Category: LGBTQ Book Reviews

A VVivacious Release Day Review: Shaper by Christine Danse

Rating: 5 Stars out of 5
 
I woke up running through the abandoned streets of Shapertown. I didn’t know who I was, where I had come from or even who I was running from. It was like I had come into this world running with the nebulous command of “Run” ringing through my brain. I hid myself only to be found by a pair of brown boots with red laces and I didn’t know if I should run or not. After all, where do you run when you have nowhere to go?
 
This book is… Wow! It tells the story of a planet at the centre of the universe where reality itself is in a constant flux. In this world exist a group of people know as Shapers that can change the very matrix of reality with their thoughts. They are varied, each with specific abilities and the government seeks to control them leading to a rebellion and it is in these dangerous times that our story begins.
 
I loved the premise of this story. It is like the perfect mix of plausible married to boundless imagination and the story is beautifully written. I loved our main character for someone who has no idea who she is she is very balanced individual and I found myself engrossed in her story from the very beginning.
 
This book is a story first and foremost and that is the deepest compliment I can give it. This story is amazing. Some stories really amaze me with the extent of imagination and this was one of them. I am truly mystified by the planet of Mi’hani and the life that exists on it. I am very hopeful for the books that are to follow in this series because if the first book is any indication this is going to be one hell of a ride.
 
Our second main character is Natalia who is lethal in every way. I mean she has some mad skills but for once it was refreshing to meet an assassin, a killer who wasn’t jaded who felt the burden of the path she has led but tried to keep living with it instead of arresting her emotions, while still being a bloody fantastic person to read about. I loved the character of Natalia and I am very excited to see where her relationship with Lark is going to go.
 
This story is a gateway to a bigger picture and I can’t wait for the books that will enlighten that path.
 
Cover Art by Natasha Snow. I loved the colour especially its mix of the shades of blue and green that seem to sum up the universe. All in all it is a fabulous cover.
Sales Links
Book Details:
ebook, 45 pages
Expected publication: March 13th 2017 by NineStar Press
ISBN139781945952715
Edition LanguageEnglish

An Ali Release Day Review: Darkness (Common Law book 3) by Kate Sherwood

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
A murdered prostitute. An obvious suspect. Clear evidence. For once, Jericho Crewe has a straightforward crime to investigate, and Wade Granger isn’t involved.

It all seems so simple, but Jericho’s instincts won’t let him rest. As he investigates, he finds troubling suggestions that the murder is a part of something larger and more sinister. But working within the boundaries of the law may keep him from finding the truth. If Jericho doesn’t break the rules, an innocent man may rot in jail while a killer remains free to strike again.

Inevitably, it all comes back to Wade. Because who else knows as much about breaking rules? And who else knows Jericho the way Wade does—not wisely, but far, far too well?
This book picks up a month or so down the road. Jericho is doing is his best to avoid Wade and he’s continuing to work as an under-sheriff for the town. He’s gets a call on a murdered prostitute and while the case and the bad guy seem cut and dried, Jericho thinks something’s not right. He ends up looking into it in more detail and opens up a more complex case than he initially realized.

Of course along the way he runs into Wade again. These two can’t seem to stay apart. They’re like moths to a flame with each other. The UST between them is off the charts as usual but as this story goes along Jericho decides he’s done fighting it. He doesn’t care what Wade does for a living. He wants him and he knows they’re going to end up together. This leads me to my one complaint with this book. When they finally get together it fades to black. Now I don’t usually complain about that. I’m not they type of romance reader who has to have sex scenes in all her books and in fact many of my favorite series are ones filled with fade to black. I just really hated it in this series because the UST has been off the charts and such a major part of the story. I feel like we were waiting for this really great thing and then it was snatched away before we could enjoy it. *boo, hiss*

I have gone back and forth in this series trying to decide if Wade really is a criminal or if he’s working deep undercover for a law enforcement agency. I’m happy to say I still don’t know. The author has done a great job keeping the air of mystery around Wade and even at the end of the this book I still am not sure how this series is going to end for these two.
Cover by: Natasha Snow I love the cover.  I have loved the covers in this series actually but this is my favorite of them due to the color.
Sales Links
Book Details:
ebook, 189 pages
Published March 6th 2017 by Riptide Publishing
ISBN 1626495319 (ISBN13: 9781626495319)
SeriesCommon Law #3

Coming Soon: Between the Secrets, an all-new MM romance by S. Ferguson

Between the Secrets, an all-new MM romance by S. Ferguson is coming March 16th!

