‘Full Ride: Bottom Boys Get Play’ by Gavin Atlas #LGBT #Audiobook #Review #Interview #Giveaway

Marc reviews ‘Full Ride: Bottom Boys Get Play’  by Gavin Atlas. Published by Lethe Press on May 9th, 2015, 185 Pages.

Audiobook published on July 11th, 2014, narrator Jason Frazier, Length: 6 Hours and 6 minutes.

[Audiobook Review, Interview  Giveaway]

Giveaway has been extended to the end of the month. Quite a few more people can win, if y’all comment on the post 😉

*****

Gavin Atlas answers 10 questions in our Interview and offers a HUGE Giveaway. Details below!

CLICK ON THE COVER TO BUY THE AUDIO- OR EBOOK

Does the idea of a naïve young buck who can’t stop himself from losing his ass turn you on? Or would you rather experience life as a bottom who is every top’s fantasy? Through unquenchable lust or uncontrollable need, these are bottom boys who live to please and wouldn’t have it any other way. Gavin Atlas, author of the best-selling collection The Boy Can’t Help It, offers a second dose of porn stars, college boys, strippers, acrobats, and athletes taken body and soul by business tycoons, cops, mischievous professors, and other dominant men who won’t take no for an answer. Your journey through these stories will offer humor, affection, and true devotion, but please stay seated as you’re taken deep into the psychology of sexual submission. If you enjoy the dazed confusion of youthful studs helpless to escape the penetration of aggressive, powerful tops, come meet a few who will always grant you the Full Ride. 

ISBN: 978-1590212219

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*****

The Cover:

For me the cover is interesting. The curtain makes me feel like a voyeur a bit. Like I am about to get an intimate show and the sexy model on the cover will preform for me. it teases the reader and many will want to discover the erotic tales of the well-built and wanton red-haired guy waiting on the inside 😉

The Title:

‘The Full Ride’ is not just the title of this short story collection, but also of one of the short stories, where a student gives up his ass as requirement to his ‘Full Ride’ to a University with excellent education. I like the word play/ innuendo and the addition ‘Bottom Boys Get Play’ ensures that readers have some idea of what they will find inside 😉

The Narration:

When I listened to the audio sample on Audible, I knew this narration would be different. The narrator has a softer voice than I’m used to, yet the voice is still very seductive. Not as forceful, but perfect to portray the youth and wantonness of the ‘bottom boys’.

I must note, the narration of such diverse stories must be a difficult feat and was well done. The different accents seemed mostly authentic and the narrator differentiated the different main protagonists. While the narrator will not join my personal ‘top narrators’ list, it was refreshing to listen to a fresh and different voice and it fit well with these short stories.

The Story:

As mentioned before, these stories are very diverse and I never knew exactly what to expect. This collection is well written, but I must admit I was uncomfortable with the humiliation play that was part of some of the stories. These are ‘total bottom boy fantasies’, so I’m sure that there are many people who will be even more receptive for this kind of sexual stimulation.

It was interesting, if slightly uncomfortable at times, to get into the heads of these bottom boys. Truth be told, I’ a gay man and bottom as well, but equality between both partners is extremely important to me and I had a hard time to let go of my own needs and tune into these protagonists who want something very different. They desire to be used and dominated, yet want to be cherished. For me, this collection was most effective when the author introduces men who save the ‘bottom boys’ out of abusive or unhealthy situations and show them how it feels to be loved cherished and ‘possessed’ by someone who cares for them.

At times, Gavin Atlas is surprisingly sensitive and delicate when he describes the desires of these young men and the different ways they choose to follow to get what they need. It is a dynamic that is not always socially or morally acceptable, but works well as fantasy that is shared by many and is rarely explored in this way in the books I have previously read.

The stories are often funny or at least fun, effective in their intended purpose: to arouse and in a few cases actually have an interesting twist or plot.

My personal favorite is “Revenge as an Art Form”, which had a great plot and way plain fun. I love when men realize that they should be treated with more respect and stop being used, taking things into their own hands. The way this particular protagonist found his revenge was a lot of fun for me.

