Dear Author » m/m/f

REVIEW: Dark Soul: Volumes 3, 4, and 5 by Aleksandr Voinov

Sunita — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:00:59 +0000

Dear Mr. Voinov,

Your Dark Soul series has been a roller-coaster ride for me. It is not a genre romance, even though it has some very romantic moments. It features themes I rarely seek out, including menage, BDSM, and protagonists in organized crime. Purchasing all five volumes is not inexpensive. It is quite brutal in places. And while I enjoy serialized fiction, this one is more like a set of linked short stories in parts than a serialized novel.

And yet. And yet. I read each installment with apprehension but also eagerness, and they have rewarded me handsomely. I put off reading Volumes 4 and 5 for weeks, in part because I wanted to give them the attention they deserved. I’ve already talked about Volumes 1 and 2 here and here, so this review will cover the last three installments. I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers, because part of the pleasure and impact of the story comes from the way you’ve put it together. For readers who find my plot summary inadequate, there are reviews at Goodreads and a number of blogs that provide more answers.

The overall storyline is relatively compact: Stefano Marino, a avowedly heterosexual mob boss with a beautiful wife whom he loves, falls hard for Silvio Spadaro, an assassin who is the lover and heir of another boss. That boss sends Silvio to Stefano to assist him in a battle with the Russian mob. Volume 3 begins with the Russians’ attack on Stefano and Silvio’s retaliation against them, two acts that bring them together physically and emotionally, and it introduces a character from Silvio’s past who becomes part of the campaign against the Russians. This installment reveals more about Silvio, from his ruthlessness as an assassin and a person, to his sexual needs, to his vulnerability when he was a child. Stefano finally starts to come to terms with his attraction to Silvio and realizes it is not something he can wish or repress away.

In Volume 4, Silvio and Franco’s onslaught on the Russia mob continues and the relationship between Silvio and Stefano deepens, and both developments have their inevitable consequences. The mob war escalates beyond something that can be dealt with by merely buying off local law enforcement, and Donata is no fool. Stefano’s personal and professional existences are both up for grabs by the end, and it’s not at all clear which way the resolutions lie. Stefano is deeply conflicted because he is growing more emotionally committed to Silvio, but he also loves Donata, and he wants to keep everything the way it is and somehow add Silvio into the mix. Plus, he is trying to maintain his mob supremacy in the face of increasing threats.

Volume 5 has to wrap all of these loose ends together. And it does, with style and assurance, all the while introducing another major character. Savvy readers should deduce the backstory of the new character fairly quickly. Since I was slow on the uptake, I was kind of annoyed at first that this character became so important, although I understood why he had to for storyline reasons; then I finally got it and everything made sense.

In this final episode, the Russians are basically out of the picture but Stefano and Silvio have to deal with the increased law enforcement attention that accompanies their demise. Stefano tries to find a way to salvage his marriage while still hanging on to Silvio and fighting off challenges from within his organization. We also find out more about Silvio, which I found extremely helpful. By the beginning of Volume 4 I was starting to wonder if he was a sociopath. The ultimate explanation for some of his personality made sense to me, although I’m still ambivalent about how trustworthy he is and how fully he can commit to other human beings. But I could definitely see why Stefano didn’t want to have to choose:

He stood and slipped out of bed and closed the door behind him on the way, smiling to himself. Compared to Donata, Silvio was the polar opposite. Not a graceful or early riser. And that would be less funny if Silvio weren’t a sicario. If he killed a stranger for absolutely no personal reason, how would he respond if unduly irritated?

But of course, all that was idle bullshit, especially considering that the big issue in the back of Stefano’s mind was his wife. He kept checking his phone in the hope of a text from her. He sometimes touched her profile on his phone, especially when Silvio was asleep or occupied with something else. He’d snapped a photo of her on one of the date nights, dressed in a gorgeous red dress, her hair tumbling down. It showed up every time she called him, and sat as a tiny thumbnail right next to her name. Donata Marino.

And he was hiding away from her in this hotel, fucking Silvio, finally sating that hunger and that deeper need, the terrible affection for another man. But, truth was, he was hiding, still avoiding her.

I needed time to work this out for myself. I needed to know if it was real. And God help me, but it is.

I thought that the way you resolved these threads was ingenious from a storytelling point of view, but I wasn’t completely convinced in terms of the characters. What I mean by this is that everything worked in terms of the characters as they appear in the book, but I wondered if real people would work things out the same way (and it’s definitely a testament to the quality of the characterizations that I came to think of them as real people).

First, I thought Stefano needed to experience the consequences of his various decisions a bit more than he did. I didn’t want him to grovel more or be punished, exactly, but resolutions seemed to come a little too quickly (this may have been a consequence of page length). Second, I wasn’t fully satisfied by way Stefano made the decisions about his future and the ramifications of those decisions for both him and Donata. Stefano made them unilaterally even though they affected both of them, and I had trouble believing that it was as easy for the two of them to live with the decision as it seemed in the end. Even when you hate something, it’s hard to shift the patterns and habits of decades. And while I was pleased that there was an HEA in the end, I had trouble believing the characters were as free of their pasts as they seemed to be. So, in some ways, Volume 5 was the least satisfying for me.

Overall, though, the way the characters and the plot unfolded over the installments was really well done. Stefano goes from being confused and not very self-aware to decisive and much more in control, as well as more honest with himself and those he loves. Donata, when she finally appears on the page, is worth the wait. She’s a little too understanding in the last installment, but she’s a strong woman who seems to be making thoughtful and considered choices. And Silvio becomes less of an enigma and more of a human being. He’s still the same Silvio we met at the beginning of the first volume to a great extent, but we see him less as a gorgeous assassin and more as the complex young man that he is.

The quality of the writing sustains a high level of quality throughout the five installments; it is taut, focused, and perfect for the subject matter. The sex scenes are explicit, hot, and critical to the development of the plot and characters. There is an m/m/f scene which is extremely well done. If readers aren’t fanning themselves throughout, I’ll be surprised.

