Month: September 2012

Review of Love in La Terraza by Ethan Day

Rating: 3.85 stars

Cain Elliot is desperate beyond measure and about to give up all hope.  His grandmother entrusted La Terreza, her 1920’s Spanish courtyard apartment complex to him after her death.  La Terraza is special in so many ways, its beautiful  architecture, its magical  courtyard and of course, the unique group of characters that have come to live there over the years, including himself.  And now he is about to let them all down.  La Terraza needs a multitude of repairs to meet code and Cain doesn’t have the money.  He has been to bank after bank to no avail and he is close to bankruptcy.

To make matters worse, there is a real estate developer who is hounding Cain to sell, its tactics almost feeling like harassment in intensity. Feeling like an absolute failure after his last meeting at the bank, Cain heads over to Sully’s Tavern to meet up with his group of friends.  Also at the bar is Henry Abrams. Henry came to town to accept a position in the architectural firm Hamilton-Bach, so he is new, lonely and out looking around town.  He finds Cain and is immediately in lust but after their conversation and a night spent together, Henry finds that they have so much in common.  Cain and Henry really like each other, and Cain’s vulnerability brings out the need to protect him in Henry.Henry also falls in love with La Terraza, it’s magic and architectural beauty capturing his attention and admiration as much as its owner.   In a short amount of time, Cain and Henry finds themselves on the road to a real  relationship, the first for each of them in a long time.  And then Henry and Cain realize his new firm is the one working with the developer to acquire La Terraza.

Henry is horrified to find they want to tear it down, and Cain worries about Henry’s ties to a firm whose methods he thinks is disreputable. As the stress and tensions mount up, their new found relationship starts to fall apart.  Then the plumbing starts to fail at La Terraza and Cain has no money left to fix it.  Henry wants Cain to find happiness with him but at what cost? Cain must overcome doubt and his past. Henry must decide if what he wants is what Cain needs. In the middle of it all is  La Terraza’s future.

I have been a fan of Ethan Day’s since Sno Ho made its debut.  Ethan Day has such a winning way with his characterizations, snappy dialog and portrayals of love relationships from disastrous to dynamic that I eagerly await each new story from him.  Love in La Terraza is no exception.  It has all the earmarks of Day’s earlier lighthearted stories while still capturing some of the darker elements of his latter works.  Cain Elliot is absolultely a Ethan Day creation.  I could tell that immediately.  From his snarky voice, easy tolerance of quirky personas that surround him, and the “oh so happy to hop in bed with you, gorgeous” attitude that he presents Henry with the first night they meet, he is everything I love about  Ethan Day’s writing.  I adore Cain.  He is lovable, vulnerable, loyal and insecure about his abilities.  Henry is his wonderful counterpart.  Solid, ambitious, hardworking to a fault,  still he yearns for something more to his life and recognizes it in Cain.  It’s their hesitant fumble towards a relationship and mutual understanding that is the heart of this story.  Hearfelt, realistic, and full of missteps that occurs in most beginning relationships, it will speak to every person reading this story.

Also true to a Ethan Day novel are the wonderful oddballs that live in La Terraza and make up a core family group for Cain.  There’s the Scalia brothers, Vito and Tony,a pair of elderly men who play Frank Sinatra tunes, blasting them out into the courtyard, Mrs. Ruth Robinson, a grey panther married many times over and still going out on dates nightly, Eddie,  blind and a teacher at the school for the Blind and his boyfriend Matt, musicians Pixie and Thrash.  Thrash speaks as though he’s from England  but is actually from the Midwest, both are in a band, and Nic and Stu, her husband, a recently married couple playing at being hippies and close friends of Cain’s.  Each a splendid portrait of eccentric individuality. These people will absolutely engage your affections. They did mine.  I wanted to get to know all of them so much better.  In fact I wanted to move right into La Terraza and make myself at home with all of them.

La Terraza herself is that grand dame of Spanish buildings the shout out romance at  every cobblestone and ooze amore from it’s stuccoed walls.  I  wanted to be strolling through the courtyard myself, so vividly did Ethan Day describe her.  La Terraza is a character in her own right, sumptuous, a true classic beauty.  I wonder if  La Terraza exists outside of Ethan Day’s imagination, I hope so.  But either a figment  or reality, La Terraza lives on these pages.

There is so much to like here that I find it hard to bring up the quibbles I had with it. And that would be the secondary plot surrounding the group of  firms trying to take La Terraza away from Cain, no matter the legalities.  I won’t go into more details but I felt at times I was in another novel with this storyline.  It just did not seem to fit in with the romance between Cain and Henry because the way Day built up the relationship between the two men was so well done that the second section seemed almost clumsy in comparison.   I knew without a doubt before I even got halfway through the story what was going on with the building, who was doing it and who was the ultimate “bad guy” at the top of the evil chain.  In these economic times, it is easy to believe that Cain is having money flow issues to go with rehabbing an older structure without bringing in a melodrama that seeks to drown out everything with it’s exaggerated accompanying score.  Without the melodrama, this is a solid 4  star story.  Unfortunately, with the cloak and dagger stuff thrown in, it takes away from a wonderful romance and pulls it all back into a “nice story” category.

