Category Archives: Homosapien … a fantasy about pro wrestling

Homosapien … a fantasy about pro wrestling, M/M romance

Homosapien … a fantasy about pro wrestling

Blurb: Patrick and David are friends who run a gay bookstore, and life seems simple and safe enough until the day when unexpectedly he walks in – six feet tall, gorgeous and built like a dream. But Homosapien isn’t welcome in their world; he’s a professional wrestler, and everything he does is fake. So he can’t really be gay, can he, or interested in either one of them? Can they even trust a single word he says…?

Endorsement: This tag team tussle with genre and gender chokeslams and chinlocks the reader into submission.
Gideon Haigh, self-unemployed freelance journalist

Genre: male-male romance; contemporary; sports entertainment; novel

Word count: 67,000

Click here for an excerpt of text, and here for the reviews.

Available in ebook and paperback formats from:

Reader sites:

First published by Homosapien Books in 2003, and then by Manifold Press on 1 November 2010. Slightly revised edition published by LIBRAtiger on 1 December 2018.

Homosapien … a fantasy about pro wrestling

reviews: Homosapien

‘Is it Real?’: 5 stars from A.B. Gayle

Excerpt: If you’re expecting a traditional m/m romance, this isn’t the book for you, but if you’re looking for an amusing, heart-warming, thought-provoking book this is. While Patrick, her narrator, is awed by the romance that blossoms between his dour, idealistic, intelligent boss and his hero, a flamboyant pro-wrestler, he also explores the true nature of pro-wrestling and discovers the potentially deal-breaking fact that the fights and characters are all scripted. Note, I didn’t say “fake” and the difference is very much at the heart of the book.

Elisa’s reviews and ramblings: by Elisa Rolle

Excerpts: … a “classy” novel, probably a step or two above the ordinary production of this time. … Adam and David’s love story starts slowly but goes deep …

Reviews by Jessewave: 4.5 stars from Aunt Lynn

Summary: Though not for everyone, I really liked this unusual tale of pro-wrestling and the unlikely romance between two opposites.

Three Dollar Bill Reviews: 4.5 stars from Book Utopia Mom

Excerpts: The entire thing is highly stylized, radically casual, and completely in character for the narrator. It won’t work for everyone. It completely worked for me. … The book is about identity – identity of self, identity of public personae, the conflict of how you recognize it for yourself and how you respect it in others – and uses the world of wrestling as a backdrop to that. … this thematic exploration is done with such a deft, comedic touch that I got utterly absorbed by the book and couldn’t put it down.

(This review is no longer online, but can be found on Goodreads.)

Homosapien at Goodreads:

Currently 18 ratings, 12 text reviews and an average of 3.61 stars.

  • Simsala gave it 4.5 stars, and said: The unusual writing style made the story come alive and real with many laugh out loud moments.
Homosapien … a fantasy about pro wrestling

excerpt: Homosapien

An excerpt from this novel. Patrick tries to imagine what David and Adam could have found to say to each other after they got off to such a bad start.

♦

Microsoft Office clipartSo, what happened at Apollo’s?

Consider this a dramatic reconstruction based on forensic evidence and the sworn testimony of witnesses …

Actually, writing this scene is kind of hard. David wouldn’t have had much to say under the circumstances and I later learned that Homosapien is far more articulate in his wrestling persona than when speaking for himself. This pair of characters are going to be just too difficult to work with. They are such very different people and yet somehow now they managed to connect. How to explain that?

I can imagine David standing there by the Apollo’s counter, doppio in hand (he got it to go, just in case), wondering whether to head over there and talk to the guy or not. And Homosapien looks up at just the right moment, and their eyes meet, and David is when-push-comes-to-shove a bit too polite to turn his back and walk away.

Homosapien gestures to the chair opposite him. David sits, leaning back and turned half away, one leg crossed over the other, trying to appear casual. He doesn’t bother taking off his jacket.

“Uh,” David begins, “I shouldn’t have done that. That was harsh. It’s not my habit to chase customers out of my store … ”

Continue reading excerpt: Homosapien →