This anthology is composed of three erotic contemporary stories and one erotic paranormal, similar to the previous anthology, Unlaced. Once again, the stories are loosely joined by the use of a corset in each of them, but the device is tangential to what’s happening in the individual stories, not unlike many of the other anthologies out there.

No Strings Attached by Jaci Burton.

Ella Hicks is the CEO of Hicks Construction, a company she built with her husband James, and took the helm when he died five years ago. She’s made a success of her company, and leaned on a particular friend and sometimes rival, Clay Mansfield, for business advice. Ella has spent so much time making Hicks Construction a powerhouse that her sex life went to the grave with her husband. Huh…too morbid? This story definitely isn’t. Ella realizes that she needs to do something to get herself out of this anti-social and anti-sex rut, especially since she’s been spending more time eyeing Clay’s ass than worrying about building codes. She schedules a vacation in an exotic locale, hoping to find rest, relaxation, and an anonymous partner for some meaningless, yet satisfying sex. Not exactly the smartest thing for a woman to be alone and on the prowl, and this is where Clay comes in.

Clay Mansfield has realized that Ella is more than his good friend’s widow. Sure, Clay deludes himself into thinking he’s going on vacation in the same spot as Ella just to make sure she doesn’t get herself into trouble, but that thought lasts half a second, or at least until he sees Ella at the pool:

Clay finally exhaled. It was Ella. Holy shit. She sure looked a lot different in a bikini than she did in boots, jeans and a work shirt.

He almost felt guilty over the tightening of his cock.

Almost.

Clay and Ella give each other what they need: a guiltless fling that goes deeper than just a zipless fuck (apologies to Erica Jong), providing them with a level of satisfaction that wouldn’t otherwise be reached. One of the caveats of this relationship is that it won’t go beyond the vacation; once they’re back in Oklahoma, it’s back to business as usual. Delightfully, it’s Clay that realizes there’s no “usual” much faster than Ella. The depth of characters and relationships was impressive for such a short story. I never felt that Ella and Clay’s interaction was forced, or that there was some sort of strange hook to make everything work. This was an enjoyable read. A-

La Petite Mort by Jasmine Haynes

I hate making a comparison, but in an anthology, I think it’s inevitable, especially when two straight erotic contemporaries are put one after the other. This story struck me as strange, with a dash of sad and dark thrown into the mix. Sophia, a former model currently working as a VP at Caprice, a high end cosmetics company, has a polyp on her uterus that needs to be removed and biopsied. Sophia has no close friends, no relatives and no one to turn to to discuss her fear that the polyp might be cancerous. Ford Connelly, the CEO of Caprice, knows that Sophia is off her game when she barely makes it through a presentation, and brings her into his office to confront her.

While I might be able to overlook a dark and slightly sad beginning, I couldn’t ignore that the characters crossed a major line when Ford essentially forced Sophia into telling him why she needed a day off. Ford and Sophia’s prior interactions had been purely on a business level, and I know it was important to have Sophia open up, but the way it was done stuck in my craw. From here, the story continues into uncomfortable territory. Ford asks Sophia if she could do anything at all, what would it be…and yep, it’s a MMF threesome. Ford has the hots for Sophia (it’s mutual) and wants to make this happen for her, so he sets it up for her the night before her surgery. Yeah, she’s gonna do two men before uterine surgery. In addition, guy number two was such an oddball; more of an acquaintance of Ford’s than a friend. This story was out of my comfort zone due to the awkward and contrived set up. D

Honor Bound by Joey W. Hill

I am, without a doubt, a huge Joey W. Hill fan. That said, I felt that Controlled Response, the contribution to the prior anthology, was tough to swallow for a variety of reasons. Honor Bound was the complete opposite, both a strong and erotic love story combined with a woman regaining her sense of self through finding love. We’re back with the Kensington & Associates gang, and this time it’s Peter’s story, the soldier who loves breasts for those of you that read the last anthology (I really need to get my hands on Matt Kensington’s story…). But in truth, this story is just as much about Dana as it is about Peter. Dana is a Sargent, about to be shipped out to Iraq, when she decides to spend her last night at The Zone, and upscale BDSM club that has appeared in many of Ms. Hill’s other stories. Peter is able to touch Dana on a deeper level than any other Dom before. And Dana is the submissive Peter has been searching for. Peter catches her in the airport as Dana is about to ship out, and she extracts a promise that Peter will write to her, but she isn’t going to write back.

Dana is injured in combat, and when Peter returns from Afghanistan he makes it his mission to get her to realize that she can’t give up on life, or on him, as a result of her injuries. Dana’s healing odyssey is great to read. Peter is her taskmaster, her rock and her friend – whatever she needs, while still being true to his Dom self. One of the things that I had a tough time with was the introduction of a secondary character dying of AIDS. I feel that Ms. Hill uses a desperate secondary character to highlight something special about either the hero or heroine in many of her stories, and this was a totally unnecessary detour in Honor Bound. The growth of Dana and Peter’s relationship was strong enough to hold it’s own. B+

Rhio’s Dancer by Denise Rossetti

I gotta be honest here: it’s very strange to read three contemporaries and have a paranormal thrown in there at the end. It actually took me about 15 pages to get into the story, but once I managed to get past my initial hesitation, this story was delightful. Captain Rhiomard made a brief appearance in the prior anthology, and I’m happy to see him get his own story, because after reading it, he really deserved it. Rhio is the Queen’s captain of the guard, and has been a warrior for a long time. Caracole’s Queen Sikhara is in negotiations with the Trinitarian Republic and their ambassador. The Trinitarians are slavemasters that take what they want by force, and Rhio is on the lookout for a trap, which he suspects is in the form of Dancer, the woman and warrior that is the evenings entertainment. Rhio is taken with her immediately, and realizes that he will have to win her trust.

“Where were you born?”

“What has that—?” Catching his eye, she broke off. “In the southern desert beyond the Trinitarian border.”

“How long have you been a slave?”

“Fifteen years, four months and twenty days.”

“How old are you now?”

“Thirty.”

Rhio glanced up from his notes in time to catch the shiver she couldn’t prevent. “I ask you again, Dancer. Are you cold?”

She hesitated. “A little.”

Without a word, he rose and went to light the fire. Hell, she’d walked all the way from the royal chambers barefoot without a word of complaint. He should have done it the moment they entered the building.

Rhio is patient, honest, and recognizes Amae for the warrior and strong soul she is. Amae respects and is attracted at the most visceral level to the warrior in Rhio. I freely admit that the initial scenes of this story weren’t a huge hook for me, but once I got into it, the story was a quick and very enjoyable read. B+

~Shuzluva
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When I start reading this book I was pleased to see that it was a billionaire from some other region than Italy, Greece, London or Spain. Instead we are treated to a Russian billionaire. I have fond memories of Russian billionaires. One of my favorite Lindsay books is Secret Fire. I know I probably shouldn’t confess that given that Secret Fire is about a Russian prince who kidnaps an Englishwoman, whom his loyal servants subsequently drug with a powerful aphrodisiac forcing her to suffer the sexual attention of said Russian prince until said drug wears off. But, I digress.

While Sergei Antonovich is just as arrogant Dimitri Alexandrov, the story doesn’t have quite the same charismatic pull. Sergei loves only one woman in his life and that is his grandmother. She is getting older and longs for Sergei to to bring her grandchild.

Wanting to grant her this wish and desirous of having an heir, Sergei employs his vast network of employees to find a woman of suitable intelligence, background, and morality who will, for a sum of money, bear him a child and then leave. Alexa poses as her twin sister Alissa and applies to be Sergei’s surrogate and fake wife for a year. Only for some reason, Alexa decides she would rather marry a different man named Henry and tells Alissa that Alissa must fulfill the contract because Alexa has spent all the money.

This is quite the ridiculous setup. Alexa is cartoonishly villainous. She lacked only the long handled mustache to complete the picture although I could hear the vaudeville music in the backgrond. Alexa is vain, spendthrift, and dishonest. She lies about everything and Alissa, the fatter twin, has to pick up the pieces of Alexa’s messes. Yes, I said fatter because Alissa is less beautiful than her identical twin because she dresses poorly and is slightly heavier. ::cue the rolling of eyes::

Sergei is so talented. He could tell by a picture that Alexa wouldn’t have been an appropriate person to carry out the contract and decides on the eve of the wedding to abandon his scheme. However, when warm, kind Alexa shows up in Alissa’s place, Sergei changes his mind. He’s enraged, however, to find out Alexa and Alissa have switched places. Alissa must fulfill the terms of the contract or he’ll sue them both for fraud.

In this story, Alexa is really the alpha asshole to Alissa’s doormat heroine position. Alexa is constantly so awful that you really have to wonder at what kind of person Alissa is to allow herself to constantly be used in such a horrible fashion. At some point the character goes beyond doormat into masochism. Even after she discovers that she has to bear a child to the stranger and leave the child with him, she is still too weak to stand up to her sister.

Alissa is everything that is good and pure and right in the world. She doesn’t want fancy clothes or expensive jewelry. She only wants to support her dear mother. I guess the Bible is right. The meek will inherit the earth. Sergei’s not a terrible guy but he’s not got much depth. Probably he and Alissa belong together.

I’m still wondering why Alexa wanted old Henry when she loved the lucre that Sergei had. D

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon
(affiliate link), eharlequin (non affiliate link) or in ebook format in Kindle (non affiliate link), eharlequin (non affiliate link) or other etailers.

I mentioned in an earlier review that when I read a book that is well into an established series, I do so with some trepidation. Crimson & Steam is the eighth book in the Crimson City series, however, books 2-5 and 7 (an anthology) were written by different authors. C&S is deep into the series, but I figured that since more than half of the series was written by different authors it was possible that this book could stand alone. I could tell by page 2 that this was not going to be the case, and by page 15 I was getting the strong feeling that I wasn’t going to like the heroine.

But before we go there, a brief synopsis: Crimson City is the city of Los Angeles where vampires and werewolves seem to reign supreme, and humans are fighting to regain the upper hand. There are also mechs, a creation of humans that are simply trying to live with freedom. If this sounds complicated, it is, and stepping into the middle of this seething morass of ideas without clarification, backstory or buildup was confusing and slightly off-putting. From what I could glean from the story, the four different subspecies live on different strata, but honestly I’m not sure what that really means. Vampires living in the sky? Do they live in floating houses? Do the werewolves live underground? In caves? None of this was clear to me. There seemed to be a rigidity between the world’s different subspecies conflicting with massive civil unrest within each group.

The story revolves around Marius Dumont, a vampire, and Jillian Cooper, a human, and their star-crossed love. Marius is the head of the House of Dumont and also the head of the council of vampires. Jillian is a reporter that is currently freelancing since she lost her steady job in a prior installment in the series (I’m assuming). Marius believes that it is crucial for the vampires to pursue political connections with the werewolves, and decides that to do this he must marry a werewolf princess. With the union of wolves and vamps, the Vampire Council believes that the humans will back off from “Total Recall”, i.e., getting all the humans that are fraternizing with wolves and vamps back into the species fold and destroying (I think) the humans’ “enemies”. When I saw Total Recall, all I could picture was Arnold Schwarzenegger in a dress with a disembodied head saying “Two weeks! Two weeks!”.

While this would seem to be an intriguing story between species, it is obvious within the first dozen pages that marriage to anyone for Marius will be nearly impossible. That is because Marius and Jill share a special “connection”. The can communicate mind-to-mind, can sense each others’ moods and feelings, and are pretty much mentally and emotionally in each others’ back pockets. But Marius, being the diplomat that he feels he needs to be, knows that a union between vampire and human is not possible for him. I’m confused at this point as to why, since it seems that nearly everyone in Crimson City knows of his and Jill’s connection to each other. However, let us forge ahead: My dislike for Jill came with this:

There was no ambient danger. Suddenly Marius understood that while her sorrow was genuine, the rest had been faked. She had lured him here. There was no real peril. Such a situation had never happened. She had never before lied to him.

Apparently, even though Marius and Jill are mentally connected on a level that I think I would find incredibly intrusive, they cannot actually communicate with each other, and Jill throws herself at Marius in an unattractive attempt to have just one night with him. He, of course, refuses her and goes ahead to wed Tatiana Asprey, a werewolf from New York. Jill is at the wedding in her freelance position, and as a member of the Rogue’s Club, an interspecies group that has been invited to the festivities. That same night Jill discovers a dead body in one of the rooms in Dumont tower. She mentally reaches out to Marius, and he abandons his new bride in their suite to investigate. The dead man was a vampire, but none of the traits of vampirism remain in his physical makeup. At an underground Mech lab, they discover that the vampire was infected with a virus that is designed to change non-humans back to human. If you can’t guess where this is going…

Along with Marius and Jill, we are treated to the story of Charlotte Paxton and Edward Vaughn, a woman and a gentleman in 1851 Victorian England. Charlotte and Edward’s story is woven throughout the novel, and the reader is taken back to a sort-of steampunk England at the most tension-laden times in the book. Charlotte is a budding gardener (hah!) and owner of a draper shop and Edward seems to be a gentleman looking for a rich bride. They initially meet in Derbyshire and form a connection, which continues with Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. Charlotte and Edward may hold the key to the origin of species, and for me, their story proved to be more interesting, and more genuine, than Marius and Jill’s.