I am so glad I stretched outside my comfort zone and picked up this series. I want to reiterate, this is not a genre romance. It’s not easily classified, either as conventional m/m or menage. There are some extremely violent scenes, and the characters do some pretty unlikeable things. They are ultimately sympathetic, but it takes some of them quite a while to get there, and all readers may not make the journey with them. But for those who do, this is an incredibly rewarding read. It’s not perfect, but it’s very hard to forget.

Grade for series: A-/B+

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REVIEW: Simply Insatiable by Kate Pearce

Jennie — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:00:47 +0000

Dear Ms. Pearce,

I read and reviewed your book Simply Wicked last year and gave it a C+. Since I mentioned in that review that I was interested in reading the series further (in spite of the mediocre grade I gave the book), you were kind enough to offer me Simply Insatiable. I think having read Simply Wicked prepared me for the tone of this story, and thus some of the aspects that troubled me in that book did not concern me in this one. Yet I still find myself having philosophical/political issues with some aspects of the story, much as I did with Simply Wicked. This lead to a somewhat divided reading experience for me; I’m going to try to tackle how the book worked for me on an entertainment level separately from how I feel about the depiction of sexuality in it.

The story opens in London in 1819 with Lord Minshom, the villain of Simply Wicked (who I incorrectly identified as Lord Minshon in my previous review – sorry!) brooding in his study over the hero of that book, with whom he had been engaged in a BDSM relationship (Minshom being dominant). Minshom feels that he has been made a fool of, and that is unacceptable to him. He decides to console himself by ordering his valet/secretary/sex slave, Robert Brown, to perform oral sex on him. It is then that his wife Jane, from whom he has been estranged for the past seven years, sweeps in and announces that she’s come to stay.

Jane and Blaize has married 10 years before, when she was only 18. She had met him at a party and fallen instantly in love, even though she had not even had her debut and was warned against Blaize by her family and others. They apparently resided together in harmony (Jane comfortable with Blaize’s bisexuality and sharing his kinks) for three years before a tragedy tore them apart. From then on, Jane has stayed in the country, and Blaize in London, earning an ever worsening reputation and only consorting with men.

At heart, this is a pretty simple story – husband and wife marry young, face adversity and break up. It’s a storyline I often like. Blaize and Jane must find their way back to each other, with Blaize being the main stumbling block. In addition to the terrible loss that preceded his break from Jane, Blaize is extremely emotionally damaged from events that occurred in his childhood. (I really wish there’d been more information about the three years that Blaize and Jane were together, because again, it appears that they were happy; it’s not clear to me if he was just repressing the demons that haunted him during that time or there were problems that you just don’t go into in the story.)

So again, simple story: Blaize tries to get Jane to leave, tries to scare her away with his outrageous sexual behavior, finally makes a deal with her to give her what he thinks she wants if she will then just leave him alone. The bulk of the story has them fighting, fucking, and fighting some more. The conflict got a little tiresome, but over all, I have to admit that I found it entertaining on a basic level. The writing and plotting were smooth, the sex scenes were hot (really, really hot – I think you do sex scenes very well!), and I was less bothered by obviously anachronistic behavior than I had been in Simply Wicked. (Though I thought the way Blaize took Robert with him everywhere, even to soirees where a servant would not have been welcome, was a little odd. It seemed intended to further the secondary romance between Robert and a naval officer who had previously been involved with Blaize, though).

So, from a purely entertainment standpoint, Simply Insatiable was in the B range, probably closer to a B+ than a B-. Except for those issues I mentioned earlier. This is the second book in the series that I have read (there are three earlier books – Simply Sexual, Simply Sinful and Simply Shameless – that I haven’t read); in both books, the hero turns to gay sex (and not just gay sex, but kinky gay sex, involving BDSM) after being sexually abused by a man. In both books, the hero ends up with a woman, who in a sense redeems him from his “perverted” desires. Now, to be fair, in both books there are indications that the hero will continue to have sex with men, but in the presence of and with the participation of the heroine in the future. It bugs me, however, that the heroines are apparently only allowed to have limited sexual contact with the other men involved – for all that these two books are far outside of “traditional romance” in many ways, they remain conventional in others. It’s okay for the heroine to receive oral sex from another man – at the hero’s direction – but not for another man to put his penis in her vagina. I think this mixture of romance conventions with straight – no pun intended – erotica was more personally frustrating to me than the possibly offensive depiction of sexuality.

I say “possibly” above because I’m not really sure how I feel about the depiction of the heroes’ sexuality in these books. On the one hand, I can’t say I’m personally offended – I’m really not. And I realize that both romance and erotica can have strong fantasy elements (not in the flying unicorns sense, obviously, but in the men-don’t-really-behave-that-way-in-real-life sense). So I’m loathe to criticize this depiction too harshly. At the same time, I do find it problematic – I found it problematic in Simply Wicked and I find it problematic in Simply Insatiable. Again, I’d be more comfortable with the fluid sexuality if 1) the female characters were also allowed the same license and 2) the heroes didn’t both have their sexual proclivities tied up, seemingly, with the fact that they’d been sexually abused.

I liked the characterization in Simply Insatiable pretty well – neither Blaize nor Jane are groundbreaking characters but they are fairly well drawn and sympathetic. I did like the secondary romance between Robert and the naval officer David. I found Robert’s relationship with Blaize icky and deeply unhealthy, but apart from this dysfunctional relationship, Robert seemed less tortured and conflicted by his sexuality than Blaize or the hero of Simply Wicked.

I found the denouement a little rushed and unconvincing; Blaize just sort of seems to turn around without a lot of visible motivation. In the end he seems almost too forgiving of the man who wronged him.

All in all, despite my criticisms, I did, as I’ve said, find this book pretty entertaining. It may sound strange given my issues with the themes of this series, but I think I may just have to seek out the earlier books. My grade for Simply Insatiable is a B-.

