Category: Contemporary fiction

Review:Controlled Burn (Fighting Fire #2) by Laura Harner

Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5:

Controlled BurnDisabled firefighter Scott McGregor is just beginning to settle in at his new home and profession as the owner/operator of Mountain Shadows Campground.  Complete with lodge and multiple rental cabins scattered throughout the grounds, Scott is finding balancing the renters, new and those that have lived there for years, a real challenge.  But that is nothing to having his ex lover and friend, Robby Hammond, back in his life again.

Years ago Scott McGregor outed Robby to his family in a moment of anger and the aftermath had lasting repercussions for all.  Now his accident and an old emergency contact card has brought Robby back into Scott’s life but nothing is as Scott had imagined or hoped for.  Robby seems to be hiding a part of himself and his life from Scott.  And Scott can’t seem to get past his old image of Robby to see the man that Robby has become.  With such a clash of outlooks and wrongful assumptions, it’s no wonder that Robby and Scott are having problems communicating.

As Scott tries to figure out how to make things right with Robby,two men temporarily check into one of Mountain Shadows seasonal cabins to work on a Native American artifact collection at the Flagstaff musuem.  Handsome and erudite, they just might be the thing to take Scott’s and Robby’s mind off their issues, especially with Robby’s connection to the collection by way of his job and his heritage.  But nothing is ever simple with Scott and Robby.  A phone call further complicates the assumptions and misunderstandings between the men. And that, along with the new renters, escalates things out of control.

Controlled Burn sees the long standing issues of perception and personal problems between Scott and Robby intensify.  In Firestorm we started to get an outline of Scott and Robby’s past relationship but with Controlled Burn, that outline starts to fill in from the very first paragraph.  It’s a flashback to Scott and Robby’s college days when they were lovers.  Laura Harner drops the reader into the middle of a heated argument between Scott and Robby’s conservative professional Army father.  It’s clear almost immediately that things are out of control between them and the ending is nothing short of traumatic for everyone there.  It would be years before Scott and Robby saw each other again.  Harner has the dialog just right for a idealistic college young man and a professional soldier sliding into dementia.  It’s full of passion and rage, fear and hatred, between two  people who steadfastly believe each is right.  And its such a terrific way to bring the reader back into the complicated lives of Scott McGregor and Robby Hammond.

Both of the main characters here totally surprise me.  There is so much  hidden depths to one, and a total deceptive clarity to the other.  Scott’s background and viewpoint are laid out before us.  Scott thinks he knows what he wants and what Robby wants too.  And he goes for it with all the subtlety of a rodeo bull.  It’s Robby that’s the enigma.  The true Robby is elusive to the reader and to Scott.  We have clues scattered here and there, a picture of a woman, and some astounding statements from Robby about his sexuality.  But something straightforward or anything less than opaque is missing.   I love this element of the story.  A real mystery at the heart of the series.  Because it is clear that Scott has never really understood Robby at all.  This element of the story seems so real, where its all about perceptions and assumptions and how blind you can be to a reality you don’t want to see.

Of course that’s not all that’s going on here.  There are multiple small and large mysteries at play at Mountain Shadows just waiting to come to the fore.  I love those too. This series just keeps getting better as the complications pile up.  My only frustration is not having the next story in line to read.  Short in length, deceptively deep in content, the Pulp Friction 2014 stories, Controlled Burn(Fighting Fire #2) in particular, are like delectable amuse-bouche, you can’t eat just one.  They are addicting.  Consider all of them and Controlled Burn highly recommended.

Cover art by Laura Harner is perfect for the story and series branding.

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 50 pages
Published March 14th 2014 by Hot Corner Press
ASINB00J0YWQ90
edition languageEnglish
seriesFighting Fire #2
Pulp Friction 2014 Series

Round One of Pulp Friction 2014:

Firestorm (Fighting Fire# 1) by Laura Harner
Cold Snap (In From the Cold# 1) by Lee Brazil
Blown Away (Where the Wind Blows# 1) by Havan Fellows
Higher Ground (Earthquake# 1) by Tom Webb

Round Two of Pulp Friction 2014:

Controlled Burn (Fighting Fire #2) by Laura Harner
Cold Comfort (In From the Cold #2) by Lee Brazil
Blown Kisses (Where the Wind Blows #2) by Havan Fellows
Moving Earth (Earthquake #2) by Tom Webb

 

Spring has Sprung…finally, Winner Announcements and the Week Ahead in Reviews, Contests, and Author Guest Blogs

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Well, I am almost afraid to say it….maybe Spring has finally arrived here in the DC Metro area. Shhhhhh! Not too loud.  I hate to be superstitious but  lately it seems like the sleet, or snow is just hovering at the edges threatening to make a reappearance and coat everything in white instead of cherry blossoms.  So I am going to tiptoe around the fact that I got out in the yard for the first time to start my garden cleanup and to check out if any brave little sprouts had made it above ground.  The irises have poked out, so have the autumn sedum…plucky souls that they are.  The maple trees are in flower and the squirrels are taking full advantage by littering the yard with all the flowers and twigs they have snipped off to get at the maple sap.  Oh that maple sap….the first run is so sweet, like a cold drink of water with a hint of sugar……that if boiled down becomes that golden wonder maple syrup.maple trees tapped

At this time of year (ok earlier in March but not this year), I used to give maple sugaring demonstrations to the public.  I would be boiling gallons of sap that I started to collect in January and stored until March from trees along the stream banks where the old mature red and sugar maples stood.  I would let the kids watch me tap a tree and, if lucky, watch the maple syrup evaporatorsap start to run out the hole immediately to their awe and wonder.  Then over to the evaporator and the wood fire that constantly burned cooking away the water and reducing the sap to syrup.  It’s quite a laborous process which is one of the reasons that the price for maple syrup runs so high.  I would tap red and silver maples native to Maryland, sugar maples that had been planted for their color and even boxelders that make a strong hearty syrup, each species of tree giving the syrup its own unique taste.  I would even order some Alaska Birch syrup to give everyone a taste of that regionally strong and robust syrup, my that’s an  acquired taste.

In New England they don’t start this process until April because of their winters and this year Maryland is right along with them due to our unusually harsh and lingering  winter.  How I loved introducing people who have grown up on Log Cabin or Mrs. Butterworth’s to the real thing!  That never gets old.  I love the natural history and the cultural history to making maple syrup.  It keeps me in touch with the past, it makes me appreciate the changing of the seasons and the bounty of nature.  And what it can do to a stack of blueberry pancakes is out of thismaply syrup world….

So yeah….Spring is here.  The maple trees in flower and the squirrels gnawing the heck out of them for the sweet sap tells me so.  And now I feel the need to go make some flapjacks.  With butter.  And real maple syrup of course!

