From Publishers Weekly
The dexterous narrative of this well-told story juxtaposes a gay man's struggle with his sexuality against the struggle with the brutal landscape of the 18th-century American frontier. In 1797, John Chapman is a romantic, literate man who has set out to stake a claim in the wilds of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Mountains. What at first seems John's sole motivationAhe is fleeing the abuse of his alcoholic fatherAis only half the story: for he is also desperately trying to escape his irrepressibleAand feloniousAdesire for other men. A novice frontiersman, John is rescued from near starvation by a strapping Irishman who calls himself Daniel McQuay. Soon enough, Daniel and John become lovers, but when Daniel turns out to be a crazed rapist and murderer, John barely escapes with his life. With the love of a studly 17-year-old "Kentucky boy" named Palmer, and the counsel of Gwennie, an Indian woman who refers to herself as Apple Woman ("red on outside, but white on inside"), John makes a new start in a small village of settlers. McQuay, however, reappears to wreak more murderous havoc until John faces him in a tragic, spine-tingling climax. With new hope, John realizes, "I didn't deserve the scorn and calumny that had been heaped on me all of my life. What I deserved was what I'd felt with Palmer that night on top of the mountain." This is essentially a historical romance for gay readers, invigorated by hot sex scenes in bathtubs and amid thunderstorms. It's an appealing, well-researched tale, featuring a complicated and winsome hero who finds sexual fulfillment and a hard-won place for himself in a most unforgiving, and beautifully wrought, setting. Author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Walter Vatter, A Different Light Bookstore
"Michael Jensen's FRONTIERS has all the 'bells and whistles' of a deluxe adventure hot sex! I predict John Chapman finds a permanent place on the ever-burgeoning list of gay-positive characters from literature."
