Different Strokes for Different Folks
After high senior Gary Sinclair is kicked out of his house for being gay, he doesn’t have a lot of options. Desperate and hurting, he confides in his youth hockey coach. Sin finds himself moving into a veritable mansion that houses a ragtag group of gay men who have made it their home over the years.

While Sin—as he’s known to his team on the ice—gets used to his new life, he struggles with his identity as a gay teen, his relationship with his family, his hockey career, and his first love. And though everything might not be the same anymore, he just wants to find a way for it to be okay again.

Join him on these coming-of-age adventures in this collection of seven short stories:
Seven Strokes of Sin

Aw, Sin. I adore this kid. Though I'm a little biased because I wrote the book ;-) This is one of my early editions, so it contains a few more typos than I'm happy with. Sorry about that! Still, I couldn't just pulp it, so I'm sending it off into the world to be read.

Sending off to GoryDetails, who I think might enjoy it. Happy holidays!

The book arrived safely - and I'm delighted to have a chance to read your work! Thanks so much!

[I was pleased to find more stories and other related material on the Strokes Stories site.]

Sorry to be so late in journaling the book! I read it some time back, then set it aside for a Pride Month release last summer and managed to lose it in my boxes-o-books. Having found it again, rather than save it for *this* year's Pride events, I figured I'd better review and release it while I still know where it is!

Anyway, I enjoyed the book very much - though it opened with poor Sin's very harrowing account of his vicious and abusive father whaling on him to a horrifying degree. Good thing his coach turned out to be not only sympathetic, but may be able to offer refuge... though he'll have to run it by his housemates first. And so we meet the collective household of friends, lovers and ex-lovers, and a great source of potential mentors for our young protagonist. And if things were slanted a bit in favor of the "fairy godfather" syndrome - some of the household members are quite well off, which makes a lot of difference in certain situations - the characters were believably diverse and far from perfect. I liked the hints of their various back-stories, too, as it made them feel part of a larger saga.

It was marvelous to see Sin settling in to his new refuge, and amusing to see him take his first steps at a gay nightclub. And heartbreaking when he sees his mother in a local supermarket and she cuts him dead... despite the brutality at home, the poor kid still hopes for *something* from the person who's supposed to love him.

Other stories deal with Sin's crush on housemate Trip, the heartwarming scenes at Sin's high school graduation, Sin trying to make it onto the college hockey team, his flirtation with the cute delivery boy {grin}...

I can only wish all troubled teens could find such a supportive - and entertaining - family!

I left this book in the Little Free Library - near some rainbow-painted benches - at around 12:30; hope the finder enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2017 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***