Winner Announcements! The winner of Katey Hawthorne’s Book Contest is Alishead1.  Congratulations to Alishead1.
Leah Karge is the winner of the When All the World Sleeps blog tour. Congratulations to Leah too! Thanks to everyone who left comments.  Your participation is always appreciated. The winners have been notified.

Oh, and happy 5th Anniversay to Less Than Three Press, congratulations to you too.

While I am making breakfast, here is the schedule for the week ahead:

  •  Monday, April 7:    The Calm Before by Neena Jayden
  • Tuesday, April 8:     The Forester II: Lost and Found by Blaine D. Arden
  • Wed, April 9:             Author Spotlight: Blaine D. Arden (and Book Giveaway)
  • Thurday, April 10:    In Distress by Katey Hawthorne
  • Friday, April 11:        Controlled Burn by Laura Harner
  •  ***************        Cold Comfort by Lee Brazil
  • Saturday, April 12:    Every Time I Think of You by Jim Provenzano

Review: Angel’s Truth (Angel #2) by Liz Boreno

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Angel's Truth cover  “Freeze or I’ll shoot!” Aaron yelled and aimed the gun at Jordan’s chest.
“Angel, no, please.” Hacking fluid-filled coughs broke up Jordan’s words.
“Jordan?” Aaron whispered his name as recognition painted a mural of memories of their life together on his face.
“Yes.” He coughed red into his dirty hand. “Please help.”

And with those words, Angel’s Truth begins, picking up immediately from Angel’s Hero when supposedly dead Army Captain Jordan Collins arrives home after a month as a POW in Afghanistan.  Sick and injured, Jordan finds his enemy Major General Troy Hart  just leaving his home before Jordan reaches out to let his husband, Aaron “Angel” Collins, know he is alive and home once more.  As Aaron welcomes Jordan home and rushes Jordan to the hospital, Jordan reveals that Hart is the man behind his imprisonment in Afghanistan and death sentence he was under.

As Jordan adjusts to freedom, he also has to contend with PTSD, a shattered confidence, and the fact that his enemy,Troy Hart, is still free. Aaron realizes that the man he thought was a friend to him during those painful times where Aaron was looking for answers about his husband’s disappearance and unlikely death is actually a danger to them all.  Now Aaron must help Jordan recover his emotional and physical health and together discover just what Major General Troy Hart’s betrayal and deception means to them and to the nation.

As stated in the publisher’s blurb, Angel’s Truth picks up exactly to the word where Angel’s Hero ends.  If you haven’t read the first story, this one won’t make any sense as there is very little back story included in this sequel.  At 64 pages, it is a tad shorter than Angel’s Hero and somehow that works to this story’s advantage.  The narrative is tighter, and some of the more problematic plot elements from the first story are gone, including a fractured timeline that jumped back and forth between present day and the beginnings of their romance.  That was more confusing than helpful.  Luckily, that is absent here.  But other larger errors appear.  Let’s get to those now.

But while the loving relationship between the men is reestablished by their reunion, some of the issues I had with the plausibility of their professions and Jordan’s escape still stand.  This is Jordan’s explanation as to how he arrived (sick, coughing up blood and in Afghanistan Army uniform pants) back in the US, apparently only miles from Bethesda, MD.  The conversation picks up at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Bethesda where Jordan is telling his story to his superior officer:

“… had “accidently” dropped a piece of paper with information about a cargo plane to the United States in his cell weeks before. Jordan then explained that he hitched a ride on a delivery truck, and offered to read the English map to the US for the pilot in exchange for a ride home. “

Now Jordan changed some of the details about the nurse who helped him get free to protect her. But all this took place in two days time.  In two days, he got free from a horror of a desert prison, just before his date with a firing squad, hitched a ride out of said desert (not that a mixed heritage of black and Korean American wouldn’t stick out like Uncle Sam) but he is also limping on a severely broken ankle, with a bad case of pneumonia, and wearing an Afghanistan Army uniform.  And after the reader makes a huge leap over that implausible plot canyon, you still have to believe that he then hitches a ride in a native’s truck to an airfield, hitches another ride (still coughing up blood, same attire) on a foreign cargo plane, which lands in Bethesda (with no problem apparently even without an airport or the ever present homeland security), and then makes it to his house on foot, just a couple of streets over.  Only in a comedic send up of the military and Washington, Dc would such an escape be possible. Or remotely realistic.

Then there is the fact that in the story Aaron calls 911 and Jordan is taken immediately to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Bethesda, MD.  Our local 911 responders are not allowed to do that even if the person being transported requests/demands to be taken to Walter Reed for emergency care.  Instead the injured party would be taken to a civilian emergency room, evaluated, and then later transferred if required.  That’s the law and that fact can be easily checked with Walter Reed authorities, also known as Command Personnel.

In addition, it says Jordan was a prisoner for over 2 months time.  Sometimes its a “little over a month”.  As a prisoner of war under harsh conditions, a month or so would have an enormous impact on the prisoner’s health and mental state.  But the actual time as a POW seems to fluctuate from page to page. These things alone serve to disconnect me from the story, pulled out of whatever dramatic action is happening to think about the errors in front of me. If the reader can’t believe in the characters or the plot, how can they invest even a part of themselves in a story?  I don’t think they can. Then there is the lack of security and isolation around an escaped ill prisoner who just “came back from the dead”. These days that happenstance is called a major security risk.

Unfortunately, this author just stumbles into one pitfall after another with her characters and story location to this story’s detriment. And this leads into one of my issues with this series.  To some it may land on the side of nitpicking, but to this reader it says the author hasn’t done their research.

Writing about Washington, Dc and it’s surrounding environs can be tricky. You either get it right or you don’t. And Liz Borino mostly doesn’t get it. Built as the only Federal city in the United States so many people have decried its lack of “thereness” , of that inescapable uniqueness that cities such as Baltimore, Chicago and New York City have and are associated with. And that’s intentional. On our maps should be the sentences “here lie the NSA, the CIA, the FBI” and all the other alphabet agencies so necessary to the security of our nation just like it used to say “there by dragons” on ancient maps. Here lie Congress, the Capitol, the White House, and all the other government organizations meant to reside here from the very beginning. Then the World Trade Organization, all the embassies….and soon you can understand why the District of Columbia lacks the very individual nature, the vivacity associated with other cities. It’s not built into its personality on purpose. It thrives on anonymity, on power disguised behind common tailoring and less than modern haircuts….on people who are secretive and withdrawn by nature. No one who burbles on at work makes it here…unless its done on purpose and with a hidden agenda.  How long would Aaron have lasted at the CIA?  Not long, if he even made it through the door.

