I loved this book. Just loved it. I read it in one sitting, finally going to sleep at 3am on Friday night, damn you. In retrospect, it has flaws, but I didn’t notice them as I was reading.

Brad is a football player and in a frat. I really REALLY love the way the book starts:

One of Brad’s frat brothers bent over naked in the locker room showers early one Thursday morning, and he thought, “I’d tap that.”

He stood there frozen, skin stinging from the pelletized water, soap suds streaming down his chest while his world made a . . . What did they call that? Paradigm shift.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. He’d been trying to avoid this. Admitting it to himself. Consciously. His subconscious had been admitting it for a while in his sleep. Emitting it.

Brad flicked another quick look at Collin. Yeah, he still had a delectable ass. Dammit.

Brad had spent years trying to avoid the “G” word, but denial was suddenly circling the drain. He stared at the water pouring down at his feet, and thought about hanging on to the security that came with telling himself he wasn’t into guys. But it was pointless, right? It wasn’t going to go away. Trying not to know it now was like trying to make the soap suds go back in the bar.

Brad gets to the point where he just wants to figure it out, get it right for once. So he accepts that he’s gay and starts chasing his delectable history TA, Sebastian. Now, this is where I start getting really picky — do TAs just grade papers? Maybe in some schools? Are you going to have a Ph.D. student at a College? I don’t think so. And no one, NO ONE *EVER* enjoys grading. Ever. Or if they do, I wish they’d come and grade mine, dammit.

But details about academic life aside, Sebastian is hot, Brad’s hooked, and he has to work up the courage to come on to Sebastian. This takes a full quarter of the book, but I wasn’t at all bored. During that time, Brad comes out to his completely accepting family, figured out that despite his size and looks, he’s probably a bottom, comes out to an ex-girlfriend, plagiarizes a paper to try to catch Sebastian’s attention.

Once Sebastian and Brad get together, the sex is smoking hot, the relationship is interesting, and the humor is just nonstop. That’s the thing about this book — it’s laugh-out-loud funny without trying too hard to be so (and without really being excerpt-able, despite reading through the whole book again to try to find a suitable excerpt ;). Sebastian watches everything with a sort of amused, affectionate disdain, so bits of the book from his perspective were fun. And Brad is just…wonderful. He’s not particularly smart (although he’s not stupid), and watching him figure out how to be gay is just an amazing journey. He’s stubborn and intense and committed to being authentic. SUCH a great character. Just a taste:

On Saturday morning, Brad woke up early and watched Sebastian sleep. He knew it was dorky and he tried to stop, but he couldn’t seem to look away. He’d done it last Saturday, too.

He was lucky. Really fucking lucky. He wanted to just stay here forever. But he had to get back to his room and do some laundry, as well as inventory the damned kitchen at the frat house and get ready for the stupid pledge ceremony.

He sighed. He’d rather be here with his boyfriend. Who seemed to be waking up. Just before he thought Sebastian was going to open his eyes, he rolled over and scooted backward into Sebastian’s body. He didn’t want to get caught staring at the shape of Sebastian’s jaw or his long eyelashes in the sunlight, but he could rub up on him some.

Retrospective niggles (I have no idea why this part of the review came out in bullet format, but it’s better to have it written than to fight it, so here you go):

• Sebastian did not read like a 28 year old. It would have made more sense to me if he’d been doing his M.A. and he were 24 or so. But a 28 year old Ph.D. student seemed a bit more of a stretch to me with the character as written.
• Once the relationship starts, there’s not much narrative tension, except the tension that’s still about Brad figuring out who he is. Which was engaging and fun, don’t get me wrong, but not relationship-focused so much.
• The Black Moment is very slightly contrived and not exceptionally well explained. When Brad and Sebastian fight, I had to read it two or three times to really figure out exactly what was drawing them apart. Once I’d figured it out, I believed in the problem — it was subtle but strong and had been foreshadowed throughout the book. But it took me a while to get there.
• Once they split, there’s a bit too much “gathering of the support network,” as Brad puts it, before they get back together…a few too many conversations with other people before they get together to figure things out together. The book started to seem like an ensemble piece, except the ensemble didn’t really gather at the end, so that was odd.
• And the final scene ends abruptly. We’ve had pages of Brad coming out to his frat, and when he and Sebastian go upstairs…the rest of the house isn’t mentioned again at all. But then, I’m a big believer in epilogues, or slightly more drawn-out endings, post reconciliation. In my opinion, there needed to be an extra scene from the next morning, or with Brad’s brother banging on their door, telling them to quiet down, or something.

Grade: B+

Best regards,
-Sarah

P.S. Your blurb’s awful (SUCH a strange shift from second to third paragraph and it doesn’t capture the true tension of the novel), the cover’s pretty (nice abs) but strange (what IS that living room supposed to represent?), and the title’s horrible. But hey, YMMV.

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Angela James loaned this book to me and I went on to purchase my own copy ($1.99 using the Kobodollaroff coupon). This book is often recommended on the goodreads forums and it is highly rated. I totally understand the appeal because it is a very readable book plus I think that there are hookable elements such as a fantastical ideal of the bad boy who transforms for one person only. The voice of the author is compelling and her command of the characters make the book seem all the more real. The reason that it is disturbing is the fairly positive light in which this dangerous and dysfunctional relationship is portrayed. In real life or as an exemplar of a healthy relationship, this is a terrible book. It’s a book that you want to talk about with your daughter if she reads it. There may be triggers ahoy for those sensitive to physical abuse.