Best regards,

Jennie

This is a trade paperback published by NAL but pre-Agency pricing.

REVIEW: Double Dare by Jeanne St. James

SarahF — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:24:08 +0000

Dear Ms. St. James,

This book put me to sleep. I mean, I’d had four hours sleep the night before I read it and I was in bed trying to nap, but srsly, this book totally put me to sleep. In the middle of (one of) the (many) big sex scene(s). This is Not Good.

Quinn (I could NOT get used to the fact that Quinn was a woman) had just been dumped by her boring-as-shit boyfriend of five years and was squeezed into a Pepto-Bismol pink bridesmaid’s dress trying to get completely smashed when she meets Logan, everything she thinks she doesn’t like in a man except she gets immediately wet for him. She comes on to him, he turns her down because she’s drunk, but takes her home anyway when he finds her trying to get into her car. In the morning when she’s no longer drunk and miraculously gets rid of her hangover between one sentence and the next, they go at it like bunnies. Then Logan’s boyfriend walks in. His big, black, athlete, well-hung boyfriend. Yay for stereotypes! They convince Quinn to come back the next weekend and try both of them out. She does, and they fuck like bunnies….

See what’s missing here? There’s no conflict. There’s no personal growth (although there’s a lot of growth elsewhere). There’s three people in lust, then love (so we’re told), but there’s no reason to have a story about it, except the fucking like bunnies part. And really? That’s boring when it doesn’t actually mean anything. Sure, they’re breaking a few taboos here and there (race, number of partners, etc.) but it’s bo-o-o-o-ring unless it MEANS something to the characters. Unless they have to struggle with something besides a completely under-developed superego (what will people think?) and some concerns about their parents (what would Mom and Dad say?) and a little bit of jealousy between the men, there’s nothing there, no reason for us to be watching them except for the sex, and yanno, sex like that IS just porn and is pretty boring.

And this?

“Am I your first black man?”

“Yes.”

He ensnared her cotton top in his fist and yanked it over her head, tossing it in the same direction of his own.

“Are you frightened?”

“Yes.”

She had on the black lacy bra she had picked up at the lingerie shop earlier in the day. She reached behind her to unsnap it, but his hands were there, brushing hers to the side. He skillfully unclipped the little eye hooks.

Her breasts, now free, peaked to hard points. Ty leaned in, but he didn’t touch them.

Instead he gave her a kiss that sent electric heat scorching through her body.

“Because I’m black?”

A shiver of arousal moved through her. “No. Because you’re too big.”

Did you really have to go there about race? I mean, really? Like having sex with a black man was something to collect? And the whole thing about a guy being too big for a woman’s vagina is anatomically a little silly. Babies come out of vaginas, yanno. We stretch. Unless he’s really monstrously huge like this guy around or this guy long (NOT SAFE FOR WORK, folks!), penises fit in vaginas, and while Tyler is supposed to be big, I don’t think he’s supposed to be as big as those two guys.

You also need to work on your dialogue a bit. I started reading because I enjoyed the dialogue in the excerpt online. But beyond that first chapter, the conversations are forced, boring, and seem to…well, peter out (harhar) when the action starts, because the point in this book is not the conversation, but the action, not the why, just the how. And like I said, that just put me to sleep.

Most of the book, to be honest, I was just wondering HOW did they do that? It was all about contortions and who put what where, rather than how they were feeling about it:

She slid back until Ty’s cock lodged between the crevice of her ass cheeks. There was no way she wanted to take him that way. She was still too sore from the first time; plus, Ty was much bigger than Logan. And Logan had been plenty enough.

She could feel the warm stickiness from his cock on her back. She leaned forward and barely brushed her puckered nipples against his abs. Just enough so they could both feel it. He clenched his abdominal muscles, and her nipples pebbled harder.

What? I mean…what? I still haven’t figured out what was going on here. Except you know what wasn’t going on? Emotions. Feelings. Any indication of what this all meant.

And then this was very odd:

Logan stiffened. He let her go and stepped back from her. “I’m not gay.”

Quinn turned and opened her mouth to argue, but quickly shut it. His expression was dark and closed. He had curled his fingers into fists, his arms stiff by his sides.

“If I were gay, I wouldn’t like women. I love women.” He shook his head, his hair sweeping against his face. He closed his eyes, took two breaths, before opening them again.

Quinn could see him visibly relax once more; his fingers uncurled, and his shoulders lowered.

“Quinn, I can see how you’d think we’re gay. But in reality, we’re bisexual.”

“Sorry.” She looked down at her bare toes. “I didn’t mean to upset you. This is all new to me.” That was an understatement.

Within two strides he had a hand under her chin and an arm wrapped around her back. He tilted her face up. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve lived with that stereotype for a long time.”

What stereotype? The one about how being in a sexual and emotional relationship with another man for five years might make people think you’re gay? As a bisexual, I do understand this issue, but really, I think Logan’s response was a little over-the-top.

Then again, both men’s motivations switch and change at the drop of a hat. Tyler is worried about Quinn coming between him and Logan, so he’s the one to suggest that they ask her to stay longer. Wha…? Logan bottoms to Tyler and realizes he hasn’t done it in a while, promising himself he’ll do it more, so he…exerts his authority over Tyler as top as often as he can. Wha…? Quinn isn’t ready to commit to her relationship with her “boys” so she stages a huge coming out spectacle at a Country Club charity auction put on by her parents. Wha…?

It’s book like this that are the reason they call romance porn for women. It’s illogical and silly, with cardboard cutout characters, bad dialogue, and weird bodily contortions. Every now and then the sex is hot, but mostly it’s just…boring.

Grade: D

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

P.S. Sod farmers?! Logan and Tyler are sod farmers? Rly?!

This book can be purchased at Loose ID in ebook format or other etailers.

