasons that Taylor stopped that bullet. This hike into the mountains for the weekend is meant to help them get back in sync. Only, the gang who robbed the Black Wolf Casino has other ideas.
Good story about friendship and the miscommunications and expectations friends can experience.
Sarah Black's "Second Indian War" is about a reporter whose hobby is old landscape cameras and Sam has been wanting to photograph the area around Tsegi Canyon on the Navajo Reservation for a very long time. Only his occupation and fortuitous appearance at the diner makes his trip the ideal hostage opportunity for a trio of Navajos trying to gain publicity about the government's stall tactics over paying reparations to the Navajos affected by the uranium mining on the reservation.
This is more of an environmental and reparations exposure than it is about a gay hostage. A sad story about the lengths government and business will go to avoid responsibility.
Laura Baumbach's "Burn Card" is such a sweet story about a couple who are very much in love. Cody Baxter is a policeman working CSI in Las Vegas while Gil Turko is a media darling and in his fourth? working incarnation, this time he's providing bodyguards.
It's an unfortunate night when one of the clients Gil's company is guarding is murdered and Cody just happens to be the unlucky CSI on scene.
Sarah Black's "Classic Story of Good and Evil" points up the stupidity of "don't ask, don't tell" in the military. Lieutenant "Hutch" Hutchins and First Lieutenant Daniel "Dog" Dawson are both Marines and hotshot helicopter pilots. Hutch wants Dog and Dog is deep in denial. He has a dream about being in the Apollo program and his being outed as gay will kill that dream. Meantime, both men are who you want to pull you out of a hot zone in the jungles of Vietnam.
I did enjoy Hutch's analysis of the classic Western, LOL.
The Cover and Title
The cover is pretty cheesy looking with a slender, but muscled man wearing jeans and tied up to a chair. Floating in the background to the left is an enlarged image of a man's face, a hat brim shading his eyes so we only see a blur of his nose and mouth.
There are many ways a person can be held Hostage when his sexual orientation is involved.
April 17, 2022
I read two stories by Sarah Black in the paperback anthology HOSTAGE on September 21, 2009. & The Second Indian War is the first story I ever read by this author. Despite being very short it was surprisingly entertaining. Just a little gem. Sorry I avoided reading it and finally only reluctantly read it today. Very subtle - just hints - nice. Navajo indians /uranium poisoning/ reporter /old camera /mutten stew /beautiful landscapes /diner /kipnapping plan /marine/soft board
The second story, The Classic Story of Good and Evil was not what I expected. It's about what happened in Vietnam during 1968. Marine helicopter pilots/surprising tenderness /sweet /funny moments /alpha/ resistant /fear of being outed /fear of losing loved one /future plans /western novels>plots /rescue marine code
The second story, The Classic Story of Good and Evil was not what I expected. It's about what happened in Vietnam during 1968. Marine helicopter pilots/surprising tenderness /sweet /funny moments /alpha/ resistant /fear of being outed /fear of losing loved one /future plans /western novels>plots /rescue marine code
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews