City on a Star book 3:  A Bard on Hercular

Eisenstein Syzygy Kell, now grown to adulthood and known as Ice, is a galactic singing superstar, the Troubadour of all Troubadours. When he gives a concert on Hercular, he escapes a bombing and kidnapping attempt. A group of winged young people whisk him to safety through many of the five independent environments of this seeded world.

The tale that began in Dryland’s End with the fall of the Matriarchy in the Center Worlds concludes at the planets in the outer reaches. A Bard on Hercular chronicles new generations on new adventures.

"In full-fledged sci-fi form, Picano has created entirely new civilizations, species, even new language forms for his society. A phenomenally well-written book."
          – Virginia Gazette on Dryland's End.

Paper: 288 pgs ~ 978-1-951092-70-2 ~ $19.95
E-book Kindle, Kobo, Nook - 
Amazon
Indie Bookshop
Apple

A new collection of songs and poetry from Felice!

Dear Friends and Readers,

This unexpected little tome is my first poetry collection since the 1977 The Deformity Lover and Other Poems.

It should really be titled Early Songs and Poems and Later Songs and Poems. And that's the way it reads in the table of contents.

Many of the early ones were written before those in Deformity Lover and I thought were "lost." An old friend Dennis Sanders living on the Costa Brava, Spain, returned to me "Fragments, 1972," and "On The Morton Street Pier, 1970."

Composer Walter Torgersen, set some to music and the Warhol-Era chanteuse, Jackie Curtis, regularly sang them in her act. 

The second group of poems here are after The Deformity Lover and Other Poems from magazines and quarterlies. The "later" songs were set to music by a writer who got caught in California's "three strikes" marijuana law and ended up in a medium security facility. He had a sort of Rock band there. He's out now.

Get it at Amazon Now! -- Here

The Other Side of the Story - Pursued: Lillian's Story

In Pursuit: A Victorian Entertainment, Addison Grimmins, slum-born but ambitious and ruthless, sets out on a quest to bring back the Lord Exchequer of England’s missing wife.

Now, in Pursued: Lillian’s Story, we get the other side of the story from Lillian, the woman being pursued.

From boat to stagecoach to train, as Lillian and her questionably reliable companions elude her pursuers throughout Europe, Lillian writes to her daughter-in-law on her honeymoon, warning her of what she may expect marrying into the Ravenglass estate and its cursed male line of descent. Lillian recounts how as a girl she entered a dream marriage to the “golden” son of a great Lord. And how, little by little, one misfortune after another, the dream union threatened to become a nightmare that would destroy her reputation—and her life.

Bold Strokes Books
ISBN-13:978-1636791975
Paperback $17.95
Get it at Amazon HERE

Justify My Sins: A Hollywood Novel in Three Acts

by Felice Picano

Paperback, 6″ x 9″, 352 pages
ISBN 13: 978-0-9981262-8-9
$19.95 plus shipping and handling

Available now at Beautiful Dreamer Press

Victor Regina should be perfectly happy in Manhattan. His novels are best sellers, he has a kick-ass agent, and the upcoming Black Party at the exclusive club Flamingo promises to be a cornucopia of gay desire. But New York is hard. The city is gripped by a winter that won’t quit, and although he has plenty of dishy friends, there is no lover in the picture. When his agent calls with an offer from Hollywood to adapt his latest novel, Justify My Sins, for a famous director, he jumps at the chance.

In “El Lay,” the sun is warm, the food is fantastic, the men are plentiful and eager. It’s all so easy. So easy, in fact, that Victor begins to suspect there’s nothing quite real about it—not the quick affairs, not the luxurious cars and ostentatious architecture, and certainly not the film script or scenario or treatment or whatever the hell it is everyone expects him to write. He begins to long for NYC, hard but real.

Noted names and events of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s intermingle with celebrated triumphs and private tragedies in this hilarious roman à clef with a heart. In his first novel in over fifteen years, Felice Picano exposes the clash between celebrity and integrity, the rivalry between love and lust, while showcasing the grittiness of Manhattan and the voluptuousness of Hollywood. Through disastrous production meetings, steamy sex clubs, and encounters with friends who grow old, or strange, or both, Victor tries not once, not twice, but three times to find authenticity and contentment in a life that, while perhaps never fully justified, is fully lived.

Advance Praise for Justify My Sins

“What fun! A New York author goes to Hollywood to try to turn his best-selling books into movies. Felice Picano gives us an inside look at the filmmaking business, plus a slice of gay life in Los Angeles and enduring friendships from the ‘70s and beyond, with sexy side trips to Palm Springs and San Francisco. Justify My Sins is jam-packed with cameo appearances by big name stars and quirky character extras, all with juicy stories of their own. A delicious read.”      —Mark Abramson, author of Farm Boy: A Memoir with Recipes

In Justify My Sins, Felice Picano’s fast-paced romp, a libidinous New York novelist gets seduced by Tinseltown—in more ways than one. From the hedonistic 70s to the sadly corporate movie business of today, Picano offers delicious dish on the mores and shallowness of Hollywood, with more than a few cameos by real stars. It’s like having your own personal Hedda Hopper whispering all the dirt in your ear. With snappy dialogue and sharp-as-manicured-nails satire, Picano brings the world of starlets, Oscar parties, and the occasional orgy to vivid life.”     —Lewis DeSimone, author of Channeling Morgan