Dear Author » K.A. Mitchell

Sarah’s Best of 2011 List

SarahF — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:00:37 +0000

The order here is me going through my reviews in reverse chronological order and listing my A- and B+ reviews (no A reviews — very sad). It was a pleasant surprise, really: I didn’t think I’d read that many good books in 2011. Shows you how memory can be a fickle thing. To keep it to ten, though, I had to cut out 4 books. Especially since I added two B reviews because they’ve stuck in my head more than some of the B+ reviews (that memory thing again).

First, some time travel: Rachel Haimowitz, Master Class and SUBlime. Haven’t reviewed them yet, but I will! Next on my list!
K.A. Mitchell, Bad Boyfriend. Grade: A-
Damon Suede, Hot Head. Grade: B+
A.L. Turner, I Just Play One on TV. Grade: A-
S.A. Reid, Something Different. Grade: B+
Heidi Cullinan, Dance With Me. Grade: B+
L.A. Witt, Out of Focus. Grade: B but how much it’s stuck with me would give it a higher grade.
J.L. Merrow, Camwolf. Grade: A-
Kit Zheng, Deconstruction. Grade: A- (Ooh, I should reread this…)
Anah Crow and Dianne Fox, One Real Thing. Grade: B for Brilliant. I recommended this one just yesterday on Twitter.

REVIEW: Bad Boyfriend by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:00:02 +0000

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.

Goodreads | Amazon | nook | Sony | Kobo

What Sarah was Reading in September

SarahF — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:00:34 +0000

Like Jane, I’ve been reading a lot of ARCs for November and December, and wow, you’re all in for some real treats.

Riptide Publishing opens its door on October 30. It’s already open for pre-orders and sending out review copies. Almost all of the initial offerings so far listed are under 30K words. And honestly, $2.99 for 10K words seems utterly ridiculous to me. $4.99 for under 30K words? $10 for 100K words? I mean, 100K words is a great story, but $10? Really?! While the stories are great and the idea behind the new press is admirable, with price points like that, I can’t see it getting very far.

Rachel Haimowitz’s Master Class is a fabulous (short) look at the beginning of a very intense BDSM relationship. It does an amazing job at getting at the psychology of both of the dominant/sadist and the masochist/submissive. I loved it. It was super-hot. It was super-intense and really heavy BDSM, but very well done. Review on release. Apparently I talked about this one last month. I’ve skimmed it since then too which is why it’s on this month’s list too. That’s how good it is.

Peter Hansen’s First Watch: Tentacles. This book comes highly recommended, but it’s got tentacles and I haven’t actually managed to get past the first scene with tentacles. I’ll let you know if I ever do. Just…tentacles!

Aleksandr Voinov Dark Soul Vol.1 is about the mob. And I love Voinov’s writing, but I really really REALLY have a problem with heroes who are part of a crime organization and have no intention of getting out of it. So…I’m having a hard time with this one too. No tentacles, just criminals.

Of the three Riptide books I’ve flipped through or read so far, the writing is exceptional, but the subject matter is very dark, very different. That could be a good thing and could gain the press a reputation very quickly. But I still think readers are going to balk at those price points.

I also received the Carina Press m/m holiday shorts. And OMG guys, these stories are amazing. Perfect novellas that tell wonderful heartwarming stories. More extended reviews on release for all of them.

K.A. Mitchell’s Christmas Proposition: Small town guy trying to keep his family Christmas tree farm afloat gets back together with former lover who owns a natural gas company. Told from only small-town guy’s perspective, but you see the vulnerability of both characters. And groveling on BOTH sides. :) Wonderful, as always.

Harper Fox’s Winter Knights is a ghost story about Gavin, a man whose Catholic lover Piers breaks up with him because Pier refuses to come out to his family and Gavin had issued an ultimatum. Gavin then meets some ghosts who save his life and help him find his way back into a better relationship with Piers. What I LOVED about this story was how Gavin and Piers’ relationship was actually bad for both of them and they both learn how to improve it in order to find their way back to each other. For how short the book is, it’s brilliantly constructed and I loved the characters.

Josh Lanyon’s Lone Star was like a What If? story: What if a ballet dancer and a Texas Ranger fall in love? Except they fell in love before they were a ballet dancer and a Texas Ranger and get back together right when both their careers are taking off and that’s the barrier between them. It’s a cute story but I didn’t 100% believe that their careers wouldn’t pull them apart again.

Ava March’s My True Love Gave To Me is the historical of the bunch. It starts the story when the two men are 19, very much in love, but one of them’s too scared to pursue the relationship and runs away to America, away from his own feelings and his lover. Four years later, he’s back, determined to win his lover back. Much MUCH groveling ensues and there’s an utterly black moment when all hope is lost. I love stories in which one character has to admit how much wrong he’d done and the other character seriously has to just…forgive him.

These four stories from Carina were unbelievably good. They’ve done a brilliant job gathering these amazing writers together for these novellas.

L.A. Witt’s The Distance Between Us and The Closer You Get are two books that follow a couple through a threesome in the first book and then the third of the threesome in the second. TDBU is about a couple who have broken up but are stuck living with each other because they can’t offload the house they bought together. They bring in a roommate and both end up sleeping with the roommate, then sleeping all three together. This allows the couple to work through their issues so that they can get back together. TCYG (releasing in November) tells the story of the roommate, a self-described slut, who goes out with the friend of one of his lover’s daughters. His blind date is a virgin and they slowly figure out how to fit together, with the help of the characters from the first book. I adore Witt’s writing — love love love it. And these books are just about characters falling in love, getting past their own emotional barriers, and finding their way to each other better than ever before. Wonderful. I’ll review both when TCYG releases.

Distance Between Us: Goodreads | Amazon | nook

The Closer You Get: Goodreads | Amazon | nook

Kari Gregg’s I, Omega was so full of WTF that I honestly don’t know if I can bring myself to read it again to review it. Three months ago, Gabriel had been bitten by a werewolf who fucked him and he’s been on the run ever since. Even though he wants desperately to be with this werewolf, he’s terrified of him too. The werewolf finds him, fucks him, and kidnaps him, taking him back to the pack’s house. He forces Gabriel into a heavily D/s relationship, collaring him and tattooing him without Gabriel’s permission, waiting for Gabriel to give his final surrender, but he never TELLS Gabriel anything. And he won’t let anyone else tell Gabriel anything. So a lot of the conflict in the book comes from Gabriel’s fear and mistakes because of his utter ignorance. It made me NUTS! It’s the total and direct opposite of Safe, Sane,and Consensual. And the sex wasn’t even that hot.

Goodreads | Amazon | nook

I read S.A. Reid’s Something Different twice through, the second time right after the first time. It was a self-pubbed book sent to DA for review. I *loved* it. Review here.

