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REVIEW: A Wanted Man by Ellen Hartman

Jane — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:44:10 +0000

Dear Ms. Hartman:

I think this is your first book. I was thrilled when I found it on Mill & Boon in digital form because I could immediately buy it (along with all your other titles) after the thoroughly enjoyable Boyfriend: Plan B (review to come).

Nathan Delaney is a famous children’s writer using the pen name of Chris Senso. Nathan is a recluse, though, because he had a brush with fame back in his early college days which turned him into a near hermit. The only picture on his books is a childhood picture and he lives a very isolated life.

Unfortunately a popular daytime talk show host has decided that she will unmask Chris Senso and she begins a daily hunt for him, asking for her viewers to call in with tips and clues. She ratchets it up on a daily basis from using an age regression analysis to hiring a profiler to look at the books to determine the race, age, geographic location.

Nathan is spooked. He had writer’s block since he and his fiancee broke up. Nathan decides to get out of his current town. He starts driving and his car dies around Richwoods,New York.

Rhian MacGregor’s life was put on hold when her sister and her sister’s husband died eight years ago. They left behind a little baby and Rhian took up the parenting reins. She lost her fiance and her business that she started with him but now, as Jem is off for a summer trip with his grandparents, Rhian is starting to look at her empty life.

First, though, she needs to get her house painted. Nathan has offered up his services as a housepainter and despite having no local recommendations and appearing kind of a drifter, Rhian doesn’t have much choice. No one else will return her calls. (why Nathan choose to set himself as a housepainter is a bit questionable).

Nathan and Rhian are instantly interested in each other, but both are little too risk adverse to take a chance. As Nathan paints Rhian’s house and they begin to spend time together and their attraction deepens. Rhian decides that Nathan, a transient painter, would be the perfect person with whom to have an affair while Jem is gone. Nathan knowing he is just passing through also feels that this connection with Rhian is safe.

I loved the interaction between Rhian and her friend Min, both women were at a crossroads in their life. Nathan’s banter with his long time friend and agent, Matt, provided frequent moments of levity. Rhian and Nathan’s connection felt genuine.

Raising one eyebrow, he grinned wickedly as his eyes skimmed down her body. “Will you wear an apron? A very little apron to go with this,” he said, leering, “very little skirt?”

“I’m a waitress, not a French maid.” She blushed. She’d wanted him wanting her, but it felt uncomfortable.

He kissed her firmly and then pulled back and said matter-of-factly. “Any apron will do. I have a good imagination.”

I thought it was an interesting look at the fetishization we have as a public and our deep seeded desire to know all can result in exploiting other’s losses such as when Lindsey, the talk show host, dug up the story about Jem’s parent’s death and put the pictures of it on her show. Jem was heartbroken and confused but all the while had enjoyed the hunt for Chris Senso.

“Why did she show my mom and dad?” He turned to Rhian with bewildered eyes and she pulled him closer. “Does she know about them?”

“I’m sorry, Jem. I think she does.”

Jem’s voice was full of unshed tears. “I don’t want her to talk about my mom and dad. What if people watch her show and ask me those questions? I hate those questions.”

Nathan knew the questions Jem meant, because he hated them, too.”

Nathan’s emotions were all over the place. He was falling in love with Rhian who maybe only wanted a temporary fling. He was afraid of ruining the tranquility he felt in this small town with its loving community by being found out as Chris Senso. He felt guilty that his friend and agent, Matt, was being followed around 24/7. He felt like he was losing control (and he was).

Rhian’s not so confused. She knows what she wants but she’s afraid to move outside her comfort zone, whether it is working on her children’s book or taking what she wants with Nathan.

But both Rhian and Nathan’s lives were on hold. Nathan because he hadn’t quite been able to shake off the past and Rhian because of Jem. Both were afraid to move forward.

The hunt for Chris Senso was a great way to build anticipation and suspense in the story. You knew Nathan was going to be found out. It was a matter of when and how.

There are things that didn’t make sense to me. Why did Nick really believe Patricia, his former fiancee, would not reveal his secret when they broke up? Where did he meet her if he has lived this hermit life existence? I also thought it was interesting that Nathan’s writing and art was so inspired by the women in his life. And if that were so and Patricia was as truly shallow as she is portrayed, then why wouldn’t his books during the Patricia period be shallow as well. As an aside, I always wonder at the taste of the hero when his first wife/fiancee is such a horrible person. Surely, there had to be something to recommend her other than her good looks and her desire to be showered with gifts? Also, was it too perfect that Rhian wanted to be a children’s writer as well?

I did love how the book ended and how Nathan and Rhian foiled the talk show host and Patricia. This is a sweet and tender romance and I’m ever so grateful to Jayne for having shown me the way to your books. B-

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon in used format (originally published in 2007 and apparently no longer in print) or in ebook format Mills & Boon.

PS Mills & Boon, the excerpt at the end of the book for Falling for the Tycoon by Karina Bliss totally worked for me. Bought the book. Who can resist a man that cries at funerals!

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Friday Film Review: The Swan

Jayne — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:33 +0000

The Swan (1956)
Genre: Historical Dramedy
Grade: B-

Here’s a golden oldie, or moldy oldie if you don’t care for it. The movie is based on a play written by Ferenc Molnar and was filmed twice before this final one was made. It’s Grace Kelly’s next-to-the-last film made before her marriage to a real Prince and she never looked lovelier.

It has always been the overriding ambition of Princess Beatrix (Jesse Royce Landis who also played GK’s mother in “To Catch a Thief”) to see her daughter Princess Alexandra (Grace Kelly) become a Queen. Their family was forced from the throne of their tiny middle European country by Napoleon (whose name Princess Beatrix will not allowed to be mentioned in her presence) and she’s aware that it’s probably their last hope to regain some stature by cementing the ties between their dispossessed family and their cousins, the reigning royal family headed by Queen Maria Dominika (Agnes Moorehead) and her son and heir Prince Albert (Alec Guinness).

