Archive for the 'F Reviews' Category
Dear Authors and Readers.
 If you will excuse a personal history, you will see its relevance to my review. I enlisted in the Army National Guard after 9/11. I became a US citizen and commissioned (became an officer) in 2003. I accepted a medical retirement in May of this year, at the rank of Captain, after 7 ½ years of service. I never went overseas, but I served in the Katrina response in Louisiana. I was a soldier and damn proud to be so.
But I am also bisexual (with some extra kinks outside the Kinsey continuum). This is the first time I’ve been able to admit this in public (well, I came out on Twitter on National Coming Out Day) since figuring it out because of the US military’s destructive Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. My sexuality in no way affected my service. All outward appearances show a happily married, monogamous, heterosexual soldier, which is mostly what I am. But every now and then the issue came up and I had to bite my tongue. I could have been kicked out of the service if anyone had dug too deep, for a reason …
As there are many ways to get romance wrong, there are exponentially more ways to get BDSM romance wrong. BDSM is tricky. If you’re writing it because it’s hot, but you’ve got no experience with it, you’re almost bound to get it wrong. Almost, but not always, I hasten to add. Examples of successful BDSM romances by authors who aren’t BDSM-identified themselves — as far as I know — are Ann Somerville’s Remastering Jerna and Matthew Haldeman-Time’s An Affair in Paradise and Victoria Dahl’s The Wicked West. So the “authenticity” of a writer who is BDSM-identified isn’t necessary, if that author has imagination, empathy, and has done their research. But still, there are many many ways to get BDSM hideously, awfully, horrifically wrong. I’ve written before about how not to write BDSM romance, but I’ve recently had a string of truly scary BDSM romances cross my computer screen, all scary in very different ways, so I thought I’d combine reviews into a discussion of What NOT To Do.
 Thirty Days by Shayla Kersten (Liquid Silver Books)
This book horrified me. So much so that I literally can’t bring myself …
Dear Authors:
 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 …
To celebrate the release of my non existent Were Gerbil, I solicited reviews from the Dear Author community. The winner gets a copy of Jill Myles’ Gentlemen Prefer Succubi. The winning entry is as follows:
Dear Ms. _l:
 At first I was greatly enjoying your book, The Multi Billionaire’s Virgin Rodent Wrangler Bride. Yes, I had to hide the cover on the bus, but I was fascinated by Ho-Lotta and Chee’s developing relationship. I also greatly enjoyed the subplot with Harvey and Reynold the hamster jugglers; in fact, sometimes I rooted for their successful romance even more than I did the main characters’. Your setting was perfect; I could hear the squeak of the wheel and smell the cedar.
But as I read, something about your text nagged at me. In several places, your writing style abruptly changed. For example, this passage where Ho-Lotta sees the shifted Chee for the first time:
He broke away from her, panting. The moonlight struck his face, and suddenly the handsome man was gone.
In his place….
It was ratlike, looking like it belonged to the same family as the globally widespread brown rat,
…
Dear St. Martin’s Press:
 I am writing this letter to you because I have a serious beef with this book and I don’t think its appropriate to direct my ire toward her, but rather you. You are the company that purchased this book and then released it at a cost of $13.99 on the unsuspecting public. I say unsuspecting because there is not an excerpt to be found on the web.
I have suspicions that the lack of excerpt is due to the fact that if one were provided, it would deter sales. One + One = Three is written as if it were a primary school handbook. The story is told in short three to five page chapters written in a dry biographical manner (which is kind of insulting to biographies). Former supermodel Munro opens a bar/lounge, has sex with two super hot, rich guys, and gets threatened in her bar by someone who has it in for Munro.
This ultimately leads to a) the most boring book written, b) the most conflictless book ever written, c) the most shallow characters ever profiled and d) the most unengaging sex I’ve read in a …
Jane:
Maili, I understand you just finished reading (or is that too generous of a word) the words compiled into one PDF known as The Claiming by Trinity Blacio published by Siren Publishing-Bookstrand, Inc. The Claiming is ostensibly about a young woman whose family was killed in a bomb explosion on the family boat 10 years prior to the start of the story. Tabatha (also referred to as “Tab”) receives a frightening phone call from someone claiming to be responsible for those long ago deaths and promising to finish Tabatha off now. Tabatha believes that werewolves might be responsible for her family’s death but this doesn’t stop her from dressing up (or undressing given the scanty nature of the costume) for a Halloween party held at the local werewolf club. There she discovers that the Alpha is her mate and that a demon named Chax, summoned using her stolen car (don’t ask), is also her mate.