In addition to Charlotte and Edward, there are many secondary and even tertiary characters interacting with Marius and Jill, and it is difficult to follow all of the storylines, many of which are left dangling, perhaps with the intention that they will be continued in another book in the series. I, however, will not be continuing. I found very little to care for in Jill, who seemed to be selfish, overwraught and at times, downright stupid. Marius seemed like a guy with a propriety stick shoved firmly up his ass. The use of political and social mores to keep Marius and Jill apart is annoying and weakens both of their characters substantially. Marius and Jill have a connection, but there is a serious lack of character development, and the two of them remained very cardboard for me, as did the rest of Crimson City. D.

~Shuzluva

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook format.

I had really enjoyed Outcast and was looking forward to reading this even though it clearly was part of a long running series, a series with which I don’t have even the passing acquaintance. I can see by the Amazon reviews, however, I should be grateful I wasn’t one of the fans that had followed the series and the build up only to have my expectations completely dashed. I can say that there is nothing about this book that would compel me to pick up another in the Bitter Creek saga.

Kate married poorly to a selfish man who cheated on her. One night she walked into a hotel room that she and her husband were sharing and found her husband with another woman. Her husband just waves her away. Kate proceeds to leave the room, return to the lobby and picks up the handsomest man in the room for a one night stand. Kate gets pregnant by this stranger and eventually delivers twins. Kate stays marries to her philandering husband for some reason. Kate’s mother in law is the former governor of Texas who has higher political ambitions. Her main problem is keeping track of her son. He is supposed to be dead but Kate knows that he is alive. Kate’s mother in law hires someone to find out the paternity of Kate’s twins. It turns out to be Wyatt Shaw, the son of a mob boss.

Wyatt finds out he has twins and guess what? He wants them back. Upon seeing Kate, he realizes he wants her too. He’s never forgotten that one wild night 10 years ago. Unfortunately for Wyatt, Kate is in love with Jack, a Texas Ranger with a black mark on his record. Jack is recently separated from his wife and has found solace in Kate’s arms. As soon as the two of them can arrange a divorce and/or receive confirmation of Kate’s husband’s death, they will marry.

Jack was kicked out of the house by his wife, Holly, because she was afraid to love him. Complicating matters is that when Kate was in a coma from a gunshot wound, Jack and Holly had sex and now Holly is pregnant. Please note that Jack and Kate were purportedly in love with each other at the time of her gunshot wound and subsequent coma. I wonder if coma is secret code for “cheating but not cheating”?

But Kate doesn’t really mind. She’s totally accepting of Jack and knows that he loves her. Problematically when Wyatt shows up, she can’t stop the physical reaction she has toward Wyatt. Oh dear me, how can that be when she is supposed to love Jack?

The fact is that Jack and Kate really have no idea what love is and that would be perfectly fine if learning about true love was part of their character arc. But it’s not. Both are so spineless that in the end, it’s probably good the two didn’t get together because two gormless worms should not live above the earth and procreate.

So Wyatt drags Kate and the two boys to his remote compound near Houston and demands that Kate sleep in the same bed with him. Because Kate is the aforementioned gormless worm, she cries but acquiesces. Apparently in Texas, you are required to sleep in the same bed as a man who impregnated you, even if it is 10 years ago, or else dire consequences ensue. Like getting a spine. It should be noted that Kate is from a very powerful family but at no time does she call on them to help her out. Pride is one reason. Because it’s far better to go and b be forced to sleep in the bed of a man you believe is a criminal and responsible for heinous acts than to ask your family for help.

Of course, Kate cannot be forced to sleep in the same bed as Wyatt without having sex with him again but good girl that she is, she confesses this to Jack who at first gets mad and jealous but then decides that they will work things out.

Let’s turn to Jack and his wife, Holly. Jack and Holly have a 6 year old son and right when Jack needs to get a divorce he finds out that the son has AML and needs a bone marrow transplant. Soap fans will understand where this story goes.

In the end, Jack and Holly rekindle their love. Kate and Wyatt fall in love. At some point, after much sexxoring of the other partners, Jack and Kate confess to each other than they are not in love and wish each other the best. The end. Cue rainbows for everyone.

The characters are completely wooden. No one had any authentic reactions to what was going on in their lives. The plot was completely ridiculous. It read like a cobbled together script of a few episodes of a bad soap combined with a TNT action show.   There was a ton of backslapping by people I assume were from other Bitter Creek novels but had nothing to do with the storyline other than to add “there, there, it will be all rights” along the way.  Lame.  The only thing that would have saved this story is if someone had their head chopped off in the beginning but turned back up at the end to fall in love with Kate’s mother in law or something. D

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon (affiliate link), Harlequin (non affiliate), eharlequin, Kindle (non affiliate link) or other etailers.

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 (and I probably would have been pissed if I had paid for it).

I was quite excited to read this book after finishing the first in the series. Perhaps I expected too much, but I was seriously deflated upon finishing Hard to Hold to the point that I doubt I will read the finale to this trilogy. What were excusable irritants in the first book overwhelmed this story from the confusing sentence structure to the inclusion of too many characters and lack of attention paid to the main protagonists.

As the description says, “Nick Devane’s life is one big, classified secret.” It’s a secret of his own making. Nick is the lost heir of a Kennedy-esque family whom he decided to abandon when he was a teen. He was taken in by another family and the three boys form the basis of this trilogy.

The heroine, Kylee Smith, is a journalist but she’s really only a journalist when it fits the story because most of the time we see Kylee stealing cars, undoing her pants or running around Africa at the direction of Nick. Kaylee was supposed to be a world class journalist but she read more like a National Enquirer writer as many of her stories were about a missing heir of a well known family (aka Nick). But Smith being a journalist provides insta-conflict for a man whose life is built on secrets.

Kaylee finds Nick because he is on a list of men who her now dead ex husband had helped and now she wants Nick’s help.  Someone is calling her asking her to come to Africa with money. It sounds like her supposed dead husband.  Nick’s a SEAL and orders come down for him to keep watch over her.  The story treats Nick’s SEAL team as if they are a private security group that isn’t answerable to anyone.  But what’s realism in a story like this, right?

A major problem I had with the story involving Nick and Kylee was that Nick had issues with physical contact with others due, in part, to his not having been held as a child (I believe). Supposedly being touched triggers the fight or flight response although which response was triggered is never articulated, just that he has the response which he needs to “bite back”. Further, this fight or flight response does not inhibit his ability to have sex with several women at five hours or more at a time, just his ability to sleep with them (because being unconscious next to someone will trigger fight/flight?)   or have non sexual contact with them. And, of course, his flight/fight stimuli is suppressed when he is near Kaylee.

The matching is forced as well. Nick had a troubled childhood which included stealing cars. Guess what? Kaylee had a troubled childhood that included stealing cars. Nick has a secret life and Kaylee has a secret life. Together these crazy kids who enjoyed stealing cars as youngsters and have lots of secrets belong together, right? (The car scenes reminded me a lot of a Tara Janzen book).

The story takes us back to Africa but for what reason, I’m not entirely sure. At least the excuse given didn’t seem very plausible or reasonable, but it allows for a romance that was started in the first book to take center stage and come to a somewhat satisfactory conclusion. If that weren’t enough, we get yet another setup for yet another romance (that makes three if you are keeping count) with Nick’s adopted brother and a rogue FBI agent.

I also felt like this story was written with the assumption that the reader could make leaps as the characters’ internal dialogue jumped from place to place. At one point in the book, the two are making out in a Porsche:

“I’m not ready to go inside yet—I like being here, inside this car with you. Inside means serious business, more talking and what-ifs. But here, against the leather, sitting close to you, nothing’s a problem.” Her fingers stroked the soft upholstery on the seat on either side of her thighs—her hair was loose around her shoulders and her cheeks slightly flushed. She looked vulnerable and hot at the same time and when she tugged at his arm he knew what she wanted. What he wanted.

Yeah, the headers in this car tended to do that easily enough thanks to the vibrations they created.

I get that the vibrations of the car are turning the two of them on, but that’s not what those two sentences exactly convey. The headers in the car do what? Know what the two of them want? Make her hot and vulnerable at the same time? Another passage that had me scratching my head:

“Car,” Sarah called. It was moving down the rutted road slowly, and Nick lowered Kaylee to the ground as Sarah ran into the middle of the road by herself as if she was all alone—a woman in distress.

“She’s not going to kill the passenger, is she?” Kaylee whispered to him. He didn’t answer, because the answer would surely be: yes, if necessary.

“Nick, please, tell me she’s not going to do that.”

There was no gunshot, only Clutch urging him and Kaylee to walk farther along the road, under the cover of the brush as Sarah walked away. “I’m not telling you anything, Kaylee. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s better that way. We need to get you to safety.”

She folded her arms tightly to her chest as she began to walk again, in front of Nick this time and out to the road from where Sarah called to them.

There was no sign of the driver and Sarah didn’t say anything but “Get in” as they approached the old car.

Why was Kaylee not worried about the driver initially? Why does she worry that Sarah is going to hurt the passenger? Where’s the continuity? There were about 8 places in the book that had baffling passages not including the number of references to fight/flight that I did not fully comprehend.

So little time is spent developing Nick and Kaylee as characters or developing their relationship together. Instead the story is full of extraneous and uninteresting romances and an action plot that borders on the ridiculous. D

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon (affiliate link), Kindle (non affiliate link), Fictionwise, or other retailers.

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.

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.

A Black Tie Affair begins a series about the Smith sisters who are famously as beautiful as the “Cushing, Bouvier, and Miller sisters.” The Smith sisters have had a long history with the Clayworth’s of Chicago, the last event being the hasty termination of their father, former treasurer of the Clayworth department store. There are rumors that Mr. Smith was let go because of something shady and this only serves to foster negative feelings by the Smiths toward the Clayworths, or so we are told.

Athena Smith fell in love with Drew Clayworth and he with her. When his parents died in the Fastnet sailing race, Athena was there for him. Drew felt that Athena had betrayed him and their relationship ended. With hurtful words, Drew drove Athena away and they have remained separated for fifteen years.

Despite the way in which their lives have been intertwined, Drew and Athena have had no real contact with each other until Athena is given the opportunity to do provenance for four vintage gowns owned by a Clayworth matriarch. Unfortunately when she goes to inspect the gowns, Athena is exposed to some kind of neurotoxin that acts as a truth serum. Athena claims that she has the requisite expertise to hunt these gowns down because only she knows the dedicated collectors in Chicago. This places Drew and Athena together for the first time in fifteen years. Yes, I find this to be implausible, but the entire story is kind of thin and ridiculous so what’s a few plot holes?

The mystery of the neurotoxin is never resolved. Everyone who comes into contact with the dress confesses their true feelings of love and this leads four lovely reconciliations (am being a bit sarcastic here) or five if you count Drew and Athena. Apparently the neurotoxin affects you only if you touch the dress, but not if you are near it. Athena becomes an expert in handling biohazardous gowns (plastic bags and gloves folks!).

This is a very fluffy story. There is no character growth. The plot is thinner than tissue and the excuses that have kept the two apart is embarrassingly simplistic. We end up getting a ton of details about things that have little to do with advancing the story and a lot to do with the city of Chicago and the history of the Clayworths. If only a tiny portion of that time was spent making Drew and Athena three dimensional. The story relies heavily on the quirkiness factor but even quirky stories need some substance.

The ultimate reveal of the betrayal was such a let down. This “thing” that drove Drew and Athena apart when they were teenagers was a totally immature event and Drew’s hanging on to this and failing to understand Athena’s reasoning is a joke. These sorts of statement in retrospect sounded ridiculous “Trying like he had a hundred times before to understand why she’d betrayed his trust.” Drew must be the stupidest man alive. At least he is lacking the requisite intelligence to run a major business.

I think the story is supposed to be written in an over the top farcical way but there wasn’t anything humorous about the writing. I would say I found the characters to be dull but that presumes I’m shown anything about the characters, which I am not. Other than they are stupid.

Is there conflict? Not really. The two don’t really fight their feelings for each other despite the purported betrayal. I’ve seen more drama and conflict in the diorama of barbies. The one good thing I can say about this non story is that it is short. It is only 226 pages long. D

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon (Affiliate Link), in Kindle (non affiliate link), or other etailers.

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.

First off, I have a bone to pick with marketing. This anthology (featuring stories by Laurell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, Marjorie M. Liu, and Sharon Shinn) is clearly marked on the spine as Urban Fantasy. And yet? Only one out of the four stories has an actual urban fantasy setting. All of the others are traditional fantasies. I mean like trolls, ogres, elves, and magician-type fantasies. MISLEADING.