REVIEW: When Alex Was Bad by Jo Davis

SarahF — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:00:39 +0000

Dear Ms. Davis:

I picked up this book at B&N because of the cover. I bought it because of its premise and because I’m fascinated by full triad m/m/f menage books actually being sold in the romance section at bricks-and-mortar stores, so I wanted to support that. Once I did, the book was…well, okay. Nothing to write home about, even though I obviously am right now.

At her own house party, Liv Quinn catches her loving husband Alex making out with one of his junior partners (or maybe she was an associate — it kept changing). She doesn’t call him on it — and he resists full temptation anyway. Instead she makes a plan. She will allow Alex to stray, as long as he confesses everything after he’s done and then accepts his punishment by her hand. Because, see, she gets off — always has — on cuckold fantasies, in which a partner in a romantic relationship knows of their partner’s adultery. In fact, a cuckold might even prepare their partner for the adulterous encounter. The fascinating thing, however, is that cuckold fantasists are almost always male — it’s a very rare female fantasy. But! Liv definitely gets off on the thought of her husband in the act of cheating: they used to use it as pillowtalk until they got too busy. So she now uses it not only as a way to spice up her relationship with Alex, but, in her mind, to save it.

I was also intrigued by the punishment aspect of the story. Once again, in typical cuckold fantasies, the one being humiliated is the cuckold himself, the one cheated against. The cheatee is usually cast as superior, as doing whatever she wants. Turning that on its head and having the cheating partner come home and “confess” (as pillowtalk, except this time it’s real) and then be punished for his transgressions was a fascinating concept to me, and I wanted to see how it would play out.

And THEN there’s Jason. He’s just moved in next door to the Stricklands, and Liv immediately hits it off with him — in that, they’re having hot monkey sex two days later, while Alex is out boinking his associate/junior partner. Jason is a mostly homosexual-identified, but bi-curious, sexual submissive…who doesn’t act that submissive around Liv, but does to Alex. He’s also kinda shady. He gets strange phone calls from weird, peremptory people. He carries a gun! It’s obvious to the reader early on that he’s FBI, but once strange stuff starts happening to Alex, Alex and Liv understandably begin to suspect Jason because he’s not telling them the truth about everything.

And that’s where the story took an unwelcome left turn for me. The novel is billed as “a novel of erotic suspense” which is all very well, but don’t you think it’s enough that Liv and Alex have opened their marriage, Alex is fucking Jenna, Liv is fucking Jason, Jason and Alex are fucking, and Liv is whipping out (harhar) her inner dominatrix for the first time, all within the span of a couple of weeks? It’s all just a bit too much for Alex to start having threats against his life and giving that side-plot almost as much airtime as the sex. Major threats to his life, too, like car bombs, assassins at work, bullet almost-but-not-quite to the heart. I think if my life were being threatened like this, I wouldn’t be out gallivanting with my slutty junior associate/partner (big difference there, people! Huge! Which one is it?) two night after two guys tried to shoot me at work. But maybe that’s just me. What do I know?

I do know that there was more than enough here to fill a book if you’d just delved a little more into the emotional lives of the characters. There should be more to the discussion between Alex and Liv when they opened their marriage than, “Hey, whaddya think?!” and “Sure! Sounds hot!” which is basically the level of relationship conversation that they had. Leave out the suspense and make the suspense into true erotic suspense and it’d be a much better story. As it is, both the sexual developments and the suspense plots didn’t get near enough introspection or consideration. Everything seemed very surface, very slick and porno and hott!hott!hott! without meaning anything. This could have been a fascinating look into cuckold fantasies and a realistic construction of a triad BDSM relationship. Instead it was…forgettable.

As for the punishment, some of it was hot. And some of it…not so much, because Liv? she doesn’t have a fucking clue:

The first snap of the leather strip caught the left side of his balls. Fiery pain shot through his groin and he gasped, arching in the restraints. Giving him no mercy, she struck again. The next snap lashed his raging penis, sending bolts of pain to every nerve ending. But the agony also gave rise to a strange, sweet quickening.

The wave spread from his groin to his limbs, forcing him to comply. To accept. Two more lashes to his penis, another to his testicles. Heat coursed through his veins, pain and ecstasy swirling together, lighting his body like a torch. She was relentless, the blows raining down in rapid succession.

Intense, heavy CBT (Cock and Ball Torture) is certainly not where I’d suggest someone who has never done any form of BDSM before should start, as Liv does in this book. The penis can take a lot more impact play than the testicles, but using a leather strap on either, and using it to the same degree on both, is just not done except by the heaviest of heavy players and then after a lot of negotiation and discussion of limits, none of which happened here.

Look, I’m all for kinky play, trust me. But represented in a responsible manner or represented as obviously a fantasy, like the Story of O or Laura Antoniou’s Marketplace series, not as the logical, obvious place to start in what is otherwise a pretty tame sexual adventure, BDSM-wise. Because most of the other sexual encounters were of the cuckolding/teasing and denial/bondage variety, not hardcore BDSM.

And, of course, the villain? I’m not giving anything away by saying he’s a sociopathic sexual sadist, because in books like this, of COURSE he is. Sigh.

So, I was hoping to enjoy it and I did, as quick stroke fiction with some mildly hot scenes. Which is fine, of course. But it wasn’t a book that meant anything, as I was hoping it would be, and it’ll be off to PaperBackSwap as soon as I’ve double-checked the quotations.

Grade: C+

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This trade paperback book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

REVIEW: Simply Wicked by Kate Pearce

Jennie — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:00:06 +0000

Dear Ms. Pearce,

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began your latest book, Simply Wicked, not having read you before and having only the vague idea that you write erotic romance, a term that has come to be applied a bit too broadly to provide much useful information for me as a reader. The fourth line from the opening was thus both a bit startling and edifying:

He licked his lips, tasting dried blood, brandy and the acrid tang of another man’s cum.

Ok-ay, then, that clears up the erotic romance part, I guess.