Tabatha is claimed by the two men, transformed by their seed “part werewolf and demon, being able to shift as she saw fit, and living as long as they chose.” There’s other stuff that goes on including that her brother isn’t …
Notice: The whole review is really a summary of what the fuckedness so if you plan to read the book and don’t want to be spoiled, click away.
Dear Readers:
 I can’t remember who chose this book for me to read during #RRTheatre (wherein I roast bad porn) but the premise was “have sex or die.” We thought that the plot promised some hijinks at least. Grammatically this Ravenous book wasn’t as poor as previous titles, but the editing was still abysmal. I had a feeling that this was supposed to be some kind of campy send up of futuristics but because it lacked any coherency, it was just a mess inducing unintentionally hilarious moments.
The basics of the worldbuilding that I could glean from the story is this. There was a Great Fall and society split into Blacks and Blues. Blacks were more technoliterate and Blues had more money. There was a renewable energy source namd pilox that was the subject of much dissension between the Blues and Blacks. There is a revolutionary group that no one knows about and there is the ability to infect someone with vampirism as well …
Dear Readers,
Netcomics is a publisher that publishes manga and manhwa online. No e-reader is needed, just $0.25 per chapter. They publish not only their own but Luv Luv and Yaoi Press comics among others. The way it works is that you buy e-cash in $10 amounts, then pay as you view each new chapter.
You don’t own the chapters, not at those prices. You get to view them for 48 hours. But, so you have a chance to look at a manga before starting to pay, the first 1-2 chapters are always available free (one for short works, 2 for longer).
Last, almost all the books are or will be available in hard copy if you find you truly love them and can’t live without them. There are a couple of series I follow that I purchase in hard format. What I love most about Netcomics though is that the net-version is usually 1-2 volumes ahead of the print, and with chapter releases the wait time is generally much less for updates, 2 weeks for my favorite series.
The series tend to be focused on women’s and girls’ comics. There are romances both …
Dear Ms. Thomas-Sundstrom,
 I read your offering for last month’s offering of Nocturne Bites. Although I was disappointed by what I felt was an unresolved plot thread, I later discovered that it had been intended to be the first of a series, in which the various installments were connected by the mystery of an unidentified werewolf attacking and subsequently infecting innocent humans with his bite. While this doesn’t give you a pass when it comes the abrupt ending of the plotline in question, it did clarify some things for me. I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of writing a paranormal continuity that switches back and forth from novellas to novels (although I hear there are plans for novels in the future, this installment is once again a novella), I did want to mention this fact for other readers who might be interested in your stories since I know there are some who dislike this particular trend.
Jenna James is a psychiatrist with a problem. Her latest female patient is exhibiting strange behavior and symptoms, and she has no explanation for it. So she calls …
Note: In order to express my full opinion, I will need to share spoilers. So beware.
Dear Ms. Layne:
 When Ravenous Romance first appeared on my radar, I blogged about it and you were quick to come to inform us readers that this new epress would “blow the competition out the water from very early on.” Given that you were also elevated from writer to editor in a short time, I thought it might be worthwhile to see exactly what was the force behind all the eruption. Knight Moves is a time traveling story featuring New Jersey toll booth supervisor, Louise Jackson, and the time traveling knight, Lord Verdigris.
For her birthday, Louise Jackson is dragged to Medieval Worlds: Dinner and Tournament by her best friend. Deciding the wait for the woman’s bathroom is too long, Louise slips into the men’s room in hopes of relieving herself quickly. There she is assailed by the stench of the men’s room and the sight of the gorgeous man at the urinal:
And the sight of the huge cock the knight is holding in his right hand as he shakes off the last few drops of pee is even more dazzling.