Abigail Abernathy attends an illegal fight in the bowels of her university early on in her freshman year. There she catches the attention of fighter Travis Maddox (whom I believe is a junior). They come into more frequent contact as a result of her best friend, America, dating Shephley (Shep), Travis’ cousin. Travis and Shep live in an apartment off campus and when the dorm showers break down, America and Abby move into the apartment.

Travis immediately attaches himself to Abby but he’s a man whore, bringing home any number of women after drunken binges. Abby recognizes that Travis is bad news right away, particularly given her past, and she agrees to be friends only with Travis.

Travis leaned so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek. “I’m sorry…did I offend you in some way?”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Then what is your problem?”

I kept my voice low. “I’m not sleeping with you. You should give up, now.”

A slow smile crept across his face before he spoke. “I haven’t asked you sleep with me,” his eyes drifted to the ceiling in thought, “have I?”

“I’m not a Barbie twin or one of your little groupies up there,” I said, glancing at the girls behind us. “I’m not impressed with your tattoos, or your boyish charm, or your forced indifference, so you can stop the antics, okay?

Travis is determined that they should be friends and Abby is helpless against Travis’ charisma.  The flirty exchanges between Travis and Abby are very cute.  Their relationship, however, to any one looking on the outside is more of a girlfriend / boyfriend. Abby sleeps with Travis in his bed, platonically. They spend almost every minute together when they aren’t in classes.  Travis worships Abby and demands every one treat her respectfully, even though he has little respect for other women.

While Travis is taking home a different girl every night, Abby starts seeing Parker, a wealthy pre med kid, who happens to be Travis’ fraternity brother.  Abby’s on again/off again relationship with Parker might drive readers crazy but I saw it as a defense mechanism.  How else could she prevent herself for falling for Travis?

I loved the setting of this book at Eastern University and Abby, Mare, Shep, and Travis felt authentically college aged to me, full of self confidence and invincibility but without the responsibilities and worries that post college brings. Eastern U must be a tiny college, though, given that it seems everyone eats lunch at the cafeteria at the same time. In some respects, this setting resembled a high school more than a large university. The dialogue was engaging and fresh. Shep warns Abby off, saying that her having a one night with Travis will lead to Shep and Mare breaking up:

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Mare. Do you know how many times he’s screwed things up for me because he one-nights the best friend? All of a sudden it’s a conflict of interest to date me because it’s fraternizing with the enemy! I’m tellin’ ya, Abby,” he looked at me, “don’t tell Mare she can’t come over or date me because you fall for Trav’s line of BS. Consider yourself warned.”

The interaction between the four was really well done and displayed the volatility of youthful romance.

I didn’t feel that Abby’s past was fleshed out enough to provide a basis for her refusal to date Travis.  It would have been easy to understand her refusal to date him based on his seeming inability to treat woman as anything other than objects but instead her refusal to date him was based on the idea that she was bad for him. Yet, this is a guy who went insane after Abby left him:

“He took a swing at Shep when he found out we helped you leave. Abby! Please tell me!” she pleaded, her eyes glossing over. “It’s scaring me!”

The fear in her eyes forced only the partial truth. “I just couldn’t say goodbye. You know it’s hard for me.”

“It’s something else, Abby. He’s gone fucking nuts! I heard him call your name, and then he stomped all over the apartment looking for you. He barged into Shep’s room, demanding to know where you were. Then he tried to call you. Over, and over and over,” she sighed. “His face was…Jesus, Abby. I’ve never seen him like that.

“He ripped his sheets off the bed, and threw them away, threw his pillows away, shattered his mirror with his fist, kicked his door…broke it from the hinges! It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

There were a number of unbelievable elements such as Travis being not only the bad boy, but a card carrying member of a popular fraternity. He smokes, is an incredible instinctive fighter, never trains, drinks constantly, drives a motorcycle, and is so brilliant he doesn’t need to study. He doesn’t even run or lift weights or engage in any kind of physical activity other than fight occasionally (and even that is not on a regular basis). At one point, he even sings in the cafeteria getting everyone to sing along with him.  His charisma is just that amazing.   Abby is an even more shallow character. We know only that she wants to remake herself in college but into what, I don’t believe if even Abby knows which would be fine except that eventually Travis becomes her whole world.

Travis’ default reaction to everything is violence, no matter the danger in which might place Abby.

Travis barreled his way onto the dance floor, and plunged his fist straight into the pirate’s face, the force sending both of us to the ground. With my palms flat on the wooden floor, I blinked my eyes in stunned disbelief. Feeling something warm and wet on my hand, I turned it over and recoiled. It was covered in blood from the man’s nose. His hand was cupped over his face, but the bright red liquid poured down his forearm as he writhed on the floor.

Travis scrambled to pick me up, seeming as shocked as I was. “Oh shit! Are you all right, Pidge?”

When I got to my feet, I yanked my arm from his grip. “Are you insane?”

America grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the crowd to the parking lot. Shepley unlocked his doors and after I slid into my seat, Travis turned to me.

“I’m sorry, Pigeon, I didn’t know he had a hold of you.”

“Your fist was two inches from my face!” I said, catching the oil-stained towel Shepley had thrown at me. I wiped the blood from my hand, revolted.

The seriousness of the situation darkened his face and he winced. “I wouldn’t have swung if I thought I could have hit you. You know that right?”

