Category: Contemporary fiction

Review of Inferno by Scarlett Blackwell

Rating: 2.5 to 4.5 stars

Moonlight Cove Detective Zack Stewart and his partner Claire Keaton get the call for a murder at a downtown gay nightclub Inferno.  When they arrive they find a young gay man strangled in the alley in back of the club.  The victim reeked of recent sex and was strangled with his own underwear.  Inside Inferno Zack and his partner find plenty of people who knew the victim, had had sex with him including the club owner, Dante Jardin, their chief suspect.

Zack Stewart is in the closet at work but Dante Jardin ticks all his buttons and then some.  From the beauty mark on his face to the unusual color of his eyes, Dante Jardin is Zack Stewart’s hottest dream and worst nightmare all rolled into one.  Zack is convinced that Dante is the murderer but isn’t sure if that is because of the evidence or because he is  fighting his own feelings towards the man.  Then another murder occurs at the club, a victim killed in the same manner  who also was connected to the first victim.  A serial killer is on the loose and all the evidence points to Dante Jardin or does it?  What happens when a detective’s increasing obsession with a murder suspect starts to cloud his judgement?  As the killer strikes again, Stewart must decide which will rule out, obsession or justice.

Inferno by Scarlett Blackwell is 95 percent of a great book.  Here is a recommendation I have never made before.  Stop reading about 10 pages before the ending.  Just put the thing down.  Make up your own ending, or don’t. As long as you don’t finish the book you will have a terrific portrait of a man self destructing over a sexual obsession, the downward spiral of his intellectual and emotional life,  and the catastrophic  consequences that occur.  From our first introduction to Zack Stewart, we get a feeling of a man already in trouble emotionally and physcially.  Zack is exhausted by the hours of his job, worn out and lonely due to his closeted state.  He is not sleeping or eating well.  Then he is called out onto a case that will have ramifications on his job, his friendship with his partner and most important his self image.  The catalyst for his upheaval is Dante Jardin, owner of the notorious gay club Inferno.

Dante Jardin has the face of an angel and the body and attitude of the devil himself.  All sexual heat and emotional ice locked together in a package that pulls all of Zack’s strings so tight they vibrate.  His attitude towards the “dead whore” offends Zack and his partner while Dante’s sexuality turns Zack on to the point of physical arousal while questioning him.  From that moment on, Zack finds himself  growing increasingly obsessed over the club owner.  He masturbates with Dante in his thoughts even in the squad car.  Zack starts returning daily to the club because he can’t stay away from the man even as he insults him, committing borderline harassment and assault while shoving Dante against the wall.  Zack tries fighting his emotions, aware that he is falling into a trap that he might not be able to get out of.  We are there every step of the way as Zack falls down the rabbit hole, we are there as Zack makes one bad judgement call after another, helpless to stop himself.  Blackwell does an outstanding job of bringing us into the mind of a man in the throes of an obsession.  We hear his thoughts as his emotions spiral out of control even as intellectually he knows it will cost him everything he has worked so work to obtain, fifteen years on the force, the respect and friendship of his partner, even his own self respect.  All gone because he cannot turn away from a man he believes to be a murderer and who now owns him completely in every way.

Another amazing thing is that I didn’t even like Zack Stewart very much.  He whines (and knows it).  He throws his co workers under the bus, expects them to cover up his screw ups to the point of losing their own jobs, he throws an investigation and still we watch all the events happen, much like watching a train wreck.   I was never emotionally invested in the character and yet I still couldn’t put the book down.  Blackwell doesn’t make Dante Jardin someone you would relate to either.  She gives us some backstory on Dante that should make him and his demeanor more understandable but he never really came together for me outside of their sex scenes, which were very hot by the way.  And still, Blackwell keeps us turning the pages, wanting to know what will happen next.  The easiest character to understand?  That would be Claire Keaton, a “by the book” cop who considers Zack a friend and who instinctually realizes he is in trouble and that Dante is the key.

