Total-e-bound, £2.99, ISBN 978-1-906328-35-1
Contemporary Erotica, 2007

Off-Season is part of Carol Lynne’s gay “Honey, make sure you’ve done your assignments before you shag your lecturer!” series Campus Cravings.

The story is simple. Demitri Damakis, the new teacher in this Idaho college where it is starting to seem as if everyone in it, students and staff members, is gay. Oh well, at least the parties won’t be boring, I suppose. He is trying to move on from the death of his boyfriend Basil and perhaps he can do just that with Aaron Billings, the head soccer coach.

You know, I don’t know what it is with this author. Perhaps it is a case of writing a thousand books a month, which makes it mathematically possible that she will manage to hit gold with a few of them, but unlike the author’s last three hundred or so books for this publisher, this one is actually well-written. The narration is tight with no ridiculous tangents, the characterization is pretty well done, and there is actually some relationship build-up here.

So yes, Off-Season is a pretty good short story, especially for this author. But to be honest, reading this story depresses me. Perhaps the author is capable of writing better, but at her current mode of operation where she comes out with a new story every week, nearly all of them being nothing more than embarrassing first drafts that could have used some major rewriting or be just deleted into the recycle bin, a good story seems to a case of how when you fling you-know-what blindly against a wall, some is bound to stick.

So, yes, this is a good one. Dare I hope that the new one coming out next week will be as good? Or the one coming out the week after that? Naturally, I’m not holding my breath anymore.

Who wants to take over the position of the President of the Carol Lynne Fan Club from me? My heart can’t bear the constant disappointments anymore.