Archive for the 'B Reviews' Category
Latter Days (2003)
Genre: Gay Romance
Grade: B
I’m an absolute sucker for coming out stories and especially, apparently, for “religious twink overcoming his background to accept who he is” stories. This film delivers quite nicely. I came to it oddly: I stumbled across a novelization of the film while cruising (so to speak) the gay and lesbian fiction section at Barnes & Noble. Being what I am, I read the end and loved it, so streamed the movie on Netflix. The ending in the novelization was actually better than the ending in the movie (a little more dialogue, a little more emotional depth), but I still wasn’t disappointed in the movie.
Christian is your typical — one might even say stereotypical — gay LA party boy: a gym rat who fucks a new guy every night and has a job as a waiter while he tries to break into acting (I think — not super-clear). (Jacqueline Bisset, BTW, still gorgeous, moonlights as his wisdom-dispensing, snarky boss.) Aaron is a Mormon from Idaho on mission to LA. He lives with three other Elders in the same apartment complex as Christian and Christian and his friends make a bet that Christian can seduce one …
Dear Readers,
 Back in July of 2008, I reviewed Tangle XY, an anthology of short speculative m/m stories. Earlier this year, Blind Eye Books, the publisher of Tangle XY, came out with Tangle Girls, an f/f anthology. As with Tangle XY, some (not all) of the stories are multicultural, and many have fairy tale or science fiction elements, but in this anthology the commonality all the stories share is the focus on girls who love other girls. Here are my reviews of the six stories:
“Raccoon Skin” by J.D. EveryHope
In “Raccoon Skin,” Sophia, a college student, arrives at her parents’ home on a pre-dawn morning. After seeing that her parents’ trash can that has been upended by a raccoon, Sophia goes outside to put it back up, and while there, she sees crows attacking a golden eagle. The eagle falls to the snowy ground, and Sophia chases the crows away. Just as she is debating whether to take the eagle inside, the bird shifts shape and turns into a human girl — and not just any girl, but Sophia’s girlfriend, Caterina.
Caterina and Sophia met …
Dear Ms. Smith,
 Your comedic trad Regencies are always a delight for me. There are some that have had me cackling with glee as I read them since I love it when an author can turn the standard Regency conventions upside down – or at least twist ‘em a little.
Miss Marion Mathieson takes no prisoners and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She followed her English Army father across the Peninsula then after he died and she got shipped off to boring relatives, she got a secretary, Ronald Kidd, and took off for parts more interesting which she detailed in a book. Her daydreams are for the three romance novels she’s penned under another name. So when she and Ronald are traveling via coach to a speaking engagement and it gets held up, she’s eager to see what happens so she can add it to her next manuscript.
To her utter disgust, she displays more gumption then any of the men with her including one Corinthian who is merely either bored or more bored throughout the whole event. But something about it strikes her as odd and she eventually bullies Lord Kestrel …
Dear Ms. Mayberry:
 I think this might be your most emotional romance yet.  I certainly felt a little misty eyed (damn you) at the end of the story.  Hannah Napier and Joe Lawson meet under inauspicious circumstances. Joe is exhausted and all he can hear is the loud sound of an engine next door. It’s keeping him from enjoying some solitude and it’s bound to wake his kids.  Hannah is working on her motorcycle.  Once it’s finished, Hannah is going on a long awaited road trip, escaping her ex fiancé and her sister who have found love together.  She thinks Joe is good looking but a jerk and Joe, well, he doesn’t appreciate Hannah’s physical attraction either.
Joe lost his wife, Beth, in a car accident a couple of years ago and he is left to parent their two children.  He feels like he is losing control over his kids. He does not want to be over his deceased wife Beth. He resents his body’s attraction to Hannah.
Worsening the situation is that the one place where Hannah felt safe, a bar/restaurant called The Watering Hole, has been purchased by Joe. It was …
Dear Ms. Monroe:
 Is it too corny to say that this book delivered for me?  I’m not a huge fan of the Navy SEAL books anymore because I think that there are so many of them and I worried about the machismo level of the hero but nothing about the book  was very expected.  That was a good thing.
Hailey Sutherland and her sister have taken over the family business, a San Diego institution that was once the place for social events like showers and parties and small receptions. Â Hailey was not as excited about the revitalization of the family business as was her sister for although she had been engaged three times, she doesn’t really know much about party planning. Â Because she was engaged three times, had her heart broken three times, she really isn’t in the mood to celebrate others’ newfound love.
When a SEAL team exercise plays out in front of a shower party and the women are drawn to the beach like George Clooney to brunette cocktail waitresses, Hailey recognizes that the Sutherland’s position on the beach could present some unique marketing opportunities for The Sutherland.
