Today it’s National Red Rose Day, and I ended up reading A Rose is a Rose by Jet Mykles – I didn’t mean to re-read it, I didn’t. But I listed it in a post not long ago and I was scrolling through my books and saw it there. The cover is hard to miss.
In many early cultures, red roses were used as decoration in wedding ceremonies and as time went by the red rose has become a symbol of love and romance. I wouldn’t call my husband a romantic, not by any means, but I do get roses quite often.
But, since I now re-read A Rose is a Rose, and since it’s the National Red Rose Day, I might as well talk a little about it.
Carson plays a part in a burlesque show, but when he ends it with his sugar dad, he realises just how hard it is to pay the bills with what he makes. Eddie, his landlord, comforts Carson when he finds him crying in the garden, but Eddie isn’t rich, so it doesn’t really matter that he is everything Carson wants. He has expensive tastes so he needs someone who can provide for him.
Eddie is growing roses in the garden, and he cuts them when they’re just right and gives them to Carson. It starts with one rose but pretty soon Carson needs to get more vases. But roses, as beautiful as they are, won’t pay for the things Carson needs.
I would like to hate Carson, I really do, but it isn’t his fault his mother raised him to believe he’s nothing but a high-class whore who has to have a sugar daddy to be able to survive.
This is an opposite attracts story – Eddie is calm and solid, Carson is not, and it’s Jet Mykles, so it’s GFY too of course LOL
Many of Jet Mykles’s books were published through Loose id, and sadly they’re no longer around so some of her books are currently without a home and without a place where they can be bought, A Rose is a Rose is one of those books.
It isn’t very often you find a main character who is a burlesque artist, it reminded me a little of Nicole Forcine’s This Little Whatever, where the main character is a male belly dancer. Perhaps that should be my next re-read…
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet
When his latest sugar daddy drops him like yesterday’s news, Carson’s got more than a bruised ego to deal with. He’s broke! No designer clothes, no baubles, and while he loves his job with the burlesque show he needs to pay the bills.
Should be no problem. Carson’s young and pretty, so it should be no trouble finding someone new to pick up his tab.
Instead, he finds Eddie. The superintendent of Carson’s apartment building, Eddie couldn’t be further from Carson’s usual type, financially or physically, but his gift of a single red rose touches Carson’s heart.
For the first time, Carson doesn’t want to be just a kept man.
To live the life he always thought he wanted, he needs to find a new sugar daddy. But how can he part with the support of someone who seems to really love him?
Publisher’s Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Male/male sexual practices.
Ofelia Grand 