Anthony Sokorvsky is the 25-year-old younger son of an aristocratic family. Marguerite is a widow whose husband, Lord Lockwood, was killed in a duel under scandalous circumstances two years previously. They are brought together when her younger siblings decide that Marguerite needs to get out and circulate and choose Anthony to squire her (he seems an odd choice given that they know him from his frequent appearances at their mother’s brothel).

I felt rather at sea in the early chapters of Simply Wicked – though it is ostensibly set in 1819 London, at times it almost seems like an alternate history or alternate universe London, one where the daughter of a notorious madam can marry a lord and circulate in society with relative ease, and where the sexual pecadilloes of the hero – whose inclinations before meeting the heroine consist of playing the submissive in rough sexual encounters with other men – are openly known and discussed amongst his family, including his mother. I understand that perhaps some of the hyper-charged sexuality of the world you’ve created is due to Simply Wicked being an erotic romance, but when I think of the erotica I’ve read, even set in contemporary times (where attitudes might be expected to be looser), the sexual behavior of the characters tends to take place within a prescribed world.

I think the story would’ve been stronger if the hero and heroine were better developed. There are references to Marguerite’s upbringing in a strict convent orphanage and her desire for her own home and family, but I felt that I was missing some backstory that would’ve fleshed out her character. I had the same reaction to Anthony; it seemed that the book was written with the assumption that readers would have read previous books in the series, and would know how he came to crave punishing and degrading sex with other men.

And about that…as I am not a regular or avid reader of m/m or bdsm romances and/or erotica, I don’t feel qualified to definitively state that the presentation of the the relationship between Anthony and Lord Minshon (Anthony’s chief lover/tormentor/villain; apparently the hero of a future book in the series) was offensive. But it did feel a bit so to me. I will admit that I’ve read enough gay villains in straight romance (no pun intended) to be a little sensitive on the issue. But it does seem that their relationship was problematic in that it introduced a couple of hackneyed and unpleasant cliches: 1) the man who “turns” gay after being raped/sexually abused by another man and 2) the man who must be “saved” from his “perverted” behavior by the love of a good woman, a love that is sanctified only when he is able to dominate her in bed. On the second point, to be fair, it’s clear at the end that Anthony is still interested in kinky stuff (and Marguerite is okay with that herself, so it’s not a problem). I’m not trying to suggest that Marguerite turns Anthony straight. But there are those aspects to the story, and they did make me a little uncomfortable.

I appreciated that the story focused by and large on the emotional developments between Anthony and Marguerite, and each of their journeys to self-acceptance. Towards the end, I began to tire of the excessive self-flagellation that they each indulge in (I guess I should specify I mean emotional self-flagellation, given the subject matter presented in the book). Both of them repeatedly ponder how the other could ever love or forgive them for their misdeeds. It’s annoying when one of the lead characters does this; when they both do it’s just that much more aggravating. At least there were no extraneous suspense plots or mysteries to be solved; the heroine does attempt to discover the truth about her late husband and his death, but it’s a subplot that’s woven fairly skillfully into the story.

I thought the sex scenes were pretty hot, for the most part, and the story was well plotted and flowed smoothly. Ultimately, I wonder if Simply Wicked tried to straddle the line too much between erotica and romance. There is a slightly unbalanced feel in the way that the hero’s sexuality is depicted versus the heroine’s relative innocence (especially given her parentage). When the truth about the circumstances surrounding the death of Marguerite’s husband finally comes out, I rolled my eyes – even in a book as racy as this one, the heroine is expected to retain her essential “purity”? Really?

Despite my complaints, I found some aspects of this story compelling enough that I would be interested in reading one of your future books. The excerpt of Lord Minshon’s story at the end is intriguing, even though I kind of hated him in Simply Wicked. I am concerned that again we have a hero who solely has relationships with other men until the heroine appears (or reappears, in this case). I’m not sure how I feel about that. I would love it if the heroine is given a little more leave to indulge the same behavior as the hero.

My grade for Simply Wicked is a C+.

Best regards,

Jennie

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers. (Note, the book hasn’t shown up yet in the Sony store because the book hasn’t been released but given that the other books in the series are digitized, it seems safe to say that this book will be available in ebook as well. This is a trade paperback thus the higher price point.

REVIEW: The Claiming by Trinity Blacio

Jane — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:26:16 +0000

Jane:

Maili, I understand you just finished reading (or is that too generous of a word) the words compiled into one PDF known as The Claiming by Trinity Blacio published by Siren Publishing-Bookstrand, Inc. The Claiming is ostensibly about a young woman whose family was killed in a bomb explosion on the family boat 10 years prior to the start of the story. Tabatha (also referred to as “Tab”) receives a frightening phone call from someone claiming to be responsible for those long ago deaths and promising to finish Tabatha off now. Tabatha believes that werewolves might be responsible for her family’s death but this doesn’t stop her from dressing up (or undressing given the scanty nature of the costume) for a Halloween party held at the local werewolf club. There she discovers that the Alpha is her mate and that a demon named Chax, summoned using her stolen car (don’t ask), is also her mate.

Tabatha is claimed by the two men, transformed by their seed “part werewolf and demon, being able to shift as she saw fit, and living as long as they chose.” There’s other stuff that goes on including that her brother isn’t really dead but has been hiding for 10 years and he gets to join a threesome claiming of his own.

Your email said that you were rocking slowly in a dark corner. Is there any one thing that you can point to that finished you off?

Maili:

“Then they heard Chax bellow his rage from the living room. He came storming into the room. He stopped at the foot of the bed and stared at them. His clothes flew off his body. Ever so slowly, he crawled onto the bed with them.”

It’s either that or at department store Macy’s, Tabatha somehow managed to floor two fierce demons by kneeling their balls. Or when fighting at her home, she suddenly shape-shifted into a werewolf and then a demon, to deal with a couple of demons. I’m not sure why she managed to do this when she didn’t at Macy’s. Actually, perhaps it was that moment when everyone stopped fighting after the Master of Hell – out of the blue – shouted, “Stop fighting!” There were so many. I think I was finished off by page 2, actually.

