Category: Contemporary fiction

A Stella Review: Motorcycle Man by Sarah Hadley Brook

RATING 3,5 out of 5 stars

Motorcycle shop owner Ben Makowski offers a three-day class for new riders. When he finds out one of his students doesn’t even like motorcycles, he’s irritated but drawn to the man at the same time. Though he can clearly see the new student is dealing with something difficult, Ben sets out to get to know what that might be and if he can help in any way.

Writer Angus Winter’s publisher has insisted he learn about motorcycles for an upcoming book, which is the last thing he wants to do. His fear of motorcycles stems from a tragedy in his past. But something about his sexy new teacher makes him want to open up to the man. Can Angus trust Ben with the burden he’s carried for so long?

Motorcycle Man is a lovely and emotional short about Angus and Ben, two persons so different from each other, it seems impossible something between them can happen. Angus is not Ben’s type, still the spark is there from the start, so strong probably the lust at first sight could become love.

Angus is a writer and he has been forced by his publisher to attend Ben’st class even if he wants nothing to do with motorcycles. Ben is drawn to the young redhaired cutie and he knows there is something underneath his unwillingness, anyway he is too attracted to Angus to let him go away.

This is a short story, just forty pages and there is really not much space for a lot of development or background about the characters, but the author told me what I needed to know to actually enjoy the story. I met the important persons in Ben’s life, I discovered why Angus is so scared of bikes, I felt his pain and I saw a potential HEA between the MCs.

I’m pretty satisfied with Motorcycle Man and I will continue to read the author next works.

The cover designed by Written Ink Designs is simple and clean, I like it.

SALE LINKS: AMAZON  |  JMS BOOKS

BOOK DETAILS

Kindle Edition, 41 pages

Published January 13th 2018 by JMS Books LLC

ASIN B0785WKFT9

Edition Language English

Release Blitz Tour and Giveaway for Meg Harding’s Contour

 

Universal Buy Link: books2read.com/ContourMH



Length: 52,000 words approx


Cover Design: Garrett Leigh @ Black Jazz Design


Blurb

Jamie “Roxy” Albright has one great love in his life and room for no other. He lives and breathes makeup. Men are nothing more than temporary distractions and romance… well, that isn’t worth his time. With a burgeoning career as a YouTube makeup artist opening doors to never before dreamed of opportunities, time isn’t something Jamie has and distractions aren’t something he can afford.

Instagram model and shirtless wonder Tyler Jackson is quickly falling for elusive Jamie. How it went from a seemingly innocent message to feelings, he’ll never know. Their chemistry is instant and fiery hot, and Tyler’s never been that good at self control. The challenges are endless, though. There’s Jamie’s walls to break through and a country worth of space between them. And just when things are starting to look up, life throws a wrench in the works.

Meg Harding is a graduate of UCF, and recently completed a masters program for Publishing in the UK. For as long as she can remember, writing has always been her passion, but she had an inability to ever actually finish anything. She’s immensely happy that her inability has fled and looks forward to where her mind will take her next. She’s a sucker for happy endings, the beach, and superheroes. In her dream life she owns a wildlife conservation and is surrounded by puppies. She’s a film buff, voracious reader, and a massive geek.



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A MelanieM Review: Open Net (Cayuga Cougars #2) by V.L. Locey

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

August Miles has the world on a string professionally.

Augie, as his friends and teammates call the unassuming young goaltender, is on the fast track to the pros. The starting goalie for the Cayuga Cougars, he has a year or two in Cayuga to hone his skills and all his career dreams will have come true. Pity his personal life isn’t riding the same high. He’s the only one among his group of friends without that special someone to call his own.

Until he meets Salvatore Castenada at a lakeside party. The attraction is white-hot and more than a little wonderfully overwhelming for the romantically inexperienced goalie. August quickly discovers that Sal is everything he’s dreamed of in a man: mature, settled, sinfully handsome, and filled with gentle humor. Sal is also HIV positive.

Will Sal’s revelation about his status end this budding relationship before it can even begin? Or will the two men be able to handle the challenges life—and a championship run for the Cougars—throws at them?