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When Beatrix gets word that Albert is on his way to visit them, she immediately pulls out all the stops and whips the palace staff, and her family, into a frenzy in order to present Alexandra in her best light. But after Albert arrives for his short four day stay, he spends more time duck hunting, inspecting the modern dairy and with Alexandra’s younger brothers than with the slightly shy Alexandra. What’s a mother on a deadline to do? Use a little old fashioned jealousy, that’s what.

She instructs Alexandra to invite the boys’ young and handsome tutor Dr. Nicholas Agi (Louis Jourdan) to the final night ball in the hopes that it will spur Albert to a proposal. Instead, to her horror, things backfire as Agi, emboldened by this chance of which he never dared dream, confesses his secret love to Alexandra. Now whom will she choose?

As I’ve seen mentioned in other reviews, the plot for this story is obviously dated even by the fifties. The world it depicts was long gone even then – either during WWI or by the end of WWII. But while I’m watching it, I try and lose myself in what it shows as still existing among a people who have no clue that their way of life is in its twilight. And yet, the film does hint at what is to come.

It’s all about the differences in classes – the old class of royalty who are shown doing little beyond ceremonial duties and being instructed in how to “be royal” and the rising middle class who will take over due to their drive, education and ambition. We see the best and the worst of both classes and are left to decide on our own if Alexandra makes the correct decision or not.

There is a great deal of dry comedy throughout the story which Alec Guinness pulls off in style. But he also shows great tact, after an initial spell of pique, in dealing with Alexandra’s conflicting feelings. Another surprisingly fun character is Symphorosa (played by Estelle Winwood) whose pithy one liners often embarrass Beatrix as she’s trying to make a good impression on Albert. Agnes Moorehead is regally grand and imperious in a role that had little time on screen but which she made the most of.

Landis beautifully balances Beatrix on the knife edge of likability. We can see her as a woman just trying to see to the future of her family – the scene when she offers contradictory advice to Alexandra on how to behave around Albert is quite funny – as well as a pushy, slightly snobby royal who is obviously shocked when one of the lower orders dares to have feelings for her daughter. Kelly floats coolly through her role until the moment when her passions are aroused and she comes to life. There’s a late scene when she lets Albert “have it” for the way he’s acted towards the family and of course the final scene where she comes to terms with the direction her life will take.

The movie has a slightly bittersweet ending. One might wish for it to end another way but given the way Alexandra has been raised her entire life, I wasn’t surprised. I’m not entirely convinced that her protestations of love for Agi are real. Perhaps or perhaps not. As Albert reminds her, she just kept her feelings so controlled and beneath the surface for so long that when they finally burst free, she’s not sure how to handle them.

As far as I can tell, “The Swan” isn’t available on DVD but there are two ways for it to be viewed. Someone has loaded it on youtube (type in “The Swan-part 1″ — note the hyphen is important). I’d love to know which language it’s subtitle in. It’s also being shown on Turner Classic Movies in November (right now it’s scheduled at midnight on the 26th/27th but check closer to the date to be sure).

~Jayne

FTC discloser – I watched this on television.

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REVIEW: What Remains of Heaven by C.S. Harris

Jennie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:34 +0000

Dear Ms. Harris,

I have been anticipating the release of What Remains of Heaven, the fifth book in your Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series, for several months. I’ve come to expect a new book in this series every year, and while I’ve liked some of the offerings more than others, each has been satisfying (with grades ranging from A- to B), and the continuing turmoil in Sebastian’s personal life has held my attention from book to book.

Just a quick note: I think it’s probably going to be hard to entirely avoid spoilers for earlier books in the series in this review, so if you haven’t read the series, intend to, and are fanatical about remaining spoiler-free, you might want to stop reading now.

Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has rather inadvertently and reluctantly become known as a murder investigator (don’t you hate when that happens?). His imperious aunt comes to him accompanied by her friend, the ailing (but still formidable) Archbishop of Canterbury, to request Sebastian’s assistance in finding out who killed the Bishop of London, Francis Prescott. Bishop Prescott had been summoned to the village of Tanfield Hill one night upon the discovery, in a recently opened crypt, of a body that did not belong there – a long-deceased man found not in a coffin but on the floor of the crypt, with a knife sticking out his back. The Reverend Earnshaw, who had ridden to Lond to inform the bishop of the grisly discovery, is late in meeting him at the crypt and discovers Prescott practically atop the first body, with his skull bashed in.

Sebastian has no particular personal interest in this crime (unlike some of the previous ones he’s investigated), but agrees to look into it because of his regard for his aunt. Bishop Prescott, as it turns out, had any number of enemies (don’t they always?). He had angered many with his abolitionist stance, and the fact that he was being considered for the powerful position of Archbishop of Canterbury may have made some who opposed his views on slavery nervous. One of this group, a foppish aristocrat named Lord Quillian, was overheard threatening the bishop shortly before his death. Additionally, Prescott was see arguing with a butcher the day he was killed (it turns out the butcher’s son has an unpleasant past association with Sebastian, which ends up complicating his investigation), he had had a run-in with William Franklin (a real historical figure and son of Benjamin Franklin, William had been exiled to England for his support of the British during the American Revolution) and there was apparently acrimony between the bishop and his nephew Peter Prescott, an old school chum of Sebastian’s. Things get even murkier with the introduction of a subplot about a mysterious spy who had operated against the British during the revolution 30 years earlier; this thread ends up involving both Prescott’s family and Sebastian’s own (this is another one of those series that makes me wonder if there were only a couple of dozen people living in London in the 19th century, since the same people turn up over and over again).

