This book was not what I expected when I picked it up. In fact, I’d even venture so far as to offer a caption.

Heat is probably the best independently published book I have read, and one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is also [...]]]> Dear Ms. Smith,

This book was not what I expected when I picked it up. In fact, I’d even venture so far as to offer a caption.

Heat is probably the best independently published book I have read, and one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is also one of the most graphic, and most disturbing books I have read in a long while. When I finished this book, I told a friend about it and she said it sounded awful. On paper, it does sound awful, but it was a truly compelling read and I could not put it down. I mainlined this book as if I were a junkie and this was my fix. I debated about reviewing it, since it is not the standard Dear Author sort of book. But the bottom line is that I want to talk about this book with other people, so here’s the review.

Warning – if you are easily triggered, this is most definitely not the book for you. Move along.

I stumbled upon this book on Amazon, but I’m not sure how. Perhaps someone mentioned it on a villainous hero thread. Someone said it was the most unique and different romance they had read in a very long time, and that was all it took for me to purchase despite the hefty cover price. This review will probably end up rather long, so fair warning.

Heat does not fall into my regular reading category. It’s about two sets of alien men. One is an escaped drug dealer and criminal who is hiding out on earth. The other is the stiff and proper interplanetary cop who is chasing him. They are both the heroes, and over the course of this very long book, they both fall in love with their respective females. This is definitely a romance. A bizarre one, but ultimately with a happy ending for both parties.

The book starts out with Kanetus, aka Kane. Kane is a Jotan interplanetary pirate who has been sentenced to life in prison for any number of crimes. He escapes and heads to earth. Earth is full of humans, and the Jotan treat them like pets, sex toys, and slaves. Sometimes all of the above. Another interesting thing about humans is that they produce a chemical called dopamine that can be harvested from their brains. From this chemical, an illegal drug called Vahst can be made. Vahst is in high demand and Kane is broke, so he has a plan. Go to earth, harvest humans to make Vahst, and return to his life of space piracy a rich man. When Kane gets to earth, his plans are quickly turned upside down. It is summer on earth, and heat makes Jotans go into heat – they must have sex on a regular basis or else they are in intense pain and become ill. Kane doesn’t have time for this, so he decides he will steal himself a human. After grabbing and raping the first woman he runs across, he is perplexed when she runs away and kills herself. So he gets another human, and this time reminds himself to be more careful.

The new human female is named Raven, and she’s an eighteen year old street prostitute who loves drugs and living wild. She’s terrified of Kane and how brutally he treats her, as any woman in her right mind would be. What Raven wants isn’t a factor in the first half of the story. She is Kane’s to use as he wishes, and gradually she begins to help him with his harvesting of other humans for the Vahst, which is just as graphic and awful as it sounds.

Tagen is the interplanetary cop who has come to earth to find Kane and bring him back to justice. He’s afflicted by the same situation as Kane – the heat of summer makes him need sex intensely, but he refuses to give in to it. Tagen accidentally kills a human with his blaster and he is horrified that he is so careless with human life. Suffering from the elements, Tagen collapses on the doorstep of Daria, a human woman who is a recluse. Daria takes him in despite his fearsome appearance and his strangeness, and she helps him recover and later assists him in his hunt for Kane.

The story is a very interesting dichotomy about two men who could not be more different, but are both influenced by their late fathers, and you layer this in beautifully. Kane remembers his dead father with fondness, for all that his father was a murderer and pirate who taught Kane to be just like him. Tagen was adopted by a man that served as his father, but he never felt affection or love, merely duty, and this influences the man he has become. It’s a very interesting nuance to a story that on the surface sounds coarse, violent, and a little weird.

Though we are given dueling storylines, the ‘romance’ between Kane and Raven is the more compelling of the two storylines. It’s interesting to note that Kane is a villain, but over the course of the story, he is not reformed from his wicked ways in the slightest. He remains a rebellious killer on the first page and the last. Nor does Raven, his love interest, change from her hedonist ways. Rather, the characters change by being together, and change in how they perceive each other. Raven begins to assist Kane with his Vahst collecting, and Kane begins to appreciate how smart and clever and cautious she is. Raven, for her part, begins to understand Kane’s cues and how he functions, and learns how to show him that she is a worthwhile partner. While their story starts out with a very Stockholm-Syndrome vibe to it, it progresses to something else, and by the end of the book, Raven is very much an equal partner to Kane, and the last scene of the book had me thrilled to my bones at how far Raven had come.

Tagen and Daria have a much sweeter, more traditional romance. Tagen is worried about hurting Daria, who has clearly been damaged in the past. In addition, Jotan women are the ones that are aggressors in the relationship, and since Daria does not make a move on him, he simply waits for her to indicate that she wants him. This takes a very, very long time since Daria has been hurt in the past. Tagen is obsessed with his police-work, and he appreciates Daria’s clever mind as she begins to help him track down Kane. In turn, Daria is attracted to Tagen, but she is afraid of letting someone into her safe, protected life and being hurt all over again. Their relationship is much slower to develop, but is a nice counterpoint to the violence of Kane and Raven’s relationship, and when they finally get together, the reader knows it is because they have come to a genuine understanding and mutual desire.

This is dubbed as ‘erotic horror’ by the author, and while I don’t think it’s really a horror novel, the erotic tag is very key. Kane rapes multiple people throughout the book, including the heroine. Raven herself is passed around and forced to service other men and sometimes other women, all upon Kane’s whim. There is lots of extreme violence and Raven is manhandled for the first section of the book to the point that I was very uncomfortable with some of the scenarios. I’m not a fan of rape in novels. Usually that is the first thing that will make a book hit the wall. Yet I kept reading this, and I found myself still hoping that Kane and Raven would have a happy ending by the end of the book. I’m not sure what that says about me.

Despite the violent storyline, there are some genuinely touching moments between each couple, and some very funny ones. The conclusions that Tagen comes to as he tries to figure out earth culture by watching TV are quite funny, as well as the scene in the sex shop.

I would be remiss without pointing out that this book is very long.  The page count is not listed on the Amazon page, but clicking over to the paper copy shows that it’s over 600 pages long, which sounds about right. Yet the book does not feel dragged out or change plots halfway through (unlike your other book, Olivia, which I bailed out on at 40%) and the story never loses its momentum. I was actually sad to see the book end and immediately looked for other reads similar to Heat, because I wanted to return to that enjoyable intensity your writing brings.

Overall, Heat was an uncomfortable read at times but a riveting one the entire story. I am struggling with the grade to give this book. The writing and intensity that I felt while reading it mark this into A+ territory, and I am stingy with my grades. I haven’t felt quite so caught up in a book in a very long time. Yet if I were taking off marks for awful things depicted in the story, I’d have to mark it right back down to an F grade, because there are a lot of reprehensible things done and committed by one of the heroes. Kane is not nice. He does not become nice. He is not reformed into a kinder, gentler Kane by the end of the story. If you are interested in villain heroes, this is definitely a book to get. If not, you should pass this one on by because you will regret every dollar you spend.

I do feel as if this sort of book was the reason I read indie books. I’m constantly hoping for that one read that will probably never be published by a mainstream publisher, yet is intense and consuming and surpasses all my skeptical misgivings. The happy ending for both couples cinched this for me, since I was worried that it could not possibly end well. And yet, you pulled it off.  I have to give this a very enthusiastic B+/A- and hope that others pick it up so they can tell me if I have lost my mind with my affection for this book.

All best,

January

PS – Your website is awful and your book covers almost as bad.

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When I reviewed The Nonesuch a few months ago during Sourcebooks’ summer Heyer sale, I mentioned in passing that I really wanted to review Sprig Muslin, but it hadn’t been digitized yet. Now it is, so as promised, here’s a review.

This book wasn’t in my Top 10 Heyer Regencies during the first decade [...]]]> Dear Readers,

When I reviewed The Nonesuch a few months ago during Sourcebooks’ summer Heyer sale, I mentioned in passing that I really wanted to review Sprig Muslin, but it hadn’t been digitized yet. Now it is, so as promised, here’s a review.

This book wasn’t in my Top 10 Heyer Regencies during the first decade or so that I read her (that would be my teens and early twenties). It was too slow and too rural, and the hero and heroine weren’t exciting enough. I was totally a These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, and Frederica kind of girl. But as I reread it in later years, I grew to appreciate the quiet humor. I especially came to love Lady Hester, the plain spinster heroine, and it’s become one of my very favorite Heyers.

Sprig Muslin chronicles the romance of Lady Hester Theale, the aging, on-the-shelf daughter of a gaming-mad Earl, and Sir Gareth Ludlow, one of Heyer’s patented top-of-the-trees, Corinthian heroes. Having reached his mid-thirties and lost his only brother at Salamanca, Sir Gareth accepts that he has to marry and produce heirs. But since losing his beautiful and much beloved fiancée in a riding accident a decade agp, he believes he is unable to offer a wife love. He chooses Hester, an old friend, over younger and more beautiful candidates because he thinks that marriage to him will be better for her than her current life as a general dogsbody for her father and her siblings’ families. But Hester shocks everyone, not least Sir Gareth, when she turns him down:

“I can offer you a position of the first consequence. You would be at no one’s beck and call, you would be your own mistress—with a husband who, I promise you, would not make unreasonable demands of you. You may be sure that I should always attend to your wishes, and hold you in respect as well as affection. Would that not mean a happier life than the one you now lead?”

Her face was very white; she pulled her hand away, saying in a stifled voice: “No—anguish!”

This seemed so strange a thing for her to have said that he thought he could not have heard her aright. “I beg your pardon?” he said blankly.

She had moved away from him in some agitation, and said now, with her back turned to him: “I didn’t mean it— don’t heed it! I say such foolish things! Pray forgive me! I am so deeply grateful to you! Your wife will be the happiest of females, unless she is a monster, and I do hope you won’t marry a monster! If only I could find my handkerchief!”

Gareth’s proposal visit to Brancaster is complicated by his meeting with Amanda, a lovely sixteen-year-old who has run away from home in order to compel her grandfather to agree to her marriage to a serving officer who is a younger son. She refuses to tell Gareth her name or address, and he cannot leave her on her own, so he takes her with him, to the consternation of Hester’s family (but not Hester). When Amanda runs away, Gareth must postpone any attempt to persuade Hester to change her mind and go after her. In the meantime Amanda has found a younger and more credulous knight-errant, and an accident occurs when Gareth catches up to them. When they can’t think of anyone else to turn to, the panicked and guilt-stricken pair beseech Hester to come and nurse Gareth until he recovers.

Gareth can’t be moved, so the four wind up in an inn in a tiny village, isolated from their families and friends and with their whereabouts unknown. This suits Amanda perfectly, because her grandfather won’t be able to find her and thus will submit to her ultimatum. Hester has her hands full caring for Gareth, and she isn’t averse to being cut off from her usual life for a while. As Gareth recovers, he sees a different side to Hester, and his feelings of friendship deepen into something else:

Lady Hester emerged from her hiding-place, her cap now wildly askew. Sir Gareth lay back against his pillows, watching her, a question behind the brimming laughter in his eyes.

“Gareth!” said Hester, in an awed voice. “You must own that Amanda is wonderful! I should never have thought of saying I was your natural sister!”

He was shaking with laughter, his hand pressed instinctively to his hurt shoulder. “No? Nor I, my dear!”

Suddenly she began to laugh too. “Oh, dear, of all the absurd situations—! I was just thinking how W—Widmore would l—look if he knew!”

The thought was too much for her. She sat down in the Windsor chair, and laughed till she cried. Mopping her streaming eyes at last, she said: “I don’t think I have ever laughed so much in all my life. But I must say, Gareth, there is one thing about this new story of Amanda’s which I cannot like!”

“Oh, no, is there?” he said unsteadily.

“Yes,” she said, sober again. “It was not well done of Amanda to make up such a tale about your father. For he was a most excellent person, and it seems quite dreadful to be slandering him! Really, Gareth, you should have denied it!”

“I assure you, he would have delighted in the story, for he was blessed with a lively sense of humour,” Sir Gareth replied. He looked at her, a glimmer in his eyes, and a smile quivering on his lips. “Do you know, Hester, in all these years I have held you in esteem and regard, yet I never knew you until we were pitchforked into this fantastic imbroglio? Certainly Amanda is wonderful! I must be eternally grateful to her!”

There’s not a lot of plot to this story. Gareth offers for Hester and is turned down; Amanda runs away to force her grandfather to bend to her will; Gareth is injured and must be nursed back to health. Amanda’s knight-errant, Hildebrand, stays a friend because Amanda is unshakeably devoted to her Brigade-Major.

But what the novel lacks in plot it makes up for in characterizations. Amanda could have been intensely annoying, but her determination and her commitment are admirable. Hildebrand, Hester’s family, and the innkeeper and his sister are portrayed with Heyer’s usual deft touch. The book is chock full of sparkling dialogue, and it is relatively free of the cant that Heyer loved so much.

Best of all, though, is the way the romance unfolds. There is nothing external (apart from Gareth’s injury) that drives the couple together or apart. Hester is truly a plain-Jane, downtrodden spinster when we meet her, but she blossoms away from her family. Heyer shows us her wit, humor, and intelligence, all of which Hester has suppressed during years of living with her unsympathetic, uninterested, unimaginative family. In the end, she gets Gareth on her terms, not his.

Gareth is saved from being unbearably arrogant at the beginning of the novel by his innate decency; his assumption that the best Hester can do is a loveless marriage is harsh but probably true, and he genuinely believes that his ability to fall in love died with his fiancée.

By the end of the story, Heyer convinces us not only that the handsome and sought-after Gareth can fall in love with someone like Hester, but that she is the ideal person for him at this point in his life. And she does this not by turning Hester into a different woman or by demonizing his late fiancée but by revealing to us and to Gareth the wonderful woman who has been trapped under that spinster exterior.

Grade: A-

~ Sunita

Note: this book is currently $1.99 at Amazon

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When I heard the news that many of your romance titles were being released as ebooks by Open Road Integrated Media, I felt a pang of jealousy for those newer romance readers who would have the opportunity to discover your work for the first time. When the opportunity came to interview you, Jane [...]]]> Dear Ms. Gaffney,

When I heard the news that many of your romance titles were being released as ebooks by Open Road Integrated Media, I felt a pang of jealousy for those newer romance readers who would have the opportunity to discover your work for the first time. When the opportunity came to interview you, Jane suggested that perhaps some reviews of these older books wouldn’t be amiss. It was natural for me to review Lily, since once upon a time it was among my top five favorite romances.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Lily fell out of favor with me at some point; that’s not the case. Unlike most romance readers (at least so it seems), I don’t reread. Not even favorite books. I’m not sure why not – for the first five or so years that I read romances, I reread regularly. I guess at some point I just decided that there were enough good new books out there for me to read; I didn’t have time to keep rereading things I’d already read. I keep my favorite books, to be sure, and wouldn’t be parted with them. I just don’t read them. (I’m sure the fact that they are in boxes in a closet with stuff on top of them contributes to this – if I had them on shelves and easily accessible, my habits might be different.)

My point, and I do have one, is that I haven’t read Lily in part or in whole, for a long, long time. Inevitably, over the years, my tastes have changed. So I approached the book with a measure of trepidation – what if it didn’t live up to my remembrance? Not only would I be personally disappointed, would I then have to (gasp!) give Lily a bad review?!

I needn’t have worried – while I found some flaws in the story (flaws I very well may have noticed the first time and forgotten), I still found reading the book, over all, a magical experience.

The book opens with Lily Trehearne dealing with the recent death of her father and the trying attention of her guardian, the Reverend Roger Soames, who insists that Lily must marry his son Lewis. Lily has no intention of or desire to marry Lewis; she only needs Soames to put up with her for a short while until she reaches her majority and gains a small inheritance. But Soames won’t take no for an answer, and threatens to have Lily taken up as a thief (he burns several pounds in the fireplace and then calls to his son to fetch the constable) if she doesn’t comply. Lily and Soames tussle, and in an attempt to get away Lily pushes Soames, who in true melodrama fashion falls and hits his head, and lies apparently dead on the hearth as the law pounds on the door. Lily flees in terror, grabbing the first coach out of town.