The second in the Cayuga Cougars series, Open Net is a marvelous joining of hockey and romance by V.L. Locey.  This author is amazing at this love/hockey combo because of her in depth knowledge and love for the game which flows through her narrative like a hockey puck on ice.  Here the hockey player who falls in love is a goalie, that special quirky teammate on ice that every team has.  He’s  past oddball, having  some indefinable character element that all great and even not so great goalies must have.  And Locey captures that in the persona of Augie, aka August Miles.   How I love Augie.  I see him so clearly even now, adopted late in life elderly  parents, raised out in the middle of nowhere in Manitoba, hockey is his life.  It’s his only thing until he meets Salvatore  “Sal”Castenada and realizes Sal is everything.

Except Sal is also HIV positive.  It’s a defining moment in both men’s lives.  Sal is older, hurt by one moment in life when he was a trusting innocent and is now paying the price.  He has been also hurt when he’s tried to date and start a  romance again only to find out that his HIV status is a barrier few will cross.

Locey accurately details life with HIV as well what it means to date someone who’s HIV positive.  She does so while maintaining a heartwarming, loving relationship between Augie and Sal.  And she deals realistically with the reactions of those of the people around them as well, both for and against.

And while Augie and Sal are working on their relationship, Augie is also working within his team to become the best goalie he can be. I love the action in the ring, the playing time!  Its fast, fierce and as much of the story as the romance!  Combine both and you have one outstanding novel and a great series!

Love romance?  Hockey players in love?  Grab up this story and the others too.  You can’t go wrong with the Cayuga Cougars and their partners…on and off the ice.  I highly recommend them.

Cover art by Riverie Design and Formatting: love it.  Great job.

Sales Links: – Amazon US | Amazon UK

Book Details:

book, 200 pages
Published August 16th 2017 by V.L. Locey
Original TitleOpen Net — Cayuga Cougars #2
ISBN139781386038474
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesCayuga Cougars #2

A MelanieM Review: On Davis Row by N.R. Walker

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Nearing the end of a suspended jail sentence should unlock a brighter future for CJ Davis, only the chip on his shoulder is as hard to shift as his bad reputation. Born into a family of career criminals who live down Davis Road, an address the cops have dubbed Davis Row, his name alone is like a rap sheet that makes optimism impossible.

Brand-new parole officer Noah Huxley is determined to see the good in men like CJ. After all, he knows firsthand that bad things can happen to good people. His colleagues mock his doe-eyed optimism, but Noah soon sees CJ’s bad attitude and bravado are weapons he uses to keep people at a distance.

Both men know one simple mistake can change a life forever. At first glance, they might seem to be polar opposites. Yet underneath, they’re not that different at all.

On Davis Row is another heartwarming, excellently written novel by N.R. Walker.  CJ Davis is born carrying a name that marks him as a criminal for the community that he lives in.  It doesn’t matter that he’s trying to escape all that name means or the people he comes from,  Just the  name itself brands him and beats him down.  He’s a Davis.  And  one small mistake costs him dearly and sends him off to prison where another would have gotten off.

Walker lets us into the heart and mind of  CJ the man who wanted hope and a future and found hell and a prison instead.  Now out he’s back working for the only man, outside of his Pops to offer him help and friendship, the man who runs the carshop where he worked growing up.  CJ is out but his situation is much the same. Until Noah Huxley comes into his life.

NR Walker’s stories are realistic and gritty as they can be hopeful and loving.  That’s a careful balance to maintain, especially with dealing with the subject matters here.  The author can’t gloss over the familial abuse, criminal family history, and prison past of CJ.  It haunts his every step.  Plus Noah’s work as a parole officer throws him up against the very prison system CJ just came out of and the man who sent him there.  You need to believe in the system and CJ’s family for CJ’s foundation to be real.   And it does.

But you also need the hope, the ability for a second chance for CJ to feel just as believable and NR Walker gives us that as well in the relationship that slowly builds up between Noah and CJ, despite all of CJ’s best defensive best efforts.

This is a marvelous story, just the type of NR Walker tale I love.  I just get so emotionally invested in these men and their HEA that when the end finally swoops in, it still manages to take me by surprise.  I’m overjoyed, sad to see another NR Walker story end, and start looking forward to another.

And yes, I highly recommend this one.

