After reading and reviewing your impressive novella, Ghost in the Machine, I was eager for more of your work and curious as to what your writing was like in other genres. Silent Surrender, your new Spice Brief, caught my attention and I decided to try it.

Alexia arrives at the Rivera hotel and resort for a vacation harried by her phone. Alexia is a trader on Wall Street and it is difficult for her to carve out even two days to get away from her stressful job. She doesn’t know she is being watched by Carlos Rivera, who observes her dealing with a couple of crises as she checks in.

Carlos is impressed and intrigued, and he later approaches Alexia, who is sitting at the bar, with two champagne glasses. Alexia is appreciative of the fine champagne, and even more of the man’s gorgeous appearance. He speaks no words, but his eyes say volumes. Soon Alexia and Carlos are dancing together, and not long after that, sexxoring in a private dining alcove.

Rivera spirits Alexia away to his penthouse suite, where they spend the night, still saying not a word. But will Rivera’s silence content Alexia, and how will she react when she learns why he won’t speak?

This was a charming little short. Your writing here is atmospheric and seductive, so the absence of dialogue worked almost as well for me as it did for Alexia. I can’t say that I didn’t guess where the story was going plot-wise, because I did, but though not as compelling as Ghost in the Machine, it was still enjoyable.

What surprised me was that the sex was pretty vanilla for an erotic story. Also, some of the metaphors, such as “the dress sighed into a forgotten fabric puddle at her feet,” worked for me beautifully while others did not – for example: “Butterflies? The thrill that arced from her nipples to her stomach and beyond was more jet airplanes engaged in aerial acrobatics.”

But the characters were so very easy to like and want the best for, and I was glad for the outcome of their encounter (not things I take for granted in a Spice Brief these days), so this one gets a C+.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Dear Ms. Sorenson,

Contemporary romantic suspense is a genre I can enjoy a lot when a book is well-executed, but most of the time, I don't find myself drawn to reading books in this genre the way I am with some other genres of romance. However, I have enjoyed your comments and posts on this blog, and was intrigued enough by Jane's reviews of your first two single titles that when Jane emailed the DA loop about your latest single title romantic suspense, The Edge of Night, being available for review, I decided to give it a try.

The Edge of Night begins with the discovery of a body in an old schoolyard-turned-gang hideout. Chula Vista police officer Noah Young is the first on the scene. The victim is Lola Sanchez, a drug-addicted waitress who worked at a place called Club Suave.

Lola was raped before she was choked with a clear plastic bag, and even though he didn't know her, Noah wants justice for her. Noah is a gang unit cop, not a homicide detective, but he has his eye on advancement to the latter role. He wants to aid the investigation, and since homicide is understaffed, Noah and Patrick Shanley, his cynical partner, are sent to Club Suave to interview the staff.

Twenty-three year old April Ortiz works at Club Suave to make ends meet. Having been burned by a bad relationship in her past, April is reserved with men and doesn't enjoy wearing the skimpy outfit her job requires, but she can't afford to lose her job. April is a single mom putting herself through a Social Work degree and the income from the work at Club Suave supports Jenny, her five year old daughter.

Just before Noah and Patrick arrive at Club Suave, Eddie, the club's owner, with whom Lola sometimes had sex, hints to the waitresses that he doesn't want the police to learn about his connection to Lola. April can't afford to lose her job, so although she's drawn to Noah, she doesn't give him or Patrick much to go on until they are about to leave. Then she slips Noah a note with information about a gangster Lola was seeing before her murder.

When April gets home that night, she discovers that her mother, Josefa, who was supposed to be babysitting Jenny, went out to party and left the child alone. April knows her mother is addicted to drugs and that she will have to serve Josefa some tough love, but she also knows it won't be easy.

Meanwhile, Noah apprehends Tony Castillo, the gangster Lola was involved with. Tony has a solid alibi – cameras place him crossing the border into Tijuana before the murder, and returning afterward in he company of another man, whose face wasn't caught on camera.