Preorder Today!

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2lK53n3

Amazon UK: https://goo.gl/gRPHZU

Sometimes the past won’t let you escape no matter how much your future wants you to.

Jake James lives in the shadows of his shame. The guilt for what he’s done, for what was done to him, has left him hollow and haunted.

Greg Bissen just wants Jake to let him in, having accepted who he is a long time ago, he is desperate to break through Jake’s defenses.   

When danger and an agonizing loss threatens to tear them apart, will Jake let the burdens of his past crush him?

Or can love really conquer all, even if it’s hiding in between the secrets?

Add to GoodReads: https://goo.gl/ScHUCe

A Caryn YA Release Day Review: Driven by MB Mulhall

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I found this book a frustrating combination of a nice spin on the hurt/comfort trope, but with frequent sections that bothered me: long boring inner monologues by the main character, Oliver, and moments of incredible stupidity that literally made me want to DNF the book several times. I persevered because I was reading it for this review, and in the end I was glad I did, but it was close! Oliver is a homeless young man who is brought out of the vicious cycle of his self-recrimination and loathing by the kindness of several people in the community. His love interest, Simon, is actually a rather small part of the group that ultimately makes Oliver believe that he can be loveable, and I thought that was pretty refreshing.

The book starts with a flash forward to a moment when it seems that Oliver is dying. He is thinking of all the people he will miss, and the story truly commences at the time when he first meets the main secondary characters in the book. Two kind old ladies offer him a place in their home on a provisional basis, with the expectation that he help them out around the house. In addition to food and shelter, they offer him respect and kindness, which he has a hard time accepting as he has come to think of himself as the worst kind of criminal. There are hints about an accident, and incarceration, though the details are not revealed (and then only sketchily so) until later in the book. Simon is the boy next door who also befriends the skittish Oliver and encourages him to stay and give the old ladies, and himself, a chance. In the end, of course, Oliver learns to believe in himself and have faith in others, and has a promising future – and that’s not really a spoiler, just the expected resolution of a hurt/comfort romance.

The tragic events in Oliver’s past life were only somewhat vaguely explained, and I didn’t truly follow the path from accident to jail to homelessness. It was all fueled by Oliver’s self-hate, but those endless monologues just made me think he was whiny rather than feeling compassionate for his suffering. He also several times got into situations that he responded to with “too stupid to live” actions that just made no sense, when he was otherwise supposed to be a pretty smart guy. Those seemed like gratuitous drama and angst to me, and completely turned me off. I think different writing could have made me believe that Oliver’s self-hate was justified, but I just didn’t feel it. I didn’t get what his art had to do with anything, it really felt superfluous to his personality and to the story. I never understood what kind of hold Marcus had (the bad guy) had over him. The book was also fairly long for the plot and action that occurred, which I blame on those long monologues, and that made the pace of the book slow, and I found myself putting it down frequently to pursue something more exciting – like doing laundry.

I guess, in the end, the blurb was everything I wanted the story to be, but the execution was kind of a swing and a miss for me.

Cover art by Anna Sikorska was very appropriate for the story, and the empty section of highway was good for the initial somber tone of the story.

Sales Links

Harmony Ink Press

Book Details:

ebook, 210 pages
Published March 7th 2017 by Harmony Ink Press
ISBN 1635332796 (ISBN13: 9781635332797)
Edition LanguageEnglish

A Paul B Review: The Chain of Their Sins (Taking Shield #4) by Anna Butler

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I have really enjoyed the Taking Shield series.  Each book draws me in further into Shield Captain Bennet’s world.  While Albion is fighting its hundred year war against the Maess, and struggling to hold on, Bennet tries to live his life as best as he can.  But sometimes the horrors of war interfere with his plans.