Lt. Commander Nate Peterson is stateside helping to train …
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 …
Dear Ms. Singh,
 Blaze of Memory begins shortly after Devraj Santos finds an unknown woman unconscious on his doorstep. Dev is the director of the Shine Foundation, an organization that assists the Forgotten and protects their children from those who would exploit their psychic powers.
For those who haven’t read the earlier books in the Psy/Changeling series, the Forgotten are the descendants of Psy who dropped out of the net that psychically links the members of that race. Those Psy intermarried with humans, and their descendants manifest psychic gifts that are frequently different from those of the Psy. Some of the high ranking Psy view the Forgotten as a threat, which is why they persecute them.
As director of the Shine Foundation, it is Dev’s role to put the Forgotten first at all times, and to do whatever is necessary to keep them from harm. Dev has a cold and ruthless side to his personality partly because of that, and partly because of his psy ability, which remains shrouded in mystery for much of the book but is said to involve metal. But despite his hard edges, Dev …
Notes: It is impossible for me to write this review without giving spoilers for the series so if you just want to enter the contest, skip to the comments and tell me your favorite soul mate story. We are giving away five copies of this book (and by we, I mean Dorchester and Dear Author).
Dear Ms. Wilson:
 I can see you don’t hesitate in ripping out the reader heart and squeezing it until we are gasping. Â This is not a bad thing. Â Â ne thing that sets you apart from other authors (not all but some) is that you are willing to take chances with your characters. Rain and Ellysetta, the main protagonists, remain inviolate. Their love continues to flourish, but war is not without its casualties and the knife of the soulmate can create real tragedy.
Ellysetta Baristani is a Tairen Soul, one of the only female Tairen Souls in the land. Â She was found living amongst the humans in Celieria when a dangerous glimpse through time, aided by magic, revealed to Rain, a Tairen Soul and leader of the Fey, that she would somehow help to save his …
Dear Ms. Ford,
 Sometimes I’m in the mood for a nice, gentle story to cuddle up with. A story that features good people who act sensibly without throwing snits over Big Misunderstandings. A story about families who get along. A story set in small town America but one which doesn’t denigrate big cities. Or have characters who all have double first names. “Her Best Bet” fits all them all.
Izzy Gordon faces the fact that in the ten years since she graduated from high school, she’s let go of her major dream. But is it too late for her to break from the perfect life her parents have mapped out for her and reclaim her goal to direct movies? With the help of her room mate, she decides to shoot a documentary for a contest and what better place then at a lake resort in Wisconsin which her parents own. Well, they don’t own the buildings, just the land, and the 100 year lease is ending soon.
Gib Murphy’s family has run the White Bear Lodge for almost 100 years but changes are coming fast. The place has gotten run down and …
WARNING: spoilers for the first four books are impossible to avoid.
Dear Ms. Kenner,
 I’ve been addicted to this series since it first started four books ago. While some things have stayed the same, others, thank goodness, have changed and evolved as the series has progressed. And if there’s one thing I can count on, it’s a bang up finish with a “to be continued…” bombshell to make me frantic for the next installment.
Kate Connor, level five Demon Hunter, is once again faced with the powers of Darkness in her otherwise quiet CA beach town of San Diablo. But now her secret identity, which she struggled to hide during past books, is not so secret anymore. Her almost fifteen year old daughter knows, her best friend knows and now her second husband, Stuart, knows. Oh and her first husband, Eric, who was murdered five years ago then returned to her in the body of another man and who is now known in town only as a teacher at their daughter’s school, also knows. Yeah, it’s a lot to keep straight.
The book starts with the usual attack of a demon who utters cryptic threats …
Dear Ms Brook:
 I participated in a debate the other day on Twitter about whether Romance keeps women in a traditional social position by linking love and the nuclear family to a woman’s ultimate happiness. The Guardians series is one of those I would recommend as an example of how powerfully Romance can subvert traditional social structures and expectations while still celebrating love as a liberating force. And in Demon Forged, these themes are in play on several levels, not only between romantic protagonists Irena and Alejandro, but also in the world of the novel more generally. The nature of love, the nature of sacrifice, fate v. free will, the purpose of being – all are at issue in Demon Forged, a novel that, like the rest of the Guardians series, is dense, multi-layered, richly textured, and slightly flawed.
Irena has been a Guardian for sixteen centuries now, making her one of the oldest of their kind, and one of the most awe and fear inspiring. Her gift is that she can shape metal, and from her Siberian forge she favors making weaponry to be utilized against demons and nosferatu. Guardians, who are …
Dear Mr. Nicolls,
 We get lots of arcs and finished copies of books offered to us at Dear Author. Some I am anticipating, others I recognize the author’s name and in a few cases, I’ve never heard of either book or author. Your debut novel, “The Good Mayor” falls into the latter category. I say this not to denigrate it but to point out that I had no idea what I would be getting myself into when I started it. The US cover of the book enchanted me. When Jane sent this in a box of other books, that is what made me pull it out and check the back blurb.