The tagline on the cover reveals the common thread of all the stories: “All-new tales of magic revealed—and matrimony refused—from four of today’s most provocative authors”. Okay, so all the stories feature heroines who are trying to get out of unwanted betrothals. And yet this whole “four of today’s most provocative authors” thing? What do they mean by that? Are they implying these stories are super smexy and feature kink? Because they don’t. In fact, these stories would pretty much be comfortable on the shelf with inspirational romances. Barely any smooching to be found. So what’s so provocative about that? Honestly, out of these 4 authors, only Laurell K. Hamilton probably fits the provocative label, and only then if you mean “writes crazily complicated orgies in her other books”.

1. Can He Bake a Cherry Pie by Laurell K Hamilton

Anyway, on to the actual story critiques. Laurell K. Hamilton leads off the anthology with “Can He Bake a Cherry Pie?”

You guys.

This story is c-c-crazy. At it’s core, it is a pretty basic fairy tale featuring a heroine who wants to escape an unwanted betrothal. In order to do so, she announces that she is going to rescue Prince True — a sort of male Sleeping Beauty figure in their kingdom. True was captured by a sorceress 50-odd years ago after being a douche.

Seriously.

Actually, he basically announced that men were waaay more important than women and that women’s work was useless in comparison. That’s it? Why aren’t 75% of the men prisoners in her lair, then? So anyway, the sorceress, in a fit of girl power, challenged him, won, and has kept him prisoner in her lair, forever beautiful and ageless. According to legend only a girl well versed in the womanly arts can free him. All righty then.

So our guileless (and virtually brainless) heroine makes her way to the cave of the sorceress, fully anticipating her own death. But dying in the act of rescue is so much better than marrying an oaf. So whatevs. Heroine makes her way to the rope and board bridge stretching over the chasm leading the cave and is greeted by a rabid troll. She basically squeaks and closes her eyes waiting for the death blow, and BECAUSE SHE IS TOTALLY WEAK AND DOES NOT FIGHT BACK OR EVEN MAKE EYE CONTACT, she passes the first test.

The second test finds her facing an Ogre just inside the mouth of the cave. Said ogre threatens to chop her up into pieces and eat her and heroine agains squeaks in distress and closes her eyes. Because ew. Then the ogre NOTICES HER SHOES. Which are impractical party shoes. Because the heroine left in a hurry, yo. And she likes sparkly things? So the beauty and impracticality of her shoes lets her pass the second test.

The third test is the most bunk-ass sphinx you would ever hope to meet. This sphinx doesn’t even ask questions in the form of obscure riddles. WTF? This sphinx is interested in fabric dying techniques, dessert recipes, and gardening. The heroine’s housekeeping skills enable her to pass. Good thing, too, as she would have been eaten alive.

Ultimately, at the end of this gantlet, the sorceress is met, challenges are posed, and the asstacular Prince True is found. After a bit more craziness, involving — you guessed it — baking cherry pies, the heroine lives happily ever after.

I just. I mean. What is the message in this story? I know what the message is supposed to be. I.E. Womanly skills (aka cooking, gardening, and housekeeping) are important and have meaning — but that is really not what the story shows. The heroine is supremely stupid and wins the day by being cowardly, impractical, and good at trivia. GIRL POWER!

As an added bonus, this story is a mere 35 pages. I think the true miracle here is that I kept reading the anthology after I finished this story. I give this a D-.

2.  The Shadow of Mist by Yasmine Galenorn

Next up is Yasmine Galenorn’s “The Shadow of Mist”. First off, kudos for being the lone urban fantasy story in this “urban fantasy anthology”. This novella is set in her “Otherworld” universe, and I have to be honest, I haven’t read any of the other books in the series. To be perfectly frank, plot-wise, this wasn’t a great introduction to it.

Siobhan, the heroine, is a selkie who has been on the run from her fiance for over 100 years. The last few decades, she’s relaxed her guard somewhat, and has found happiness and love in the Pacific Northwest with her boyfriend Mitch. The story opens with her long lost fiance Terry calling her on the phone to helpfully inform her that he knows where she is and is coming for her. Why? Because he will not be denied, yo! This is the equivalent of villain monologueing — he has no earthly reason to warn her of his arrival, and without his helpful information she would have been a sitting duck for his kidnapping attempt. Of course, that would have completely eliminated the plot as well.

IMO, this is a lazy plot device that serves no other purpose than to allow the heroine to call in ye olde cast of characters from many previous novels to assist her in her fight against the villain. To her credit, I must say that Galenorn does a great job with said characters. The problem is, I was more intrigued with them than I was with the heroine of the story, who was totally weak and wimpy in comparison. In fact, the heroine spends the entire story having events happen to her, rather than trying to become the master of her fate.

She refuses police assistance because she’s pretty sure her family will still force her to marry Terry. Even though she’s pregnant with Mitch’s baby and knows Terry will totally force her to miscarry if he catches her on her own. Oookay. She is repeatedly almost dragged off with Terry and his henchmen, and is repeatedly rescued by characters from previous books. And then? In the big showdown? (Which is totally not big at all and really sort of anticlimactic.) Siobhan saves the day by complete and total accident. It’s honestly the equivalent of someone tossing something out a high rise window and killing a wanted criminal who just happens to be walking by below.

Deus ex sucksalot.

For all my complaints, I will say that Galenorn succeeded in making me interested in her world and the characters that occupy it. I will most likely be picking up the first book in her Otherworld series, and hoping the plotting goes better in a full length novel. My grade for this story is a C-.

3.  The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie M. Liu

The third story in this anthology is Marjorie M. Liu’s “The Tangleroot Palace“. This was an ethereal, dreamy story with a strong fairy tale feel to it. It was also my favorite of the bunch. Sally, our intrepid heroine, is a princess who is being forced to wed a Warlord from a neighboring kingdom. Their mothers were childhood friends, and though they ended up in different countries, it was their dream that their children would meet and marry someday. But Sally ain’t havin’ it. Even though her father’s kingdom is being tormented on all sides by mercenaries and squabbling lords, Sally wants the right to choose her own destiny. This leads her to the stories titular location — the Tangleroot Forest.

A place of magic and legend, the forest draws people in, but rarely lets them out. On her journey to the forest, Sally meets a traveling circus trio whose members are more than meets the eye.

As I mentioned, this was my favorite of all the stories, and although the identity of the hero was easily guessed — heck, I wouldn’t even call it a guess, it was blatantly obvious — that wasn’t the true point of the story. The secret at the heart of Tanglewood is the true mystery to be solved here. My grade is a A-.

4.  The Wrong Bridegroom by Sharon Shinn

Lastly, was the most lengthy of the stories, “The Wrong Bridegroom” by Sharon Shinn. I really wanted to love this story from the get-go. I love 90% of Sharon Shinn’s books, and while I ultimately ended up really liking this story, I found that I had to power through a big chunk of it to get to that point.

Told from the 1st person POV of the heroine, Princess Olivia, the story starts out with a royal challenge to find the person worthy of receiving her hand in marriage. Although there has long been an understanding between her and the oh so perfectly stuffy Sir Harwin Brenley, Olivia would rather die than marry that hugemongous boor. Because she is spoiled and stubborn and young and foolish and petty. And young. Young. YOUNG. So the King, a ruthless and selfish man, has arranged a series of challenges to find the Princess a husband.

I guess it is to Shinn’s credit that she writes the heroine so well. She perfectly encapsulates the spoiled attitude of a 21 year old princess with a horrible, neglectful father, a surprisingly wise stepmother she refuses to listen to, and a lifetime of getting her own way. And because she so perfectly captures her character, I spent 75% of the story wanting to kill Olivia. Or at least bitchslap her.

After a tie occurs between two competitors for her hand, Olivia makes the tie-breaking decision and immediately sets out on a trip with her new betrothed to visit his family. As they journey along at a snail’s pace, in a not-very-princess-like horse and cart, they add unexpected members to their party along the way and start to see people, places, and things that the sheltered Olivia has never experienced before. Not much time passes before Olivia begins questioning what makes a good husband, a good ruler, and a happy life.

Although this heroine was grating and immature (which I think may have been exacerbated by the 1st person narration), when it got good, it got reeeeal good. In fact, it made me miss my stop in the morning, necessitating a 5 block hike to work. For that reason, I have to give this story a solid B+.

So overall, though this anthology was seriously mislabeled, the bulk of the book was entertaining. The Liu story and the Shinn story comprise over 2/3ds of the length, thanks to the super short Hamilton tale. If you are a fan of romantic fantasy with a fairy tale feel, you’ll enjoy this. Weighing the letter grade in terms of story length, I would give this a B-.

LOVE,

NONNIE

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

Thirty Days by Shayla Kersten (Liquid Silver Books)
This book horrified me. So much so that I literally can’t bring myself to read the sequel. Thirty Days got fabulous reviews all over the web and has intrigued me for a while, so I was excited to find the time to read it. But once I did, I was absolutely appalled. If this is really what people think BDSM is, no wonder it’s so reviled and hated — because it should be.

This whole review is italicized, bolded, and written in flashing red and yellow danger signs in my head, so imagine that as you read it. I’ll try to be restrained (harhar — very weak joke).

Cavan has been in held in literal sexual slavery for nine years, probably since he was 13, maybe 11. He has a 6th grade reading level. He has no idea how to interact with anyone normally. He hasn’t seen a woman in a decade. He has no idea if he’s really gay or really into BDSM, because he was given no choice about either. And these issues are NEVER resolved in the book. He’s three months out of this literal slavery — THREE MONTHS!!! — and he’s taken to a BDSM party to be hooked up with Biton, a dom who is three months past his partner’s death from cancer. Biton wants Cavan, takes him, and then when he figures out the depth of Cavan’s issues, including not knowing whether he’s actually gay or submissive, doesn’t immediately stop the relationship and treat Cavan as the little boy he is emotionally and intellectually, but continues with the relationship because he wants to, because he’s hot for Cavan and because ::gag:: Cavan is so sweetly submissive:

Biton set down his coffee cup and stood up. “He doesn’t understand that being a slave is a lifestyle choice. He’s never really known any other life. He thinks being tortured is normal.” Biton paced the kitchen, anger at the people who did this to Cavan growing with each step. “He’s a gentle soul. I don’t think he’d be into submission if he hadn’t been forced into it.”

“And you want to keep him around.” It wasn’t a question and Harry hit the nail on the head.

Biton wanted Cavan, but the idea of giving up the thrill of control, of power over a helpless body, bound and gagged, waiting for his whim…The memory of Cavan strapped in the sling Friday made him shiver. “Yes.”

How can someone write those three paragraphs together? Seriously? How can you say you don’t think he’d be into submission if he weren’t tortured into it when he was thirteen and then shiver at the memory of this same man strapped into a sex sling?! It made me nauseous, personally, and although Biton isn’t the man who enslaved Cavan, he’s coming pretty fucking close here, to my mind.

Exposition reveals that Cavan showed up in an ER three months previously “badly beaten. His back was a bloody mess, broken arm, two fractured ribs and rectal lacerations from some kind of foreign object. He refused to press charges against his attacker” and the BDSM “Society” that Biton and his friends belong to “warned Wainwright [Cavan's "master"], threatened to exclude him and issue warnings to potential subs.” You’re shitting me? They fucking WARN him?! They don’t CALL THE COPS?! The ER doesn’t CALL THE COPS?! A whipped back, a broken arm, broken ribs, and anal rape doesn’t qualify for someone getting arrested, whether or not Cavan files the charges?!

Somebody posted on Twitter (it might actually have been Jane) a few days after Roman Polanski was arrested that they’re sick of how the media says Polanski “had sex with a 13 year old girl”, rather than saying he “drugged and raped his 13 year old victim”. Don’t say “had sex with” when it was really “drugged and raped.” In this story, Biton and his friends continue to call Cavan’s abuser his “former master” and a “dom.” No, dammit. No. He’s a pedophile, a rapist, a torturer and, apparently, a murderer. Don’t continue to call him a “dom” when what he did was so hideous. Raping, torturing, and enslaving thirteen year olds is so far from being a BDSM dom that it’s not even funny. So unfunny I was crying with despair when I read this book.

In fact, this book almost made me throw up. This is NOT BDSM, folks. Some things are too big for a romance to cure. A boy — barely 20 — three months out of a decade-long abuse, rape, and torture, a boy with a 6th grade education and an inability to interact with anyone normally, should not be entering into ANY relationship, let alone one with a sexual dominant who has problems understanding the ability to give consent. Because more than anything, Cavan cannot give his consent, the foundation of Safe, Sane, and Consensual. Grade: Epic EPIC FAIL.