None of the characters here are believable within the ethos of Washington, DC , whether it be political, military or intelligence agency.  I think Borino had a good idea somewhere in here but not the attention to detail that these characters, their professions, the location, and even the plot requires.

Do I think all of the above will bother every reader?  Probably not, which is why this got by with a 3 rating instead of the 2.5 it deserved.  Some readers will love the romance and the “aww” factor found in the reunion and HEA.  I will admit this is a tighter narrative on the surface than Angel’s Hero, and thus a better story as far as that goes. But as someone who lives in the Washington, DC Metro area, all the errors committed within these stories caused any enjoyment I might have found in the Angel series to fade away, like Cherry Blossoms in a stiff wind…in the Spring of course.

Cover art by Anthony Walsh.  Again, very nice cover. Works for the story and characters.

Angel series include:

Angel’s Hero (Angel #1)
Angel’s Truth (Angel #2)

Book Details:

ebook, 64 pages
Published March 14th 2014 by Lazy Day (first published March 10th 2014)
ISBN 1612581250 (ISBN13: 9781612581255)
edition languageEnglish
seriesAngel #2

Review: Ball & Chain (Cut & Run #8) by Abigail Roux

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

???????????????????????????????????????Ty Grady and the others in his Sidewinder crew are finally home.  After an emotional welcome at the airport, Ty finds he has returned to a world that moved on without him.  As Ty deals with the emotional fallout from the their last black op mission and his reunion with Zane, Deuce, Ty’s brother arrives with wedding news.   Deuce asks Ty to be his best man.  And the wedding?  It’s on a remote island in Scotland. And someone’s been threatening his future father-in-law.

Clearly help is needed and Ty calls on Kelly Abbott and Nick O’Flaherty, his Sidewinder brothers, for assistance, a team with their own secrets to hide. When Nick O’Flaherty and Kelly Abbott join Ty and Zane at the wedding on a private island in Scotland, the remoteness of the location and poor cellphone reception gives them jitters.  But none of them are prepared when the bodies start falling and the killer or killers identities is someone on this small island, either friend, family or close acquaintance.

With all the families jeopardy, including Ty’s young  niece, Ty and Zane, along with Nick and Kelly, must sort through past cases, old enemies, and unknown alliances before more murders occur, including their own.  Weddings are supposed to be happy occasions but who will survive this one is anyone’s guess.

 

Well, here we are.  The penultimate story in the Cut & Run series.  With Ball & Chain (Cut & Run #8), the bells are starting to ring down the end of this remarkable series and Ty Grady and Zane Garrett is starting on the road to their finale. The penultimate story in any series is a tricky one, but even more so in a series as beloved as this one.  It must start to wind down a multitude of plot threads, but not too many, mind you, because you must save the most for the last story.  The penultimate story must layout clues, guidelines as it were, for all the events to come without losing sight that this story must have its own legs to stand on. Its own storyline and its own resolution.

Does Ball & Chain and its author, Abigail Roux, accomplish this daunting task?  Yes, I think it does. Although I think some readers will be disappointed, others will love it, and the rest are just waiting for that last story and nothing will be able to satisfy them before that story arrives.  What a tough audience this book will face as most readers have been with this couple and series from the first book, Cut & Run, and are quite fanatical about Ty and Zane.

One obstacle that I think this book must surmount are the scenes/storylines readers have written for Ty and Zane in their minds since they finished book 7, Touch & Geaux.  This is the reunion book, the one we have been waiting for since that heart-wrenching exit at the  end of Touch & Geaux.  You know, the one that had  people pulling out their hair in tears while wailing in dismay.  That scene.  I have been waiting for that along with you.  Did it live up to my expectations?  Not on the first reading.  Maybe the second.  Again, how could anything beat the glorious, and totally unrealistic scenario I had created in my head for Ty and Zane?  Cue the swelling music,  passionate glances and mad sex acts that happen immediately upon reuniting!  What Abigail Roux came up with was so much better and in keeping with the characters, Ty and Zane.  It was done with humor, affection for all those returning home and, of course, the love that Ty and Zane held for each other. And I loved it, once I got past the purple prose of my imagination.

I loved the location, that isolated island off the coast of Scotland in the Inner Hebrides.  It’s a perfectly spooky place for dead bodies, startling revelations, and hidden passages, of the building and of the heart.  It took all the main characters out of their comfort zones (if they still have any by now), and forced them to look closely at what each of them has become, and at the relationships that have carried them through so far.  Not a particularly happy time….a sexy one but not a happy one for the most part.  Abigail Roux has these precious characters exposing some hard truths about themselves and what their past actions have done to others they care about.  Plus this last mission has clearly damaged all the men involved, Digger, Owen, Nick and Ty, all are showing symptoms of PTSD or signs of other trauma that is the result of their final secret mission.  The stress is overwhelming them and each is trying to deal with it in their own way.

Ball & Chain is a hard book to review because any detail given can lead to a spoiler.  Still there is a lot on Abigail Roux’s agenda for this story.  There is the reunion we have been waiting for as Ty returns, along with the rest of the Sidewinders, from a mysterious mission.  And the reader is just getting settled into familiar surroundings and the FBI office when we are thrown out of the action and into unfamiliar territory.  At the end of the last book, Ty and Zane have outed themselves to their colleagues and bosses and now we wait for the repercussions to hit.  And they do but only for a short while and then we are  whisked away to Scotland.  That felt too abrupt and left this reader feeling a tad unsatisfied about the lack of resolution to this story element.

The wedding in Scotland brings together not only Ty’s entire family, including Ty’s grandfather and his shovel, but Nick and Kelly and the Director too.  As loyalties are divided, and old secrets revealed, ties between people begin to unravel as past histories and relationships surface. Sometimes, however, I felt that so many plot threads, one piling on top of another, almost overwhelmed the story.  At moments, Ball & Chain almost felt like an extension of the 12 Little Indians movie, with corpses piling up everywhere as it looks bleaker and bleaker for those left on the island.  But in true Abigail Roux form, the plot tightens, the nonessentials are pared away, and we are left with Ty and Zane and their fight for each other and a relationship.

Still Ball & Chain is as much about Nick and Kelly as it is about Ty and Zane. It’s about couple dynamics as well as the other complex relationship issues at play here. Sibling brother to brother, Sidewinder brother to brother, lover to lover, fathers/and father figures to sons….Abigail Roux threw it all into the wedding melting pot with explosive results. And this multitude of players, main players, will raise objections from those readers who want Ty and Zane, and only Ty and Zane. And I get that, I really do.