I just can’t get over that there was virtually no world-building. It seemed so random. Tabatha is probably the most inconsistent character I’d come across. What did you think of her?

Jane:
I admit that I was skeptical when I started this book as I was alerted to it by a reader who informed me via email it was the worst book that she had read; that she was never going to buy another ebook again; and that the author used “neither hole” twice in place of nether hole.

(neither hole exhibit A) and (neither hole exhibit B)

I didn’t fully appreciate how truly awful it was, however, until I started reading. It wasn’t just simply the lack of a coherent plot or the lack of worldbuilding but the consistent misspellings; lack of proper grammar; inconsistent details from page to page; and total disregard for use of punctuation. It actually read like a test you might give to a copyeditor who is applying for a job.

Maili:

Yeah! I don’t think anyone would dare to use it as a test because it’d take longer than an hour for a copyeditor to highlight all errors and inconsistencies. It’s the constant inconsistency that almost killed me. Chax’s height varied throughout the story. As far as I could remember, he was seven feet and one inch tall and somehow, became six feet and a half. In one scene he had shaven chest and in other scene, he had chest hairs same colour as his red hair. Oh, speaking of his hair. It was long enough to touch the floor, but the length varied since then. Down to his waist, his shoulders, his knees or God knows where else. A black-haired woman became a blonde bimbo. Some actions were repeated. Tabatha pulled her t-shirt off twice in one scene. Once in a while, it happened on the same page.

The Claiming read as if it was a first draft and completely unedited. I suspect the editor – if there was one – ran a simple spell check because we have so many WTF? words. Cheek for check, rapid for rabid, story for store (“Glancing around the story she noticed everything back as if there had never been a fight” ), and their for they’re (“Yes, they know their not too happy, but I didn’t care.“). It was truly crazy.
Jane:

Toward the end of the story, I was unsure whether the author’s native language was English. As you noted, rapid dog was used (twice in fact). There was a “coat cheek” and “he cheeked every nook of her body”.

The use of pronouns was optional:

"I thought you would like to have our ceremony with Melody’s. We could have out there by the lake."

The transitions were stunningly bad:

Tabatha blushed and looked up at her mates’ glaring eyes. They didn’t say a word to her as they disappeared from the store. Her head rose up and she glanced up and her headboard greeted her vision. Face down on the bed she tried to turn around but her…

Consistent tense is forgotten:

“Tabatha couldn’t believe it. This hunk of a man could dance, and he is gorgeous to boot.”

Maili:

Someone responded to a recent DA article about the etiquette for reviewers that a reviewer should find something good in a bad book. I honestly tried to find one in The Claiming. The nearest I could find: the author has had an interesting concept. Not original, but interesting. I could see the skeleton of her story, but the execution is so poorly done. There was no story structure and… I’m sorry, it was unbelievably bad.

Well, it did have some memorable bits. Such as these: -

Ben laughed a sad laugh as two cups of coffee flew at him.
She bent down to pick it up when she felt the wiz of something fly by her ear.
Tabatha stopped for a minute, thinking about it, and continued walking to the car.
Shane grabbed hold of her, stopping her progress. “Wait, let me check outside.” His nose sniffed around the door. He poked his head out doing the same thing. Okay, everything is clear.”

There are some poorly plotted stories that have good erotic scenes, but the erotic scenes in The Claiming aren’t erotic at all. All were the ‘Wham-bam-thank-you-Ma’am’ type. I wouldn’t even brand it bad porn. I wonder if the author skimmed the details and the world-building to fit the word count for a 85-page novella? Or is it too charitable of me to think that?

Jane:

You have to wonder how any house can put this work out and maintain a reputation as a credible publisher.

Maili:

Especially when the ending made it clear that there will be a series to come. I hadn’t read a Siren Publishing book before and having read The Claiming, I’m not sure if I’m willing to read another.

Jane:

If there was a grade below F, I would give it. I truly believe this book is unpublishable in its current state. It gives Siren a bad name and, by extension, epublishing a bad name. No self respecting publisher should put out this kind of product. I intend to read another Siren book to see if The Claiming is an aberration.

This book can be purchased via Bookstrand (unfortunately you have to buy a $5 voucher and the book itself is only $4.50).

REVIEW: The Huntsmen 2: Backtrack by Amber Green

Jayne — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Dear Ms. Green,

Holy batshit, Batman, here we go again. It’s back to the alternate reality world you’ve created with the Hunstmen – hot men who roam in twin brother pairs looking for a good woman who likes it like that. Trying to keep sane via the emotional energy they can unleash from her following some hella good sex. Trying to survive in a world that doesn’t know about them – in fact can’t know about them – because when they lose it – well bad, bad things happen.

Readers starting with this book will be totally lost. I’m sorry but there it is. This is a complex world with lots of rules which makes sense to those of us who’ve read the first two books but newbies will be floundering and pitifully calling for help. Those just beginning these stories should check your website for a little background info.

I love that these men mind their manners around the matriarch. I guess it’s the only way she could live with fourteen males in one household. “Yes, ma’am. No ma’am. You’re right. We’ll do whatever you want.” Wiping their feet before entering the house. And that’s not just to get some nookie, either.

Poor Joe isn’t in this book much but he makes such an impact when he is. It’s so obvious he loves his mother and longs to be with her yet recognizes the danger she’s in from the drug lord. I almost cried when he tells Sugar, “I won’t be a problem, Mom. You can rely on me. Always.” He’s too young – along with so many children in the world – to need to know about this kind of danger. If Fort and Cassio set up a separate household, I can more easily understand why Joe doesn’t know as much as I would have thought come “Bareback” times.

I appreciated the commitment that Fort makes to Sugar to take care of Joe. As you say, not “we’ll do it” but “I’ll do it.” That seems to go a long way in Sugar’s book towards soothing her worries about these two and the lifestyle they’re offering to her.