The man is Eric Hernandez, the brother of Jenny's father, April's former lover Raul. Raul is serving a prison term and Eric, his brother tries to look in on Jenny and April and help them out when he can. In addition for selling drugs for the Chula Vista Locos, the gang he belongs to, Eric works at a food market and tags walls with artistic graffiti.

One night, Noah arrives home to find his sister Meghan waiting for him. Meghan has dropped out of Chapel College, a Christian school that her religious mother insisted she attend, just as she was about to begin her sophomore year. Now Megan insists that she wants to live with Noah in Chula Vista, and although Noah knows his parents would disapprove, he gives in to Meghan's request.

Meghan gets a job at the same food market Eric works in, and she and Eric are quickly drawn to each other. But Eric knows he can't get involved with a policeman's sister. Meghan, who does not at first even realize he is a gangster, wants there to be more between them.

Noah and April also face obstacles. After they run into each other at a park, and meet again at Club Suave, neither can deny the attraction between them. But for Noah, involvement with April represents a professional conflict of interest, while for April, Noah symbolizes an even greater risk. April's history with men isn't a happy one, and she doesn't want that history to repeat itself.

An attempted assault on Meghan brings things to a head in several ways. Noah and April, Meghan and Eric all find themselves taking chances in their need to connect, to make their lives better, and to find love and acceptance. But as the stakes gets higher, will the clues about the killer come together before someone else dies?

The Edge of Night is plotted intricately and well, with each of the storylines impacting on the others. One of my favorite aspects of the book was its setting of Chula Vista, which is wedged between Tijuana and San Diego. The book has a strong sense of place, and I love that two of the four central characters are Mexican-American, because sadly, I don't often see Latino protagonists in this genre.

The suspense plot was well-executed. I did not guess the killer's identity until shortly before it was revealed, but the clues were there all along.

The main characters were all sympathetic to me. I liked that Noah was still in his mid-twenties, and wasn't superman. He had some of the impulsiveness and uncertainty of a young man. There were times when he felt afraid on his dangerous job, but he was also brave. My main criticisms where he is concerned is that unlike the other three, he didn't grow or change much over the course of the story, and we also didn't learn much in the way of new information about him.

I liked April even more because she had lived through more, and had made some bad choices she regretted. Her vulnerability and her struggle to support her daughter were so well-portrayed that I even understood why she would take drug money from Eric at the same time that she threw her mother out for using around her daughter. It took April a long time to begin to trust Noah, and I was very glad to see her get a happy ending.

Meghan began the story as a somewhat naïve young woman, but she went through a lot and matured. I liked her but what I appreciated most was the way she represented hope and innocence (I don't mean sexual innocence, I mean innocence of crime and other sins) to Eric.

You may be able to infer from this that Eric was my favorite character in the book. At first I thought he was too good to be true for a gangster – the drug dealer with the heart of gold. But gradually, layer by layer, Eric's motives and history were revealed, and I came to understand him more and more and to want him to find freedom from his dangerous world. His tenderness with Meghan, his sense of responsibility for his family members, and his artistic graffiti, all showed a sensitive side that Eric had to hide to function in the gang. His last couple of scenes with Meghan brought tears to my eyes.

My biggest criticism of the book is this: Eric was such a special character that I felt he overshadowed the other three. I felt I'd been shown the way his past shaped him in a way I wish had been shown to the same degree with Noah, Meghan and even April.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

April and Noah were nice, appealing people who deserved to find happiness and I was glad for them, but I think I would have been happier if I had seen them open up to each other on an emotional level to the same degree Eric and Meghan did. Perhaps because a lot of April and Noah's thoughts about each other were based on physical attraction, their relationship seemed less deep to me.

On reflection, I wonder if part of the problem was that it is challenging to portray not one but two romantic relationships, and a suspense plot, with a lot of depth in less than four hundred pages.

