Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: Leather Wishes: The Adventures of the Fancy Man
AUTHOR: Julian Keys
PUBLISHER: Forbidden Fiction
LENGTH: 344 pages
BLURB:
Mason, the leather top known at the Cockpit Bar as the Fancy Man, loves to create BDSM scenes for people—the more unusual the better. Charles brought him one of his tougher challenges, and the two have been together since. It hasn’t always been easy, as they work out what they are to each other, both as dominant and submissive and as lovers. Now Mason and Charles work together to create BDSM experiences of intense emotion. As they help other people deal with broken hearts and long-buried desires, they also confront the possibilities in their own relationship. Partners in the scene and in the bed, the two men come to appreciate that they could be so much more together. (M/M)
REVIEW:
This is an anthology which includes five stories about Mason, aka the Fancy Man.
Fancy Man and the Black Lion’s Mark
Just hand me a good idea, and I’ll set the stage and create the costumes. I’ll make it real. Such is the motto of Mason, a big back leatherman with a reputation for intense role-playing. Unfortunately, most of the bottoms in Mason’s local leather bar have cliché fantasies. They want him to play the stereotypical role of bad-ass cellmate or gangbanger. Then enters Leo—an older gent who had nothing at all to offer—not youth or good looks, or even stamina. Leo, however, has something Mason hasn’t had before—a pulpy fetish decades old and far from the usual. The Fancy Man cannot refuse such a challenge!
I don’t have many books that feature older gentlemen and I really enjoyed this for that alone. The set up was interesting and I liked how Mason was so creative in giving the experience he promised. That Leo came away from the experience as a little more than what he started as was really nice to see.
Fancy Man and the Southern Gentleman
Leatherman Mason—The Fancy Man—is used to strange requests, but the one from Charles Beaumont, a masochist from the Deep South, is the strangest yet. Long troubled by the fact that his ancestors were slave owners, Charles wants Mason punish him for his family’s sins. Despite his misgivings, Mason is drawn to this young white Southern gentleman. Mason agrees to take on the challenge of exorcizing Charles’ ghosts, but he soon learns that freeing a modern slave from the chains of the past isn’t so easy—nor will it leave the modern man playing his Master unchanged. (M/M)
Here we meet Charles, another man wanting the help of the Fancy Man but he isn’t just looking for an exciting and unique time, he wants to be punished and punished hard. While I was glad to meet Charles as he features in the rest of the stories, the BDSM in this was extreme and will be too violent for some readers. I liked the way Mason went about exorcising Charles’ inner demons but I wouldn’t want to read something this hardcore too often.
Fancy Man and the Lipstick Lesbian
When leatherman Mason—the Fancy Man—discovered lipstick lesbian Katie out in the Cockpit Bar’s parking lot, weeping for her lost lover, he was all sympathy. Given how perfumed and delicate she was, however, he wasn’t at all sure how to get the bar’s tough leatherdykes to take her seriously. Then it came to him: he’d star her in a whipping scene at the bar. The problem? The best with a whip was leatherman Burke, and Burke was not only aggressively gay, but adverse to anything remotely feminine. Could Mason and his submissive, Charles, get these two to work together? More, could he get them to connect? This one looked to be beyond even the Fancy Man’s magic. (M/M)
This was my least favorite story in the book and not because it featured lady parts. I could understand the premise and what the characters were hoping to accomplish. Hell, I was rooting for the girl to get her perfect leatherdyke but the story lost me when it came to the whipping scene. I just can’t for the life of me see a set up where 100% gay men are getting hard and horny over the reactions of a girl being whipped. If they were drooling over the guy doing it, that’s one thing, but the believability of the story left the room at that point. Add in the overabundance of talk about her ‘juices’ and I was so beyond ready to be done with this story.
Fancy Man and the Three Princes
When Mason’s best friend Robbie is dumped by his boyfriend a week before his birthday, it’s up the “Fancy Man” to try and repair the bartender’s broken heart with a natal day fantasy. He comes up with the idea of offering Robbie three “princes” each with a special gift—and sexual expertise. Even as these princes woo Robbie “on-stage” however, backstage has its problems. The submissives playing the princes need Mason to master them, and his own slave, Charles, is acting strangely. While Mason has always been master and director during the fantasy, he’s not so certain about his role after the fantasy ends. This time, the reality as much as the fantasy will determine not only Robbie’s future happiness, but that of Charles and Mason. (M/M+)
This was another nice story featuring several characters coming together to give Robbie a Happy Birthday. I thought the set up was cute and liked the different approaches to giving a Cinderfella type experience. The ending, however, was my favorite part as I’d been hoping that was the way the story would end. I like to think Robbie was happy with his choice much farther on down the road.
A Fancy Man Holiday
In this latest Fancy Man story Mason (aka the Fancy Man) is faced with one of the biggest challenges of his life as leatherman and Master: introducing his slave and lover, Charles, to his mother. But this isn’t all that Santa is giving him for Christmas. In between holiday gatherings, he must deal not only with family traditions and demands, but with helping his lonely, taciturn friend Owen from turning into a bitter hermit, saving the rejected slave boy Hadji from despair, keeping his sister and her boyfriend together, and trying to infuse the holiday spirit into the depressed patrons of the Cockpit bar. Topping this all off, he also has an important decision to make: on Christmas Day he will either let Charles in on a terrible family secret or not. If he does, things might radically change between them. The days are counting down and Mason can’t afford any mistakes or failures. But keeping control of all this may be too much… even for the Fancy Man. (M/M)
This is what I was waiting for the entire book. The longest of the stories featured, this gives the reader a look at Mason’s life outside of the Fancy Man and it actually felt as though he and Charles had a real relationship going instead of the friends with benefits vibe I’d gotten through the rest of the book. I loved seeing Mason’s family and how Charles just kind of blew away their expectations. The ending was great but I feel like there was a lot of things left unresolved and I would’ve really liked to have seen the reaction to what Mason got Charles for Christmas.
This book had its highs and lows but there were things that kept me from enjoying it more. Charles and Mason never actually felt like a couple to me until the last story. I could see they had a ton of lust going on but I never got the deeper connection at all. I also didn’t care for how, even though they were supposed to be committed, Mason still went home with someone else every Saturday. He also did a lot of ‘punishing’ other guys which made me kind of uncomfortable since he was supposedly taken. The last story did a lot to redeem the anthology in my eyes but I didn’t enjoy it enough to want to read it again in the future. The books are available separately, however, so if you’re interested I’d start with one and see where it takes you.
RATING: 
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