And what danger. The scenes of Sugar dealing with Digger and his goons were horrifying but so well written that I could feel her terror at being in the hands of this madman again. I also think you did a good job explaining how she manages to keep one step ahead of him for so long. Constantly moving, staying ahead, situational awareness, putting some thought into the names she picks and jobs she takes, restricting her contact with her son, all were smart moves.

I loved the early 80s references. The music, the primitive computers, Compuserve, big hair! Ah, I remember it well. But were there mobile phones then? I honestly don’t remember those. And you needed some shoulder pad references.

This is a nice backstory addition to the Hunstmen world but it ain’t one for people to start with. B

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in e format from Loose ID.

REVIEW: Sex, Spies and Sapphires by Shelley Munro

Jayne — Sat, 19 May 2007 10:00:52 +0000

Dear Ms Munro,

For a book as short as this is, with three main characters, lots secondary characters and several long sex scenes, I should have gotten the feeling that every word was being used for a purpose, that every scene counted, that maximum use was made of the entire story. Instead, what I felt a a lot of while reading it was bored.

An heirloom sapphire. That’s where Sarah Walsh’s troubles began. Oh and sex. That came into the equation when she met Flynn Wangford. Now he has her sapphire and she wants it back.

Bad boy Flynn is causing trouble again. Sarah and fellow spy, sometimes lover Thomas MacIntyre are assigned to protect the British prime minister and royal guest Princess Leila from Mundavia while keeping an eye on Flynn. For Sarah it’s a chance to retrieve her sapphire. Somehow, she’ll juggle official duties and best the cocky Australian. But before she knows it, Sarah is alone with Flynn and they end up horizontal. The sex is explosive and hot, hot, hot, but she can’t stop thinking about Thomas. Two men. They’re so different yet both are delectable and very distracting for a woman with a mission.

Sarah must concentrate on recovering her sapphire but it seems she and Flynn aren’t the only players in the quest to secure the gemstone. Thomas wants the sapphire as well.

I should also say that what I ended up getting with this book was nothing like what I thought. Throughout the story, I kept thinking “spies wouldn’t act like this/do this/be like this.” The guests at the event where most of the action takes place were acting strangely. The main characters seemed more focused on sex than on what I thought was the plot. In other words, up until the end, when I knew what was going on, it felt disjointed and amateurish.

Now I know the reason for it but instead of being pleasantly surprised, it left me feeling that I’d wasted my time, that this was an hour of my life down the drain for a book that ended up doing nothing for me. I didn’t care for Sarah, Thomas or Flynn, I didn’t care who shagged who, and I ended up speeding through the sex scenes which is not a good sign for an erotica novella. And when it was all over, all I could think of was who were these other people in the menages’ little tableaux? Where did they come from and how did the trio manage to get them to waste a weekend on their little fun and games?

After my first good experience with your writing, I’m sorry that this one hardly worked at all for me.

~Jayne

***

Dear Ms. Munro:

I have to say that I felt the same way as Jayne but I would have given a slightly better grade although the ending left me just as perturbed. Your style and voice are appealing but the book was poorly crafted. The main characters had no discernible motivation other than to have sex with each other. Despite the declarations of love and feelings for each other, the actions of the character belied those with the frequent bed hopping. It did not feel romantic at any part of the story.

The plot is a caper, a mystery, a whodunit. In those books, the ending has to fit the clues that the author leaves the reader so that when the ending comes, the reader can go back and enjoy either the sense of discover or the cleverness of the foreshadowing. In this book, however, the ending does not match the clues. Frankly, the ending seemed like a cheat to me. If you tell me that your characters feel jealousy, hurt and betrayal, and then wipe that all away, it makes me wonder whether I can trust any characterizations in the future. C-.

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: CB: Dare Me by Leigh Ellwood

Jane — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:00:17 +0000

Dear Ms. Ellwood:

You have a fun sense of humor and your prose is quite readable. The romance, however, seemed rushed and pushed aside for the sake of the explicit sexual content. I had trouble believing that this couple truly loved each other or whether they just enjoyed the sex.

Cal Briscoe is a studio musician who struggles with the fact that at the age of fifty-one, he is unmarried and essentially alone. This loneliness is punctuated by the imminent marriage of his best friend, Brady, the hero in Truth or Dare, to a woman that Cal fancies himself with, Ellie. Much of the beginning half of the story is spent on the poignant feelings Cal exhibits when he longs for Ellie and his unrequited love for her.

Upon the urging of Brady, Cal decides to take refuge in Ellie’s hometown of Dareville, Virginia. There he meets Sue Carmichael, a photographer. Sue and Cal are opposites (the contest entry said think the Odd Couple) and often rub each other the wrong way.

The story is about taking chances and moving outside of one’s comfort zone for both Sue and Cal which is an excellent theme for a romance story (or any story). The problem lies in the fact that while there are a plethora of sex scenes (both fantasies and real acts), the romance story is left behind. The character growth is rushed. One minute Cal is a pot smoking slacker in love with his best friend’s fiancee and the next, Sue is his lastest crush and he is a work out fiend devoted to living better. The transformation lacked believability.

I can’t help but feel disappointed as you clearly have a good voice that is humorous and smooth. I’d certainly try you again but hope that next time a better balance is struck between the hot parts and the story. C for you. Take heart, though, Keishon liked this much better than I and just goes to show how subject reviews are.

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Blackmailed by Annmarie McKenna

Jane — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:00:39 +0000

Dear Ms. McKenna:

It’s a bit ironic that I would write the following because yours is a story where I would recommend to readers to skip the story and just read the sex scenes. Because your sex scenes are pretty good. It’s when the three of the characters step outside the bedroom, or dressing room, or car, or . . . well, you get the picture, that the book falls apart. Let’s start with the beginning.