A chance encounter with a housekeeper traveling back to her employer lands Lily a job as a maid in Cornwall, which she figures is remote enough to hide in for the time being. So she comes to Darkstone Manor (!!), home of Devon Darkwell (!!!!), whom she first encounters drunkenly waving a pistol in the hall. It turns out that Devon is not normally given to such Elvis-like behavior; he’s especially distraught on the anniversary of the death of his child. Devon is normally rather buttoned-up and repressed.

Lily is going under the Dickensian alias of Lily Troublefield, and (at first at least) sporting a ridiculous Irish accent as further disguise. She is quite unsuited to the position of housemaid, having been raised as a gentlewoman, albeit an impoverished one. Her beauty and her innate nobility attract Devon’s attention, though it’s hardly love at first sight. Devon is definitely a product of his time; he just doesn’t understand why a housemaid won’t spread her legs for him. It’s only when he is injured (reluctantly participating in his brother Clay’s smuggling activities, Devon is wounded by the King’s men) and Lily must nurse him that a deeper relationship develops.

Devon and Lily’s romance is deliciously old-school in all the best ways; above all it’s a roller-coaster. He pursues, she retreats; she relents, he treats her like shit (afraid to love done wrong by a woman once blah blah blah). Lily is badly injured, and it’s partly Devon’s fault. So he’s nice for a while (well, kind of), and then there’s a big mis and he’s really, really not nice. She goes away and he pursues her and is not nice some more and then she goes away again and this time he pursues her because he’s realized he was wrong. And then a bunch of other stuff happens. Lily doesn’t lack for action.

One thing that struck me about the book is that it has an unusual number of villains (I guess if your characters are going to suffer that much, you need lots of villains to facilitate). There’s the Reverend Soames, whose fervent religiosity is revealed to be less than genuine; there’s the housekeeper, Mrs. Howe, whose religiosity is more sincere but also kind of violent and loony; Mrs. Howe’s son, the dastardly valet Trayer, and finally one whose identity I won’t reveal, since it’s kind of a spoiler to events in the second half of the book. The last villain, actually, is a bit of a pitiable figure, though his actions are such that I wouldn’t call him sympathetic.

Besides the (honestly kind of delicious) over-the-topness of Lily, there were a few things I noticed that mark it as an earlier, less sophisticated effort. I mentioned Lily’s silly Irish accent; in general her early behavior has some TSTL markers that really aren’t indicative of her personality as a whole. Even the fleeing after Reverend Soames is injured struck me as kind of hasty, though I took into account the fact that he was, as a man and a minister, much more powerful than she, and that 19th century English justice may have left something to be desired when it came to the fates of poor orphan girls.

Other than that, there were quite a few abrupt POV switches that forced me to reread paragraphs to figure out whose perspective was being relayed. Generally, though, the seeds of the author’s fine prose style are strongly in evidence here.

The characterization of secondary characters is very good. There’s Clay, Devon’s happy-go-lucky younger brother – he’s a bit of a rogue (I would’ve mourned him not getting his own book, but he has a fiancee by the end of Lily anyway). There’s Lowdy, another housemaid who befriends Lily and speaks in an almost incomprehensible Cornish accent (normally I would recoil at dialogue rendered in dialect, but it’s kind of fun to try to figure out what exactly Lowdy is saying). Most of all, there is Meraud, the mysterious moor-hermit who takes Lily in after she flees Devon. Meraud is thought by locals to be a witch, but mostly she just seems no-nonsense and a little strange; her avocation is the creation of giant sculptures of mud and straw, which, given that she creates these out on the moor where absolutely no one sees them definitely qualifies them as art for art’s sake. Meraud is a vibrant, unique character, and her relationship with Lily is almost as important as Devon’s.

Cornwall itself, with its unique and specific qualities, almost qualifies as a character itself. It’s full of rocky outcroppings and smugglers and treacherous tides and pilchards; I’m reminded of another of my favorite romances, and the first book I reviewed for DA – Penelope Williamson’s Once in a Blue Moon.

I write this review aware that some readers may read the book and just not be able to handle its old-fashioned style: either the relentless sturm und drang or the dickishness of the hero will put them off (possibly both). But I know that there are readers out there who haven’t read Lily who will love it as I do. My grade: straight A.

Best regards,

Jennie

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With the exception of The Lion of Kent, which I enjoyed reading last year but which didn’t stick in my mind, I haven’t read your work (even though I’ve heard many good things about it). Your choice of settings and characters aren’t the type I usually seek out, but when I saw [...]]]> Dear Mr. Voinov,

With the exception of The Lion of Kent, which I enjoyed reading last year but which didn’t stick in my mind, I haven’t read your work (even though I’ve heard many good things about it). Your choice of settings and characters aren’t the type I usually seek out, but when I saw that you were publishing a series of contemporary short stories I was intrigued. I don’t generally read genre fiction with criminals as the protagonists, but something in the blurbs resonated with me, and the word-of-mouth and reviews have been stellar. So I bit the bullet and downloaded Dark Soul Vol. 1. And wow, am I glad I did.

The Dark Soul series comprises several short stories, bundled in pairs. They revolve around Stefano Marino, a “made man” (an official member of the Mafia) and Silvio Spadano, the protege, heir and assassin of a retired Mafia executive, Gianbattista Falchi. They meet for the first time in the first story, “Dark Soul,” when Mafia members from Europe and North America are summoned to the home of a powerful, dying Mafioso. Stefano is technically higher in rank but Silvio, as Falchi’s representative and favorite, is treated with greater deference. Stefano is happily married and considers himself straight, but he is immediately attracted to Silvio. When Silvio sneaks into Stefano’s room at night (we don’t find out why) and immobilizes Stefano’s bodyguard, Vince, Stefano turns the tables, ties Silvio up and humiliates him in a way that arouses them both.

The second story, “Dark Secrets,” takes place at Gianbattista Falchi’s Tuscan estate, where Stefano has come to ask Falchi for help with his business, and it explores the relationship between Silvio and his much older boss, who are clearly involved both sexually and emotionally. Stefano continues to be attracted to Silvio and it’s evident the attraction is returned, but Stefano is both resistant and puzzled: resistant because the Mafia is intolerant of homosexuality and he fears for his position and his business, and puzzled because he is genuinely in love with and sexually attracted to his wife, Donata. Through Stefano’s POV, the story gives us insight into the complex and intense nature of Silvio and Falchi’s relationship, a relationship which takes a surprising turn at the end of the story and sets up the second volume of the series.

These stories are not romances; there is no HEA or even HFN at the end of Volume 1, and the reader is left hanging plotwise. If you like cliffhangers it’s a great one, but if you don’t and you like the sound of the first volume, you should go into it prepared to download the next one when you’re done. The stories are also somewhat unusual in their construction. They follow a standard chronological narrative, but there are all kinds of unresolved story and character threads.

For example, we never find out what happens to the dying Mafia Don in the first story. The second story picks up some time after the first, but we don’t know what happens in the interim. Is Vince going to be an important character throughout the series?

The stories have this amazing texture and density, but we only get partial views of basic aspects like plot, motivations, etc. It’s both frustrating and compelling. I had to read the first few pages several times to get my bearings, because I felt thrown in at the deep end. But I kept reading anyway, because the writing was powerful and the characters were irresistible. The writing has a hypermasculine feel to it, which seems appopriate to the hypermasculine environment; it’s not particularly spare, but it’s direct and almost in-your-face:

Spadaro studied him, head tilted. “That’s why I don’t belong to anybody,” he said quietly, but with the force and conviction of a kidney punch. “I’m not following their fucking rules.” He swept the crowd again with his expressionless black eyes, then fixed them on Stefano’s face.

Stefano’s lips tingled. It was still hard to breathe and he had no idea why. He couldn’t let this man intimidate him. Couldn’t be seen as too interested. Barracuda or not—even Gianbattista Falchi’s protetto or not—he could afford zero suspicion. He’d be dead. Fuck Spadaro for flustering him so, and fuck himself for getting flustered, but he’d never show it. “Well, give Falchi my best wishes when you return to him.”

“Will do.” Spadaro sketched an ironic salute and stepped away.

Stefano fought the urge to straighten his tie, fought harder against the urge to watch the Barracuda cut through the assembled groups of men.

He caught Vince’s gaze, and though his bodyguard relaxed a little, he still looked worried. Stefano could see why. A sicario who belonged to a “retired” consigliere, and not just any pensioner, but crafty old Gianbattista Falchi, who’d been more powerful in his own right than many bosses. That was all manner of disturbing. “Paying his respects” by being anything but respectful.

The relationship that develops between the two men is at times brutal (literally so in the first story). And yet, by the end of the second story, I was convinced that more tender feelings could flourish between them as well. Silvio thrives on the combination of pain and pleasure, and Stefano instinctively responds:

Stefano’s own balls tightened in sympathy, but God, Silvio in pain was a sight to behold. It fed the same dark arousal that claimed him when he watched the kind of porn where the actors wore not just lust on their faces, but pain or shame or both. He’d never get shame from Silvio, but the way the young killer embraced his emotions during sex—regardless of what exactly they were—was a huge turn-on. Whatever happened to Silvio, he sank into it without reservation, possibly even without self-awareness.

What would it be like to have a lover like that? Somebody he could do this to, mix the pleasure with pain. Someone who would take it all and more and never consider him a controlling freak.

Although Silvio masks his vulnerable side and his softer emotional needs, by the end of the second story they have been revealed, both to the reader and to Stefano. I very much look forward to seeing how you concurrently explore the relationships and the criminal storyline.

I want to reiterate that this series is not genre romance, nor does it conform to the usual m/m conventions. The protagonists have sex with other people in these stories. The main characters are all part of the criminal underworld, which some readers will find objectionable. So far the sex scenes are anything but vanilla (one involves non-consensual acts). I really appreciate that Stefano’s wife is not portrayed as emotionally incomplete, a shrew, or a ditz, but I can’t imagine things are going to go well for her marriage in the subsequent installments.

I should also note that the book is $3.99 for about 20,000 words (or about 60-70 pdf pages). That is not cheap, and frankly, the price kept me from picking it up a while ago. But I kept thinking about it, and for me the quality is worth the price.

With all these caveats stipulated, I definitely recommend this series. If readers are looking for excellent writing, strong characterizations, sizzling sex, and a fascinating storyline, you won’t want to miss Dark Soul Vol. 1. I’m off to download Volumes 2 and 3.

Grade: A-/B+

~ Sunita

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I don’t remember reading a book like this lately. I’m sure that there have been ones written, after all, romance has been published for decades at a clip of several hundred a month. There are no new stories, only new ways to tell them. However, Marta Russell and Theophilus Mirkwood are two [...]]]> Dear Ms. Grant:

I don’t remember reading a book like this lately. I’m sure that there have been ones written, after all, romance has been published for decades at a clip of several hundred a month. There are no new stories, only new ways to tell them. However, Marta Russell and Theophilus Mirkwood are two characters that seemed entirely new to me; characters I hadn’t met in fiction before.

This story read to me about two things: connections and opposites. Connections, particularly in this book, prevent seeing the world in black and white, seeing one person as wholly villianous or virtuous. The way in which the connections to people make us better and how, left to our own devices, our viewpoints and life experiences can be narrow and limited. The best part of an opposites attract story is this idea that the other can fill in where one is lacking, making the duo better than an individual. That is definitely true in “A Lady Awakened”.

The story is fairly simple. Martha Russell of Seaton Park is newly widowed and she is childless. While she regrets that she doesn’t have a child and that she will likely have to go and live off her brothers, she is prepared to do so. Her plans are forestalled by suggestion of her lady’s maid and the local clergy that everyone will need to wait to see if she had quickened before her husband’s death. The seed of fraud is fostered when Martha hears that the heir is a disreputable man who had taken advantage of the servants of the house many years ago and that her husband had shunned the heir prior to his death.

Martha learns that Theo Mirkwood has been sent down by his father after an escapade. She propositions Theo and offers to pay him money to father her a child. Theo is bemused but he is in need of money and impregnating his neighbor seems like a jolly way to pass the time until he is forgiven or he has enough money to return to town. Martha and Theo don’t think much of each either. Martha isn’t the merry widow that Theo would like her to be and Theo is far to reckless and irresponsible to appeal to Martha. Theo thinks quite a bit of his sexual prowess but Martha is unimpressed:

He was watching her, hands on his hips, satisfied to be the object of a lady’s scrutiny. “It’s all yours, darling, bought and paid for,” he said with what was probably a rakish smile.

What on earth did one say in reply to that? It wasn’t even accurate — she hadn’t paid him yet — but really, the less said on this subject, the better. Yesterday had been rather excruciating in that regard. Your skin is like silk. You smell like flowers. He must seduce chiefly on the strength of his good looks. He couldn’t expect to overcome any lady with poetic invention.

As the two spend each afternoon in bed, they begin to learn more about one another. Martha learns that Theo’s easy amiability makes it easier to connect with the tenants, to assist them in the manner in which Martha believes is important for the gentry to do. Theo learns from Martha that taking care of the land and tenants is more than a responsibility but a calling.

In reading the negative Amazon reviews, one of the negatives that is brought up is that Martha is engaging in a fraud. She is. She is trying to steal an inheritance from another person who is rumored to be a bad man. This is not without its troubling morality and is an issue that Martha acknowledges, even unto the end.

Another negative comment was that Martha is cold. She is. She is distant from others. She does not make friends easily and her lack of ability to make connections pushes her to further withdraw emotionally. But she is earnest in her desire to provide for those people around her. She feels their reliance keenly. Moreover, Martha recognizes the perilous position of a woman and seeks to set up a school wherein girls can gain an education, empowering them. Theo is distant as well, for all his amiabiity. His connections, while easily made, are superfluous.  Martha and Theo are subtle ends of an emotional spectrum.  Theo was undisciplined, but generous.   Martha was uptight, but thoughtful.

There is this great subplot involving Theo and a single laborer on his property. He learns that because the man has no family, when the man is older and can no longer work the tenant properly, he will be sent to a workhouse. It brings home to Theo how fortunate his birth and what kind of responsibility he holds in his hands. Theo has the ability to prevent Mr. Barrow from being sent to a workhouse. Theo’s transformation doesn’t come at the hands of Martha. She merely opens his eyes.

“The smaller families with older sons are fortunate,” he said as he and Granville moved along. “Two or more wages, and fewer people to divide them among.”

“The shape of your family makes a great difference, doesn’t it? I’m sorry the Weavers have no grown-up sons.” They were walking a path that followed a rail fence now, and from time to time the man rapped at some part of it, presumably to test the soundness of its joints.

“Mr. Barrow has no family at all? Not even nieces or nephews, I mean?”

“No.” This brought an extra gravity, he could see, to Granville’s weathered features. “He had sisters, I know, but they married long ago and settled somewhere far north.”

“No one to take an interest in caring for him, then.”

“It’s not as uncommon a case as one might like it to be. Reminds a man of the importance of marrying. Not a man of independent means, of course — you may look after yourself and then pay others to do so, if you choose.”

This sounded a dismal prospect. He must remember to think seriously of marriage, in five or ten years, and in the meantime, to ingratiate himself with his sisters’ children. “But Mr. Barrow,” he said. “There will come a time — soon, perhaps — when he can no longer earn a wage.”

“Aye, and after that, a time when he cannot keep house, and a time when he cannot care for himself.” Granville stopped, having found a place in the fence that did not make the proper reply to his knock. He rapped at it again, and then took out a pencil and a folded bit of paper to make some note.

Theo waited. “What happens to such a man at that time?” he said when the agent had finished.

He shook his head without looking up. “If a man does live to that age, and has no connections, like as not he ends in the workhouse infirmary.”

“Workhouse.” The one word was all he could manage.

Another negative is that the sex that Martha and Theo have is quite unsexy. This is also true. Martha hates sex initially. So much so that by the third coupling, Theo is having a difficult time even becoming aroused. The sex is actually a source of humor but it provides a marker for Martha and Theo’s intimacy. Initially the sex is horrible because neither have any feelings for another. As the two begin to like each other, the sex becomes better (although Martha begins to feel guilty about this) and then when the two fall in love, intercourse becomes both pleasureful and painful. Sex is almost a chore for both of them, something to get through in order to get to the good stuff which is the talking that they do after sex and the intimacy that grows between them because of the post coital discussions.  The sex in the book ranges from awkward to erotic, a range that I’ve rarely seen in one book.