Ethan Day fans won’t want to pass this one up because it is an Ethan Day story.  For those of you new to the author, seek out his other books before you read this one.  Try Sno Ho for a wonderfully comedic bent on romance or At Piper’s Point, a more serious contemporary romance that gets it all right from beginning to end.  There are so many wonderful Ethan Day books out there.  I am just not sure this is one of them.

Cover art by Adrian Nicholas. The two men are lovely but the building standing in for La Terraza is a misstep.

Review of Alone In A Crowd (Cattle Valley #27) by Carol Lynne

Rating: 4 stars

Sheriff Ryan Blackfeather has worked hard to overcome his torturous past to get where he is today, successful in his job as Sheriff, in a town where he has friends and is respected, and most importantly, content and happy, in love with his two partners, Nate and Rio.  But a phone call from Oklahoma revitalizes old memories, bad ones that upset his hard won equilibrium and makes him pull away from those he loves.  Ryan’s mother has died and the landlord wants the trailer moved off his lot or the rent paid for.  Without telling either Rio or Nate why he is going, Ryan leaves on a trip back home, to face his past and confront the abusive father who raised him.

When Nate and Rio realize that Ryan has been withholding the truth about his travels from them, they are hurt and worry about the man they love.  How can they help with when Ryan doesn’t realize he needs their help to begin with.  As the emotional turmoil of Ryan’s past starts to tear at his relationship with his partners, Ryan understands that only by returning to Oklahoma and confronting his demons can he save all he has now, including the men he loves.

Carol Lynne’s Cattle Valley series were some of my first books when I started reading m/m fiction.  As I have said back in our Series week, I love starting a novel and then discovering that I have a slew of books yet to read in the series.  So there is a huge reservoir of affection that wells up in me when Cattle Valley is mentioned. I think there was six books in the series when I started and now it is up to book #27, each running anywhere from 98 to around 130 pages.

Cattle Valley series began in 2007 with All Play and No Work (Cattle Valley #1).  In this book, Lynne introduces us to Cattle Valley, Wyoming, a gay haven established by a man mourning the death of his gay son.  The millionaire wanted to build a place where everyone was gay, and safe, and could build a meaningful, rewarding life among others just like themselves.  So he deeded his land to the town and the GLBTQ community came.  Lynne starts off her Cattle Valley series as Ryan Blackfeather arrives from Texas to take the job as Cattle Valley’s first Sheriff. Ryan is a part of a triad, his other partners being Rio Adega and Nate Gills.  When their small Texas town’s disapproval of their relationship becomes overwhelming, Ryan convinces his men to make the move with him to Cattle Valley.  That move and the trio’s adjustment to Wyoming starts the river of books that are the Cattle Valley series.

In each book, Carol Lynne concentrates on one or two pairs of men and their relationships.  It is also a staple of Lynne’s that the characters for the books that follow are introduced in the current one.  And then as the town fills up with people and businesses, during the course of book the characters we have already met continue to pop up again and again in every story.  So Ryan as Sheriff, Nate (who eventually becomes the Mayor) and Rio who runs the local gym are focal characters for the series.  These men and their relationship were also my first introduction to m/m/m!  Lynne has taken their relationship and reexamined its dynamics throughout the series and she does so again in Alone In A Crowd (Cattle Valley #27).

In previous stories we learn Nate and Rio’s history. Here we concentrate on Ryan Blackfeather who has always come across as the rock of their relationship.  Ryan has always seemed so controlled and steady while not detracting from the deadly abilities he gained in the military. So it’s interesting that it’s Ryan who starts to fall apart when confronted with his past, a real switch of rolls within the triad.  Lynne’s descriptions of the reservation and the living conditions Ryan faced growing up in a derelict trailer are both heartbreaking and realistic. Any one familiar with the plight of Native Americans on reservations today will recognize the authenticity Lynne brings to the scenes in and around Tahlequah, Oklahoma, capitol city of the Cherokee Nation.  Whether it is Ryan confronting his father in the nursing home or both men facing their pasts in a dusty cave on the reservation, the descriptions brings the men to life and we feel the anger and pain of their conjoined past rise up around all of us.