 He is a scary guy who views everyone as a threat and every situation as a potential fight.  Abby encourages this for all her protestations otherwise.  Later in the book she tells Travis to teach another guy a lesson in manners and Travis goes over and beats the hell out of said guy.

“Did you mean it when you said you didn’t want me to change?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

I looked down at Chris laughing to his teammates, and then turned to Travis. “Absolutely. Teach that asshole some manners.”

….

Travis lifted Finch’s tray off the table and swung it into Chris’ face, knocking him off his chair. Chris tried to scramble under the table, but Travis pulled him out by his legs, and then began to wail on him.

Chris curled into a ball, and then Travis kicked him in the back. Chris arched and turned, holding his hands out, allowing Travis to land several punches to his face. The blood began to flow, and Travis stood up, winded.

“If you even look at her you piece of shit, I’ll break your fuckin’ jaw!” Travis yelled. I winced when he kicked Chris in the leg one last time.

In some ways, Abby is more of a possession than a person to Travis.  Abby chastises him for acting like he is marking her, peeing on her leg (figuratively), yet despite all the warnings, this is where Abby wants to be.

This book, for its flaws, is compulsively readable. While reading the book, it is easy to get caught up in the fantasy of it and the romanticism of Travis’ strength of feeling for Abby but at the end, you are left with this uneasiness because Travis doesn’t change. He’s still the uber violent rage monster that he was in the start of the book who is routinely destroying things and then asking for forgiveness and Abby is the very young woman who keeps forgiving him.  C

Best regards,

Jane

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

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I only read this story because your name was on it. I had a truly horrendous experience once reading a story with a not-smart protagonist (it was a BDSM story and the relationship ended up as true abuse and was awful. I was depressed for days that anyone would consider that “love”), but I figured if anyone could pull it off, it would be you. I trust your voice. I trust you as an author. And I was right: you were brilliant. As always.

Al is huge and ugly and really not at all smart. And he really isn’t. It’s not that everyone thinks he’s stupid but he’s really secretly smart. He’s really stupid. He meets Larry in a dark alley one night. Al’s pissing away his beer, finishes up, walks toward Larry, and Larry thinks Al’s going to mug or rape him. But Al is oblivious and “helps” Larry home because he thinks Larry’s a bit drunk. Larry comes to Al’s work the next day to apologize and they hit it off. Larry is an Art History professor at Cambridge. Al works on the river, hauling in the punts rented to tourists and students.

The story is told from Al’s first person perspective, complete with lower class grammar and accent. There’s very little narrative tension: Larry and Al get together immediately, move in together pretty quickly. There’s a chapter in the middle where Larry thinks Al’s cheating on him, but it’s dealt with pretty quickly. The story then follows them through their quite uneventful life, their engagement and civil union ceremony.

If there’s tension, it’s in figuring out what keeps Larry and Al together. What does Larry, a college professor, see in Al, a manual laborer, to keep them together, and will it last? The whole book, therefore, is based on a sort of schadenfreude. Not quite the shameful pleasure in the misfortune of others, but an embarrassing understanding of our own assumptions about whether a man like Al could truly be loved by a man like Larry. There’s a lovely scene where Larry’s sister is helping them back together after Larry thinks he sees Al cheating on him. Al had overheard Alicia talking with Larry in a previous scene and thinks Alicia believes that he’s taking advantage of Larry:

We got in Alicia’s car. It was a Volkswagen Golf. I fitted in easy, once I’d put the seat back a bit. It took a while to get out of Cambridge, ’cause of the one-way system, and then we went down towards Trumpington.

“Don’t talk much, do you?” Alicia said.

“Nah. I leave that to Larry. He’s better at it than I am.”

She just smiled then and didn’t say nothing. I got thinking again. I wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen, ’cause she was being nice, but I knew she didn’t like me. “You don’t like me, do you?” I said.

“What? Excuse me, but here I am, driving you up to my parents’ to meet him. You think I’d do this for someone I didn’t like?”

That confused me. “I thought you wanted us to split up. You said I was taking advantage of Larry.” I forgot she didn’t know I’d heard her when she was talking to Larry in our kitchen.

“What? Wait a minute.” She didn’t say nothing for a bit while she went round a roundabout. “I think you’ve misunderstood me.”

I nodded, ’cause I do that all the time with people.

“I admit, I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, you and Lawrence. But… Look, I think you make him happy. And he’s certainly not happy now. And I don’t think you are either.”

I frowned, ’cause did that mean she thought we’d split up? And if we had, how come I didn’t know? Then I thought, I better wait until I see Larry. He’s good at explaining stuff. And he’d definitely know if we’d split up

Of course, Alicia had been yelling at Larry about taking advantage of Al’s stupidity, not the other way around. And we can see that as readers even if Al will never really understand it. Or even need to understand it.

This does bring up the fact that Larry is a bit of a prick at times. He really does love Al, but he also uses him for shock value:

Larry was in a good mood when we left. “God, did you see their faces? The entire evening? Especially Hardwicke. I don’t think he’s been so shocked since the college started admitting women!”

“Yeah, I’ve had other blokes who went out with me so they could shock their mates or their folks,” I said, ’cause it was true.

Larry stopped dead in the street, and I wondered if he’d had too much of that port to drink. And then I thought, nah, no way, the glasses were so tiny you’d need about a hundred to get pissed. Though he is kind of little and he gets pissed easy. “Al,” he said, “you know that’s not why I’m with you, don’t you?”

“I don’t know why you’re with me,” I said, ’cause I didn’t.

