Category: 5 star Rating

A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review: Counterpoint (Twisted Wishes #2) by Anna Zabo

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

I honestly didn’t think it would be possible for a sequel to be better than the first story in this series, Syncopation, but I was wrong—very, very wrong. This book exceeded all my expectations and effortlessly moved to my top five of 2018.

Adrian Doran heads out to dinner one night in his Brooklyn neighborhood and happens to be seated next to a stunning, nerdy looking guy who returns his casual perusal with one of his own. Adrian is a computer programmer for a NYC bank by day and a Dom by preference in the rest of his life. When the guy accepts Adrian’s offer of a bite of his lemon meringue pie and then proceeds to moan and make subtle orgasmic facial expressions, Adrian knows what, and who, his next goal is going to be.

Dominic Bradley is a quiet, unassuming bookworm, who enjoys reading most genres of literature, visiting museums, playing his guitar, and being an all-around geek. With Adrian he discovers his submissive side, but he suffers from social anxiety, especially when he needs to take the stage with his bandmates in Twisted Wishes, a well-known rock band. To do so, he dons a new personality, Domino Grinder, a rock god who wears leather, has an upper body covered in tattoos, wears makeup, and throws the finger at the world. The lead guitarist takes bull from no man. But Dominic and Domino can’t coexist and as Dominic succumbs to the allure of a new relationship with Adrian, he’s going to have to hide Domino or risk losing the man.

As their relationship grows and Dominic discovers rope play really cements his submissive role with Adrian, he despairs of ever being able to let Adrian in on who he really is. He desperately wants to introduce him to his bandmates, and he wants to find a way to merge his two sides but backs away from any confrontation until it’s almost too late. When Adrian spots Dominic’s tattoos on the arm of the lead guitarist for Twisted Wishes on a magazine cover, he loses hope for a future with the man he loves. Can these two continue their D/s relationship and continue to grow their love if one can’t trust the other completely?

I love this author’s writing style and creativity. Caught up and totally immersed in the relationship between Adrian and Dom, I rooted for both men equally and was captivated by each page-turn as their lives took new twists and turns. Adrian was being undermined at work in a job that provided no satisfaction. Dominic was playing as Domino all day while the band practiced or did promo events, yet he couldn’t let in the one man who’d make his life even better so switched to Dominic the moment Domino was no longer needed. The dynamic of the two men in both their private D/s lives and their “out in the world” lives was comfortable, strong, balanced, in sync, and loving. But their secrets nearly broke them apart.

I accidentally discovered this author last year, but I am 100% on board as a fan. I have yet to read something that isn’t top quality and I highly recommend this story. In fact, I highly recommend this series to fans who enjoy books featuring musicians, domination/submission, great plots, interesting deep characterizations, and MM romance. 

The gorgeous, attractive cover features a handsome, bearded, dark-haired guitarist—complete with the tattoo described in the story, set against a bright turquoise background, the bottom border of which shows fans at a rock concert. It’s perfect for this story.

Sales Links:  Carina Press | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 1st edition
Expected publication: September 24th 2018 by Carina Press
ISBN139781488089374
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Twisted Wishes #2

Syncopation

Counterpoint

A MelanieM Pre-Release Review: Loving A Warrior by Melanie Hansen

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

BUD/S: six months of the most intense training there is. It’s survival of the toughest, and Matt Knytych is determined to come out the other side a navy SEAL.

Distraction is life or death. And just the sight of former marine Shane Hovland is enough to shake Matt’s concentration.

Shane came to BUD/S training ready to prove himself—again. Semper Fi is forever, but he needs a new start. Not this dangerous heat with a man he barely knows.

Everything they’ve ever wanted is riding on a thin, punishing line. And they’ll have to fight for more than just each other if they want to make it through intact.

After all, the only easy day was yesterday.

 

I started in with Melanie Hanson on her strong military story, Point of Contact.  Reviewed by both Barb, our Zany Old Lady and myself, each of us found it to be a moving, beautifully written 5 star novel. And each for very different reasons.  Now comes Loving a Warrior, the second in what feels like a series of SEALS themed novels and I’m just as caught up in her characters and storytelling as I was in the first.

Unlike the first novel where the men were out, well, one was at the start.  The men here are on a totally different journey.  Several of them in fact.  Both are first of all on that most intensive and exclusive of all paths…the one that might lead to getting their Trident and being a member of the SEALS.  That’s BUD/S training.  Hansen brings us directly into probably something the majority of us will never experience and can never imagine, what those men and now some women go through in their attempts to become SEALS. Only a tiny few make it.  As Shane and Matt are run through the hellish rigors of BUD/S, we are right there, sweating,  straining, even bleeding and almost breaking along with them.  It’s vivid, and so realistic that it makes you think about all the real soldiers going through training at this moment, doing everything they can to reach that almost unreachable goal.  Your heart is with them all.  Those that make it as well as those that don’t.

