Category: Contemporary fiction

A MelanieM Review: Wheels Up (Out of Uniform #4) by Annabeth Albert

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Their love is forbidden, but their hearts aren’t listening to rules and regulations.

Lieutenant Dustin Strauss is a reformed man. No longer a twentysomething hell-raiser, he’s his SEAL team’s new XO-and a man with a secret. Or seven. He’s kept his bisexual identity under wraps for years, along with his kinky side and a fondness for the military-themed semi-anonymous hookup website Joe4Joe. His latest chat buddy is more than a sexy online distraction-they’re taking their very not-safe-for-work relationship into real time.

Petty Officer Wes Lowe has a smart mouth, a take-charge attitude and an uncanny ability for making things go boom. The life of an enlisted man isn’t always enough to satisfy him, but one wild, no-questions-asked weekend with his online love comes close. When a transfer order comes in, Wes feels ready and centered. He’ll make a good impression on his new SEAL team and keep his growing feelings for Dustin on the down low.

But as they log more time online and some very real emotions surface, Dustin and Wes struggle to pretend they’re just a harmless fling. And when his commander introduces Dustin to his team’s newest member, they’re in for the shock of a lifetime…and a crushing disappointment: their difference in ranks means even a friendship without sexual contact could end their navy careers for good.

With their hearts on the line, Dustin and Wes may not survive their next mission, let alone find a way toward a future together.

Wheels Up is the fourth story in Annabeth Albert’s Out of Uniform series and it’s just outstanding.  One of the things I look forward to in every story is a different window on Navy life, in particular the SEALs.  Here the element is fraternization, something I hadn’t really given any thought to, why the military (all branches) would have such a rule in place and its impact on those who fall in love with the wrong rank.  Of course it doesn’t start out that way.  It all starts out in complete lovely ignorance and lust.

Lieutenant Dustin Strauss and Petty Officer Wes Lowe meet through an ap called Joe4Joe, a  Grindr sort of hookup place and startup an “online” relationship, part lust/part growing friendship.  They have no idea of their real names or jobs, just that they seem to get along and might be sliding into something real if they let it.  Albert’s believable characters and wonderful dialog brings us wholly into Dusty and Wes’ lives, both together online and separately as a SEAL (Dusty) and a demolitions man (Wes).

We need the alternate perspectives because both men lead such full, stress-filled lives.  For Wes, that includes a younger sister Sam, with a life threatening illness as well as being a ordinance or demolitions man, meaning explosives.  For Dusty he’s now a XO,  and as the oldest and “last straight” son of the family, the pressures from his father to be that family man is forcing him to hide the fact that he’s bisexual and he’s resenting the fact that out of all the other sons, he’s the one shouldering the burden.  Two men, lives of unbelievable strain and responsibility and their outlet is each other via the internet and anonymity, a wall they no longer may want to hide behind.

The author makes their online “connection” hot, sexy and emotionally intimate.  We can feel the bond that’s formed between them and the fear that rises when the moment comes to meet in RL.

Of course, nothing prepares either man  for what happens afterward, after the “after meeting” and the coincidence of Wes ending up under Dusty’s command.  And that’s where I think this story really takes flight.  Because the fraternization policy is in place for a reason.  To protect those of lower rank from being abused from their officers (something that does occur in the service).  It’s a good rule and it should be enforced.  But Albert looks at it from the flip side.  What happens when a couple who loves each other also has to abide by the same law, there’s no addendums that apply.  This storyline comes across as fresh and authentic.  The pain each man feels is anguished and in the moment.  Their need for each other immediate and unlawful.  Plus you have to look at the impact it has on their teammates which Albert also covers in a frank manner.

We travel every hard step with each man, through the family drama, the military minefields, the emotional and mental roads they must traverse.  There’s some kink, some bdsm as Dusty needs to let go and have someone else been in charge.  It’s understandable and hot.  Wes and Dusty together are an unforgettable pair.