He looked hurt. “Why are you with me?”

That was easy. “Because you’re pretty and you’re clever and you know about paintings and you like Charlie Chaplin.”

Larry gave me a big smile. He grabbed my arm and we carried on walking. “Well, then. I’m with you because you’re gorgeous and kind and we have the same taste in comedy.”

“Okay.” I was pleased. Usually people can’t think of more than one reason why they’re with me. I know he didn’t mean it about me being gorgeous, ’cause I got a face like a squashed potato, and I know he likes cleverer stuff than Charlie Chaplin, but it was sweet of him to say it.

But in the end I believed in these two. I believed in the inherent goodness of Al and in Larry’s need for that in his life. I believed that they loved each other and they’d stay together, despite their differences.

The one thing that was fascinating to me was that the sex — and there was a lot of it — was not, in fact, hot. As everything was told from Al’s point of view, it was told in his very no nonsense voice. And as a result, just wasn’t sexy to me. I don’t know what DOES make a sex scene hot, but one told in Al’s voice isn’t it:

Larry always looks so little, folded up beneath me. It makes me kind of scared I’m going to hurt him. I pushed in really slow and gentle, so he could stop me if he needed to. “Yes, yes—don’t stop!” he said, and I thought it was probably okay. He was still hard, so I guess it couldn’t have hurt that much.

When I was all the way in, I stopped for a minute, just so I could feel him around me. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. But then Larry said, “Move! Now, for God’s sake!” so I started thrusting in and out of him, and when I do that, I always get carried away, going faster even if I don’t mean to, and soon I was slamming into him like my dick was a fist and Larry was a punch bag. “Yes! God, just like—yes!”

Larry’s face was all pink, and his hair was dark with sweat. He looked beautiful. I told him to wank himself off, and when his hand wrapped round his dick, it felt like it was around mine too, and I couldn’t help, I started coming ’cause it was all so fucking amazing. And then Larry went “Oh God!” and he was coming too, shooting his load up between us.

I just kept looking at his face, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Sweet maybe, but not sexy.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed the book. I loved, as I always do, the utter Englishness of your voice. I loved your characters, even when Larry was being a prick. And I thought it was a really sweet love story that asked some deep questions without seeming to do so.

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Sarah

Book Link | Kindle | nook
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I’ve always liked your writing. I loved your 911 (m/m to m/m/m), until you got too freaking weird on the sequels (a centaur?! Really?!). And I REALLY loved Gemini, which is, yes, a twincest, m/m/m threesome book (twins plus their boyfriend) — my utterly guilty pleasure and the reason I will never denigrate twincest books (at least m/m twincest–no possibility of pregnancy), no matter how icky it actually is. I love your characters — they feel so real, so like real people, and I love them so much. So when Prove It crossed my radar, I looked at it and liked the blurb enough that I requested it. And oh, I’m so glad I did.

Some background here is necessary because I think it colored my reading of this book quite a bit. I started going out with the man who is now my husband when I was 16, he was 17. We’d known each other for 2 years at that point, ever since I came to the US. We have now been together for almost 21 years now. We’re way more in love now that we were then and I only expect it to get better. As teenagers, we somehow worked out communication techniques and habits that have held is in good stead for two decades. We’ve certainly refined things over the years, but as a whole, things happened as teenagers that a lot of people would think are impossible because we were almost way too mature for our age. So when things like that happened in this book, it worked for me in ways that it might not for other people, depending on their background. Keeping that in mind…

Warren and Silas have known each other since they were five. They had an off-again/on-again friendship till middle school, when Tal came to town and brought them together for good as friends. The three of them are best friends with each other from then on. The story starts in omniscient POV and holds with that for a few chapters, which was actually kinda fun, before it slips into deep third person, alternating  between the three characters.

The tension comes from the fact that Tal figures girls out in middle school, Silas figures boys out in high school, but Warren…doesn’t tell anyone what he figures out. It’s obvious to the reader that he’s gay and his friends sort of know, but he doesn’t tell anyone. So we see Tal and Silas work through their teenage relationships and Warren…not. We see them all go to college and Warren finally losing his virginity, but still not talking about it with anyone, least of all with Tal or Silas. His friends finally stage an intervention in college when Warren turns 21, when Warren finally tells them he’s gay. This instigates Silas actually thinking about Warren as a potential partner, but Warren refuses to be one of Silas’s long string of boys and tells him to, as the title says, “Prove It.”

Warren finished his coffee. “Okay, so what’s up? Is this another intervention? I swear I’m not secretly straight.”

“No.” Silas sighed. “Or at least, not for you. Tal thinks that you deserve to know that, while I fully appreciate that the way you want to live your life doesn’t allow for romantic entanglements other than the occasional fuck buddy, and that you won’t be dating anyone for at least two or three or nine years, this summer aside, and while all of that makes sense and I don’t want to change it for you, or stop you from going out west to be a famous multiple-degree-getting dynamo–”

“Silas.” Tal sounded stern. “You’re going to choke on your own tangled sentences. Tell him so you two can discuss it and get on with your lives, for God’s sake.”

Warren stared at them both, not precisely sure what was going on. “Can I say something first?”

“Depends what it is,” Silas said quickly. “If it’s can we not talk at all, yes. Or even, let’s go get drunk. That’ll work, too.”

Tal snorted.