The sight …
Dear Ms. Dalton:
 This is a very well-written book. You have strong, fully realized characters, an unique plot, a romance that is slowly developed and deeply felt, and a solid, believable happy ending. I think you have a lot of writing talent and a good eye for the genre. That said, this book made me feel dirty–not in a fun, sexy way, but in an unclean, depressing, angry way.
Seth’s best friend Kaden drops a bomb on him one day: not only is he dying of pancreatic cancer, but he’s asking Seth to step in for him as his wife’s dominant after he dies. Seth, who had no clue that his best friends were involved in BDSM, let alone in a 24/7 Master/slave relationship, is understandably blown away and completely weirded out. But he agrees, moves in with his friends, learns to be a dominant, slowly falls in love with Leah (or, rather, admits to himself and his friends that he’s always loved her), shares her with Kaden, watches Kaden sicken and die (the whole story takes about 18 months, I’d say, maybe a bit longer), after which he and Leah learn to live …
Dear Ms. Bailey:
 Thanks so much for writing a novel that could be used as a writing manual entitled How Not to Write a Romance. It’s an invaluable resource for all other romance authors out there. It must have taken considerable time and unknown talent to include so many stereotypes, mistakes, crushed conventions, and sheer bad writing as examples, or maybe as warnings, to other authors.
I was particularly impressed with the character list:
- The gay cop who tries to prove himself by going undercover, without any authorization from his superiors, as the bodyguard and right-hand man of a new mob boss.
- His Latina partner who uses so much Spanish slang and cursing, her dialogue is almost unreadable.
- The crime boss whose evilitude is obvious because he’s a sadist! Of course, because you know about those dirty sadists! And he’s British, so automatically more evil!
- The stunningly beautifully gorgeous rent boy who is the crime boss’s boyfriend. He’s fuckable! And defiant! Lonely! And out for revenge! He fucks anyone who asks. Except for the gay cop. Even though they Lurrve each other instantly! He’s got an awful horrible background that’s revealed in pointless info-dump, rather than through subtle hints and
…
Dear Ms. Amber:
 Once upon a time, my so called friend, Sarah, sent me a book to read. She had told me some bare details about it that raised my eyebrows and I started to read it when I received the book but it wasn’t intriguing enough to continue so I put it aside. But, it was laying on the top of the TBR pile, taunting me so last Friday I picked it up.
Nicholas is an Italian lord and vineyard owner who happens to be one of the three Satyrs that live in EarthWorld as opposed to ElseWorld. ElseWorld is where Satyrs, Faeries and who knows else frolic and fight. In EarthWorld, there appear to be humans, human-blends and Satyrs. Nicholas receives a note from the Kind of the Faeries that he, the King, had impregnated and begat three girls. Their Faerie blood is now starting to quicken and Nicholas and his two brothers must seek out these girls, marry them and continue the Satyr line. Nicholas, Lyon, and Raine divvy the girls up by geography. Nicholas’ chosen one is …
Warning: This F review may contain language that is offensive to Sensitive Readers.
Dear Ms. Gryphon:
 The cover quote for the book is by Laurell K Hamilton and it says “A unique idea in the paranormal genre.” I have to agree. It was unique. Unique like I’ve never read anything so bizarre in the paranormal genre before. Unique in that I’m sure that no one else is using the word “wereBear” because it rhymes with “careBear” thus rendering the shifter completely toothless. Unique in that it had every possible kind of mythical creature from vampires to the menagerie of shifters to Brownies, Fey, Elf (different than Fey), Pixies, dragons, Greek gods and goddesses, Ghosts, Demi-Fey, Slaugh, Goblins, Light Court, Dark Court, Twilight Court, Lord Dracula, Anibus, the Egyptian Vampire. Jack the Ripper and the Grael, that heals. Did the publisher employ a “No mythology left behind” policy and I missed it?
It’s so unique that it’s nearly impossible to read in its jumbling of words, plots, thoughts, and character arcs.
First, the menagerie of others is referred to as paramortal. Does that mean that everyone is part normal but just a higher …
 Princess Tutu created by Ikuko Ito and Junichi Sato. Released in English by ADV. Entire 26 episode series available at Amazon for $28.49. Manga adaptation available but really, don’t go there.
