Finalist - 2023 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Romance and Erotica
This debut gay erotic novel about a stowaway on World War II troopships is an "immersive and period-specific picaresque, which manages to capture its milieu in a way that feels simultaneously timeless and contemporary" (Kirkus Reviews).
Dockyard mansex adventurer Olli Turner has stowed away on the biggest ship the world has ever known, forced to sail incomplete.
Built up rivet by rivet through his formative years, RMS Queen Elizabeth watched over Olli's sexual awakening. Staying with her seems to promise passage to a new world of landed men.
Yet in March 1940 war is churning. That short coastal voyage to Southampton he was expecting turns into a daring dash across the Atlantic and plants instead seeds of a years-long life at sea.
Conspiring undercurrents sabotage his troopship to troopship bounce as need for a place, however perilous, in arms of to-war men proves a powerful piece in this war's chess match of primal evils.
"...fans of gay stories at sea should enjoy this immersive and period-specific picaresque, which manages to capture its milieu in a way that feels simultaneously timeless and contemporary.
An engaging tale about a gay stowaway on British navy ships during wartime."
GCN:
Struggling to find the perfect queer winter read? Look no further as we have you covered!
OUTinPerth:
A new work of gay erotica is now available worldwide in hardback and -book formats. It marks the fiction debut of Australian Dr Joseph Brennan — an international academic authority on male sexuality, best known for his scholarship on male sex, gay pornography and queerbaiting.Instead of writing academic papers, Brennan has instead shared a story set on the high seas.
Q News:
“[Queen Elizabeth] waited for him in the Clyde, her hull a heavy mass of metal born from the sweat of the labour of men. […] She wore a drab military grey that made her features uncertain from a distance, keeping her mystery. They were called the monsters, and he could understand why as they approached her. She was the leviathan, drawing curious men from the shallows into the deep where she could snag them.”
So begins Loose Lips, my gay sea odyssey that — with World War II (WWII) troopships as its stage — sees our hero set out from the conflict-clouded Glasgow dockyards to traverse stormy waters of masculine sexual taboo and place in a world of to-war men.
