Category: 5 star Rating

An Alisa Review: Grand Opening (Kiss of Leather #4) by Morticia Knight

Rating:  5 stars out of 5

 

Grand OpeningThe men of Kiss of Leather celebrate a beginning, but will the price be another ending?

 

The grand opening of Kiss of Leather draws near and the pressure is on to make sure everything is completed for the big night. Master Josh is a perfectionist, so no detail is too small in order to enhance the quality of the prestigious club they’ve all worked so tirelessly on. Unfortunately, the endless demands on Josh’s time have caused him to forget the more important things in life.

 

David’s love for Master Josh is strong, but lately, that love has been constantly tested. How can a sub in a full-time D/s relationship serve a Master who’s never there? As things continue to deteriorate between him and Josh, David wonders if maybe his Master has tired of having to care for a sub 24/7.

 

By the time the grand opening arrives, Josh and David seem to have worked out their differences and David is hopeful for their future. The emotional collaring ceremony between Gavin and Kyle is a beautiful testament to the power of love. But when an unexpected party crasher intrudes on the evening’s festivities, the men are reminded that there are still too many unanswered questions related to Corey’s kidnapping.

 

More than ever, the men of Kiss of Leather need to stand united. Will Josh and David be able to do the same?

 

I really enjoyed this book; it gave us a look at the couples from the previous books but also a chance to look into Josh and David’s relationship.  Josh and David have been together for years and got to watch their friends fall in love around them.  However, their relationship seems to be going backward as the club gets closer to opening.  All this while still trying to find out everything in regards to Corey’s abuse and kidnapping makes it hard for the characters to work on their personal lives.

 

We got to see this story from many points of view, the previous couples and also Josh and David’s which helps to give the reader a chance to see how an existing relationship can look from all sides.  I could feel how David thought his life was falling apart and how devastated Josh was when he finally had a reality check for the state of his relationship.  I look forward to more books in this series while they work to find more information on Corey’s abuse.

 

The cover art is very nice and follows the pattern for the series.

 

Sales Links:

Pride Publishing | Amazon

 

Book Details:

ebook, 144 pages
Published: August 23, 2016 by Pride Publishing
ISBN: 9781786514752
Edition Language: English

Series: Kiss of Leather #4

RJ Scott has a New Book And New Series Out! Check Out Kyle (Legacy #1) by R.J. Scott (giveaway)

Release Blitz & Giveaway

RJ Scott – Kyle (Legacy #1)

Author: RJ Scott
 
Release Date: September 2 2016
 
Length: 
 
 

Blurb:

Two men destroyed by the past learn to live—and love—again.
Kyle Braden has nowhere else to go. With no money, no prospects, and no drive to be something else, he turns to the only man who promises him help. Jack Campbell-Hayes wants to show Kyle that he can be more than he ever thought.

Kyle gets to realize just how far he’s come from being the scarred man who shut everyone out, when the first person through the doors of Legacy Ranch carries a gun and threatens to kill anyone who comes near him. Kyle wants to be the man that someone turns to for help and it scares him.

Thrown out of his house and with three years on the streets marking every inch of his body, Jason Smith is scared. His life is an evil mess of hate and despair, and even the offer of a fresh start and a clean bed isn’t enough for him to hand over his gun. He’s cheated death twice, and he’s not letting there be a third time—he might not be so lucky.

For these broken men, Legacy Ranch offers more than a place to live and work.

It offers hope.

A new story set in the world of Jack and Riley Campbell-Hayes and the Double D Ranch, Texas.


About the Author ~ R.J. Scott

RJ Scott is the bestselling gay romance author of over ninety MM romance books. She writes emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men who get mixed up in their lives. RJ is known for writing books that always end with a happy ever after. She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. 
 
RJ also writes MF romance under the name Rozenn Scott.
 
The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.
 
mailto:rj@rjscott.co.uk
www.rjscott.co.uk/
www.facebook.com/author.rjscott?ref=ts&fref=ts
www.goodreads.com/author/show/3432558.R_J_Scott
twitter.com/Rjscott_author
www.librarything.com/author/scottrj

 Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

 

And check out Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words’s review here on 9/14.

A MelanieM Review: Full Circle: Forester Triad Act Three (Tales of the Forest #3) by Blaine D. Arden

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Full Circle“I have great responsibilities, but my path ahead is as foggy and blurred as the path behind me.”

With forester Taruif freed, Kelnaht has claimed him openly at Solstice before tribe and Ma’terra as his partner, but with their third, Ianys, bound by an old promise, their triad is still incomplete. Sneaking around puts the most strain on Ianys. He and Kelnaht must keep their relationship a secret or he will lose his daughter, Atèn.