The only thing that keeps this from an absolute 5 stars rating is that I wanted a look a little into their future I guess, not far, maybe months or a year.  I guess I wasn’t ready to let them go yet.  Maybe the author is listening and I’ll see them again soon.  Here’s hoping.  Until then, pick it up and begin your new Out of Uniform journey with Dustin Strauss and Wes Lowe, a hot, sexy, team in and out of the bed!  I highly recommend them and this series.

Cover art is perfect for both men and this story. Loved it.

Sales Links: Carina Press | Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 320 pages
Expected publication: November 6th 2017 by Carina Press
Original TitleWheels Up
ASINB072MFM798
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Out of Uniform

A MelanieM Review: Calloway by Thad J.

Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5

Welcome to the Township of Calloway! Home of the world-famous Daddy Cains’ Foods Company, a staple for the local community.

No one knows this better than James (Jimmy) Cain, heir to the family business, and his father’s pride and joy. With his limitless resources and a family that is always there for him, his life could not be more perfect. But that changes when he meets Benjamin Rei.

A determined and intelligent man, Benjamin is a junior acquisitions officers eager to close his first major purchase. His company has set Daddy Cains’ between its crosshairs and will stop at nothing to get it. Although Benjamin has a simple enough task, people and forces outside of his control will test the limits of just how far he is willing to go to make it to the top.

First of all, I’m well-versed in Southern small town living, having parents who both grew up in small southern towns and scads of relatives (whole States worth) who never left and send invitations to family reunions regularly. So I always look forward to books that have that theme or location going for them.  Calloway certainly seems to fit the bill.

However, don’t go looking for this to be a romance, as it’s not really.  More like a family drama, southern style.  In Calloway, author Thad J. lays down his foundation of town history, complicated intertwined relationships going back decades (or further), current explosive family dynamics, and the power struggle going on for control of the world-famous Daddy Cains’ Foods Company.  If that sounds like a lot of exposition, it is.   Calloway is crammed full, so much at times you might just need a notepad to keep all the players straight.

It helps that the dialog is lively, the characters interesting… like James (Jimmy) Cain who is both constant sexdog and crafty businessman, ditto his father.  However, I found Benjamin less than charming.  I suspect I’m supposed to like him and connect more with him as an outsider, however, given my background, I saw him more as an interloper and his acts self serving or worse.  No matter where I was in the story, my vision of Ben never really changed, that includes the ending.

There are many twists and turns here, some really neat ones, some you see coming.  And the end is, depending upon how you look at it either a nonexistent or a total cliffhanger, which is my way of saying you have no idea of how it ends.  Not my favorite here or elsewhere and it brought the rating down.

If you’re a fan of southern literature, snappy dialog and surprise twists, Calloway might be the book for you.  Just  don’t way I didn’t warn you about the ending.

Cover Artist: Natasha Snow.  I like the cover.  BBQ contests and pop.  Very appealing.

Sales Links:  NineStar Press | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 271 pages
Published July 10th 2017 by NineStar Press
ISBN13 9781947139404
Edition Language English

A Stella Recent Release Review: Five Dares by Eli Easton

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Andy Tyler has been the class daredevil since middle school. Over the years, he’s convinced his best friend, Jake Masterson, to perform some dangerous-looking stunts with him. But the dare they attempt on the night of their college graduation goes sideways. The firecrackers explode too soon and both of them end up with badly burned palms.

But hey, nothing gets the “terrible two-o” down for long, and they recuperate in style at Andy’s family cottage in Cape Cod . As the weeks go by, both Andy and Jake grow frustrated over the inability to use their hands for all sorts of daily activities—including getting off. So Andy begins a new series of dares that don’t just cross the friendship line, they obliterate it.

But what might be mere sexual relief to Andy is serious business to Jake, who only recently got over years of secret pining for his straight best friend. Inevitably, the burns heal, summer ends, and hearts are broken. To fix things, Andy will have to face the greatest dare of all.

Eli Easton writes is a success, her name has simply become a guarantee of great quality to me, there is really no space for boring or shallow stories.

