This Charming Man

By Ajax Bell

WILL SEATTLE MAKE A MAN OF HIM YET?
It’s 1991 and Steven Frazier has danced away half a decade in the Seattle club scene with his beautiful-but-poisonous best friend, Adrian. Two glittering princes against the world, too high above life to care about what they might be missing.
But everything changes when a chance meeting with older—not to mention handsome—businessman John Pieters, reveals a cosmopolitan world and possible futures Steven’s never considered.
Flashy club clothes won’t impress John, this charming man who knows so much about many things. Motivated by fantasies inspired by his crush on John, can Steven finally fight Adrian’s sick hold?
As he steps out into the larger world, supported by new friends, Steven must prove to John—and to himself—that he’s not a hedonistic rhinestone club kid, but a true diamond in the rough.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ajax Bell
• Release date: Nov 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781939423283

Ajax Bell

A Seattle native now living in the southern American hinterlands, Ajax Bell likes pretty boys, beautiful women, and good jokes. She believes the best things in life are loud music and bourbon. No matter what the task she always has right pair of shoes. She's never been a sea captain but a background in library sciences and a lifetime of pencil pushing has left her with a rich fantasy life and a compulsive need to write it down. She hopes to one day own a genetically altered hippopotamus the size of a small dog.

Reviews for This Charming Man

[mtbearded1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

72 of 75 for 2015. Let me state right off the bat that there is graphic male on male sex in this novel. In fact, some of the hottest sex I've read outside of outright pornography is included in the narrative. I must also say that the opening of this novel is so outside my comfort zone, that I almost closed the book and moved on. There is way too much drug and alcohol abuse in the gay community without reading books that seem to glorify that self-destructive activity. All that said, I am so glad I continued reading. Steven Frazier, the protagonist, is a brilliant young man, working his way through the University of Washington's Computer Science program in the early 1990s, but caught up in a relationship where he is always there for his "friend" Adrian, but from which he himself gets little but heartache. The story line leads us through the process of Steven freeing himself from his destructive friends and habits, and learning to value himself while going after what he really wants in life. A good description of gay life in the early 90s, especially with a fine take on that life in Seattle. Anyone who knew the Queen City in those days (already 25 years ago), will recognize landmarks, streets and the people who inhabit them. My advice, if you can deal with graphic sex, hold your nose through the opening of the book and watch Steven grow. I'm glad I did.