Sales Links:  Amazon

Book Details:

29 pages
Published November 27th 2017

A MelanieM Review: Coach’s Challenge (Cayuga Cougars #3) by V.L. Locey

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Victor Kalinski and his husband, Dan Arou, are living the dream. Married for over a year now, the couple have settled into life in Cayuga surrounded by friends, family, and a team that’s poised to make another championship run. Each man is enjoying professional success as well as personal bliss. Who knew life in the suburbs with a spouse and a child could be so darn satisfying? Not Vic. K, that’s for sure.

The happy times are about to turn rough, though. The Cougars have picked up a new player, Sander March, a brash young center whose sass, skill, and attitude can rival Victor’s. When it’s revealed that this new player and Dan have history, tensions begin to rise between the newlyweds. As Victor and Dan work on those issues, the one person Victor never thought he would meet arrives in the small New York hamlet and proceeds to flip everything in Vic’s life upside down.

Can Victor and Dan’s marriage withstand what life is about to drop on it, or will the challenges be too much for them to handle?

Out of all of the three books in this terrific series by V.L. Locey, Coach’s Challenge (Cayuga Cougars #3) is by far the best.  It’s just superb in every way.  From the  excellent writing to the nuanced characters to multiple elements the author uses in this story, Coach’s Challenge just continued to surprise me with it’s depth, it’s ability to swing between emotions and subjects without feeling abrupt or jarring, or losing it’s powerful edge.

Most of that is due to the complex, tormented man Victor Kalinski, the Coach of Coach’s Challenge.  Married to hockey player Dan Arou, their lives are centered around the AHL team Cayuga Cougars, but his personal demons are driving him constantly.  With a back history being abandoned by his father, then left to be raised alone with a unbalanced, drug crazed mother who physically, mentally and emotionally tortured him since he was a baby? Yes, anger , self worth, and trust issues abound, even though he’s finally found happiness with Dan.

The reader is given a front row seat to the inner turmoil and fire that’s  the mind and heart of Victor Kalinski.  It’s doesn’t matter whether we are at the hockey ring watching the goalie in his “butterfly defense” posture (and having Locey easily sliding in an explanation of what that is for hockey neophytes) or sitting in his therapist’s office for one of their gut wrenching sessions.  Oh those sessions! As Victor fights against the  questions she’s asking him, the dialog runs from outright hilarity to breakdown sobbing that has you reaching for the tissues as well.   If I could reach out to the author for all the dialog and just for this man alone, I would be hugging her and giving her a writing award.

And while we are glued to the incredible passion and drama that is Victor Kalinski, that means we are bound also to those around him.  Dan Arou, who’s love for Vic, means he has to navigate the emotionally troubled  times, the anger, self hate, and in this case, jealousy of Dan’s past love life, that comes with being with Victor, both as a Coach and as a husband.  Watching the interplay and relationship dynamics, so grownup, between these  men, is such a pleasure.  They actually talk things through, working out issues as grownups should.  They talk about his sessions with his therapist, how it affects them, more issues to be discussed, very aware that’s nothing is resolved or can be when you are dealing with years of abuse  such as Victor’s.  His scars are deep, not just the ones you see on the surface.

Every character here is a pleasure to meet.  I loved his therapist, the hockey players we have come to know and love in the prior stories, his son and baby mama (Victor is bi), everyone here is given the Locey treatment.  By that I mean, each one feels alive, fully dimensional, and able to shoulder an entire story on their own because their personalities and lives have foundation and are real to me.

I love hockey (go Caps) so having a series and this story where the author’s exuberance for the sport and its players flows over every word and page is such a joy to read.  Combine that with outstanding storylines and characters so memorable that you want to stay in their lives a little longer?  Well, if I could give this story more than 5 stars I would.    And I can’t wait to see where this series goes next.

I highly recommend Coach’s Challenge (Cayuga Cougars #3) by V.L. Locey.   Excellent in every way.

Cover Design:  Rêverie Design & Formatting.  I wish that  black and white scene was a little more well defined.  I like the overall composition but it’s grayed out too much and it’s hard to see.  Plus the model in the back is way too young for the men n the story.

Sales Links:

Amazon US | Amazon UK |  B&N  |  iTunes   |  Kobo 

Book Details:

ebook, 154 pages
Published January 10th 2018 by Self-Published (first published January 8th 2018)
Original Title Coach’s Challenge — Cayuga Cougars #3
ISBN13 9781386044130
Edition Language English
Series Cayuga Cougars #3