But think back to Touch & Geaux,the preceding story. What a great mess of a book! Full of emotional land mines, psychological quagmires, and quests for revenge to fill several novels, it brought all the Sidewinders together along with Ty and Zane and other important characters only to leave several major plot threads dangling at the end along with character fates. And remember, this includes a mole in the FBI. With that story, everything got tangled up together, people, histories, and past events returning with traumatic results. Now Abigail Roux only has two books to pull it all together. So in my mind, Ball & Chain, as well as the final story, can’t be only Ty and Zane. Because in order for Ty and Zane to have their future, a number of supporting characters have major roles to play for that to happen.  So it has to be about those characters as well, even if that makes some readers unhappy about the loss of page time for Ty and Zane.

So back to the question did Ball & Chain do its job?  Did it raise the right questions? And did it include all the right people?  Did it set the stage for the final story while giving you the reunion you wanted, the drama you expected, as well as the surprises and angst one expects from Abigail Roux and this series?  For me, the answer is yes, yes it did.

Repercussions from the events in New Orleans are still rippling through the group, the mole is at large, and a major player has just died. OK, i was pretty happy about that one.  Now everyone has returned to the US and the final battles can begin.  I can’t wait.

And Abigail Roux did give me an ending this time that I adored (at least as far at Ty and Zane were concerned).  One that starts to bring everything to a satisfying conclusion. There is a line towards the end that will be one of my favorite ones of the series.  I wonder if you will be able to spot it?

The author has said she won’t go past book 9 for the Cut & Run series, so I expect Ty and Zane to go out with a bang.  Maybe even a flashbang.  Only the author knows for sure.  Roux has made Ty and Zane deal with huge issues and traumas, from alcoholism and torture, lying and commitment, kidnapping and coming out, even claustrophobia and fear of heights. So I expect the final story to feature more of the same, more soul searching and scary events to come.

Maybe even Grandpa with his shovel.

And hopefully a wedding.  That would be lovely.

Until then I will search through the series again for more clues about the Mole and people we expect to pop up in the finale.  I will reread the moment they were pulled apart in Touch & Geaux, and then the moment they came back together in Ball & Chain.  And then I will read the end of this story one more time.

Ty and Zane are about to have their ending.  I will be there with tissues in hand to see how it all ends.  I will probably hate it in sections and I will love it.  That’s the way this series works.  And this couple.  All or nothing.  Bring it on, Abigail Roux!

Cover art by LC Chase continues the wonderful branding that is a mark of this series.  Love it although not as much as the tiger.

Book Details:

Paperback, 306 pages
Published March 17th 2014 by Riptide Publishing (first published March 2nd 2014)
original titleBall & Chain
ISBN139781626491076
edition languageEnglish
urlhttp://riptidepublishing.com/titles/ball-chain-cut-run-8
seriesCut & Run #8
charactersTy Grady, Zane Garrett

Books in the Cut & Run series in the order they were written and should be read:

Here are the books in the order they were written and should be read:

  • Ball & Chain (Cut & Run #8) the penultimate story
  • Touch & Geaux (Cut & Run #7)
  • Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run #6)
  • Dine & Dash (Cut & Run, #5.5)
  • Armed & Dangerous , #5 – by Abigail Roux
  • Divide & Conquer #4,*
  • Fish & Chips #3, *
  • Sticks & Stones #2,*
  • Cut & Run #1 – *all of these written by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux

Ty & Zane Are Back in Ball & Chain! Visit with Abigail Roux (Inside Info and Amazing Contest)

Ball&Chain_TourBanner

Welcome to the Ball & Chain virtual tour! If you’re following along, you’ll be able to win yourself some goodies that might just save your life! I’ve got five Survival Kits in a Sardine Can, perfect for traveling and hiking or taking with you to remote island weddings where people might be dying. And I’ve got five sets of trading cards with original artwork and character work-ups for the less adventurous readers!Ty & Zane Survivial Kit

Contest: Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing to win one of five Survival Kits in a Sardine Can or one of five sets of trading cards with original artwork. Entries close at midnight, Eastern Time, on April 1 , and winners will be announced on April 3rd. Contest is valid worldwide.

 

STRW: Abigail Roux was kind enough to answer some of the questions I have been dying to ask her since I found Ty and Zane in the Cut & Run series and about her latest novel, Ball & Chain (Cut & Run #8). Let’s get started….

*
STRW:  I know you (Abigail) always do extensive research on the locations for your stories.  Ball & Chain is set in Scotland.  Where you able to travel there?

Abigail Roux:
I was! I went to the UK and Ireland last summer and spent almost three weeks traveling with two friends. I post about my research travels on a Tumblr I made specifically so people could follow along. You can find it at abitravels.tumblr.com. It follows my adventures, and the adventures of Nelson the om nom, who goes everywhere with me. I like to share those adventures with readers; it makes the process even more hands on.

STRW: • What was your inspiration for setting the story in Scotland?

Abigail:
Originally the book was supposed to be set in the Caribbean. After a little research, though, I realized it would never work for my purposes. So I did a Google search for isolated wedding locations, and the name that caught my eye first was a place called Knoydart. We actually traveled there to scout it out. It wound up not being right for the book either, but I was able to see enough of Scotland, which is absolutely breathtaking, to create an amalgam of the things I needed. So the book takes place on a fake island, but everything about it is as authentic as I could make it.

*
STRW: • What was the biggest challenge to writing this penultimate story to the Cut & Run series?

Abigail:
Oh gosh. It’s so stressful. I want these last two books to be worthy, and I want them to be memorable and perfect and I want readers to end the series on a high note. And that’s going to be so very hard to do. It keeps me awake at night. But when I got into this book and started writing, all that slipped away and it was just about the story and the characters again. So the biggest challenge is compartmentalizing it to keep me from freaking out!

*
STRW:• So many people have fallen in love with Nick and Kelly; did you find it hard to balance out the readers’ devotion to Ty and Zane with our need to see more of Nick and Kelly when putting them in the same story?  Especially this story that we have been waiting for-the reunion of Ty and Zane?

Abigail Roux:
I didn’t find it hard, no, because Nick always had a huge role in this book. He’s actually the driving force behind a lot of the tension and drama. Adding Kelly to him was no trouble at all because Kelly is an easy character. He doesn’t make waves, basically, because he just rolls with it. I don’t think they take away from Ty and Zane, and they certainly don’t subtract from Ty and Zane’s romance or their tale. I know some readers have been worried about Ty and Zane sharing page time, but at this stage they have to or the books would be all about them hiding under the covers refusing to answer their phone.

*
STRW:• Do you think you will be able to let go of Ty and Zane at book 9, or will the series continue?

Abigail Roux:
The series will definitely end at book 9, whether I like it or not. That’s always been the plan, and there’s no reason to change it now. I will miss them terribly, because at this point they’re both a part of me. But I have surprises for readers coming in the Sidewinder Series. No one will have to say goodbye to Ty and Zane until I kill them off!