“Is this about how I love you and you love me and how we’ll try to make it work when I’m not living with a textbook?”
Silas gave him a look that was pure belligerence, and Tal managed to look surprised. Warren sighed. “Look. Here’s the thing, Silas. I know you love me, and I know you love me in a way that’s not like you love Tal. I know you can easily see us together forever. And that scares the crap out of me, honestly, because I know you. I’ve known you since you were five years old. I know every trick, every game, every honest expression you have, and I know how you love.”
Warren stood up, his heart racing and his stomach churning. If he’d known that they were going to have this talk on this morning, he wouldn’t have had coffee. It had been building for a year, but here it was, and he had to say his own truth. He’d sworn to himself that he would.

“You love with everything you have. You throw yourself at it like you’re a weapon and you consume it. And then… it doesn’t stand up. You move on, processing lessons and getting on with your life, and you even manage to avoid breaking hearts, most times. But I’m me, and I’m not one of those guys, and I refuse to be. You love me, but I’m in love with you, and I have been for a while. If you want to get with me, if you really, really want to be mine and for me to be yours, you’re going to have to prove it.”

I loved the characters in this. It was a gentle, interesting look at three guys growing up. There were no explosions, very little angst, no mystery, nothing to solve except three guys and their romantic entanglements. I loved the woman Tal ended up with, I loved Silas’s cluelessness about his feelings for Warren, and how he proved to Warren that he was serious about them. I loved the gentle focus on real people. It was  a great contemporary romance, nothing brilliant, nothing outstanding, but just a great way to spend some hours sinking into the happiness of three likable boys-to-men.

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Sarah

P.S.: I hate your website. Seriously utterly hate it. White on black and really bad Flash (I think?) that doesn’t allow linking to individual books. Really? Bad move.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN (paper)

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Circle of Change was recommended to me when I reviewed a romance that had a transsexual character. This story has a transsexual protagonist, Kim, a Female to Male (FtM) student (high school, then college). Kim finds love as he enters makes the transition out of high school. I enjoyed following his transformations, but the story was, unfortunately, basically suspense-less, plot-less. There was nothing at stake.

Kim hates high school. There’s nothing but homophobia and hate there for him, but he’s in his senior year and determined to make it out. His mother is a priestess in a local coven that brings in a new member, Dash, who felt the previous coven he was with was homophobic. Kim begins to go through hormonal transition, while Dash begins the process of being admitted to the coven. Dash and Kim feel an immediate attraction, but when Kim comes out as a female-to-male transsexual, Dash quickly rejects him, sending Kim spiraling back into depression for a bit. But Dash’s continued participation in Kim’s mother’s coven brings them back into contact, and they slowly begin to explore a fully sexual relationship.

Once Dash gets over himself, after they get together the second time, the story is “merely” a fictionalized recitation of sex between a FtM and a cisgendered gay man. I put “merely” in scare-quotes because I acknowledge and appreciate the fact that this is not an easy thing to pull off. However, there is no relationship tension, no will-they-or-won’t-they about anything, no barrier for them to overcome. Once they’re together, they’re committed to each other and to their relationship, both sexual and emotional. Which is a good thing. And how it hopefully happens in real life. But as a story, I wanted more tension somewhere.

At the same time as the relationship progresses, we’re following Dash through his full inclusion into the coven. The story takes place over a full year, something which is very unusual in romance novels these days (in my experience), so that was a nice change. But although I read it all the way through and although I enjoyed it, the story really felt like a manual of how to have positive, affirming, fun sex with a FtM transsexual AND how and why to join a coven. It was NOT about the trials and tribulations of a romance.

So I enjoyed it. I learned a lot. But…it needed more there there.

Grade: C

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | Borders

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Dear Ms. Stark,

I ordered your book because I liked the cover and I was looking for a good “coming out” story.   Homecoming is a sweet, modern romance between two likeable young women, but I almost gave up on it before I got to the good parts.

Sarah is a premed student with a bright future.   When her parents discover that she’s a lesbian, they freak out and disown her.   Sarah’s girlfriend, who wants to stay in the closet, dumps her over the phone.   Although it sounds heartbreaking, a lack of cohesiveness at the beginning prevented me from becoming engaged in the story.   The first few chapters read like a string of flashbacks and a series of prologues put together.   We’re introduced to a couple of characters (probably from a previous book) that have no real significance in this story.

Sarah feels all alone in the world and is forced to transfer from Yale to a less expensive university.   Things perk up when she meets her new roommate.   Rory is a hot geek who loves video games and film studies.   She’s also straight-maybe.

Rory and Sarah hit it off, and the story is smoothly written from here on.   Sarah is described as boyish but beautiful, with short hair and an androgynous look.   All of the femmes on campus are in love at first sight.   Sarah doesn’t notice the attention because she’s totally unaware of her appeal.   I’m a sucker for this classic romance trope and you made it work through character development.   Sarah has a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor.   She’s also passionate, unpretentious, and idealistic.   Now that she’s out, and cut off from her family, she’s learning how to stand on her own.

The prettiest lesbian in the university, Chelsea, quickly sinks her claws into Sarah.   They start dating but Sarah holds off on sex, claiming she’s not over her ex.   The truth is that she’s falling for Rory.

Rory is another great character, quirky and outgoing.   She’s always liked guys but she finds Sarah very attractive.   As roommates, they spend a lot of time studying and hanging out.   Rory sees Sarah kissing Chelsea one night and imagines taking her place.   When Sarah rents the movie Bound, which features some hot girl-on-girl action, they watch it together and Rory gets hopelessly turned on.   The air between them sizzles with sexual tension.