I just appreciated so much watching Theo and Martha change, subtly, into better versions of themselves. How they found in each other something of value. There are so many wonderful small scenes in the book such as Theo watching Martha’s interaction with the vicar and thinking to himself that he wanted to see that look of admiration and respect on Martha’s face directed toward him. Or Martha learning how to make friends with Theo’s assistance.  The one small part of the story that I felt wasn’t as well integrated was Martha’s desire for a school for girls. I wasn’t convinced that her school would provide the empowerment that she desired and it lacked the flavor of the tenant / land management issues in the book. I also thought that the first three chapters started off a bit slow and I worried that Martha would be preachy and insufferable for the whole book (she’s not at all).

I don’t think I can really convey how amazing this book is. I hope people just give it a chance. Read the first chapter in the store. Take advantage of the “Sample” feature for ebookstores. It’s worth that small effort to see if the book captures a reader’s attention. I was captivated from the first chapter. A-

Best regards,

Jane

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Back in 2006, Jayne and I wrote a few reviews of our all time favorite books.  We primarily read and review “new to us” books whether those are new publications or recently republished backlist titles.  Because of that, our archives are thin as it pertains to the books which might considered modern [...]]]> Dear Ms. Garwood:

Back in 2006, Jayne and I wrote a few reviews of our all time favorite books.  We primarily read and review “new to us” books whether those are new publications or recently republished backlist titles.  Because of that, our archives are thin as it pertains to the books which might considered modern romance classics.  The holidays are a perfect time to remedy that.

“The Bride” is one of my most often read books.  I purchased it new in 1989 and proceeded to read it so many times that the spine fell apart.  When Penguin (who apparently must have bought Garwood’s digital backlist titles after they reverted from her original publisher, Pocket) began rolling out the release of new titles, I snapped up my copy.  At $5.99, I felt like I was getting a real bargain.

Jamie is the youngest daughter of Baron Jamison who owes the crown money. To pay his debt he offers two of his daughters to marry two Scottish Lairds to help cement a peace between Scotland and England.

In many ways, this is a twist on the Cinderella story. Jamie’s mother came to Baron Jamison with Jamie quickening in the belly. Jamison treats Jamie as his own. But Jamie pays for her place in the family by working.  When her mother died, Jamie slowly but steadily took over the mistress duties and her father let her. Jamie’s hands are calloused and her step-sisters are not. She runs the keep, manages the finances, and ensures that the family has a home over their head. What saves Jamie from coming off as a pained martyr is she is portrayed as not only embracing her role as doyenne of the keep, but welcoming it. She doesn’t see herself as being used or abused by her family. When she is taken to Scotland and instructed to rest, she believes that her new husband isn’t valuing her.

The fairy godmother might be the stablemaster, Beak, a Scot himself who views the Scottish Lairds appearance at Baron Jamison’s keep as a way to give Jamie a new and better life.  He confronts the two Scottish Lairds, Alec Kincaid and Daniel Ferguson, and tells them that the Baron Jamison treats his daughters like his horses:

Baron Jamison treats his daughters just like his horses and that’s a fact. Only have a look around you and you’ll get my meaning soon enough. The pretty little ladies in these three stalls are for the baron’s daughters, right there for anyone to see. But if you’ll walk down this long corridor and turn the bend, you’ll see another stall hidden away in the far corner by the side door. It’s separated from the others. That’s where the baron keeps his beauty, a magnificent white pretty just waiting for a proper mating.

Jamie is beautiful, a wonder at healing, capable of managing a huge keep, able to tame the wildest of horses.  Yet, for all her perfection, she is somehow relatable.  She doesn’t view herself as beautiful and every other skill she has she deems without much value.  She acts as if she is ordinary even if those around her view her otherwise.

Alec Kincaid is a fierce warrior who is only taking an English Bride to appease his King.  His first wife killed herself and The Kincaid, as they call him, views a wife with as much interest as he has for his horse.  Despite Jamie’s beauty, her strong defense of her family, and her winsome manner, Alec still is intent on placing Jamie firmly in the wife category, much to Jamie’s dismay.

Jamie doesn’t allow Alec to walk over her. Her strong personality and the rightness she feels in her own beliefs impel her to challenge him: “Alec, if I’m not any good at kissing, it’s your fault, not mine. Maybe you aren’t any good, either. What think you of that possibility?”

Neither Jamie nor Alec change much in the story.  Their character arcs are subtle.  Jamie begins to see her self worth shouldn’t be tied up in how much work she does for others.  Alec’s insistence on holding himself emotionally apart softens when he falls in love with Jamie.  In a true melding of the best of both worlds, Jamie’s deliberate refusal to understand the intricacies of clan feuds highlights the ridiculous nature of some of them but she also comes to understand the fierce loyalty the clan system invoked.  Robin once said that the key to a captivity narrative is that the captive changes the captor and his people in some measurable fashion.  ”The Bride” exemplifies this.  Jamie is taken from her home, a forced Bride, and changes Alec and his people by adopting the best of their culture and melding in her own sensibilities to create a more harmonious life for everyone.

“The Bride” features classic Garwood tropes. The inept but beautiful heroine (usually English). The stoic, long suffering Scottish Laird who must marry to protect his people but has no intention of caring for the lass. The reluctant clan that is won over by the heroine’s dogged attempts to fit in. Humorous gags that repeat themselves throughout the book. In “The Bride,” it is Jamie’s poor sense of direction and her name.

“I’ve been in England too long,” he admitted, “else I’d find your arguments overbearing, wife.”

“Will you quit calling me ‘wife’? I have a name. Can you not call me Jamie?”

“It’s a man’s name.”

She wanted to throttle him. “It’s my name.”

“We’ll find another.”

“We will not.”

and

“It isn’t decent to touch like this in front of others, Alec.”

“It isn’t?”

She ignored the amusement in his voice. “No, it isn’t,” she repeated. “And my name is Jamie. You’ve still to say it, Alec.”

“It’s a man’s name.”

“Are we back to that?”

“Aye, we are.”

and

“Did you say your name was Jane?”

“No, it’s Jamie,” she instructed.

She nodded when Gavin continued to look confused.

The soldier turned to Alec and blurted out, “But that’s a man’s name.”

Throughout the text, “that’s a man’s name” is a repeated refrain, always interjected at just the right moment to provide comedic relief.  The use of repetitive phrases and motifs are not limited to humor. In the first sex scene between Jamie and Alec, the phrase “Not yet” is traded back and forth between the two, first used by Alec to signal that he isn’t ready to put an end to their activities and her introduction to intimacy and then by Jamie to inform Alec that she isn’t ready to stop.

Another writerly technique that is employed very effectively is the cliffhanger chapter endings matched by startling chapter beginnings.  Chapter One starts with “They said he killed his first wife” and ends with “Still? it would make the kill so much sweeter.  Chapter Three ends with:

“It will be a frigid day in heaven before I marry you, milord, a frigid day indeed.”

“You’ve just described the Highlands in winter, lass. And you will marry me.”

“Never.”

Exactly one hour later, Lady Jamison was wed to Alec Kincaid.

and Chapter Five begins with “She wore black to her wedding.”  There are no wasted scenes in this book.  Every word that is stated by the characters is important in either building the characters or advancing the plot.  The use of repetition is done with obvious intent and not because of a writerly tic.

Probably nothing in this book is historically accurate, but I care not.  As Jayne famously recited in her review of “The Raven Prince” by Elizabeth Hoyt: “I so believed in the romance and the world you’d created between these two that if you’d told me they got into a Range Rover and drove off into the sunset on the M25 I would have nodded and said “of course, that’s the perfect vehicle for Jock to fit into”. That is how I feel about “The Bride” and a whole series of historicals written by you.  A

Best regards,

Jane

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You’ve done it again. While Bad Boyfriend is perhaps not as perfect (to my mind) as No Souvenirs, I much prefer it to Bad Company. The book focuses on two fascinating men and their relationship with each other and with those that surround them. There’s no intrigue, no mystery. There’s just people trying to [...]]]> Dear Ms. Mitchell.

You’ve done it again. While Bad Boyfriend is perhaps not as perfect (to my mind) as No Souvenirs, I much prefer it to Bad Company. The book focuses on two fascinating men and their relationship with each other and with those that surround them. There’s no intrigue, no mystery. There’s just people trying to live life without getting hurt too much. Eli and Quinn just jump off the page from the first time they touch and they don’t let go until their book is done.

The book opens with Quinn having sex with Peter, his boyfriend of ten years, for the first time in four months. The next day, Peter leaves him because he’s getting married to the woman he got pregnant two months prior. Not only is Quinn in Peter’s wedding to  Chrissy, who has no idea about Quinn’s history with Peter, but she asks Quinn to be the baby’s godfather. So the story really starts the night before the baptism. Quinn’s at the local gay bar with his friend:

“I’m not still in love with him if that’s what you’re saying.”

“So prove it. Put an end to this insanity with a big fuck you.”

“Like how?”

“Show up tomorrow with a drag queen on your arm and ask Peter if he thinks she makes your dick look bigger.” [This is totally one of the reasons I read your books, Ms. Mitchell, for lines like this. Beautiful.]

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“His family. They’ve always been good to me. I couldn’t—” He hadn’t worried about losing touch with Peter’s brother Dennis. They went back too far for that, had been through too much in the Academy together, but he’d thought losing Peter meant losing the rest of the Laurents too—cracking on pop culture with Peter’s sister Alyssa, war games with Peter’s dad, and worst of all, losing Peter’s mom. Claire had welcomed him, mothered him, from the first time Dennis had brought him home on their break from the Academy. Two weeks after Peter moved out, Claire had called to tell him her son’s business was his own, but as far as she was concerned, Quinn was still a member of her family. He couldn’t humiliate them in church like that. [This is the -- very believable because fully explained -- motivation for much of the story. Peter's family is more important to Quinn than Peter is by this point. They're the only family he has and they love him for who he is, whether or not Peter left him.]

But the idea of showing up with a date, a very obviously gay date, someone who Peter would have to notice, got entrenched in Quinn’s brain.

So Quinn finds Eli. Eli is friends with Nate and Kellan, the heroes of Bad Company (Bad Boyfriend stands alone but it’s a little bit richer if you’ve read Bad Company first). Eli is 22 (Quinn is 35). Eli has never not been out, he’s never been able to hide who he is:

Eli had always been out. He didn’t really know how to make it a question of what he was willing to talk about. People took one look at him and knew he was gay. Not for the first time he thought it was a lot harder to look like Quinn, stupid little ponytail and all.

So he works it instead:

Being fuckable was something Eli aspired to every second of the day.

[Not incidentally, this book is filled with "favorite lines" for me. At one point, Eli is trying to explain to Peter's very straight brother that Peter hit on him (Eli):

"[He's] A man whore. He hit on me.”

Dennis rolled his eyes.

It was Eli’s turn to fold his arms. “I’ll have you know most gay guys find me hot.”

Dennis looked like he was trying to figure out why.

Anyway…]

So Quinn approaches Eli to ask him to go to the baptism in the morning and somehow gets sidetracked into the hottest sex he’s ever had. The hottest sex Eli has ever had to. And something I haven’t read before in a m/m romance (although maybe I’m not looking hard enough):

He slid his hand down the muscle-ridged torso and landed on what he’d already felt rub on his belly. The fat length of Quinn’s dick stretched up to just under the waistband of his jeans. Eli stroked and let the inside of his wrist find the damp head pushing up past the denim.

“Ooo, Daddy,” Eli purred. “Is this all for me?”

Quinn didn’t stop smiling, but he looked like now they were both in on the joke. “Only if you’re a good boy.”

“Oh, I’m always good.”

Yes, Quinn and Eli get each other off with Daddy kink (I can’t find an explanatory link that’s not fanfic related). FWIW, Daddy kink is not in the slightest age-play or incest-play, or at least it’s not in this book. It’s an older, more dominant man with a younger, submissive man, using “Daddy” and “boy” as their sex-related nicknames. And in this book it’s completely fucking hot.

And…that’s really the book. Quinn and Eli have to find their way to each other, despite the hot sex, despite Quinn’s attachment to Peter’s family, despite Eli’s abandonment issues. Quinn has to appreciate the joy and heat Eli brings to his life, while Eli has to trust that Quinn will never let him go.

This book not only has the best one-liners; it also has some of the best, most deeply personal relationship-related lines:

Every game Eli had played, tied spread-eagle, a hand or paddle bruising his ass, a flogger stinging into his crack, nothing had ever forced surrender on him like this deep, gentle fuck from Quinn. Eli had thought he liked to give up control, take a break for awhile and let a man push sensation onto his body. This was different.

Terrifying.

Because this was what it was like to really lose control. To let Quinn inside, to let him make Eli feel so much more than the amazing sensations of bodies together.

And inside that surrender was safety. Quinn around him, voice in his ear whispering, “I’ve got you. Let me make you feel good, honey.”

But really, one of the best expressions of love I’ve ever read is when Quinn desperately tells Eli:

And even if you end up breaking my heart, I won’t mind, if I get to have you in my life for awhile.

::melt::

This review is much more about impressions than a solid narrative of my reading experience because that’s what it feels like to read it. I’ve read this book at least four times, and each time I read it I get a different, deeper impression of how Quinn and Eli fit together so perfectly, how they work perfectly, how they become better people together by becoming more themselves. It’s easy just to remember the kinky sex, but each time I reread it, the lines I go back to again and again are about the relationship, not the sex.

Problems? First, Quinn and Eli have the big scene in which they figure each other out, figure their relationship out, and then…there’s one last scene with Peter and his family. And while it was a necessary scene for finishing up the loose ends of the story, I vaguely wish the emotional climax (hur hur) finished the book instead. I see why it had to happen that way, and I usually love to see characters just being together with a full understanding of their love for each other, but Quinn had already had his “I feel nothing for Peter anymore” scene before the final two scenes, so this seemed a bit too much.

And second, Peter was just…so fucking selfish I don’t understand how Quinn managed to miss it for so long or how Peter managed not to be an asshole for long enough that Quinn stayed with him. I get that it’s stress that really brings out the worst (or best) in people, so we’re seeing him at his worse, but there needed to be some redeeming something to make me understand why Quinn stayed for so long.

But overall, I adore, once again, how you let the reader work things out for ourselves. You don’t force-feed us the characters’ motivations; you don’t even spoon-feed us. You let us figure it out as the characters do. And that helps me know, viscerally, that these characters are utterly made for each other.

Grade: A-

Best regards,
-Sarah

P.S. OMG, that cover’s brilliant. Those two men are perfect for Eli and his attitude and for Quinn and his smile.

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I’ve been intrigued by your writing for a while. Your tagline is “Kink, love, and a happy ending. Do you Dare?” which I think is incredibly cute. Honestly, though, I’ve been put off by your publishers (Total-e-Bound and Resplendence Publishing…who?) and by the fact that your series are quite so long (TWELVE [...]]]> Dear Ms. Dare.

I’ve been intrigued by your writing for a while. Your tagline is “Kink, love, and a happy ending. Do you Dare?” which I think is incredibly cute. Honestly, though, I’ve been put off by your publishers (Total-e-Bound and Resplendence Publishing…who?) and by the fact that your series are quite so long (TWELVE stories?!). But I bit the bullet, bought all TWELVE of your G-A-Y series, and I’m going to review ALL of them here.

I chose the G-A-Y series because they’re all m/m, they’re all kink (as all your books are), and they “revolve around various problems gay men might encounter. The stories can all stand alone, and can all be read in any order,” although I’m reading them in order. And the series is complete, so I won’t be missing any. $36 initially seemed steep for 12 stories, but, God, these are SO good, it’s almost worth it.

TL;DR overall impressions for those who can’t be bothered:

• The editing sucks. Doubled words, missed words, and homonyms, worse in some stories than in others. So I was right to be leery of your publisher. And the prices are a bit ridiculous: $2.96 each for 15,000 words each. It just seems…a bit much.
• However! The stories are AMAZING. Oh my ghods, lots of angst; perfect emotional arcs for the short novella size of the stories; amazing distinct, individual characters; hot hot sex.
• The stories are all D/s. You’ve got very little pain play in the stories (except one) and occasional sneers about “sadists” which set up my hackles. But the D/s is fun and very well done and it’s SO fucking refreshing to have stories in which the fact that the characters are D/s isn’t where the angst and trauma is located.
• I’ve read more of your stories than this series (all m/m, though — none of your m/f yet) , and unreservedly recommend every one I’ve read. You’re a very consistent author with strong writing, strong individual characters, great conflict that gets solved satisfyingly every single time, and really great sex.