Goodreads | Amazon | nook

I’m flipping through a few other books, not actually settling down to read anything because (1). I have a book I really need to review, and (2). I’ve got craploads of grading to do. I’m skimming through an ARC of Sarah Wendell’s EIKAL until I can get my hands on a paper copy. I’m having a lot of fun with it (and feel extremely honored to be quoted twice, so can’t really comment on it further with too much impartiality — see how easily I can be bought?). J.L. Merrow’s Wight Mischief – I adore Merrow’s voice. I’m about 10 pages in and love it so far, of course. Cara McKenna’s Curio – another story about a prostitute. This is the only m/f romance on this whole post. Looking forward to it. Lynn Lorenz’s Bayou’s End – I enjoyed the first story in this series, but I’ve read the introduction to this one and was seriously unimpressed with the writing, so I’ll probably skip through the rest of it and see if there’s anything worth reading.

So, anyone else reading any good m/m that I’ve missed? Any prostitute/sex worker stories that I’ve missed?

PRIDE WEEK: Contemporary Recommendations from Sunita

Sunita — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:00:03 +0000

If you’re interested in reading one of the three books I discuss below, post in the comments with your own favorite LGBT contemporary romance (or why you’re interested in reading one of these, if you don’t yet have a favorite), and you’ll be entered to win. Giveaway ends at 4AM EST on Sunday.

When Dear Author decided to take note of Pride Week with posts about essential books in the LGBT romance genre, I knew I wanted to write about contemporaries. Not only are they my favorite subgenre in gay romance, they range across a variety of topics, settings, characterizations and levels of sexual explicitness. I have read mysteries, workplace novels, sports romances, small-town settings, the list goes on and on. But, as we have discussed earlier this week and at many other times, all this variety is partitioned away from mainstream romance, analogous to the way romance is partitioned from other fiction, wholly because of the sexual orientations of the protagonists.

When I read an m/m romance that really resonates with me and that I think is of high quality, I play a mental game: if this book weren’t centrally about a romance between two men and didn’t contain sex scenes between those men (and didn’t have a happy ending), how would it be characterized? In other words, if we didn’t segregate romance generally and m/m romance specifically, and we were talking about this book, where would we locate it? The three books I’m talk about here, I would argue, are very much like books outside the romance genre, and indeed, they would be excellent choices for a “romance conversion kit.” To me they demonstrate that the best books in our genre are of really high quality and the walls that surround it are both unnecessary and artificial.

My first book is Fair Game, by Josh Lanyon. This is one of the first dozen or so m/m books I read, the second book I reviewed at Dear Author, and one of my Top 10 reads of 2010. I was immediately taken with the concise, understated writing style. It felt almost effortless to read. This book has remained a favorite, dozens and dozens of novels later. I’m a sucker for grown-up characters, and Elliot and Tucker are both in their thirties, comfortable with their sexuality and their lives. They are estranged, but they still have feelings for each other. When a college student disappears on the campus where Eliot teaches, Tucker shows up in his official capacity and they’re thrown together again. The mystery and the romance unfold in tandem, and the book is exemplary in balancing these two threads.

The campus setting and the academic characterizations are pitch-perfect. The book opens with Elliot teaching his history class and thinking about his students the way they appear on the class roster: Mrachek, Leslie and Sandusky, John. Lanyon had me at that last-name-first detail. And it took me two-thirds of the book before I realized that Eliot was a pretty unreliable narrator. He is so charming and witty that I didn’t twig to the fact that Tucker was actually the more sympathetic character.

The only thing that differentiates Fair Game from well-regarded, mainstream mysteries is that the romance is m/m rather than m/f. It’s a serial killer plot, there are plenty of red herrings, and it’s difficult to figure out whodunit (although when you go back the clues are all there). It needed a slightly longer word count to tie up all the loose ends, but this novel easily holds its own with any medium-gritty mystery of similar length. The romance is really satisfying and the sex scenes, while subtle, are integral to advancing both the plot and the romantic relationship. One of my favorite mystery series is the Charles Paris series by Simon Brett, and Fair Game reminds me of Brett’s books in terms of its wit, humor, and quality of writing.

My second book is Regularly Scheduled Life, by K.A. Mitchell, which Joan/Sarah reviewed here at Dear Author. This is a straight (well, not straight) contemporary which employs a storyline we see regularly in literary fiction, what I term the “before and after” novel. The author introduces characters who are leading contented, somewhat predictable lives, and then something exogenous to their relationship occurs that upends those lives and introduces change and uncertainty. In this case, Sean and Kyle have been together six years and are still crazy about each other. When Sean is injured in a school shooting, there’s no question for either man that their relationship is strong enough to withstand the shock. But even though they both still love each other, the aftermath of the shooting and the different ways in which each reacts to the changes that ensue slowly drive them apart. There’s no bad guy in this (okay, there’s Sean’s PR guy, Brandt, I hated him with a passion); instead, the ways in which Sean and Kyle are unable to resolve their conflicts feels organic and painfully familiar, and while there is ultimately a happy ending, it takes them a lot of work to get there.

Unlike Fair Game, Regularly Scheduled Life has a ton of torrid sex scenes (and a few emotionally uncomfortable ones). But these scenes are crucial to understanding Sean, Kyle, and their relationship. Sex is an incredibly important part of their life together, it’s one of the key ways in which they communicate, and it reflects their good times and not-so-good times. You can’t remove those scenes and still have the same book. This aspect makes my mental exercise a bit more difficult to pull off, because there aren’t many literary or mainstream works of fiction where the sex is as frequent or as explicit (never mind the same-sex issue). But if we didn’t segregate by heat level (which is a whole different conversation), this book would sit squarely next to novels like Before and After, by Rosellen Brown (which was made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson).

My third book is Tigers and Devils, by Sean Kennedy. I found this book in a list of recommended sports-themed m/m romances. I love sports, and this is set in the exotic (to me) world of Australian Rules Football. Simon Murray is the director of a small, well-regarded film festival and a football fanatic. Declan Tyler is a star football player on Simon’s favorite team. Much to Simon and his friends’ surprise, the gorgeous and popular Declan falls in love with Simon (who of course falls in love right back). In the course of the book, Declan comes out of the closet with all the ramifications you can imagine. The course of their relationship does not run smoothly, but there is a happy ending and a lot of fun scenes involving football (both players and fans).

I’ve described Tigers and Devils to other readers as Nick Hornby meets Shaun of the Dead, not because there are zombies (that’s a different Sean Kennedy book!), but because the novel combines Hornby’s keen insights about men with an understanding of the importance of friendship and community. Both Simon and Declan are embedded in strong networks of friends and family, and part of the pleasure of the book is watching how they relate to each other’s networks. It feels very authentic, unlike so many romances in which the protagonists are isolated from others.

This book is the most uneven of the three in terms of technical proficiency; it drags a bit in the middle, and it would have been much stronger had it been about 25 percent shorter. But the first half of the novel is just amazing, as good as anything you’ll read in romance or mainstream fiction, and it is well worth persevering to the end. When I first read it, I couldn’t stop saying to myself (both internally and out loud), “I can’t believe how good this is.” Kennedy’s voice in this book is the kind that authors dream of having and readers dream of finding; it swept me into the story and made me fall in love with everything about it. There are no tricks or manipulations, despite the potentially sensational nature of the plot, just people you care about and are sorry to let go when the book ends.

