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Mercy Most Tender: A darkly erotic gay love novel
One person stands in the shadows, willing to do whatever it takes to destroy them.
MERCY MOST TENDER is book one of the unfolding story of Joey Nisi and Evan Matheson. From the night they meet on a dark street in Greenwich Village in 1966, the two men become inexorably and passionately attached to each other.
Evan, a masculine and openly gay, well-to-do artist whose life is entangled with shrouded, cold-blooded secrets, falls in love with Joey, the boyish waif in his early 20s haunted by nightmares from his childhood of abuse. In Evan's controlling, obsessive and often cruel love, Joey seeks redemption from guilt that rages through his terrifying dreams and fearful imaginings. Evan, meanwhile, struggles to keep hidden from Joey his secret life.
Their story unfolds in the music-infused era of flower power, hippies, free love and youthful rebellion. Joey and Evan come together when gay pride first steps out of the closet to march into the public's eye, as harbingered by the ground-breaking stage production of "Fortune and Men's Eyes" and the damning special CBS report on homosexuality telecast in the spring of 1967.
This is their time. This is the beginning of their story.
MERCY MOST TENDER is book one of the unfolding story of Joey Nisi and Evan Matheson. From the night they meet on a dark street in Greenwich Village in 1966, the two men become inexorably and passionately attached to each other.
Evan, a masculine and openly gay, well-to-do artist whose life is entangled with shrouded, cold-blooded secrets, falls in love with Joey, the boyish waif in his early 20s haunted by nightmares from his childhood of abuse. In Evan's controlling, obsessive and often cruel love, Joey seeks redemption from guilt that rages through his terrifying dreams and fearful imaginings. Evan, meanwhile, struggles to keep hidden from Joey his secret life.
Their story unfolds in the music-infused era of flower power, hippies, free love and youthful rebellion. Joey and Evan come together when gay pride first steps out of the closet to march into the public's eye, as harbingered by the ground-breaking stage production of "Fortune and Men's Eyes" and the damning special CBS report on homosexuality telecast in the spring of 1967.
This is their time. This is the beginning of their story.
- GenresM M Romance
579 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 3, 2015
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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October 27, 2015huh.
so...that happened.
I'm not sure what to say.
I'm aware gay fiction isn't a genre written for me. I'm very much an outsider looking in, so it's understandable if some of the story won't resonate for me the way it would for a gay man, particularly one who experienced this era.
I think this is a new author, and he should be proud of creating such a vast story, with entirely memorable characters. I felt a sense of honesty and authenticity in the text, despite the challenge in getting my head around one of the characters.
The author surprised me throughout. I had no idea where the story would go.
The omniscient pov is really unorthodox for contemporary fiction, but it works somehow? Perhaps because it's like a god looking down and seeing inside all the characters' heads, which fits with the overarching themes of religion and doctrine and belief and suffering and love.
I could relate to Joey, with his desperate need to have someone
"For the first time in my life, I have somebody to stand beside me. Someone who says he loves me. Someone who really, really wants me. Evan loves me. I know he does. He’s the other half of me."
Particularly in that time period, I can see how impossible it would be to walk away when you found that.
The woman characters , for all they had small roles, were human and real, flawed and likeable. I could image being friends with the upstairs neighbours.
I would try another book by this author.
so...that happened.
I'm not sure what to say.
I'm aware gay fiction isn't a genre written for me. I'm very much an outsider looking in, so it's understandable if some of the story won't resonate for me the way it would for a gay man, particularly one who experienced this era.
I think this is a new author, and he should be proud of creating such a vast story, with entirely memorable characters. I felt a sense of honesty and authenticity in the text, despite the challenge in getting my head around one of the characters.
The author surprised me throughout. I had no idea where the story would go.
The omniscient pov is really unorthodox for contemporary fiction, but it works somehow? Perhaps because it's like a god looking down and seeing inside all the characters' heads, which fits with the overarching themes of religion and doctrine and belief and suffering and love.
I could relate to Joey, with his desperate need to have someone
"For the first time in my life, I have somebody to stand beside me. Someone who says he loves me. Someone who really, really wants me. Evan loves me. I know he does. He’s the other half of me."
Particularly in that time period, I can see how impossible it would be to walk away when you found that.
The woman characters , for all they had small roles, were human and real, flawed and likeable. I could image being friends with the upstairs neighbours.
I would try another book by this author.
December 4, 2015
This is without a doubt the best book I've read this year in the M/M genre. The pseudonymous Barrie Goldleaf is obviously an accomplished and talented author but one that comes on the scene with no fanfare or discernible history.
It was pure luck to have stumbled across this work on Amazon, in Prime no less, while looking for a long book I could sink my teeth into and one that was dark. This couldn’t have been more perfect, containing goodly amounts of BDSM (mostly in the form of domestic discipline), rape, pedophilia, pimping, cheating on partners, unbearable suspense, passionate lovemaking, a few murders and a pair of MCs that drive this plot from here to kingdom come…or at least to Upstate New York.