STRW:• Is there a Ty and Zane wedding to look forward to?

Abigail Roux:
Well, someone does get married in Ball & Chain . . .

STRW: Now that’s just evil…
• Both characters have undergone so much growth over the series.  It has been wrenching to read about at times, joyful at others. Is there one special scene that is your favorite with the men?

Abigail Roux:
My favorite scene between Ty and Zane will always be in Divide & Conquer when they dance in Ty’s living room. It wasn’t planned as we were writing; it was just something Ty did almost without my permission. It made it feel very authentic, even to me, and I love the quiet romance of it.

STRW:• Ty and Zane are definitely an A List couple.  People are mad for them.  Why do you think they have such staying power for readers?

Abigail Roux:
I wish I knew so I could bottle it! I think both men are so flawed, people can relate to them easily, but they also do things most of us don’t’ allow ourselves. Zane is hard on himself and he lets his past and fears dictate his actions, and that’s something a lot of people do and can sympathize with. They root for him to pull past that. Ty is impulsive and fun and frankly kind of crazy, and that’s a luxury a lot of people aren’t allowed in life. Ty and Zane offer us a combination of pieces of ourselves we recognize, and pieces we wish we had. I think people have latched onto them because they see a bit of themselves in one or both characters.

You can contact Abigail Roux at:

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???????????????????????????????????????Ball & Chain (Cut & Run #8): Home from their unexpected deployment, the former members of Marine Force Recon team Sidewinder rejoin their loved ones and try to pick up the pieces of the lives they were forced to leave behind. Ty Grady comes home to Zane Garrett, only to find that everything around him has changed—even the men he went to war with. He barely has time to adjust before his brother, Deuce, asks Ty to be his best man. But that isn’t all Deuce asks Ty to do, and Ty must call for backup to deal with the business issues of Deuce’s future father-in-law.

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Nick O’Flaherty and Kelly Abbott join Ty and Zane at the wedding on an island in Scotland, thinking they’re there to assuage Deuce’s paranoia. But when bodies start dropping and boats start sinking, the four men get more involved with the festivities than they’d ever planned to.

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With the clock ticking and the killer just as stuck on the isolated island as they are, Ty and Zane must navigate a veritable minefield of family, friends, and foes to stop the whole island from being destroyed.

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You can pre-order Ball & Chain from Riptide and get it two days early!

Contest:  Abigail Roux is giving away five Survival Kits in a Sardine Can, perfect for traveling and hiking or taking with youTy & Zane Survivial Kit to remote island weddings where people might be dying. And I’ve got five sets of trading cards with original artwork and character work-ups.Leave a comment to be entered into the drawing. . Entries close at midnight, Eastern Time, on April 1 , and winners will be announced on April 3rd. Contest is valid worldwide.

Review: Artist’s Touch (Guild #1) by Kerry Adrienne

Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5

artiststouch_coverWallace Harte has a English degree and a passion for writing.  But Wally has a huge writer’s block and inspiration is lacking as are jobs. To make ends meet, he has become a bartender. When a job bartending opens up at a new art exhibition by master painter Kenon Alavi, Wally eagerly accepts and forever changes his life.

Kenon Alavi is an artist highly in demand by starlets and stars, rich and the powerful. As an portrait artist, Kenon commands high prices and attention where he goes and for whatever commission he deigns to accept.  Kenon is also a major player when it comes to romance and sexual conquests.  Hurt and betrayed by a former lover, now Kenon enjoys only the most superficial of relationships and brief sexual encounters of the non involved kind.

When Kenon spots Wally behind the bar at his opening, he intends to add Wally to the list of sexual  conquests he had made, a tag line in a long list of games he has played and nothing more.  But Wally flees from Kenon’s attention despite his obvious attraction to the artist.  Dismayed and a little intrigued, Kenon pursues the young writer, getting far more involved with Wally than he anticipated in the process.

Meanwhile, Wally’s muse has awakened and its focused on Kenon and Wally’s growing love for the man.  What will happen when Kenon finds he is the source and main character in Wally’s romance?

Artist’s Touch was enjoyable romantic story, my first from this author. I found it to be sweet without being too cloying,  and based on a terrific premise of an artist’s guild, G3,  which Adrienne is developing into a series.  There was so much about Artist’s Touch that I liked, from the plot to most of the characters that the positive elements outweighed the few issues I had with the story. So let’s start with those first.

The character of Wallace Harte is a real plus here.  He is a naive young man, recent college graduate, living the life of a poor writer in New York City.  Kerry Adrienne’s descriptions of Wally’s living quarters (almost that size) are wonderful. From the conditions around him, and the tiny space where Wally resides and writes to the old neighbor habitually found sitting on the front steps, it all feels remarkably real.  The six story walkup has a dingy, confined authenticity that makes it easy to visualize Wally at home, trying to write on that small desk and poor lighting.  With his  innocence and naivete, Wally is such an easy character to connect with, and even when his writing (which we get to read) becomes a bit florid, well, than he’s young and its sort of adorable.

Less easy to relate to is the character of Kenon Alavi.  I like a difficult character, and feel it’s certainly not necessary to make all main character’s easy people to connect with or even like.  But for a romance to succeed, than that character must make a realistic journey from jerk to a person capable of love or deserving of it in the mind of a reader.  Especially if there is a large perception in the status between the two men in the relationship.  Poor/rich, innocent/worldly….the reader automatically comes down on the side of the young and poor.  So the other character has to work that much harder if their persona is that of someone not worthy of the other’s person’s attention and trust.

Kenon is unfortunately at the heart of most of my issues with this story.  We flip back and forth between Kenon’s and Wally’s pov.  With Kenon, we hear all about the “game of conquest” he is planning for Wally.  Yet when a friend calls him on his behavior, then he is quick to tears and hurt.  His actions never seem particularly adult (more like delayed adolescence).  Further events are precipitated when he believes the words of someone he despises over friends, which strains the reader’s credulity.  As I stated before, when you have created a self involved and arrogant character than you need to give yourself enough time in the narrative to make his realization of his past actions and redemption plausible.  And that never quite happens here.  Instead there is a rather quick resolution and an equally fast “I love you” to smooth over all the arguments and misunderstandings that had arisen between Wally and Kenon.

Circling this disparate duo is other intriguing characters that are a part of the G3 artists guild.  One is Bos, a mosaic artist and close friend of Kenon (although you never quite understand why).  The other one I throughly enjoyed was the Russian artist, Andrei.  An absolute rogue and a pain in Kenon’s side, his lively and sarcastic nature just cries out for his own story.  And his was a character that, at least, treated the workers and other guild members of G3 far better than Kenon did.  Again, not a good sign when a secondary character is preferable to a main one.