There are many other good contemporary novels within gay romance, but these are special to me because together they represent the range and quality that readers can find in the genre today. They’re imaginative, well written, rewarding reads, and they can hold their own with any fiction out there. When I compare them to mainstream fiction, I do not intend to suggest that they are somehow different from other romance novels and more like non-romance fiction. Instead, I’m thinking of what Gloria Steinem said when she turned 50 and someone tried to compliment her by suggesting she looked younger than her age. Her response: “This is what 50 looks like.” These books are what good romance looks like.

JOINT REVIEW: Bad Company by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:00:50 +0000

Dear Ms. Mitchell.

Sarah: It’s no secret that we love your books here at DA. Your No Souvenirs is on my list of Perfect Books. I recommend Collision Course to anyone who will listen. You’ve had some semi-duds (for me) and some it was incredibly difficult for me to read, but overall, I adore your voice, I adore how you write men, and I wish like anything you could write faster.

This book…well, I’ve had a storied history with it. The first time I read it, I was…in heated discussions, let’s say, with my partner. So when parts of the book confused me, I assumed it was me, not the book, but I still didn’t really enjoy it. I reread it to write this review and I think now it’s very much a book that works better the second time around. I love the characters — adore them even more the second time. But even emotionally unimpaired, I was still very confused by some plot points and that just bugged me.

First, plot summary! Kellan Brooks is homeless, jobless, moneyless. His father, owner of Brooks Blast Energy drinks, has thrown Kellan out, cut him off. And Kellan’s pissed and wants to get back at him. So he hunts down Nate Gray, whom he hasn’t seen in fifteen years, and asks him to be his boyfriend in an attempt to piss off his homophobic asshole father.

As a literary critic, I love quite how many tropes this book plays with here: marriage of convenience, gay for you, friends to lovers, grudge relationship, second-chance relationship. You make G4U work: you make it sit up and beg, dammit. And I adore that.

Sunita: I started reading this without knowing anything about it. I was definitely not expecting the Gay For You trope in a KA Mitchell novel. But I figured that if anyone could make it work, you could, and I was curious to see what you did with it. I wasn’t totally convinced, but I appreciated that you gave us a lot of time in Kellan’s head as he worked out the feelings he had.

Sarah:See, I was utterly convinced about the G4U, especially taking into consideration Kellan’s back story. This wasn’t G4U for the sake of G4U — it worked for the character. What I don’t like, however, is that, for me, the whole premise of the book is shaky. Kellan is a professional rich kid, basically, like Paris Hilton with less money. He’s been engaged three times. He’s been on a reality show, sort of. He’s…not really done anything with his life for 28 years. So when his father throws him out and tells him to grow up, he acts like a teenager and does what he thinks will piss his father off the most, which is “turn” gay. I get that. I even appreciated it because of the character construction. I’m just not quite sure…what he expects to get out of it, honestly. I don’t know what his end goal is and I’m not sure if that’s just because he doesn’t have one, or because I didn’t find it. I think he wants his father to both take him back and stop trying to run his life, but I’m not sure how that would work. And in the end, his father is just a bogeyman and I guess I was disappointed with that, because Mitchell’s so good at making even secondary characters fully functional.

Sunita: Having read lots of category romances, I had less problem with Kellan’s motivation. He was definitely a guy, but he shares characteristics with some of the ditzier rich heroines of the HP and Modern Heat lines. He’s not stupid, he’s just never had to use his brains much. And having seen people hold endless grudges in real life, I didn’t have as much of a problem with the father-son storylines as Sarah. Over time these kinds of dysfunctional relationships can become pretty unmoored from the original issues and just run on their own steam. That’s how I interpreted these.

Sarah: Ha! That’s interesting. Yes, this very much work likes a category romance but it’s been a while since I read any. However, Nate’s reason for taking Kellan in is also shaky. I mean, he takes Kellan in because they have huge history. Best friends from seven years old, then Kellan turns on him in high school when Nate figures out he’s gay, then Nate thinks that Kellan’s father betrayed his own father when he founded Brooks Blast Energy Drinks…for me, the stuff between Nate and Kellan works, but the stuff about their fathers was confusing, and even when it was explained and modified at the denouement, I didn’t understand it.

Sunita: On the other hand, I found Nate and Kellan’s early years somewhat underexplained, even though they talk about it a lot. What I mean by that is that they tell me what happened, and they talk at each other about it, but I didn’t get a strong sense of them as a childhood unit. Perhaps more examples would have helped, or perhaps it didn’t sink in for me even though it was there.

Sarah: Wow, see, that’s what I really thought worked — but on a second read-through, not the first time around. Mitchell says in her dedication something about “loving Kellan even when he was a jerk,” and yes, he is, but his reasons for being a jerk to Nate in high school and how that blends into the completely believable Gay For You are for me just brilliantly done and so subtly handled throughout the book, which was the reason the book worked better for me on reread. I was having a hard time with how I was supposed to sympathize with Kellan the first time I read it, but knowing his reasons and going back and rereading, the weaving and layering of his feelings was brilliantly done. In fact, I thought NATE was more of a jerk on the second read.

Sunita:One thing that I initially found difficult in reading but that I really appreciated in terms of Mitchell’s writing was that neither one of these characters is all that sympathetic. Or rather, they’re each sympathetic and annoying by turns. Kind of like real people. Here they are initially representing certain archetypes, but they are completely human, to the point where I wanted to smack each of them upside the head on a regular basis. And yet I kept reading to see what happened.

Sarah: Yes! As always, Mitchell’s characterization is perfect. Nate is different and distinct from Kellan, and both are utterly different from any of your other characters. These are real people she creates, with real problems and real things that piss me off about them and real things that make me love them (yes, thank you, I can distinguish fantasy from reality).

Sunita: When Kellan finally falls in love with Nate, and Nate finally lets himself believe it, it’s lovely to read.

“What are you doing?”

“Being your boyfriend.” Kellan kissed his ear. “You see, when one guy says fuck you to his homophobic father and a big pile of cash, then gives another guy a blowjob in the apartment that the other guy has invited him to share, they’re boyfriends. Even a former straight guy can figure that out.”

Nate turned around. “Wait. You really mean this? Not because of your dad or because you want to get off?”

“For a smart guy, you’re an idiot, Gray. That’s what I’ve been saying all night. What do you think I came back for?”

Nate’s head tilted and his eyes—

The look broke something inside Kellan and made everything right at the same time. How could one look say so many goddamned things? And Kellan was so fucked because love was a hundred times worse than all the stupid songs could ever try to explain. And when he loved you back, it was too much. Like all of those feelings could never fit. You’d have to spend your life trying to figure out how, but it wouldn’t matter as long as he kept looking at you like that.

Nate grabbed Kellan’s head and kissed him.

Kellan wished their first real kiss could have been something special, something that didn’t happen in an alley with a bunch of other guys standing around laughing and clapping.

Sunita: Despite my initial misgivings about the premise, I totally believed that they fell in love, and I could retrospectively see how their long relationship formed the basis for what is objectively a quick transition. And the way their physical relationship develops feels appropriate to their backgrounds and experiences. Bad Company has plenty of the steam physicality and romance that characterizes Mitchell’s other novels, and it is nicely calibrated to the needs of this relationship, which is quite different from the other ones she’s written.