Pink Buttercream Frosting by Lissa Matthews (Samhain Publishing)
If you’re going to write about BDSM, if you’re going to have one character be a much sought-after dom and the other be a newbie sub, then the sex should be something other than vaguely hot, but otherwise normal, ordinary vanilla sex. You can’t just slap a BDSM label on a romance that in all other respects is a vanilla romance and expect your audience to believe you without actually including anything that looks or feels like BDSM sex. Bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism. Those are some pretty scary words and some pretty involved practices. But having your hero identify as a dom and your heroine identify as a sub doesn’t mean that their story is a BDSM romance unless you actually have them interact on a BDSM level. Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to be BDSM-identified and have a vanilla relationship and be happy in it (so I’m told), but then you can’t call the book about that relationship a BDSM romance. To be a BDSM romance, the relationship must be built with, explored through, filtered by BDSM practices in the relationship, not just generic BDSM identification by the characters without any application in the relationship.

Aidn is a much sought-after dom who does not date his submissives. Huh? Why not? “He dated vanilla women, engaged in vanilla sex and kept the dominant side of himself just out of reach. It was simply something he did, something he’d done in the years since…” (ellipse in original). Ah. The old “past submissive ruined me for everyone else” trick. Right. Anyway, so Aidn meets Bailey at the mall, they recognize each other from the BDSM club they both frequent, and they go to her place to have sex, because they’re too hot for each other not to. He’s stripped her, has her sitting on her kitchen counter, orders her around a bit, and then cuts her panties off her. Big whoop-dee-doo. Without the constant internal refrain from both characters about their need to dominate or submit, none of this would be out of place in non-BDSM erotica. They do nothing — NOTHING — that vanilla people wouldn’t do when having sex. And then Bailey thinks:

She was slipping into a place that she’d only dreamed of. Subspace; the sensation of floating on air, a bliss so sweet it could be painful. She’d read about it, talked to others about it, but until Aidn, she hadn’t had an inkling of what it might be like to feel it. She gave herself up to it, gave herself and her pleasure over to him, and he was taking her there, making her fly. She was a different woman than she’d been just hours ago.

Oh good lord, no. Subspace is, usually, an endorphin high from being beaten. It’s a feeling of floating, an in-body/out-of-body experience that is the result of physical overstimulation and PAIN. Sure, good BDSM relationships can have submissives slipping into a submissive mindset with a word or a look from their dominants, but that’s not subspace, dammit. It’s certainly not flying! Good lord.

And, finally, submissive does not equal doormat. When a guy fucks you three ways to Sunday then leaves before you wake up, doesn’t contact you for two weeks, and then walks into your bakery, you do not just kiss him when he tells you to. You give him the cold shoulder, make him explain himself, scream at him for being an asshole. Not Bailey. No, sir, she kisses Aidn and calls him sir. Then when he runs AGAIN, she goes looking for him. Give me a break. Might as well write “WELCOME” from sternum to belly-button and lie down in the doorway.

And! way to go, Aidn, ruining another dominant’s scene on purpose by being a possessive asshole about a woman you’ve been running away from for 50 pages. Fabulous manners there. BDSM does NOT give anyone the permission to act like a complete asshole like Aidn seems to think it does. Irrational jealousy is not an attractive trait and not the innate right of a dominant. In fact, most doms are the opposite of jealous.

Bailey’s a doormat, Aidn’s an asshole, and the only thing BDSM about this story is their constant harping on it being their true identity. Take that away and it’s a mildly hot Harlequin with an alphole (TM SBTB) hero and a ridiculously self-effacing heroine. Grade: F

This book can be purchased from Samhain.

Bondage Betrayal by Lila DuBois (Liquid Silver Books)
This book makes the strong distinction between nice normal sane people who do a few kinky things now and then in the bedroom and those dirty rotten perverts who fully identify as kinky and try to live it all the time. I’m actually loathe to include this book in this list, because it’s got some really great writing, really hot scenes, and deep emotional issues. Then again, it’s also got a Big Mis that’s solved in three seconds and the characters are suddenly soulmates again.

Savannah is a famous yet anonymous and stunningly sadistic femdom. The first scene of the book is hot until you get to the part about: “He screamed, not merely a cry, but a true scream. Around the room people jumped, some of the Doms moving as if they would interfere, but no one did.” Um, why not? Because they should have.

That aside, then, Savannah in her normal life is an artist with a dark past, a deep betrayal in her background. She accepts a commission for a sculpture for a building only to see her dark past, the man who betrayed her, as she leaves the building. They meet again at a BDSM club that evening and most of the book is spent in flashback in alternating points of view that tells about the dark betrayal. Roman and Savannah were very much in love and exploring shaking things up in the bedroom a bit. They go to the house of a “Master” and go through a pretty intense but positive scene as Roman is coached by “Master Wilcox” and another guest. Wilcox then convinces Roman to let him “train” Savannah because she’s a “born submissive” and “needs” submission all the time and Roman can’t provide it because he’s too weak. Proving him right, Roman says yes rather than listening to his instincts. With smoke and mirrors and digital recorders, Wilcox then convinces both Savannah and Roman that they have abandoned each other, all the while raping and torturing Savannah. Savannah feels abandoned and betrayed (duh) and runs away, Roman feels abandoned and betrayed and runs away, everyone runs away until they come back together in the end with 20 seconds of “I’m sorry”, “no, I’m sorry”.

On the surface, it looks like the conflict between the characters is a deep betrayal, but underneath, the conflict is actually a Big Misunderstanding that pits The Plucky Hero and Heroine against The Evil BDSM World. BDSM is the enemy. Anyone who does it as more than spice in a relationship is evil and a torturer. And anyone who feels the need to do it more than occasionally should be willing to give it up to please their partner. And yes, technically, sometimes people who do BDSM are evil, but really, statistically, many more vanilla people are evil than kinky people. Grade: D

This book can be purchased from Liquid Silver.

Look, I know that authors are convinced that their books are unique and spring from their own fears and desires, so they’re just trying to tell this one story and aren’t writing a treatise about all BDSM everywhere (this was Tymber Dalton’s defense about her hot mess of a story). And they’re right, of course. But those fears and desires are themselves shaped by culture and society and the people we’re with and the shows we watch and the books we read. And if all books, shows, people, society, culture represent BDSM as sick, twisted, perverted, ridiculous, then that’s going to be reflected in your writing sometimes, however much you might not want it to, unless you’re a very strong-willed writer OR unless you have a healthy understanding of and respect for BDSM-identified people that comes from lots of experience in and with BDSM. Yes, DuBois’ book shows some scenes in which BDSM is used to enhance sexual interaction, but the fundamental, underlying message of the story is that anyone who wants it full-time, anyone who actually identifies as full-on kinky, is evil and sociopathic, abusive, manipulative, and murderous. Is that really what she was trying to say? On the other hand, Matthews has it in her head that BDSM is Hott! and Exciting! and makes a relationship better and bigger and more meaningful. But that doesn’t mean that any sex scene labeled BDSM is kinky — it just doesn’t.

Impacted! by Mickie B. Ashling (Dreamspinner Press)
Finally, a book that gets BDSM very right, in my opinion (Yay!), but is terribly, horribly, awfully written (Boo!). It’s just as possible to get the BDSM right and be a truly bad writer, as it is to be a great writer and get the BDSM wrong. Everything Ashling writes about the BDSM sounds fine. She seems to get the emotions, understand the way it feels, understand the whys and wherefores. It’s not abusive, it’s not the enemy, it’s not there just to make the story hot. But she’s just a truly bad writer: info-dumping; terrible flat, bland voice; ridiculously flat, stereotyped characters; characters and storylines that come out of nowhere; cringe-worthy motivation — you name it, this book has it.

Scott is an oral surgeon (no, really — there’s a whole plot point about making sure his partner doesn’t do some delicate oral surgery because he doesn’t have the training. Sexay!) and a sexual submissive and masochist. He comes to work one day and finds that his new dental hygienist is the dominant he hooked up with for a one night stand a few weeks ago. Hijinks ensue, mostly having to do with their homophobic mutual boss. It’s one of those stories that thinks it’s a romance because there are apparent external barriers keeping the couple apart, but not really, and the characters fall in love and express that love so early that there’s no emotional tension or uncertainty at all. It’s boring. Seriously boring. Even with the ridiculous plot twist at the end of the book. The BDSM’s good, but the story as a whole is a cure for insomnia. Even though I struggled through in order to write the review, I’d have to say that this book was truly unreadable. Grade: F

Oh, and P.S.? No dom is going to pierce his sub’s left nipple. Left side flags dominant. Right side flags submissive. Do your research.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format.

I admit that the one and only book I read by you was one about football and I had a fairly negative reaction to it given that so little of the football aspect was portrayed with accuracy.  I was  hoping that this would be different.  While Hot as Sin is readable, it suffers from the same problem as the football book.  The story is paramount and little details don’t matter so long as the story proceeds in the fashion that you want.  Accuracy, authenticity take second fiddle to the emotional arcs of the characters.

Sam and Dianna were the epitome of young love (or at least that is the set up that you want us to buy initially).   Sam was 20 and I think Dianna was 18.  Dianna, for reasons revealed later, leaves Sam at the tender age of 20 and Sam has never, ever gotten over it.  He’s so connected to her that when he is told she was in a car accident in Colorado, he immediately flies (from the Lake Tahoe area) to be by her side.  Sam is a forest firefighter, a “hotshot”.

The story that you tell about them – young, hormonal and immature was well conveyed to me. Their emotional arc was in overcoming this. I found it rather frustrating that, despite time and distance, they weren’t perceptive enough to come to the realization separately.  It was easier for them to progress forward by pretending the other was responsible for their failed relationship. Of course for either character to admit their own role in a failed teenage relationship would have lessened the tension in the story (given that I didn’t buy into the myopia, there was no tension for me either, only frustration). As an add on sort of conflict, Sam is distressed that he is a firefighter and Dianna is a big cable news star (not of a major news network but of some regional show).

The external conflict is represented in the form of Dianna’s search for her sister.  Her sister called to report she had joined a commune.  Dianna rushes to meet her sister. After a frustrating meeting, Dianna leaves, upset.  She gets into a car accident which results in fatality of another driver and lands in the hospital.  The twin brother of the dead driver finds out that Dianna has a sister and kidnaps her.  The sister is able to escape and report she is in danger but her captor cuts the message short.

For some reason, Sam decides for Dianna that if she reports this to the police they will not listen to her and the only way to save Dianna’s sister is to go after her. Even if the sister is a flake, if she calls you and reports she is in physical danger and then you can’t return her phone calls, it seems reasonable to report this and not go running into the mountains with some firefighter.

Sam, who cut his teeth on “class five rapids on the American River in California” takes Dianna on similar level white waters in a tipsy inflatable raft.  “Was he out of his fucking mind?” he asks himself at one point.  That is my question exactly.  Also, given that Sam is from the Sierra Nevadas and Dianna is from San Francisco, what the hell are the two doing hiking by themselves? Doesn’t it make sense to get someone to guide them or is one mountain range just the same as any other?  Of course, having a guide along would ruin the possibility for sexy hijinks between the two.

Dianna, however, turns out to be “instinctively better at rafting than most of the guys he went rafting with during his off months.” Dianna and Sam also engage in cliff climbing (something Dianna also has never done before) and hiking long distances (again, something Dianna is engaging in just one day after a traumatic car wreck).  The boon for the story is that because Dianna is so inept, Sam gets to save her again and again and again.

There were editing problems:

Pulling out a credit card, he got them each a room, knowing it wasn’t exactly what they’d prefer, but deciding to take what they could get at this point.

He didn’t beat around the bush when he emerged from the lobby. “They only had one room left.”

How could he get them each a room when there was only one room left?  He could have “tried” to get them each a room but he couldn’t actually succeed.

“But he couldn’t ignore the dichotomy between her salary and his.”

Dichotomy? I think you meant discrepancy?

Also

“She was gravity and he was falling.”

Gravity doesn’t make things fall.  Gravity is the pull between two particulate masses.   Gravity = the force on two masses.  If she is the force that pulls two masses together, then he would be one mass and …. what would be the other?  There were others, but the point is that once I spotted a couple, I began to question all the metaphors and similes.

The implausibility of the story continues to the very end where the hero rises miracuously from a fall that should have killed most mortal men and he just gets a CT scan and is released.  Like that would EVER HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE.  Also? They give him clothes from a doctor because he is just too big for the hospital gowns (he is, by the way, 6′2″ which is not so enormous that they don’t have gowns for peeps his size.)

The writing style was frustrating.  The characters constantly talk to themselves in the form of rhetorical questions. Sometimes it seemed like it was pages and pages of rhetorical questions:

But hadn’t he done the same thing she was doing now, immediately assumign that she had to be looking down on him and his salary?

How much of the blue-collar, white-collar dichotomy was in his own head?

…

Only a handful of people knew he played.  How could he have forgotten Dianna was one of them?

…

Damn it, was there anything they could talk about that wasn’t a minefield?”

….

