New
York Heat by Cameron D. James
Deep
Desires Press, 2018
Club
21 has long been an institution for the New York City gay community.
Dan is in his fifties, but he remembers his youthful erotic
adventures at the club, many in the company of his close friend Brad.
He can hardly believe he’s now the owner of Club 21, hoping to
serve a new generation of LGBTQ New Yorkers and make some money at
the same time. Sometimes he doubts his ability to keep the place
afloat; he never realized how much effort and stress would be
involved in running his own business. With his young lover Ken at his
side, though, he’s determined to succeed.
Ken
is one of the club’s famed
Go-Go boys, but he’s
more than a fling. Despite the age difference, Ken is devoted to Dan,
and vice versa.
Meanwhile,
Brad is pursuing his own dream, buying the now-defunct leather bar
next to Club 21 in order to transform it into a hot yoga studio. Like
Dan, Brad has developed a serious relationship with a much younger
man. Simon is more than willing to follow Brad from Toronto to New
York and help him realize his vision of New York Heat. Brad can
hardly believe how fortunate he is.
Both
men’s plans appear to be flourishing. Dan’s
Club 21
is as popular as ever; meanwhile,
renovations are complete and the
yoga center is almost ready to open. Then a young man terrified
by his own homoerotic
desires pulls a gun in the middle of the crowded
dance floor and murders more than a dozen people, including one of
the club’s bartenders.
The
catastrophe almost kills Dan’s dream as well. He’s too heartsick
to keep the club going. However,
with the help of his
friends—who are really more like family—he comes to understand
that Club 21 belongs not just
to him, but to the
community. It needs to survive in order to prove that hate and fear
will never triumph over love.
New
York Heat is an
ambitious novel. The plot summary above does not begin to capture its
richness. The book follows the developing relationships of five gay
couples who are connected with Club 21. In addition to Dan and Ken,
and
Brad and Simon, the author brings readers into the lives of Lance and
Liam, a bartender and a
dancer; Jake and Paul, a
bartender and a
DJ; and Xander and Gabriel, Go-Go boy and bouncer, respectively. Each
pair has a different dynamic, driven by the history, doubts, and
fears of the men involved. They have two things in common: true love
and hot sex.
Indeed,
there’s a lot of sex in this book—twenty eight scenes according
to the author, though I didn’t count them. I enjoyed these scenes,
at least partly because I haven’t read that many MM erotic romances
written by gay men. On the other hand, I have penned a few books in
this genre myself, so I was curious as to whether there were major
differences between what I’d imagined and what I would assume are
descriptions of first hand experience.
These
guys are all pretty randy. However, their sex drives are (very
realistically) governed by their emotions as well as external
circumstances. When the characters are stressed, anxious or
depressed, their libido goes out the window, even when they’re in
the company of their lovers. I appreciated this. After the shooting,
nobody has sex, for a long time. A dark cloud of death and failure
hangs over the characters. Hope and desire are inextricably linked.
As Club 21 rises from the ashes of tragedy, the characters’
receptivity to sex increases as well.
The
crisis of the shooting is handled very well. Likewise, I found the
final chapters which bring the return of hope and healing a true
inspiration. On the other
hand, the chapters before
the shooting seemed to drag a bit. The author chronicles the
development of love and trust within each of the couples, but I found
some of the chapters repetitious. It also took me a while to sort out
who was who, especially since six
of the ten main characters have one syllable names.
Overall,
though, I really enjoyed
this novel. I found it quite a contrast with Mr. James’ earlier
tales about Club 21, some of which feature the same characters. Those
stories were erotica, tales of hot casual hookups between sexy guys.
New York Heat, on
the contrary,
presents a set of intertwined love stories. The sex is still as hot,
but it’s a very different emotional experience for the men
involved, and for the
reader.
Cameron
James has a talent for writing both sorts of stories.