Sarah: When Mitchell sticks with pure romance — two men meeting, falling in love, overcoming emotional barriers, and getting their HEA — she’s brilliant. Add in a little mystery (a la Chasing Smoke) and…well, things tend to fall apart (for me). Or at least, get a little frayed around the edges. But, despite my misgivings about plot points, I loved these two men and totally believed in their romance.

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Sarah and Sunita

Sarah: And OMG, I can’t *wait* for Eli’s book!

December Recommended Reads

Jane — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:00:56 +0000

Jayne reminded me I hadn’t posted these. !!! This month has been crazy for me and I apologize profusely. The good thing is that all the books are available now.

From Sarah F:

Not Knowing Jack by KA Mitchell (review by Sarah F)
His for the Holidays by Josh Lanyon et al. (Kindle link)
The Nobleman and The Spy by Bonnie Dee & Summer Devon (link to Loose Id)

Jayne:

Unforgivable by Laura Griffin (Amazon link)
The Hating Game by Tolli Roland (Amazon link)

Sunita:

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (Amazon link)

Jane:

Explosive by Beth Kery (review by Jane)
Holiday Sparks by Shannon Stacey (Amazon link)
Daring Proposition by Jennifer Greene (Amazon link)

John:

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (review by John)

REVIEW: Not Knowing Jack by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:00:56 +0000

Dear Ms. Mitchell.

This was not the book I was expecting. At all. Which doesn’t make it bad, at all. It just…threw me a curve ball pretty early on (not that I have any idea what that metaphor actually means) and just kept them coming. That said, I adored it. I adored Tony. I adored Jack and his angst. It’s almost like you wrote this book for me, because it hits ALL my academic as well as my readerly buttons.

We met Tony Gemetti and Jack Noble in Regularly Scheduled Life, but readers absolutely do NOT need to read that book in order to read this one. Sean and Kyle show up for a few scenes, but they’re by no means integral to the story. Tony and Jack have a…thing. They live together in Jack’s house, they have lots and LOTS of hot sex. But, overall, there’s no commitment between them, no conversations about their relationship, and only sex-produced “Love you”s every now and then. Or at least, this is what Tony realizes when Jack starts acting weird.

First of all, I have to say, the names bugged the CRAP outta me. Look at that cover. Who is Tony? Who is Jack? Tony is dark, Italian, rich, and intense while Jack is blond, tattoed, working class, and irreverent, right? No. TONY is the blond Italian (?!), tattooed, working class, and irreverent. JACK is dark, rich, and intense, and not Italian. I usually have a hard time picturing blond heroes, but I loved this picture so much and adored Tony so much, that he’s firmly fixed in my head. But he’s not a “Tony,” for heaven’s sake. And, for me, Jack is so not the name of the chef of a 5-star restaurant who drives a BMW. Jack is very much a working class name for me and I *know* that’s my own problem. But still, every single scene of this book, and usually during the scene, I had to try to figure out who was who. I’m sure this is a personal problem (maybe a holdover from growing up in working class Italian neighborhood in New Jersey), but it was a huge one for me. ::deep breath::

That aside, Tony and Jack start out the book in a not-relationship but Tony gets more and more weirded out, the less and less Jack seems to be telling him about what’s going on. And what we discover is that Jack does indeed have another life, or at least, he did. In fact, he has kids that he’s not seen in a while. And a Traumatic Event that effected all three of them that sort of explains everything. And suddenly Jack throws Tony out — twice — but then they go and get the kids and are Insta-Family. And have to deal with Traumatic Event and Emo-Teen and their own foundering — or, indeed, floundering — relationship. So, it’s absolutely NOT the book I was expecting. But wow, it’s powerful anyway and so well-written.

This is an abrupt book. Things happen abruptly. Tony and Jack deal with things abruptly, then stop talking about it (or never really start). The narration between events, the slow passage of time, is non-existent. Suddenly it’s a week later, two, a month. There’s exposition, sure, but it’s abrupt. This is not a criticism at all, just something for readers to be aware of. It’s different from your normal voice. But it fits the characters and the plot brilliantly. Life IS changing abruptly for these men. Their emotions are going haywire and they don’t have time to find their center, either individually or as a couple. And neither of them is used to dealing with their emotions in any way that isn’t related to sex.

For example, they’ve just had sex and talked-but-not-really about going raw:

After Jack wiped the come off the sink and mirror and counter, he picked up the condom wrapper. "Did you mean it? About next time?"

"Did you?"

Jack flicked the wrapper into the trash. "I don't know of a reason why we couldn't."

"Me either."

Jack flipped off the lights, and Tony followed him into the bedroom. For them, it was a pretty deep discussion. When Jack turned off the lights in the bedroom and tucked himself in behind Tony, it seemed like the discussion was over.

But — no surprise here — the sex is hot. And, as always, you write sex scenes that are not only smoking, but that mean something, every time. They build up or break down the relationship, they’re different enough not to get boring, and they always have a purpose. (Aside: I know you tweeted about watching the videos, but is it REALLY possible to give a guy a blowjob while fucking his ass? Really? I think I’ll need to see the video myself before I believe you. ::coff coff::)

Niggles and picks: Tony has angsty background that doesn’t get much stage time. And maybe that’s just Tony. He seems pretty matter-of-fact about his life and who he is and WHY he is. But the lack of stage time means that he doesn’t actually have much of an emotional arc. Well, actually, that’s not true: his emotional arc is that he grows up and accepts responsibility, commits to a relationship, and becomes a parent, which is a Real Life emotional arc but not necessarily one we’re used to in RomanceLandia.

Things get a little glossed at the end. Trauma happens again and suddenly things are Fixed between Jack and his Emo-Teen son? I *can* see why it might work that way, but this might be the spot where abrupt is too abrupt.

The ex-wife is a bit much to take. She’s unrelieved by any explanation of why she is the way she is. And the explanation might not necessarily fit Tony and Jack’s story, but having another crazy Barbie Doll ex-wife running around in a romance is a bit too cliche for me.

All this aside, I loved the book. I loved the character construction, as always, and despite being unexpected, the story was VERY well done. There’s two things I especially adored.

One: Tony and Jack don’t actually have the same sense of humor. I think this is fascinating because usually we know characters are destined for Twu Wuv because they’re the only ones who understand the other. But Jack just doesn’t GET Tony’s sense of humor. And yet you make it work. It’s Tony’s sense of humor, his ease with himself, that gets through to Jack’s kids. And while Jack might not understand Tony all the time, he craves the man Tony is, his life, and comfort, and passion. And he uses his understanding of his own craving for Tony to get Tony back at the end. And I love that.