In addition to Ryan’s story, another character from the past comes back to Cattle Valley.  Smokey Sharp from Rough Ride (Cattle Valley #4) reappears in town, sober and hoping to make amends to the people he wronged in the past.  That would be Erza James, Palmer “Wyn” Wynfield (a favorite of mine), and Elliot Simmons, owner of the grocery store. Smokey is suffering from rheumatoid arthritis which limits the work he can do.  Ryan finds Smokey work on Robert “Oggie” Ogden’s Second Chance Ranch as a ranch manager.  Carol Lynne uses Smokey and Oggie to set the stage for the next book in the series.  Oggie’s ranch will become home for GLBTQ youths homeless and/or in trouble.  She is already lining up the characters: Drake Smith, Chief of Security of Montgomery Enterprises who wants to help financially, and maybe even Joseph, Nate’s ex boyfriend who runs a GLBTQ youth center in NYC.  And then there is Dean Grooper, former school custodian, using alcohol to drown his pain over the loss of his long time partner.  We meet him here too.

And this brings me to my main quibble with Carol Lynne’s stories lately.  Too many characters crowded together into books too small in size to adequately give each character sufficient attention. In the first 6 or even 8 books, the town is still small and Carol Lynne concentrates all her wonderful powers of characterization into a small group of people. With a small focus group, it is easy to become invested in them and their stories.  And quite frankly, easy to remember who is with whom. I love those people and can remember each and every detail from their backgrounds.  Then the town got bigger (as towns will), more people came and Lynne left behind the one couple/one book format for multiple pairings in a novella sized book.  After a while I felt I needed a town chart and name tags for everyone who showed up in a scene plus all the newcomers making their debuts to get them in place for the next in the series.  There were so many people crying out for attention that my brain hurt and characters were forgotten.

Another quibble for me is the pairings. Lynne took Cattle Valley from strictly m/m or m/m/m into other pairings such as m/f/m which doesn’t interest me. Multiple relationship combinations make sense in that Cattle Valley is set up as a town of tolerance so any pairing outside of m/f  would be acceptable in town, I am just not interested in reading them specifically. And yes, you can skip those books like I did but as each book moves the series forward, we miss out on events that will be mentioned down the line. It also seemed to bring in an element of “MarySue” into her writing that had been absent up until then.

Carol Lynne packs a lot of emotion into a story and her characters.  She also packs a lot of sex. She has dealt with sex when one partner is paralyzed, sex with multiple partners, interracial sex, fem gays, Bdsm, D/s, you name it and Lynne has probably addressed it in a story .  Her sex scenes are vivid, hot and never unintentionally funny.  In Alone In A Crowd, she had the boys do things with an ear of corn (ok that was funny but intentionally so) I had not read before and still left me able to have corn on the cob at my next meal!  I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that as I love corn.  She also mentions a douche attachment for the boys shower, something I think should be brought up more as it is a realistic part of anal sex.  Carol Lynne did a great job here while still giving us realistic elements.

I had stopped reading Cattle Valley around Neil’s Guardian (Cattle Valley #17), overwhelmed by too many characters and too little plot in too few pages.  With Alone In A Crowd (Cattle Valley #27), Carol Lynne returns to the form that made me a fan to begin with and does it with the characters that started it all. I hope this continues with the next in the series, #28 whatever that may be.  And in the meantime, I might just have to go back and pick up the ones I missed.  I still love Cattle Valley and its vision of a town of tolerance and equality.  Alone In A Crowd brought that all back.  If you are new to the series,start from the beginning.  See Cattle Valley as it gets off the ground, meet  all the inhabitants as they find their way to town, watch as the romances form and carry over, story after story.  You will have 27 to go and counting.  For those who got lost along the way like me, pick it back up again and remember why you loved it.  And for those who never left,  here is a gem of a story to treasure as Cattle Valley continues to grow.

The Cattle Valley Book Series covers by Posh Gosh are my favorites in a series cover.  They brand the series while still conveying the subject of each book.  Great job.

Here are the stories in the order they should be read to understand the series and the characters.

Cattle Valley: All Play & No Work,Cattle Valley: Cattle Valley Mistletoe Cattle Valley: Sweet Topping Cattle Valley: Rough Ride Cattle Valley: Physical Therapy Cattle Valley: Out of the Shadow Cattle Valley: Bad Boy Cowboy Cattle Valley: The Sound of White Cattle Valley: Gone Surfin’ Cattle Valley: The Last Bouquet Cattle Valley: Eye of the Beholder Cattle Valley: Cattle Valley Days Cattle Valley: Bent-Not Broken Cattle Valley: Arm Candy,Cattle Valley: Recipe for Love Cattle Valley: Firehouse Heat Cattle Valley: Neil’s Guardian Angel Cattle Valley: Scarred Cattle Valley: Making the Grade Cattle Valley: To Service and Protect Cattle Valley: The O’Brien Way Cattle Valley: Ghost from the Past Cattle Valley: Hawk’s Landing Cattle Valley: Shooting Star Cattle Valley: Confessions Cattle Valley: Shadow Soldier

Review of Unconventional at Best Anthology

Rating: 3.5 stars

Unconventional at Best is an anthology from six authors of stories featuring romance in and around conventions.  GayRomLit convention last  year provided the inspiration for this selection of stories by Carol Lynne, TA Chase, Amber Kell, Jambrea Jo Jones, Stephani Hecht, and Devon Rhodes. The stories run the gamut of lovers reunited, best friends to lovers, alien love, geek love, confectionary love and love among tops and it all occurs at a convention.