When several children fall ill with more than a summer bug, truth seeker Kelnaht is assigned once more to investigate. What he finds is deadly and threatens the life of every underage child in the tribe, including Atèn. Then a wounded traveller is found in the forest, left to die after a vicious attack.

With Taruif and his apprentice on the hunt for a cure, Kelnaht focusses on the attacks, but the clues are few and more children are infected. Nothing seems to connect until both the traveller and Atèn dream of the same grey-haired elf. Driven by fear for his daughter, Ianys pulls away from his lovers. Kelnaht can only pray Ma’terra will guide him to a solution that brings them all together and keeps Atèn safe from harm.

I reviewed this story when I was happily reporting on the release of the trilogy in one volume, A Triad in Three Acts: The Complete Forester Trilogy
by Blaine D. Arden. There I said…”

“Its outstanding.  Full Circle: Forester Triad Act Three (Tales of the Forest, #3) starts off with first one, then another of the village’s children falling ill.  A heartbreaking scenario, especially true when the village has lost their children in the not too distant past. Then it sweeps up our triad, newly back together but keeping it a secret when Ianys’ daughter falls ill as well.  Yes, another mystery to solve, one so close to the heart for all three lovers that it threatens to tear them apart once more.

Arden makes us feel every bit of the direness of the situation, the pain of the parents, the building anxiety of the village as they wait to see whose children will fall next and the mystery as to where the illness is coming from.  You will be there in the square with them as the fear and anger builds, the hopelessness too.  Its such an incredible story because it also is where all the answers to the triad’s problems will arrive and all the history will be finally revealed.  Really, its one of those page turners I just couldn’t put down once I started.”

But that really didn’t explain the twisting, complicated relationships between Taruif, Kelnaht and Ianys I had come to understand and love (it took 3 stories but I finally arrived at wanting them to be together). Arden display of family dynamics at all levels of functionality, to the extremely poor to the tight knit, carries the reader to emotional highs and lows along with the characters themselves.  I’m not often a fan of menage or M/M/M but here I not only believed in the relationship but hoped for their future together.

Arden also had created a long ancient history and evil that had followed the village through the tales as well.  Its wrapped up here but not without grief and loss that will tear at your heart.  That the evil is rooted in something that you will be able to understand and even momentarily connect with is what helps define this as a 5 star story.  The evil is not a one dimensional being but one of such depth and authenticity that any reader will be able to recognize the pain at the center of it all.  Its makes everything that happens all the more tragic.

There is also a sensuality to the story.  These men love each other, even when one is angry and missing from their triad.  When they flow back together its sexy, sensual, and magic.

I loved this story.  Its was in turn…sad, bitter, sensual, exhilarating, heart-stopping suspenseful and finally full of love and joy.  It pulled everything together in an ending I loved.  I couldn’t and wouldn’t ask for more.

Book cover by Simone is lovely and perfect for the story.

Sales Links

7104e-waxcreative-amazon-kindle

6f71e-all2bromance2bbutton

 

Book Details

ebook, 1st Edition, 140 pages
Published August 15th 2016 by Cayendi Press
ISBN139789082296679
Edition LanguageEnglish
URLhttp://www.cayendi.nl/?page_id=195
SeriesTales of the Forest #3, The Forester Trilogy #3
CharactersKelnaht, Taruif, Ianys

A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review: Priddy’s Tale by Harper Fox

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Priddy's Tale by Harper FoxWhat doesn’t kill you sometimes makes you wish it had…

Priddy’s a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don’t get to see. He’s young, sweet-natured and gorgeous, but that’s not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life.

He’s a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn’t his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub high leaves him fractured, hallucinating, too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse – nothing to do but press the occasional button and keep the windows clean – he gratefully accepts.

His plans to live quietly and stay out of trouble don’t last very long. A ferocious Atlantic storm washes a stranger to Priddy’s lonely shore. For a shipwrecked sailor, the new arrival seems very composed. He’s also handsome as hell, debonair, and completely unconcerned by Priddy’s dreadful past.

Priddy has almost given up on the prospect of any kind of friendship, and a new boyfriend – let alone a six-foot beauty with eerily good swimming skills – out of the question entirely. But Merou seems to see undreamed-of promise in Priddy, and when they hit the water together, Priddy has to adapt to Merou’s potentials too, and fast. His lover from the sea might be a mere mortal from the waist up, but south of that line…

Far-flung west Cornwall has a hundred mermaid tales. Priddy’s loved the stories all his life. Now he has to face up to a wildly impossible truth. Merou’s life depends upon his courage and strength, and if Priddy can only find his way in the extraordinary world opening up all around him, all the ocean and a human lifetime needn’t be enough to contain the love between merman and mortal.