1. Gaydar
Mathias has incredibly bad luck with men. Either his gaydar is completely messed up, or he’s got really good asshole-dar. He makes an assignation to meet someone in the men’s room of a bar, only to be met there instead — and thoroughly kissed — by the bartender, who has been watching him and lusting after him for months. None of Matt’s experiences have ever been more than fumblings in the dark or an hour in a hotel room, so he’s completely unprepared not only to be with someone who is out, proud, happy, and looking for a longterm relationship, but is also a dominant. He’s very confused and very turned on:

The moment Flynn closed the door, Matt dropped to his knees and reached for the other man’s fly. Flynn easily caught both his wrists in his grip before he even felt denim under his finger tips.

“Don’t do that,” Matt protested.

“Do you remember what your safe word is?” Flynn checked.

Matt nodded. “Yes, but I find it a hell of a lot easier to think when you don’t do that, so if you’re going to start confusing me again, I’d much prefer it if you didn’t hold on to me like that.”

Flynn smiled. “It only distracts you because you like it, don’t you? Being held like this, belonging to another man.”

Matt looked at his wrists, somewhat scared by just how much he loved the feel of Flynn’s hands wrapped tight around his skin. Trying to push that aside, he cleared his throat. “I’d also like to suck you off. I’m good at that. I know what I’m doing with that.”

“I’m sure you do.” He made no move to release Matt’s wrists and let him get on with it.

Matt looked down. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he whispered, surprised by his own honesty. Without knowing what it was Flynn wanted, he had no idea how to keep Flynn wanting anything at all from him and that was even scarier than the lust that shot through his veins every time Flynn’s hands took hold of him.

I liked this story. Told entirely from the perspective of Matt, he’s funny and sweet and sad — partly it’s his unrealized submissive nature that steers him wrong in the first place — and it’s great to see him get his happy ending. Flynn was…pretty much a cipher, but he liked, respected, and wanted Matt and that showed. The only thing that was annoying was Flynn talked about himself in the third person: “It’s not a test. Just show your master how much you like sucking his cock and everything will be fine.” I loved the collaring scene in this story, how it shows that Matt has the courage to go after what he wants. And the sex is hot.

Grade: B+

2. Gay Like You
Tristan’s mother is trying to set him up with someone, anyone. She invites Cory to dinner, someone Tristan knew in high school but who hasn’t been around for years. Cory hasn’t been around because his family threw him out when he was 15. It’s implied, although never stated outright, that he hustled to make do. Certainly he doesn’t know how to interact with Tristan at all without bringing sex into the equation. Tristan shows him that he likes Cory without the sex, but it takes some intense work to get Cory to believe him:

Tristan turned the smaller man around in his grip. “If we have sex like this, you’ll disappear and I’ll never see you again.”

He had no doubt about that. Something about Cody screamed his need to belong to a man who didn’t screw him at the first opportunity. Even if Cody didn’t know it was what he needed, Tristan knew he had to prove that he knew Cody was more than a convenient screw.

“You think I’ll stick around to be turned down again?” Cody snapped. “Thanks, but humiliation isn’t one of my kinks.”

As a result of the waiting, the sex is put off and put off and is intensely emotional when it happens. I LOVED this story. I loved the angst. I loved Cody’s emotional barrier. I loved Tristan’s solution. It’s told from the alternating perspective of both men. And the sex was SO hot. I can’t think of anything wrong with it besides the fact that it was too short. Hits all MY buttons.

Grade: A-

3. Gay Till Graduation
Baxter, who is gay, has lusted after his best friend for years. Spencer, who is bi, is swearing off women, because they might get pregnant and thereby prevent successful college graduation, as it does for a mutual acquaintance, six months before graduation. He’s also intrigued and, we get the impression, pissed that Baxter’s been seen subbing at a kink club. Spencer’s “gay till graduation” vow quickly includes “Baxter’s master till graduation.” Three months later, they’re doing well together, but there are cracks at the edges because Baxter’s convinced Spence is going to dump him as soon as they graduate. Seeing his stress, six weeks later, Spencer’s trying to convince Baxter that everything will be better after graduation, which hurts Baxter terribly, because he thinks Spencer wants to get rid of him.

It’s all one Big Misunderstanding, but for all that, it’s well done and believable. And the fight they have is so well done. Authors can write good sex, good barriers, good resolution, but still fuck up fights. This fight was great and natural and fun. And the make-up sex is, naturally, awesome.

Grade: B+

4. Gay For Pay

This is NOT a Gay For You story, like I thought it would be. Ben Smith is a security consultant and has been charged with finding the missing son of one of his clients. He finds Nate Lockwood for auction as “Gay for Pay” in a ridiculous BDSM club. He buys Nate (hope he can expense that!) and gets him out of the club. He then works out that Nate has promised his father never to say that he’s gay (we find out that it’s because his father is worried that Nate, with his submissive nature, won’t be able to hold his own in business when the gold diggers come out after he comes out — it’s complicated…).

I thought the plot was a little too far-fetched, but Ben’s gentle, dominant guidance of Nate’s first sexual (and first BDSM encounter) was sweet and hot. The story wraps up all the emotional ends very nicely, but there’s one thing at the end that’s odd. Ben gets Nate to sign two documents and then uses the fact that Nate signed without reading them as an object lesson in the fact that Ben’s not a gold digger and doesn’t want any of Nate’s money. But we never find out what the documents are. And that’s just strange.

Grade: B-

5. Gay Divorcee

This one was a little odd. Jones is raving about the possibilities of gay marriage equality at a BDSM club and pisses of Grayson, an older Dom who, it is revealed after he makes a fool of himself ranting about how gay marriage should be banned, married his submissive as soon as he was able to but then found his submissive fucking another man and had to get divorced. So he’s bitter. But not bitter enough to refuse Jones’ offer of spending Christmas together. They hit it off while they each try to figure out what Christmas means to them, but have too much vodka-spiked punch. In their drunkenness, Grayson collars Jones using his submissive’s old collar and when he realizes in the sober light of morning what he’s done, he vows to take things much slower.

What I like about Dare’s work is how she’s got 24 men in these stories, and even though 12 of them are dominant and 12 of them are submissive, they’re all still very distinct from each other, as is the sex and even the D/s interaction between the men. This one is about two men who are really comfortable with themselves and their sexualities finding out what they like about each other and how they can negotiate each other’s baggage and still have a successful relationship, very little angst involved. Gentle, sweet, and hot.

Grade: B

6. Gay Since Today

Tyler Harris and James Ford are at university. Tyler’s had a crush, both romantic and kinky, on James Ford, even though James is straight. Except Tyler’s friend comes to tell him that James is in the gay bar across the street. Tyler rushes there and meets James, who’s just come out (“Gay Since Today”). Tyler takes him back to his place and introduces him not only to gay sex, but also to kinky sex — and he’s right: James is a fabulous dominant. But after their first encounter, it looks like James was pulling off an elaborate April Fool’s joke, rather than really coming out. The Medium-Sized Misunderstanding is dealt with quickly and the boys get back together.

I love reading about an experienced submissive and a virgin-dominant coming into his own. It’s so seldom done because the balance of being “tutored” by the submissive and still exercising dominance is pretty difficult to do. But Dare does a pretty good job. The misunderstanding in the middle was…annoying more than anything else and it seemed that the heroes went through the same realizations in the second half as they did in the first half.

But at the end, there’s a HUGE error about the day on which everything happened. First encounter is March 31, second is April 1, but at the end of the novel, they’re saying it was April 1, and then April 2. Pulled me right out of the story and pissed me off right royally.

Grade: C

7. Gay Pride

Jayden shows up drunk and wearing only a gay pride flag on Crenshaw’s doorstep. Crenshaw is a gay and leather rights activist. Jayden is a reporter who nominally wants to interview him, but really just wants to introduce himself to Crenshaw and hopefully start a relationship. Crenshaw refuses Jayden’s drunk advances that night but allows Jayden to sleep on his couch and in the morning they start to explore their attraction. Crenshaw introduces Jayden to some pretty heavy bondage and Jayden loves it. There’s a hiccup when Jayden announces that he’s a reporter and Crenshaw takes it the wrong way, but Jayden sticks up for himself and gets Crenshaw to admit that he’s wrong in his assumptions.

Over all cute, but not a standout story. I like that Jayden stands up for himself, but the opening scene where he’s naked and drunk and Crenshaw turns him down (rightly so) is a little wince-inducing. But the sex is hot because so unusual

Grade: B

8. Gay Man Seeks Same

Craig McKinley has a huge crush on his coworker Donovan but feels that Donovan’s way out of his league, experience-wise, and anyway, he just wants to find one guy to love and grow old with and he knows One-Night-Stand Donovan doesn’t that. So he goes onto an online dating site and tries to find someone else like him. His first date turns out to be…with Donovan, who is finally ready to admit his interest — his long-term interest. But Craig is convinced that Donovan wants with him what he’s had with all his other lovers. Refusing to consider any alternatives, he figures this is a chance for him to have one night with Donovan before he moves on.

Donovan doesn’t make clear until the very end that he’s interested in anything other than a one night stand, so the reader is taken in as much as Craig is, especially since Craig is the only point-of-view character. Donovan is dominant, of course, so Craig gets to explore bondage with his friend. Confronted with Donovan’s bedroom of kinky delights, Craig feels overwhelmed. Donovan asks him:

“Do you know what my favourite thing is—what I like to play with more than anything in the world?”

Craig shook his head.

“A submissive. Without a man to tie up, the rest is all pointless. It’s the man who goes in the bondage that’s important—everything else is just window dressing.”

I love that answer. :)

Grade: B-

9. Gay Friendly

Ellis is 18 and goes with his cousin to a “gay friendly” hotel, where he finds himself fending off unwanted advances from all the other guests. Thompson helps him out by granting him a collar of protection and then letting Ellis sleep in his room when Ellis’s cousin’s friends get too “friendly” in their room. Over the next week, Ellis and Thompson slowly start exploring each other.

The age difference here was a bit squicky: Thompson is over 30, Ellis is 18. But Dare doesn’t leave this undiscussed. Thompson insists that Ellis ask for everything, that it be obvious to all concerned that Ellis wants everything that happens to him. And it goes deeper than that:

Part of him couldn’t help but believe that Ellis would be far better off with a vanilla boy his own age. Except he’d seen how panicked Ellis became when he was with a man who wasn’t old enough to know how to take his time and appreciate someone who was so new to everything. And he’d seen the way Ellis had soaked up every touch of dominance that had been offered to him.

Bowing his head, Thompson brushed another gentle kiss against the younger man’s lips and forced himself to face the true facts of the matter. He had no intention of telling Ellis he would be better off with another kind of man because the thought of another man laying a hand on him made him want to throttle the guy. He tightened his grip around Ellis’ wrists at the very idea. Ellis whimpered his approval and rose onto his tip toes in the hopes of gaining a deeper kiss.

Because the age difference isn’t ignored, and because Thompson is such a mature character, perfectly aware of how far and how fast he’s falling and how to deal with Ellis, I totally trusted that these two would make it, despite the age difference.

Grade: B

10. Gay Best Friend

And here we have the Gay For You story I was expecting earlier and the opposite type of sub from the previous story. Carlton, who is straight, is best friends with Bryce, who is gay. At the pub one day, Carlton is sort of goaded into kissing Bryce (the other guys they’re with made a bet behind their backs, but Carlton noticed, kissed Bryce, and took the ante for the bet and split it with Bryce). This precipitates Carlton getting trashed, finding out that Bryce is not only gay, but kinky, not only kinky, but a very pushy, brash submissive, and then trying out his Gay-For-You feelings out on Bryce when utterly smashed. Bryce pours him into a cab, but the next time they get together, they explore things a bit more.

This is another story with an inexperienced dominant and an experience submissive. But this submissive is very dominant in his everyday interactions with everyone:

As fantastic a friend as he was, Carlton was more than a little aware that Bryce had the potential to be a complete bastard when you caught him in the wrong mood, and he sure as hell wasn’t the kind of guy to make things easy for a friend who suddenly found himself out of his depth.

No, Carlton couldn’t help but smile a fraction at the idea of him babying someone through anything. Bryce was very much the ‘learn how to swim fast or get back into the shallow end where you belong’ kind of guy.

I love how we get into Donovan’s head, even though the whole story’s from Carlton’s perspective:

The look of easy relaxation Carlton had seen in his friend’s expression earlier in the night deepened with every moment that passed, as if Bryce had focused in on that one task and, if only for a little while, that let him forget about the rest of the world.

I also love that this story has the dominant choosing to bottom for sex, to make a point to his submissive about how “Gay For You” he really is:

When Carlton opened his eyes, Bryce was staring up at him. It was only then that he really realised just how closely every single move he made, his every reaction was being studied. And Bryce would remember it all. He had no doubt about that. Bryce would always know, and he’d always know that his gay best friend knew just how much pleasure shone in his eyes when he rode him for the first time.

Loved this story all around.

Grade: A

11. Gayday! Gayday!

Okay, first thing: Rip and Slade? Really? Scraping the bottom of the name barrel there. >.<

Right. So, Rip is a submissive who has a habit of getting himself in over his head at clubs. At which point he calls Slade, his dominant but straight — or so Rip thinks — friend to come save him. And Slade’s happy to oblige, giving them a great scene each time he does, with no strings attached. Except both Rip and Slade increasingly want strings. Finally, Rip gets himself into a really bad situation…and gets himself out of it again, meaning, he thinks, that his need for Slade’s “white knight” routine is exposed for the ruse it has been for a long time. Then things get really interesting.

I love the twist at the end where Rip thinks he’s messed everything up by NOT needing saving. But I found it incredibly frustrating that he remains utterly blind to the fact that Slade is very very bisexual. Even at the end, Rip thinks:

he had never allowed himself to fall so far into his fantasies that he’d forgotten he was playing with a straight man who was occasionally willing to indulge in a little guy-on-guy kink when given the right motivation.

This is quite so frustrating, because it’s made very clear in their very first scene that Slade comfortably identifies as bi.

That aside, this is a great story. It’s one of the very few that has some pain play in the D/s when Slade punishes Rip.

Grade: B+

12. Gayish

After reading eleven really strong, interesting, sexy stories, it was very disappointing to read the last one of the group. It seemed very scattered and confused and the characters seemed a little off.

Ben Langford, out and proud, is at a gay pride rally in the rain. He sees across the road, standing in the rain, the deli counter guy he’s been lusting after for months. The guy’s either waiting for a bus, or trying to get up the courage to go to the rally. Langford takes him home, dries him off, takes him back out to the rally to introduce him to people, then takes him back home and fucks him. And I understood why he did that, but it dragged the story out and didn’t seem to add much to character development. And Tayton was just a wet blanket. I wanted him to grow a spine and he never really did.

Grade: C-

Overall, except for the last story, I loved these stories. They all did a great job at showing the very beginnings of twelve different relationships between twelve different couples. Each of the characters were distinct, as were all the relationships, all the D/s pairings. This series utterly hooked me on your writing. Which is great, because you seem to do a lot of it.

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Steampunk is that subgenre I want to love, that I think has so much potential. Unfortunately, we have a rocky relationship. I’ve attempted to read too many novels in which the steampunk trappings are superficial — put a pair of goggles on someone, mention an airship, and have someone drink some tea seem [...]]]> Dear Authors,

Steampunk is that subgenre I want to love, that I think has so much potential. Unfortunately, we have a rocky relationship. I’ve attempted to read too many novels in which the steampunk trappings are superficial — put a pair of goggles on someone, mention an airship, and have someone drink some tea seem to be all that’s required. It can be disappointing.

This anthology, however, spans the gamut of what steampunk can offer. From the South Pacific or ancient Rome, it takes us to places beyond the traditional Victorian England setting. Some stories take place in the modern day; others in the far-flung future on an outpost-like planet. In total, Steampunk! collects twelve stories and two short comics. For the purposes of this review, I’ll only be covering the included short stories simply because my review copy mangled the comic formatting so badly I could barely follow what was going on.

“Some Fortunate Future Day” by Cassandra Clare
The opening story is surprisingly creepy. The protagonist is a teenage girl who’s been living alone for some time. Her father went off to war, and she has no idea if he’s ever coming back. The only thing keeping her company in that big, empty house are the automatons her father made for her. That is, they did until the day an injured soldier comes crawling out of the forest and into her garden.

