“Dynamic, spontaneous, humorous…there is no question that Patton can create characters that seem real.” – -Dennis Cox, 101 Review
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NEW TITLE NOW AVAILABLE NOW FROM BOLD STROKES BOOKS: FRESH GRAVE IN GRAND CANYON https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/gay-fiction-2-c
- The relationships are done with great care
- By Netgalley.com on Nov 24, 2021 11:11
- “Fresh Grave in Grand Canyon by Lee Patton is definitely written as an homage to the Grand Canyon. The language is very full of superlatives but the Grand Canyon deserves all of those. The relationships are done with great care and the geologic descriptions of the trip down the river add to the enjoyment of the book.”
When Ray O’Brien volunteers to raft the Grand Canyon with a research team, the last thing he expects is murder. After a few days on a river closed to the public, one of the volunteers is found struck dead on a secluded beach. Sixty wilderness miles from contact with other people, the group must carry on in total isolation, sure someone committed murder and may kill again.
Despite the terrible timing, Ray falls for Duke, the group’s handsome ranger, who seems to return the attraction. Ray and Duke join forces with Jenny Bridger, the group leader, to solve the mystery. Jenny must act with confidence and decisiveness but meets puzzling resistance from the volunteers. Ensuring safe passage for all will mean overcoming the group’s misgivings and slaying Jenny’s own demons, but her compassion for the victim’s widow may lead them all astray.
The age-old Canyon becomes more and more ominous as the group fights to survive alone in nature and uncover a murderer among them.
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POETRY
My first poetry collection, In Disturbed Soil: Poems Across the West, is available from the Bookstore at Kelsay Books, https://kelsaybooks.com
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I’ve collected all my published poems on the website, Stripper at the Funeral:
stripperatthefuneralfirstfiftypluspoems.wordpress.com
Coming to Life is Here
- A rich narrative about a young man’s bloom into adulthood
- By Netgalley.com on Apr 2, 2021 03:04
- “Coming to Life on South High was a rich narrative about a young man’s bloom into adulthood. The story started with our protaganist, Gabe, living with a roommate and still in the closet and follows him over the course of the next decade-plus of his life. We get to witness him falling in love multiple times, exploring what it means to be queer at the turn of the century, and discover himself. The voyage of self-discovery is the very core of this story and Patton explores the concept beautifully and gracefully.
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Outside of Gabe, the book is supported by a colorful cast of supporting characters – ranging from friends to love interests to even the aforementioned parents. (Gabe’s mother is far more palatable, I promise.) Each of the characters come to life on the page for however long they are in the story.”
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Reviewed by Sarah Creasman
Cover Artist: Tammy Seidick
Coming to Life on South High, my second novel with Bold Strokes Books, is available now, with paperback and e-book versions available at https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/gbt-fiction-2-c
Here’s the scoop:
For 21-year-old gay virgin Gabe Rafferty, the first decade of adulthood is unpredictable and intense.
Flat broke upon college graduation, Gabe navigates the passage from menial work to globetrotting corporate drudge, then strives for a real chance at professional fulfillment. His journey exploring his sexuality—from inhibited innocence, to first-love crises, to random hookups—doesn’t seem to lead to the more sensual, committed relationships he wants. Then he meets Marty, an African American art student, and Gabe must face his white working-class background and racist father for a chance at true love.
Throughout, he traverses the joys and hazards of loving a headstrong cast of friends, including a lesbian couple, and Candy, a straight female friend whose life intersects with Gabe’s in unexpected ways.
EVERY SUMMER DAY
- A sweet, caring look at the remarkable bond between two brothers
- By Netgalley.com on Jun 14, 2020 02:06
- “I found Every Summer Day to be a sweet, caring look at the remarkable bond between two brothers – a bond tested by circumstances outside their control. It also serves as a love letter to its Colorado setting. I lived in that gorgeous state for 20 years, and the author’s descriptions made me homesick to return. In addition to the central story, we are given other sub-plots revolving around romance, homophobia, and a number of environmental and ethical issues. If the book feels a bit crowded with the number and variety of moral challenges its characters face, well…it’s a minor failing. My life, too, feels crowded by competing priorities and ethical quandaries (so many boycotts, so many hashtags, so many petitions). It’s hard to fault a book for having a social conscience. It is the characters who truly stick with you after the novel has ended. I found myself wanting to hold onto them, just as we all yearn to hang on to those too-fleeting Summer days.”