Along with the unrelenting stress, mental, emotional, and physical of BUD/S, there’s Matt and Shane trying to figure out their magnetic attraction to each other, one that threatens to become more and derail their  focus on their SEAL training which they can’t afford.

Matt and Shane are complex characters, Matt especially so because he’s got a hard veneer and laser focus on his goal to become a SEAL.  So for Shane to start to get under some of the barriers that Matt has erected takes time.  He seeks to understand   Matt and as he does, we do as well.  It works  both ways. Shane also has a background that makes his appear all too shallow when he’s anything but.  Matt makes certain assumptions about Shane that he also needs to overcome and a narrow view of the  future for himself that needs enlarging if they are to have a future.

This is not a HEA, but a realistic HFN as it should be for two soldiers.  I would love to see Melanie Hanson revisit them down the line in a sequel, perhaps as they both go off on assignments.

Loving A Warrior by Melanie Hansen is a beautifully written novel that is full of complex characters and a gripping plot that kept me connected from beginning to end. It is also a wonderful  complement to the first story Point of Contact.  I absolutely recommend this story as well as Point of Contact.  Both are just amazing and I can’t wait for another in this military series to be released.

Cover art is strong and has the characters well defined.  I like it although not as much as the first one.

Sales Links:  Carina Press | Amazon to come

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 1st edition
Expected publication: November 26th 2018 by Carina Press
ASINB07DCTPL94
Edition LanguageEnglish

A MelanieM Review: Heart’s Desire (Boystown #11) by Marshall Thornton

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

It’s February 1985. Nick struggles to recover from a gunshot wound, while taking on the case of a woman with a mental illness, who may or may not have witnessed a murder. As he attempts to determine exactly what the woman saw and how much danger she may be in, he juggles the approaching DeCarlo trial, an ill Mrs. Harker, and the sexually precocious Terry. Valentine’s Day with boyfriend Joseph produces some big changes in their relationship.

Life is evolving, but there’s no guarantee it’s for the better.

I find it interesting how Marshall Thornton has written each book as almost as a mirror held up against the life (both inner reflections and daily outer living) of PI Nick Nowak.  In some books the stories flow along with his struggles, both emotional and physical, occasionally ending up with some light and hope for Nick and the readers.

But with Heart’s Desire (Boystown #11), the latest in this  incredible series, the struggle gets darker, heavier for many around him, including his mother in law  (sort of), his friend with HIV, even his building super.  Oh, and himself, still fighting to recover from being shot  It’s going very slowly.And Nick can’t understand why he’s physically not himself, including no sexual relations with his boyfriend.

Joseph would like Nick to reject jobs that need surveillance, the very things have have gotten him injured.  That’s not something that Nick thinks can he do, and while he’s thinking about his relationship and his health, a case comes his way in fhe form of his super’s sister who believes she’s seen a dead body and refuses to go back to her apartment.  Should be easy excerpt that the  sister has mental  illness and there’s no body.  A typical case for Nick because it’s convoluted, dark, and, connecting the dots for Nick manage to bring him up against people that impinge on other parts of his life.

There are so many obligations and emotional strings tugging at  Nick now.  Mrs. Harker has terminal cancer and facing that and her role in his life is rough for Nick, equally so for Terry, the young student who spends most of his time with her and how has a “mature” boyfriend, another factor Nick and his friends are having issues with.

Marshall Thornton threads all these incredibly complicated storylines through the novel and Nick’s life with such craft and such raw, gritty writing that the narrative and characters stick to your heart, making you think, making you hurt for them.  And in this series and because we know the era and history, we fear for them.  We know what they are dancing around…the elephant in the room.  The tests that some haven’t or won’t take.  AIDS.  It’s the dark shadow that looms over Nick, his lover, and all his friends and any future they might have.

Heart’s Desire (Boystown #11) by Marshall Thornton is a must read story in a must read series.  I’m not sure how many the author plans.  If he intends to finish the 80’s, because we are at 1985 now and he other series, Pinx Video,  starts in the 1990’s.  I want more and yet I fear what’s to come.

I can’t recommend this story and series more highly  enough!

Cover art: Marshall Thornton. Works for branding the series and  storyline.