It all works, from the descriptions of the poor guys getting murdered to the club scene with the anonymous sex in the back room.  All visually rich in detail, smokey with the  smell of sex and weed, the clinking of glasses and the rustle of clothing, Blackwell’s descriptions brings us into the crime scene, into the midst of the investigation and the group of people circling around the periphery.  This is a 5 star book right up until it isn’t. And that brings us to the last 15 to 10 pages.  Were these written by a doppleganger?  Did some nefarious ghostwriter with fluff on the brain sneak in and complete this novel of grime, death and sexual obsession with a goal of inserting a measure of Hello Kitty and rainbowed unicorns?  I am still shaking my head over it.  It just makes no sense at all.  It takes everything, and I do mean everything, that went before and plants a big “Nuh uh!” over top of it, canceling out everything that felt gritty and real in order to throw us a fake HEA and “everything’s alright, boo boo cakes” epilogue.  Am I frustrated and irritated beyond belief over this wasteful treatment of talented writing, even by the author herself?  You betcha I am. Two stars for the ending, 5 stars for sexual obsession made real.  You figure out the rating.  I am out of here, still shaking my head in disgust.

Cover:  Art by Reese Dante who had done a great job with the coloring and models to achieve the idea of sex, heat, all in flames.

Review of Second Hand (Tucker Springs #2) by Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan

Rating:    4.75 stars

Paul Hammond’s girl friend has just left him after he moved to Tucker Springs to further her art career while he put his on hold.  Now he is left living in a rental house she picked out and a front yard full of her awful oversized metal sculptures.  Paul looks around him at a house he hates but has a 3 year lease he can barely afford, a job as a receptionist for a local vet, and a engagement ring he never gave to Stacy because she moved out before he could propose.  When a flyer for a neighborhood yard contest and a $500 prize is shoved in his mailbox, Paul decides to enter and use the money to pay his bills.  But how to get the money to buy the plants for the yard? And that’s when Paul remembers meeting El Rozal at his Pawn shop when Paul was buying a necklace for Stacy.  Armed with kitchen appliances he never wanted to buy in the first place, Paul heads off to El’s shop and changes his life forever.

El Rozel’s life is stuck in one gear, that of family and work.  El deals with family matters including a mother who hoards, he does laundry with his best friend at the Laundromat on Friday’s and the rest of the time is spent at his pawn shop.  El realizes he is stuck in a pattern but doesn’t know how to change it.  Then Paul Hammond, adorable, confused, freckle-faced Paul Hammond enters his shop and his world tilts on its axis.  He knows Paul is straight because he has listened to Paul when he was buying the necklace.  But that doesn’t seem to matter, everything about Paul draws El closer.  Paul is kind, naive, generous and easily hurt.  He is also incredibly sexy even if he doesn’t know it.  El wants him in his life in any way possible.

Paul wants to come first in someone’s life, to stop being everyone’s second choice.  El knows first hand that someone else’s seconds can be the treasure another has always  wanted and Paul is that one person El has been waiting for.  Now all he has to do is persuade the man to give him the chance to change both of their lives forever.

I loved this story.  Under the definition of warmhearted in the dictionary you will find the cover of this book and deservedly so.  Take two well-known authors whose books are beloved by many, throw in Sexton and Cullinan’s talent for giving us characters who are both quirky and  unusual and we have Second Hand, a novel of two men trying to deal with life’s disappointments and finding love in unexpected  places.  I read this book twice for the good feelings and happy thoughts it left me with after putting it down.  What’s even more remarkable is that  Second Hand is an effortless read considering all the themes involved in the plot.  Tucker Springs, Colorado acts as the location for the series and it’s the perfect choice as its richness of history, Light District, and other characteristics match up brilliantly with the characters living there.