I love the kind of books like Five Dares, because I adore the friends to lovers trope  and Andy and Jack were perfect, friends so close, so devoted to each other. They were great as just friends and then amazing as lovers. They were hot together when sex was just a sort of experiment (for Andy) and then when they realised that something big was happening all the past years fell into the right perspective. Although Jack was already in love with his best friend, not once I had doubts this was used against him, not even when Andy knew Jack’s feelings.
I want to recommend Five Dares, I found it very well done. The reading flew easily thanks to a perfect writing that makes the reader able to be right there with the characters and fall in love with their lives. I liked how the chapters are grouped into the five dares. And the double POV is exactly what I prefer to understand the MCs minds.
I’m deeply satisfied with this new release by Eli Easton.
Cover art by Natasha Snow is amazing and perfect.
Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon
 
Book Details:
ebook, 245 pages
Published October 2nd 2017 by Riptide Publishing
Original Title Five Dares
ISBN139781626496507
Edition LanguageEnglish
setting Cape Cod, Massachusetts (United States)
Massachusetts (United States)
California (United States)

In Our Spotlight: Five Dares by Eli Easton (Riptide Publishing Tour and Giveaway)

Five Dares by Eli Easton
Riptide Publishing
Cover art by Natasha Snow

Read an Excerpt/Buy it Here at Riptide Publishing

 

Love contemporary Romance?  Check out the latest from Eli Easton and Riptide Publishing and don’t forget to enter the contest too!

About Five Dares

Andy Tyler has been the class daredevil since middle school. Over the years, he’s convinced his best friend, Jake Masterson, to perform some dangerous-looking stunts with him. But the dare they attempt on the night of their college graduation goes sideways. The firecrackers explode too soon and both of them end up with badly burned palms.

But hey, nothing gets the “terrible two-o” down for long, and they recuperate in style at Andy’s family cottage in Cape Cod. As the weeks go by, both Andy and Jake grow frustrated over the inability to use their hands for all sorts of daily activities—including getting off. So Andy begins a new series of dares that don’t just cross the friendship line, they obliterate it.

But what might be mere sexual relief to Andy is serious business to Jake, who only recently got over years of secret pining for his straight best friend. Inevitably, the burns heal, summer ends, and hearts are broken. To fix things, Andy will have to face the greatest dare of all.

Now available from Riptide Publishing! 

About Eli Easton

Having been, at various times and under different names, a minister’s daughter, a computer programmer, a game designer, an author of paranormal thrillers, a fan-fiction writer, an organic farmer, and a profound sleeper, Eli Easton is happy these days writing love stories.

As an avid reader of such, she is tinkled pink when an author manages to combine literary merit, vast stores of humor, melting hotness, and eye-dabbing sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most of that most of the time. She currently lives on a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, three bulldogs, two cows, a cat, and a potbellied pig. She enjoys reading in all genres and, when she can be pried away from her iPad, hiking and biking.

Eli Easton has published 24 books in m/m romance since 2013. She won the Rainbow Award for Best Contemporary Romance in 2014 (The Mating of Michael) and in 2016 (A Second Harvest). Her Howl at the Moon series of humorous dog shifter romances have become fan favorites and placed in the Rainbow Awards and the Goodreads M/M Group Reader’s Choice awards. She is best known for romances with humor and a lot of heart.

Connect with Eli:

● Website: www.elieaston.com

● Facebook

● Twitter: @EliEaston

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Five Dares, one lucky winner will receive a $20 Riptide gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on October 7, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

 

 

Release Blitz for Amy Aislin’s Picture Winter (excerpt and giveaway)

 

 
Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK
 
Cover Design: Melody Pond
 
Publisher: MLR Press
 
Length: 47,000 words approx.
 
Blurb
 

Do something new today.


Why he looks at his horoscope every day, Elias Hood doesn’t know. It’s all garbage, and no nickel fortune ever helped him climb all the way up the corporate ladder. He’s about to make Vice President. Rocking the boat with “something new” is the last thing on his mind.


But there’s this guy.


Ty Green can make friends with a tree and Elias can’t help falling for his easy-going vibe and his perfect smile. He’s a fellow Capricorn, like Elias, but that’s as far as their similarities go. Ty works to live–he doesn’t live to work. When Elias takes his horoscope’s advice and asks Ty out, both men are in for a shock. But as Elias’s walls start to come down, they might just realize that they have more in common than they think. In fact, they might even want the exact same thing.