Dear Readers,
I’m cheating today. This blog is for book reviews, things you read. And so I’m going to review an absolutely terrible manga adaptation so that I can also review the anime of the same name, because it’s just a wonderful series that’s so overlooked, and it would make a great Christmas present for anyone who loves storytelling, ballet, or classical music.
First, the manga. I’m not even linking to it. It’s terrible. It takes an enchanting story and wipes all emotion and excitement and meaning from it. Take, for example, the climax of the first story arc of the series. This is a tremendous episode in the anime, with the “light” and “dark” ballerinas battling through dance for the heart of their prince. In the manga, when the light ballerina comes and dances with the prince and his knight …
Editorial note: This review/letter may contain spoilers. It is also not entirely a review but more of a diatribe. If you read this series, you may not want to read this post. Again, if you do read this and are spoiled, don’t blame us. We warned you. The book is due out on July 31, 2007. You can pre-order it at Amazon.
Dear Ms. Slaughter:
 I have tried to rewrite this letter many times since I’ve read the book because I try to come off as a reasonable person and this letter is angry and bitter. After trying to rewrite it for the nth time, I’ve just decided to own the fact that this letter is angry, bitter, and even juvenile. I can’t help my emotional response and I am not going to apologize for it so that I can appear levelheaded.
I am an emotional reader. I invest emotionally with the characters, particularly those whom I have read over the course of many years. I recall buying each Grant County book in hardcover. I remember …
Dear Ms. Lynne:
 Fellow blogger Karen Scott emailed me yesterday and said I should go and buy Ben’s Wildflower. I obediently went and bought it. About 10 pages in, I emailed Ms. Scott back and asked her if I had done something to offend her because I thought she and I were pals.
Katie Crawford is a tiny woman who is working her ranch alone after the death of her parents. She’s at the end of her rope but won’t sell. Her neighbor brings by a friend, Ben Thomas, to see the ranch. Kate refuses Thomas’ offer to sell the ranch but easily capitulates when Thomas offers to buy only half. Kate is a shy woman. She had a terrible experience as a teen at the hands of the bank owner’s son and has stayed away from town ever since. Ben falls in love with Kate immediately but believes that his love can only be an emotional connection rather than a physical one because of bad experience in his youth.
Ben’s Wildflower is a bad book. I don’t know that I can say that any nicer. As with so …
Dear Ms Henderson,
 I love Georgian books and if they’re set in “the Colonies” I’m already predisposed to like them. Which makes it all the worse when one so totally fails for me. I think it was Dee’s blog where I read that she tries to find at least three things she liked about every book. I tried, I really did try but I can’t even find that many things I liked about this book.
Iris McDonnell arrives in Portsmouth expecting to find the man of her dreams. Though she’s never met him, she knows Riley West is everything she wants in a husband. Charming, witty, well-to-do, good dancer, nice house, the man’s got it all. Only when she steps off the boat from England, there’s no one to meet her.
Riley West just got out of prison for murder and has only been home for one month. In that amount of time, he’s realized that no one there has forgiven him for what he did 6 years ago, no one will talk to him much less hire him. He doesn’t know why his sister wants him to go pick up a friend of hers but when …
Dear Ms. Allie,
 I fell victim to a hot cover. Damn me anyway. I saw Lust in Uniform at the bookstore. It looked hot. What can I say, a smoothly muscled chest and forearm and a tattoo. Anyway, I got home and logged on to find the download version and it had a different cover and title. No wonder I never bought it before.
Ugh. Hideous. Worse than hideous. It’s vile. 
The story behind the cover isn’t much better. Boothe O’Brien is a Marine. He never has problems getting women. “His usual flavor had big tits, no brains, and would open her legs to the slightest innuendo.” Okay, let’s just stop right there. No wonder Boothe doesn’t have problems getting women – he is actively looking for the kind of girl that ANY man would not have problems convincing them to take home – they open their legs at the slightest innuendo. Is this really the kind of quality guy we want to be a hero – the type that wants …
See how well controversy sells? Reader Jaine (not her real name as we require all contributors to have a “J” name) bought the book and offered up a review for Dear Author. Currently, Highland Fling is No. 8 on the Fictionwise Romance Bestseller List.