In a busy little city in a forgotten corner of the Baltic, in an office on the square, the beloved mayor of Dot lies on his office floor, peering beneath his door. Tibo Krovic has come to work from his house down at the end of a blue-tiled path. He’s taken, as usual, the tram seven stops, and walked the final two. He’s stopped for strong Viennese coffee. And now Tibo Krovic is looking at the perfectly beautiful feet of his voluptuous,
…
Dear Ms. Hewitt:
 Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. The thing that stuck out most in my mind at the end of the story was how apt the title was. The story really was about the sheikh’s forbidden virgin. This is part of The Royal House of Karedes miniseries. Â These series books generally don’t work for me because so much of the story is dependent on the overall arc. Â Fortunately, while the miniseries theme and arc was present in this story, it didn’t dominate.
Aarif Al’ Farisi lost a brother when he was young. Â He believes himself to be at fault for this and since that time, he has devoted himself to his family, allowing no room for failure. Â His brother, King Zakari of Calista, is to be married to his betrothed, Princess Kalila Zadar and Zaraq. Â Zakari and Kalila have been betrothed since they were young as the dynastic pairing will bring the richness of Calista to Kalila’s people and the stability of rule from Zaraq to Calista.
On the eve of Zakari’s arrival, Kalila’s father reminds her “Tomorrow is not about …
Dear James:
 I’m not a big one for police procedurals — they usually bore the snot out of me — but I’m a big one for your writing and characters, so I read this anyway and I’m very glad I did. As always, your characters are very real, full of personality, and your spare writing style — no long introspective paragraphs or emotional declarations to be found — appeals to me. While I don’t like mystery books, I like figuring out the mysteries of two men reluctantly falling in love and unable to articulate what’s going on.
Chase Nozick is FBI, following the trail of the man who killed his partner on a bust five years earlier. He’s assigned to a Special Task Force in LA and to an LAPD partner who turns out to be the man he’d hooked up with for anonymous sex the previous night. Both Enrique and Chase are very much in the closet at work, but they use their time together — appropriately: no sex in the middle of a stake-out or on the run — to commit to and deepen a real relationship.
The case gets heavily involved in …
Dear Ms. Brenna:
 I will confess that I don’t often venture into the Harlequin Superromance line. The covers are littered with babies and well, those tiny faces frighten me. This book, thankfully, was baby less although a child did play a fairly important role in the story. I think what surprised me most was that this was a very nice, short romantic suspense.
Erica Corelli is a chef in a Chicago restaurant who receives a disturbing message from her sister to take Jason, her sister’s six year old boy to some place safe. Erica drops everything and heads north to Mirabelle Island. Mirabelle is the site of the best three days of Erica’s childhood and she thinks that this will be a safe place to hide out with her nephew. Erica and Jason pretend to be mother and son until Erica can find out what is going. She suspects that her brother-in-law, Billy Samson, is abusing his family and this is the reason for her sister’s frantic voice mail message.
Erica recognizes she’ll likely lose her job, leaving without notice, and she’s used up about the last of her …
Dear Ms. McLeod,
 You’ve never let me down with any of the past novellas of yours I’ve read and you don’t do it this time either. I confess that I was slightly dismayed at the length of the story which formatted to 20 pages on my reader. She’s going to get two people together that quickly? Why, yes, you do.
Lady Genevra Haven is all set to make her debut at Almacks, that place where the cream of the ton dances, consumes mediocre refreshments and matches off. If only her not-to-be-disobeyed mother would let Genevra wear her spectacles. But to have her daughter be seen as a bluestocking sends shudders through the Countess of Raynham. So off go the spectacles into her mother’s reticule.
Things seem to be going well until Genevra is separated from her friends and finds herself, well, lost at Almacks. A series of missteps and false starts lead her through a maze of rooms and corridors, and through encounters with various “types” of London society until she finally meets a man who just might be perfect for her.
This is a delight of a short story. Tasty, easy to read …
Dear Ms. Lee:
  Billionaire’s Bride of Innocence showed tantalizing glimpses of Hugh Parkinson, heir to the Parkinson media fortune and billionaire in his own right. He’s got a soft and romantic heart and for that reason will not marry any poor girl. Â He’s seen his father fall in and out of love what seems a million times and marry and divorce each of them. Â He’s determined not to suffer the same or inflict this on any woman. Â Yet, Hugh is in the grips of a terrible problem. Â He has the hots for his PA. Â Billionaire’s Bride of Convenience is Hugh’s story.
Ordinarily he would just seduce her and be done with it, but his PA is engaged to be married which means he can’t proposition her but going in to work is excruciating for him.  He contemplates her impending marriage and possible pregnancy and half hopes that she’ll stop working for him after she gets pregnant.  Only the idea of her glowing and with child adds a layer of further want.  I thought this was pretty hysterical.