In the end, however, you want Wally to get his HEA, no matter how farfetched it feels, because you have come to care about him and his future.  And he does get it.  The G3 guild that Adrienne has created is a wonder of a vehicle for more stories.  I loved her descriptions of the place and the guild politics that seem to be swirling around the players involved.  I certainly hope to see Andrei again.  Guild-mate Bos too.  So onto Guild story #2.

If you are looking for a quick, sweet romance, Wally and his story is sure to pull you right in.  Pick it up and decide for yourself.

Cover design by Kelly Martin.  What a great cover, that model is gorgeous and absolutely perfect for Kenon as described.

Book Details:

ebook, 147 pages
Published February 26th 2014 by Ellora’s Cave
ISBN 1419947621 (ISBN13: 9781419947629)
edition language English
Buy link: Ellora’s Cave
ARC copy received in return for fair review given.

When All The World Sleeps Tour and Contest

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Hi! We’re Lisa Henry and J.A. Rock, authors of  When All the World Sleeps. We’re touring the web talking about our influences, our crazy ideas, this new book, and even giving you a sneak peek or two! And of course there’s a giveaway involved! Leave a comment to win!

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ScatteredThoughtsandRogueWords welcomes Lisa Henry and J.A. Rock today on their When All the World Sleeps tour. Hi.Lisa. Good morning, JA!WhenAllTheWorld_150x300

Thanks so much to Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words for having us, and to everyone following the tour. Today Lisa interviews J.A.

LH: Hi! I’m Lisa Henry. Today, as part of our When All the World Sleeps blog tour, I’m interviewing my co-author, the very talented and only slightly disturbed J.A. Rock.


J.A.R: Only slightly? How many more sharks do I need to hug to get upgraded to highly?

LH: So, J.A., I’m giving you all the credit for coming up with the idea for When All the World Sleeps. It’s a darker premise than anything we’ve written before, particularly coming on the heels of Mark Cooper versus America. Where did you get the idea from?


J.A.R: In grad school, Barnes & Noble was on the way to campus, so sometimes a demon would take hold of me while I was driving to school and make me swerve into the B&N parking lot. I would hang out reading for hours instead of going to class. One day I found an issue of Scientific American that featured a story about sleepwalkers committing violent crimes. I knew I wanted to do a book about it, and I also thought it might be a good project for us to work on together. But we were still writing The Good Boy, and I had no idea if you were going to want to continue co-writing after TGB. So I sat on the sleepwalker idea for a while!

I also lived in a cabin in the woods at the time. In the south. And I’d killed a ma–uh, mosquito. I killed mosquito. *darts eyes* So the pieces were all there.


LH: Chronologically, we wrote Mark Cooper versus America after When All the World Sleeps. I think Mark Cooper might have been the light-hearted relief we needed after WAtWS. When All the World Sleeps might be my favourite of all our joint works. Do you agree with me, or are we going to have to fight it out?

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J.A.R: No fighting necessary! It’s definitely my favorite. All the other books know it and are plotting to smother WAtWS with a pillow when I’m not looking.

I love that the majority of my solo works are comedies and all of yours are dark and angsty. Yet you’re hilarious, and I am, as you mentioned, slightly disturbed. So I came to you with a really messed up idea, and shortly thereafter you came to me with a funny, angst-free idea. We just don’t want to be pigeonholed, right? Why does that word always sound dirty to me?

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LH: In Daniel, we wrote a character who got into BDSM for what might be the wrong reasons: he needs to be locked up by a Dom because he’s afraid he can’t control himself. There’s nothing safe or sane about what Daniel does. His perceptions of BDSM are more skewed than Bel’s, even though Daniel’s the one with experience. In a lot of romance, BDSM is seen as some kind of healing process, almost like therapy. How important was it to you that we avoided that trope here?

J.A.R: I believe BDSM can be therapeutic—in the same way any kind of love/relationship/intimacy/exploration of self can be therapeutic. For trauma victims, it’s no substitute for actual therapy, but it can help people learn more about themselves and their desires, open up, trust others, and understand the contrast between suffering in real life and getting to choose when and how to “suffer” in the bedroom with a trusted partner.

In Daniel’s case, I think he gets a little of that—but he also totally abuses BDSM. And he’s been so confused and lost for so long that he can’t always tell the difference between the kind of submission that brings him peace, and the kind of “submission” that’s about self-harm.

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LH: Do you think writers have a responsibility to educate readers about BDSM practices simply because of the amount of misinformation out there?

J.A.R: Hmm. This is tricky. On the one hand, the romance genre is very much fantasy-based. You could argue that romance sometimes offers misinformation about vanilla sex, or about relationships in general. But at least with vanilla relationships, we have a wide variety of mainstream portrayals ranging from the realistic to the completely absurd. Plus the majority of the population has firsthand experience. BDSM doesn’t have that. Most portrayals of BDSM in our culture come from the romance and erotica genres. Or from, like, Law & Order: SVU — “The Case of the Sex Dungeon Pervert.” So if these portrayals are ignorant or negative, I think that definitely has some real world repercussions.

BDSM is a massive umbrella term, and the lifestyle works differently for all participants, so it’s hard to define an “accurate” portrayal. However, one rule across the board is that BDSM should always be safe, sane, and consensual–and that’s a rule often broken in romantic fiction! We’ve got all these stories about kinky people who were warped by their abusive pasts, or mind-reader doms who somehow know at first glance that a beautiful vanilla is actually a secret sub. These can be fun fantasies, but ones I sometimes worry eclipse reality–to the detriment of a mainstream understanding and acceptance of BDSM.

In the end, I think I’d go with the ol’ “know the rules before you break them” creed. I like the idea of authors doing their research, and then deciding if/how they want to deviate for the sake of fantasy.

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LH: Who is your favourite character in When All the World Sleeps?

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J.A.R: Daniel’s the kind of character I tend to enjoy writing the most—in severe mental turmoil, self-destructive, sort of submissive, and unsure who he can trust. He’s probably my favorite–though Bel might have been even more rewarding to write, since his journey forces him to shed his misguided ideas. I love seeing characters sacrifice what’s familiar and comfortable in order to try to do the right thing.

LH: You’ve lived in the South. Do you think we got it right?



J.A.R: Oh the poor South! We definitely played into some stereotypes of small minded rural southern towns. But you know, when I was heading off to Alabama, a lot of people joked about how hard I was going to clash with the conservative environment. And I was like, no way can it be that bad. Yet I definitely heard some things in small town Alabama that I wasn’t aware people still said post, you know, 1964 or so.