The stories range from erotic fantasies that even have magical aspects, to stories about the sort of men we often fantasize about in their ‘natural habitat’ like College students and professors, to even a story set a futuristic version of our world. That one will be the most controversial of the bunch and was at times hard to read and had me worried in the beginning, because I did not want to read a story about rape as entertainment. I could never find enjoyment in that.

Ultimately and surprisingly, it ended up being the story with the most important message: Even if someone desires that someone else takes control of them, it has to be control given freely and the person will deserve pleasure, love and to be cherished. The subject matter had to be approached very carefully and seemed to be a minefield that the author navigated mostly unscathed.

I do not have a lot of experience with erotica stories yet, and my POV is from a person used to explicit romance stories, but I enjoyed this audiobook and thought it was well-written. I can recommend it to people who have ‘total-bottom’ fantasies or want to try something hot and different. Six hours worth of interesting and diverse stories that will try to give you pleasure 😉

7 out of 10 pots of gold

 *****

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Did you always know you would one day write books or did you stumble into authorship?

I’ve known I wanted to be an author since about fourth or fifth grade. That I would actually finish a book and have it published I sometimes still find surprising.

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These stories are very diverse. How did you get the idea for the different short stories and the collection of stories? 

Some are from “assignments” from editors looking for specific themes (rookie police officers) or settings (a circus, a train or a cowboy western). Sometimes they rise from fascinations like Dutch Masters’ paintings or Las Vegas casinos. As far as the collections, the main concept was depicting fantasies of total bottom boys, which, no surprise, are often also the fantasies of total tops. However, I didn’t want to repeat The Boy Can’t Help It, so I tried to explore what kind of young man has fantasies of being overpowered by another man’s lust or the lust of many men. Where did that need originate? How does it affect his ability to feel equal to men who don’t get fucked? But in The Full Ride, there are more stories where the submissive characters don’t possess those internal struggles. Sometimes the conflict is a top character’s “misbehavior” after which he has to prove he deserves the bottom boy’s heart, body, and mind. That may be a complicated way of explaining romance, but the specific aim there is to make the bottom guy feel he’s worth whole kingdoms.

*****

Since these stories are so different, was it hard to find a narrator capable narrating the entire collection?

My publisher, Steve Berman, gets the credit for hiring Jason Frazier. Jason is a major talent and he was perfect, perfect casting. He told me, fellow bottom boy to fellow bottom boy, how much he loved reading my work and any listener can tell. When he gets to a sex scene, his breath quickens and it sounds like he’s fighting off ecstasy to make sure you hear each word. When he finishes, you notice that you can feel your heart beat and that your own breath has quickened.

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What is your personal favorite among these short stories and which story did you have the most difficulties with?

This changes every time I answer this question. “Revenge as an Art Form” might be the strongest in terms of plot, so that one makes me happy. Both “Revenge” and “Three-Way at the Western” were first written a decade ago, and my inability to understand what was emotionally essential, particularly in “Three-Way” which is intended to be heartbreaking in places, made those hardest. But I was truly happy with the results. Of the stories where I supposedly already knew what I was doing when I began, “Engine of Repression,” was toughest because I tried for literary future-world erotica. Thus, I was out of my element twice over, but apparently, that was the story I wanted to write. It may have taken infinity drafts before I turned it in to the editor (Jerry Wheeler), but he was happy with it. So I’m happy, too.

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Which of your characters is the most like you?

There was more of me in The Boy Can’t Help It. “Danny” from “Claiming Danny” “Derek” from “Simple and Easy” and Troy from “Lust Like Moonlight” are all aspects of my personality. In this book, I’m not sure I’m as close to any of the characters, but several have similar struggles like depression, attention deficit, or they battle the shame of what they want sexually. I’m glad there are more characters that I’m not like at all. Bottom fantasy after bottom fantasy would likely be too repetitive unless the characters hold something distinct and engaging.

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What was the most funny/interesting or touching thing a fan has ever said to you?

