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Where the Nights Smell Like Bread
Glen Peters
If you think Henry James had the last word in American-European relationships, you’ve not read Glen Peters…
—Felice Picano, A Champion of Gay Literature & author of over 30 queer books
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Description
Sometimes You Have to Get Lost to Find Yourself
Mark Anello thought he had it all figured out, but life had other plans. At 34, the suburban math teacher is unceremoniously dumped by his stand-up comedian boyfriend, leaving him feeling stuck and uninspired in Los Angeles. Desperate for a change, Mark flees to San Francisco, where he encounters Alessandro, a charming but disillusioned Italian tourist trapped in a loveless relationship. Their connection is immediate, and after months of long-distance emails, Mark follows his heart to Rome.
But love doesn’t come easy. After three passionate summers together, Mark begins to sense Alessandro slipping away, embarking on new adventures while Mark is left to question everything. Left high and dry in a foreign country, heartbroken and alone, Mark stumbles into a new world—a seductive, high-stakes scene of neo-Bohemians, aristocrats, and avant-garde artists. Yet beneath the glamorous surface lurks a darker reality: a dangerous web of drugs, lust, and even murder in the elite European art circles.
On the brink of destruction, Mark must navigate his way through the chaos to discover a new sense of self. As the world begins to heal from a global pandemic, he returns home transformed—armed with the hard-earned wisdom to embrace love on his own terms, let go of what no longer serves him, and face the future with clarity and compassion.
Praise for Where the Nights Smell Like Bread
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About the Author
Glen Peters
Glen Peters, also writing under the name of Glen Vecchione, is the author of science, math, and history books that have been translated into several languages and distributed throughout the world. His poetry and short stories appear in Missouri Review, ZYZZYVA, Cincinnati Review, Comstock Review, Timberline Review, and Main Street Rag. Glen won the Editor’s Choice Award in The Last Stanza Poetry Journal and was the featured poet in Sequestrum’s “Wonder” issue of January 2024. He was also nominated for the 2022 and 2023 Pushcart Prizes and named a Finalist in the 2022 Sewanee Review poetry competition. Glen wrote the music and lyrics to the Jazz Ballet The Legend of Frankie and Johnny, produced by the Nat Horne Theatre on Broadway in 1980. His play-in-verse, Cowboy BO and the Train Whistle, was produced at the Lyceum Theatre in San Diego in 2011. Where the Nights Smell Like Bread is his first novel, and is available in print and eBook formats from all online and independent book sellers such as Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo Reader, Amazon, and directly from Rattling Good Yarns Press.
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Praise
Praise for Where the Nights Smell Like Bread
If you think Henry James had the last word in American-European relationships, you’ve not read Glen Peters’ sweepingly romantic and realistically detailed Where the Nights Smell Like Bread. This propulsive, superbly written first novel is an exciting tour guide and a daunting gay romance primer on the varieties of Old World disturbia, where first impressions are anything but true.
This sexy, sad, life-affirming story of love, friends, and family found when you least intend, will make you nostalgic for lost love, hungry for sensual pleasures, yet glad you’re old and out of the game…but not necessarily in that order.
Where the Nights Smell Like Bread sweeps us along with narrative power. Glen Peters’ vividly drawn characters discover that they can’t escape the twists and turns of modern life, whether they’re in Los Angeles, Madrid, or a small Italian mountain village. At the same time, they also experience the joys of family, whether born into, made, or found. Touching, compelling, and true, this book —and especially the narrator Mark—who will come alive and linger in your heart and mind.
A classic verse by Hafez translates, “The story of love is all but one, yet each time I hear one, it sounds unrepeated!” Glen Peters’ new novel, Where the Nights Smell Like Bread, is indeed a fresh story of love as it opens new doors that the reader may not even know existed. I finished it in just a few days and found it unlike any story I have ever read. The narrator remains objective throughout, but tender emotions are palpable on every page.
Glen Peters invites us to be passengers on a compelling journey of one gay man’s winding path of self-discovery and acceptance. Surprising twists and turns, crisp dialogue, vivid descriptions and distinct observations reveal a kind and caring narrator who is willing to explore the yearnings of his heart near and far, as well as the joys and struggles of his family, friends and lovers. This is a satisfying ride well worth taking. Bravo!
Where The Nights Smell Like Bread is a luminous debut novel from an extraordinarily gifted author with a promising future.
There’s a painterly quality to the way Glen Peters writes, which, while using seemingly everyday language, transcends to a luminous veracity of flesh and bone, love, credibility, and all when you least expect it. Details enhance the otherwise page-turning narrative with the eye of a connoisseur. An engaging, deliciously crafted novel.
Who is Mark Anello? Glen Peters’ protagonist is a man on a quest, an eternal, age-old quest. Mark is looking for love. This sweeping novel encompasses friendship, family, food, art and addiction, but, above all, the beguiling and treacherous waters of queer love. We follow Mark across two continents against the backdrop of the recent pandemic, accompanied by an engaging and often surprising cast of characters. “A toast to Mark, who’s never lonely when he’s with friends who feed him.” And this novel feeds us too, with a rich and rewarding feast of words.
Glen Peters’ protagonist experiences the warmth and hospitality of Italian and Spanish locals, who embrace him with open arms. His characters are drawn with authenticity and affection, even with their flaws. His journey is a transformative experience that leaves him with a richer understanding of life’s possibilities for a gay American seeking love. It’s a well-told story by an accomplished writer.
If American expat writer Henry James had been freed from the social and sexual constraints of his era, he might have written an intriguing international romp like Glen Peters’ Where the Nights Smell Like Bread. Facing his own vulnerability, Mark Anello, a dissatisfied California math teacher, pursues relationships from Hollywood to Italy, Spain, and Switzerland while striving to “live and give” amid an assortment of lovers and friends whose own foibles throw up obstacles. Daniel Defoe’s classic 1665 A Journal of the Plague Year cannot compete with the unfolding wit, intrigue, and frustrations that Peters conjures in this modern version of a world turned upside-down during the COVID pandemic and its aftermath. Insights into Europe’s beauty and art add to the novel’s allure.
After reading only the first few pages of Glen Peters’ Where the Nights Smell Like Bread, I was hooked. The dialog engages immediately, and characters leap from the pages full-blown and ready to take on the world. Mark Anello, the narrator, is, by turn, funny and tragic, and his romantic interest, the enigmatic Alessandro, is charming, long-suffering, but ultimately lovable. Intrigue abounds in a landscape rich with the imagery of a master storyteller.
Where the Nights Smell Like Bread is an interesting, engaging read that will educate as well as entertain even the most home-bound of readers.