Did he know that his touch made her heart race?  That even without touching an erogenous zone, she was getting hopelessly aroused?

Also, for a book called “Hot as Sin” there was little sex in the story.  Up until page 173, the only sex scene was a furtive teenage grope and penetration in a truck.  The sex occurred, of course, on their trail hike.  As the two were sexxorring their way across the Rockies, I kept thinking where is the urgency to find your sister?  Needless to say, toward the end of the book, everything irritated me.  D

Best regards,

Jane

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

Your books have a beautiful look to them. They look and feel lush, heavy, as if the reader should curl up in front the fireplace with a hot toddy, a blanket and commence reading. Unfortunately for me, if I had done that, I would have been cooked to a crisp because this book too me a month to finish. It’s a lengthy tome, nearly 400 pages, and at the end, I couldn’t really understand why it was so everloving long.

Caleb is the beginning of a paranormal series that is populated with, at least, vampires and werewolves. The first story features Caleb, a shapeshifting vampire, who is the eldest of a group of vampire brothers. (They are a group of rogues, says the blurb. By rogues, I assume that means renegade or someone who rejects the an established group, rather than say a dishonest, knavish fellow.)

The story begins quite well. Allie, the town baker, is in lust with one of her regular customers, Caleb Johnson. She tries to flirt with him, but he seems resistant. She buys a push up bra and provides him (or hopes she provides him) with a tantalizing glance but he seems unmoved. She’s at the end her rope because he does come in every morning and her instincts tell her that something is there between them only he won’t act on that chemistry.

The reason he won’t act on the chemistry is because Caleb is a vampire but when Allie is attacked outside her bakery by a true werewolf, Caleb comes to her aid. He is badly wounded and Allie, urged by a voice in her head, gets the wounded wolf in her vehicle and drives to Circle J, the ranch of the Johnsons. Once there, she’s incarcerated by Caleb’s brothers and then, when he needs blood to live, is taken to Caleb to feed. Caleb feeds upon Allie until she is near death from blood loss. To save her “life”, Caleb has to turn her, which is easily done by having her food from him and slipping into her mind to make the blood taste like champagne.

Does Allie have problems with the fact that she was killed, taken from her family, her entire life changed without request because she tried to save Caleb’s life? A few but none that stop her from boning Caleb until he’s crosseyed. Allie’s loss of her family, contact with her brothers, is nothing more than a blip on her radar. She argues about it once and then it kind of fades away. The supposed fued between the Johnsons and the D’Nallys which brought Allie to death and then into vampirism also fades away. Caleb refers to Allie as his wife and she accepts his claim as wife. Then doesn’t. Then does. Then doesn’t. The plot threads dangle like jellyfish tentacles in the ocean; seeming dozens of them held up by nothing more substantial than gelatinous masses.

The worldbuilding was convenient, at best. When there needed to be some magical, paranormal capability, there was. When it would interfere with the story, then the worldbuilding point was forgotten. For example, why does Allie JUST NOW start hearing voices in her head? Why is she the only one to be fertile when vampires can’t get pregnant? Why is she only able to feed from Caleb?

Allie is one of the most foolish heroines to come along in a long time. She leads Caleb into a nest of bad people hoping that they’ll be interested in just talking to her. Of course, they aren’t. She’s a valuable female, after all. All breeding females in paranormals are valuable so everyone wants her and everyone wants to go to war for her. Merely by making Allie phenomenally sexually attractive to every paranormal male around her does not render her likeable, particularly when she plays the stupid role for most of the book.

To say this book is slow moving would be an understatement. Snails being chased by ground beetles move faster than this book. These characters do nothing but talk. There was a 10 page discussion Caleb, Allie and Caleb’s brothers, and their BFF werewolf neighbor have in the kitchen about whether Allie is pregnant and whether she has a special power. (They don’t know because they’ve cut themselves off from the greater vampire world so they are just guessing which is supposed to be super attractive instead of merely ignorant).

This was 400 pages of talking, talking, and more talking and it wasn’t even fun and interesting talking. It was mundane, ordinary conversations that are barely worthwhile listening to live let alone reading in print.

Toward the end, the villian makes his appearance and is clearly more powerful than either Allie or Caleb or both combined, but the villain places himself in a precarious state because of Allie’s powerful attraction: “You know, I really shouldn’t humor you, but I find that we’re so much alike, it’s difficult not to indulge your moods.”

And, the concept of the baby that the group spends so much time contemplating? Doesn’t even enter her mind when Allie is taken hostage. She is ready to die rather than help the villain. No thought to her supposed pregnancy until toward the end of her captivity (which is pages and pages and pages long but in reality is no more than an afternoon). Conveniently, a new deadly weapon that is deadly to weres and vamps is not deadly to Caleb. Why? Not sure. I think Allie makes him invincible but maybe it’s because, well, I don’t even want to guess.

I guess the saddest thing of all is that this book isn’t even that sexy. McCarty is a well known name within erotic romance circles and this book has, I think, four love scenes that were as dull as the dinnertime conversation. D

Best regards

Jane

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

The previous two books in the series have told us some awful things about James, the hero in Billionaire’s Bride of Innocence. James was desperate to have a family and when his super model girlfriend could not deliver the goods, so to speak, he divorced her, impregnated a nice young woman, and married the nice young pregnant woman.  Yes, James is a classy guy.  But he’s a billionaire who wants children.  Doesn’t that really absolve him of all sins?

Megan, James’ docile sweet, innocent wife, loses the baby. In the hospital, she overhears James’ two friends, Hugh and Russell, speculating as to whether the marriage will stay together now that James has lost the one thing that he wanted.  Hugh is incensed that James impregnated and then married Megan in the first place, knowing that James did not love her.   Megan is distraught over this news and basically moves into the pool house, refusing to allow James touch her.

James is upset because, well, he wants to be a dad and how can he get her with child again unless they have sex?

Becoming a dad was what James wanted most in the world these days, but it was almost impossible if your wife never let you make love to her.

James sympathised with Megan. He really did. But running away from life was no answer. You had to face up to things, then move on.

Of course, Megan was an extremely soft, shy, vulnerable girl. That was why he’d chosen her.

Megan is torn, though, because she loves James and even the revelation that he is just using her as a baby making machine doesn’t quite kill off that love.  Further, Megan is helplessly attracted to James so that when he suggests a second honeymoon for the two of them, she readily agrees.  Not only does she readily agree to go and have island sex with him, she seeks out the help of her friend, Nicole, to get a full makeover.  She is to become the sexier, more outgoing Megan in order to better appeal to James.

Yes, Megan has no pride. Or backbone.  Or sense of self worth. Her entire life is wrapped up in James and even though there is a tiny period at the end where Megan decides that maybe she is better off without James it doesn’t last long enough to convince me that Megan will be anything but an appendage to James.

James is both appalled and titallated by the new Megan.  He was a bit bored with their pre miscarriage sex.  Megan was usch an innocent and James felt constrained in trying out his dirty ways with her.  What are James’ deep secrets?  Well, he apparently likes to do it in other positions than the missionary and he ties her wrists to the headboard at one time.  Oh, James, your kink is so intimidating!  Thank goodness James is a billionaire because how else would a woman ever want to stay with him?  Actually, Megan was frustrated with the loving that James was doling out.  It was a bit too tame for her as well, but she didn’t say anything to James and she lacked the confidence to initiate anything.

Very little emotional energy is spent contemplating the miscarriage.  James just wants to start boning Megan again so he can make more little babies.  Megan can’t stop thinking about how much she longs for James’ body even though he has no love for her.  It’s probably fair to say that he little  affection for her either, other than she was a suitable baby making vessel.

I’m not certain what disgusted me more. Megan’s inability to value herself and her persistence in continuing to abase herself to try to gain James’ love or James for being a grade A bastard.  I loved it when he accuses Megan of being deceitful when he finds her birth control pills because for a man whose baby making is at the forefront, birth control pills are akin to the devil’s drug. I vacillated between wanting to punch James in the face or shake Megan till her teeth fell out.  It’s not a failure of a book, the writing is too competent. I can give it a D because I am sorry I read it.

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at eHarlequin.com or in eHarlequin.com“>ebook format from Harlequin only until November 1.

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. The Harlequin Affiliate link earns us an affiliate fee if you purchase a book through the link and the Sony link is in conjunction with the sponsorship deal we made for the year of 2009. We do not earn an affiliate fee from Sony through the book link.

Thank you for sending me your story when I was moaning on Twitter one night about wanting to read a BDSM romance. I hope you don’t regret it.

When I agreed to read the book, I had no idea it was #2 of the Beautiful C*cksucker series. I had no idea that BC *was* a series. I tend to agree with the outrage over the name (Paul Bens’ original reaction, Teddy Pig’s response, Karen Knows Best’s extensive discussion) but I also know that in BDSM play, some epithets that would otherwise be unacceptable (“cunt” comes to mind) are endearments during a scene. Which is not to say that they should be used as titles to the book/series. I will admit, though, that I deliberately avoided most of the debate and arguments because it was too huge and I’ve only got so much mental energy. But if the writing for BC#1 was anything like the writing for BC#2, we should all just have ignored it and let it slip into well-deserved obscurity.

I also had no idea how BC#2 connects with BC#1. And OMFG, doing the research, BC#2 is the second romance for the dom of BC#1 after his sub from BC#1 fucking DIES!! Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have read it. Don’t freaking kill off the main characters from a previous book! Cardinal Sin of Romance #1! Even if it is after 20 years of “happiness.”

Right. So. That aside…Mikisaburo Nabeshimi is a high-profile cop in Tokyo. He goes to New York to drop his son off at Columbia and meets Dave Kirkland, a brash young cop, when Miki meets a friend of his at the courthouse. Dave is the unofficial foster son of a Chinese woman killed by the man that Miki’s friend successfully defends against the murder charge. (Confused yet, dear readers? This is a novella. None of these stories are really resolved.) The story is the progression of Miki and Dave’s D/s relationship as they chase down Miki’s friend’s client and prove that he’s actually guilty of serial murder.

So, my notes say: “Dave is a bratty little shit with no personality, Miki is stereotypical inscrutable Japanese dom.” I think that kind of sums it all up. This is one of those books that, to my mind, get BDSM so wrong, it’s scary and dangerous. Miki basically inflicts his domination on Dave, a complete BDSM newbie without a clue of what Miki’s doing. He makes Dave guess what’s going on, never talks with him about anything, “punishes” Dave in various ways for infractions in protocol and behavior that they haven’t talked about or agreed to, and just in general acts like an absolute shit. The whole concept of

“I can sense what you need even if you can’t. Trust me”

is actually contrary to all good BDSM practice. It’s not sexy, it’s frightening. Then again, Dave is an immature asshole who takes risk after risk without thought for the personal or broader consequences. BDSM is about safe, sane, and consensual, and all three of those require open and honest communication. BDSM is both mentally and physically dangerous when not discussed openly and for Miki to keep Dave guessing, to never talk to him about what they’re doing, is stupid and wrong. (And biting hard enough to leave a scar, without TALKING ABOUT IT BEFOREHAND, is not only wrong, it’s actually about impossible.)

What is also stupid and wrong is that Miki decides that he and Dave will go under cover to catch the killer. He informs Dave of this fact, then acts the same way with the undercover assignment as he does with the BDSM: never talks to Dave, never tells Dave his plans, keeps Dave guessing and on his toes and in the dark. Which is all very well for the sex (or not), but OMFG!stupid for a freaking undercover assignment that could get either or both of them KILLED! Metaphor for the relationship? I think so, but not in a good way.

There are story lines that go nowhere and coincidences that are just too much to believe (Dave’s best friend’s suicide?! The fact that Miki figures out the connection between the NY killing and killings in Japan in about a second?! Dave’s inherited apartment?!). All the incest imagery was strange and freaky and odd: Miki’s (platonic, lesbian) wife talking to Dave about their son gets Dave all hot and bothered, for example. Ick. And finally, Miki talks about his former lover (hero of BC#1, remember) as a friend and sometimes lover, but not as the love of his life: this is romance? How am I supposed to trust the HEA of this book if you’ve not only destroyed but called into question the very existence of the HEA of the previous book? All this AND the resolution of the suspense plot is confusing (I have no idea of who is doing what, where, and in what order) and anti-climactic.

So. Just no. Thank you for your generosity and I’m sorry I couldn’t like the book. But just no.

Grade: D

Best Regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

As a Mean Girl review, this one doesn’t really need an FTC disclaimer, but here’s one anyway: This book was provided to the reviewer by the author. The reviewer did not pay for this book but received it free. We endorse good books that portray BDSM positively, realistically, and safely, but this book isn’t and doesn’t.