Two: oh sweet baby Jesus, this book is all about the construction of masculinity. And that’s my Thing, my academic obsession, the concept around which I’ve basically built my entire career. So, really, I just adore it inside and out. Tony has to figure out how to be a grown-up man and Jack has to figure out what being a good man actually means and he struggles so. This is why I can deal with Tony’s less obvious emotional arc, because I just lapped up Jack’s angst over figuring out that he IS already a good man:

Exactly how long was he going to be able to hang on when this new life had become as much of a fake as the old one? Tony was here because he thought he had to be. No matter how much work Jack put into anything, nothing could stop it from going to shit. Tony's determination to help him through this would last about as long as it took to hear the truth from Brandon and Sarah or worse, see it printed in their faces. Jack was a failure. As a father. As a partner. As a man.

Om nom nom.

Oh, and the ending? Pure schmoopy happiness. Guilt and groveling and full-blown commitment-fever. Thank you!

Grade: B+

Best regards,

-Joan/Sarah F.

Book Link | Samhain Publishing | Kindle | nook | BooksonBoard

REVIEW: Regularly Scheduled Life by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:00:27 +0000

Dear Ms. Mitchell.

I’ve never actually managed to finish this book before. I’ve had it ever since I discovered your writing, but never managed to get through it, despite numerous friends for whom it is their favorite of your books. I always thought it was because it’s about a high school shooting and my partner is a high school teacher. But as I forced myself through the book this time, I realized that’s not it. It’s because it’s a story about a relationship destroying itself, rather than building itself. And it’s therefore a very tough read.

Don’t get me wrong, you take some amazing risks with this book and write an amazing story with, as always, incredibly real characters. But because it’s a breaking-up story rather than a getting-together story, like most romances, I didn’t actually like the characters very much, because they weren’t being very likable.

Sean is a high school science teacher. Kyle is an architect. They’ve been together for six years and everything’s perfect. They adore each other, the sex is super-hot, and they have nothing to worry about. Then there’s a shooting at Sean’s high school in which two kids and the principal die. Sean is shot twice in the leg and is lauded as a hero because he’s the one to take down the shooter. He insists on being out and proud when the publicity hits, so he’s lauded as Sean Farnham, Gay Hero. With a bad case of survivor’s guilt for not saving everyone, he feels he needs to use his time in the spotlight to preach for tolerance and safety (still and particularly pertinent now with the bullying of gay teens and Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project started as response).

Kyle doesn’t like this, because he tends to do worst-case-scenario thinking and sees Sean as putting himself in harm’s way again. He’s also jealous of Sean’s publicist, Brandt. He just wants everything to go back to the way it was before the shooting, which kinda makes him sound like a prick, which he acknowledges. But Sean doesn’t like Kyle taking care of him at all, so he’s kind of a prick about Kyle needing to shuttle him to and from PT appointments. He won’t let Kyle massage his leg to make it feel better and snaps at Kyle when he offers to get him anything. And he doesn’t ask Kyle’s input how much and what publicity to do after the shooting. So they’re both kind of being pricks. Which was kind of a problem for me as a reader, although I completely understand that that’s the way the book needed to be for it to be the book it is, if that makes any sense.

The sex is hot, but instead of it building the relationship, as it does in traditional romances, it’s the only thing that they’ve got going for them. While the conflicts between them are NOT easily resolvable by sitting down and talking, because Sean’s priorities have changed for a while, I still just wanted to slap them out of their stupidity and ask them WTF they thought they were doing. They seem to fix things, but then they break again, all the way, before they get back together again.

So this is a very difficult book to read. The characters, rather than becoming better people because they’re falling in love, are already in love and become worse people as it all falls apart. Your genius is in making me still root for them, despite understanding why they were falling apart. Additionally, the angst to groveling ratio is, for me, unbalanced at the end of the book. I didn’t feel that there was enough resolution at the end for the rather massive problems they were having. But I’m a slut for groveling, so that might be me.

I forced myself to read this book because it’s sort of a prequel for your December Samhain release. I’ve been assured they’re both utterly stand-alone, but I wanted to be sure I was caught up. But Not Knowing Jack is also an established relationship story, so it’ll be interesting to see how I like that one, considering not only how much I usually adore your books but also how difficult this one was for me.

I have a hard time putting a grade on this book. It’s not like your Chasing Smoke, which I just thought was badly constructed. This book has your trademark brilliant characters, tight plotting, hot hot sex, lovely imagery, all of that. But it wasn’t about the pains and joys of falling in love, it was about the pain of staying in love. And as much as I appreciated what you were doing and as much as I believe those stories need to be told, and as much as I thought the book was technically brilliant, I thought Sean and Kyle were assholes, adorable as they were and as much as I wanted them to stay together. On the one hand, I want to give this book a high B for being so brilliantly done in a technical sense, but on the other, I really had to force myself to read it all the way through and I don’t EVER see myself reading it again. So…

Grade: B- (but recommended, if that makes any sense)

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

Dear Author Recommends for August

Jane — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:00:31 +0000

Can you believe that it is August already? I can’t. This year has just swept by. We’ve changed up the recommends rules a little bit to accommodate digital book and category book releases. We reviewers are having a hard time keeping up with the new release dates and so we are keeping our print recommendations to the month of their release, but being much more free about the category books (particularly the digital backlists) and digital first books. Hope that works for you readers. If you have any suggestions on how to make this better, let us know in the comments.

Burning Up by Angela Knight, Nalini Singh, Virginia Kantra, Meljean Brook. Recommended by Shuzluva, Jaclyn and Janine.
Still Life With Murder (Nell Sweeney Mysteries [formerly Gilded Age Mysteries])
by P.B. Ryan. Recommended by Jennie and Janine.
Fair Game by Josh Lanyon. Recommended by Sunita.
Ruthless (The House of Rohan) by Anne Stuart. Recommended by Angela.
The Heat Is On (Harlequin Blaze) by Jill Shalvis. Recommended by Jaclyn.
Hot Finish (Fast Track) by Erin McCarthy. Recommended by Jane.
Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong. Recommended by Jia.
Last Night’s Scandal by Loretta Chase. Recommended by Janine, Jayne, Jane
Life, Over Easy by K.A. Mitchell. Recommended by Sunita, Sarah F.
Libertine’s Kiss by Judith James. Recommended by Jayne.
Baby Bombshell by Lisa Ruff. Recommended by Jayne.
An Heir for the Millionaire: The Greek and the Single Mom\The Millionaire’s Contract Bride by Julia James and Carole Mortimer (for HP lovers). Recommended by Jane.
Unspeakable by Laura Griffin. Recommended by Jayne.
All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins. Recommended by Jane.
Once and for All by Jeannie Watts. Recommended by Jane.
A Little Bit Wild by Victoria Dahl. Recommended by Jane.
Awakened by a Kiss (Fiery Tales, Book 1) by Lila DiPasqua. Recommended by Jane.

JOINT REVIEW: Life, Over Easy by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:00:07 +0000

Dear Ms. Mitchell

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

REVIEW: No Souvenirs by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:00:58 +0000

Dear Ms. Mitchell.

Ever since you revealed that your next book would be about Jae Sun Kim, the hot, sarcastic, misanthropic doctor from Collision Course, I have been yearning for this book. Yearning, I tell you. The problem, of course, with wanting a book so hard is that when it comes, it might suck and all that yearning is transformed into disappointment more crushing because of the depth of the yearning.