Very early on I read a blog post where another author, Rowan Larke, said “Gavin Atlas blew her away”. I have that written down on an Official Good Things List I’m supposed to read when I feel like I have no talent for writing, no ability to be a sensible adult, etc.

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What does your work have that others don’t? What is unique about it, why should people read it?

Oh, gosh. I bet there’s nothing unique or close to unique if we’re being literal. What I like most is, usually, my characters—often their senses of humor or the way they risk honesty. I can think of a few stories, like “The Full Ride” and “The Laius League”, where the most important thing was clearly the bottom boys’ fantasies, so immersing them in unbelievable heat was paramount. But in most of my stories, I wanted to make sure there were likable characters with goals and obstacles to overcome go with that heat.

*****

What kind of research do you do for your stories?

Way more than I should considering how short I write. There’s a writer’s expression: “I’ve suffered for my art…and now it’s your turn.” It’s used when a writer sinks his or her story beneath excessive research. My fascination with casinos meant I researched a lot on licensing, on property values, on maps of Nevada—ridiculously not sexy and not necessary. Most of it never made it to the page, but it took a few drafts to realize that while I may love to design my own casino, that would make a crummy story. The story should be about understanding what kind of young man thinks he can “earn” a casino through giving an aging, married billionaire tons of sex, what kind of man that billionaire has to be to actually encourage that absurd dream, how their personalities and differences create major problems for each other, and how they work it out.

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Which authors inspire you most?

The one you’ll believe is C.B. Potts. I love so much of what she writes, especially her characters and her wit. Other than that, you would never know what helps me based on what I write. But, for example, when I read Three Fortunes in One Cookie (awesome) by Timothy J. Lambert and Becky Cochrane, ideas kept firing that I wanted to write down. There are stories by Lorrie Moore, Ann Harleman, Erika Krouse. Stacey Richter, and Miranda July that I love non-stop. And if it were possible to marry a short story, I’d want to spend my life with “Third Class Superhero” by Charles Yu. Most of those stories are about identity—how fluid it can be or how much we want to escape it. Really, I’m not sure I can claim they inform my writing. But reading those authors makes me want to write.

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Which new and/or upcoming releases and projects can you tell us about?

This is another question I answer differently every five minutes. I’d like to keep writing as Gavin Atlas, but I want to get some ideas out of my system that have nothing to do with erotica. Sometimes I think about exploring more literary ideas that would be explicit, and therefore appropriate to write as Gavin, but not necessarily erotica if they’re not meant to arouse. In the meantime, there is a brand new book, Snapshots of Seduction, featuring photography by Garrett Matthew of model/go-go boy Cody Allen which is accompanied by a new Gavin Atlas short story. And if that’s still not enough, talk to me. It’s possible I can be persuaded to keep making mischief.

*****

From “He Could Stop Traffic”

Officer Karl Wilkes tore his eyes off the college boy to check his phone. The incoming call was one he’d been anticipating for weeks. He looked back up. The boy was Latino, and at second glance, damn familiar. His tight tan t-shirt showcased a pumped chest and narrow waist. His shorts revealed tawny, muscular legs with a fine down.

Stop staring and answer the phone.

How did he know him? The boy’s walk was sultry and confident. His muscular body reflected a disciplined workout. Despite the conservative haircut and textbooks, the boy seemed out of place. It could have been the sensuality rolling off him, but something made Karl think he belonged on a stripper pole, not on his way to class.

Answer the damn call, Karl.

As he clicked the TALK button, Karl saw the stoplight tattoo on the boy’s neck. Heat curled through him as vague memories formed. Oh, hell. I think I’ve had him. If he was who Karl thought he was, he was Hondureño, unbelievably good sex, and his name began with a “T.” What was it?

“Uh…this is Wilkes. Lieutenant, I’m about to give that presentation about the profiling program. Do I need to scrub it?”

Lieutenant Corley might have been lousy at returning calls, but he wasn’t a prick. “No, that’s important. Just make sure you have your Plan A ready for Main Street at five this afternoon.”

Karl’s eyes went wide. “Wait, I’ve been asking about this for months. Why—”

“Wilkes, a federal wig’s son vanished last night, here in Houston. We’re almost certain it’s El Sistema.”