I found this anthology to be a fifty fifty proposition.  Out of 6 stories,only three kept me completely entertained, staying with me once I was done with the anthology.  The others remained just nice stories, forgotten as soon as I put them down.

Here are the ones that stayed with me. I think they are just wonderful stories.

‘Ninja Cupcakes’ by T.A. Chase

Ethan Gallagher is a baker of very special talents.  His cupcakes are not only delicious confections but when certain ingredients are added, downright magical.  When Ethan and his business partner agree to supply the desserts for his brother’s sci-fi convention, it presents the perfect opportunity for Ethan’s floury confections to work their particular magic on certain participants, including an astrophysicist Ethan has been corresponding with for four years. With just the right timing and the special ingredients, Ethan bakes cupcakes that insure that love is in the air or desserts.  Or perhaps we should say Ethan insures that  everyone gets their just desserts!

This is a delicious little story.  I have always found that cooking, or in this case baking, and magic were natural combinations. T.A. Chase does a terrific job of doing just that in Ninja Cupcakes.  From that great title to Chase’s wonderful characters, I just loved this story and wished to see them all again once I was done. This is fun, frothy and still is grounded in realistic characters that capture your hearts. Ethan and Callum were an especially endearing couple.  I wish I had their story, complete with how they first met, and what happening to each of them during their four year correspondence.T.A Chase, this would make a wonderful story.  Just saying.

‘Operation: Get Spencer’ by Jambrea Jo Jones:

“Even if superpowers were real, Benjamin still might not get his man.”  Good friends Benjamin and Spencer are spending the day at Comic-Con, something Spencer has always wanted to do.  Benjamin has a surprise for Spencer to go with their day at Comic-Con.  Benjamin intends to tell his friend that he is in love with him and decides the convention is the perfect time to reveal it.  The problem?  Spencer believes Benjamin is straight and with good reason as Benjamin has told everyone he is straight over and over again.  But Ben hopes that a convention where everything is possible is the perfect place to make Spencer believe in his love.

Friends to lovers and gay for you, both happen here in this story about sexuality, perceptions and fear of change.  Jones takes two completely recognizable characters and brings them together at Comic-Con for her story of friends and lovers.  Ben has been so busy denying that he is gay that everyone believes Ben is straight even if Ben no longer believes it himself.  His best friend Spencer is gay and they have always done everything together. But recently Ben has discovered that his feelings for Spencer go beyond friendship and into romantic love, but how to tell his best friend?

Jambrea Jo Jones makes us laugh and sympathize with Ben and Spencer throughout it all.  From Ben’s mishaps, missteps and outright screwing up his announcement, we are still on his side and hope he gets his man.  Spencer is authentically confused about Ben’s change of heart regarding his sexuality, we understand his point of view as well.  He doesn’t want to mess up his relationship with his best friend, his confidant, and we get that too. Somehow it all comes together in a satisfying end back where they started it all – Comic-con.

‘Fan-Tastic’ by Stephani Hecht

“Everybody knows the best lovers are geeks.” The setting this time is the annual Comic Book and Horror Convention.  Here Deke Masters, a well-known actor in a zombie TV show is ordered to appear on a panel for his show.  Also in attendance is Blake Tallision.  Blake is trying to sell his comic book Star Cats and other items that he has been working on so hard.  Blake also has a crush on Deke going back to their school days.  Even then Deke was a star and Blake the nerd hiding in the shadows of the stage.  To Blake’s amazement, Deke is a fan of Star Cats.  The convention turns out to be the perfect stage for a romance neither saw coming.

This was my favorite story of the anthology. In Deke Masters and Blake Tallision author Hecht gives us characters worth cheering for.  Blake is an especially memorable one.  In pursuit of his art, he has starved himself, living in the basement of his abusive mother’s home, almost despairing of making it.  Blake was so real I could see his skeletal frame and intense features. His vulnerability drew me in and kept me there. Deke also came across a fully realized human being, a guy who has worked to get where he is now but misses being wanted for just himself.  While Blake wants nothing more than to be noticed by Deke, when that happens, Blake is believably wary and insecure, not seeing himself as others do. Deke is perfect for him, the normal guy who just happens to be a tv star, he understands Blake’s struggle because he was once at that stage himself. Everything about this story from the dialog to the characters just cried out for a larger version, especially to delve further into the relationship between Blake and his mother who had a secret she was hiding from him.  Great job.

