Ghost Hunters – Long Beach by A.M. Riley

If you start this anthology thinking to read something haunting and dark, you would be surprised by the first story, which is almost a sweet romance. James and Rick are best friend since forever, they met when they were still too young to understand what a sexual preference was, and from that moment on they were inseparable. Rick believes in ghosts and James believes in Rick; if Rick wants to go ghost hunting, James is there with him, and so it was for the past eight years. I actually don’t know how old they both are, but due to their “innocence”, I think they are 20-something, so it’s not implausible that they are in that moment of life when they need to take a final and life changing decision. James loves Rick, but he has no courage to come out to his friend, at least not with his feelings. The night before James told Rick he is gay, but he didn’t admit his feelings for him; and since Rick didn’t tell anything, James took that as a rejection, and now he is thinking to give up, to the ghost hunting and to Rick. I think that James didn’t understand that Rick is not a straightforward type of guy and that he probably has no courage himself to come clear with James. But they have a friend in common that maybe will help both of them.

I really loved this story; I have always had a soft spot for young lovers. And the scene where James admits to a “virgin” Rick that he had a sexual intercourse while his friend was away and Rick simply replies that he had noticed a change in him, was so sweet and tender, an admission of love without actually saying the words. I also loved that, all in all, this was not a paranormal story; the only otherworldly event is a nice topping to a more than nice story, I liked it, but it was not essential to the story.

Rousing Caine by Lex Valentine

This story reminded me an old Hollywood movie, not since it was old fashioned but since it faced the “ghost” side at the same way, not giving much explanation and looking at it like another oddity that adds spicy to the love story. Jason was recently dumped by his younger boy toy, a man he met soon after a bad divorce and who was probably only a way to forget that experience. Still, it wasn’t nice to be not only dumped, but also robbed, Chris, the boy toy ran off with his safe money and a priceless painting. And Jason ran off to his beach house to forget. So, when the morning after he awakes with a ghost in his bed, he was probably ready to have an affair without strings attached, and how it could have them when Caine, the man, is already dead? I think Jason takes it so easy since he doesn’t really believe in the story, oh yes, he believes Caine to be a ghost, but he doesn’t believe their story could last. And so troubles come only when both of them start to move on the simple fling and think to the future. More, when Jason realizes that Caine’s feelings are real, and they were so for a long time, that is the moment when all go to hell.

If you consider the love story, the novella is nice. What I’m not sure to like much is Jason’s character; I think he is a bit selfish. Not only he doesn’t try to understand Caine’s reasons, at least not immediately, but even worse, when he thinks to have lost Caine for good, and so he has already done a bad mistake, he even wishes Chris’s death. All right, Chris is not exactly the best of the man, but I think Jason should at least try to understand his reasons, maybe he was a runaway kid, maybe he had inner trouble, and so on. Instead, really, I have the feeling Jason is a bit self-centred. But well, as I always say, it’s better to have an imperfect man as hero than a perfect hero as man, imperfect men are more interesting and usually give better material for a story.

The Day They Closed The Iguana by A.M. Riley

There are light and funny ghost stories and there are very sad one. A.M. Riley tried both; her first story in this anthology was funny so I should have probably guessed than the second would have been not. Billy is a more than thirty year old former wanna-be-actor, not old fashioned theatre owner with ghost attached. The story is not clear, but probably Billy was in love with Seth, Seth was in love with the idea of being an actor and then he died. Since Billy is now thirty, and we are talking of something happened more than 10 years before, Billy and Seth had to be very young, probably Billy’s first love. And you never forget your first love. So Billy spent all his twenty-something year to mourn for Seth, and it was also quite impossible to forget him, when his ghost was there to remind Billy of who he lost. But years passed and nothing changes and Billy realizes that if he doesn’t do something, he will spend the rest of his life alone, if not for a ghost who is not able to warm him during a winter night.

Enter Frank from Montana. Frank is gentle, caring, down to earth and very real. He reminds me of a movie I love, Bus Stop, where a wonderful Marilyn Monroe is sidetracked from her path towards the glittering lights of Hollywood, from a very handsome and very pushing Montana ranch owner. Billy is Marilyn Monroe, he is already in Hollywood, so that is not his impossible dream. The impossible dream is his love for Seth, and instead Frank represents the today, the now, the possibility. He is maybe not the lost dream of his youth, he is maybe not so striking and perfect as Billy reminds Seth to be, but he is real. Now Billy has to decide if continuing to live with his dreams, or being sidetracked in Montana.

Black Candle Reader by William Maltese

I actually don’t know if all the facts in this novella happened by night, but that was the feeling. At the beginning I didn’t understand if I was reading a series of short independent stories or what: there were different characters, two male escort, the narrative voice, without name (an Afro-American hustler) and his lover Jeremy; a clairvoyant, Kenneth, who is eager to have finally a contact with a human body and not with ghosts; a forty-something man, Talon, who thinks he has to pay for his father’s sins; a young hustler, Sammy, who is dreaming a better life; a serial killer, without name. Their stories seem disconnected if not for one thing they have in common, the sex. And the crazy but nevertheless meaningful flow of words that is a William Maltese’s story. This time actually, it’s a little less sex-centred, to be more scaring (I don’t find sex scaring…); this story is darker, and sadder. I actually felt real sorry for one of the above character, and maybe even for another one. Not really for the third of them who will not arrive at the end of the story. The Love Me Dead of the title in this case is not the love for a ghost, but the crazy love (and not the kind of good crazy of above) which brings to death half the men we are introduced at the beginning.

The previous three stories where not at all scaring and most of all romance, with various degrees of that, and instead Black Candle Reader is probably more horror than romance. I kind of find romantic Jeremy and “I”’s love, not a typical sweet and rose love, they are, after all, male escorts still on the job, but I think “I” is looking after Jeremy, and they are only waiting a good time to retire and being an old fashioned couple aging together in a nice cottage. Or maybe I’m trying to paint in pink the darkness of the story… but still, there were sometime, during the narration, that between cum and candles, I really read Jeremy as an innocent boy at play, and “I” an odd knight in shining armour.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608200671/?tag=elimyrevandra-20