I thought this story did a great job showing how the innocent can transform into something menacing. It starts off on a normal, if melancholy, note but as it progresses, the tone becomes increasingly ominous. Things that seem harmless transform into the creepy and macabre. In the end, the protagonist — for all her faults — is a pitiful person, left alone and caught in a self-destructive cycle. B

“The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” by Libba Bray
My favorite story of the entire anthology, “Last Ride” takes place on an outpost planet, proving that even a sci-fi western can embody the heart and soul of steampunk. This tale is about a young woman who left her religious fundamentalist home and sought her fortune as a gifted tinkerer of technology. First, as a watchmaker’s apprentice, then as part of a investigative task force, she later goes undercover with a gang of female outlaws who rob trains courtesy of a gun that can stop time.

This short story reminded me of why I love Libba Bray’s writing and makes me want to give Beauty Queens another try. The strong voice of the narrator combined with the female outlaws and a heroine with a strong technological bent, it features so many of my favorite elements. I also loved how it interwove the present-day plot with the past events that drove the heroine to her present circumstances. A-

“Clockwore Fagin” by Cory Doctorow
I’ve heard a lot about Doctorow’s work so I read this story with interest. It tackles the disabled orphan trope of many a Victorian story, portraying children who’ve sustained injuries (lost limbs, lost extremities) from working on various forms of steampunk technology and are sent to an orphanage under the care and guidance of an abusive monster. The main story gets going, however, when a new orphan arrives and faces their caretaker head on.

I won’t say that this isn’t an interesting story nor will I say this isn’t a well-written story. It’s both of these things. But for all that, it left me feeling ambivalent. B-

“Hand in Glove” by Ysabeau S. Wilce
What’s a steampunk anthology without a mad scientist story? This story features a female detective who struggles not against sexism but against skepticism over her style of investigation — one that utilizes forensics (e.g. fingerprints and evidence) over beating confessions out of suspects (who, past a certain point, would admit to anything to make the pain stop). Her rival, the golden boy of the precinct, has just caught the perpetrator of a series of brutal stranglings. Our heroine, however, thinks he’s gotten the wrong guy because none of the evidence supports it but no one will believe her. Despite this, she won’t stop her own investigation because she refuses to let an innocent man hang.

This story was entertaining and over the top. It treaded just barely on this side of ludicrous and made it work all the more because of it. Overall, I thought it was a good story but the ending left me unsatisfied because it lacked that comeuppance of the golden boy rival for mocking the heroine. I admit I prefer that in my stories, realistic or not. B

“The Ghost of Cwnlech Manor” by Delia Sherman
This is the gothic offering of the anthology, complete with absent-minded heir of an established family, a young local woman who becomes the housekeeper, and a ghost who knows the location of the family treasure. Again, another well-written story but not particularly exciting. While I liked that the story didn’t walk the well-trodden “housekeeper falls for heir” storyline, I wish there’d been a little more life to the narrative. As far as I’m concerned, the best part of the story was the ghost. Poor thing. I’d be annoyed too if the person I’d been trying to reveal the location of the family treasure to completely explained away my existence and wouldn’t acknowledge it because he was a man of science. C

“Gethsemane” by Elizabeth Knox
Chronicling what happens to the denizens of a South Pacific town before a volcanic eruption, this is one of those stories where I knew it was referencing something while reading it. Unfortunately, not knowing the what it was actually referencing, I suspect a lot of the context went right over my head. I never connected with any of the characters nor cared what happened to any of them. Perhaps if I’d been familiar with the reference/event beforehand, my initial experience would have been different. As it is, my reaction can only be described as “meh.”C-

“The Summer People” by Kelly Link
In addition to being what I consider a characteristic Kelly Link story, this is also one that pushes what steampunk can be. More magic realism than outright genre SFF, it’s about a girl whose female ancestors have taken care of the local faeries for generations. The steampunk comes in with the faerie inventions that they bestow on their caretakers and people they like.

I liked “The Summer People” more for the ideas and concepts it introduces than for the feelings it left me. In the end, it’s about escaping the burdens parents leave their children and while that’s something I can understand, I also don’t like that often times in stories it means finding someone else to take your place. Sure, I’d like to think the replacement would be more willing and happy to do so, but there’s a part of me that dislikes a character for doing so. C+

“Peace in Our Time” by Garth Nix
I have a feeling this story is one that only Garth Nix fans would enjoy. While I thought the technology portrayed in the story was great, an example of how versatile steampunk can be, I thought it was depressing and there were parts of it I could not understand. I think it might have been better as a longer story. D

“Nowhere Fast” by Christopher Rowe
In a future where technology has broken down and the U.S. is divided into sectors, a group of teenagers meet a guy with a car. And I use the term “car” very loosely. But given the state of technology, this is a big deal that causes a ruckus among the local people and law enforcement. When I finished this story, I felt like it was an extended set-up that finished just as the main narrative was about to start. Disappointing. C-

“Steam Girl” by Dylan Horrocks
Similar to Kelly Link’s story in which it’s set in the modern day, “Steam Punk” tells the story of a high school outcast who befriends the new girl, another outcast who tells the awesome adventures about a young woman named “Steam Girl.” What I liked best about this story is that it can be read two ways. It can be about a girl telling stories about an alter-ego that lives an amazing, adventurous life to make her real life in high school bearable. At the same time, though, I think the story plants enough hints to make you doubt that and wonder if she is in fact telling the truth and is really from an alternate universe where she used to be Steam Girl. The second option is more outlandish, I’ll give you that, but wouldn’t it be nice to imagine that was true? B

“Everything Amiable and Obliging” by Holly Black
The fantasy of manners offering of the anthology, Black’s story tells the tale of a young woman who’s been recently orphaned and taken in by her aunt. But unlike other stories where the relatives hate her or treat her badly, this aunt actually wants her to marry her son. Now our heroine would like nothing more than this as well. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem aware of her existence which is a change from their childhood. Things get further complicated when her aunt’s other child, a daughter, falls in love with one of the house robots. Awkward.

This is my second favorite story of the anthology and one I wish could have been longer. Not because it needed to be longer but because I wanted to see more of Amelia and Valerian. That said, I felt horribly sorry for the robot who’s become the object of the sister’s affections. I suspect that fate is not a good one for him. Robot or not, it can’t be a good thing to be wanted solely because you’re incapable of saying no! B+

“The Oracle Engine” by M.T. Anderson
I suspect the final story of the anthology is one that is simply not for me. A reader-story mismatch, if you will. It puts a steampunk spin on ancient Rome, which I like, and portrays a revenge tale, which I normally like even more, but I admit I found it boring. It’s written in a semi-historical voice (it’s meant to be a translation), but it just didn’t work for me. C

While I’m not sure this anthology is worth the price of hardcover, I liked that it contained a variety of stories set in different places and time periods as well as spanned many different genres. When I think of an anthology, this is the sort of variety I expect. I also like that there was good representation of women and minorities. And once again, I do think “Last Ride of the Glory Girls” is not a story to be missed and the anthology is worth checking out for that story alone.

My regards,
Jia

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The title of this book is what got my attention. I mean, how could it not? Once I saw it, I knew I had to read it. Who’s the Rat God? Who is his bride? What on earth is going on here?

If not for her actress sister-in-law Chrysandra Flamande taking her [...]]]> Dear Ms. Hambly,

The title of this book is what got my attention. I mean, how could it not? Once I saw it, I knew I had to read it. Who’s the Rat God? Who is his bride? What on earth is going on here?

If not for her actress sister-in-law Chrysandra Flamande taking her in, WWI widowed Norah Blackstone would still be an underpaid, overworked servant to a nasty, older woman in gray Manchester, England. Sometimes Norah still can’t believe how Christine blew into her life and whisked her away to sunny California as a companion to Christine as well as her three Pekinese dogs – Buttercreme, Chang Ming and Black Jasmine.

Though she can’t act to save her life, Christine is in the movie business and the pampered mistress of studio head A.F. Brown who’s given his “mad about all things Chinese” rising star a beautiful, though unusual, necklace reputed to have been looted from the Imperial Palace. On the night of the premiere of her latest movie two things happen – Norah meets camera man Alec Mindelbaum and an older Chinese man desperately tries to warn Christine of a life or death evil that’s been raised by her wearing the necklace. Already used to the lengths that movie fans will go to in order to see their favorites, Norah dismisses the odd old man though she and Alec agree he wasn’t like the usual fans.

But later that same night two more things happen – a stunt double who wore the necklace is brutally murdered and a violent storm blows through the area during which the three Pekes go berserk. The next morning the Chinese man, Shang Ko, appears and almost mystically manages to be hired as Christine’s groundskeeper. Still, no one is willing to believe what he says about the necklace and how it means Christine is now promised to an ancient, evil Manchurian god. But when bizarre things begin to happen on a location shoot followed by a mind blowing event after a star studded party, Christine, Norah and Alec can’t deny that something evil is lurking and maybe the old man is right. Can the four of them thwart the Rat God of his promised bride and keep from destroying half of Los Angeles while they do it?

After I read the glowing review of this book at All About Romance, I immediately ordered a used copy online that then sat on some bookshelves near my computer desk for years, silently urging me to read it. Finally I took it down and slid it into my reading rotation. Now that I finally read it, I wish I’d done so years ago. It’s fascinating, well written, fast paced and packed with tension leading to a dynamite ending. It’s also got a sweet romance between a woman who thought her heart was dead and a fantastic hero who’s probably a good four inches shorter than she is, bearded and who wears glasses. Readers who want to experience an unusual hero need look no further.

A friend of mine has Pekes and the descriptions of Christine’s three furry protectors are so accurate that they come alive for me as individual little people from Buttercreme’s outraged hiding when people visit the house, to Chang’s conviction that everyone is a long lost relative and finally little Jasmine struggling up and down stairs while being extremely vocal about that. They are also fiercely protective of both their mistress and Norah and play important roles in the ultimate take down of the Rat God.

The world of 1920s Hollywood with all its pre Hays Code wildness is vividly brought to life. The film stars of the day might have earned more money than the average American would see in a lifetime but the physical and mental cost of the 18 hour work days and churning out a film a month would need the easily prescribed cocaine to keep them going. And who cared for Prohibition? Free flowing booze, some of it even safely made!, was the order of the day. Sleek Nash roadsters, beaded flapper dresses and elegant cigarette holders add to the visual images that filled my head while reading the book.

As for the fantasy elements of the story, I guess if a reader is willing to buy a book called “Bride of the Rat God,” then he or she will be willing to go along with the plot. Clues are woven into the story from the beginning but one thing I like is how you gently drop them into the narrative without pointing neon arrows at them. Yeah the premise, when examined as a whole, is outrageous but since it’s doled out little by little, I had time to swallow the tiny pieces and buy into the whole shebang. The time frame of the story is also crucial since it draws on actual things which were common then such as powerful studio heads manipulating crime scenes to protect their investments, the simultaneous mania for China with the blatant racism against the Chinese in L.A., the specific locations in and around the city which feature in the book plus the “free for all” film industry of the day.

As well the danger is slowly revealed such as when Norah notices something about the foundation of Christine’s house after the early storm that scares her yet it’s another page or two before what alarms her is finally described. It allows time for my brain to magnify the mystery and terror of what could possibly be there and the implications that arise. Later on all the clues and forshadowing make sense but the whole thing is allowed to build to the thrilling climax.

The wealth of period detail, the pulse pounding ending, the complex characters, the tight narrative and three wonderful little dogs make “Bride of the Rat God” a winner for me. I wish it was currently in print but there are used copies to be found and an ebook version available. For people tired of vampires, were-creatures, Regencies, gazillionaire CEOs and secretly pregnant heroines this is something different to sit down and fall in love with. A

~Jayne

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When I first ran across this book on Amazon, I couldn’t wait for it to be released. While I have a spotty track record with Young Adult books, the concept was very intriguing for me – a supervolcano eruption that turns the world into chaos. As I read, I couldn’t help but [...]]]> Dear Mr. Mullin,

When I first ran across this book on Amazon, I couldn’t wait for it to be released. While I have a spotty track record with Young Adult books, the concept was very intriguing for me – a supervolcano eruption that turns the world into chaos. As I read, I couldn’t help but compare this novel to the Susan Beth Pfeffer books and I’m pleased to say it held up very well and provided a much needed dose of variety in the dystopian/post-apocalyptic glutted shelves of Young Adult.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a typical sixteen year old boy.  When his family wants to go away to Illinois for the weekend to visit family, Alex prefers to stay home and spend the weekend by himself. His parents are nervous to leave him, but he’s old enough. They never expected that the supervolcano below Yellowstone would erupt, sending the world into chaos. Alex’s house is hit by a boulder flying through the air and it collapses. No one knows what is going on. He’s rescued by the neighbors just as soon as the next phase of the eruption starts – an endless stream of ear-shattering explosions and ash falling through the sky. A few days later, he is on the run and decides to set off on foot to find his parents in Illinois, even if it means crossing a hundred miles in the aftermath of the volcano.

This book is hard to summarize because so very much happens through the story. We see Alex go from a spoiled, self-centered sixteen year old boy into a thoughtful, resilient young man capable of surviving the worst the apocalypse has to throw at him. When the story starts, the narrative is almost childish in its shallowness and occasional petulant moments, and I wasn’t sure I was going to like the story or Alex. But we see Alex change over time. He starts to realize that with the world in chaos, the old rules don’t apply, and he adapts. Alex becomes more likable the tougher his world gets.

Along the journey, he meets Darla. I loved Darla. She’s a farm girl who doesn’t have time for Alex’s nonsense. She’s tough and hard and by far the most competent character in the book. Slowly, Darla grows to respect Alex and eventually they turn to each other for comfort and even love. I appreciated that their ‘romance’ did not begin instantly and that Darla was smart and resilient on her own without being useless. Too often I feel that female characters are delegated to auxiliary roles in order to show how amazing the male main character is, but I felt that was not the case in Ashfall. Darla is stronger than Alex, more competent, and yet she needs him just as badly as he needs her.

The world in this book was very stark and brutal. I have heard this story compared to The Road for teens, and while I don’t know if I would go that far, I compared it to Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It  or The Dead and The Gone in that we experience the characters struggling to survive as the world changes around them. Characters are murdered. People starve. There are few places for Alex and Darla to find a safe haven at. No one is spared from the ash, and then the early winter that sets on. There are thugs and cannibals everywhere, trying to scrape out a living. There is brutality and starvation and winter and fighting for food, but there is also a note of hope and Alex and Darla cling to each other. I liked that we got to experience what Alex and Darla were going through as the apocalypse unfolded. I feel as if too often authors prefer to show the post-apocalyptic angle and have the apocalypse happen after the fact. That was not the case here; the characters are thrown head-first into the apocalypse and experience every stage as it happens.

This book has a few flaws: I found it tough to warm up to Alex for the first fifty pages or so. Also, toward the last 70% of the book, there was a plot turn that I was not surprised to see, and I felt it slowed down the story a bit. But that did not mar my overall enjoyment and I enthusiastically recommend this one to anyone who enjoys a good,  dark, grim apocalypse story with a hint of romance, or those looking for more boy books to fill up their libraries. There is a sequel that comes out next year and I am looking forward to it.  A-

All best,

January

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I was a bit apprehensive about this book. I guess after reading The Iron Duke, I was sure that this book would be a let down. Archimedes Fox was charming but could I buy him as a male lead? Would he be strong enough for a character like Yasmeen? In order to make Fox [...]]]> Dear Ms. Brook:

I was a bit apprehensive about this book. I guess after reading The Iron Duke, I was sure that this book would be a let down. Archimedes Fox was charming but could I buy him as a male lead? Would he be strong enough for a character like Yasmeen? In order to make Fox appealing, would you have to defang Yasmeen (because that would be even worse)? All of these doubts kind of hovered around the periphery of my subconscious as I began to read. Those quickly dissipated as I found myself lost within this rich, textured world that is the Iron Seas.

The Iron Seas series is an alternate reality set in the Victorian period.  Much of the world is under the control of the Horde.  The Horde released nanobots in sugar which infected the people who ate sugared items.  Once the nanobots were inside a person, that person was subject to the power of radio towers controlled by the Horde.  These nanobots create a sort of super human allowing humans to heal faster, live longer.  However, they also allowed the Horde to suppress their emotion or drive them into frenzies. In England, the radio towers were destroyed by the Iron Duke and the country is still reeling from the revolution and the aftermath.