As with previous books in the series, the mystery didn’t engross me hugely. At times it felt like there were lots of potential red herrings and improbably coincidences thrown at the reader, but those may be par for the course in mysteries, for all I know; I haven’t been a regular reader of the genre since I was a teenager. When I read mysteries these days, I tend to filter out the very same information that mystery fans are probably filing away to see if they can figure out the solution to the crime. I really don’t care about solving the crime myself, and untangling the clues makes my head hurt, so it’s hard for me to assess the worth of this book as a straight mystery, except to say that I was impressed by how neatly all of the pieces fit together in the end. That’s really all I ask of a mystery; other readers may have more stringent requirements. (I guessed one fairly obvious “surprise” early on, but the the ultimate identity of the killer did surprise me.)

Again, as with previous books in the series, my real interest is the setting and the continuing characters. Sebastian remains an intriguing and highly sympathetic hero, one who has been buffeted by a number of distressing revelations over the course of the series. This book is no exception, and while these revelations are fairly melodramatic, even soap-operaish in nature, there was an internal logic to the ways in which the characters were manipulated, I thought.

As in past books, Sebastian’s romantic travails are featured in What Remains of Heaven, but I was a little disappointed that the characters seemed to pretty much tread water for the course of the book. Sebastian’s relationship with Hero Jarvis is complicated by the consequences of their night together in the last book, but while they meet up a number of times in What Remains of Heaven, their conversations have a repetitious quality that frustrated me. (Hero has her own reasons for wanting to get to the bottom of the bishop’s murder; he was a friend of hers and was helping her with a personal problem.) Sebastian’s relationship with Kat Boleyn is rocked by an entirely unshocking shocking revelation, but there are still considerable obstacles between this couple and their HEA (and honestly, I’m more on Team Hero at this point). I would have preferred a bit more balance between the mystery and Sebastian’s relationship drama. I don’t mind the series being drawn out, and I realize that this dictates that things go slowly on the personal front, but I do want to see some progress in the course of a book.

Sebastian’s relationship with his father continues to intrigue; the two have been very up and down in the course of the series, owing to the fact that Hendon was hard on Sebastian as a boy and continues to lie to him about Very Important Things now that Sebastian’s an adult, things that Sebastian has a way of finding out, leading to a fresh round of recriminations and then estrangement. I can’t help but like Hendon in spite of his flaws because he really is a fully drawn character; he loves his son but he can’t seem to stop making mistakes with him. He has functioned at times as an antagonist in the series, but he’s anything but one-note (unlike, say, Sebastian’s sister, whose personality seems to be permanently set on Witch).

The prose is mostly smooth, marred here and there by a lack of subtlety and a tendency to over-explain (Hero at one point thinks that it’s tedious that as an unmarried female the rules of society dictate that she can’t visit a man she wants to question in the murder case; I would think the vast majority of readers would understand enough about the mores of regency society that they would not need to have these circumstances pointed out to them so explicitly). My enthusiasm for the series really does rest mainly with the characters; Sebastian, Hero, Hendon, Kat and a few others are sympathetic enough to make me care about them and faceted enough to keep me interested from book to book.

My grade for What Remains of Heaven is a B+.

Jennie

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

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REVIEW: Submission Times Two by Claire Thompson

Joan/SarahF — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:51 +0000

Dear Ms. Thompson.

I’ve had numerous people recommend your books to me as examples of good BDSM romances. When James Buchanan recommended you yet again, I broke down. I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed Submission Times Two and look forward to reading more of your books.

I started with Submission Times Two because how could I not?! It hit all my buttons: menage, m/m, and BDSM. But especially the menage. Cam and Ethan are desperately in love with each other. They’ve been living together for just under a year. They’re committed and focused on making their relationship work no matter what. The problem is, they’re both submissive, and unable to dom each other convincingly. So they’ve worked out a deal: on the weekends, they each go to different clubs, scene with doms there, get their pain-play needs met that way, and then go home and fuck like bunnies. So far, it’s been working out for them. Then Ethan hooks up with Maestro and starts thinking about how he needs more than just weekend scenes — he needs a full-time dom, which of course starts getting in the way of his relationship with Cam.

“Maestro” is actually Andrew, and he’s sort of semi-stalking Ethan. He had a huge crush on Ethan back in high school, when Ethan was the so-closeted-even-he-didn’t-know-he-was-gay quarterback who everyone adored, and Andrew was Andy, nerdy and completely forgettable. Andrew finds Ethan through Facebook, and figures he can finally make a dream come true when he figures out that not only is Ethan gay, but he’s submissive. He goes into the relationship figuring he’d steal Ethan from his partner, only to change his mind when he meets Cam.

Cam, of course, is pretty upset when Ethan starts keeping things from him, but what I loved about this story more than anything else is that no one huffs off in a Big Misunderstanding. They all TALK with each other, and work things out, just like real people in committed relationships should do. If they do go off half-cocked (harhar), they get their heads out of their asses pretty quickly and figure things out.

Although the story is only 100 pages, all three characters have emotional arcs, all three characters fall in love with each other, all three characters make it work together. And the BDSM aspects of the story are wonderful. You obviously know what you’re talking about and the BDSM is about the sensation and the psychology, as it should be. You show how intimate it can be, how mind-altering and relationship-changing. It’s also not for the faint-of-heart. The BDSM is pretty heavy at times, definite pain-play, not just submission with some slap-and-tickle. So readers should be warned.

I loved the actual story, the BDSM was fabulous, the emotions were strong and made my stomach all swirly. But…but two things: characterization and writing.

The characters weren’t 100% differentiable (if that’s a word). When you’re dealing with three men, more has to separate them from each other than their names. While Andrew was obviously different from the other two because he was a dom, Cam and Ethan were less distinguishable. They had different backgrounds, of course, and difference relationships with Andrew, and different needs. But I couldn’t tell them apart by speech. I couldn’t figure out whose head I was in without a name marker. The dialogue was great, the banter well done, the conversations good. But the characters didn’t sparkle and because they weren’t instinctively different from each other, I kept having to consciously remind myself that Cam was the one who ____ and Ethan was the one who ____ and that was a little distracting.