Sales Link:  Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 210 pages
Published August 10th 2018
ASINB07DFMSRTN
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesBoystown #11

A MelanieM Review: In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic #1) by Marina Vivancos

Rating:  5 stars out of 5

 

Damien is nine years old when his parents die. What should have been the worst moment of his life begins a journey shadowed by loneliness and pain. The night of a full moon, four years and seven foster homes later, Damien flees to the forest, desperate to escape everything.

Instead, he finds the Salgado pack, and the earth beneath his feet shifts. Damien has seen the Salgado children in his school: Koko, who is in his class, and Hakan, two years older and infinitely unreachable. Damien is suddenly introduced into a world that had only ever existed in his imagination, where there is magic in the forest and the moon. He meets creatures that look like monsters, but Damien knows that monsters have the same face as anybody else.

Over the years, Damien and Hakan grow closer. First, just as friends and foster brothers in the Salgado house, and then into something heated and breathless when Damien joins Hakan at college. Despite what he may yearn for in the darkest part of the night, Damien knows, deep down in that bruised and mealy part of his core, that he’s not good enough to be part of the Salgado family, their pack. He’s not worthy of calling Hakan his home.

Even though he knows in the end it’ll hurt him, he’ll hold onto this for as long as he can.

In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic #1) by Marina Vivancos is as hard a book to review as it was at times to read. It’s also a magical, beautifully written, moving, and literary novel.  Full of unbelievable torture and pain and yet still manages to include flights of hope and passages of teenage normality and then flights of wooded spirituality.  And all the time it’s flowing out from the  wounded soul and form of Damien who ages throughout the story starting from the age of nine when he enters the foster system an orphan.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from that blurb but what I got was an  almost epic exploration of Damien’s journey through life. We jump into Damien’s life with a harrowing look at the  foster system.  Then we and Damien plunge into hell when he is delivered into the  horror of a  foster home and  its carers that will set a pattern for him for the next years that will have you wanting to scream. It’s here, listening to Damien’s “voice” as he suffers, withdraws, and internalizes the messages he’s hearing that the book becomes almost unbearable to read. The abuse he’s suffering during these chapters are the ones that warrants the notes at the bottom of this review.  The damage done, not physically, but mentally and emotionally to Damien is such that he carries it with him through the story, not dealing with how much it has truly affected him until 3/4 of the way through.

But while he’s enduring this, mind you he’s only 13, there’s also hope in the form of a pack of shifters unlike any I’ve read about in other stories.  Vivancos brings in a pack that  is layered with a Earth  religion, a spirituality you can feel amazingly, a pack family that comes forward to rescue, support, and finally welcome the human child.  I won’t spoil how incredible a job the author has done with the Soldado pack but for me they became as alive as a walk in the woods.  They  breathed life and that made their connections to Damien even more magical.

The book is broken up into two parts and yes at times is felt a little long as Damien and Hakan went off to college but this is still such a journey for Damien I can see why the author wanted to include each and every scene.Special details were giving to Damien’s emotional and mental health recovery which is an important element here.  Damien could not recover from the horrific abuse he suffered on his own.  He needed professional help, and with the gentle assistance of his friends, lover and pack, he gets the therapy he needs. Some of his session scenes make a powerful but quiet impact.  It’s a responsible thing to do, in my mind, after reading all the scenes in the beginning, for the reader to see Damien finally emerging into hope and light.

Yes, I loved this story and the amazing characters in the pack.  I see that the author is turning it into a series and can’t wait to see where it’s going next.  I do recommend it but please do pay attention to the warnings below.

 

Cover art: Natasha Snow.  That is a gorgeous cover by Natasha Snow.  The mountains, woods, and wolves.  Perfect.

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 1st edition, 325 pages
Published September 3rd 2018
ASINB07GNS5MZ4
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Natural Magic #1

CONTENT WARNING: This book contains themes of emotional and (nonsexual) physical child abuse and the subsequent emotional, cognitive, and behavioural impacts.   Trigger warning also includes scene of suicide attempt by minor, physical and  sexual child abuse.

This story contains sexually explicit scenes between consenting adults and is meant for an adult audience.

A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review: One-Eyed Royals (Seven of Spades #4) by Cordelia Kingsbridge

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

OMG! Get ready for an exciting roller coaster ride, right from the beginning!  Every page held drama. Every. Single. Page. I am so excited by this series—it’s incredible.  I want everyone to read it so I can chat with them about all the emotional twists and turns, ups and downs, and the heartwarming and gut-wrenching action that takes place between these pages.  It’s incredible that the author can continually best the previous book in the series and hold my attention for the length of the book.  I never, repeat NEVER, sit still to read an entire book, but here, except for a few hours of sleep, I did not put this one down.