Yasmeen is an airship captain who fought with the Iron Duke.  Archimedes Fox is an adventurer, kind of a treasure hunter who finds rare items and sells them for money.  Yasmeen and Archimedes met in the Iron Duke when Archimedes needed transport.  In a fever and not thinking right, Archimedes challenged Yasmeen’s control over her ship and she sent him over the side of the ship into zombies below.  She believes that he has died. Yasmeen isn’t sure whether she’s glad that he hasn’t expired when Archimedes shows up again.

Yasmeen and Fox end up on a journey together to look for Da Vinci’s clockwork army. The man who has hired them to undertake this task understands that it might be a fruitless mission but even if they shouldn’t find the ultimate prize, surely there will be artifacts to be picked up along the way that will make the expedition worthwhile.

Fox tells Yasmeen up front that he is going to fall in love with her. Yasmeen just kind of smirks at his declaration. Fox loves taking risks, the more dangerous the better. Nothing can be more dangerous than being in love with Lady Corsair. What we learn is that Fox was once under the control of a tower for a short time. He was sick and to save him, he was given a blood transfusion from a bugger (a person infected with nanobots). The tower deadened Fox’s feelings and he hated that. Once out of reach of the tower, Fox embraces feelings of all kinds, particularly the extreme ones.  He’s a perfect foil for Yasmeen who is all about control.

Yasmeen’s attachments are few. She has bonds with her crew but she’s been betrayed by men in her past, particularly because the men she has enjoyed have always wanted to exert their control, particularly over her in ways that diminished her in front of her crew which would diminish her reputation and jeopardize her ability to command her ship.  Over the course of the book, you begin to see them both be more balanced. Fox understanding that his pursuit of love as a game is more dangerous than being chase by zombies. Yasmeen recognizing that bonds and tethers don’t always hold you down, but can lift you up and strengthen you.

This story is full of adventure. It’s got great lines. (At one point, Fox bursts in just as Yasmeen is finishing off a bad guy and says “Goddammit. Can’t I save you just once?” or when they are crawling in the dark ““I think God is angry with me,” Archimedes grumbled in French. “My face is all but buried in your delectable ass, and I can’t see to enjoy a moment of it.”)

This is a more charming and funnier and less agnsty read than The Iron Duke but the world building is just as rich, the characters incredibly vibrant, and the love story just as amazing.  I do think of the book as an adventure first and a love story second but I think it is because of Yasmeen’s fear of love.  It takes her a while to acknowledge her feelings for Archimedes which isn’t the norm in romance these days and thus Yasmeen might come off a bit cold.

In answering the questions I had at the beginning, Yasmeen is not defanged but Archimedes is her match.  Not because he can save her.  He probably could but Yasmeen doesn’t need saving in a physical sense but she did need someone like Fox to make her realize the extent of her connections to the people around her and that life could be richer savoring those connections instead of cutting them off.  Yasmeen and Fox could have both lived perfectly acceptable lives  without each other but together, they were happier and that’s a romance story I really appreciate.   A-

Best regards,

Jane

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The novel “The Black Hawk” begins in 1818, six hundred yards from number saeven Meeks street where Justine, a former member of the French “Police Secrete,” long estranged [...]]]> Reader Christine sent me this beautiful review of Joanna Bourne’s book, The Black Hawk, and I am honored to share it with the DA readership.

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The novel “The Black Hawk” begins in 1818, six hundred yards from number saeven Meeks street where Justine, a former member of the French “Police Secrete,” long estranged from her former lover Adrian, now Head of British Secret Service, is hurrying to his headquarters to break their impasse and warn him of a deadly plot she has uncovered being woven around him. An assassin attacks and Justine has her first face to face meeting in years with Adrian while lying gravely wounded on the rug of the entryway. I say the novel begins in 1818 rather than the story, because as any follower of this author knows, Adrian and Justine’s story really “began” twenty two years before.

The greatest danger of any novel where a supporting character becomes a standout over several books and readers clamor for their story is disappointment. When their tale is finally told it is often impossible for the book to live up to what may be years of reader anticipation and expectation. It can result in a perceived triumph (Zsadist and Bella) or a letdown (Gina and Max) by its readers.

I had followed the story of “Hawker” aka Adrian Hawkhurst, not chronologically, but in the order Joanna Bourne wrote her books. First encountering him as a wry, seasoned and flirtatious 18 year old agent during “The Spymaster’s Lady,” leaping forward nine years in time in “My Lord and Spymaster” to learn more secrets of his past, enjoying his avuncular role with the heroine and his new responsibilities as  head of section, to finally hurtle back in “The Forbidden Rose” to see him on his first mission  in 1794 as a surly thirteen year old thief and cutthroat pressed into British Service after a botched job robbing their headquarters. Hopping about in his history like Dr. Who on the Tardis, touching down in this time or that, here and there, not fully understanding the implications of a random sentence in his “future” until offered a “later” glimpse into his past. I enjoyed myself picking up pieces of his puzzle and felt clever for sussing out the clues woven by Bourne into the novels. Bits of Justine and Adrian’s history are seeded in these books, offering tantalizing glimpses of what promised to be an epic and passionate romance begun in 1794 with two very precocious thirteen year old agents working for opposing sides during the French Revolution.

My anticipation for this novel was so great that when the parcel containing the ARC arrived at my home, I clawed it open leaving shreds of envelope in my wake as I charged up the stairs, book in hand to barricade myself in my room with this Holy Grail until I had learned all the twists and turns of their story. Whenever Joanna Bourne publishes a new novel the temptation for me is to devour the book as quickly as possible, gulping it down whole in my rush to experience it. This does her work an injustice however, as books by her are like a box of fine Laduree macaroons, not cheap junk food. They should be leisurely savored as the exquisite delicacies they are, for Bourne is a master wordsmith, able to charm, excite or break a reader’s heart with the stroke of her pen.

When I settled in to read, from the first page all my fears of disappointment melted away. This is the story I was hoping to read, and even better than imagined. While the novel begins in 1818 we don’t miss a piece of Adrian and Justine’s relationship. From 1794 on, through “flashbacks” we follow the growth of their friendship and love while they act as official adversaries but frequent allies during one of the most tumultuous periods in history.

Because of their past, this romance is more wistful than Bourne’s previous works and feels more serious. In previous books the couples’ stories evolve over a matter of weeks, not years. By allowing their relationship to mature and evolve over time, their story seems the most passionate and complete. It is also the most heartbreaking as time and circumstances serve to continually separate them. This is not to say the romance is dark or depressing, for when the two are together their sheer joy in each other’s company leaps off of the page. As Adrian observes, admiring Justine “Owl, at work was bright as the edge of a diamond, hot as fire sparks. Tonight heat glowed out of her, from wanting him. He glowed right back, wanting her.” Knowing their romance jeopardizes both of their lives they still cannot help snatching stolen moments across most of Europe while in the midst of intrigues and wars that continuously put them on opposite sides.

One of the most refreshing things about Adrian and Justine how is equal they are as a couple in almost every way, including age, experience and drive. Justine and Adrian struggle to meet in the middle on so many grounds, literally and figuratively. He is bettering himself after a ragged upbringing in the toughest part of London as a cutthroat and burglar for the “King of Thieves,” while she is striving to deal with the horrific abuse done to her after knowing only a privileged childhood as an aristocrat.  He is clawing his way up from the bottom; she is struggling to survive there after a plummet from the top. Both are using their native intelligence and respective opportunities in the “game” to advance their positions in life. In so many novels the woman is the inferior to the man, trailing along in his wake and content to conform her world to his. While Justine has the misfortune to be both a woman and on the losing side of the war, she pursues her goals as ruthlessly and advances as steadily in her world as Adrian does in his. Their relationship does not culminate in her conceding or “seeing the error of her ways” as she is a true idealist for her cause, willing to sacrifice her life for a man that she sees as bringing the first sense of equality to her country. In her opinion “Napoleon was all that held France together. He was the great man of this age. He renounced the worst excesses of the Republic but kept the great gains. Because Napoleon held France, all men could vote. The Jew, the Black, the poorest peasant in the field- every one of them was French and free…The Republic had been purchased with rivers of blood. Only Napoleon could preserve it.”  So often in novels the means for keeping a couple apart seems contrived and false and the characters appear foolish as a result of letting it happen. In “The Black Hawk” it seems perfectly logical throughout the book that not only their opposite sides, but their equally strong wills would keep them from finding a way to be permanently together for so many years.

Perhaps the most touching thing about Adrian and Justine’s romance is how well they know and accept each other. Justine, emotionally scarred by her abuse has allowed it to define her in her own mind. “For some things there is no lie big enough…The knowledge of what she was lay down at night to sleep beside her. Stared at her from the mirror every morning. “I was a child whore in the most fashionable and degenerate house in Europe.” “I can escape France but I cannot escape what I am.” In Adrian she finds a kindred soul who has already come to terms with the violent life he was born into and considers any escape from the narrow confines of it a triumph. The acceptance Justine sees in his eyes helps her to work through her feelings of self loathing. “His voice poured warmth over the cold inside her. He knew what she was. Knew what she had done. There was no condemnation in him. He had done terrible things, himself.” Their love affair, rather than shameful, is seen as cleansing by Justine, a kind of rebaptism, and begins initially (and quite symbolically) in the middle of a downpour. Adrian continually thinks of himself as two people, the street thief he was born and “Sir Adrian” the persona he created over years of study and work. He makes a careful division between the friends who know him as a respectable servant of the crown and those that knew him when. Adrian allows only Justine to see a part of him he has had to repave to advance in the world. When they reconnect briefly in England in their later teens Justine asks him to speak English for the first time with her but he initially refuses as “They don’t want me speaking English.” “I don’t do it right.” He quickly relents and allows Justine to hear his tentative and imperfect new “upper class” accent.  Each is unafraid to show each other the parts they hide from the rest of the world. In lives that are led totally in deception they can be truly honest only with each other.

Throughout “The Black Hawk” Bourne provides so many scenes I had longed for as a reader, a glimpse into Adrian’s home life in England, Severine and Justine interacting in France and later after her adoption, Meeks Street under Adrian’s rule with new upstart apprentices (who do not react as Adrian did to a recycled barb of Carruthers), Doyle as older agent and advisor, and the close friendship that develops between former rivals Pax and Adrian. Chief amongst these joys is seeing Justine and Adrian together and through each other’s eyes.

At one point Justine’s observes a now adult Adrian, her lover, while hiding together. “His jacket fell open around him, pulled by the weight of the knives he carried in secret pockets inside. He slouched beside her. The gray waistcoat fitted his body as close as skin, showing a man of lean muscle. A tomcat of a man. A sleek imperturbable hunter. The strength of him, the danger, the coiled spring of unlikely possibilities that was Adrian Hawker – all contained within that elegance.”

Their mutual admiration for each other is based in a healthy appreciation for each other’s intellect and skill, and pride in each other’s accomplishments. While Adrian frequently remarks on how beautiful he finds Justine, he is just as impressed with her intelligence and tenacity. “Ten feet from the door he let himself look back. Owl had attached herself to that bastard Napoleon, playing guard. She was drawn up straight, all steel ready to shoot anybody who looked at Bonaparte cross-eyed. Clever Owl. Consummate professional. Nothing she didn’t see.” When Adrian figures out a complex riddle perplexing them both, Justine is just as appreciative of his mental acuity and tells him. “You are more than adequate.” He was her Hawker and he was brilliant. He was already pacing back and forth across the rugs. Thinking. Plotting. Muttering to himself. Had she not seen this a hundred times? She had never wanted him more. She said “I must leave. This will require preparation.” And because there was no one else to tell him this. “You have been clever. You are very, very clever.” Both Adrian and Justine are, and for a reader nothing is more enjoyable than reading a beautifully written story about two highly intelligent people.

I have tried to avoid spoilers for the plot as I feel any reader should be allowed to be carried along and experience the books twists and turns as breathlessly as I did, but I will say an underlying theme of this book is the manipulation of children and how they are used and/or abused by both sides of the conflict. This is something both Justine and Adrian feel keenly and work to prevent when they can. I don’t however, think it is a spoiler to say there is a clever twist I did not foresee, and that eventually everything ends happily, perfectly, but not in any way saccharinely. There are no big reunions between Justine and Adrian and couples of previous books. No gratuitous mentions of other characters are made; the only characters revisited are integral to the times and the plot. There are as always, a few oblique references that Bourne includes which never fail to make me feel clever when I catch them. (One very small one- Adrian is said to be very wealthy and among his holdings is a partial ownership in a shipping company. Any guesses who the other owners could be?)  

As a reader of all of Joanna Bourne’s works, with the exception of the frustratingly elusive “Her Ladyship’s Companion,” my opinion is this is the best novel she has written and destined to be a classic in the romance genre. If you have read Joanna Bourne’s work before you know what a compliment this is, and the depths she is capable of.

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After my review of Dangerous Neighbors last year, I became quite a fan of yours.  Quite a fan indeed.  It’s rare that I find a literary YA author that I connect with on a writing level, but your writing sits alongside the likes of Catherine Ryan Hyde and others for me.  You [...]]]> Dear Ms. Kephart,

After my review of Dangerous Neighbors last year, I became quite a fan of yours.  Quite a fan indeed.  It’s rare that I find a literary YA author that I connect with on a writing level, but your writing sits alongside the likes of Catherine Ryan Hyde and others for me.  You have a poetic way with words that I will follow anywhere, and You Are My Only is really a take-off from what I’ve read from you previously.

Dangerous Neighbors is a dramatic historical novel, and House of Dance is a lighter contemporary work with shades of drama.  You Are My Only is a departure from these previous reads of yours, but I have to say it’s a fitting one that should impress many readers looking for a unique experience.

Sophie has been homeschooled since she was very young.  Her mother hasn’t let her go to a public school or go out of the house for long stretches of time.  She hasn’t visited relatives the way other kids have instead she visits houses.    That’s what Sophie and her mother do.  They move so often that it’s all Sophie is familiar with.

This life for Sophie isn’t normal and on some level, Sophie knows it.  She knows that her mother’s overprotective nature isn’t healthy.  She knows that the life she lives inside the various houses they move into isn’t typical.  Her mother may help her learn about the importance of complicated history and sciences, but she can’t help her daughter learn about the outside world.

As dangerous as it has been made to be, Sophie has to take the plunge.  She leaves the confines of the blanketed world her mother has created.  Something so simple leads to a momentous change in Sophie’s life: a friendship with her next-door neighbor, Joey, and his aunts.

Fourteen years before Sophie came into the world, Emmy Rane was married and a mother just coming into her twenties.  Her marriage wasn’t the best, but she got through it with the love of her baby.  Her child.  Her only.

It was no surprise that Emmy lost the threads of her sanity when her baby was stolen away from her.  Emmy falls apart.  What’s left of her joy and her thoughts is as mangled and smokey as the train tracks that seem to attract her in her search for her baby.  Her husband Peter is disappointed her.  A mysterious man named Arlen attempts to pick up the parts of herself that are too broken to touch.

When Emmy is later sent away due to psychiatric reasons, she has to save herself and retain the hope that, one day, Baby will be found again.

The story that you spin is so unique in its construction.  From the beginning, the reader is allowed to witness the lives of two individuals who share a deep connection that is broken through impossible circumstances.  There is no mystery to what this connection entails, but instead to what it brings out in the characters as they live their lives.  You Are My Only is not the usual story of a separated parent and child.  It is something much, much more.

The dual perspectives of the two main characters are the first aspect of the novel that really call for attention.  Despite the fact that your distinct literary style shows quite clearly in both view-points, there is a definitive difference between the main characters and their first person voices.  Sophie’s voice is more sensible and grounded, where-as Emmy’s voice is up in the air and flitting from subject to subject.  The way they play off of each other is intriguing, especially when the essential roles of the characters are reversed from the physical ones.

Making Sophie act like the mother trying to find herself while having her physically be the daughter is why she’s so appealing.  There’s something about her that screams discovery.  The way she slowly defies her mother by simply gaining friendship is also a refreshing change of pace in characterization, and Sophie’s character makes a lot of strong connections that create a great web for the story.