Even so, I liked the suspense storyline and loved the flavor of the setting, the ethnicity of April and Eric, the realness of all four characters who were human and imperfect but nonetheless lovable. For all these reasons The Edge of Night gets a B from me.

Sincerely,

Janine Ballard

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This book is published by an Agency publisher meaning that the publisher sets the digital book price and there are no discounts.

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“Srikkanth Bhattacharya is a quintessential gay bachelor and perfectly happy about it-’until he gets a call from the local hospital telling him his best friend died in childbirth. Sri had agreed to provide the sperm to make Jill’s dream of motherhood come true, but he’d never expected to have to make decisions for a baby girl. He intends to place her with an adoptive family, but once he sees her, Sri can't bring himself to do it, so now he's struggling to learn how to deal with a newborn.

His housemate and friend, Jaime Frias, volunteers to help, never guessing he'll fall in love with both the baby and Sri. Everything seems perfect until a visit from Social Services sends Sri into a tailspin, feeling like he has to choose between his daughter and a relationship with the man he's coming to love.”

Dear Ms. Tachna,

I will admit that the fact that one of the protagonists is of Indian heritage is what got me interested in this book. From other things I’ve read and seen, I’ve gotten the impression that GLBT orientation isn’t widely accepted in India and I was curious as to how you would deal with this. I’d also tried a historical book you co-authored which hadn’t worked for me and though perhaps a contemporary might do better.

I think the shock Sri experiences upon learning of Jill’s death and his new responsibilities is done well. Ditto the part involving the social worker at the hospital and the nursing staff helping to train Sri once he’s met his little princess and fallen for her. Good job in adding sections to the book which show life with baby when it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Sri has moments of sheer terror which I’ve heard are common for most first time parents when the instruction manuals just aren’t enough to cope with the curves a baby will throw at you.

I love the scenes of Sri bonding with Sophie – telling her all about how he met her mother, of the great friendship they had and the plans Jill would have had for her daughter. It balances how Sri’s other room mate Nathaniel got irritated when his life got upended by a colicky baby screaming while he was trying to study.

Some sections of the story devolve into stereo instructions such as when Jaime and Sri first hit Babies R Us. I felt as if I were in an infomercial touting the wonders of the store crossed with a documentary instructing first time parents how to prepare for bringing baby home. There are just some things which could be mentioned but not explained in such detail or perhaps merely lightly touched on like all the effort that went into decorating Sophie’s bedroom.

Jaime is the perfect mother. No, I mean that. He knows everything about babies, doesn’t mind the nasty work, is calm, competent, willing to shoulder the colic load and rearrange his work schedule so Sophie doesn’t have to go to daycare. He’s a keeper even if it’s a bit hard to believe he’s so good.

There are a lot of scenes of Sri or Jaime coyly thinking the other isn’t interested in him. I almost felt like I was back in high school and these two should be passing “do you like me? check yes or no” notes. But though it takes a while to get to the sex, once it does these boys know how to pleasure each other. I like that they hold off on making love until it is just that for them: a celebration of their feelings for each other.

You mix a world that is seeming fairly gay friendly with some incidents that did leaven the fluffy bunny feeling I was getting. Points for making your point in a way that has been used against GLBT couples in real life. The call to social services would be terrifying and, as Sri thought, humiliating to have a cop going through your house. Yet as the social worker says, they have to respond to these calls. Still the thought that some yob with an agenda could vicariously invade your world would shake mine. Sri has a point that he can’t suddenly stop worrying about this even if his head tells him he can. Good for Jaime that he sticks to his guns about Sri working to overcome the fear and thus live a normal life for them and for Sophie.

I was wondering when Sri was finally going to tell his parents about Sophie. Were I them, I would also be pissed that they’d had a granddaughter for eight months without knowing anything about her. Then he also unloads all his news at once and tells them he’s Gay and getting married. Way to break things gently, Sri.

You use two cultures which, from my understanding, aren’t as Gay friendly to be the background for Jaime and Sri. Both are afraid that their lifestyle isn’t/won’t be accepted. Jaime tells Sri that he’s felt uncomfortable around his family since he came out and Sri still hasn’t told his parents. So I kind of expected some more fireworks when their families did get involved in the men’s life.