Both Rory and Sarah become involved in a campaign to legalize gay marriage, and this political aside failed to hold my interest.   It’s not that I’m against those rights-’on the contrary.   I just felt as though the issue took up too much space and came off as a bit didactic.   I also wish the “coming out” portion had been more personal, more emotional.   The end of Sarah’s relationship with her parents isn’t explored in detail.   I didn’t get the sense that they’d ever been close or that either side would attempt to reconcile.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Later, Sarah apologizes to Rory and they have hot lesbian sex.   I mean, really hot.   This scene is touching and erotic and all the more satisfying because of the slow buildup.   At that point, I was screaming for someone, anyone, to get laid already.

Overall, Homecoming is a smart, sexy romance.   The characters talk like real college students, not like your mom trying to sound hip.   Rory is Korean, and I appreciated the inclusion of an Asian heroine.   I also liked the way their relationship developed over time, and through genuine affection.   Your voice reminded me of Sean Kennedy, a popular m/m author.   Perhaps fans of his would enjoy you.   C+

Best regards,
Jill

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Joan: We all know how much I adore your books (well, not all of them, perhaps). This one was a departure for you, in that it was a paranormal and much of the plot — and the emotional energy — was focused on the resolution of the ghost story rather than on the relationship. That said, the relationship was well done, with an HFN that I very much enjoyed and a unique “I love you” revelation at the very end.

Sunita: I’ve just started reading m/m in the last couple of months and given how much I’m enjoying it, I’m really annoyed at how long it took me. The good news is, I get to read a lot to catch up. Your books have received good reviews and word of mouth, and this story is set on a college campus and sports figures strongly, which are two of my favorite contexts. When Joan/Sarah suggested a joint review, I jumped at the opportunity.

Joan: John is a former Olympic diver (double gold winner) who hit his head on a practice dive 6 weeks before his second Olympics and is now brain-damaged, unable ever to dive again. Not only does he have debilitating vertigo and balance issues, he is suddenly synaesthetic (he hears in colors) and he sees kaleidescopes of colors over everyone’s heads. After spending almost his whole life consumed by the demands of competitive sports, he has to figure out what to do instead and has very little experience to guide him. John enrolls in college as a 22 year old freshman, a virgin, and is unsure how to make friends with people outside the diving world. He accidentally stumbles into a frat party and meets Mason, who is far more experienced at life, sex, and college, but who has his own life-changing events to cope with in that he’s still trying to deal with the accidental death of the love of his life. Mason takes John home…and passes out, quite literally, on his dick.

I think this book rewarded a one-sitting read. I was distracted by travel at the beginning and lost a little bit of interest, but when I was able to sit down and just read the last two thirds of it in one sitting, it was wonderful: emotional and well-balanced, with great sex and a strong combination of plot elements. (Also, for what it’s worth, I have been fascinated with synaesthesia as long as I’ve known about it, so part of the joy of this book was you bringing it to life for me.)

Part of my issue maintaining focus, however, was that the first third is very episodic because Mason and John do not hit it off immediately for obvious reasons (passing out during a blowjob is not a good relationship starter, after all). They play a kind of a game of meeting again and trying out the relationship thing, or at least the sex thing, but then Mason (usually) ends up an emotional basket case and is enough of a jerk to make John run screaming. The thing that keeps bringing them back together is Mason’s dead lover, Alex, because it turns out that the colors John can see are, in fact, auras, and the problem with Mason’s aura is that Alex is intertwined in it, basically haunting Mason.

So while John is trying to deal with realizing that he can see and, eventually, effect people’s moods, he is also trying to figure out life outside of 12-hour-a-day practices, and is stumbling into a relationship with Mason, trying to figure out if he’s just a conduit to what Mason really wants: Alex. Mason, on the other hand, is trying to figure out how to live without Alex, trying to live with survivor guilt, and trying to figure out how to let Alex go. He’s never, however, confused about how much he likes John for himself.

Sunita: I was able to make time to read this in one day, and I found myself swept up in the story. I liked the meet-not-so-cute setup at the beginning, and your writing drew me in immediately. The college atmosphere, especially the relationships between the various students and the dorm and house settings, felt very true to life. Where Joan was distracted, I enjoyed the time John and Mason were apart because it established both of their lives as individuals. Some readers find those sections take away from the romance, but I like them because I like seeing who the characters are before they become a couple. I also appreciated that Mason had authentic and unattractive ways of dealing with his loss and that John and Mason’s relationship trajectory wasn’t entirely predictable, but their attraction to and desire for each other was clear. I found the Alex bits less interesting, but that’s partly because I’m not that fond of paranormal elements. But it definitely fit into what you were doing with the storyline, and I liked the way the Alex story was integrated with John’s socialization into normal life.

Joan: As always, you do a brilliant job with characterization. There are a lot of characters in a 180 page book, but I never got them confused. Part of that might be because John’s handy colorization of everyone made it easy to figure out who was who, but mostly it’s your incredibly ability to write real people with real personalities and problems.

Sunita: I completely agree; your ability to bring characters to life and to make them realistic and interesting is really impressive. I paid less attention to the colors and still didn’t have any trouble keeping the characters separate. I never even noticed how many there were! I think that’s because while some of them were types, they weren’t cartoons, so they retained individuality for me. John and Mason were especially well written, but even the briefer characterizations had depth. And when they didn’t (like the twins), it was clearly intentional (and in the case of the twins, hilarious). I found Lizzy to be somewhat less convincing as a character, because her behavior seemed a little too perfect for what the story needed (even when she was angry), but that was a minor niggle.