Joey, Sophie’s friend, is equally charming and exuberant as a character.  Together the characters make a strong team.  A hint of romance winds throughout the text, but the strength of their relationship is based in their common friendship which is reinforced throughout the book.  Joey himself is very adventurous and propels Sophie to become more open and risk taking herself. Coupled with his aunts, he provides a creative escape for Sophie into a more warm and welcoming home than she’s ever seen.

The simple beauty of the safety of Joey’s family and how it changes and challenges Sophie is the core of her story.  In living with her mother, Sophie is subject to a life of seclusion.  The ability to open herself up to a life that isn’t cold and leeching is one that readers will cheer at the sight of.  As she gains the courage to analyze the skeletons in her mother’s closet, Sophie becomes a character that the reader wants to succeed.

Joey’s “aunts” are other major highlights of the work.  One thing that I appreciate about Miss Cloris and Miss Helen is the subtle relationship.  They are pictured as two loving aunts who are absolutely darling.  They take in the orphaned Joey and treat him like family and provide him – and soon, Sophie – with an excellent environment.  Their relationship is more than what their title implies, and you portray that beautifully.

Emmy is a more complicated character to work with in narration, and her viewpoint doesn’t work on the same level that Sophie’s does.  I appreciated the overall effect of the narration and how it connected with Sophie’s on a subtly thematic level.    The relationship between Autumn and Emmy is what brings a real light to the overall narration.  Autumn is such a boisterous character that’s wrapped in her own mystery, and she allows Emmy to open up in way that is similar to how Joey allowed Sophie to open up.

As much as I loved this connection, I did feel that Emmy’s narration was the weaker of the two.  At times her wavering sanity is hard to connect to, and the overall story is much more grounded in the magic of reality instead of the complicated musings of Emmy’s brain.  It’s also hard to tell if the treatments Emmy receives are truly accurate enough because of the way her narration takes place.  Sophie is a straightforward narrator that suggests honesty, but Emmy is a tougher nut to crack that is almost too elusive at times.

The use of first person present as the narration tense is also risky.  You do that frequently in your novels, but as a reader it can go very badly if the voice or styling of the narration doesn’t hold up well.  Your prose and its flow works very well for this tense, and you make it so easy to escape into it.  There were many moments that I would find myself diving into the simple joys of the description of the novel.

“We’re Joey’s aunts,” Miss Cloris says.  “But that doesn’t mean we’re sisters.  here.  Let me show you something.”  She pushes back from the table and walks across the room.  She pulls a picture from the wall, a pencil drawing, brings it to me, sits down again.

“That you?” I ask.

“It was.”

“With eyes like that?  That hair?”

“Time washes over, changes the look of things.  But that’s not the point I was making.  My point was, Miss Helen drew this.  Miss Helen is an artist.  Was when I met her and always has been.  I fell for her Wonderland dioramas.”

I nod, confused, and Miss Cloris’s face gets far away – the look in her eyes, the smile not for me.  “You ever been to Wonderland?” she asks me now.

“No, ma’am,” I say.

“Don’t deny yourself, you hear me?”

You Are My Only is a book that could so easily fall into others of its ilk.  It has the makings of a high-end drama that promises teenage angst and romance, but it instead goes the less trodden path.  You use sparse prose, rich characterization, and a simple plot to share a simple connection between two people that may or may not come to fruition.  You end on a note that leaves so much left to be said, yet completes the story in such a timely way.  Minor complaints are just that – minor.  There is a reason I’m a big supporter of your work, and this is why.  My final grade is a solid A-

All the best,

John

I read your book back in August and loved it, but it’s taken me a while to get back to it for review. Reading it a second time, I still loved it and it surprised me anew with its complexity and how much I loved the characters.

The story is told from Vince’s [...]]]> Dear Ms. Turner.

I read your book back in August and loved it, but it’s taken me a while to get back to it for review. Reading it a second time, I still loved it and it surprised me anew with its complexity and how much I loved the characters.

The story is told from Vince’s first person perspective. And he’s just wonderful. He’s in LA as an aspiring actor and interviews for two roles in one day: the “straight” man on a horrible sitcom, and a character in a high-concept sci-fi show with a multicultural ensemble cast. He auditions with Alex for the sci-fi show, things click on the stage and personally, but they’re both convinced they won’t get the roles. They have an out-of-character-for-both-of-them one night stand after the audition and are shocked weeks later when they find themselves working together. The problem is that Alex is deeply in the closet professionally and personally and Vince isn’t. And Vince doesn’t do one night stands (much). So despite their mutual attraction and Vince’s huge crush on Alex, they don’t get together and don’t get together. And don’t get together. And they channel all their tension and frustration into their characters who are really close “friends” that Vince and Alex play with a strong gay subtext. These characters don’t get together and don’t get together as well.

Vince and Alex finally get together a quarter of the way through the book. This is NOT an erotic romance, by the way. It’s certainly a m/m romance, but it’s not erotic at all. Most of the sex scenes are fade to black and close the door and come back after it’s all over. Which is actually rather frustrating, considering the sexual tension that Vince and Alex (and their characters, James and Matt) create and sustain for so long.

Once they’re together, the tension comes from their differences about being in or out of the closet. Vince goes back into the closet for Alex — much to the very vocal disgust of his friends and family — but it’s a constant tension in their actual relationship, as we see when Vince invites Alex to go home to Chicago with him for Christmas. Alex agrees, then freaks out in the airport when they’re recognized by another actor. He eventually makes it to Chicago and Vince forgives him, but the tension is real and Vince just doesn’t GET why Alex insists on the closet so strongly, while at the same time Vince wants to push the gay subtext in the show to text because he believes its Important.

One of the joys of this book for me, especially reading it the second time, was really seeing how Vince came to understand Alex’s viewpoint on the closet. Alex has a horrific coming out story that just gets more and more damaging every time he tries to come out. Whenever he tries, it’s been awful for him, and as Vince stays with him (and the story takes place over more than a year), Vince comes to understand and even agree with Alex’s perspective, against his own political and personal beliefs. Readers shouldn’t worry, though, because Alex comes to understand Vince’s perspective as well and they get their HEA when Alex blows the doors off his closet in about as public a way as possible.

The closet issue also means, maybe counter-intuitively, that this book is incredibly complex emotionally. The heroes get together, break up, get back together, break up, and then finally get back together again, completely remade. And this isn’t the “I love you, I hate you, I love you” of bodice rippers and Harlequin Presents. This is deep commitment to the relationship that’s torn apart by two personalities that need very different things, who are then unable to stay apart because they need each other more, who are then torn apart again by different choices and issues, who finally find their way back to each other in ways that will sustain the relationship.

I also really REALLY love the writing. I loved Vince because he’s so open and honest. I loved Alex because he’s so confused and scared. And the writing itself is sparse and perfect:

We cleaned up the mess we’d made of the apartment and then showered — together — kissing and touching and cleaning each other. Once we were out, he tied his towel around his waist and went back out into the living area, turning on the stereo system low and turning out most of the lights. I stood in the living room, naked, and watched him, wondering if he wanted me to leave.

When he saw me, he went still, becoming nothing but a shadow in the dimness of the night lights and streetlights and the blue glow of the stereo control screen. He finally moved — to set down the remote — and walked towards me. I didn’t let myself back away or hide myself. If he wanted to regret this, if he wanted to be horrified by it, that was his problem, not mine. Better I know now than have to wonder.

He stopped just inches away, his eyes on mine, his expression motionless.

I didn’t say anything.

Then he unknotted his towel and let it drop to the floor, and he slid his hands up my arms to my shoulders, slowly curling around as he went, savoring the caress. My whole body shuddered and he whispered, “Stay tonight?”

“Definitely,” I said. Forever, I thought.

He pushed his fingers deep into my hair and touched his forehead to mine, softly and more intimately than a kiss. I could feel his breath on my face as he said, “Good. That’s good.”

He led the way up to his loft bedroom. Up here, the bedside lamp was on. The covers were folded back, showing inviting white sheets. Alex had speakers up here, so the low-key music purred in the background. Candles, unlit, stood on the nightstand.

He stopped by the nightstand and turned, watching me take in the room, his expression tight and unhappy. “It’s too much, right?”

“No,” I said. “No, it’s…” Ridiculously, amazingly, shockingly romantic. For once, though, I was literally lost for words. Even as I screamed for joy inside, my heart broke at how afraid he was, and how uncertain. What he must have been thinking about, worrying about.

He took it the wrong way. “Sorry, I know it’s — I don’t know what I was thinking — I mean, I haven’t ever — You’re a guy, I’m a guy, it’s stupid — ”

He was picking up the candles as if to stash them away when I reached him and caught his hands, pushing them down until the candles were back where they’d started and he’d let go of them. Now I had his attention again.

“Alex,” I said, “Stop. Take a deep breath.”

He did, and I felt him relax. I kissed him, first with just my lips, lightly and quickly across the seam of his mouth, then deeper, exploring him, taking my time, not letting him pull away or hasten things. I kept kissing him until I could feel him understanding it and relaxing into it, savoring the languid sensuality.

I didn’t know how to explain it to him, all of that crap about gender stereotypes, and expectations, and romance. I didn’t know how to tell him how thrilled I was without sounding pacifying or patronizing.

For possibly the first time in my life, I realized that the best thing to say may be nothing at all.

I lit the candles and turned off the lamp before I joined him in his bed.

My one quibble is that after watching these men through so much, the ending was very abrupt. I wanted to see them enjoy being back together, even for just a little epilogue. The final image is beautiful, sure, but there’s been so much angst and heartache and time apart, so much finality to their split, and so much careful dealing throughout the rest of the book with fallout of decisions, that I wished for a glimpse of them beyond that night just to make sure they were doing okay.

As I said back in August, I couldn’t figure out if this was fanfic with the serial numbers filed off — I *never* watch TV, so I’m really bad about figuring this stuff out. You assured us it wasn’t. And honestly, I really think it’s TOO self-conscious about the slash angle to be fanfic. Vince follows the slashfic about their characters online. The characters go to conventions and meet fans who show them explicit slashpics. Vince convinces the show’s creator to make the subtext between James and Matt overt, which precipitates changes on the show because of how it affects Alex in real life. Even if it is fanfic without serial numbers, its very self-consciousness makes it fascinating to me. And the writing is amazing enough that the story was real to me, no matter its origins.

I really loved this book both times I read it and I honestly can’t recommend it enough.

Grade: A-

Best regards,
-Sarah

P.S. God, I hate hate hate the cover for this book. Yuck. Title’s not great, either.

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I’ve heard your name mentioned whenever readers talk about their favorite m/m mysteries and paranormals. You’ve even been the subject of an If You Like column here at Dear Author. But although I’ve read your first two sets of Petit Morts stories, I never read any of your own series or standalone [...]]]> Dear Ms. Price,

I’ve heard your name mentioned whenever readers talk about their favorite m/m mysteries and paranormals. You’ve even been the subject of an If You Like column here at Dear Author. But although I’ve read your first two sets of Petit Morts stories, I never read any of your own series or standalone novels and novellas. This past summer I was looking for more m/m mysteries with romance, and I went to your website, where you generously offer half of Among the Living as a free read. It took me about 5 minutes’ reading before I bought and downloaded the whole book, kicking myself all the while for taking so long to discover it.

Among the Living is the first novel in the PsyCop series, which is set in present-day Chicago with one important twist. The Chicago Police department has a Paranormal Investigation Unit, in which detectives with a range of psychic abilities are paired with non-psychic partners (called NPs in polite conversation and Stiffs the rest of the time). You clearly know your Chicago setting, and by the end of the second chapter I knew I was in a familiar place with an expert guide.

Victor Bayne, our narrator, is a 5th-level medium;, yes, he sees dead people. Lots of them. This makes him very good at solving cases, since he can frequently talk to the murdered victims, but it also means he sees ghosts everywhere. He takes Auracel, an anti-psyactive, when he wants relief, and he lives in a spartan, all-white apartment to reduce the sensory overload when he’s at home. Vic is not exactly in the closet, but he’s not out and proud at work.

Vic is tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, so he’s apparently good-looking, but he’s also klutzy and seriously fashion-impaired:

I finished the wrap before I got home and spent an extra minute trying to get mayo off my sportcoat. I gave up when it became obvious that all I’d accomplished was embedding rolled-up fragments of cheap paper napkin all over myself. I realized that I’d dropped my other coat off at the dry cleaner’s about four months prior. And I wondered if they would give the thing to me without the pickup slip, or if they’d given it away to Goodwill by now.

Vic is one of the most engaging narrators I’ve encountered in fiction. With first person POV, a reader either takes to the narrator or gets tired of him; I can listen to Vic talk all day. He’s smart, funny, and honest about himself to the point of self-deprecation. When he falls for a fellow officer (and Stiff), the gorgeous and accomplished Jacob Marks, he can’t quite believe it’s mutual:

He slid his hot mouth from me and then flipped me around, one strong hand keeping me from tripping over the wad of clothing at my feet. “That’s right,” he said, caressing the side of my cock with his cheek. “I want to look up into your face while you come.”

And then my awkwardness increased exponentially as I realized Jacob Marks was gonna stare at me while my cock sank into his throat. He was gorgeous–simply beautiful. The most handsome man I’d ever been with, that I ever even dreamed I’d be with. And yet it was easier to spread myself wide open and half naked on that damn window than it was to look into his eyes.

Vic and Jacob are tasked to work together on a serial killer case in which the murderer kills gay men after sex and leaves their bodies in set-pieces of shattered glass. Jacob’s partner, Carolyn is a level-2 PsyCop who can tell if people are lying, which makes her a valuable detective but often awkward as a coworker or friend. Vic’s longtime Stiff has just retired, and his new partner is a young woman who has passed the test that differentiates psychics and non-psychics. The mystery storyline skillfully integrates the mundane aspects of police work with the twists that arise when psychics are involved. Vic’s harrowing training to become a PsyCop turns out to be instrumental to his ability to determine who the killer was. I was thoroughly immersed in both the mystery plot and the larger world.

This book is novella-length, but it is so well paced, and the characters are so interesting, that I didn’t notice the shorter word count. I definitely wanted more when it ended, but that was because I was engaged by the characters. I wanted to see where Vic and Jacob went after this installment’s HFN. I wanted to know what happened next to their respective partners. And I definitely wanted to read more set in almost-but-not-quite Chicago.

Much of my pleasure with the novella stems from Victor’s voice, but that voice is a reflection of your overall writing style. It’s deceptively straightforward and lacking in frills, but it rewards careful reading. Some passages that are so understated that they almost feel like throwaways, but they add immeasurably to the story and to the reading experience. The romantic storyline is developed through Vic’s matter-of-fact perspective, so although I realize and believe in Jacob’s attraction before Vic does, the depth of their mutual attachment kind of sneaks up on me. And as a consequence, the utterly romantic last paragraph gets to me much as it does to Vic.

Grade: A-

Ahoy readers: bonus materials! In addition to the novella- and novel-length installments of PsyCop, Ms. Price has written several short stories in the PsyCop world. Two of these are available for free at her website and elsewhere and bookend Among the Living. Thaw is a very short and sweet amuse-bouche that takes place after Among the Living and is set in Chicago at Christmastime. Inside Out is a prequel with an unusual genesis and is written from Jacob’s POV. Both are well worth reading.

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I heard with regret that your Petit Morts series is drawing to a close; although I was late to the party, I have enjoyed these stories very much, and I’m sad to see them end.  Short stories are difficult to write and although short fiction is plentiful in the m/m romance genre, I [...]]]> Dear Authors,

I heard with regret that your Petit Morts series is drawing to a close; although I was late to the party, I have enjoyed these stories very much, and I’m sad to see them end.  Short stories are difficult to write and although short fiction is plentiful in the m/m romance genre, I frequently find it unsatisfying and I tend to avoid it. This series was a marked exception to that rule. In anticipation of the final installments of Petit Morts, I thought I’d review the previous set, which are written by three of the four authors in the upcoming volume.

The inaugural five installments of Petit Morts featured stories by Jordan Castillo Price and Josh Lanyon, and the second set contains two stories each by these authors and adds a fifth by Sean Kennedy. The stories are largely independent of each other, but they are linked through a recurring character, Chance. Chance is a chocolatier and facilitator of romance. In each story he opens a chocolate shop and helps the main character find his romantic partner. The stories are all set in the present, and Chance is the only supernatural element in them (at least I think he’s supernatural, and at this point in the series everyone and everything other than the chocolates are mortal and normal). The stories share a common tone, balancing serious issues with lightheartedness, but they also reflect the individual authorial sensibilities of their writers.