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But those attitudes are by no means unique to or present everywhere in the South. In WAtWS, the problem isn’t so much WHERE Logan (the town) is, and more WHAT it is, I think. It’s so small and so isolated that its prejudices are really deep-rooted. It’s not a place that lets in a lot of new blood or fresh ideas.

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We definitely got the humidity and mosquitoes right.

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LH: Okay, no spoilers, but what was your favourite part of the book to write?

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J.A.R: I really like the first time Bel helps Daniel through a hallucination. Normally I like writing the dark stuff better than the sweet stuff, but in this book, the tender moments feel earned. They’re not just there because Aw, Love Is Cute. They’re there because Daniel needs them—and we need a periodic break from Daniel’s relentless suffering. But I also really like the finale. You know what I’m talking about. You were there.

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Contest: Thanks for following our tour! To celebrate our release, we’re giving away a great pair of prizes! Up for grabs is an ebook of our last co-release, Mark Cooper versus America, and a $20 gift voucher from Riptide. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post with a way for us to contact you, be it your email, your Twitter, or a link to your Facebook or Goodreads account. Please put your email in the body of the comment, not just in email section of the comment form, because we won’t be able to see it otherwise! On APRIL 2, we’ll draw a winner from all eligible comments! Be sure to  follow the whole tour, because the more comments you leave the more chances you have to win this awesome prize!

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WhenAllTheWorldSleeps_500x750_0About When All the World Sleeps:

Daniel Whitlock is terrified of going to sleep. And rightly so: he sleepwalks, with no awareness or memory of his actions. Including burning down Kenny Cooper’s house—with Kenny inside it—after Kenny brutally beat him for being gay. Back in the tiny town of Logan after serving his prison sentence, Daniel isolates himself in a cabin in the woods and chains himself to his bed at night.

Like the rest of Logan, local cop Joe Belman doesn’t believe Daniel’s absurd defense. But when Bel saves Daniel from a retaliatory fire, he discovers that Daniel might not be what everyone thinks: killer, liar, tweaker, freak. Bel agrees to control Daniel at night—for the sake of the other townsfolk. Daniel’s fascinating, but Bel’s not going there.

Yet as he’s drawn further into Daniel’s dark world, Bel finds that he likes being in charge. And submitting to Bel gives Daniel the only peace he’s ever known. But Daniel’s demons won’t leave him alone, and he’ll need Bel’s help to slay them once and for all—assuming Bel is willing to risk everything to stand by him.

You can read an excerpt and purchase When All the World Sleeps  here.

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About the Authors

✍Lisa Henry lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.

You can visit Lisa at:

✍J.A. Rock has worked as a dog groomer, knife seller, haunted house zombie, standardized patient, cashier, census taker, state fair quilt hanger, and, for one less-than-magical evening, a server—and would much rather be writing about those jobs than doing them. J.A. lives mostly in West Virginia, and always with a beloved dog, Professor Anne.

You can visit J.A. at:
Website,
JA Rock blog,
Twitter”
Facebook.

Review: Angel’s Hero (Angel #1) by Liz Borino

Rating: 3.25 stars out of 5

Angel's Hero coverCIA Agent Aaron “Angel” Collins and his Army Captain husband, Jordan Collins. are happy in love and happily married. Then Jordan is shipped off to Afghanistan on a special mission, one that turns deadly.  When Aaron is notified of Jordan’s death by  Jordan’s commanding officers, something just doesn’t feel right.  There is no remains, no concrete proof of Jordan’s death, raising Aaron’s suspicions.   Immediately Aaron sets off to seek out the truth and find out if his husband is still alive.  Major General Troy Hart offers Aaron first his sympathy and then his assistance in Aaron’s investigation.  But does he really believe that Aaron is right or is he merely humoring Aaron?

The truth is Captain Jordan Collins is alive and injured in an Afghanistan prison.  While captive, Jordan learns that he has been betrayed by someone back in the States, someone who just might be high up in his chain of command. When Jordan learns that an order has been issued for his death, he escapes and starts off on a perilous journey back to the States and Aaron.  But who can Jordan trust if  he makes it back home to the man he loves? And is he putting Aaron in danger by returning home?

Angel’s Hero is the first book I have read by Liz Borino.  The first in a series, it introduces us to the main characters, Jordan Collins, an Army Captain of mixed ethnicity (part Korean, part Black), who has become disillusioned with his Army superiors enough to be looking at early out and another career.  His husband, is CIA operative Aaron “Angel” Collins, stationed at CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA.  They met 11 years earlier at meeting of CIA interns and low-level Army officers and clicked even though DADT was still in place.  The time periods fluctuate between years from present time to the past as flashbacks show us how the men meet and fall in love.

The dialog and scenes that play out between the couple are lovely.  I believed in their romance and deep connection and that made the events that followed believably painful and full of anxiety.  What I found less plausible was the conversations Aaron had with his new superior at the CIA and his status as a CIA agent.  His conversations are a constant flow of information about himself, his husband, his husband’s plans upon leaving the military, nothing seems to be held back and this man is not only his new boss but someone who is alarmingly intimate for someone he just met.  Had that been a conversation between two people in any other job it still would have felt too familiar and odd.  But in intelligence officers that are practically strangers?  It never felt convincing and took something away from believing in the author’s world building.

As I said, I liked the characters and the relationship between Aaron and Jordan. That felt easy and loving, just as one would expect from a long established domestic partnership.  But almost immediately, other errors popped up to distract me from the events occurring within the plot. These are blunders that cannot be mistaken for artistic license.  One such example of artistic license would be putting a McDonald’s on a street corner where it doesn’t exist (that occurs here too). It’s entirely possible that a McDonald’s could appear in a new location, so that works even if you are familiar with a neighborhood.

No, I am referring to descriptions or information used as to set a scene that are obviously incorrect.   Here is an excerpt that shows some of the issues found within the story:

July 2013 Bethesda, Maryland.  Aaron inhaled the mixture of pine, leather, cherry blossoms, and the freshness of his husband, Jordan. The cherry blossom scent drifted through the cracked window letting in the July air, and the cruel light streaming through the window implored his eyes to open. Aaron resisted because as soon as he acknowledged the morning, he would have to be responsible. Get up, put on clothes, and take Jordan to the airport where he’d board a plane and disappear for three months. Jordan’s shortest deployment to date, and also the only one Aaron would have no part in.