Who knows? Maybe horoscopes aren’t just trash after all.

Excerpt
 

Two hours later, they hit first a chain grocery store in Guelph—Ty didn’t even have milk to go with his one cereal box—then a small cafe where they had a late brunch.


“Did you know a banana is actually a berry?” Ty asked.


Elias looked at him, wondering what brought on that particular point of conversation.


“Says so right here.” Ty slid his paper placemat—full of random food facts and pictures—closer to Elias. Elias’s placemat had a fill-in-the-dots drawing, a tiny crossword, a word scrambler, a maze, and a spot-the-difference challenge.Clearly the universe was playing a cosmic joke. He’d ended up with the children’s placemat irrespective of the eighteen-year-old lookalike sitting across from him.


“So, it’s really a bananaberry?” Elias asked.


For some reason Ty thought that was hilarious. After dropping the groceries off at Ty’s, they headed to the Starkey Hill Interpretive Trail for some snowshoeing. Of course it took Ty all of five seconds to find his snowshoes and poles, and yet the lube and condoms were still MIA.


But that was fine. They’d stocked up at the store.


Elias brought his camera. It went everywhere with him anyway, but he’d been an idiot yesterday, leaving it in his car all day and then overnight in the cold. He was damn lucky it had turned on this morning.


Landscape and wildlife photography were his passions, but he found himself distracted today by Ty’s perfect face. Even in his ugly, poofy snowman coat he looked good enough to pounce on. He looked like a graceful angel on his snowshoes. By contrast Elias felt like an unbalanced bear. He kept forgetting to widen his stance so that he didn’t step on his snowshoe frame with the other foot.


“What are you doing?”


Elias was on his back in the snow, camera held up to his face as he focused on a blue jay in a leafless tree above him. From below like this, it’d be a really cool shot, the bird’s blue feathers stark against the dull brown tree branches. He could probably submit the photo to CanadaBirds—a sister magazine of CanadaTravels—for consideration. Zooming his lens accordingly and adjusting his manual settings, he tried to keep very still so the bird didn’t get scared and take off. He wanted a bit of a blurry background so he set his f-stop to—


—A nose pinked from the cold appeared in his viewfinder. He was so surprised he hit the shutter-release by accident. And when he saw the image that appeared on his monitor, he couldn’t help but chuckle, sending the blue jay scurrying off.


“What’s so funny?”


Elias turned the camera to show Ty. Ty peered at it, squinted, and said, “I look hot.”


It was a picture of his left nostril and part of his eye. Elias kept laughing.


“Here, take a better one,” Ty said and plopped down in the snow next to Elias.


“Oh, no,” Elias said. “I don’t really get in front of the cam—”


Ty had the picture taken before Elias could finish his sentence. Except none of the settings had been adjusted, so instead of a selfie of the two of them, Elias had a blurry picture of what might have been his own beard or could’ve been the tree trunk behind them.


Ty cracked up.


Elias took a picture of him like that, head thrown back, eyes half-closed, mouth wide, teeth glistening bright as the snow that was also stuck in his hair now. That way he’d have this moment forever and could always look back on it and remember how good it felt to be in that first honeymoon phase of dating someone who felt about Elias the same way Elias felt about him, when everything was wonderful and new and fun.


That carefree laughter was the best kind of kick in the gut. Without thinking twice about it, he moved in on Ty and kissed his still laughing mouth. Ty was still chuckling as he kissed Elias back, mouth cold, tongue warm. It took hardly any prompting from Elias for Ty to roll himself on top of him but Ty’s coat was so slick that he landed on Elias and then slipped off him, landing on Elias’s other side, which only made him laugh harder. His good mood was contagious, and Elias laughed with him until the snow started soaking into his jeans.


“Come on, you goof,” Elias said, getting up with difficulty. Stupid snowshoes. “Let’s head back so we can get out of this cold.”


The wind chill was supposed to drop again overnight, and they could already feel it even though sunset was still three hours away.


“Let’s go winter camping,” Ty said, standing much more nimbly.


“What, now?” Never happen.


“No, not now.” Ty headed back onto the trail, in the direction they’d come from. Elias followed. “Next weekend?”