Harper Fox is by far the best weaver of tales I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I have one other favorite who is an excellent storyteller, but Harper’s tales are just that: the sort of tales I would imagine would survive history in the telling from one generation to the next. There’s a certain atmosphere present throughout the story, making me almost feel as if I’m an observer in a pub on the Cornish Coast as I listen to a wise old sailor tell us about Priddy and his merman, Merou. 

Priddy suffered brain damage from overusing certain drugs when he was already drunk and not mindful of his decisions. His best friend, Kit, holds himself to blame, so when he leaves for college, he arranges a job for Priddy, manning his grandfather’s lighthouse. The job suits Priddy well as he takes his meds and slowly goes about his tasks. He’s even starting to feel a bit stronger and more content, when one night he spots a boat in trouble, and by the time he gets to shore, he only sees one head bobbing in the water. 

He rushes in to help the drowning man, nearly drowning himself, and is shocked when the man seems to be stronger than he is and ends up rescuing him. Unfortunately, he’s touched the man—a man who he later finds out is a merman—and because he touched him, the man takes on human form (complete with External John Thomas!) and is able to stay “topside” for a while.  When the man named Merou suddenly begins to change back and is in danger of dying from being on land, Priddy manages to find the strength to get him back in the water, thereby saving his life. 

Through a series of on-land and in-sea adventures, the two become close and Priddy is granted a wish for saving Merou’s life, a wish that restores his mental abilities. But the side effect is his development of gills and an eventual change takes place that neither of them had asked for.  In the meantime, Kit has fallen in love with one of his professors, one who has a keen interest in mermaids, and the two show up at the lighthouse, bringing with them more havoc than help when the professor reveals his true nature. 

I’m trying hard not to give anything away, while at the same time, I’m trying to give a brief overview of the grand scope of this story. All his life he’s heard legends of mermaids in that area of the coast so imagine Priddy’s surprise when he realizes they aren’t just a figment of old men’s imaginations.  This story comes complete with mystery and suspense, romance and danger, and a future for both Priddy and Kit that neither man could have envisioned.

I loved the world-building in this story, the three-dimensional characters, and the plausible explanations for things previously thought to be the product of a fertile imagination.  And I loved the love—the love between two men that will survive to infinity and the love of one friend for another—a love that will survive time as a new tale is woven that will be told for future generations to come. 

Honestly? There was nothing about this story I didn’t like, except perhaps for the professor, and he was the perfect villain so no problems there.  I recommend this to all lovers of fantasy, and for those who have had a fascination with mermaids, mermen, and other mythical sea creatures.  Of course, if you love a good tale to be heard around a fire during a cold winter night, this story is just the one to meet your expectations. 

The cover depicts Merou in his human form, wrapped in one of Priddy’s towels, and is very nicely done.

Sales Links

7104e-waxcreative-amazon-kindle

Book Details:

ebook, 159 pages
Published June 20th 2016 by FoxTales Publications
ISBN139781910224557
Edition LanguageEnglish

A Stella Review: Not a Game (Friends #1) by Cardeno C.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Not a Game by Cardeno CAn accidental meeting and a misunderstanding lead to a life-altering connection.

A new job, a new city, and hopefully a new life. When chubby gamer Oliver Barnaby receives a job offer from the best boutique game developer in the country, he leaves his family and his less than spectacular existence in Oklahoma without a second’s hesitation. Determined to change more than his career and his geography, Oliver implements a plan to finally land a boyfriend. Step one is improving his skills in the bedroom.

A life that looks perfect on paper, but feels empty in reality. Attractive, successful, charismatic Jaime Snow has a life other people envy. His already booming business is growing. He isn’t lacking in friends. And he has no trouble finding a date. But there’s an emptiness in Jaime’s heart and a hole in his life that only the right man can fill.

An accidental meeting, a misunderstanding, and falling in love. When Oliver and Jaime end up at the same bar at the same time, they each see something they want in the other. Going to bed together that first night is easy. Building the lifetime relationship they both desperately crave will require trust, time, and a little misunderstanding.

The beginning of a new series by Cardeno. How could I have resisted? I’m a huge fan, some of her stories are among my favorites and she was one of the first mm author I read. She never disappointed me, because honestly? Cardeno C can comfort me in my shitty days like no other author can do. That’s the reason why I often come back to read one of her books.

Not A Game was a pleasure to read, sweet, very hot. The story is exactly what I love to read. It has everything I love. I have to re read it now. I’m so enthusiastic about it, can you feel my joy?