For those in my “How not to write BDSM” mega-review who said they didn’t want a BDSM manual while reading, this book was proof both that something that reads like a manual at times can be hot and that it can also be slightly tedious and preachy. I don’t know if it was just that I was super-sensitive to the issue, reading the story as I did while also dealing with the debate in my last post, but at times I felt like Ethan, Cam, and Andrew were reading from a “How to do Safe, Sane, Consensual BDSM” script, rather than organically moving through the story. But I also felt it was better to have that than not. The book did a great job depicting BDSM and the extra little preachy bits were just slightly too sticky-sweet icing on the cake.

But overall, I think the preachiness is a result of the biggest problem I had with story. The writing was inelegant. I’ve thought long and hard how to say this, and I think that word is the best choice I could make. The writing has no sparkle; there are no surprises. Every cliche is milked for all it’s worth. If a situation happens, I just knew what phrase was going to be used to sum it up. The story and emotions and characterization were all mostly solid. And although there was nothing terrible about the writing — with the actual stringing of words into sentences — it was pedestrian, sometimes even boring, although the story itself wasn’t boring. At times this annoyed me, at times I could ignore it and sink into the story. I loved the story and these guys, but the writing was, well, inelegant.

However, I’ll be looking forward to reading the other books of yours that intrigue me, because, inelegant writing aside, you’ve got nice situations, pretty good characters, and solid, even hot BDSM scenes. Oh, and can I just say: Predicament bondage! OMGyum!

Grade: B-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format (this vendor is unknown to us).

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REVIEW: A Hearing Heart by Bonnie Dee

Jayne — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms Dee,

Thanks for offering Dear Author the chance to review your latest historical from Liquid Silver. And then for following up with me to be sure I got the book. I do fall behind on my reviewing at times.

After the death of her fiancé, Catherine Johnson, a New York schoolteacher in 1901, travels to Nebraska to teach a one-room school and escape her sad memories. One afternoon, violence erupts in the sleepy town. Catherine saves deaf stable hand, Jim Kinney, from torture by drunken thugs.

As she takes charge of his education, teaching him to read and sign, attraction grows between them. The warmth and humor in this silent man transcends the need for speech and his eyes tell her all she needs to know about his feelings for her. But the obstacles of class difference and the stigma of his handicap are almost insurmountable barriers to their growing attachment.

Will Catherine flout society’s rules and allow herself to love again? Can Jim make his way out of poverty as a deaf man in a hearing world? And together will they beat the corrupt robber baron who has a stranglehold on the town?

The scenes of Catherine teaching Jim to read then of them both learning sign language are fascinating. Since I’m not a teacher, I wouldn’t have the first clue as to how to start. I think you did a great job showing how Jim’s new learning is opening up the world for him. I can’t imagine not being able to communicate beyond simple pantomimes. Not being able to hear, speak or write would be terrifying and immensely isolating. You conveyed this well.

The book avoids sugary sweetness. It is matter of fact and down to earth. Brava. I did get tired of reading about the state of Jim’s cock. It was almost to the point where I was looking for the scene “cock alert.” Is it hardening yet? Has Jim managed to hide his physical condition from Catherine? The inclusion of the hawt sex scenes at the end of the book were jarring as compared to the low heat level of most of the rest of the story.

Jim is ready to help people, even when he initially doesn’t like them as we see with Dean and his filly, but when the chips are down, he steps up to the plate – though thank you for not turning him into a sudden Superman. He’s never fired a gun, as I believe was the case with most men of the time, and it shows. This is a good thing, IMO.

The villains and the lengths to which Karak is willing to go to get what he wants don’t surprise me. This was the age of range wars and men owning towns – just as you’ve described him as doing.

Jim isn’t made to be a poster child for pc-ness nor does Catherine treat him like some pet project – she sees him as a man and realizes early on she is attracted to him as more than a friend. But here’s the trouble for me – the first time they kiss, she’s not expecting it and she feels guilty and thinks – “we can’t do this because of the social differences.” Then – while they’re on their picnic – she thinks that if there’s going to be any kissing that day, she’ll have to instigate it. WTF? And she does, knowing that she doesn’t feel they’re social equals and that she could hurt Jim with any rejection. Then she keeps letting them get more physical all the while knowing that she isn’t up for a social relationship. I know you want to present a flawed heroine, and I’m grateful for that, but I couldn’t help but finish reading the story thinking that she’s damn lucky to get Jim rather than the other way around.

The ending is nicely done. They obviously can’t stay in a town that views Jim as nothing but low class hired help and the location of the School for the Deaf in Catherine’s home state is fortuitous. Win-win situation all around.

Despite the issues I have with the book, I’m glad I read it and glad that you sought out a review for it. I’m sorry that it didn’t work quite as well for me as you would probably wish it had but it’s still a B- for me.

~Jayne

FTC discloser – A free copy of this book was provided to DA by the author for a potential review.

This book can be purchased Liquid Silver Books in ebook form.

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Friday Film Review: Latter Days

Joan/SarahF — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:00:23 +0000

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.

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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 of the Mormons. He goes after Aaron because Aaron isn’t a blatant homophobe, but Christian’s first attempt at seduction is aborted when he uses his “seducing straight guys” line of “it doesn’t have to mean anything” on Aaron and Aaron balks because, to him, his first kiss, his first sex DOES mean something. Because Aaron is for real. He really believes in his mission, he really believes that he can do some good, and he really believes that things should have meaning. He accuses Christian of being shallow, which, of course, is true, spurring Christian to undergo a Cher-from-Clueless-like shallow-person personality makeover that actually sticks and is quite cute.

When they finally get together, they are, of course, discovered, and Aaron is sent home in disgrace and shame. The emotional violence his mother inflicts on him will haunt me. I know the answer to this, but do people really do this to their children? I guess the question is, HOW can people do this to their children? How can belief overcome what should be unconditional love? How can a mother drive her child to suicide by rejecting him and then not understand that it’s her fault? These scenes were played sparingly and well.