VGB Looks at When Talking Dirty Makes You Giggle or Spank Me Harder, Bunny Poo!

Note: Let’s just agree that this column is for mature audiences only shall we? If you continue reading, you are clearly over the age of 18 and don’t need your parents approval. We are serious, people! Words used in the most despicable manner is no laughing matter!!! Ok, well it is a laughing matter or we wouldn’t be here. Getting off course again. Sigh.

 It’s been a while since our last get together and you can chalk that up to the quality of the books I have been reading lately.  While they have run the gamut from middling fair to absolutely splendid, very few have fallen into the rainbow skittle of passionate prose that gets me going in eye blinking disbelief.  That choice of words worthy of a double take or three, the “oh no she/he didn’t” selection that begs the question “why, oh why did he say that?” It’s the mesmerizing moment you realize that someone actually put those words in a sentence in a paragraph on a page in a story that halts you in your tracks. But this particular topic has been running around my head  like a gerbil on a  squeaky wheel for a while now just waiting for something or some word to prod it into action. And a recent novella did just that. It shocked that gerbil into an all out sprint and here we are examining what makes some dirty talk sexy and others hysterical.

I realize that bed talk can be subjective.  What turns one person into a puddle of  goo sends another into paroxysms of hilarity or worse delivers a veritable cold shower to any sexy thoughts or actions that up until then had been looking pretty darn promising.  I get that, really I do! We have the school of “Harder, faster, deeper, there, fuck meeeeee  ” dirty talk.  Short bursts of words that spit forth from a participant’s mouth in the midst of a flurry of physical activity often imagining the verbal directions being given.  I find this can be really sexy if done right.  Say the author has written this vividly described sex scenes and the men are having at it in all ways sweaty and real.  Throw those words in to make the men frantic in their need for each other.  I get it (and so do they if they are lucky).  Done well, I find it to be very effective *waves a fan*.  But add a word or too, and hilarity replaces sexy in a heartbeat.  Example: ” Yeah, do it, do it harder. Fuck me with your big, hairy sausage, boo boo Daddy!” *cough, cough, cough* Sexy turns into spew event and the ambience is gone.

You can also find the “Give it to me now, I want it all, I can take it, make me want it, pound me into the mattress” format.  I call this type  the Drill Master of Smut Talk.  The person, could be a bossy bottom or someone topping from the bottom, is letting the other person know exactly what is expected here and woe to that person if they don’t deliver.  Again, in the right hands *snort*, this can turn up the heat and be informative, all at the same time. You get the how, when and where and a lesson on how to communicate better in bed.  What’s not to love?  Everyone’s a winner!

Some people despise the lack of pronouns from a partner in passion. For these lovers of all things proper and sentence structure, it ‘s all about syntax and semantics. Doesn’t that sentence  just make you quiver?  They shudder (and not in a good way) at “need you, want you, touch me, fuck me”, for those persons complete grammar is required. Who exactly “needs” what? And where do they “need” it?  I can see some frenzied folk getting confused.  Throw out that “fill me, fuck me”, and replace it with “Oh, I need you now, Alphonse.  Please take me to bed post haste, and have your wanton way with my beauteous form, you magnificent bastard.”  That just might be all some need to pole vault into the four poster, all sweaty and raring to have at it.

Others find certain proper nouns a complete turn off.  “Take it slut! You like a big thing up your hole.” Yep, the word causing a heap of “bleck” would be slut, although I do have problems with that entire sentence.  Whore, Daddy, boy, slut are terms that either delight or disgust when used in bed.  Papi was another. It’s almost fifty fifty with people coming (hah) down on one side or the other.  Personally?  Not big on the slut thing, but I won’t mark a book down for it when it comes to the review. If it works for the character, then it works for me.

Then we get to the sounds.  You know what I mean.  Two or more men are having a splendid time writhing about in as many positions possible.  And instead of words, it’s animalistic sounds urging them on to greater highs of sexual heat and prowess.  They moan, they groan, they growl and roar, purr and whimper.  Whew! *waves the fan madly* I am all about the animal sounds, love them in fact.  Except when the mewl turns into a mew, and I start to wonder where the kitties are hidden.  Some men apparently even “chirp” in  bed.  Huh. Hard to picture that one.  Bird fetish perhaps to go along with the whinny?