I opened THIS anthology because I liked Sindustry I. But this volume is so obviously all the leftover stories from the Sindustry I anthology that didn’t quite make it into the first volume. And most of these stories should NOT have been included. This anthology had very few redeeming stories and some that make me want to puke, which kinda dampens any enthusiasm I might have for the whole. Mostly it’s filled with stories with awful, weak, boring, TSTL characters who couldn’t characterize their way out of a paper bag, and their ridiculously over-protective and unrealistic saviors. I have never really understood what m/m readers are complaining about when they say that that one of the characters doesn’t have to be the woman, but I do now. In this volume, one half of the relationship was invariably the damsel in distress who needed saving, the other the knight in shining armor who knew just how to take care of things, pretty lady…uh, I mean lad. Yech.

As in Sindustry I, the premise is that these are all stories about people in the sex industry, either strippers, prostitutes, or porn actors. This volume does a much worse job of speculating about whether it is possible to have a realistic representation of tricking and yet still have a good romance. Because the other problem with most of these stories is how glamorized prostitution or stripping is made out to be. And it’s not. That’s why I liked “Sunshine” so much, I think, because it showed some gritty realism about what money does to a relationship.

“Package Boy” by Connie Bailey
A strange little story about a high-end rent boy who has fallen in love with a client who happens to be the heir to a Mafia family. He hears a hit ordered on his lover while on another call and the rest of the story deals with how he and his lover respond to the news. Told mostly in choppy, untagged dialogue, the conflict is mostly external. The relationship conflict isn’t sign-posted very well so I didn’t know that it existed until it was solved. The affection between the lovers is genuine and the sex is pretty hot, but there’s a bit too much grating, unexplained mafia language. Grade: C

“Dance for Me” by Maria Albert
This story was both so melodramatic it was funny, and so completely disturbing I was sickened. Carlo is saved from an abusive john by Michael, a bouncer at a club. Carlo is barely 21 and has been kept in literal sexual slavery for 7 years, only to have been thrown out by his captor 2 weeks previously. Michael is 43 and lives at the club, which seems to be a kind of halfway house for gay homeless men, complete with Leprechaun-like Irish owner. Carlo and Michael instantly fall in love, but can’t communicate enough to actually figure things out without intercession by Michael’s boss. Carlo is a complete mess and Michael seems a few cards short of a deck and to have a relationship between them when Carlo is only 2 weeks out of 7 years of abuse and Michael seems emotionally unstable was unbelievably appalling. There’s a limit to what can be solved in a novel, let alone a short story. Don’t set up characters who need years of therapy and think some sex and a few kisses makes everything all better. Ew. The ending’s even worse, the HEA degraded beyond compare by the creepiness of Michael’s final words to Carlo. Grade: F

“Unorthodox Utopia” by G.S. Wiley
Stephen owns a salon but needs extra cash. He hires on as hair and makeup artist for a low budget porn shoot, where he meets Jeff, one of the actors, who has an abusive boyfriend. The story, told from Stephen’s first person point of view, is a nice, gentle blossoming of a good relationship, as Jeff leaves his boyfriend and grows closer with Stephen. There’s no sex, just two men getting to know and care for each other, even if they do it rather too quickly considering Jeff’s abusive relationship. Grade: C+

“Leather Dancer” by Andrew Grey
Denny is dragged to a Leather Expo by his way-more-outgoing friend. There he sees Robbie, the next-door-neighbor he’s been crushing on for months, dancing at a booth. Over the next month, they build a solid relationship. The characterization seems non-existent. Denny is a shy introvert, then he’s the driving force behind the relationship. Robbie is an annoying wet noodle who seems to bend to Denny’s whim and whatever the story needs him to do. Complete lameness: having Denny buy books from a booth at the Expo that is obviously the Dreamspinner booth, complete with titles mentioned. Stretching credulity: Robbie takes Denny to his father’s restaurant on their first date. Boring writing, very little conflict. Grade: C-

“Corona & Lime” by Sonia Devereaux
Jacob hasn’t wanted or had a relationship — or even sex — in ten months, since his boyfriend dumped him. Race is paid by Jacob’s friends to pick him up in a bar. They go to Race’s apartment, but Jacob puts on the breaks and they fight in a very amusing way (to me, at least). The next morning, they find a way to the beginnings of a relationship. The story is told from the point of view of both Race and Jacob as they each feel out their vulnerabilities and find how the other could fix them. Each convinced that the other couldn’t want them, the end is sweetly optimistic. Grade: B

“Sunshine” by JL Merrow
I thought Merrow’s story in Sindustry I was one of the best in that volume. “Sunshine” is definitely the best in this. The story is set in England, I presume in London, and replete with British slang. Daniel is a street-walker, Rob a bouncer at a bar who checks up on Daniel on the way home. He takes Daniel home with him once, paying for sex, ruining their tentative friendship and the story tells how they find their way back to each other. Sweet and sad and wonderful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Merrow has any full-length novels yet, just short stories. Pity. Grade: B+

“Night Moves” by Patric Michael
Guy who is NOT a trick spontaneously rescues a hustler and vows to protect and keep him all of his days. Huh? Over-emotional, crying at the drop of a hat, unbelievable love at first sight, out-of-left-field motivations, and generally a story that makes absolutely no sense. And don’t people know that relationship tattoos are incredibly bad juju? They’re a death knell to a relationship, so if characters go out and get one, I’m pretty much ready to chuck the book. Not sexy and romantic, just stupid! (But that might just be me.) Grade: D

“Wanting More” by Cari Z
Alex is a stripper who goes home with a trick, only to be discovered by the guy’s long-term partner. He is surprised when the partner, James, shows up at the club 2 weeks later and asks for a private dance. Surprised but thrilled, because he’s very attracted to James. They establish a relationship of sorts, with lots of really hot D/s sex, that eventually works into something more. A satisfying development of a wonderful relationship. Although if James didn’t learn from his previous lover or from Alex, when IS he going to learn?: a fact which threatens my belief in the HEA. Grade: B-

“The Cowboy and the Movie Star” by Kate Roman
Oh, blech. Jake is the foreman of a ranch hired out for a gay porn shoot. Matthew is the star of the show and a complete and utter wet blanket. If any heroine acted like Matthew—completely unable to take care of himself in any way—I’d chuck that book across the room without hesitation. One night of hot man-lovin’ changes their lives and Matthew quits in the middle of the shoot, except Jake doesn’t believe him….blahblahblah. The core of the story is when Matthew says to Jake, “Jake, do you know how long it’s been since someone’s touched me because I asked them to? Or because they wanted to? Because they wanted me?” And, I mean, sure. That’s the fantasy, right, that prostitutes and porn stars want their One True Love as well, that sex isn’t worth it without love. But these characters are awful, the story is unbelievable, the villain is ridiculous, and the sex is boring. Grade: D

“The Meaning of Perfection” by Taylor Lochland
A prostitute falls for the owner of the hotel who rents him and his roommate rooms for their jobs. Julian, the hotel owner, takes payment in kind from Felix’s roommate, which makes Felix very jealous because he wants to be the one servicing Julian. He eventually gets the chance, only to have Julian reject anything more in the morning. They eventually find their way back to each other, and poof! Felix quits whoring. Um, yeah, not so much. Grade: C-

“See Me, Feel Me” by Zahra Owens
A stripper takes a private gig for a friend, only to be wined and dined by a blind massage therapist, who does his own, unofficial sex work during his business. A fun little read, but the length of these “short” stories sometimes leaves me feeling like the story could be 2000 words shorter. Very little conflict and merely a progression of the relationship ensues and while that’s enjoyable, there’s no incentive to keep reading besides some moderately enjoyable sex—nothing’s at stake. Grade: C+

“Exposure” by Marguerite Labbe & Fae Sutherland
Whoa, hello head hopping! Give me whiplash, why don’t you! Ahem. That aside, this was a surprisingly hot story about a photographer introducing one of his models to a little bit of BDSM. The instant attraction between the two made me roll my eyes a bit, but then I was completely sucked in to the sexual and relationship tension between the characters and was very happily following along until the photographer called the model “Pretty baby.” That just stomped on all my squick buttons and pulled me right out of the story. I could tell that it was still hot in the same way it was before, except every time “pretty baby” showed up again, I’d get squicked all over again. Except for that, very enjoyable, and very very hot, very well-written D/s sex with a little bondage thrown in. Grade: B

Looking through the whole, now that I’m done, there’s quite a few more Bs than I thought there were. But still, the awfulness of “Dance for Me,” “Night Moves,” and “The Cowboy and the Movie Star” overshadows the good of “Exposure,” “Sunshine,” and the quirkiness of “Corona and Lime.” Skip this volume unless you can find those three stories separate.

Overall grade: C-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Books on Board or other etailers.

I only opened this volume when Dreamspinner sent it to us because Madeleine Urban had a co-written story in it. I adore her longer co-written stories with Abigail Roux, and the volume started off with “Reluctant,” so I thought I’d have a great little story and then skim through the rest. Instead, “Reluctant” was truly awful and the rest of the stories saved me from chucking the volume off my computer.

At 332 pages, this is a seriously hefty volume (electronic, of course). And with only 12 stories, that’s between 25-30 pages a story, much longer than the usual short stories crammed into an anthology. This gives enough time to actually flesh out the characters, plots, and themes. Or time for the story to move from blah to boring and awful.

The theme for the volume is sex industry workers: both low- and high-end prostitutes and strippers, mainly. What was fascinating to me more than anything was how each story used the sex industry angle—as a meet-cute, as conflict, as a moral failing, as a perfectly legitimate profession, with or without comment. I’m strangely fascinated by this particular profession and by how the HEA is achieved or dealt with in light of the prostitution. I also love to see whether the prostitution itself is the conflict or just part of the story with conflict elsewhere. This volume certainly gave me enough to work with.

“Reluctant” by Rhianne Aile & Madeleine Urban
Gregory is recently divorced because he thinks he’s gay. His doctor (!) gives him the card of the high-end prostitute he employs and Gregory makes an appointment. He gets his first blowjob and a refund, then makes a “real” date with Rico, who has fallen in love with him. Considering this is the first story in a volume about sex workers, its complete lack of any exploration of the actual sex work and the effect it has on both worker and consumer is a glaring and incomprehensible error. Rico falls for Gregory. Why? No clue. Gregory falls for Rico because he’s hot and gives good head, apparently. No discussion at all of whether Rico will give up his very well-paying job, no discussion of anything besides a naughty meet-cute and some sex. Fail all around because even the sex was boring. Grade: D

“Stripped Bare” by S. Blaise
Luca is intrigued by the voice of the man calling to book him for a stripping gig for his sister’s hen party. Told in the first person, Luca chases a curiously reluctant Ethan until Ethan gives in a meets him, revealing his physical disabilities. I loved Luca’s relentlessness and his optimism as he works on bringing Ethan out of his shell. The conflict was of the “I can’t believe a gorgeous stripper like you would like someone like me” variety, but although there was nothing earth-shattering, it was a fun little read. Grade: B-

“Boomerang” by Rachelle Cochran
Chance works at the club Boomerang, moonlighting occasionally as a rent boy. He waits on a table with his old high school crush. They meet again and, after overcoming his uncertainty about Evan’s sexuality, Chance dives into a relationship with him. A nice, gentle, sexy story, in which Chance’s rent boy status is pretty much a non-issue. Grade: B-

“Fun and Games” by Lenore Black
I adored this sweet little story. Patrick is a video game designer, working the final kinks out of a game weeks before release. He’s not perfectly sculpted and toned—he’s a dork and kind of soft around the edges. His friends buy him a prostitute for his birthday, just so he’ll get laid. But Jack keeps coming back, “the gift that keeps on giving.” The connection between the characters, the fun they have and the affection between them makes this a gem of a story. Grade: A-

“How Could I Not” by Jamie Freeman
A complicated little story. Ben is set up on a job with Josh, a rich older man who wants Ben to fuck him while they watch a video montage of a guy who looks startling like Ben. Josh becomes a once-a-week client for Ben and they slowly build a real relationship. This sounds a little creepy, but the writing and the characterization is strong enough to make me believe in the romance. But then we drop a whole grade for “No condoms, just pull out.” Give me a fucking break. Grade: B-

“The Frost Affair” by Sasha Skye
This one’s a little different, in that the sex worker is not a rent boy, but the kept lover of a senator. The senator is trying to spice things up a little in their love lives, to make sure Grayson isn’t bored with his older lover—which means the sex is pretty hot and frequent. I enjoyed this story, although I spent the whole thing hoping that the Senator wasn’t one of those who was against gay rights but banging his boy on the side. But I did notice an entire lack of lube and some ATM action (Google it, but beware, NSFW), which just kinda grossed me out. Grade: B-

“The Stripper and the Hairdresser” by Bethany Brown
Can we have some conflict, please? Something to overcome? Something to make the characters grow? Something to draw the characters together. I mean, I know that most real-life romances are just “two people meet, are attracted, fall in love, and have a HEA/HFN.” But romance stories need a plot with a dark moment, to have any impact whatsoever. This story is indeed “The Stripper and the Hairdresser” and that’s pretty much is. OMG boring. Grade: D+

