Will Hawkins

I am beginning to realize that there is a great gulf in my relationships with men. All my life I have been cursed with sinusitis, which means that my nose does not work as well as it should. Oh, I can smell a skunk or a blooming rose, but the smell of a man as being different from the smell of another man is something I have missed in my life. It is rather like being partially color-blind, being able to tell red from green, but not seeing different shades of red as being unique. I think that having a good sense of smell would have been a definite asset in my relationships with men. Ah well, what is not there cannot be missed when it disappears. The injury Ace sustained as a result of Lanny's attack is unfortunate, but it could have been worse for two reasons. [1], it is not life-threatening nor even totally disabling, [2], it gives Kendall and Michael the opportunity to develop the two-way relationship that has been missing for the, is it six, years they have known one another. Your writing continues to be superb!

I love Michael's mother. By the time I was a teenager, my mother had died and her place had been taken by my older sister. She became my support with my father until she married and moved away. I only wish Sis had been there in my relationships with my stepmother. My father's second marriage was the beginning of the end as far as 'family' was concerned for me, but that is all now long in the past, I am the sole remaining member of my family still alive. I am pleased to see that there is some brightness appearing in the relationship between Kendall and Michael. They are both such nice guys, they deserve one another. Now to quickly go to the next chapter, I love being able to move through the story without waiting for a week between episodes!

First, an apology, on checking back I find Kendall spelled with two 'l's' and Michael spelled the Irish way, sorry about those errors, I will blame them on being an old man! Now to comments, I tried at first to dislike Chet as being an opportunist, but his generosity of spirit has changed my mind -- I now feel he is one of the good guys, and Micheal is slowly getting away from the big, dumb, Irish cop image I had of him at first. Kendall, on the other hand, needs to get off his high horse and admit that Michael is not being the asshole that K. would like him to be. Kendall could fall in love [lust] with Chet, pull his head out of his ass and put Michale behind him as an old affair and move on in life. But then we wouldn't have a story, would we? I think you are handling the emotions of the principal characters just right, and I can see where Michaels mother is coming from. She figured her son out many years ago. Superior work, Gary.

I, as you are aware from my posting dates, am reading the CJ stories much later than others. That means I am a pig and do not have to wait for each new chapter to be posted. I just wish I had your ability to express emotion through dialog😡. As far as technical or English errors are concerned, I compliment you and your editor -- the looser construction of your dialog is well taken -- people do talk that way. The only thing I still occasionally pick up is the use of a homophone, 'there' where 'their' would be expected for example. One of those per book is acceptable really. Grammarly is very good a marking spelling errors, but it misses homophones. I rely on it for spelling and my bad habit of putting in too many commas. There seems to be an increasing objection to the use of the word 'thunk' in your dialog sections. That word to me is much the same as 'proly'. It is the way people, especially young people talk. I do not find it objectionable at all and I am infamous for being snarky about the use of English in GA stories. Well, back to my reading enjoyment!

You have an amazing ability to carry character emotions through dialog. I am. as you can see, reading this series several years after it first was posted and add an additional compliment in that an author very infrequently reviews comments by his readers several years after first posting. That you are apparently doing so is greatly to your credit. Once a series had been posted to GA it does not fade into the mists of the internet, readers come along years later and a well-written story is just as much of a boon five years later as it is when first posted. Somehow I detect a high level of personal involvement in the characterizations which I have read so far. There is more than creativity here, though there is plenty of that, do I detect a bit of your own history with the emotions you have expressed? At any rate, with just reading the first two chapters, I am hooked and am looking forward to following postings. Congratulations, well done and keep up the good work!

This series of chapters demonstrates Ronyx's really fantastic sense of humor. Pay particular attention to the boldface lines inserted into the writing at more or less random intervals. I may smile but seldom laugh aloud about something I read online. In this case, almost all brought a smile and even laughter at some of them. The characterization of the several friends the hero makes near the end of the series is excellent as well.

As far as the question about the evolution of man's butt wiping -- I can answer that! Long before the first ape came down from the trees, the great apes were known to grab a handful of leaves and accomplish that chore. I seldom laugh out loud at anything I read on GA, but several of your one-liners have been very humorous. Are they products of your fertile mind, or do you have a source for them? In either case, they are very well chosen and add a great deal of enjoyment to my reading.

I like the twist you have added to the usual 'coming out' story. I experienced somewhat the same thing with my father -- he seemed to accept my walking on the other side of the river even though my stepmother never did. Unfortunately, dad died before her. He left a small inheritance to me with the majority going to support her -- that is as it should be. When she died, she left everything to the school at which she had taught -- just to signal to me what her opinion of my lifestyle was, so I can relate to the events in your story.