This book doesn’t do that. This book is worth every ounce, every drop, every last millimeter of yearning. In fact, this book is about one of the most perfect romances I’ve ever read.

Jae Sun Kim is a trauma surgeon who finds himself on a live-on dive cruise vacation for a week because he’s running away from the fact that his careful plans to move from his residency in Jacksonville to a fellowship in Seattle have collapsed through no fault of his own. He desperately wants to put the continent between himself and his homophobic parents in Orlando but has no idea what to do now. Shane is the dive master on the cruise, very much a rolling stone determined never to grow any moss. Much to Kim’s disgust, he and Shane end up rooming together in a tiny cabin even though he booked a single cabin. And the cherry on top of his loss of control is an unexpected sea-sickness that Shane helps him through.

I love the first description of these two men:

The guy might have been giving a lesson on a dude ranch. The lilt in his voice made cactuses and Stetson hats tumble out along with his words. Which in a less stressful situation might have been nice, because a tall guy in boots, a hat and dusty jeans, drawl pouring sweetly from a wide mouth, was the kind of thing Kim had been known to bookmark on his laptop. Especially when that cowboy parted with the dusty jeans and boots in the first thirty seconds. He could leave the hat on for the ride.

It tells us so much about Kim — workaholic extraordinaire — and about his perception of Shane, one that Shane does nothing to dispel.

While Kim and Shane enjoy some really great sex in their time together on the boat, sea-sickness aside, they are really drawn together when the boat abandons them during a dive. This extended scene of survival reads like an adventure story, but tells us a lot about the characters. In fact, everything tells us about the characters. You are, to my mind, the undisputed queen of Show, Don’t Tell, and these two characters are so brilliantly constructed, they felt like they should have walked off the page into my living room (I wish). I was grinning like a fool as I watched Shane stumble toward the realization that Kim is a top and only a top and that pocket-sized Kim expected tall, muscle-bound Shane to bottom. And I had an even bigger smile on my face when he did and loved it:

Kim wrapped a hand around Shane's neck and pulled him down. Fuck if the bastard hadn't been right about Shane's wiring, because the weight of Kim's hand on that spot had Shane's knees starting to bend. He took a deep breath when he realized all Kim was pushing for was a kiss. Shane spread his legs until they were a little closer in height and met him halfway.

After the life-and-death situation, Shane follows Kim to Jacksonville, and it’s in the relative peace and quiet of everyday living that their flaws come out and threaten the relationship. But I love how unabashed both Kim and Shane are about their character flaws. Shane is perfectly happy being a fuck-up, following his traveling itch, moving to make sure he doesn’t get bored. He thinks to himself once:

His conscience always took a back seat to the fact that he was a slut for pleasure and that wasn’t going to change any more than the fact that everything he got involved in turned to shit.

He tells Kim during their final fight:

“I’m not a fighter, Jay. I don’t have the patience for it.”

But he’s not an asshole because of it. He’s just…Shane. Just as Kim is just…Kim, completely unable to understand emotional entanglements, completely uninterested in having relationship conversations, frustrated and embarrassed by them:

Kim couldn't begin to understand what he wasn't understanding and he hated it. Confusion was as unfamiliar as it was loathsome, and he remembered why, despite the human propensity for pairing off, he had successfully avoided being befriended. For the most part. Unwilling to expose more of his efforts at communication to ridicule, he folded his arms and leaned back against the couch.

The ending is…just sublimely perfect. I always squint my way through my first reading of the ending of a highly anticipated book (yes, I read the end first) because it just might not live up to expectations. And if it’s good, I then kind of wince my way through reading the book because it might not live up to the ending. But this ending is perfectly suited to both characters and to the rest of the story. I adore the fact that Kim doesn’t come to a sudden realization about love — although he and Shane definitely get their Happy Ever After. I love that Shane is so ready to quit…and yet not. I love how they don’t change because of their love, that their love, instead, shows them being more themselves. Kim’s despair and actions, and the way you bring the imagery and themes of the whole book together in the final few scenes is incredible.

I have learned to live with the fact that I can’t turn off my literary critic. I might want to at times, just so I can settle in and enjoy a book without thinking about it, but I can’t, so I deal with it. And it’s books like this one that makes all my training worthwhile. Watching how the symbolism of Kim’s tattoo and the imagery of death and the theme of impulsive actions weave themselves throughout the book was a wonder to behold. It’s done so smoothly, I think, so unintrusively, that it’s not obvious to any but the most obsessive reader. But it’s there and it layers the book, drawing everything together to make everything just make sense by the end.

And it’s unintrusive because you trust your readers to get it. You trust us to get the desert dry humor of these two men, their flaws and foibles and fucked-up motivations. You trust us to understand and in doing that, present us with an amazing story because you’re letting the characters speak for themselves without any unnecessary explanatory narration.

I’ve read this book twice straight through and probably another two times in bits and pieces, rereading for the good stuff — which usually means reading most of it because it’s all good. And I can’t find any flaws. Even the inclusion of Joey and Aaron from Collision Course is integral to the story and well-done and readers don’t need to have any previous knowledge of them to understand their role in this story. I didn’t know if you could top Collision Course, but you absolutely did. This is a perfect romance with stunningly vivid characters, a beautifully constructed plot, and a brilliant emotional arc. Everyone should go and get a copy. Right now!

Grade: A (FWIW, I’ve been reviewing for Dear Author for 18 months now — wow, really? — and this is only the fourth straight A review I’ve given. That’s how good this book was.)

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

Dear Author Recommends for March

Jayne — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:00:41 +0000

You can get a discount on some of the recommended reads at Books on Board.

Dark Angel/Lord Carew’s Bride by Mary Balogh. Recommended by Janine, Jennie and Jayne

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin. Recommended by Jia and Jan

No Souvenirs by K.A. Mitchell. Recommended by Joan/Sarah F

What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss. Recommended by Jane and Janet

| Karina Bliss’ Website | eHarlequin.comin print | eHarlequin.com in ebook |

Something About You by Julie James. Recommended by Jayne, Janet and Jane (and part of our Save the Contemporary campaign)’

Naked Edge by Pamela Clare. Recommended by Jane, Jaclyn and Janet

And Falling, Fly by Skyler White. Recommended by Jane and Shuzluva

Bride for Jericho Bravo by Christine Rimmer. Recommended by Jane

| Christine Rimmer’s Website | eHarlequin.com in print | eHarlequin.com in ebook format |

Let me know if my links are dead/wrong/misleading. I did so many of them that I am sure I messed up somewhere. Thanks!

Dear Author Recommended Reads for December

Jane — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:00:19 +0000

December was a slim month for us here at Dear Author, but here are our December recommended reads. Books on Board will be offering these at a discount (we got them to BoB very late). The links go to the reviews.

Honorable Mentions (because Books on Board wanted to be more generous to its readers and asked for a few more recommendations):

REVIEW: An Improper Holiday by K.A. Mitchell

SarahF — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:00:32 +0000

Dear. Ms. Mitchell.