“A Muse” by Zahra Owens
Ack! Second person narration: “You are very direct and the guy who recommended you to me had told me that.” I don’t know why people do this. It might work for the author to write hir masturbatory fantasy in 2nd person, but it rarely works for the reader. First person can edge into bombastic and egotistical, but when you add second person too, it all gets a little too much for me. And seriously, “androgynous, but manly”?! You can’t have it both ways—you really can’t. And please, do some research: “suddenly grateful for high-end digital cameras with state-of-the-art screens that don’t require me to peer through tiny viewfinders and miss ninety percent of the action”: uh, no—high end digital cameras require you to look through the tiny viewfinder. Trust me. It’s the cheap ones that use the screen. All that aside…this is an interesting story about a fine art photographer luring a rent boy into being his muse which I would have liked very much if it weren’t in second person. Grade: C

“Fin de Siècle” by S. Reesa Herberth
The only historical story in the anthology, this is an amazingly well-written glimpse into the turn-of-the-century encounters between an artist and a prostitute in Paris. Gabriel becomes Jean’s muse and they tentatively establish a relationship. The atmosphere and feeling of the story are brilliantly done, melancholy yet optimistic. And I actually like that although Jean and Gabriel find their way to each other by the end of the story, there is no talk yet of Gabriel giving up prostitution. Very well done. Grade: A-

“Chat Line” by Clare London
The conceit in this story was unoriginal, carried on too long, and almost embarrassing. Jerry calls a sex line, thinking it’s a line for a company that provides domestic help. The miscommunication goes on for pages longer than its funny, moving far into boring. The phone sex is pretty hot, but the “I want to meet you after one paid-for conversation” was a little unbelievable. Grade: C

“As Beauty Does” by JL Merrow
A professor-student story that doesn’t squick me! Very English set, Nathan, a rent boy, has a regular blow-job customer every Thursday night. He discovers the guy is his English professor in one of his new classes, which makes things a little uncomfortable on Stephen’s regular nights. After Nathan is bashed and ends up in hospital with a broken jaw, he and Stephen begin to establish a relationship. Great story, fabulous characterization. I especially love the use of the characters’ own language choices and words to indicate who they are and how they feel: you can tell that Stephen is very definitely a staid English professor, Nathan a working class student, just from the way they talk. Grade: B+

“The Four Seasons” by Diana Copland
This story is so unrealistically suspend-all-disbelief, it’s just yummy, because wouldn’t it be great if the world were perfect like that? Law student Michael endearingly hits on a beautiful man in a hotel bar, but is gently turned down because Christian is a very high-end prostitute who tells him to call when he’s made partner. 5 years later, Michael sees Christian on a corner, selling blowjobs for $50 a pop. He takes Christian in, finds out how and why he sunk so low, tells him he’s worth something, a la Pretty Woman (“The bad stuff’s easier to believe” moment), and they make beautiful love. Michael, of course, wakes up alone. 3 years after that….well, you’ll have to read the story, but everyone ends up rich and happy and fighting for gay civil rights. It’s deliciously over-the-top but the affection and relationship between Michael and Christian is very well done. Grade: B

Overall, I enjoyed the anthology. Some stories definitely stuck with me (“Fun and Games,” “Fin de Siecle,” and “As Beauty Does” especially and none were truly horrific—they were just boring, more than anything else. But I have a strange fascination with rent boy/male prostitute stories, so my fetish is well-fed and happy.

Overall Grade: B-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Fictionwise and other etailers.

I had heard your name mentioned when Australian writers were being discussed. And with “Paperback Hero” fresh on my brain, I decided to try “Cattle Baron: Nanny Needed” when I saw it at the eharlequin site.

Amber Wyatt knows she’s going to cause a scene when she shows up at her ex-fiance’s wedding to the granddaughter of the filthy rich Sir Clive Erskine. In fact, she’s planning on it. But despite what the bride’s mother, in her awful hat, might think, Amber has something tasteful in mind to remind Sean of how he jilted and publicly humiliated her.

But Rosemary Erskine hauls out the big guns and has her nephew, Cal MacFarlane step in. The result is Cal taking Amber out of commission, but in a kind way that takes the feelings of all parties into account. Cal’s fear is that his powerful relatives will retaliate against Amber, which is indeed what happens.

Now out of her broadcasting job, Amber decides to take Cal up on his offer to fly back to his Outback cattle station, Jingala, and spend some time doing what she’s always wanted to do, write.

When they arrive, it’s to discover that Cal’s uncle and young wife are having marital problems with their infant son smack in the middle of it. Amber quickly steps in to try and soothe things. But will she only make matters worse or is there hope for her budding romance with Cal?

Since I’ve never read one of your books, I decided to read the excerpt chapter before buying. I was psyched by it and by how your heroine and hero are introduced.

I loved the first third of the novel. Amber’s plan at the wedding to show her fiance what she thinks of his actions was classy, IMO. And Cal handled her and the situation beautifully with tact and sensitivity to both Amber and his family. His instincts for them to be seen on the town that evening were great and his offer to have Amber back at his station to work on her book after his grandfather pulled the strings to get Amber fired, which Cal warned Amber would probably happen, was sincere and well intentioned. So I was looking forward to seeing what would happen once they got back to Jingala.

What happened was a third of the book worth of WTF.

Finally I turned one aspect of it into a drinking game. If I took a swig of beer each time you had Amber mentally think of Cal as the “Cattle Baron,” I’d be stinking drunk by the end of the book. Instead I drank water and ended up heading to the loo a lot.

I like background information about books with settings that are new to me but damn, did the middle section of the book have to turn into a field guide/nature book for the Australian Outback? Way TMI here. Plus the information that’s included as “later she (Amber) found out….” seems awkwardly inserted. If I want to learn that much information about Australian wildlife, I prefer to watch Sir David Attenborough.

Amber becomes Earth Mother/baby prozac. I mean, really? Kid’s been screaming his head off for months, no one can calm or soothe him then suddenly Magic Amber arrives and he immediately pipes right down? As for Amber’s psych 101/Earth Mother evaluation of Jan, at first I can go along with her suggestions and questions. But after she’s been at the station for weeks and is still trying her counseling I say, look at the writing on the wall, Amber and trust that Cal and Elliot and the whole damn household have tried everything and nothing’s worked. Amber’s also supposed to be a journalist who’s done some expose pieces on troubled youth so her amazed reaction to Cal’s statement that mothers abandon their children makes me think less of her intelligence.

I wasn’t nearly as happy with Cal once he got back to the Outback. What happened to Mr. Nice Guy? Cal can have a nasty streak and I don’t mean about Jan. He’s snide and snappish to Amber whenever the discussions turn to his ex-fiancee, Brooke, but he sure feels like he can comment and grill her about Sean. And he tells Amber he’s not going to push her into anything then pushes her into kissing him. Even after she declines and says “no” more than once.

And enough! about Amber’s luscious skin. Just…enough already.

I had hoped that after the Australian travelogue, the last third of the book would perk up. Alas, “Descending into melodrama – sounds like a daytime soap.” is what I wrote in my notes. Jan is such a two dimensional bitch. No shading, no subtlety at all. But I give you points for the fact that when Brooke, with her perky breasts, made her inevitable appearance, she wasn’t a bitch.

Here are two incidents that had me shaking my head: Jan is shaking the baby and going off the rails yet Cal and Amber stop on their way to defuse the situation to discuss her new silk robe from Japan. (o-0)
Amber is falling down the stairs after being pushed but she’s more worried about the chance that the MacFarlane name will be blackened by the scandal because of who pushed her? WTF?

Oh, the soap opera drama. Lots of !!!! Too many !!! And every superlative adjective from the thesaurus to describe the MacFarlane station, house, horses, food, clothes….

I’ve said before and will say it again, epilogues aren’t my thing. But at least this one is short as well as a hoot – it’s so bad. The use of the word “dynasty” was a nice OTT touch. I just wonder what the family reunions will be like between Amber and the rat who dumped her. B for the first third of the book but a D for the rest.

~Jayne

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

I’m a fan of military suspense novels from way back when “The Hunt for Red October” was first published. Your novel, “Zhena,” caught my attention in that I wanted to know how well a Russian sleeper spy novel could work this long after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The novel starts well. We’re in the old, basement files of some former Soviet spy agency with an aged government worker questioning why someone is poking around here so many years since this area was last accessed. We quickly discover that a 20 year old program is being reactivated and the primary agent to be recovered is Susan Anderson.

Susan is a Navy wife. She grew up in an orphanage, attended Purdue University on a scholarship where she met Bill Anderson who was in the ROTC. It was insta-love. Susan just “knew” that Bill was the man for her. Now after almost twenty years of marriage, Bill is the XO of a submarine, they have two children and are living the American Dream – Navy style. Bill’s climbed the ranks and Susan has been behind him the whole way.

And now we, the reader, learn why after Susan receives a strange phone call one night. At first, when a series of noises begin, she thinks it’s someone’s fax machine. But when a wave of nausea overtakes her and she briefly loses consciousness, she wonders. Then bizarre things begin to happen – things which alternately frighten and infuriate her. Who is behind all this and why is she starting to question her entire life? And can she figure it out, and save her family, before the other agents realize the recovery didn’t work?

The book is listed at Fictionwise as a suspense/thriller so it didn’t bother me that Bill never makes an appearance in the story. Despite being published by Hearts on Fire Books, there’s no romance beyond Susan and Bill having a happy marriage. So with the emphasis on suspense and thrills, I wanted to be on the edge of my seat as I read. I wanted pulse pounding excitement, damn it. Unfortunately, that isn’t what I got.

The writing is stilted at times with awkward insertion of facts. There are scenes, such as with the scene involving the Russian agent Elena in Newport, that are weird.

Elena had nearly passed out when she saw Sasha and Mara together. Elena knew Mara’s new name was Jean. A hope sprung up inside her. Perhaps Sasha had just forgotten protocol and was trying to contact the other primary herself. What she didn’t realize was that Mara hadn’t been activated yet as she had. Of course it wouldn’t take her long to figure that out. Perhaps if she just allowed Sasha to see her, they could talk once Mara had left.

WTF? Why would the italicized part be in a paragraph from Elena’s POV?

And instead of a story which had me madly flipping pages to find out what happens next, I felt very uninvolved. It was almost like I was listening to a voice droning on and on. There were almost no visuals, no clues about facial expressions, movements, emotions, anything. As a reader, I felt detached from what’s going on. But then maybe that’s the automaton response you’re trying to have Susan feel as The Voice of her Soviet conditioning is taking over her and she’s detached from it all.

By the end of the book, I felt I’d invested enough time to want to know how it would all end but not because I felt any emotional attachment to Susan. I mean, even the cabin killing spree was so flat and dull. My thoughts? “Susan blows way some of the villains and searches for the missing child of her friend.” Yawn, flip another page.

Okay, I take some of that back. I did get a touch worked up about the fact that Susan has no problem taking out three of them but then she suddenly decides to offer the leader an out? Go away and we’ll call it quits. WTF?? Did she honestly think this driven man would just shrug, grin and head off leaving her alone? Come on! That’s just stupid – as she quickly finds out.

I also found it amazing that Susan manages to find people from 20 years ago who remember so many minute details about people they briefly met. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch last week much less the interests of people I barely met over twenty years ago.

You include a nice plug for Purdue University but a suspense book isn’t the place for it. It adds nothing to the story except to put the brakes on for 2-3 pages. This is one of the many times that there is too much detail about extraneous things.

The book also has a distressing tendency to stop for a 3 page recount of the action up til that point. A refresher isn’t a bad thing but totally halting the narrative flow is another.

A final item that I have to grouch about is the fact that there is no spacing in this ebook to mark changes in POV. Since I downloaded a Sony format of the story from Fictionwise, this pissed me off. Also, the times when the Russian alphabet is used the letters show up as “Russian characters” despite what format I looked at.

The basic plot is interesting and I could have believed that there was a secret Soviet sleeper cell awaiting reactivation. But the story telling didn’t engage me and there were too many other issues which detracted from my reading pleasure to suit me.

~Jayne

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Amazon for $2.00 or at other retailers.

I really fell in love with your series with the book featuring Tegan and Elise, Midnight Awakening. I believe it was in that book that we were introduced to Andreas Reichen. Andreas is a German vampire whose entire “family” was killed during a purge of Darkhaven homes who are perceived to be impediments to the ultimate rule of the bad vampires.

Andreas “gift” is overtaking him, spurred in part by his loss of control following the eradication of his family. Andreas is pyrokinetic and his rage literally fuels the fire. As he seeks out revenge against those he knows betrayed him, he loses his ability to harness both his gift and his bloodlust.

Claire Roth is the wife and breedmate of Wilhelm Roth. Roth and Andreas have always been at odds. Roth has been promised power in exchange for helping to eliminate those who stand by the Order, a group of Generation One vampires who hunt down rogue vampires and engage in an ongoing battle to keep humans safe. (As I was writing this review, I had to go back and look at previous books because there is little in this story that explains the nature of the conflict. It’s presented in a very elemental fashion. Andreas is part of the good guy team and Roth, part of the bad).