And what charming, affecting characters they are.  Paul Hammond is that one who is oblivious to the way he affects others.  He has grown up feeling less successful than his siblings, his one girlfriend has just left him for someone who has achieved more materially, and he left college without  meeting his goal of being a veterinarian. But he doesn’t see what other people do when they look at him.  Someone who is kind, cute, tenderhearted, great with animals and people alike.  Some who happens to be absolutely adorable.  Paul is so likable, so genuine that you root for him to succeed from the very first page.  El Rozel is a wonderful complementary character for Paul Hammond.  El comes from a large family who   impacts his life on a daily basis, from his sisters and their kids, to his abuela and mother with their house so stuffed full of objects that just moving down the hallway is a challenge.

El Rozel jumped from the pages of Second Hand with a clarity few characters achieve with their first impressions.  As the smoke from his cigarette rises about him, so does his view of life and its disappointments hang around him like a cloud. El watches his sister ignore his advice as she jumps from one bad relationship to the next. And he’s awful when he tries to intervene with his mother Patty’s hoarding to little effect.  El wants things to change in the lives of those he loves but feels helpless when it comes to solutions. I love how the authors give us two men stymied by life and disappointments and makes them the catalyst for change in each other’s lives.  El starts helping Paul empty his life of meaningless objects that came along with his relationship with Stacy.  Paul starts giving El the power to see changes happening in someone’s life.  Paul gives El hope that change can happen and then gives him hope that love can happen for them both.    And all of this relationship movement, all of this building of self worth is carried out realistically, with nary a wrong touch to the process or misstep in characterization.

Sexton and Cullinan also deal delicately and with sensitivity when it comes to Paul’s feelings about his sexuality.  Paul had one disastrous gay encounter in his youth that causes him to put aside his attraction towards men and concentrate on women.  That is if you can call a one woman experience a change in sexuality.  It comes across, even to Paul, as more a convenient sexuality, one more acceptable to society, than Paul having a true bisexual nature.  If Paul had truly been bisexual, Stacy ‘s attraction for him would have gone beyond representing a “normal lifestyle” as she does for him to one of being physically drawn to Stacy which he is not.  Because the one person he is truly attracted to?  That would be El in every way.  El is the person he wants to spend time with, whose Cover conversations he enjoys and is the person Paul wants to take to bed.  But it takes time for Paul to realize all this and the authors give it to him and to us.  This is not a “gay for you” story but a slow acceptance of one’s true sexuality.  Paul has to have time to look at his past history and reexamine his actions before he can accept that he wants El as much as El wants him.  The authors handle Paul emotional growth in such a beautiful, realistic manner that I wanted to start handing out gold stars right then and there.

An equally serious issue addressed here is that of hoarding.  Hoarding is a disease that affects families everywhere.  Both authors show how hoarding is a disease that hurts those affected by it on so many levels, from the day to day reality of living with gargantuan clutter to the embarrassment of not wanting to have outsiders see the living conditions at home.  Sexton and Cullinan give us the  screaming arguments of the family stressed out by their efforts to deal with the hoarder and the pain of the person in the throes of the disease.  I cannot begin to give them enough credit for the sensitive manner in which they handled this problem within the story.  Again, it was just so beautifully done.

The Tucker Springs series is interesting in itself as it is being written by different authors.  The first in the series is Where Nerves End (Tucker Springs #1) by LA Witt, which I have not read.   There is an actual website for this series TuckerSprings.com.  Find it here.  There will be more books in the series and I for one can’t wait.  Pick up Second Hand and become acquainted with a town and characters you will not soon forget.  I know I will be going back to visit there often.

What a wonderful cover.  Perfection in every way.

Available from Riptide Publishsing, Amazon, and All Romance eBooks.

Great Saturday, Marvelous Sunday, Fall is Here! The Week Ahead in Reviews

I had a great day yesterday.  Friends came over, a fellow blogger, and an author, both wonderful.  We had a time of it, discussing books, movies, Spartacus, you name it while drinking wine, gobbling up bread, cheese and crackers while the sun shown down!  Does it get any better than that?  I don’t think so.  Kirby loves visitors and was so excited to see them both, going from one to the other before roaming around looking for squirrels and bugs and things.  Winston and Willow are just happy to sit in the chair with me and chill.  And today?  Just beautiful, cool, sunny, the perfect football weather as they say.  Daughter and SIL off to the Redskins game and RGIII’s first home game.  I know, I know.  I swore off the Redskins but habits are hard to break!  So consider this a work in progress.