I’ll pretty much read anything you’ve written, so I was thrilled when you posted that you’d written a historical short. An Improper Holiday was a lot of angsty fun, and I really enjoyed it, especially with the delicious little flip at the end of figuring out how two men in the early 19th century are going to live together without suspicion. I’m not too fond of relying on a near-death experience to force a main character to accept the love offered to him, but this is a minor blip on the delicious goodness of this story.

Ian has been told by his brother the Earl to take their sister to the Carleigh’s Twelfth Night’s festivities in order to court the Marquess as a political ally. Ian is not too happy with this, considering the Marquess’ heir, Nicky, is Ian’s first and best love from whom he estranged himself when he went away to war as a good second son must. Ian is self-conscious of the loss of his arm at the Battle of Badajoz (a slick way of getting past the issue of how Ian himself acted during the British Army’s disgraceful sacking of the besieged city: he was out of his mind from the amputation), and he’s also sick of the obligations on himself and on Nicky as sons of the aristocracy, scared of his own sexuality and has spent the last five years celibate.

Nicky, on the other hand, has spent his five years in England without Ian gaining sexual experience and self-confidence. And he is now determined to get Ian back permanently and plans a complex campaign of siege and surprise. Every now and then Ian was a little tedious with his conscience-stricken withdrawals from Nicky. And after the most devastating of his withdrawals, it takes the contrivance of a near-death skating accident to bring him back to Nicky, a plot convention I find annoying.

The plot twist in which most of the story’s tension is located and which dominates the ending is easily discernible on page 15. How will the men find a way to be together and yet still fulfill all their familial obligations? I will leave other readers to figure it out, but it’s cute and interesting and I hope it works for them all.

Despite a very strange problem I had of not thinking the men’s names fit them — I just couldn’t get a handle on “Ian” and “Nicky” and kept having to remind myself who they were — I enjoyed the distinct characters and their obvious deep affection and feeling for each other. One line wrenched my heart and made me believe in them: “There had always been so much laughter between them. For years, that absence cut as keenly as the loss of Nicky’s touch.” Couples who laugh together can weather much, in my experience.

For some reason, this story didn’t have the sparkle for me of your contemporary stories. I don’t know if it was the historical voice, which I think you did very well with, or just my own mood. I enjoyed the story a lot, I can’t find anything wrong with it particularly, but I probably won’t reread it. I think the ending (Ian accepting Nicky’s love and the contrivance of how they would live together) was too situation-dependent for me. And while the angst was hot-and-heavy through the rest of the story, it fell off with the ending focused on Ian’s reaction to a relationship between a secondary couple, rather than focused on strengthening his relationship with Nicky.

I will say, however, I enjoyed the narrative treatment of Ian’s amputation. And I very much liked the secondary characters, well-developed even in such a short story. This story is a typically wonderful Mitchell book and a quick and heart-warming holiday offering. I recommend it heartily.

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased in DRM FREE ebook format from Samhain.

This book was provided to the reviewer by either the author or publisher. The reviewer did not pay for this book but received it free. We do not earn an affiliate fee from Samhain through the book link.

REVIEW: Chasing Smoke by K. A. Mitchell

SarahF — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:00:10 +0000

Dear Ms. Mitchell.

This book reads like what I imagine being inside a guy’s head must be like. Lots of stonewalling, lots of mixed motivations, lots of confused emotions. This ability you have to get emotions perfectly right and to show how they are so very wrong-headed is both the beauty and the problem with this book.

Daniel Gardner is back at his childhood home in Easton, PA for Christmas and then to supervise the final packing for his mother’s move to Harrisburg. The story opens with a break-in at his mother’s house on Christmas Eve. In the aftermath, he meets Detective Trey Erikkson, his teenage crush and first-fumblings compatriot. They haven’t met in 15 years since Trey ran away to bootcamp and there’s hard feelings between them, as well as the mystery that encompasses the break-in, Trey’s mother’s murder and father’s imprisonment for it, and later criminal shenanigans.

It’s the suspense plot that made the book less than brilliant. While I could get behind the conspiracy theory of the final revelation and I enjoyed the slow reveal of Daniel and Trey figuring out the mystery, the plot itself was Swiss cheese. Why would Daniel’s mother’s move spark the break-ins? Why wasn’t the culprit looking for the item he was looking for before the move? And, oh look! There just happened to be a letter stuck in a drawer of an otherwise completely empty desk! And, oh! it’s just what our heroes need for the case! Please. And, eventually, why, exactly, were Trey’s parents were killed? Considering this was the foundational act for entire book, the explanation lacked a little believability. There were explanations, don’t get me wrong, but the reasons were so flimsy, much suspension of disbelief was necessary.

And that’s a shame, because the book was wonderful, relationship-wise. As with Collision Course, the characters were so real. Frustratingly so, for most of the book. These were two guys, both of whom had trouble accessing and expressing their emotions, trying to work through more than 20 years of feelings between them, sorting out the good from the bad and the new from the old. You did an amazing job of integrating these layers. There were no intrusive info-dumps. All memories and old feelings were appropriate to the present-day situation in which they arose. I was never lost, except in that the characters themselves were lost.

And, as I said above, herein lies the genius and occasionally the downfall of the story. Both Daniel and Trey, in self-preservation and sheer bloody-mindedness, spend lots of time avoiding their emotions. Acting from emotional self-preservation, their motivations, both overt and unspoken, changed almost as often as they had sex (i.e.: a LOT), which made them incredibly realistic and maddeningly frustrating at times. I frequently marveled at your skill in building the incredibly convoluted inner lives of these men as I wanted to slap some sense into both of them.

As always with your writing, the story itself raised the emotional crises to which the characters responded, which is the way it’s supposed to be. That is, while both characters were dealing with the issues that the last 20 years of their relationship raised, the main emotional arc of the story came from their interaction with each other. None of the “I loved you as a teen, but you rejected me, so everything I do now is response to that decade-and-a-half old diss!” They worked through those issues as they worked through new issues that their modern day interaction raised.

I think this internal exchange Trey has shows everything I’m trying to say:

Trey let his head fall back against the corkboard with a deep thud, but it didn’t seem to restore his common sense. He still wanted to take Danny upstairs, into his bed, where they could try some of those things they’d missed out on fifteen years ago. When Trey had been too scared, scared of himself and scared of Danny to let it go that far. Trey had plenty of time off in the bank. He’d take a few days leave and they’d live on pizza and sex until the lube ran out.

And he didn’t care if Danny had a boyfriend waiting,* that in a few weeks Danny would be back in D.C. and Trey would still be here with his Post-Its and pictures and printouts. He just wanted. He hadn’t let himself want anything in so long he could actually feel it, like some animal rolling around in his guts, clawing a hole Trey had to find a way to fill before he bled to death.

He forced a memory of his father into his mind. "Promise." It was one of the last coherent things his father had said to him, before the mini-strokes had eaten away the rest of his language skills. Trey didn’t have any business taking a week off to fuck his brains out. And then there was the realization of how much smaller his life would be when Danny left it again.