“You have a birthday party next weekend,” Elias reminded him, eyes on his feet so he didn’t trip himself up again. “Plus,” he continued, so that Ty didn’t think he was angling for an invite, “I hate to break it to you…but I don’t camp in winter.”


“Awww, but I wanna go camping with you.”


“Well, I wanna fuck you silly, so let’s go do that instead.”


For the first time since they started snowshoeing an hour and a half ago, Ty fell flat on his face.

 

Author Bio


Amy started writing on a rainy day in fourth grade when her class was forced to stay inside for recess. Tales of adventures with her classmates quickly morphed into tales of adventures with the characters in her head. Based in the suburbs of Toronto, Amy is a marketer at a large environmental non-profit in Toronto by day, and a writer by night. Book enthusiast, animal lover and (very) amateur photographer, Amy’s interests are many and varied, including travelling, astronomy, ecology, and baking.


Amy loves connecting with readers! You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Twitter or sign up for her infrequent newsletter at www.amyaislin.com/signup

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Release Blitz for Changing On The Fly Anthology- Various Authors

 

 
Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK |  Barnes & Noble | KOBO 
 
Blurb



Changing on the Fly is a celebration of romance, featuring four M/M stories about hockey players falling in love on ñ and off ñ the ice. All proceeds from the anthology will be donated to a charity that supports inclusiveness in athletics.


The anthology will be available starting in October 4, 2017, for a limited time only.


It includes the following stories:


Head in the Game by Jeff Adams
Second Chance at Love by Heather Lire
Rookie Moves by V.L. Locey
Secrets by Rj Scott

 

Jeff Adams’- Head in the Game

After a disastrous breakup, pro hockey defenseman Roger Jacobson’s game is slipping. With his contract up for renewal he has to do something quick because his fourteen-year career is on the line. Roger returns to his hometown to work with his old coach, while helping run the summer hockey camp. But Dylan Baker, a handsome graduate student and the coach’s son, proves to be a romantic distraction that Roger couldn’t have anticipated.

Can Roger’s trip home fix his game and mend his broken heart?



Heather Lireí’s Second Chance at Love

Growing up in Holiday, Vermont Zach and Tony were best friends. After high school, they drifted apart as their lives and careers took them in different directions. When they run into each other on vacation they fall back into the easy friendship they’d had as kids.

The one thing they didn’t expect was the sexual tension between them. As they explore these new feelings for each other they discover that sometimes the last person they expected fall for is their Second Chance at Love.



V.L. Locey’s Rookie Moves

It’s been three months since New York Nightwings superstar center and captain, Riley Zeally, came out. The glare of the media has been incredibly bright but Riley’s used to dealing with the spotlight. His boyfriend, Keiffer, isn’t. The intense scrutiny of being at the side of such a huge sports star is proving to be incredibly stressful for the one-time hustler.

Details about his former life on the streets is now common knowledge, his life with Riley is under a magnifying glass, and his past is about to step out of the shadows in an even bigger way. Can a rookie in the ways of the press and professional athletics survive the pressure of sharing his life with the league’s most famous gay player? Will the tentative new love Riley and Keiffer share fold under the weight of fans and fame?



RJ Scottí’s Secrets

Benji is the skater in the league who brings down the height average. Coming in at five eight, he’s used to players chirping at him all night about his height.

Including the sexy defenseman for the Carlisle Rush, Avery Lester, with his stunning eyes and his cute smile.

When Benji makes a single inappropriate comment about Avery’s ass, everything goes to hell. Add in Avery’s heroics during a hate crime, and things just go from bad to worse.

Abruptly it’s not his height Benji has to worry about, but the chance that his closely guarded secret is shared all over the Internet.

Can love find a way, or will keeping secrets tear Benji and Avery apart?

 
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Jeff Adams has written stories since he was in middle school and became a gay romance writer in 2009 when his first short stories were published. Since then he’s written several more shorts and novels, including some in the young adult genre, and he plans to keep writing as long as wonderful readers keeping picking up his books.