What doesn’t work? Stilted comments or comments so fatuous that just reading them makes me laugh out loud, never a good thing when the author is going for hot and heavy.  Take this sentence. “Mmm, can’t wait”—Randy lay sprawled on the bed—“to feel that dick of yours stretching my channel.” Again “Stretch my channel, stretch my channel.”  Umm, does that strike anyone as sexy? How about two idiots and a gun? Here they are  covered with lube,“The safety is on, babe! We’ll play a little more with that later. Right now, I wanna pump your ass full of my lead.”  Or perhaps it’s the would-be astronauts, where Rick wants Lance to “ride my pocket rocket into the stars”. And then for me the giggles start. I always want the author to take the time to say those phrases out loud, to take them around the verbal block so to speak.  If it sounds funny when saying it, the chances are pretty good it is going to read that way too.  I’m trying to be helpful here, folks!

Who knew talking dirty could be so funny? Well Jade Buchanen for one. Thank you, Tam, for this one:

From Jade Buchanan’s Del Fantasma: Duck Fart

“Drake let Bailey go just far enough to look at the other man. He wanted to hear more spilling from Bailey’s lips. “Come on, talk dirty to me, baby.”

A look of panic crossed Bailey’s face. Drake hid his grin. This should be fun.

“Uh…I want you to put your alligator in my love tunnel?”

Eyes wide, Drake started to choke. He could barely breathe, bent over the steering wheel now, laughing so hard his belly hurt.”

From hot to hurl, from sexy to snigger, dirty talk provides us with memorable moments in stories, from wonderfully realistic sexy scenes to the WTF smut verbalizations of a hominid in heat.  Authors, before you write it, say it, try it out!  Ask around, find out what real people are really saying or yelling as it were.  It might amaze you to find out what you think works in bed is far more suitable to Barnum and Bailey’s Circus or Cirque de Soleil than to two or more people getting their lust on.

If not, then your characters might just end up saying something like ” “I want you to stuff your massive demon cock in my tight, waiting hole.” Thank you, Julia, for that little gem.  And if they do, the chances are they might just end up being featured in a  Vocabulary Gone Bad.  I’m reading away, people, gobbling up page after page.  You’ve been forewarned and now it’s up to you.  If your characters “want it, need it, hurts so bad, Bunny Poo”, make sure its as sexy as you think it sounds, or the giggling you hear might be mine.

Review of Summer Sizzle by Berengaria Brown

Rating: 3 stars

Craig, a history teacher is on break at Two Waters Beach, enjoying his month rental cabin when he spies Seth on a beach towel nearby.  Seth is exactly Craig’s type and immediately Craig tries to figure out the best way to approach him.  Seth has the exact same reaction to Craig, and runs up to introduce himself.  After an afternoon of hot sex, Craig and Seth find out they have much in common. Both teach at the high school level and never has the sex been as right as it is with each other.

Just as they are getting to know each other better, Seth gets a call from home from a fellow teacher to return home for a school meeting.  At the meeting, the school administrators inform the teachers that the private school is closing and they are all fired. Shattered by the loss of his job, Seth wonders what the future will hold for him and Craig.

Summer Sizzle is a very quick read at 69 pages but to be honest, it often felt much longer.  Brown’s descriptions of Two Waters beach contain more feeling and heart than her descriptions of Craig and Seth who come across a cardboard cutouts of each other.  Both teachers at the high school level, one teaches History, the other English.  Brown does a nice job of bringing in bits of information about Beowulf and ninth grade reading lists to make their discussion of crossover subjects in teaching both realistic and knowledgeable.  This and the section with Seth’s job interviews struck me as authentic and made me wish she had used the same amount of skill throughout the story.  Unfortunately that was not the case.

As I said the men never came across as fleshed out human beings, and the same goes for their sexual encounters.  Given the large amount of time Craig and Seth spend having sex, I would have hoped for some real sizzle with descriptions that raised their scenes together above the “insert tab A into Slot B” activity.  But Brown’s descriptions and word choices for her “dirty talk” never engaged me as a reader.  Some authors can turn up the heat with a simple “pull on the hair”.  To make the scenes heat up the pages, I need to feel the men are emotionally invested in each other’s pleasure…I need to “feel’ the sizzle between them.  Instead it felt like reading a “How To” manual on sexual positions.

And finally we come to relationship timing.  Like that overused lesbian joke (What does a lesbian bring to a second date? A U Haul), this is Craig and Seth’s relationship two week plus time line.

They met, had lots of sex (including blowjobs without condoms but have sex with condoms?), they talk, Seth loses job, Craig helps Seth get job, they declare their love for each other and move in together.

If you are going to go that route, at least make me believe in that instant love.  That these two men were so passionately drawn together that being separated was unbearable.  Did anything here make me believe that about Craig and Seth? No.  I came very close to giving this 2.75 stars but Brown’s feelings about Two Waters beach where she spent time growing up and that lovely bit about teaching history and english pushed it up to 3.  I haven’t read anything else by Brown so I am left wondering if this is typical of her stories or just an off day at the keyboard.  Let us know what you think if you have read other books by this author.