“Oh…fucking shit.”

“Exactly. Disaster. On the other hand, the problem you’ve been going on about finally has everyone’s attention.”

Karl had apprised the department that the occasional disappearance of male prostitutes outside of a couple hustler bars was likely a larger operation that didn’t just affect the “deviant” element. The white shirts at Main Street sometimes paid attention when gangs kidnapped women, but gay boys? Never. If any of them besides Corley had given a rat’s ass before today, Karl wouldn’t have known. “But do we have the device? And two detectives?”

“Checking on the first question and one, but not two. Weren’t you going to work on that?”

Karl huffed. “I’ve been scouring the region for agents who fit the requirements, but there’s nothing. Now if I’d been chosen for the Vice Unit, I’d have prioritized—”

“Christ, Wilkes, trust me. I know what this means to you. You’ll be on the unit once you’ve had a couple years under your belt. Everything you got by five tonight, clear?”

“Get back to me about the device, please, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said before his superior hung up. The hallway had cleared. Which room was C219? He heard his cousin’s voice coming from the down the hall. “Officer Wilkes from the Houston Police Department was supposed to be—”

“Made it, Tanya.” Karl jogged into the brightly lit classroom. He saw her wince because he’d forgotten to call her Professor Dawes in class again. But he had a recovery plan, and he turned to the students. “Just because she’s my cousin doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have my head if I missed…this.”

There was the boy, and he clearly recognized Karl. The name came to him. Tomás. Tomás Torres, the alleged pizza delivery boy who was really a stripper, who was really a nude housecleaner, who, so it would seem, was really a college student. Karl gave him a quick smile and turned away, blood rushing to his groin as his mind now flooded with memories: Tomás in nothing but a jockstrap taking Karl’s dick in position after position. It hadn’t been much more than a year. Had he gotten that swept up in work? How could he have forgotten how good it felt to be inside that stud? And how much fun they’d had afterward, talking, cuddling, and laughing at stupid movies? Stop it. You have a presentation to give.

*****

Gavin Atlas has been publishing erotica since 2007. His bestselling collection, The Boy Can’t Help It, released on Valentine’s Day in 2010, and his new collection, The Full Ride, came out just this summer. Gavin describes himself as the “publicity elf” for the cooperative press, Excessica Publishing, and he volunteers online as a mentor for at-risk youth. He lives in Houston with his boyfriend, John.

Contact Gavin Atlas:

Facebook, Twitter, Blog

Authorgraph

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Main Prize: 1 lucky commenter will win an E-copy of ‘The Full Ride: Bottom Boys Get Play’ be Gavin Atlas

ADDITIONALLY…

IF there are at least 05 entries in the Giveaway, An E-Copy of ‘La Playita’ will be given to 1 additional winner. [X]

IF there are at least 10 entries in the Giveaway, An E-Copy of ‘La Playita’ will be given to 2 additional winners.

IF there are at least 15 entries in the Giveaway, An E-Copy of ‘La Playita’ will be given to 4 additional winners.

IF there are at least 20 entries in the Giveaway, An E-Copy of ‘La Playita’ will be given to 6 additional winners.

IF there are at least 25 entries in the Giveaway, An E-Copy of ‘La Playita’ will be given to 8 additional winners.

IF there are at least 30 entries in the Giveaway, An E-Copy of ‘La Playita’ will be given to 10 additional winners.

The more entries, the more prizes!!! Please share this Giveaway with your friends 😉

You must be 18 or older to enter this Giveaway. Void where prohibited. Etc.

Giveaway ends October 20th 31st, 2014 @ 11:59 CDT. Good Luck!

*****

Jamie, a college senior from Pennsylvania, is nursing the wounds of a broken relationship. Alone on the beautiful beaches of Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica for spring break, shy Jamie spends his time writing his wildest fantasies in his journal. But Jamie is a handsome and muscular young man, and when a mischievous Costa Rican waiter discovers Jamie’s deepest desires, the fantasies could become reality. But can Jamie overcome his inhibitions and surrender his body on La Playita?

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