The actor who plays Christian occasionally overacts in the really emotional scenes. The requisite scene in which he tells his own coming out story skirts the edge of farce where I kept expecting him to stop, smile, and say “psych!” which is not necessarily the response the film was attempting to evoke. But all that is nothing when confronted with his sheer prettiness. :) Additionally, the pacing is, at times, odd: slow then superfast, told, not shown — but not distractingly so. And I could have done with a little more lingering over the denouement, but then I’m a emotions-whore.

Fair warning (or, perhaps, enticement): the film is not shy about swearing and even less shy about nudity. Christian and Aaron take off all their clothes and you don’t get just discrete flank shots. While there’s no erect penises, there are certainly penises. And that’s very happy-making! :)

This movie is not a romantic comedy but it’s not a drama either, because it has its happy ending. The themes in this movie are not subtle, but they’re heartwarming and true, nonetheless: interconnectedness and community, character depth and worthiness, how we effect and affect everyone around us. The narrative does a great job of showing how one person’s small, unthinking kindness can work in others for good or ill in an ever-widening web. There are no coincidences, or if there are, they can still serve a purpose. Everything means something, in one way or another.

And love is love is love and deserves to be recognized as such. Grade: B

P.S. I watched this again with my husband and it’s just as much fun the second time around and I felt the emotions more deeply, perhaps because I was comparing it with itself, rather than with the novelization. A happy, feel-good movie with a great message.

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REVIEW: Bound and Determined by Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow

Joan/SarahF — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:00:33 +0000

Dear Ms. Davitt and Ms. Snow.

I love the title of this book, because it’s so true to the characters and to the book. I’ve been disappointed, sometimes even sickened by some of Loose-Id’s titles recently (no, I didn’t review them, I couldn’t bring myself to do so), so I was happy to be intrigued enough by the excerpt to buy Bound and Determined. And I’m so glad I did. This book, while lacking slightly in the pure romance department, is a fabulous look at a BDSM relationship with some amazing characterization and some really hot sex.

First a warning for readers, though: the characters in this book are a masochist and a sadist. Yes, much of the relationship is about dominance and submission, which many people have less issue with than with pain play, but the sadomasochism in this book is strong. Not violent and visceral like Anah Crow’s (brilliant) Uneven, but it’s there, its unabashed, and if that bothers you, don’t read this book. However, if you’re intrigued by the psychology behind masochism, this is the book for you, because it’s beautifully depicted.

Sterling is a college senior. He figured out that he was gay years ago, but he’s only figured out his attraction to BDSM very recently. He’s been domming a friend, but they both know it’s not working, and the friend takes Sterling to a BDSM club, where he watches a well-respected dom Owen (and Sterling’s former English professor) scene with and then break off his relationship with a submissive woman. Sterling has a moment of clarity (he’s not a dominant, he’s a submissive and a masochist) and chases down Owen and asks Owen to be his dom. Owen, understandably, refuses. After all, he’s just broken off a relationship, Sterling’s a former student, not yet 21, and almost half his age. But Owen is not proof against Sterling’s persistence, and, to be honest, his beauty, and finally agrees to become Sterling’s dominant.

One thing to make clear is that this IS a dominant/submissive and sadist/masochistic relationship. Owen does not consider himself Sterling’s boyfriend. They do not have a traditional relationship. And although Sterling gets to come and their connection is a sexual one, because fundamentally, BDSM *is* aobut sex, Owen refuses to have either anal or oral sex with Sterling until Sterling is 21. Which pisses Sterling off, because he’s not a patient person, and over which they fight a few times. Which makes it awkward every now and then when they’re not in dom/sub roles and find they have very little in common. This is the one concern I had with the book: what kind of relationship can they have beyond the D/s? Because at the end of the book, they’re together as committed partners as well as dom/sub, and I think the relationship building gets skimmed a little too much and I wonder what they’ll talk about of an evening when they’re just lounging around together.

That aside, everything else is wonderfully done. The characterizations are perfectly clear: Sterling’s bratty but conflicted, so used to getting his own way, brought up to be a hard-ass by his dick of a father, but so desperate to submit, to serve, but so eager to get off because OMG, he’s 20 and a walking erection. And Owen’s older and wiser and very much in control but still vulnerable to a pretty pout and a desperate “please,” just like we all are. And oh, the BDSM is beautifully done. The scenes are hot and these boys TALK. In fact, that’s part of the characterization: both Sterling and Owen are in their heads too much, too smart not to take apart everything they do, alone and together. And so the reader understands every step of the way, everything that’s going on.

In fact, at a climactic (harhar) point in the book, Owen says to Sterling, “I’m not your father,” which causes Sterling to freak out and leave. And the characterization is so perfectly done that even though the scene was told from Owen’s perspective, I was in both of their heads to such an extent that I knew why Owen had said that (he wanted Sterling to know he wasn’t doing something to punish him the way Sterling’s asshole of a father did), felt his utter shock when Sterling reacted apparently illogically by running away from a reassurance, and yet, at the same time, completely understood WHY Sterling was running away (he thought Owen was saying that he thought Sterling was looking for a father figure and he felt Owen didn’t really know him). The scene was so well-done it actually pulled me out because I was astounded at how well I viscerally understood the motivations and feelings of both Sterling and Owen right away.

Back to the BDSM, though. It’s a very formal BDSM. Owen likes things just so and is very much into training Sterling. It sounds too much like hard work to me, especially since Sterling’s quite so much of a brat, but you make it work beautifully, precisely because it’s so much a part of their characters. And the BDSM is done lovingly and well. Here’s an description of Sterling’s masochism:

God, it hurt like nothing else ever. He screamed so desperately that it didn’t even come out very loud; there just wasn’t enough air behind it to create volume. It was like his nerve endings were using up all his oxygen, and he couldn’t breathe or think through the searing pain.