Summer Sizzle previously published by Elloras Cave in 2010, now available at Torquere Press.

Cover:  I think I actually prefer the first edition cover to the latest version. Both sizzle.  What do you think?

Review of the Jewel Bonds Series by Megan Derr

Rating: 4.75 stars

 

For the Jewel Bonds series, Megan Derr creates a rich world of wizardry and combatants.  In this fantasy world, we have the Territories full of wild creatures and dragons, a lawless land that is constantly infringing on the civilized cities and towns.  To deliver the full measure of protection to the civilized zones, it takes a bonded team comprised of a mage and a warrior.  One to go forward in strength and combat, the other to watch his back and keep safe all around them by magical means.

Children with an affinity for magic or sword work and able to pay tuition go to live at the University of Magic and Combat where they are taught lessons in warfare and magic.  The children are all ages. The different schools seem to correspond to our system here. Some arrive in their teens for studies at the university level. Neither gender or social status matters, both can be warriors or mages, as long as the tuition is paid or scholarships hold, they can attend.  When a mage is finishing their third year in the University, clear jewels are implanted in their wrists and foreheads, showing they are ready to become full mages able to use their magic to the fullest of their abilities. Mages tend to have a talent for one area of alchemy like fire or wind and when they find a warrior to bond with, their jewels take on the eye color of their partner. But for some mages, whatever the reason, a warrior is never found to bond with, leaving them to become a field mage or research mage on their own.

Within this realm of harsh realities, of learning acquired through pain and physical deprivation, Megan Derr gives us three short stories of mages and warriors at different stages in life. Two are still in school at The Royal University of Magic and Combat in the capitol city, the middle pair have left their schooling behind them, one to glory and the other to ignominy and despair, and the third pair sees a mage in his forties, in straightened circumstances, facing a life without a position, possessions or a bond who in his most desperate hour meets a young warrior in need of a temporary mage.  Derr gives us a glimpse into their lives, the hardships they endure to become warriors and mages, and the strange journeys made to find fulfillment and love.

An Admirer (Jewel Bonds #1) introduces us to Kaeck, a poor student working three jobs to help subsidize his scholarship in order for his to stay in school.  By inclination (he feels unloved by family and peers) and circumstances (he works from predawn hours to midnight), he has isolated himself from most of the student body.  Kaeck’s daily routine and expectations rarely changes until the day he opens his student post box and finds a letter from a secret admirer, One letter is followed by others and then gifts.  And Kaeck finds his outlook changing, someone admires him, thinks him beautiful! Kaeck wants to meet his admirer and give him a gift back. But while his admirer is anonymous, Kaeck has met a fellow student, Bellamy, with whom he shares common interests and insecurities and soon Kaeck wonders if their friendship could turn out to be more. But Bellamy is enamored of another student and Kaeck is left wondering if his secret admirer will ever come forward.

I took Kaeck to heart immediately.  Who hasn’t had someone like him in their lives, doing everything he can to keep afloat and make his dreams come true. Kaeck’s family is harsh and lacking love growing up has contributed to his sense of worthlessness.  I just wanted to grab him up, give him a huge hug and feed him a massive dinner.  Kaeck is so fully realized that his pain became mine as well.  It was just as easy to become invested in Bellamy.  A “country mouse” late to class his first day of advanced swordplay and in his ignorance he treated the Lord like a regular professor. Bellamy gave his all in a swordfight, earning his Lordship’s respect and earning a coveted apprenticeship as well as the continued resentment of his peers. Neither young man is comfortable around others, one silent, the other babbles when nervous.  But together, they find a ease with each other they have found no where else.  Derr brings the stress and angst that comes from  school cliques, trying to find your way,  and awkwardness in school and transfers it believably to a fantasy world.   I loved this story and want so much more of these two. At 36 pages, it felt just too short as I was totally invested in these young men and their world. You will feel the same.

Kiss the Rain (Jewel Bonds #2) is a neat time shift as the two heads of Magic and Combat, Lord Jenohn and Master Selsor, almost 60 years old in An Admirer, here  are only 18 when the story begins.  We meet Selsor as he is being brutally attacked by bullies in the school yard at the University.  Told from Selsor’s POV, this is a difficult paragraph to read as you feel every blow to the ribs, every kick to his head as curses rain down upon him.  In his fear, he strikes out with his magic, which up to now has never worked.  A lightning bolt comes out of the sky, killing another student in the courtyard by accident.  Selsor is hauled before the University council who refuse to believe him about the attack and the accident. They tell him the student is dead because of him.  Selsor is banished, forbidden to use magic upon threat of death, and his jewels turned black by the University mages.  Three years have past, and we meet up with Selsor, age 20, scrubbing the floors of a lowly inn, living in the straw above the animals in the stable, reduced to almost starvation levels as no one will hire a disgraced mage.  So depressed he has tried to kill himself, he is beaten regularly by the sadistic innkeeper. Into the inn comes Jenohn, a warrior and a group of soldiers on a mission from the Prince.  The town they are in is being inundated by rain to the point of extermination and the Prince wants to know if black magic is the cause. Jenohn needs the help of an uncorrupted mage and picks Selsor for the job, to his amazement and distrust.