This paragraph opens the second chapter and two facts jumps out at me immediately as a resident of the Washington DC Metro area.  First is the fact that it is July in the story and the cherry blossoms are blooming.  Now Washington, DC’s (and Bethesda’s) cherry blossoms are world renown.  People all over, especially in China and Japan, plan their vacations to coincide with our Cherry Blossom Festival.  Which happens in April.  Around here everyone breathlessly awaits the NPS announcement that tells the region when to expect the Japanese Cherry trees to start blooming each year.  Some years it is late March, most times it is April.  Never, ever, is it in July.  The second issue is the idea that anyone in this area would open a window in July, letting in the 90 percent humidity and intense heat that July in this region brings.  And unless the scent of pine is from Pinesol, that doesn’t happen at this time of year either.  Both the bloom date of the cherry trees and our temperatures in July are easy to research.  Yet that didn’t happen to the detriment of the story.

For me the best part of the story occurs when Jordan is a prisoner in Afghanistan.  Borino builds up the suspense and precariousness of Jordan’s situation with great descriptions and the addition of Adeela Nadar, a nurse at the prison.  But again, I wondered if a female nurse would have been allowed near male prisoners or any male for that matter.  Over and over, Borino asks the reader to suspend our belief given what we know about the Afghanistan culture and the extreme Islamic beliefs in that region that would allow a woman to work within that environment.  Again it’s a matter of terrific characters versus unrealistic situations.

Other notes made during reading include notations about landing a plane near Bethesda (totally urban, no airport) and finding oneself 10 minutes from home by the street signs.  Or arriving via airplane at an unidentified airport within the Beltway, wounded and without identification and you are not detained? By anyone post 9/11 and Homeland Security?  And that close to Washington, DC, no airports major or local are within 10 minutes of Bethesda, MD.  Unfortunately, all these mistakes pop up at the most inopportune times, yanking this reader out of the story each time such a mistake is mentioned.

The ending is heartbreaking and the emotions it engenders are real.  I liked so much about this story but the errors kept this reader from the total enjoyment that I wanted to feel.  Perhaps if you are not from this area, then the mistakes that occur here won’t bother you or interfere with your reading pleasure as it did mine.

I need to see what happens next as the ending itself is a bit of a cliffhanger.  So on to Angel’s Truth (Angel #2) I go.  If you are new to this series as I am, they should clearly be read in the order they were written.

The Angel series:

Angel’s Hero (Angel #1)
Angel’s Truth (Angel #2)

Cover art by Anthony Walsh.  Lovely cover, and the models work for the characters within.

Book Details:

ebook, 79 pages
Published February 26th 2014 by Lazy Day (first published February 25th 2014)
ISBN 1016125812 (ISBN13: 9781612581248)
edition languageEnglish
seriesAngel #1

Review: Free Falling (Extreme Escapes, Ltd.) by S.E. Jakes

Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

Sometimes falling in love is the most dangerous thing of all…

FreeFalling_500x750Expert thief Blue first met Mick, a mercenary and a hitter, when the millionaire they were working for sent them out to “retrieve” a priceless statue and ship it out of the country.  Blue was adamant about working solo, Mick was just as adamant that he was coming along as ordered.  The argument only ended after a bet was made and agreed upon.  A bet Blue lost.  But Mick never showed up, leaving Blue hanging  and alone in the hotel room that had been part of the bet.  Blue was angry, humiliated, and more than a little frustrated at the way the evening turned out.  Blue swore that Mick wouldn’t get a second chance.  And then a year later he sees him again.

A year later finds Blue in Bogota.  The job Blue is on should be quick and easy, its also one he has been paid for.  But things start to go wrong almost immediately.  Blue spots Mick in a meeting in a bar, catching not only Mick’s eye but that of the dangerous drug dealer Mick is working with.  It takes finesse and quick thinking by Mick to get Blue away from the criminal and a deadly situation that was getting out of control.  Recovering, Mick and Blue realize that they care for each other.  But their jobs and personalities make going forward impossible.

Then Mick disappears on a job and its up to Blue to save him.  Suddenly nothing is impossible if only he can save Mick first.

Blue and Mick first appeared on my radar during the Hell or High Water series.  SE Jakes gave us tantalizing glimpses of this duo throughout those stories as Blue popped in to visit Prophet only to be followed by Mick still chasing after him.  A few sentences of dialog, a quick scene that telegraphed the deep love and affection these men felt for each other, and then, poof, they were gone.  Blue would jump out the window with Mick close behind him.  And the reader was left wondering who were these crazy men and what was their backstory?

In Free Falling, we finally get some answers, but only some.  Blue is an unrepentant thief.  He enjoys his work and is one of the top “procurement” people in the world.  He is never going to change, a fact that has acted as a bulwark against any lasting relationships except one. But what happened to make Blue this way?  SE Jakes has created an almost heartbreaking answer to that question.  From Blue’s memories and several phone calls he gets while on the run, the reader gathers the pieces to the puzzle that is Blue.  From his dysfunctional family background to his raison d’être, all are clues which help us better understand Blue. It also makes his need for stealing understandable and almost honorable, almost.  Blue is a complicated man, surprisingly full of insecurities and yet still so confident in his abilities and intelligence.  And he meets his match in Mick.

Ah, Mick.  A massive mountain of a man.  A killer, a soldier, full of unwavering loyalties. And yet….still capable of friendship and love.  His complexities are a perfect match for the compulsions and intricacies that is Blue.  I haven’t read all of the Extreme Escapes Ltd. stories, so I don’t know if his backstory is already out there.  But again, SE Jakes gives us enough to cobble together an understanding of this man and the forces that drive him.

These men need a plot as intense, dangerous and wild as they are and they get it in Free Falling, a perfect metaphor for their lives.  Someone is manufacturing a drug that whips a person into a long lasting sexual frenzy, one that compels them to want more and more sex.  It’s the ultimate blackmail tool and perfect for creating sexual slaves.  And EE and Mick are out to stop its manufacture and distribution.

Free Falling is such great high wire fun! The action is fast-paced and explosive.  The sex scenes intense and incendiary.  And the pathos when it comes, well, it’s heartbreaking.  No idling, no slow speed to this narrative,  it’s just revved up and roaring down the road!

So buckle up, grab this story up and prepare for one wild ride.  You are going to love it.

Cover Art by Croco Designs, http://www.crocodesigns.com.  Can that cover get any hotter?  I  don’t think so.  Love it.

Book Details:

ebook, First Edition, 150 pages
Published December 5th 2012 by SEJ (http://sejakes.com)
original title Free Falling
edition language English
Books in the Extreme Escapes Ltd universe are:
  • Hell or High Water Series: Catch a Ghost, Long Time Gone, Daylight Again (coming soon), If I Ever (coming soon)
  • Dirty Deeds Series (EE, Ltd.): Dirty Deeds, Dirty Lies (coming soon), Dirty Love (coming soon)
  • Men of Honor Series: Bound by Honor, Bound by Law, Ties That Bind, Bound by Danger, Bound for Keeps (EE, Ltd.), Bound to Break