What is most important to Brianna Wyatt is threatened by her father if she does not agree to have sex with Cole Masters and beget a male heir. How would Andrew Wyatt get Cole Masters to agree to this? I have no idea. After all, according to you, “He was rich beyond measure, many times over her father's own wealth, had a powerful corporate drive, and was way younger than most of his competitors.” and “As for the man himself, she had seen him many times in the media. He was a handsome, much coveted bachelor who regularly dated beautiful, sexy women. Women who fawned over him, batting their eyelashes and cooing like imbeciles. Women who had far more experience than Brianna could ever hope to have.” Ultimately, I think that Cole doesn’t agree to it but is struck with instant hard on and must fuck Brianna or die.

Your characterization of Andrew Wyatt is a joke. He’s so insane that when he speaks to Brianna he is literally foaming at the mouth. How this insane man could run a business and be a multi millinaire is beyond me. So Cole meets Brianna. He gets immediately hard and takes her into his life. She is a virgin, of course, which is extra exciting for Cole because he can train her to be the ultimate sexual toy for he and his BFF Tyler. (BFF= Best Friend Forever). And train her he does. She has never given head before so he takes her mouth roughly because he doesn’t want to have to go back and retrain her.

If the book was just honest about itself – that is was hot sex story featuring two guys who loved to share, that would be fine. The sex scenes were hot and who wouldn’t want to be part of a Cole/Tyler sandwich or be subject to all that lavish male attention. But when you try to make this a romance, a love story between the three and that all comes about in less than 4 days, it is a laugh. Cole and Tyler love that Brianna is the ultimate sex toy who does whatever they want but I don’t think that they love her as a person. They don’t know her as a person. Only as someone who deep throats them and will obey their sexual commands without question. And all that is perfectly fine, just don’t try to make it into something more than it is.

Your attempts at creating external conflict through Andrew Wyatt and a jealous rival is also comical, in a bad way. I saw that you lived in St. Louis but the depiction of upper crust St. Louis society appeared, um, inaccurate, or at least unbelievable. Based on the bestselling status of your book, I would guess that you don’t really have to write a good believable story in order to sell. You just need to write hot sex. The real unfortunate part is that toward the latter third, we don’t even get a good sex scene until the epilogue. If you would just stick with writing the hot sex, this book would be so much better. B for the sex scenes but D for the rest of the story so a C overall.

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Menage a Magick by Lora Leigh

REVIEW: Menage a Magick by Lora Leigh

Jayne — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 01:33:37 +0000

Dear Ms Leigh,

Thanks to a friend, I got to read your ebook all about twin wizards, princess consort of same, a dragon (thank God he’s not in on the sex part) and magick. Not magic, mind you, but magick. Blue green magick that erupts whenever the twin wizards and their princess consort get nekkid and boink. What was I thinking?

OK, so you’ve got us on some world that has male wizards and female magick people and they need each other for completion of their magick and to keep it from fading away BUT over a millennia ago, they stopped Joining and ever since things have been going downhill and the lowly humans are maneuvering into power. It cannot be allowed to continue! So, these hunky male wizard twins approach the Queen and ask to Join with one of her daughters, Brianna, who is sort of ordained for them.

Queen agrees but Brianna balks.– Oh, no! I know what happens when a female mates with two wizards. I will be torn apart when you both stick those HICs in me. Nuh-unh, ain’t gonna happen!

The Queen, the Dragon (who caught Brianna looking at the illustrations in the naughty Forbidden Books) and the Wizards all try to persuade Brianna. Brianna won’t be persuaded. — Noooooooooo! No, no, no, no, no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Lots of foot stamping and vows that she won’t give in, ever!). I hate twitty heroines.

You then make these Wizards willing to force the issue if need be. Heroine is seen as silly, virginal twit with Irrational Fears. Give in to us — say the twins. You are our soulmate. We will give you sexual pleasure unimaginable. NO! – says Brianna (about 452 times give or take a dozen).

Meanwhile, humans are trying to kidnap Brianna and destroy her power before it can be strengthened by her Joining with the twins. Wizards hear her cry for help and rescue her. They all bath in pools of liquid silver to heal Brianna which makes them even hornier. You must give up your silly female fears and Join with us – they say (for about the 567th time give or take a few). Brianna refuses. Again. But what did I expect by that point?

Issues have come to a head. The Joining must take place regardless of Brianna’s silly, maidenly fears. Full speed ahead – say the wizards and get down to business. They wow Brianna with some good luvin’ and finally (!) Join! Blue green magick explodes and erupts all over the place. Looks like the Fourth of July. Wow – says Brianna. That was fun. The wizards look smug and smirk a lot. God I hate smirky heroes.

One thinks Brianna is tamed (he said that) and that all she really needed (and needs to be kept in line) is lots of good f**king. Other twin isn’t so sure but still enjoys the boinking. Aaarrrggghhh.

Two months later…..heroine still acts like silly twit, stamping her feet and throwing things. Twins are still divided over best way to control her but lots of hot menage boinking still taking place when Brianna hasn’t thrown them out of her bed. There is some silly bit about an ex-human mistress of one of the twins (the F**k her into submission one) who is plotting to bring the humans to power that gets taken care of in two paragraphs and it’s back to more sex.

Then…you begin to set up your next book about the heroine’s wounded sister who also needs to Join with two other wizards. Wait…didn’t I just read that? Can’t you come up with a different plot?

You really seems to have a thing for brothers getting it on with the heroine. And you make this heroine sound like an idiot. Over and over again. Just some stupid little moron who needs to be controlled by the big strong heroes (with HICs) for her own good as well as the good of the world. Lots of smug and superior males telling all the women of this world to just give in like good little girls because the men know best. Ugh! Oh, almost forgot, for those readers who hate the word too, you used orbs in the story. Your world building was perfunctory (use misspelled words like magick and apostrophes in the names and voila you have a distant planet far, far away).

I’m really glad I didn’t pay anything for this and probably wouldn’t read another book by you but I had fun laughing at some of it. When I didn’t want to bitchslap the heroes, that is. D

~Jayne

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REVIEW: Threesomes (Menage a Trois) or how to increase traffic to your new blog