M/M Guest Post: Tam from Tam's Reads

As M/M month rolls on, please help me welcome Tam from Tam's Reads and Brief Encounters. I love to visit Tam's blog - her Hottie of the Day cheers me right up and she's got plenty of "cookies". I like her reviews and can always find a good recommendation:


One, two three …

So if one guy is hot and two guys are hotter, three should burn up the sheets right? Actually I am right. :) Before I discovered m/m I had read some m/m/f which portrayed not only a sexual relationship between three characters (lord knows most of us have read porn with various numbers of m’s, f’s and who knows what else), but an emotional relationship and not “both guys loved the girl” but they loved each other too. Hmmm. How intriguing.

My first m/m/m was 9-1-1 by Chris Owen. Wow! An emotional journey with three guys; there was insecurity over their place in the relationship, close to cheating, painkiller addictions, family strife over having two partners, it had it all. I totally believed it could happen. Then I continued with Gemini also by Chris Owen. It is *covers Patti’s eyes and whispers* twincest *uncovers her eyes* but with three and again, I thought the double difficulty of not only being in a relationship with two which is frowned on, but having to hide the fact that two were siblings was handled well. I was truly hooked at that point. Oh yeah, and it’s freaking hot.

I’ve read many books since with three, and usually if I see a blurb with three I snap it up. Sometimes it’s simply a third for an evening, but more often than not it’s three together in love. It doesn’t always work for me, just as not every romance works for every reader in any sub-genre. My biggest peeve is when sex becomes the cure-all for everything in the relationship. Doesn’t matter if you’re sad, happy, angry, hungry - just have sex in all variations and everything is good. I need a bit more realism than that.

So why am I attracted to this sub-genre? I don’t know exactly. It’s not something I’d seek out for myself, but to be honest, I might be more open now than I was before I started reading m/m. Fifteen years ago if you’d asked me about a relationship (as opposed to fun) with three I would have scoffed that it’s not possible. And in my heart I’m not sure it really does work. I don’t know anyone personally – or who have revealed it to me – in that type of relationship, but I’d like to believe it could. We all say there is enough love in our hearts for as many children as we have, couldn’t there be enough for another partner?


I also take it as a bit of a challenge to see if the author can make me keep all the arms and legs and … bits in the right place. Nothing worse than reading and having to go back and figure out whose arm was where and wondering if one of them is a circus contortionist, because no way is that possible. If you can make the sex seem realistic, you’ve got me half-way there, give me sympathetic characters that I care about and you’ve got me for life. Then again maybe I’m just a perv, which is quite possible.


I know ménage is not for everyone. Some people really prefer their romantic pairings to be just that, pairs, but if you’re looking for something to stretch the boundaries I highly recommend 9-1-1 for a start. Maybe some other m/m/m readers can recommend some of their favourites as well.

Thanks for inviting me to participate in m/m month Patti. I hope we’ve managed to lure a few readers to at least try the cookies on the dark-side. ;-)