Jeff lives in rural Northern California with his husband of twenty years, Will. Some of his favorite things include the musicals Rent and title of show, the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins hockey teams, and the reality TV competition So You Think You Can Dance. If forced to pick his favorite book it would be a tie between Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and David Levithan’s Every Day.

He also co-hosts the weekly show Jeff & Will’s Big Gay Fiction Podcast with his husband. You can learn more at BigGayFictionPodcast.com



If youíd like to drop him an email to say hello, or if you have questions/comments about his books, you can use the contact form.

 
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Heather Lire has traveled all over the world, speaks several languages, collects romance books like they’re going out of style, and has multiple book boyfriends. Ok, she hasn’t been all over the world, except in her mind. She does however speak multiple languages and collect romance books. Her long-suffering husband and sons roll their eyes at all her book boyfriends. When she’s not busy on her next novel she can be found in her classroom where teaches one of those many languages, at one of her sons many sporting events or on twitter talking about what else, romance books.

Heather is also one half of the paranormal writing duo Kenzie MacLir.

 

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V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and two Jersey steers.

When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand. She can also be found online on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and GoodReads.



Website
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Goodreads
Blog

 
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RJ Scott is the bestselling romance author of over 100 romance books. She writes emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men and women 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.

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

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A MelanieM Review: Crave (Brawlers #1) by J.M. Dabney

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Welcome to Brawlers Bar…

A quick pit stop for a comfortable bed to sleep turned into an eight-year stay. Vincent “Crave” Butler hit the road the day after college graduation and hadn’t looked behind him since. He’d swore to never stop moving, but the night he drove into Powers, Georgia changed the course of his life. He’d hit a bar called Brawlers with its rundown exterior and pride flag beside the door, the next day he had a job. Second in command to the Head of Brawler security, Crave found the place he didn’t have to run from. No one would call Crave sane. He lived to make people as uncomfortable as possible just for his own twisted amusement. That all changed when a certain cute as fuck bartender walked in for an interview.

No one wanted Twitch Harrison around. He was small, femme and annoying on his best days, downright abhorrent on his bad ones. When college turned out to be a no-go, and the parents canceled his credit cards he’d needed a job. Walking into Brawlers, the roughest gay bar in his hometown, was like a game of pick the thing that didn’t belong—him. The two owners, Scary and Tank, hired him on and four years later he was still that thing that didn’t belong. No one made it more apparent than bouncer Crave Butler who didn’t hide the fact he barely tolerated Twitch’s presence.

Crave threatened every man who thought they’d get the pretty Twitch but would Twitch rather be in their beds than his? Only one way to find out and he hoped Twitch was ready for forever because that’s what Crave was determined to have.

Crave (Brawlers #1) marks the new start of my backwards journey towards the starting point of all of J.M Dabney’s interlocking series. I say new because (you all know I can start at the most awkward moments in a series) I actually found this author through their first story in their latest series The Executioners and that story blew me away.  That was Ghost, a remarkable introduction to the town of Powers, Georgia that was swiftly followed by the equally 5-star novel Joker (Executioners #2).  Yes, I was well hooked by the author, the town, and the backhistory of the people and couples I was meeting that I only had bits and pieces of.  Then I find out there’s not one but two preceding series that give me all the back stories and history I could want.  Be still my heart.  So here we go backward one series, one book at the time.

Brawlers is a bar/club and each story in the series is named after a guy who works there and forms a part of the Brawler family (note: Executioners is a band that plays in the club). J.M Dabney specializes in brutal, damaged men, people whose lives have been full of trauma and ugliness.  Their bodies often reflect the scars their lives have left on them emotionally and mentally.  Some are self abusers (cutters) and others have sealed themselves off, preferring isolation to emotional pain.  Crave is one of the huge, rough, scary ones.  Hired as a bouncer, he’s brutal, violent, loves to fight, and has his reasons to be this way.  The author is clear on this.  Her characters aren’t thugs but men twisted and harmed by life, redeemable under the facade. Unable to communicate like most people, when he does say anything, it’s with no filters and guaranteed to start a fight.  It’s very safe way to stay behind walls but it makes it hard when there’s someone you want to protect as Crave finds out with Twitch.