Pretty Ugly (PM #6) by Jordan Castillo Price. Dominic is a professional photographer who is very good at his job but rarely has personal relationships that last more than an evening or two. He attributes this to his ugly face, and now, in his early forties, he has come to terms with it. While photographing a society event he makes the acquaintance of a young and handsome country singer who seems to return his interest, but they are unable to get together that night. They make plans for the following evening, but in the meantime Dominic eats a delicious chocolate, photographs another event, gets his car stolen, and encounters an even more unexpected romantic possibility. The writing is smooth and Dominic’s character is well drawn. The shift in romantic focus threw me a bit, but the ending was unexpected and satisfying. Grade: B.

Sort of Stranger Than Fiction (PM #7) by Josh Lanyon. A stranger comes to a tiny western town, this time in the guise of a war veteran named Michael. Ethan, who runs a bookstore/coffee shop with his twin sister, has been crushing on the gorgeous but scarred Michael since he arrived, but figures he has no chance. But when Ethan says something unforgivably rude and Michael overhears him, it shatters their previous impersonal relationship and allows them to be honest. Lanyon’s skill at conveying depth and complexity in a small package is evident in this story. He takes gentle digs at writers’ groups and small-town life, but he also reminds us that there are people everywhere who dream of having something different, something that takes them out of their everyday lives. Michael remains enigmatic, and his attraction to Ethan was not fully apparent to me, but the twists and turns kept me turning the pages. Grade: B

One Less Stiff At the Funeral (PM#8) by Sean Kennedy. Jason Harvey is trying to arrange his first service as a director at the Newlin Funeral Parlor, and Adele Conway is doing nothing to make it easy. Rivaling her late mother in rudeness and general misanthropy, she insists that there be chocolates at the funeral, claiming it was one of her mother’s last wishes. When Adele throws up her hands and turns over the funeral planning to her nephew, Frederick, Jason first heaves a sigh of relief and then perks up considerably when he comes face-to-face with Fred. Few authors can fuse sweet, funny, and charming in a story as well as Kennedy, and this short really shows off his voice. Chance and his magical chocolates play a more central and overt role, and his other-wordliness is at the forefront, as is his wit and snark. Grade: B+

Critic’s Choice (PM #9) by Josh Lanyon. This story returns to one of Lanyon’s familiar contexts: the Los Angeles of the cinema industry. Cris, a film critic and historian, is unwillingly reunted with his ex, Rey, when they meet to tape a voiceover commentary for a newly remastered edition of a horror film classic. They convene at the home of its star, the 70-something Angelo Faust. His sprawling Italianate estate is located above Sunset Boulevard (Gloria Swanson fans, take note) and guarded by a cadaverous major domo named Neat who is given to malapropisms. When car trouble, weather, and other occurrences right out of a horror film trap Cris and Rey together in Faust’s mansion, they find themselves finally talking about the individual and shared problems that drove them apart. The juxtaposition of light and clever with poignant and serious is ever-present and expertly handled. Grade: B+

Wishink Well (PM #10) by Jordan Castillo Price. This story opens from Chance’s perspective, but he isn’t opening a gourmet chocolate shop in a new town. Instead, Sweets to the Sweet is now a vending machine restocking service, and his client is Hospice House. Chance is wondering how he is supposed to facilitate true love in this environment when Eddie and his wheeled IV stand show up to buy a Pepsi. Eddie has terminal COPD, and he isn’t expecting much at Hospice House besides morphine, but he can still appreciate a gorgeous specimen like Chance. After their brief meeting, he finds that he is in possession of Chance’s fountain pen, which has properties even more magical than chocolate. Unlike the four previous stories, in which the heat level can be characterized as moderate, this features a long, explicit, and wholly essential sex scene. To describe it would be to spoil it. Under no circumstances should readers start with this installment, because part of its power derives from the way it plays on earlier portraits of Chance. The story is by turns funny, painful, and extremely moving. The writing is first-rate, and when I reached the end I turned right back to to the first page. A lovely, unusual story. Grade: A.

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1) SeaGrace 2) Eilis Flynn 3) Julie L. 4) Robyn B. 5) Amy K 6) Maggie 7) Elizabeth56 8) DarcyO 9) Maili 10) Lindsey

Please send me your snail mail address at sunita at dear author dot com.

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you Sourcebooks!

Dear [...]]]> UPDATED: The winners of the giveaway are:

1) SeaGrace
2) Eilis Flynn
3) Julie L.
4) Robyn B.
5) Amy K
6) Maggie
7) Elizabeth56
8) DarcyO
9) Maili
10) Lindsey

Please send me your snail mail address at sunita at dear author dot com.

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you Sourcebooks!

Dear Ms. Kearsley,

Your novel, The Winter Sea, blew me away last year. It was one of my Best of 2010 books, and I’ve recommended it not only to everyone I know, but to total strangers as well. When I was offered the chance to review your new novel, of course I jumped at it. But while that decision was easy, it was a little more difficult to decide just how to approach it as a reader and reviewer. A book that completely hits every mark for me is a rare and precious experience, but it also means that it takes extra effort to keep those memories from overshadowing the next read.

The Rose Garden is very much a Kearsley novel. Your voice is unmistakable, and there are aspects of structure and style that are similar to The Winter Sea. But it is also quite different in some ways. It would be wrong to categorize it as a genre romance novel, even though there is a very satisfying romance at the core of it and several smaller romantic sub-plots. It feels like a cross between a romance, a journey story (although not exactly women’s fiction), and a straight fiction novel with a strong sense of place and a wide variety of characters.

Eva, our narrator, journeys to Cornwall after the death of her movie-star sister, Katrina, in order to scatter Katrina’s ashes, grieve, and then decide what she wants to do with her life. Although their family had lived in several different countries, their summers in Cornwall held a special significance for both sisters. A successful public relations executive, Eva had settled in Los Angeles to be near to and work with Katrina. Now she is alone, and when the Halletts invite her to stay at Trelowarth while she considers the future, she accepts. She is drawn in to their world: Mark, the son and proprietor of Trelowarth Roses; Susan, his younger sister whose plans to help Trelowarth achieve a sounder financial footing make Mark uncomfortable; and Claire, their artist stepmother who provides a loving home and a link to the past.

As Eva settles in and picks up the threads of her old life, she suddenly finds herself briefly thrown back in time to Trelowarth in an earlier and more dangerous era (which readers of The Winter Sea will recognize, albeit from a different angle). At first she thinks she’s hallucinating from stress, grief, and exhaustion. But the episodes continue, and soon Eva meets the 18th-century inhabitants of the house: Daniel Butler, a sea captain, and his Irish friend and collaborator, Fergal. Daniel, Fergal, and Daniel’s charming and erratic brother Jack are enmeshed in Jacobite plotting against the Crown, as well as more run of the mill smuggling, and as Eva involuntarily goes back and forth in time her risk of being captured as a confederate of the two grows. But so does her attraction to Daniel and her friendship with Fergal, and even though she knows a great deal about what might happen to them, as well as tantalizing details about their individual futures, she falls in love with Daniel, and she is increasingly drawn to life in that period. But how can she stay in the early 18th century, and what will happen to the Eva of the 21st century and the people around her if she succeeds in going back permanently?

I am not a fan of time-travel novels as a rule, but I’m happily making an exception for your books. I really appreciate the way you deal with the small and not-so-small details, like Eva’s clothing. When Eva goes backward and forward in time, she arrives wearing time-inappropriate attire. This is manageable in the present, but the stock of clothing available to her in 1715 is much smaller. Not only do you pay attention to the dangers and ramifications of this problem, but you use it to show how Eva and Daniel’s relationship progresses, and it leads to a lovely moment in the story. When Eva is finally wearing clothing that is intended for her alone, it means something.

Equally insightful and appealing to me is how you portray gender issues. While time-travel romances tend to focus on the differences for women across the centuries, here Eva and Daniel discuss the constraints and opportunities for both men and women. Eva is frustrated by the limitations she faces in the early 1700s, but Daniel reminds her that although he has more freedom to make decisions and take public action, he too is constrained in ways that Eva realizes are different that those men face in the present:

‘I assure you, Eva, I do have a high regard for liberty.’

‘I know you do.’

‘And whatever custom may decree in public, in my family every woman has been free to speak her mind.’

‘Behind closed doors.’

He smiled and said, ‘I’ve found that there are many things more safely done behind closed doors than in the public view, by men as well as women.’ Then, more serious, ‘Do you think I am free to say exactly what I please, and when? In truth you’d be mistaken. If I stated my opinion of the current state of politics, I’d soon be clapped in irons for treason.’

He was right, I knew. ‘But even if you can’t state your opinions, you can act on them.’

‘Not openly. No, you and I are both confined to showing but one part of us in public, and another to our friends. As for the whole of us … well, that must be reserved for those few people we are fortunate enough to love and trust.’

The 18th century is so exciting, both for Eva and for the reader, that the contemporary story pales somewhat by comparison. The potential secondary and tertiary romances are enjoyable but not particularly gripping, but the Hallett family is well drawn and their individual and collective stories are engaging.

As always, the setting is beautifully depicted. I could smell the sea of Cornwall and feel the walks up The Hill, and the historical background is terrific. There is a strong sense of context without any dreaded infodumps, and the reader is immersed in the period without feeling like she’s attending a lecture.

The most difficult aspect of time-travel romance is finding a way to have an HEA that seems to make sense and that doesn’t cause too much sadness for those who are left behind. You come up with an ingenious and surprising solution to this problem, but one that is sufficiently complicated that I had to go back and read it again. So readers, be warned: when the book nears the end and the suspense is killing you, make sure to slow down while you read. I can’t explain without massive spoilers, and I’m not sure I entirely buy it, but hey, it’s a time-travel, so I can live with that. Readers can rest assured that Eva and Daniel have a satisfying HEA, and a couple of the secondary threads wrap up with happy surprises.

This novel is an example of how a story can be utterly, completely romantic in tone without having explicit sex or even many romantic interludes between the hero and heroine. It is worth keeping in mind that it does not follow the conventions of a genre romance. A key focus of the story is on Eva’s journey from a grieving sister to a woman who looks forward to her future with the man she loves (however unusually she’s reached that point), and her friendships with Fergal, Claire, and the rest of the Halletts are critical parts of that journey. The first part of the novel is accordingly quite sad, although I didn’t find it depressing. As Eva recuperates at Trelowarth and becomes involved in the Hallett’s lives, and then even more entwined in the lives of Daniel, Fergal, and Jack, the sadness recedes (although it never goes away completely, and how can it?).

The first line of this story is devastating, but the last line is filled with happiness. They make powerful bookends to a memorable novel.

Grade: A-

~ Sunita

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 Jaclyn says:

When I opened to page one of Isle of Night I was expecting a historical romance set in Scotland—presumably on the Isle of Night. The ARC I had didn’t have a cover image and because I have enjoyed your books in the past I did not seek information about the [...]]]> Dear Ms. Wolff,

 Jaclyn says:

When I opened to page one of Isle of Night I was expecting a historical romance set in Scotland—presumably on the Isle of Night. The ARC I had didn’t have a cover image and because I have enjoyed your books in the past I did not seek information about the story before starting to read. My assumption was half right: most of the story takes place on the Isle of Night.

Isle of Night begins with seventeen-year-old Annelise leaving her abusive dad’s dingy Florida apartment to register for college. The specter of her father, who uses his fists to communicate, sows the seeds of suffocating menace that permeates the pages of this story. Unable to register for college and left with no money and nowhere to go, Annelise accepts the offer of a mysterious young man to drive her to the coast. But in turns out he didn’t mean the coast of Florida, and what follows is a coming of age story set in a school that trains girls to become agents for vampires—Watchers—who travel the world doing their masters’ work, whether it means gathering information or assassinating enemies. The experience of reading this book is visceral. As I read page after page my body was tense, my heart rate picked up as Annelise faced danger, I was scared for her and simultaneously wanted her to win and to escape, but mostly I wanted her to survive.

John says:

Unlike Jaclyn, I knew from the beginning what this story was about.  I was expecting an unusual setting for YA (Scotland – not the boarding school itself, which is a common trope in YA books) and something with a little more spice than the regular vampire novel.  The blurbs and marketing have been promising this as a combination of The Hunger Games and other big YA titles.  Many of the comparisons could have set this book to fail before it even began, but I was soon sucked into Wolff’s world the same way you were.

What makes me feel like this book works from the beginning is that it’s appealing to a lot of different fronts without feeling like a pretender.  I never once questioned WHY Wolff wrote this book – which I often due with these adult-turned-YA authors that come out with hyped books – and that in and of itself is something that I am impressed by.  She strikes a tone that feels completely natural, and she manages to make everything feel suspenseful and gripping.  Even the romance.  It’s a paranormal novel that really has a lot of grit to it.

Jaclyn says:

I agree with John about the tone and level of grit in this book. The most compelling novels create rich atmospheres that allow me to drop out of the real world and immerse myself in the events of the story. Wolff does this by appealing to all of the reader’s senses. Almost all romances offer detailed visual descriptions and appeal to a reader’s emotions, describing how things look and what the characters feel; with Isle of Night, sound, taste, and scent are deftly woven into the story, and in particular sound plays an important role in Annelise’s life and maintaining the tension throughout the story.

Annelise smuggles two things into the boarding school, a photo of her mother and her iPod, deciding that her need for the solace of music and a tangible connection to her beloved mom is greater than the potential for punishment if she is caught with the forbidden items.

During the early weeks of her training these two items become a source of life support, a moment of escape from the stress of the intense Watcher training and Annelise’s way out of the school without leaving the campus. But because they are forbidden, they also become a point of stress for the reader—will she get caught? What will happen if the items are discovered? And they are eventually discovered.

My only complaint in this whole story is the iPod: whenever Annelise listened to her iPod I found myself wondering how she managed to charge it—which drew me out of the story for a brief moment.

John says:

I think Jaclyn makes a really important comment above, so I’m going to reiterate it:

 ”Almost all romances offer detailed visual descriptions…”

The comparison is very adequate on a multitude of levels.  What is so appealing about Wolff’s style is that she has all of the description and atmosphere detailing of a romance novel—which would make sense, considering she’s penned several historical romances—while still keeping the pacing and focus of a YA work.

What Jaclyn describes about Annelise is precisely why I enjoyed her character.  I haven’t read The Hunger Games, so I can’t say how she’ll compare to Katniss fans, but I felt like Wolff knew how to make a strong female character that wasn’t perfect.  The iPod and the picture are both obvious weaknesses that get exploited throughout earlier parts of the book, and I felt Wolff really understood that her character couldn’t be this perfect person.  Annelise’s weakness is such a highlight to the story, and it’s really rewarding to see her grow into someone who can be utterly ruthless.

I think that the characterization extended well into the side characters, too.  Annelise’s love interest admittedly made me swoon.  Even her friends caught my attention.  Wolff has really thought about what her world entails, and I think it’s most obvious when you consider the side characters.  She has an island in Scotland where the elite train to be vampires—which is already a step from the YA norm—and she places all of these really interesting and diverse people on it.  There are characters from around the world in this story, and they don’t feel tacked on at all.  It gives such a good idea of just how sweeping her world is.

Jaclyn says:

John makes a good point—the secondary characters enrich this story. At the same they also play into the menace—Annelise is learning a dangerous lesson about whom she can and cannot trust. Each new person she met at the school left me wondering if they would betray her, though she manages to make some genuine friends.

In the last quarter of the story violence ratchets up as all the first year trainees, including Annelise, take part in a competition for the Directorate’s Award. The girls fight in one-on-one combat. There are a few rules to the fighting, but they are not intended to keep everyone safe and the girls are often fighting for their lives. In the last match Annelise faces off against her archenemy in an epic battle. When it’s over the true threat to Annelise is revealed.

After finishing Isle of Night I sat for a moment and realized I had read it straight through. Then I immediately headed online to find out when the next book in the series will be published. Isle of Night earns a well deserved A.

John says:

Like Jaclyn, this book completely sucked me in.  I didn’t read it in one sitting, but if I had the time I easily would have.  Minor quips like the iPod easily brushed past my reading, and I think Wolff sets herself up for what promises to be a strong YA series.  A-

Cheers,

Jaclyn & John

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