I met Oliver, geeky, chubby gamer developer and Jaime, beautiful and rich, so sure of himself like Oliver is not and I fell in love with them at first reading, just how at first sight Jaime knew he needed Oliver in his pointless life.

They were perfect for each other, opposites attract has never worked so well in another story. Cardeno nailed all my soft spots, age gap included. Yep the misunderstanding is clear to the reader from the start but who cares? I cared about how they worked so well together, how Oliver found himself in an unexpected relationship, how they fell in lust and love so easily, and when Jaime reveled the truth, they were both so into each other, there were no space for useless drama scenes. For once the HEA was unavoidable and what the MCs and the reader deserve.

Easy and light and hot and sweet and tender and real and… ok I’ll stop but I could give you all the positive adjectives I can think of to describe Not A Game. Another big winner from Cardeno C. Don’t miss it.

The cover art by A.J. Corza fits the story, I like it.

Sales Links

6f71e-all2bromance2bbutton

7104e-waxcreative-amazon-kindle

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 220 pages
Published July 15th 2016 by The Romance Authors, LLC
ASINB01IC2BGB4
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Friends #1

A MelanieM Review: The Orchard of Flesh (Arcadia Trust #2) by Christian Baines

Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

The Orchard of FleshReylan’s last assignment for The Arcadia Trust brought a rebellious human servant under his roof, and a volatile werewolf lover named Jorgas into his bed, leaving the self-reliant Blood Shade–known to the outside world as vampires–in no hurry to risk his immortality for them again. But when a new terror starts disappearing humans from a bad part of town, Reylan must do everything in his power to keep Sydney’s supernatural factions from the brink of war. Having an ambitious, meddlesome human in the mix is only going to make things worse…especially when that human is Jorgas’s father. Reylan will need all his determination and cunning to keep the peace under his roof, between the night’s power brokers, and in his lover’s troubled heart.

Christian Baines brings us back into the world of Reylan and the Arcadia Trust series by means of a mystery.  Humans are disappearing from a notoriously bad part of town and suspicions are pointing towards a Blood Shade, the preferred term for vampire.  Reylan is asked to investigate and does so because his interests are closely entwined and his curiosity piqued.

By launching us directly back into the seamy undersides of Sydney, Baines gives us the gritty, reality that is sometimes missing from supernatural novels with a romance bent.  As I mentioned in my previous review of the first story, The Beast Without, there’s no sparkle to be found anywhere near these Blood Shades, thank you very much.  And the werewolves?  They are alpha predators to the bone with neither beings exhibiting any guilt or making apologies about who and what they are.  Its sort of refreshing.

In fact Reylan is an asexual being..except for the fact that Jorgas seems to negate that whenever they come in contact to one another and then the heat between them is almost combustible.  Reylan has to ignore the fact that their union is considered an unholy alliance by all factions outside of themselves.  And what is it about this strange and unusual investigation that has so many threads leading back to not only the most powerful Blood Shade in Sydney, but to Jorgas’ father too.  Baines has a veritable tapestry of plot threads here, and he’s woven them skillfully throughout the novel that it carries us along, throughly connected to the characters, the relationships that are evolving and the new situations that are being revealed.

One of the things I love is the idea here of mannequins, an undead servant that is adopted by a Blood Shade.  It is a big deal, and not done lightly.  Brett, from the first novel is Reylan’s mannequin and things are not going smoothly with his transition from human to mannequin.  Baines lets us see what might happen when that occurs.  Here the person is unprepared and just perhaps, maybe even the wrong choice.  Its a fascinating element and I love watching it evolve.

But for all the locations, the mysteries, the grittiness and just the plain, out and out terrific writing, its the characters that stick with you.  I know they have since the first time I met them in The Beast Without.  I had to wait for this one.  And while, yes there is a bit of a cliffhanger, Baines has promised the wait for the third story won’t be as long.

You should read the first book in the series to get all the world building and characters firmly in place before picking up The Orchard of the Flesh.  But as that remains a favorite of mine, I would have recommended that to you as well anyway. Pick them both up and get started today. This is an amazing series full of remarkable characters.  I can’t wait for the third story  now to arrive.

Cover art is quite wonderful and works for the story and character.

Sales Links

Bold Strokes Books

7104e-waxcreative-amazon-kindle

 

Book Details:

ebook
Published August 16th 2016 by Smashwords Edition
ISBN139781626396500
SeriesArcadia Trust #2 settingSydney (Australia)

Series: Arcadia Trust:

The Beast Without (Arcadia Trust, #1)
The Orchard of Flesh (Arcadia Trust, #2)