He couldn’t do anything. He was gone.

The scary part was how fucking good it felt, the bright agony ripping him free of restraints that weren’t made of rope or chain. He used the pain, just as Owen had told him to, shaped it, loved it, let it take him. Dimly, distantly, he felt his climax begin, lagging long moments behind his scream, an afterthought, as if his body was trying to kill the pain with pleasure, which was stupid, really, because they were both the same.

And one of Owen’s sadism:

“It’ll hurt,” Owen said, and there was something in his voice that told Sterling how much it would hurt and how much Owen wanted to do it. It was hard to wrap his head around at the beginning of their relationship; the way that for all Owen made him feel safe and protected, Owen got off on hurting him, leaving him bruised, marked, crying. With anyone else, that would have freaked Sterling out, but he didn’t just love Owen, he trusted him. Totally. No limits.

It was what allowed him to ask for more than he could take, made reckless by arousal, knowing that Owen was more aware of his limits than he was. Spanking him scarlet and hot turned Owen on, but controlling Sterling, reining him in, curbing his impulses, did even more for him, and Sterling knew that.

But both of these are told from Sterling’s perspective and brings up one tiny niggle more that’s my own personal issue more than anything else. You GET submission *and* masochism, or at least Sterling does a brilliant job of showing it to us and making us understand it. But when we’re in Owen’s head, it’s much more about the dominance than it is about the sadism. Yes, he gets off on hurting Sterling, but that’s much less explored than his dominance is. And that disappointed me slightly. But not enough not to thoroughly enjoy this book.

The book was a wonderful, slow, thoughtful read with some really REALLY great sex and a fascinating depiction of some very formal, very safe, and yet still emotionally dangerous BDSM. The plot of the book, such as it is, is focused on the emotional trajectory of the relationship and on Sterling’s issues with his idiotic father. There’s no suspense plot, no saving the world, nothing but two people falling in love as they explore each other, both physically and emotionally. Which is why the lack of exploration of what they have in common besides BDSM and hot hot sex was vaguely disappointing as well. But only vaguely. In the end, I trusted that they’d stay together because they were both too damn stubborn to do anything else: Bound and Determined indeed.

Grade: B+

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Loose Id in ebook format.

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REVIEW: Tangle Girls (anthology edited by Nicole Kimberling)

Janine — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:00:31 +0000

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 in college and began dating, but Sophia never told Caterina that she hadn’t come out to her parents. Now it seems Caterina has also been keeping secrets: not only is she a shapeshifter, she is also a princess from another realm, and her younger brothers’ lives are in danger. Caterina wants to return to her land and rescue her brothers, but her injuries are serious. Sophia convinces her to ask Sophia’s parents for shelter and help and allow Sophia to save her brothers instead.

Caterina gives Sophia a ring which will open a path to Caterina’s world when dawn arrives. Just as Sophia is about to go through the portal, a raccoon speaks and warns her that Beyond, where she is about to venture, is a dangerous place. Her odds of success will be better if she and the raccoon trade skins.

Sophia agrees. Clothed as a raccoon, she enters Beyond and it is indeed a dangerous journey. Fortunately, the raccoon skin proves very helpful.

“Raccoon Skin” is a charming quest story that reminded me a bit of some of fairy tales I read as a child. I loved the way the mundane was transformed into the magical, and enjoyed the clever ways Sophia found to see past the deceptive illusions of the Beyond. It was also neat to see the traditional gender role upended, so it was a heroine who charged to the rescue. I would have liked to see more of Sophia and Caterina’s relationship, but on the whole, I really enjoyed the story. My grade for “Raccoon Skin” is a B+.

“Amazons” by Jesse Sandoval

“Amazons” was the reason I plopped down $12.95 for Tangle Girls. I loved Sandoval’s story in Tangle XY, “Los Conversos.” The setting of “Amazons” is unnamed, although the title of course alludes to the Amazon. As the story, which appears to be historical, begins, its unnamed female narrator is rowing a boat on a jungle river. She observes the crocodile beneath the water and the black snakes hanging from the trees above with respect.

Once I saw one of those snakes lift a grown man off his feet and swallow him whole. The man pissed himself as the snake wrapped herself around him as if she were falling in love. She opened her thin mouth and took him in a deep kiss. I watched her eyes the entire time. She had the mesmerized gaze of utter adoration, as if this man’s form, his meat and muscle, had entranced her and drawn her into an unthinkable action.

I remember seeing that same unflinching stare long ago, looking back at me from a silver mirror. My hands trembled as I tried to load the pistol, the slender bullets wavered and slipped between my fingers. Then I caught sight of myself in a mirror. I gazed into my own eyes, the wide pupils dilated, entranced with desire. My reflection knew that I was a murderess before I did. She passed that assurance to me in a glance. My fingers have never trembled since.

How did the narrator come to look in the mirror and see a murderess? Since this story is only six pages long, I don’t want to give it away, but the story begins in Europe, where the main character met a woman named Maria, with whom she shared slices of cake and stories about the New World.

The imagery in “Amazons” has a hallucinatory beauty that captures what it is like to be drunk on love, willing to do anything for the other person. The story is haunting and powerful, though I wish it were longer so that I could feel I really knew Maria. I can’t wait for Jesse Sandoval to write a novel or a short story collection so that I can drown in his gorgeous prose. Ms. Kimerbling, if you’re reading this, can you do anything about that? My grade for “Amazons” is a B+/A-.

“The Conclave” by Trent Roman

Tanya Drake has been dating Erin, a centuries-old fey, but the relationship is becoming frustrating for her. The two met at the private Catholic school in which Tanya was enrolled. It wasn’t long before they became lovers. But Erin has a habit of comparing Tanya’s lovemaking to that of lovers from her past, lovers as famous as Sappho and Gengis Khan’s concubines. Erin also disappears for days on end only to reappear expecting the relationship to resume as though she’d never left.

