Hot Valley: A Novel [Paperback]

James Lear (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2007

Move over, Scarlett O’Hara! It’s New England, 1861, and the troubles in the southern states seem a long way off for Jack Edgerton, the spoiled son of a prominent Vermont family. Howver, when he meets and falls in love with Aaron Johnson, the sexy son of a slave on the run from Virginia, Edgerton’s world is turned upside down. Separated by circumstances, the lovers pursue each other through the escalating madness of the Civil War and both find themselves forced to choose sides. After a series of outrageous adventures – including steamy woodland trysts and an impromptu jailhouse orgy that briefly reconciles the warring parties – they are reunited in the Shenandoah Valley in the autumn of 1864 — where the conflict is about to come to a bloody, burning climax.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A privileged Vermont lad and the freed son of a Southern slave fall in love against all odds in this subversive romance set against the bloody backdrop of a tumultuous America at war with itself. Lear's novel is boys in the buff for Civil War buffs." -- Richard Labonté

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Press (April 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573442798
• ISBN-13: 978-1573442794
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What You See Is What You Get In This Novel, May 19, 2007

By 

H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hot Valley: A Novel (Paperback)

Too often gay-themed-- whatever that means-- novels have covers that have nothing to do with the story. That is certainly not the case in James Lear's HOT VALLEY, the tale of Aaron Johnson, the son of a freed slave, and Jack Edgerton, a young man of privilege from Vermont. The action takes place from 1861 to 1964 in bedrooms, barrooms, toilets, jails, the forest, military camps, etc., and anywhere else that men meet up with each other. Set against the events of the Civil War, this novel is about men having sex with men. All the men, to a person, are goodlooking, have beautiful bodies, are well endowed and have sexual appetites that outdo a satyr.

If you are looking for a historical novel about the Civil War, you'll need to look elsewhere. In most of the novel, at least the first two-thirds are more, the characters are pretty much oblivious to what is going on around them. This is not a gay version of Ken Burns' "Civil War" series. If you want decent gay erotica-- although some of the coupling gets repetitious and boring-- then this book is for you. The story line, thin as it is, is of course total fantasy. Well perhaps not. After all, there is Thomas Jefferson's mating with his slave although his beliefs about punishment for homosexuality were pretty grim.

Lear dedicates this novel to Richard Amory, author of the famous THE SONG OF THE LOON trilogy, an approprite dedication as this novel owes much more to those novels than to anything that happened in GONE WITH THE WIND.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Privates on Parade, July 10, 2007

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hot Valley: A Novel (Paperback)

Don't you love the "key phrases" ("Statistically Improbable Phrases") that Amazon's computers have isolated for HOT VALLEY A NOVEL? As so often, I can't actually type the words into my review for the internal cursors would swoop down and consign my review onto the back burner forever.

I loved James Lear's previous book with Cleis Press, THE BACK PASSAGE, a Golden Age Detective novel made new and freshened up considerably by larding on pages and pages of hard core erotica into it, so I was anxious to get my paws on HOT VALLEY and didn't really care too much what it was about. Now that I've read it, I can see why Lear seems to avoid completely the humor that enlivened the sex, murder and class revolution elements of his detective saga, but I have to say, I miss them a bit. Maybe he thought that the American Civil War, with its fields of blood and its families torn apart by conflicting loyalties, not to mention the race angle that still haunts American society, wasn't the place to lighten up. Pity that, for the war aspects of HOT VALLEY are intense enough to make you think, all this suffering is killing my erection.

That said, the basic set up is admirably sketched and embellished. The white boy and the black, despising each other at the beginning of the book, one politically advanced and the other thinking between his legs, and somehow drifting into the most terrible battles of the War, and then in the second half the growing dependence of Jack for Aaron, then the love that grows between them--all this is admirably told. Okay, so Jack is a bit of a cliche slut. Okay, so the band of marauders he falls in with, as a sort of love captive (like Marlene Dietrich in MOROCCO), is one-dimensionally evil or unthinking. Still there are some great hot scenes here, and it would give away too much of my private life to tell you which one I found the best. Okay, okay, you twist my arm, I'll tell you. Why it's Captain Healey's psychological, then medical exam of Jack in the dusty, overwarm Montpelier office. As far as I'm concerned, his next book could be all about HOT VALLEY HOSPITAL and I'd order ten or twelve copies. Good work all around, thanks again, Mr. Lear.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remember "Song of the Loon"?, September 3, 2007

By 

David Rockwell (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hot Valley: A Novel (Paperback)

As a transplanted Vermonter, who also lived in the Shenandoah Valley
for awhile, the setting caught my interest (some historical detail:
there was a very thriving water spa in Brattleboro Vermont around the
time the novel begins). The hot sex (come on, that's what you're interested in ,right?) kept me riveted to the page. Interesting plot twists, various couplings, good background. I thoroughly enjoyed the
book and am keeping it at hand for my collection.