Three more bushes to go into the garden, Firelight Spirea.  The foliage changes color three times during the year.  In the spring, the leaves are a orange green changing to greenish yellow in the summer and then turning a lovely deep red in the fall, all that and beautiful pink blossoms that beacon to bees and butterflies for weeks while they are in bloom.  Sigh!  I love gardening and the discovery of new plants.  The windows are open, letting in the cool breezes to refresh the house air.  A ruby throated hummer just buzzed the window letting me know the feeders still need filling as there are still migrants making their way south and they shouldn’t be forgotten.

I am just finishing up the first in the Wolf’s Own series by Carole Cummings and loving it.  Look for the review at the end of the week.  I am starting the week off with a bang and a great book by Amy Lane.  Don’t miss out on this one.  As always so many books, so little time, but I am working on it.  Just a reminder, the first week in October is JL Langley week and I will be giving away a copy of My Regelence Rake to a lucky person who comments on the week which will include a interview with JL and recaps of all the SciFi Regency books to date.  So let’s get to it:

Monday:                               Sidecar by Amy Lane

Tuesday:                               Magic’s Muse by Anne Barwell

Wednesday:                        Gilbert by Bailey Bradford

Thursday:                            Wolf’s Own: Ghost by Carole Cummings

Friday:                                 Inferno by Scarlett Blackwell

Saturday:                             Second Hand by Heidi Cullinan and  Marie Sexton

 

Have a wonderful week.  Get out and enjoy this weather!  Happy Fall All!

Saturday Brings a Change in Plans and a mini rant on book endings

So here it is Saturday and the week has gotten away from me.  Between lunch at the farm, and several trips to Sun Nursery (one of my favorite addictions), the reading and writing didn’t get their allotted time of my day.  OK, I will also have to blame it on this fabulous fall weather we are having here in Maryland.  Cool, crisp with sunny blue skies overhead, I just couldn’t stand being inside, the gardens, pond, the farm, they all called to me.  And I listened.  And went  outside.  All day long.
The dogs loved it, the birds loved the new feeders that went up and the stones got here for the new deeper winter pond for the fish, all four of them. I wonder how the Great Blue Heron will feel about having to work  for its dinner instead of just idly and with no effect at all, grabbing out my fish one after the other. But I learned and now they have places to hide from the predators that visit with the goal of takeout.  Really, can goldfish and koi taste that much better than the creek chubs in the stream down the road?
The one book I did finish so  frustrated me that I almost pitched the Kindle right out the window.  But why blame the messenger when the author is at hand? Never in my life have I read such a beautifully crafted story that the author  completely demolished in the last 10 pages.  That occupied my thoughts for quite a while.  How does that happen?
Does someone read this story of a man self destructing over a sexual compulsion and say to the author “oh, that will never sell unless you have a HEA?”  And the author listens?  Or does the author fall so much in love with her characters that a HEA becomes the overriding factor that negates everything that goes before, the characterizations as well as the legitimacy of the plot?  As you can tell, this is still bothering me big time.  I just don’t understand someone treating something so well written in such a cavalier way.  It’s as though someone took The Maltese Falcon and attached a My Little Pony ending onto it. *shudders*  If anyone out there can shed some light onto this for me, do so.  Are these behind the scene shenanigans something that happens at the publisher or the editors?  How on earth does this happen?  Inquiring minds want to know.  And then blog  about it.
So two friends are coming over for lunch, one a fellow blogger, the other an author.  I will pose the questions to them as well.  I feel a mini rant coming on.  The review for this book is coming up in the next couple of weeks. I am sure you will know which one it is.  I must get going so I will leave you with a repost from one of my favorite blogs, The Blood Red Pencil.  If you don’t know about it, you should.  They blog on writing from every aspect and its wonderful as well as informative.  It’s separate from this post so don’t miss it.
Carole Cumming’s Ghost will be reviewed next week.  This is the first in a series and I am enjoying the complexity of her world building and characters.  I hope it ends in the same fashion in which it started.  I mean really, are there ghost writers out there, lurking about, just waiting to pounce on unfinished novels and trash the endings?  That is one explanation.  Tell me what others you can think of.  I am going back outside.  It is safer there.