Reviewed by Jeremy Cole
My fourth novel, Every Summer Day from Bold Strokes Books, is currently available for order (https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/gbt-fiction-2-c.).
Determined to record every summer day, young history teacher Luke Devlin starts school vacation imagining he’ll describe backcountry adventures in the Rockies and sun-splashed days home in Denver. But all too soon the season veers into crisis, when his older brother faces life-threatening illness and Luke becomes entangled in a love affair that’s as fast-moving and possibly as fatal as his brother’s diagnosis.
As Luke manages the household for his absent parents and struggles with the constant pressure of his unfinished master’s deadline, his fling with a Wyoming rancher grows serious just as his brother’s crisis overwhelms him. Luke’s love of his native ground and his search for romance collide with the hard realities of mortality and loss during an unexpected summer.
Previous Novels
When sixteen-year-old Guy Dimchek comes out in 1970s San Francisco, his best friend dumps him, his mom splits, and he’s left largely on his own just in time for his first ever sexual experience.
Things don’t get any easier when Guy’s father becomes a candidate for state office. Having a gay son doesn’t do his candidacy any favors, especially under the antigay “family values” fervor sweeping the nation. Compounding the situation is Guy’s new stepmother, who opposes openness on the gay issue and especially the revelation that Guy has a boyfriend—one he might be falling in love with.
Around Guy, self-help charlatans, radical cults, and extreme politics forecast 1978’s perfect tsunami: the Jonestown massacre in Guyana, Anita Bryant’s homophobic campaign, and gay city supervisor Harvey Milk’s assassination at city hall. In the midst of a perfect storm of antigay sentiment, Guy faces the supreme test when his father’s political opponent launches a smear campaign that employs both dirty tricks and physical violence against Guy.
Following the attack, an injured Guy must confront his own flaws and reunite with his fractured family—all while staying true to himself and connected to the boy he loves.
Available from Dreamspinner Press https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/searchresults?q=My+Aim+Is+True
Love and Genetic Weaponry follows Ray O’Brien, a high school drama teacher, as he becomes involved with a one-woman activist organization, Lottie Weiss, and her quest to free a young revolutionary imprisoned for bombing a genetics laboratory. As their quest to free the prisoner turns them into fugitives taking flight across Wyoming and Utah, Ray soon realizes that Lottie is married to the lab’s lead scientist–who happens to be the man Ray is having an affair with.
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
The characters, both major and minor, are extremely well drawn…as a work of romantic gay fiction it is absolutely priceless.”—Jone Devlin, Triangle
For Ray O’Brien, a summer in London as part of his graduate studies in theater was a chance of a lifetime. The presence of a handsome Argentinian fellow student, Eduardo, promises to make it truly extraordinary. It had to be too good to last. When a string of savage, sadistic murders culminates in the bludgeoning death of another student two doors away, a strong line of circumstantial evidence leads directly to Eduardo. Ray’s dream summer is suddenly transformed into a desperate odyssey from London to Hampstead to Bath, through seedy gay pubs, West End Theaters, and secret gay bathhouses as he and Eduardo stay one step ahead of Scotland Yard while untangling a web of secrets that masks the killer’s identity and threatens to destroy them both.
Novella: The Faith of Power
Available in the anthology Stuck in the Middle: Writing that Holds You in Suspense from http://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product-category/fiction/page/4/
NONFICTION
Our ongoing narrative nonfiction project, The South Within Us, records five years of travel into every state across the American South, interviewing locals and officials in our quest to explore the struggles for social and racial equality. My fellow travelers, journalist Kristen Hannum and my boyfriend, George Ware, join me in the blog that supports our manuscript:
southwithinusFollow our journey across the American South as three westerners explore Southern identity
Bio and more info:
Lee Patton 