After one such disappearance, Tanya tries to question Erin and find out how serious she is about their relationship. To make it up to Tanya, Erin offers to sneak her mortal lover into “the biggest bash in two worlds,” a party for immortal beings known as the Conclave. What kind of adventures will Tanya have at the Conclave, and how will they affect her relationship with Erin?

“The Conclave” is written in a crisp, snappy style I enjoyed. I liked the way Tanya and Erin arrived at the Conclave, too. But though Tanya is said to be a high school student, the character comes across as older. Erin is jaded and doesn’t treat Tanya that well, taking their relationship very lightly, so it’s hard to care about her, but Tanya isn’t sure if she’s serious in her feelings for Erin, either, so it’s also hard to care about how the relationship will change.

I felt that essentially, nothing that is deeply important to the characters happened in the story, so nothing that happened was all that important to me as a reader, either. After “Raccoon Skin” and “Amazons,” it was hard not to be disappointed in this one. My grade for “The Conclave” is a C-.

“Under Suspicion” by Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon

Set on the spaceship Mastodon, “Under Suspicion” begins when a shipwide alarm sounds, alerting United Star Fleet Ensign Lily Branoch and her fellow crewmembers to an accident in the main hanger. In the process of helping to rescue people trapped under “cargotainers,” Lily encounters a beautiful marine whose name she doesn’t catch. She glimpses the woman again before she learns that she is Lt. Cruz-Ortega.

Lily is powerfully attracted to the woman, so much so that she can’t get the lieutenant out of her mind. But this distraction becomes a problem when Lily begins to suspect that the beautiful Daniella may be involved in a plot to smuggle weapons off the Mastodon. Could Daniella Cruz-Ortega’s lovely face be hiding treachery? And even if not, will Lily ever get up the gumption to ask her out?

“Under Suspicion” was an enjoyable story and it probably had the most relationship focus of any of the stories in this collection. Lily was likable and the enigmatic Daniella was compelling. The worldbuilding was solid and I liked the military atmosphere. My main complaint is that due to the nature of the plot, the relationship between the two women did not develop that much. Nonetheless it was fun, though I would have liked it to be a bit more substantial. C+/B- for “Under Suspicion.”

“Cupcake” by Erin MacKay

Erin MacKay’s “Cupcake” takes place in the future, on a colonized world. The viewpoint character is Stasya, a professional assassin. As the story opens, Stasya receives an assignment from Rupi, a man who has hired her to kill in the past. This time Stasya is astonished at the target, whom she describes as “just a…a cupcake.”

Mitusko Jennings-Villega’s husband wants to collect on his wife’s life insurance policy, but Mitsuko is constantly watched by her wealthy father’s guards. To kill her, Stasya has to infiltrate “High Street,” Mitusko’s rarified world of corporate celebrities. Yet once she meets Mitusko, Stasya is in for a surprise. Mitusko realizes she is an assassin, and she is willing– no, ready — to die. Will Stasya be able to kill the woman she is beginning to admire and care for?

“Cupcake” is written in clean, straightforward prose and while the worldbuilding isn’t completely fresh, it’s well-executed. The story felt a little oppressive to me (though not nearly as much as MacKay’s story in Tangle XY, “Crossing the Distance”), but on the whole I liked it.

Stasya is a compelling character, though I wish her past, and especially her reason for becoming an assassin for hire, had made her more sympathetic. Mitsuko isn’t as morally ambiguous, but her life hasn’t been very meaningful. Though neither character is always likable, the story still kept me involved, probably because of the danger and high stakes. My grade for “Cupcake” is a B.

“Dead and the President” by Tenea D. Johnson

Set in a dystopian future, Tenea De. Johnson’s “Dead and the President” begins when the consciousness of the main character, a young black woman named Dead, is inhabiting the body of the President. Dead intends to speak to the world from within his body, but the President pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head.

Dead then begins recounting her history to the reader. She was born in the Basin, where many people have inherited the special abilities given to blacks by a doctor who believed he was making genetic reparations. Dead’s talent is “phasing” into other people and controlling their actions.

Dead is a motherless twelve year old when she is tagged by the Internal Processing Department, which tracks those with unusual abilities, and uses her talent to escape. She ends up Topside, where life is much nicer and safer, but she can’t forget about the hungry kids she left behind in the Basin, and eventually, she hatches a plan to help them.

Dead has the potential to be a sympathetic character, and there were a number of relationships that could have been involving in this story, not just the sexual one Dead eventually has with another young woman, but also her friendships with a girl named Nina in the Basin, and with an elderly woman named Cecilia in Topside. But these pass by the reader quickly, like houses glimpsed briefly from the window of a moving car. It is hard to get invested in these people, even when they mean a lot to Dead, because we readers hardly get to spend time with them.

What gets the most attention in “Dead and the President” is the setting. Dead’s world is an interesting place, but I almost stopped reading a few pages in, when the unfamiliar terms became difficult to decipher. I still don’t understand exactly what a couple of them mean, even after reading certain paragraphs three or four times. Johnson has a nice writing style, and another thing I liked about the story was the way the futuristic setting reflected social and political injustice. This aspect of the worldbuilding was well handled and thought-provoking, but for me, it’s not enough to make up for what’s missing. C- for “Dead and the President.”

Overall, the anthology was a bit uneven, but still worth reading in my opinion, with four enjoyable stories and two weaker ones. I want to reiterate my plea for more fiction from Jesse Sandoval, who writes so beautifully. I will be keeping my eye out on future offerings from Blind Eye Books, too. My overall grade for Tangle Girls is a B-.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook.