In Kiss The Rain, Megan Derr takes the hard life and isolation of Kaeck’s student life and then deepens it into abuse and horror for Selsor.  Selsor only wanted to become a mage and bond with a warrior, just like his parents had.  But his pretty features and slight build made him an easy target at school where the bullies endless physical and emotional abuse was a daily occurance.  Not only was Selsor afraid for his life but his magic doesn’t want to work even though he knows he has it, adding frustration to his fear.  Selsor commands both our empathy and understanding as he tries to deal with horrific living conditions and the loss of his dreams.  Especially horrifying are his circumstances when we meet up with Selsor years later only to find him being kicked and abused again, only this time with no magic at hand.  So when this golden warrior, Jenohn appears, offering him enough silver to live on and escape the life he is living, we are just as wary as Selsor.  He knows from experience that life is never fair nor kind.  But just as Jenohn grows on Selsor, so does he grow on the reader.  Arrogant but able to back it up, kind in a sort of “need to smack him” sort of way, Jenohn just gets under your skin, Selsor’s too.  Selsor finds it hard to keep his grump on when faced with such irrespressible good nature, and all of it directed at him.  Great characters, both of them.  I loved seeing their backstory after getting a glimpse of them in old age.  This  story has it all, tears, angst, rage and laughter all in 47 pages.  Amazing.

An Exception (Jewel Bonds #3) takes us into the life of Riot, a lonely mage. Mage Riot never thought he would be jobless and practically homeless at the age of 40.  After 20 years of service to the lord of the territories, making sure the land is safe from dragons and that the kingdom prospers, his lord dies.  The new lord is an arrogant, smarmy young man who bullies all around him and expects Riot to submit to his sexual demands.  An honorable man, Riot refuses the pipsqueaks’s ultimatum, and leaves with nothing as all his belongings are confiscated by the new lord.  Even worse, once Riot is cast out, rumors are spread, casting aspersions on Riot’s honor and magic abilities.  Almost penniless, Riot is trying hard to hold on in a land that no longer seems to put a value on his experience, and accumulated wisdom. What is a mage to do when all the rules he has lived by are deemed old fashioned?

I loved Riot immediately.  He is such a unique character.  He is older, forty to be exact.  His hair is graying and he is well aware that any chance he had of being regarded as handsome is long past.  His former lord was a good man and Riot was happy in his service, even though he had never met a warrior who wish to be bonded to him during that time, to his everlasting sorrow.  Now his crystals in his forehead and wrists have turned gray from lack of use and he despairs of ever finding another job, especially at his age, let alone a warrior who would want an older man.  How that rings true no matter the setting, our world or that of fantasy.  Riot is so relatable in every way.

Derr excels at characterization and her people, like Riot, have emotions, thoughts and feelings that match ours.  How can we not relate to them, trying to get through life without compromising who they are and dealing with the stress of everyday life? Even if that life means keeping the kingdom safe from dragons? All that to deal with and at middle age too. Depressing, even heartbreaking.  I felt I knew Riot intimately. Rior meets his match in Coroe, a warrior in need of a mage.  Coroe is in charge of seeing his Lady safely to the lands of her new husband in a neighboring kingdom and all the mages he has hired have been disastrous, either drunk or incompetent or both. Coroe’s gorgeous looks belie his warrior status just as Riot’s rough warrior like exterior is atypical of mages.Both men have had problems stemming from peoples assumptions about their appearance and both are equally wary about the other.  Each also feels their age difference matters to the other in how they are perceived.  Again, how realistic. Coroe’s character has the same level of complexity that Riot has, but it comes out in difference ways.  I loved him too.  Both men circle around their mutual attraction, held back by Riot’s insistence on a firm separation of business from pleasure.  I liked this plot twist that keeps the men from acting on their romantic impluses because with the physical sexual act removed from the action, Derr is able to concentrate on building her characters, their backstory and amble, instead of run, to the start of a romance.  Here too, Derr gives us a complex duo in 10,000 words.  Do I want to see more of them?  Why yes, I do!

I hope Megan Derr will continue to give us wonderful stories in the Jewel Bonds universe,  Perhaps more of Selsor and Jenohn as we are missing 40  years of their lives.  Or perhaps Kaeck and Bellamy after graduation.  The plot possibilities are endless and so are my hopes for the series.  Don’t pass these up.

Covers by Megan Derr.  Hard to argue when it is the author themselves creating the covers for her stories.  Love them.