Claire and Wilhelm maintain a cordial existence but Claire and Andreas have a past. The two fell in love, but Andreas left, fearing his gift would ultimately harm Claire. Hurt and vulnerable, Claire fell easily into the hands of Wilhelm who poured on the charm to win her. The two settle into a peaceable yet far from loving relationship. Here’s where the story breaks down for me.

I was intrigued by the initial play on the breedmate concept but as the world in Ashes appeared to play fast and loose with the original canon, I not only lost interest but became frustrated. There ominous warnings regarding Reichen interfering with the blood bond between Claire and Wilhelm but there were no real repercussions.

Under the mythology you have set up, a breedmate (a female specially capable of breeding/pairing with vampires) has intense sexual and physical reaction to her mate when she drinks the mate’s blood. If she doesn’t drink the mate’s blood, she essentially condemns herself to die. Therefore, in order for Claire to have lived the life she has, she would have to regularly take blood from Wilhelm which implies that she also would be having sex with him, wonderful, orgasmic, blood pumping sex. Yet, this is never, ever addressed. Further, as Claire and Andreas bond, we are told that Wilhelm can tell through the matebond when Claire receives pleasure. Yet, we also know early on that Wilhelm cheats on Claire regularly. What impact does that have on her? What would that do to experience your mate’s pleasure while he is getting it from someone else? These questions are totally unanswered.

I was further disturbed by the fact that Andreas and Wilhelm were both born and bred in Germany, had lived there for years. Yet both of them act like characters from Die Hard.  Of course, Roth is John McClane, big, brawny, capable of handling every task with glass in his feet all the while cursing up a storm. Roth is no more German than Mongolian Beef is Chinese cuisine. His entire aspect from his attire, to his mannerisms, to his way of speech (replete with Anglicized curse words), and rhythm of speech, bespeaks of a non European.

If there is ever a place that diversity would be welcomed, it is the paranormal world. I mean, we have shapeshifters and vampires and aliens. Surely, we can have a few non white Anglo characters right? The most German that a reader is provided is the reference to Claire as Frau Roth a couple of times. I kept wondering what the point was of having German characters without providing us with any international flavor.  It further struck me how homogenous even the paranormal genre is that even a German character doesn’t appear to be any different than the standard Hollywood action hero.

Finally, the idea that one woman’s love could save him from his beast has been done before, not just in the ouvre of paranormal but in this series. Ashes of Midnight is nothing more than one super alpha male being saved by the love of a great woman. There is no nuance in this story and because it’s the same plot recycled from previous stories, there is no suspense either.

The story arc focuses primarily on Andreas and his battle over being consumed by his own fire. Claire has no character arc as serves only as the paranormal cure for Andreas’ illness. I think this is the last of the Breed series for me.

I feel compelled to explain the grade here for a moment. I think the prose is competent, if not a little melodramatic. But because the German background of the characters was so lacking and because the book deviated, I felt, so far from the original canon in order to drum up some conflict and then ease into an easy resolution, I cannot give this a better grade than any book in the series. D

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from an independent bookstore or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

There is this livejournal community called weepingcock wherein users collect literary outtakes of tragically bad sex scenes. In reading my fourth Ravenous Romance ebook, I’m convinced that there is some conspiracy between WC and RR, or at least some hidden symbiotic relationship because I haven’t read four books in a row from one publisher that so perfectly fit the mission of one livejournal community. I suspect that the WC users will subsidize RR press should it falter in this troublesome economy just to provide the community material.

American Star is thinly veiled fan fiction of the American Idol reality television series featuring aspirant Terre/ance* (tm Divas). Terre/ance is a manager at a tanning salon in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Ostensibly, Terre/ance is dating Kevin, his boyfriend since high school and owner of the tanning salon. Terre/ance sees a notice in a newspaper about auditions for a singing reality show. Terre/ance decides that this is his opportunity to launch his singing career. He does not tell Kevin because Kevin is always looking for an opportunity to be derisive of Terre/ance.

When I say thinly veiled, I mean American Star differs from American Idol only in that the word “Idol” is not used. Terre/ance is selected to go to “Hollywood” from the auditions and undergoes a grueling competition while in Hollywood. After the group of singers culled from the auditions are reduced to twelve, the singers are subject to the votes of the public who can express their opinion as to who stays and who goes by calling special phone numbers. There are three judges: a woman with one hit; a singer turned producer who is quite heavy; and Marcus, the snide, cruel judge who has been outrageously successful in all his endeavors. Oh, and a host, a slim man some apparently think is gay (and in this story he is).

The singing competition is really a vehicle for Terre/ance’s sexual exploits. Terre/ance, to put it kindly, is loose. A young man comes to tan at his salon and Terre/ance is entranced. Fortunately for Terre/ance, Jude is a singer too and when they see each other at the singing auditions, the two sneak away to the bathroom to while away the time. Jude confesses to Terre/ance that he has a “mutant penis.” Apparently it is enormously large. So enormous that it is described thusly:

Then he spread his legs and slowly lowered his zipper. It fell from his jeans like a roll of paper towels unraveling across the kitchen floor; it was already semi-erect and growing longer and thicker by the second.

Terre/ance recovers from his initial shock at Jude’s Bounty and begins to fellate Jude. I didn’t realize it at first, but Terre/ance identifies all his cocks via smell. Jude’s cock “tasted a little salty, but it smelled like clean, fresh soap and water.” Please pay attention, there will be a quiz on this later. While Jude’s monstrous dick physically prevented Terre/ance from engulfing Jude entirely, “he packed as much of Jude’s big dick to the back of his throat as he could.” Jude begins to come and Terre/ance invites him to shoot the sperm all over his face

A second later, the huge monster exploded all over Terrence’s face. It hit his skin hard enough to make his head jerk back. The aroma was intoxicating: sugar and bleach and honey mixed into one. And while he continued to milk Jude’s balls, he blew his own load all over the bathroom floor.

As an FYI Chlorox Honey Bee frangrance is stocked right next to Bounty at your local supermarket next to the burp pads:

he finally opened his eyes again, he reached for a piece of toilet paper and cleaned the last few drops of come from Jude’s dick. He wanted to stay there on his knees and stare at it for the rest of the day; he could have put it over his shoulder and burped it. But all he had time to do was place it in his palm, hoist it up and kiss it good-bye.

When I shared this scene with others, I was confronted with a series of “You are making this up” so I took a screen shot. Jude and Terre/ance both make it to Hollywood and they make promises to meet up with each other before the show starts up.

Terre/ance returns home and tells Kevin of his plans. Instead of angry Kevin, Terre/ance is confronted by tender Kevin and by tender I mean that when Kevin says–”That’s it, bitch…Get naked for me. Wiggle that hot ass. I know how you like it”–it’s in a totally loving manner. Terre/ance revels in the smell of post-gym, pre-shower Kevin:

Terrence licked the rough stubble beneath his chin while Kevin’s two fingers slowly probed his anus. Kevin hadn’t showered that morning after his daily workout at the gym, and his underarms smelled like raw onions and meat. Terrence took a deep breath and smiled.

Again, not lying. So Terre/ance then embarks on his journey toward stardom. On his way there, he stops to fuck the limo driver Joe. For those at home playing the ball/penis/smell bingo game, Joe smells of “inexpensive cologne. It wasn’t strong, but it smelled like musk and spices, like a man should smell if he were to wear cologne of any kind.” Their sex play? Some kind of manic circling:

While they kissed, their tongues went in wet, rapid circles, swallowing each other’s spit and coming back for more….Joe’s tongue continued to go in circles and he moaned inside Terrence’s mouth a few times.

As an aside, this author appears to be quite taken with circular imagery. Terre/ance’s ass is described as a beach ball (despite being willowy of frame), and a bubble butt. Terre/ance has a tendency to grind his ass in a circle (which makes some strange sense given his beach ball/bubble butt, I guess). “He didn’t have to buck his hips or move them in circles.” “Kevin moaned and sighed while his hips began to grind in slow, meticulous circles.” “He shoved his tongue into Terrence’s mouth and rolled it around in violent circles.” “Kevin’s dick was still inside him and he was rocking and grinding in circles.” “…pointed the tip directly into Terrance’s pink hole and circled the opening.” “The entire cock seemed to ache with erotic places that could make his eyes spin in circles.” “…causing the entire bed to vibrate while Terrence’s head jerked around in circles.”

Another redundancy is Terre/ance olfactory fetish. At one point, Terre/ance finds himself jerking off while staring at his straight roommate’s sleeping form. Figuring that the roommate is the one person who is not hot for him, Terre/ance picks up the roommate’s sweaty, discarded sock:

Terrence licked his lips and started jerking again. He knew he couldn’t just get out of bed and suck him off, but he needed more. So he reached down to the floor and picked up one of Justin’s sweat socks. He pressed it against his face and sniffed back. ….A moment later, Terrence pressed the dirty sweat sock to his nose, inhaled as deeply as he could and blew his load all over his stomach.

A bellhop Terre/ance screws has balls that taste sweet and “smelled like baby powder.” Another bellhop’s balls “tasted salty and smelled a little like apple vinegar.” The stranger in the sauna’s balls “tasted salty and smelled like onions.”

I would be remiss in this review if I didn’t acknowledge that there was a plot. Terre/ance is a great singer whose talent threatens that of another contestant, Payton. Further Terre/ance has to fight for Jude’s attention. Jude may want to win the competition more than he wants Terre/ance. Because of the plot, I feel like I have to give this one a D.

Best regards,

Jane

*The spelling of the main character’s name changes throughout the book from Terrance to Terrence. At least once, the misspelling occurs in the same paragraph. This is not the only editing issue though. My favorite sentence besides the burping one was “Joe wasn’t into a lot of raunchy dirty talk, but there was something about his strong, viral movements that was just as exciting.”

This book can be purchased at many etailers

I am a zombie fan!
Zombie fan I am

That zombie-fan-I-am
That zombie-fan-I-am!
I do not like that Forest of Hand (and Teeth)!

Do you like
The village and Mary?

I am not being contrary.
This story is not
believable or scary.

Would you like Mary
On the run?

I would not like her
On the run.
I did not find the story fun.

I did not like
The escape plan.
I did not like it, as a zombie fan.

Did you like the love story?
Did you find the ending gory?

I did not like the
Love story.
I did not like the ending,
I did not find it gory.
I did not like the vagueness
of the undead.
I did not understand what was going
on in Mary’s head.

I did not like her
Selfish outlook.
I did not like
This Forest book.
I did not like it,
Zombie-fan-I-am.

Would you like it if the author
Moved Mary
To someplace
A little more scary?

Not in the new place.
Not with zombies in her face.
Not behind the fences please.
Not in a platform in the trees.
I did not like Mary
here or there.
I did not like her anywhere.
I did not like her selfish outlook.
I did not like this Forest book.

Why not? What’s wrong? Everyone else loves it.
It’s the tale of the zombie apocalypse! And how Mary overcomes it!
I did not enjoy it. For others, it might be a hit.

You may like it. Read it again!
Everyone else gave this book a ten!

I cannot like it, you cannot make me.
The world-building made no sense! Hide from zombies in a TREE?

I did not like how Mary was never satisfied
No matter how hard Travis or Harry tried
I did not like that the zombies are hardly shown
We are barely given a severed limb or groan
I did not believe in the world that was given
I did not like how the characters were driven
I did enjoy the appearance of Gabrielle, so bold
But her real story is never $%%&&* told!

On the run! On the run!
What about when the characters go on the run?
They find another village
Weren’t you stunned?

Not in the new town nor in the old!
Not at the ocean! I am still not sold!

I did not like Mary.
I did not like how she insisted that they end her sister-in-law’s life
I did not like how she mooned over her friend Travis.
Even though she was practically Harry’s wife
I did not like the glimpses we were shown
And then never told us about. This made me groan.
If you like this book, you must assume.
Assume some zombies are fast! No reason! Just are!
And that despite all these safe paths, no one ever went that far!

This zombie apocalypse did not feel very ‘apocalypse’ to me.
I did not like it, zombie fan though I be.

Say! What about the zombies?
Weren’t they scary?
Didn’t that part of the book appeal
Even if you didn’t like Mary?

I did not find it super-scary. I thought the characters were not
appropriately wary.

What do you mean? Did you read every scene?

I read every scene and thought Mary was dense.
If there’s a zombie apocalypse, why stick your hands through the fence?
She doesn’t get hurt. Someone always saves her tail.
I would have let the zombies eat her. TSTL Fail!

You did not like the Forest book?
I did not like it or the vague end.
But I like Ryan’s writing. Or is it too late to defend?

What grade would you give it? This Forest book?
I’d probably give it a D, given my sour outlook.

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.