Goldleaf gives us a well told tale that is both character and plot driven, a joy to find when delivered in equal measure as it is here. Set against a backdrop of Greenwich Village in the 60s, it is loaded with atmosphere, intense conflict and characters that come off the page with a palpable underlying passion for each other.
The foreshadowing is so well placed it creates a suspense I found nearly unbearable. I flew through pages in two all night sittings to the finish, while at the same time hoping it would never end. (By then I had moved in with the MCs and was having breakfast with them.)
If the joy is in the journey not the destination, no truer words could better describe this book. Aside from a few misplaced or missing words an editor would clean up, I found some of the ending to be a bit labored and sappy for my tastes but not to worry, you’ll be so out of breath by the time you get there it won’t matter.
Fortunately, the title of this book has a #1 after it as listed on Amazon, indicating there’s more to come by this mysterious, favorite new author of mine.
Don’t miss this one if you have a kinky bone in your body.
It was pure luck to have stumbled across this work on Amazon, in Prime no less, while looking for a long book I could sink my teeth into and one that was dark. This couldn’t have been more perfect, containing goodly amounts of BDSM (mostly in the form of domestic discipline), rape, pedophilia, pimping, cheating on partners, unbearable suspense, passionate lovemaking, a few murders and a pair of MCs that drive this plot from here to kingdom come…or at least to Upstate New York.
Goldleaf gives us a well told tale that is both character and plot driven, a joy to find when delivered in equal measure as it is here. Set against a backdrop of Greenwich Village in the 60s, it is loaded with atmosphere, intense conflict and characters that come off the page with a palpable underlying passion for each other.
The foreshadowing is so well placed it creates a suspense I found nearly unbearable. I flew through pages in two all night sittings to the finish, while at the same time hoping it would never end. (By then I had moved in with the MCs and was having breakfast with them.)
If the joy is in the journey not the destination, no truer words could better describe this book. Aside from a few misplaced or missing words an editor would clean up, I found some of the ending to be a bit labored and sappy for my tastes but not to worry, you’ll be so out of breath by the time you get there it won’t matter.
Fortunately, the title of this book has a #1 after it as listed on Amazon, indicating there’s more to come by this mysterious, favorite new author of mine.
Don’t miss this one if you have a kinky bone in your body.
December 28, 2015
Just some thoughts I had to get out: Still find myself thinking about WTF I read since I finished this last night. I'm not really sure about the rating. I want to give it 3 stars because it wasn't exactly what I call an enjoyable read. The writing in this is extremely raw and unlike most other stories I've read. I felt uncomfortable with many of the scenes but most especially whenever ultra creeper Larry popped up. I had to skip his POVs.
The relationship in this is completely f***d up. No way else to see it. Emotional and physical abuse, childhood trauma and abuse, manipulation, codependency, infedility, even ...I spent much of my time hating one MC almost throughout and yelling at the other to just run far far away already. But then things got even more crazy and dysfunctional and I started thinking....yeah, maybe they deserve each other. I wouldn't call this a romance by any means....but the relationship between the MCs was compelling and somehow I kept reading to see what would happen to them. The end was a mess of WTF-ery and bizarremess but even then I'm mainly left feeling......I hope there's a sequel?
Soooo....yeah. I am the definition of conflicted right now. Maybe it deserves a 4 because of my somewhat morbid and perverse fascination with what I just read, and the fact that I wouldn't mind more.
*Note: I would not call what happens in their relationship as BDSM and I'm not sure it should be marketed as such. EDIT: See comments below by people far more knowledgeable than me about this topic!
The relationship in this is completely f***d up. No way else to see it. Emotional and physical abuse, childhood trauma and abuse, manipulation, codependency, infedility, even ...I spent much of my time hating one MC almost throughout and yelling at the other to just run far far away already. But then things got even more crazy and dysfunctional and I started thinking....yeah, maybe they deserve each other. I wouldn't call this a romance by any means....but the relationship between the MCs was compelling and somehow I kept reading to see what would happen to them. The end was a mess of WTF-ery and bizarremess but even then I'm mainly left feeling......I hope there's a sequel?
Soooo....yeah. I am the definition of conflicted right now. Maybe it deserves a 4 because of my somewhat morbid and perverse fascination with what I just read, and the fact that I wouldn't mind more.
*Note: I would not call what happens in their relationship as BDSM and I'm not sure it should be marketed as such. EDIT: See comments below by people far more knowledgeable than me about this topic!
November 5, 2015
how to sum up? It's the most intense love story I've read for a long time. Nothing for the light-hearted.
I can't wait to read the sequel!
I can't wait to read the sequel!
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