Usually I don’t care for epilogues but this one is a charmer. As I read what Sophie says to her teacher, I couldn’t help but think of the young daughter of a friend of mine. The things her mother says come out of her daughter’s mouth are hilarious as well as extremely mature. I can’t wait until this girl goes to school and my friend hears back from the teachers what her daughter says to them. Though I didn’t get the more in-depth exploration of how the men’s lifestyle will impact their relationships with their respective families, I did like the book and can see both Sri and Jaime being loving fathers and partners in life. B-

~Jayne

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We have one DIGITAL copy (no geographic restrictions) of this book to give away. Comment by Friday, 6am EST to win! (One win per person for our Gay Writes giveaways, but feel free to comment on all posts to increase your chances of winning!)

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Does this mean that there will be a Latina section in the Borders store like there is an African American section? Are Latina authors happy about the specialized market segmentation? Will Julie Leto’s great “Dirty” series be reprinted to be sold to the new Latina book club? So many questions.

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It was been debated whether you write to the market or write what is in your heart. I have always voted that I want writers to write what is in their hearts because it makes for a better read. Your heart, shows through in this story and the first one in the series: Dirty Little Secrets. You make the Latino life so colorful, so passionate that I want to be part of it (you do say in your story that Latino is a culture not a race).

The members of Titan Int’l, a security corporation, are hired to oversee security at a fundraising event. During the event, Congressman Bennett is shot and would have been killed had Marisela Morales not distracted the assassin. The assassin is carrying out a revenge hit for a murder that Bennett seems to have committed but gotten away with. After the shooting, Titan is hired by the Senator’s wife to stop the assassin.

Marisela Morales is a former street gang member. This is no Stephanie Plum who leaves her gun in the cookie jar. No, Marisela Morales fought her way out of the gang and pulled herself into a better life. Part of this is owed to Titan who employs Marisela. Titan is run by twins Brynn and Ian and employs various individuals including enigmatic Max who seems to get sexier with each word he does not say. Brynn, by virtue of being born first, is really the leader of Titan. But before Brynn came stateside to throw her weight around, Ian was in charge. Ian and Marisela have been dancing a tentative and flirtatious tango that hasn’t really gotten past the intro steps.

Ian isn’t the only man in Marisela’s life. Frankie, with whom Marisela ran with on the streets and to whom she lost her virginity, is her current partner at Titan. Marisela isn’t sure that Frankie is her future. She also isn’t sure that he is her Right Now but it’s hard to resist the moves that Frankie puts on her.

The plot moves quickly and the action scenes are well executed. I appreciated that you dealt with some deeper issues such as the rightness of revenge killings and Marisela’s own questionable morality. The assassin is a fully fleshed out character and I couldn’t help but sympathize with her, just as you wanted me to. I also liked how the women play such strong roles in this story from Marisela to Brynn to the assassin. I loved the Spanish phrases used as endearments and come ons and in sexual play. It really made for a fully developed experience.

While this story is focused on Marisela, we do get glimpses from Frankie and, on rare occasions, Ian. Max is a true mystery man which makes him all the more tantalizing to the reader. I am not a big fan of the multiple partner offerings, but it works for me because neither man to whom Marisela is attracted is perfect for her. That makes it believable for me that she would be uncertain of her own feelings.

In all, this is a great action read with steaming hot scenes and wonderful promise for the future. The characters are smoking hot (think Ranger but speaking Spanish). Your voice is fresh and modern in this book. I heard that if this doesn’t sell well that you may not be able to provide us readers with more episodes in the Marisela series. That would be a crying shame. B for you.

Best regards,

Jane

Note to Jolie and Bookseller Chick: I need you to start handselling these books so the series goes on. For those readers who want an immediate fix, Simonsays sells Dirty Little Lies as an ebook for under $3.89!!!

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