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REVIEW: Skin Game by Ava Gray

Jane — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:00:37 +0000

Dear Ms. Gray (aka Ms. Aguirre):

In reviewing my emails (because my memory, as you know, is terribly spotty), I see I received the book for review from you. I had enjoyed Grimspace and heard that this book was fresh for the romance genre and it is. Kyra is a grifter, working with her father, until he is beaten and left for dead by a casino owner named Serrano. Kyra runs a long con on Serrano, not just to take his money, but to humiliate him. She does this by learning what Serrano likes and transforms herself into the perfect woman, luring him in, and then ultimately humiliating him by gambling away his engagement ring, taking his money, and publicly admitting she just dated him for the money.

Serrano has his security guy hire a hitman to retrieve the money and kill Kyra, in that order. Reyes is one of the best but he’s a hitman with scruples. He is meticulous about who he kills and for whom he kills. He agrees to take down Kyra because she allegedly killed her father. A woman that kills her father needs killing herself in Reyes’ mind. Foster, the guy who hired Reyes, didn’t have a long history with Reyes and so it seemed a little farfetched that Reyes would just accept the “report” given to him, as if that was sufficient to whitewash his kill. Reyes is set up, curiously, as a one man judgment squad. He decides if you are worthy of taking out based on the information provided and he takes you out. Reyes realizes later he’s been lied to by Foster by I wondered how often he has been lied to. It’s not something Reyes even considers.

Kyra and Reyes have convenient morals. Kyra only screws over bad people and Reyes usually only kills bad men. Bad being relative here. They both don’t like drug dealers and at one point burn down a meth lab. Later they take a bad drunk/drug dealer on the side for a little con. Like many cons or morally ambiguous characters, they are good people to the core. Their justifications somehow make them all good. Whether that’s a realistic view of things or not, it’s how the story is played. And for all Kyra’s “wickedness” as Rey would put it affectionately, she still reads fairly innocent.

Admittedly, Reyes is pretty heartless. There is some sort of perverseness in Reyes character that he would have sex with someone he planned to kill. Later in the story, we are shown a real streak of ruthlessness. In the end, Reyes loves only Kyra. She’s his lodestone, and, I imagine serves as his conscience in the future.

There were other things that niggled such as Kyra so easily accepting Reyes as a partner. For someone who was on the run, this seemed improbable and quite stupid. She never even once thought that Serrano was out to get her; that Reyes somehow just so coincidentally shows up in two backwater towns hundreds of miles apart.

The sexual tension is really well done and after a wild romp in the bed, Kyra considers whether to break her no second night rule. It’s inevitable that she will, but the delicious tension that overlays the wait adds spice to the story. I was surprised at how sexy the book was but it fit with the danger. The adrenaline rode the two of them hard, particularly after a fight. I thought the romance was particularly well down. You really see how these two fit together.

They both knew each other’s flaws. I think this is why the con/killer setup worked so well. Neither was a deceived innocent.

Reyes ground his teeth. Something dark and primitive swept over him at hearing this asshole practice his sloppy endearments on her. It was all Reyes could do not to punch the son of a bitch in the face, which told him he had a problem. No wonder she’d played Serrano—and so well. Kyra was a pro, all right, well schooled in manipulating a man’s emotions. And that made him twice the fool—because even knowing what she did, he found himself susceptible.

Toward the latter half of the book, it really lights up. Kyra and Reyes fall for each other. For some reason Kyra begins to trust Reyes. For Reyes, Kyra is like no other. Her gift for the con, her matching scruples, her wicked ways all allow him to dream of a perfect kind of marriage, not in the white dress church style, but of the matching of hearts and souls.

As the two travel along, Kyra biding her time and Reyes trying to figure out if he kills her or scotches his perfect reputation and throws in with her, the story grows darker and darker. Kyra and Reyes are some kind of Bonnie and Clyde with the bad guys trailing them making things worse and worse. When the truth comes out on both ends, Reyes realizes how close to heaven he touched with Kyra now that he’s lost her and Kyra who is sick with shame over being duped and in bed with an assassin.

This book is very edgy and I appreciate the risks that it takes with the genre itself. It’s dark and the characters aren’t always doing likeable things. There is no questioning of morality in this story. You take the characters as they are. Everyone in that group of grifters, drug dealers, killers, thieves, have a differing take on the right v. wrong thing. Living up to your reputation, making sure you don’t harm those who don’t deserve it. That’s the code by which the characters of this book live. Trusting someone is the hardest thing to do, the most vulnerable thing to do. These emotions were well conveyed by both characters and while some of the contrivances that worked to bring Kyra and Reyes together made the earlier part of the book less believable, the romance made up for it. B-

Best regards

Jane

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

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REVIEW: Memoirs of a Hoyden by Joan Smith

Jayne — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:00:26 +0000

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 out of his boredom to set off after the men she thinks are Frenchie spies.

But are there really spies and if so, where are they? And for a woman who is past thirty and has made no bones about her lack of interest in marriage, Marion is startled to find her interest caught by Kestrel. Even if she does want to brain him half the time.

The plot machinations and time that Marion expends convinced that she knows exactly what’s going on are enough to make my head hurt. At times I can see why Kestrel wants to return the favor of clobbering her over the head. But no one can say Marion isn’t ready and willing to hold up her end of the events which unfold. To his credit, I think Kestrel is going into their marriage with his eyes wide open and fully ready to battle his way out of whatever Marion might get them into.

The whole spy stuff plot is nothing new. The reason to read the book is for the sparks which fly whenever Marion and Kestrel are in a room. The fact that they keep from killing each other on their way to saving England is a wonder. The secondary fact that I buy into the fact that they go from despising each other and fighting with each other to kisses that seem as if they’ll cause these two to explode with passion and all in the course of 3 days says something for your writing skills.

“Memoirs of a Hoyden” is another oldie but goodie that I’m glad that “Regency House” has reissued it. B

~Jayne

FTC discloser – I bought this with my own money and you can buy it at Fictionwise in DRM free multiformat.

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