Joan: The ending seemed rushed to me. John was SO concerned about being able to see and affect people’s emotions…and then he wasn’t. Alex was gone…and then he wasn’t. I don’t know if the perceived loose ends were serial bait or just a rushed ending, but the emotional intensity seemed abruptly foreshortened. Except the sex was hot, so I didn’t really mind too much. And as I said, I loved the way you had the characters say “I love you.”

Sunita: I guess I understand why you ended it the way you did, and your choice of the two attempts that Mason makes to give John something that can be as good as diving are imaginative. And the sex is really good! But I would have liked to see a bit more of them together in everyday life, because for me a big part of the book was watching John make the transition from Olympic hero to normal person. I wanted to watch him get the normal person HEA/HFN. But even though I didn’t, your writing makes me believe in it.

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F and Sunita

Book Link | Kindle | Samhain

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I love the title of this book, because it’s so true to the characters and to the book. I’ve been disappointed, sometimes even sickened by some of Loose-Id’s titles recently (no, I didn’t review them, I couldn’t bring myself to do so), so I was happy to be intrigued enough by the excerpt to buy Bound and Determined. And I’m so glad I did. This book, while lacking slightly in the pure romance department, is a fabulous look at a BDSM relationship with some amazing characterization and some really hot sex.

First a warning for readers, though: the characters in this book are a masochist and a sadist. Yes, much of the relationship is about dominance and submission, which many people have less issue with than with pain play, but the sadomasochism in this book is strong. Not violent and visceral like Anah Crow’s (brilliant) Uneven, but it’s there, its unabashed, and if that bothers you, don’t read this book. However, if you’re intrigued by the psychology behind masochism, this is the book for you, because it’s beautifully depicted.

Sterling is a college senior. He figured out that he was gay years ago, but he’s only figured out his attraction to BDSM very recently. He’s been domming a friend, but they both know it’s not working, and the friend takes Sterling to a BDSM club, where he watches a well-respected dom Owen (and Sterling’s former English professor) scene with and then break off his relationship with a submissive woman. Sterling has a moment of clarity (he’s not a dominant, he’s a submissive and a masochist) and chases down Owen and asks Owen to be his dom. Owen, understandably, refuses. After all, he’s just broken off a relationship, Sterling’s a former student, not yet 21, and almost half his age. But Owen is not proof against Sterling’s persistence, and, to be honest, his beauty, and finally agrees to become Sterling’s dominant.

One thing to make clear is that this IS a dominant/submissive and sadist/masochistic relationship. Owen does not consider himself Sterling’s boyfriend. They do not have a traditional relationship. And although Sterling gets to come and their connection is a sexual one, because fundamentally, BDSM *is* aobut sex, Owen refuses to have either anal or oral sex with Sterling until Sterling is 21. Which pisses Sterling off, because he’s not a patient person, and over which they fight a few times. Which makes it awkward every now and then when they’re not in dom/sub roles and find they have very little in common. This is the one concern I had with the book: what kind of relationship can they have beyond the D/s? Because at the end of the book, they’re together as committed partners as well as dom/sub, and I think the relationship building gets skimmed a little too much and I wonder what they’ll talk about of an evening when they’re just lounging around together.

That aside, everything else is wonderfully done. The characterizations are perfectly clear: Sterling’s bratty but conflicted, so used to getting his own way, brought up to be a hard-ass by his dick of a father, but so desperate to submit, to serve, but so eager to get off because OMG, he’s 20 and a walking erection. And Owen’s older and wiser and very much in control but still vulnerable to a pretty pout and a desperate “please,” just like we all are. And oh, the BDSM is beautifully done. The scenes are hot and these boys TALK. In fact, that’s part of the characterization: both Sterling and Owen are in their heads too much, too smart not to take apart everything they do, alone and together. And so the reader understands every step of the way, everything that’s going on.

In fact, at a climactic (harhar) point in the book, Owen says to Sterling, “I’m not your father,” which causes Sterling to freak out and leave. And the characterization is so perfectly done that even though the scene was told from Owen’s perspective, I was in both of their heads to such an extent that I knew why Owen had said that (he wanted Sterling to know he wasn’t doing something to punish him the way Sterling’s asshole of a father did), felt his utter shock when Sterling reacted apparently illogically by running away from a reassurance, and yet, at the same time, completely understood WHY Sterling was running away (he thought Owen was saying that he thought Sterling was looking for a father figure and he felt Owen didn’t really know him). The scene was so well-done it actually pulled me out because I was astounded at how well I viscerally understood the motivations and feelings of both Sterling and Owen right away.

Back to the BDSM, though. It’s a very formal BDSM. Owen likes things just so and is very much into training Sterling. It sounds too much like hard work to me, especially since Sterling’s quite so much of a brat, but you make it work beautifully, precisely because it’s so much a part of their characters. And the BDSM is done lovingly and well. Here’s an description of Sterling’s masochism:

God, it hurt like nothing else ever. He screamed so desperately that it didn’t even come out very loud; there just wasn’t enough air behind it to create volume. It was like his nerve endings were using up all his oxygen, and he couldn’t breathe or think through the searing pain.

He couldn’t do anything. He was gone.

