Openly erotic and smart, the stories of Best Gay Romance deliver hope and happy endings. Dale Chase's "The Early Show" describes the tantalizing flirtation of two writers who share an eccentric habit of showing up early to Sunday matinees, to enjoy the promising half-dark of the theater. S.J. Frost's "No More Mirages" is a tale of romantic destiny set in a dojo, an oasis of bamboo, white mats, and stone sculptures where an actor, bitter from his last break-up, finds himself drawn to a charismatic sensei. And in Rob Rosen's wonderfully funny "Nudie Blues," a romance writer discovers a hole in his backyard fence and the hunky new neighbor behind it.

Tom Graham is the editor of Cowboys: Gay Erotic Tales. He lives in Chyenne, WY.

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