Autumn Comes to Maryland, Vote 6 for Equality and the Week Ahead in Reviews

Good morning to all and what a spectacular day it is here in Maryland.  The sky is that crystalline crisp blue that I only see in Fall, the clouds fluffy white and a huge flock of Canada geese just flew overhead, their cries trumpeting the arrival of Fall.  How I love this time of year, my pulse quickens, my step is a tad more brisk (such as it is these days), and I feel like rejuvenated after the sweltering heat of summer. The Monarch butterflies are flitting through the garden on their way to Mexico, and what a journey they have in front of them, over 3, 000 miles of ingrained need to fly to a place they have never been.  Amazing when  you  consider they are fragility on wings.

Autumn is a time of movement, a time of activity, both measured and frantic.  Beaver and muskrats are busy with caches of food and antlers, so too are the squirrels and white footed mice. All have plenty to do to make sure the food stores are full for the winter.  Bees zoom around the garden, gathering pollen and nectar from the spectacular profusion of gold, white and purple flowers of the season.  The  New England asters, goldenrod, the Black-eyed Susans, and the Joe Pye weed that linger on.  Most people think of Autumn colors as red, yellow and orange, but the fall gardener knows that the harbinger of Fall also carries the colors of white, gold and purple to all the gardens and fields around us.

Fall brings change.  Leaves swirl to the ground as the sap returns to their roots in preparation for Winter, seeds are scattered by wind and animal alike, and the animals start their migration to the winter feeding grounds.  The songbirds seek the safety of the night for their travels while the raptors, secure as top predators of the air, wing their way south during the daylight hours, soaring above as they follow the coasts and mountains. I watch the squirrels stuffing leaves into the neighbors chimney with all the energy and enthusiasm of teenagers on energy drinks.  I have never seen those neighbors use their chimney and hope that for the squirrels sake that this continues.   My old bird feeder finally fell apart from the relentless onslaught from the non flighted visitors and  a new one should arrive any day, carrying with it the hope of a squirrel proof feeder. Hah, I say from experience.  My money is on the squirrels.

I am hoping for another change in Maryland this fall.  It is 51 days until the election and I am hoping that this fall brings Marriage Equality for all in the state of Maryland.  If you  live here, please vote for Question 6 and make it legal for all GLBTQ to marry here.  It is long past time for this to happen, equal marriage rights are long overdue.  Let’s be a voice for progress and become a partner in movement for equal rights for all.  Vote yes for Question 6 and let’s make the promise a reality!  I will be there on voting day and hope you will join me.

Finally, October will see several special events on my blog.  First up, actually the very first week is Regency Sci-Fi week with JL Langley in preparation for My Regelence Rake release October 1st.  I have an interview with JL, recap of the series to date, a discussion about  Regency novels, and a contest to give away a copy of My Regelence Rake to someone who comments during the week!  Whew!  I am also participating in the Howloween Blog Hope at the end of October where I will be giving away a Amazon gift card during the blog hop!  So stay tuned, my pretties, we have a great time planned this fall.  Change is in the air, I can feel it.  Can you?

Here are the books to be reviewed this week:

Monday:                         Life As A Fairy Thrall by Katey Hawthorne

Tuesday:                         Making Contact (Sci Fi Anthology)

Wednesday:                   Nate’s Deputy by Lavinia Lewis

Thursday:                       Gregory’s Rebellion by Lavinia Lewis

Friday:                             The Melody Thief by Shira Anthony

Saturday:                         Wolf’s Own Book One Ghost by Carole Cummings