I said in my last review of your work that you have a gift for writing sex and that’s still true. I’d say at least a third of this book is sex, but I never got tired of it, I never rolled my eyes at yet another sex scene, because every single one advanced the emotional plot, every single one pulled me in and was damn hot, and every single one was different and fun. The book was worth reading for that alone–not that it’s pure stroke fiction, because it’s not. But it’s female stroke fiction: it’s just as much about the emotions as the sex. As it should be.

I adore your writing. And for what I read for–the emotions, the characters, two thick-headed men stumbling their way to love–this book delivered in spades (whatever that means). The romance of this book gets a solid and thoroughly enjoyed B and finally made me go out and buy the rest of your backlist (::sob:: not big enough!). The suspense plot, however, probably gets a C- and that’s generous. But as the romance is so much more important, both to me AND to the narrative, the novel as a whole gets a B-. And I look forward to your next book, whatever it might be.

Regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

*The boyfriend is dealt with beautifully, BTW. No cheating, I promise.

This book can be purchased in ebook format from Samhain beginning on June 9, 2009.

Dear Author Recommends for June

Jane — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:38:18 +0000

Here is our recommended read list for June. It’s light so feel free to make a recommendation in the comments:

How to Score by Robin Wells. This contemporary romance book is recommended by Jane. It’s a fun, sexy read with mistaken identities, a bit of deceit, and a crazy dog. (Warner Forever)
The Wild West by Victoria Dahl This hot historical novella is recommended by Joan F, Janet (aka Robin), and Jane. It’s a very hot read that is just the right touch for those who wonder what BDSM is all about. Cowboys and sheriffs have never been so hot. (Harlequin Spice Bites, ebook only)
My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel. This paranormal is recommended by Janine whose recommendations are few and far between. (Warner)
Crescent City Courtship by Elizabeth White. This sweet historical is recommended by Jayne who reads across the breadth and scope of the Harlequin categories. Review of this book to come. (Harlequin Love Inspired)
Chasing Smoke by KA Mitchell. This m/m romantic suspense novel is a recommendation for Joan F. (review of this ebook from Samhain publishing to come).
Sweet Persuasion by Maya Banks. This erotic romance novel from Berkley Heat makes you think about people’s desires. Come with an open heart and mind. Recommended by Jane, but read the review to make sure this book is fo you. (Berkley Heat, trade paperback)
The Surgeon’s Lady by Carla Kelly. This Harlequin Historical book is the second in her trilogy. Those who like her military men will want to check it out. Review to come. Recommended by Jayne. (Harlequin Historical)
Fair Game by Jasmine Haynes. This erotic romance from Berkley Heat shows off a strong business woman against an equally strong businessman as the two vie for sexual control. It’s hot. Recommended by Jane. (Berkley Heat, trade paperback)

DA/SB LiveBlog of Custom Ride by K.A. Mitchell

Jane — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 01:00:51 +0000

Click Here for a popup window or click below to run the liveblog straight from the DearAuthor website.

Summary: We had an interesting discussion about m/m topics given that two of my gay friends came to liveblog with us. I liked Mitchell’s voice in this story and would definitely read another one, but I felt that there was an overemphasis on the sex scenes and that some time could have been spent having the two characters talk and get to know each other so that the reader would have an understanding why they were to be together at the end. I also thought that the sex scenes had a very hard edge to them and wished for some tenderness between the two. As Jace, one of the guest bloggers noted, the two delved into a deep relationship despite barely knowing each other’s names, phone numbers. They knew each other sexually but that’s about it. Overall, I would give the story a C.

Best of 2008 List: Reviewer Joan/Sarah F

SarahF — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:17:39 +0000

Dr. Frantz is our resident professor (but not our only literature scholar) whose DA moniker is Joan. She is reviewing primarily m/m fiction that is epublished although she is a reader of a wide range of romance authors with Suzanne Brockmann and Kresley Cole being a couple of her favorite print authors. Dr. Frantz brings a unique viewpoint given her background in literature. It’s people like Dr. Frantz and the crew at Teach Me Tonight who help to increase the legitimacy of the romance genre.

eBooks:

ROUGH, RAW, AND READY by Lorelei James (Samhain)
UNEVEN by Anah Crow (Torquere)
COLLISION COURSE by K.A. Mitchell (Samhain)
LOVE AHEAD by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux (Dreamspinner)
IN THIS LAND: The Purple Book by Matthew Haldeman-Time (Volume 1 of 5 that combine the ongoing weekly subscription service on author’s website, $4.99/month)

Print books:

DARK NEEDS AT NIGHT’S EDGE by Kresley Cole
DARK DESIRES AFTER DUSK by Kresley Cole
INTO THE FIRE by Suzanne Brockmann

Dear Author Recommends for December

Jane — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:00:55 +0000

I hope you spent all your cash on last month’s recommended reads because this month has slim pickings. (Obviously, this is a good opportunity for you readers to jump in here and say “read this, it was awesome.”)

Collision Course by K. A. Mitchell from Samhain is a wonderful gay male romance between Joey, a hyperactive social worker, and Aaron, a paramedic. One of the many great things about this book is that the men’s jobs are not just props, but integral to their personalities, their conflict, and the resolution of their story. Mitchell’s writing is brilliant–these are real people, with real personalities, real flaws, and real internal and emotional conflict. And the sex is smoking hot! Mitchell has the too-rare skill of writing multiple sex scenes and yet making them all different because they’re about the emotions, not the body parts. A hot romance, but one focused purely on the romance, which is refreshing in this paranormal and suspense age. Recommended (and to be reviewed soon) by Joan/Sarah F.

Jan, Jayne and I all recommend Yorkshire by Lynne Connolly. We gave away a few copies but it’s only $2.25 at MyBookstore and More for a full length, Georgian novel with an unusual hero and a smart, plain heroine. There’s intrigue, awesome comeuppance, hot sex, and a great pairing. Plus Connolly does a good job at incorporating societal structure to provide conflict. This is no wallpaper historical. You can read the conversational review here.

Jan also recommends Red Blinds the Foolish by Est Em. It’s a really unusual BL manga of high caliber about matador and the butcher who disposes of the bulls once he’s finished with them. It’s a weird subject matter used to great symbolic effect in her hands. The art is just gorgeous. (There will be no review of this book).

In Beth Kery’s Wicked Burn, I read one of the better erotic romances of late. Niall Chandler and Vic Savian live next door to one another in a high end apartment complex in Chicago. They’ve been attracted to each other but haven’t acted on their attraction until Vic hears Niall being hassled outside her apartment one night by an over eager date. Vic dispatches the date and the two embark on steamy encounter after steamy encounter. The two start dating and it seems that there is little conflict to impede the two from moving foward to the inevitable happy ending. Niall, however, has a big secret and ultimately her inability to lance the boil, so to speak, with Vic leads to a wound in their relationship that seems insurmountable. Vic, the hero, has a strong personality and it overshadows Niall from time to time. If you like your men hot, earthy, and alpha, then Vic is for you. Beware, though, that Niall can act the doormat and that might set off buttons. You can read the full review here.

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon or Powells or ebook format (Mobi only).