Twitch is tiny, complicated and in pain.  I fell in love with this character immediately. He telegraphs both his vulnerability and the utter devastation he feels. He’s trying in so many ways to work through the damage done to him by his upbringing and more. Twitch has found the unlikeliest of homes and support at Brawlers if his past will leave him alone.

Dabney takes these most unlikely of mates, brings them together in somewhat combustible circumstances (a bar like Brawlers  where fights are common and the local police are corrupt at this point in the series) and makes it believable and heart wrenching.  Both men damaged in very different ways and yet looking for real love and stability.  Crave is someone who not only know what those scars are on Twink’s wrists and sides, but recognizes what they stand for.  He understands the dark places he see in Twitch because he has them as well.   This is not an easy romance.  It can’t be with characters like these and surrounded by others just as broken or out of the norm as they are.  There are fights, misunderstandings, pain galore.

I also found it fascinating because as the first story in the second series, many of the elements that make Ghost and Joker so great are being laid down here, so I’m watching the evolution of a town and “family”,  one I’m already familiar with as I started with a present time novel.  So I’m getting a time capsule effect here.

J.M Dabney has three connected series. Twirled World Ink (a tattoo shop) which is the first series which spun off into Brawlers the bar/club and now into Executioners which is the band who plays at Brawlers.  All the characters appear in all the stories so it helps to read all the books. I see the potential for another here after the Executioners with a Security Company. Right now each has four books each.  I’ll be reviewing them all.  It’s quite the universe!  The stories are gripping, the sex is hot and the characters are unforgettable.

If you love your hurt/comfort, your damaged men looking for love, you will love this story, this series and this author.  Follow along as I lead you through the books and loves of the men of the connected series of J.M Dabney!

Cover art is perfect for Crave.  Love it.

Sales Links:  Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 129 pages
Published March 21st 2017 by Hostile Whispers Press, LLC
ASIN B06XJQCZW9
Series Brawlers #1
setting Powers, Georgia(United States)
  • Twirled World Ink Series – first series
Berzerker (Twirled World Ink #1)
Trouble (Twirled World Ink #2)
Scary (Twirled World Ink #3)
Lucky (Twirled World Ink #4)
  • Brawlers – second series:
  • Executioners – third series

A Jeri Review: Rank & File (Anchor Point #4) by L.A. Witt

Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
This newest installment in the Anchor Point series was excellent and probably my favorite so far. An enlisted man and an officer who start off as a hook up, but can’t the chemistry.
Besides all of the romance and steamy hot sex, I actually really enjoy reading about the ins and outs and politics of the Navy. I think it is really interesting and the author has either obviously done their homework or personally knows someone in the Navy.
One of the things I think I liked about this one above the rest was that there was no PTSD, no lingering physical issues from previous deployments and no alcohol or drug abuse. Don’t get me wrong- I love an angsty book with those things. But they were covered in previous books in the series and didn’t need to be done again. Instead we just have two men, on different career paths, but totally invested in their careers.
But it is because of those careers that they have to keep their relationship in the closet. Because while it is ok for two enlisted men to have a relationship or two officers to have a relationship, it is not ok for an enlisted man to have a relationship with an officer. I actually would have really liked to see them fight for that to be changed, but alas….
I felt really bad for Brent. He knew nothing but Navy. His father was Navy and he was groomed to join the Navy. He has zero hopes and dreams that didn’t involve the Navy. Who doesn’t have fantasies of what they would do if they could? Apparently not Brent.
And while Will isn’t necessarily looking to move up in the ranks, he does want to get his time in so he can retire fairly young with a good pension. But even he has some idea of what he would do if he wasn’t in the Navy.
And the sex scenes. Ho-ly. My gawd they were hot. The “sir” thing. The officer submitting to the enlisted. Basically all of it. Ms Witt can write a steamy scene.
Definitely pick this up. It is a good, fun read with very little angst and a good story.
Cover artist L.C. Chase designed another hot cover.
Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon
Book Details:
ebook, 272 pages
Published September 25th 2017 by Riptide Publishing
Original TitleRank & File (Anchor Point, #4)
ISBN139781626496057
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesAnchor Point #4