Where to start?  Well, if you read the previous books you know the strain Dominic and Levi are under—not just from the Seven of Spades who continues to F up their lives, but also with each other. Have no fear though—just because they aren’t together, they manage to find their way to bed a few times and survive the morning-after guilt. 

There’s two concurrent plots going in this one: a kidnapping/extortion ring who murder one of their victims and the Seven of Spades exacting revenge, on behalf of Levi, on the four men who beat him senseless in a gay-bashing when he was in college. They were never IDed, never caught, but Seven finds them and offers them to Levi one by one as a birthday gift.  Oh, joy. 

Those kidnappers, meanwhile, are continuing to kidnap and when payment isn’t made quickly, they gouge out the eye of their victim and send it to the family. The author isn’t satisfied with getting Levi’s and Dominic’s paths to cross multiple times during this investigation, she adds to the drama by having someone close to them kidnapped.  Not saying who, ’cause spoilers…  And then, of course, Dom’s losing his possessions left and right to pay his outstanding gambling debts and to have seed money for more.  Levi’s losing too. He’s losing his temper, losing his appetite, and ultimately losing his job.  There’s so much packed into these pages that’s it’s impossible to even highlight all of it. It just doesn’t stop. Not for a minute. Skip a page and you’ve missed another plot twist.  I love this story, did I mention that?  Love it! 

Don’t despair, however. If you love these guys, hang in for the ending. It’s a pip and thankfully not as much of a cliffhanger as the last one. But, let’s face it, with one more book to go, there’s no way I’d miss a chance to read it, no matter how this one ended. 

Honestly, if you are looking for high quality action adventure, a mystery that spans a five book series—who is the Seven of Spades?—romance, hot sex, addiction and recovery, anger management, murder, mayhem and more, this is the book—and series—to pick up.

The cover by Garrett Leigh, like others in the series, features playing cards, in this case, the cards are set against a dark background and blood is dripping from them onto the floor. 

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 366 pages
Published September 10th 2018 by Riptide Publishing
ISBN139781626496392
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Seven of Spades :

Kill Game

Trick Roller

Cash Plays

One-Eyed Royals

A Chip and a Chair – coming soon the last book in the series.

Review Tour and Giveaway for In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic #1) by Marina Vivancos

 

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK
 
Cover Design: Natasha Snow
 
Length: 85,000 words approx.
 
Blurb
 

Damien is nine years old when his parents die. What should have been the worst moment of his life begins a journey shadowed by loneliness and pain. The night of a full moon, four years and seven foster homes later, Damien flees to the forest, desperate to escape everything.

Instead, he finds the Salgado pack, and the earth beneath his feet shifts. Damien has seen the Salgado children in his school: Koko, who is in his class, and Hakan, two years older and infinitely unreachable. Damien is suddenly introduced into a world that had only ever existed in his imagination, where there is magic in the forest and the moon. He meets creatures that look like monsters, but Damien knows that monsters have the same face as anybody else.

Over the years, Damien and Hakan grow closer. First, just as friends and foster brothers in the Salgado house, and then into something heated and breathless when Damien joins Hakan at college. Despite what he may yearn for in the darkest part of the night, Damien knows, deep down in that bruised and mealy part of his core, that he’s not good enough to be part of the Salgado family, their pack. He’s not worthy of calling Hakan his home.

Even though he knows in the end it’ll hurt him, he’ll hold onto this for as long as he can.

CONTENT WARNING: This book contains themes of emotional and (nonsexual) physical child abuse and the subsequent emotional, cognitive, and behavioural impacts.

 

Read Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 5 stars Review here.
Author Bio
 
When Marina was a child she couldn’t sleep. Night after dissolving night she just couldn’t sleep. Nothing much worked – until she started making up stories in her head. Suddenly, the transition into unconsciousness was a smooth dive into calm waters.


Marina is currently in a period of sleepless upheaval, and she hopes writing down the stories in her head will cast the same spell it did decades ago.


Marina hopes to write in a variety of romance sub-genres, from contemporary to supernatural to sci-fi. Her style, however, tends to focus on character-centred stories that explore different facets of the human experience, such as mental health. She also enjoys writing explicit, drawn-out sex scenes, so expect those to be a prominent feature of her stories.


Marina tends to keep to herself unless prompted, so don’t be shy in approaching her! 
 

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