Hot Valley

Title: Hot Valley
Author: James Lear
Published: 2007 by Cleis Press
Genre: Historical porn.
Pages: 307




After finishing the Hexslinger books I didn't know quite what to read, and ended up starting three different books. This one I picked because I didn't want to leave the characters and their world yet, and Hot Valley is somewhat similar, as in it's set during the Civil War, and there's plenty man-on-man action. Like, all around. Cocks everywhere. Like, daaamn, there's just so much cock!


The only son of a wealthy family, Jack Edgerton has lived a pampered life. The book starts as he discovers, for the first time, some of the harder things of existence. And I do mean cocks here. He discovers hard cocks. So many hard cocks! Still, life is simple enough, even with the rumours of war, until the son of a freed slave, Aaron Johnson, comes (not like that, not yet) to work for Jack's father, and our young hero decides he's got to have that fine piece of ass. But war is imminent and, as Jack discovers, what he's been up to (all those cocks) are not as well kept a secret as he's thought. It's time to leave the safety of home and see what (cocks) the world and the war have got to offer.

As much as I enjoyed Lear's easy writing -always a joy to read- and Jack's realisation that life is not just a row of happy cocks, I didn't like Hot Valley as much as his other books, especially the Mitch Mitchell mysteries. I mean, I did like it, and happily finished it, but couldn't help feeling that there is such a thing as too much cock. But, oh! Having read Hot Valley means that there's only one book by Mr. Lear that I haven't read! I found this troubling and somewhat scary until, five minutes ago, I checked that there's a new Dan Stagg book coming out in September! Joy!




   I was furious, frustrated, filthy, covered in straw, sweating like a horse, and hard. I could not go back into the office; I could not, as Johnson apparently could, turn my feelings on and off like a faucet. I brushed off the worst of the dirt and, without really thinking about what I was doing, strolled back toward the boiler house where Italian Benny and his freckle-faced assistant were still banging away.
   "Need a hand?" I felt reckless.