Bareback: A Werewolf's Tale Paperback – July 15, 2012

Joshua Skye’s is the story of Alex, who lives in a small conservative town in Pennsylvania, which is just no place for a proud gay man. So it’s a surprise when he meets and quickly falls for Morgan, a British man who is new in town.But as soon as Alex sleeps with Morgan, he regrets it. Morgan persuaded him to do it bareback and now Alex is getting sick…. Meanwhile, townsfolk are turning up slaughtered, apparently the victims of some sort of wild animal. Soon, Alex can’t deny the fantastical and dangerous turn his life has taken.Joshua Skye loves his horror and fans of the genre will appreciate the references to many horror favorites. Bareback: A Werewolf’s Tale actually reminds me of a combination of Gary Brandner’s The Howling and Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf. While it’s a social exploration of the conflicts between gay men and conservatives, the novella is also a fast-paced, suspenseful horror tale topped by some great explicit sex scenes and a beautifully written werewolf transformation from the rarely described perspective of the man turning.

More an horror than a romance, I think Bareback is a metaphor for the monsters you can find on your everyday life.Alex is a small town boy who is swept away one night by a fascinating stranger, and exchange English student who is spending the summer. In comparison to the most mundane Morgan, Alex is really naïve, and so when Morgan asks to have unprotected sex, Alex just trusts his words. Of course it was not a good idea, and days later Alex starts to be ill, and Morgan is just disappeared.More than the plot that is indeed quite linear and simple, I think the strength of the story lies on its contemporaneity. Alex is an everyday guy, he discusses of movies and politics, truth be told he is really an ordinary guy, just cute enough to catch your eyes, but probably not fated to anything grandeur, if not for his meeting with Morgan.But I think the metaphor is also on his "bad" decision to have unprotected sex with Morgan, you never really know the person you are having sex with, especially if you met him just that night. In the end Morgan is not "the" monster, but he could have been, and Alex didn't do anything to protect himself.Quite traditional werewolf novel, as I said, more an horror than a romance, it seemed like I was reading something out of the late `70s or `80s.