The scary part was how fucking good it felt, the bright agony ripping him free of restraints that weren’t made of rope or chain. He used the pain, just as Owen had told him to, shaped it, loved it, let it take him. Dimly, distantly, he felt his climax begin, lagging long moments behind his scream, an afterthought, as if his body was trying to kill the pain with pleasure, which was stupid, really, because they were both the same.

And one of Owen’s sadism:

"It’ll hurt," Owen said, and there was something in his voice that told Sterling how much it would hurt and how much Owen wanted to do it. It was hard to wrap his head around at the beginning of their relationship; the way that for all Owen made him feel safe and protected, Owen got off on hurting him, leaving him bruised, marked, crying. With anyone else, that would have freaked Sterling out, but he didn’t just love Owen, he trusted him. Totally. No limits.

It was what allowed him to ask for more than he could take, made reckless by arousal, knowing that Owen was more aware of his limits than he was. Spanking him scarlet and hot turned Owen on, but controlling Sterling, reining him in, curbing his impulses, did even more for him, and Sterling knew that.

But both of these are told from Sterling’s perspective and brings up one tiny niggle more that’s my own personal issue more than anything else. You GET submission *and* masochism, or at least Sterling does a brilliant job of showing it to us and making us understand it. But when we’re in Owen’s head, it’s much more about the dominance than it is about the sadism. Yes, he gets off on hurting Sterling, but that’s much less explored than his dominance is. And that disappointed me slightly. But not enough not to thoroughly enjoy this book.

The book was a wonderful, slow, thoughtful read with some really REALLY great sex and a fascinating depiction of some very formal, very safe, and yet still emotionally dangerous BDSM. The plot of the book, such as it is, is focused on the emotional trajectory of the relationship and on Sterling’s issues with his idiotic father. There’s no suspense plot, no saving the world, nothing but two people falling in love as they explore each other, both physically and emotionally. Which is why the lack of exploration of what they have in common besides BDSM and hot hot sex was vaguely disappointing as well. But only vaguely. In the end, I trusted that they’d stay together because they were both too damn stubborn to do anything else: Bound and Determined indeed.

Grade: B+

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Loose Id in ebook format.

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Str8te Boys is pretty much dorm porn with extra-angst. It’s a short little story–under 70 pages–but so much fun. It’s told completely from the third-person perspective of Maverick (ORLY? I mean, that name? Really?!), an arrow-straight (uh-huh) jock at the end of his senior year of college, who happens to play “gay chicken” with even straighter, party animal roommate and best friend, Duke (Again! See what I mean?!). What is gay chicken? you ask, as well you might.

The idea was for two guys to get as close to kissing as they could. The one to pull away first was the loser. Duke always won because he was a fierce competitor where any sport was concerned-’be it soccer, baseball, basketball, football, table tennis-or gay chicken.

Riiiiiight. And that’s pretty much the plot. Duke plays gay chicken with Maverick as the stakes get higher and higher, until Mav starts issuing his own dares. And as you read through your wince, eyes squinty from embarrassment (like that terrible, wonderful, can’t-not-look movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), the scenes just get hotter and hotter. And Maverick is all like, “What does this make me? Am I gay? No! I’m just helping out my best friend as I suck his cock! I don’t feel this way about anyone else but him! But the sex is so hott! how could I be straight?!” And Duke is…

Well, there’s the plot hole. Duke is captain-of-the-soccer-team, huge-porn-collection, totally-blind-drunk-at-parties, spent-rent-money-on-weed STRAIGHT!dammit. More-grossed-out-by-gayness-than-Mav STRAIGHT!dammit. And then not so much. Then all the angst is about how he’s been gay and in love with Mav all along, waiting for Mav to see the light. And it totally works while you’re reading, but then you think about it and go, Hur? and feel all dirty again. :)

The one thing about Anderson’s writing is that she writes men in a fascinating way. Her men sound like and think like men, but somehow I can’t ever forget that they’re being written by a woman. These are not “men” who say to each other, “Let’s talk about our feelings,” as I once read in a m/m romance (*gak*). And they’re not what DA Janet calls “heroimens,” who take SUCH good care of the heroines and paint her toenails and give her a backrub–without sex! Anderson’s men are emotionally constipated, porn-loving, beer-drinking *men*….who happen to have been sleeping with each other–completely platonically!–for two and a half years?!?! Again, I say, ORLY? When I read Anderson, I can’t shake the conviction that her men are the female-constructed fantasy of emotionally constipated, porn-loving, beer-drinking *men* blindsided by love for their best friend. I mean, of course they are–they’re written by a woman. But some women write men who just read like men (La Nora, of course, and Suzanne Brockman, K.A. Mitchell, frex). Anderson writes men who read like men constructed by a woman. Which doesn’t mean they’re not fun–they totally are–but rather than just falling into the story and coming out the other side, I’m constantly aware of the meta-narrative, the “fantasy constructed by a woman for women”-ness of the stories.

But then there’s lots of lovely groveling by both boys and it doesn’t matter anymore. And at three in the morning, when no one’s watching, I’ll open my computer and guiltily read Str8te Boys and Anderson’s ultimate gay-for-you, The Assignment again. And again. And again and again. And if that’s not the ultimate endorsement, squidgy dirty shame aside (or maybe not, maybe that’s the point), I don’t know what is.

Grade: A squidgy guilty B-

-Joan/Sarah F. (who couldn’t bring herself to actually address this to Dear Ms. Anderson, she now realizes. Hrm.)

This book can be purchased via Samhain Publishing.

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