'Finally, he ran towards the basket and sunk a shot' sank is the past tense of sink. The overlooked errors I have spotted in this chapter are minor, but they imply a lack of ability, attention or skill on the part of your editor. By the way, Stanley seems to be a great friend.

I fear your editor is not doing the best job possible. I detected at least one error in this chapter that was passed over. The correct word is 'shoo-in', not 'shoe-in'. I know that is a very minor error, but an error like that interrupts the flow of an otherwise wonderful story. It is called a homophone, that is a word that sounds like another, but is spelled differently. Homophones and commas are the two most frequent errors made, at least in English writing.

Antiseptic -- I believe this is the word you were looking for.

Just as a side note to your story and having nothing to do with it or its characterizations -- the Aussie slang term for a Speedo swimsuit is 'budgie smuggler, which makes sense when you consider that a budgie is a small bird and would make an interesting bulge in a Speedo, just like . . . well, you know!

Good 'un. The mystery pair in black suits is the cherry on the ice cream sundae.

One plus and one minus to your editor on this chapter. Plus -- not many people know the use of 'Twilight' for a period just before sunrise. The minus -- 'loose' is the wrong word, it should be 'lose' in the sense of not winning. Okay, end of today's rant... The idea of wrapping bare feet in duct tape is truly original!

So far this story is holding up to the high level of Circumnavigation as I had hoped. Little brothers are the shits, aren't they? I was so fortunate to have no peers at home as I was growing up except an older sister. She became my advocate after the death of my mother in my relations with my father. Love gets a plus to this date!

I started reading this story because I had enjoyed 'Circumnavigation' so much. I am anticipating my enjoyment of this series as well. The Prologue and Chapter I have not disappointed, but I am having difficulties with your website. Selecting 'Forum' and several other points in the listing results in error messages. Is it possible for you to clean up those references? Circumnavigation was so well researched, covering places on the earth where I had been, I am anticipating similar depth in 'Love'. Just as soon as I figure out how to respond reliably to chapters in Love, I will do so.

I am embarrassed, my email to you assumed that there were no postings, but when I go to the Bridgemeont Site, I find a chapter that I had not read. So good to have you back, I hope this is an indication of resuming regularity.

The plural of state Attorney General is State Attorneys General. It is the attorneys -- persons -- of which there is more than one of, not the generals.

Please tell me this is not the normal manner in which Australian police operate!😥 By behavior such as this, his relatives in my mind, have become the criminals many times over and any action they seek in court should be thrown out. There may be a case against Australia or the state in which this court has jurisdiction for harassment.

I have commented on overcoming my difficulties with Aussie slang. In this chapter, I see that I am not the only one -- if you are going to use the British spelling of metre why shift to meter in the same sentence? But in spite of that, I am still loving the story.

I was having a bit of trouble with the foreign language until I added a file of 100 Aussie terms to my bookmarks. Now things are going much better, though I m still shy about trying to go from American to Aussie, not wanting to expose my ignorance. The story, however, has great possibilities and I am looking forward to each new chapter. mob=herd paddock=pasture lounge room=living room

It has been well-established in politics and repressive governments, that a lie, told often enough and said loudly enough can take on the color of gospel truth. The fact that children are not exposed to any masculine influence in the lowest grades of school is a demonstration of that. Adolph Hitler proved it too in 1938-1945 in his propaganda campaign against "undesirables" like Jews and homosexuals. His campaign was of immense value to the Allies as intellectuals fled Germany during the Second World War creating a tremendous "brain drain" on European society.

As a long-time reader of the Bridgemont series, I am fascinated by your ability to connect them to this series 200 years later. That ties everything up in a big Bridgemont blue bow, congratulations. Now to go back to the Bridgemont series a see how Bertie deals with this!.

"I felt that memory seer through my psyche" do you mean sear as in a burning flame?

One of these days I am going to have to return to Gun Room and restart reading the entire Bridgemont Series over again. However, this is the second time you have used 'morning twilight' hours in your writing. I was unfamiliar with that term (though, of course, I was comfortable with the use of 'Twilight' to designate the brief period of 'half-light' following sunset, so I challenged myself to investigate the use of the term to apply to early morning hours. In my research, I discovered several periods both just after sunset and just before sunrise to which astronomers apply the term 'Twilight', along with other designations such as 'nautical dawn', civil dawn, civil twilight and nautical sunset among others. Your use of a period (at sea) just prior to the top-most limb of the rising sun appearing on the horizon is totally correct and, while the timing and length of that period varies somewhat (in relation to the hemisphere and to the season of the year) is an accepted astronomical ( and naval) term, as applied to an interval just before dawn when the upper limb of the sun appears to rise to the horizon. I remember when I was growing up in a farming community that my father applied the term 'cocklight' to that same period and we used to laugh over the frustration of a very ancient rooster who, I feel, felt that if he failed to call attention to that time of day, the sun would be unable to rise. Misterwill