Dear Ms. LaBrecque:
 You know those romance books that are so bad, they’re really funny and somewhat campy? “Highland Fling” isn’t one of those; it’s worse. It’s boring. It’s very boring. It’s not even parody material.
Did any of your writing instructors talk about how tricky writing dialects can be? MacTavish was no Meryl Streep. He had a Scots brogue–sort of. He’d be dinna and lassying and bluidying along when he’d start sounding like Barry Fitzgerald, switch to Midwestern, 21st Century hip, and pepper the whole shebang with Hillbilly and pirate. (“mebbe”?! and “Aye. We be Jacobites.”) But the poor laddie needna fash himself over much, since his personality and character had a LOT of facets too. Sort of an attributes du jour kind of guy. You name the trait, MacTavish had it. He was …
Dear Ms. Tabke:
 I have a feeling that after this review, you aren’t going to like me very much. Please try to remember that this letter is about your book and not about you. Because I hated it – the book, that is. It was the worst piece of drivel that I have read in a while (and that’s saying something since I just read some drivel last week). There are so many things that I thought were wrong in this book, I barely know where to start.
Let’s just begin with the fact that I have no idea where this story took place. You never name a town, a city, a county, an unincorporated municipality or even a village. Not even a fake one like they used to do in those old Silhouettes. There was some reference to “I hope you like California penal-orange” but that was it. So this book takes place somewhere in America, possibly in California and, I think, in the present day. But who knows. It could have taken place in Oregon or Idaho for all the detail you …
Dear Authors:
 I love sports. Really love sports. I listen to ESPN at work everyday. We purchase the MLB Ticket, the NFL Ticket, the NBA Ticket. ESPN is on every night. This is itemized to tell you that one of you isn’t going to be real happy with my review because it was glaringly obvious to me that you don’t know sports. In fact, you and sports are on the opposite ends of the football field. Let’s begin.
Dear Ms. London: Yours is the first book in the anthology. I started reading it and then had to skip right to Martin’s for fear that my IPAQ was going to suffer severe damage after being tossed onto floor. Your hero is a former Houston Astros shortstop & slugger who moved to New York Mets to sign one of the biggest baseball contracts in history. Why didn’t you just call him Alex Rodriguez and be done with it. Other than changing a few details (Seattle to TX Rangers and then to the Yankees), it’s him. Do you totally lack any creativity that you had to steal your character from real life? And can’t you make up your own team names like Martin or Susan Elizabeth Phillips?
Dear Ms. Austin:
 Let me tell you straight up that this isn’t going to be good for your ego. You may want to go to Sybil’s site and just skip this letter. Of course, it was sybil’s blog that enticed me to buy this. God, I really need to stop listening to sybil. I will state from the outset that the virgin/whore theme is one of my least favorite romance book themes. You didn’t even have a good excuse. (An unreciprocated high school crush is not a good excuse).
Your heroine, Cathy/Cat acts like a virgin during the day and a vixen at night. She is former stripper who has danced the pole for four years and now owns a bar wherein she simulates several sex acts with both men and women yet she is, wait for it . . . , yep, a real virgin. Her reason? She couldn’t have her first love, Blake Carlisle, who joined the navy when Cat was 16. Cat/Cathy is not only a virgin, but a shy innocent who has a hard time picking out …
Dear Ms. Leigh:
I know that we have been harshing on you here and I thought maybe we haven’t given you a fair shake. Just because I was totally icked out by your erotica version of the 7 Brides for 7 Brothers concept (where instead of singing and dancing in the snow, the brothers are gang banging one bride after another), and Jayne was turned off by your MagiCK story, doesn’t mean that you aren’t a good writer, right? when I was knocking around Samhain Publishing the other day, I gave you another shot. Excuse me, chance. I really am going to have to choose my words carefully in this letter.
Oh, where to begin. The book opens with Jessie finally capitalizing on her heart’s desire, Slade. Since she was 16 she has wanted this man and she is fed up with him sleeping with every other woman but her. Slade has wanted Jessie since she was 16 but felt she was too young. His male urges are so strong for her, that in …
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