Hugh was already praying for the day when she’d come into the
…
Dear Ms. Thomas,
 This is the last book in a trilogy that doesn’t read that way. Which is a relief to me as I hate jumping into a series and feeling over my head with past characters and situations. After reading the middle book, The Cowboy’s Promise, I knew the book on the hero’s brain damaged sister would be up next and I knew I didn’t want to miss how you would handle this. As with the other books of yours I’ve read, it is with tact and believability.
Samantha Cartwright was once a no-nonsense tomboy who loved horses and wasn’t afraid of anything. Then she was kicked in the head by a rescue horse, spent time in a coma and then more time fighting her way back to as close to normal as she’ll ever get. Physically she looks fine but she copes by taking notes, making lists and trying to stay calm in the face of trying situations. Since the accident, her overprotective father, wealthy oil baron Dominick Cartwright, has tried to smooth her path but Sam knows she if she wants to obtain her dream, she’ll need …
Dear Ms. Seidel,
 Your 1983 category, The Same Last Name, begins when three cars arrive at New York State’s Frank Lake State Park. One of the park’s forest rangers, twenty-five year old April Ramsey, greets the man who registers this group of six visitors. April directs the tourist to the best campsites for a group that size, and he gives her a list of the six visitors’ names and the telephone number of the law firm where all six work.
After the man leaves, April passes the list to a co-worker, Faith, and Faith calls April’s attention to the fact that one of the other lawyers shares April’s last name. April freezes in her tracks, because she and Christopher D. Ramsey III have more than their last name in common. The two used to be married.
At age eighteen, April was a bubbly, popular cheerleader from a small Virginia town. But she had never held a job, cooked, cleaned, or kept abreast of the news. April’s mother wanted her daughter to be popular and happy, and she did not prepare her daughter to cope with hardship.
When April began …
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 …
Dear Authors:
 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 …
Dear Ms. Sagara,
 You are easily one of my favorite authors. These days it’s very rare for me to follow a series past a certain point, but I find myself doing that for the novels you write under both the Michelle Sagara and Michelle West names. It also helps that thus far, they haven’t disappointed me which goes a long way to keeping this reader’s loyalty.
Cast in Silence is the fifth book in your Elantra series published by Luna. The Cast books follow Kaylin Neya, a private in the Hawks, the police force that helps protect the city of Elantra. Kaylin is stubborn, hot-headed, and at times immature, traits which prove unsurprising given her background. Still, she’s a useful member of the force despite her flaws.
Unfortunately for Kaylin, she’s also gifted with an unusual magical talent of alarming proportions, the signs of which are evident in the black marks that cover her skin and have, in fact, continued to spread across her body. The only thing she finds useful from this talent is her ability to heal, which she exercises often at the expense of her health. Other people, however, …
Dear Ms. Collins,
 The Hunger Games was my favorite novel of 2008. For me it had the perfect combination of a great heroine, fast-paced plotting, and gripping tension. And considering the cliffhanger ending, I’ve been looking forward to Catching Fire since I finished last page of that book.
To refresh readers, and to bring people new to the series up to speed, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire are set in a dystopian future in the remains of what was once the United States. At some point in time, an apocalypse occurred, which caused society as we know it to fall apart. From the rubble arose Panem, which consisted of the Capitol and thirteen surrounding Districts that provided the various materials and goods to keep the nation running. To be more accurate, the Capitol ruled over the thirteen surrounding Districts with an oppressive regime that eventually led to revolt. Unfortunately for the Districts, the revolt was squashed and the thirteenth District was utterly destroyed. To top it off, as punishment, the Capitol created the Hunger Games, an annual battle royale designed to remind the Districts who was in control.
Catching Fire picks up nearly immediately where …
Dear Ms. James:
 One of my favorite things about your new book, Highland Rebel, is the author’s note at the very end, in which you discuss the historical context of the novel and its fascinating protagonists. This may seem like a trivial thing to highlight, but the thoughtfulness of that note and the enthusiasm for research that you convey in it is reflected throughout book itself, in the detailed attention to the political upheaval marking late 17th century English history and to the era’s cultural and intellectual vibrancy. When I read Historical Romance, I want the history to be as much a character as the romance, and I hope that readers who feel the same way will pick up this book. Because while not a perfect read, Highland Rebel is a rich and ambitious novel with compelling protagonists and an expansive political and geographic scope.
For all of his political cynicism, James (Jamie) Sinclair just can’t resist a woman in trouble. When he realizes, along with the men who currently hold her in capture, that the young Highlander is not a man, but rather a woman, Jamie, unlike the other men, cannot abide her inevitable rape …
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