Just Published: My Novel “Corbin Milk,” a Thriller Detailing the Adventures of a Gay CIA Agent
After years of working on it, I’m
proud to announce the publication of my thriller “Corbin Milk.” The novel concerns the adventures of a gay
CIA agent, a good-looking and very smart bodybuilder named Corbin Milk for whom
the CIA finds the most interesting uses. I got the idea for writing this novel
while reading an article in The Advocate, the news magazine of
the gay community. The article concerned an anonymous Army captain who was
riding slowly through the streets of Bagdad on a tank during the liberation of
that city when he locked eyes with a handsome Iraqi man standing on the street.
Though it could have gotten them both in major trouble with their respective
communities, the two men had a great times thereafter on a number of occasions.
Surely, I thought, the CIA would see possibilities in the fact that gay sex is
very far off the radar in a heterosexual world. In that world men and women are
constantly aware of sexual tensions between two straight people,
no matter what the setting—even in church, for example. But that world is more
or less blind to similar gay encounters.
The novel has been years in the
making, and the whole experience surprised me in a number of ways. First was how easily it flowed onto the page—more
or less writing itself. The second thing
was that, while the novel is clearly a thriller about the exciting (I hope)
life of a gay CIA agent in three different venues (a kingdom similar to Saudi
Arabia, Amsterdam where Corbin seduces the head of the Russian version of the
CIA, and the United States, where Corbin must battle a boss is making sexual moves),
what amazed me was that a love story between Corbin and a man named George
Yancy became a major part of the novel.
Who knew that I could write a romance about
two people struck dumb with their attraction to one another? This entanglement is particularly
inconvenient for Corbin, since it interferes with and threatens to destroy his
very successful CIA career. The final thing was that I was unsatisfied
with the ending for a number of years until suddenly last fall the obvious fix occurred
to me. As soon as I had that in place I
was ready to publish. (I should also mention that there's quite a
bit of humor in this complicated tale.)
Initially a small publishing
company was willing to publish “Corbin Milk,” which was exciting to think about
given how hard it is to find a publisher for new novels in the 21st
century, but then one of the two founders of the company had a major illness
and the company called a halt to all projects.
Eventually I chose the self-publishing route, which has proved such a
success for my first novel “Imaginary Friend” (an atheist thriller). Thus “Corbin Milk” is now available on both Amazon.com
and Kindle (I hope to shortly have it available for Apple’s iBook too). The price is $11.84 for the paperback from
Amazon and $2.99 on Kindle. The cover
was designed by my husband, himself a graphic artist, and here it is:
There’s no hard core sex in the
novel, though there are scenes in which sex does occur. Since I wanted the book to be accessible to
straight readers as well as gays, I kept the sex to a very vanilla minimum,
though I trust it will prove quite erotic in appropriate segments. At one point Corbin must explore the gay
leather world in Amsterdam, and that was major fun both to learn about and then
insert into the book. Experts in both
the Netherlands and the leather world were very helpful, particularly the
incredible Athena Lyons, once a big name in the straight leather community.
Various snippets of "Corbin Milk" have appeared in
this blog (see "Related Posts" below). “The Thunderbolt” describes how Corbin met
George Yancy, the love of his life, at a party in D.C., “How To Change Gay
People Into Straight People,” details George's attempts to become a heterosexual,
and “Choose
To Be Gay, Choose To Be Straight” reprints a segment of the novel in which a five
year-old Corbin Milk discovers he is gay.
Finally there were two segments having minor sexual scenes; see “Fifty Shades of Leather: Corbin Milk in the BDSM World,”
and "Seducing Straight Men" (which, to my surprise, has been a much-viewed
post on this blog, averaging ten hits a day from all over the world).
 |
| Mata Hari |
I
have no knowledge how the actual CIA uses its gay agents, but they’re missing a
major opportunity to get inside otherwise impenetrable foreign venues if they
ignore how easily a gay sexual liaison might do the trick with no one aware of
it other than the participants. During
the early part of the last century Mata Hari did similar things in the
heterosexual world even though everyone was watching her (she had a night club
act), but her adventures were so obvious that she ended up being executed. Corbin Milk has a happier ending, and,
indeed, he turns up as a minor character in my other published novel,
“Imaginary Friend,” where he helps the beleaguered hero escape from his many
troubles.
I’m
quite proud of “Corbin Milk” and sorry to be done with exploring his and George
Yancy’s adventures. If you read the
book, let me know what you think of the final result by writing me at WhaleyNovel@aol.com.
Oh,
and of course thanks for buying this book which was such a pleasure to write. Should you enjoy it please write a review on
Amazon.com. Reviews really help sell a
self-published book like this.
“Frightening the Horses,”
April 7, 2010
“Imaginary Friend,” June
22, 2010
“The Thunderbolt,”
September 3, 2010
“Listen to Me Reading My Novel on the Radio,” December
11, 2012
“How To Change Gay People Into Straight People,”
September 20, 2010
“Choose To Be Gay, Choose To Be Straight,” January 25,
2011
"Seducing Straight Men," March 3, 2011
"Seducing Straight Men," March 3, 2011
“Fifty Shades of Leather: Corbin Milk in the BDSM World,”
December 26, 2012
“A Guide to the Best of My Blog,” April 29, 2013
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