During his last year of rotation out of his mandated three years out of Shield, Bennet is assigned to the Gyrfalcon, his father’s ship.  That only would cause headaches for Bennet.  But his assignment as Flight Captain of the ship would mean he is now in the line of command of Flynn, his lover from the ship.  As a result, he must now spend the next year  (10 months or 400 days in Albion terms) being able to look but not touch when it comes to Flynn.  Add in the fact that Flynn has probably had a fling with his sister and his father suspects that he and Flynn are more than just friends makes life even more difficult for him.

As if the romantic entanglements aren’t enough to make Bennet irritable, the fallout from the Makepeace continues to haunt him.  The president is on the verge of being ousted from office, either through impeachment or the next election.  Some members of the intelligence committee believe that while his theories might be correct, there is no proof that the Maess are getting help.  The man behind the political scenes wants to groom Bennet for a political career, much to Bennet’s chagrin.  And the topping of the cake is the treatment of the rescued humans from Makepeace are being kept on a former penal colony with his partner Felix leading the scientific team seeing what the Maess have actually done to them.  Bennet is counting down the days until he can return to his form of normalcy and back in the Shield fold.

Bennet has become a favorite character of mine.  He is trying the best he can for the war effort in a variety of ways.  While he could have taken a desk job at the Strategic unit doing analysis of data for the war, he is out there sometimes behind enemy lines doing what he feels needs to be done.  What really gets to Bennet’s soul is the consequences of those actions that sometimes are unknown to him until two or three years later.  This goes for not only the militaristic side of his life but the personal.  Flynn notes that he and Bennet have spent sixty-four days out of the past five years (2000 days) together.  Yet somehow Bennet keeps going on.  As his year on the Gyrfalcon is finishing, he must once again go home, away from Flynn, and deal with the ramifications of the fallout from Makepeace with the new president.  I wait impatiently for the next book in this saga.

Cover art again is terrific. Lush and dark, just perfect.

Sales Link

Book Details

EBook, 283 pages

Edition Language:  English

Published:  February 13, 2016 by Glass Hat Press

ASIN:  B01MZ9QQYQ

Series:  Taking Shield

Gyrfalcon (Taking Shield #1)

Heart Scarab (Taking Shield #2)

Makepeace (Taking Shield #3)

The Chains of Their Sins (Taking Shield #4)

Audiobook Review Tour For NR Walker’s Red Dirt Heart #2

 



Buy Links: Audible US | Audible UK 


Listening Time: 7 hrs 10 mins


Red Dirt Heart #1: Audible US | Audible UK

Blurb

Up until Travis arrived on his doorstep, Charlie had lived a very solitary life. He had surrounded himself with isolation; a couple million acres of red dirt, scorching sun and loneliness.

Six months on, winter has settled over the desert, and Charlie has the life he never dreamed possible. But living and working together, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, for six months straight starts to take its toll.

Charlie is a stubborn, stubborn man, who tends to have more conversations in his head than what comes out his mouth, whereas Travis has no problem saying what’s on his mind. And even as they both struggle to communicate, struggle to make sense of need versus want, Charlie can see that he’s pushing Travis away – yet seems helpless to stop it.

When it all boils down to whether Travis should stay or go, maybe the decision won’t be theirs to make.

Author Bio

N.R. Walker is an Australian author, who loves her genre of gay romance. She loves writing and spends far too much time doing it, but wouldn’t have it any other way.

She is many things; a mother, a wife, a sister, a writer. She has pretty, pretty boys who she gives them life with words.

She likes it when they do dirty, dirty things…but likes it even more when they fall in love. She used to think having people in her head talking to her was weird, until one day she happened across other writers who told her it was normal.

She’s been writing ever since…

 

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A Lila Audiobook Review: Red Dirt Heart #2 by NR Walker and Joel Leslie (Narrator)

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

red-dirt-heart-2-audiobookUp until Travis arrived on his doorstep, Charlie had lived a very solitary life. He had surrounded himself with isolation; a couple million acres of red dirt, scorching sun and loneliness.

Six months on, winter has settled over the desert, and Charlie has the life he never dreamed possible. But living and working together, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, for six months straight starts to take its toll.

Charlie is a stubborn, stubborn man, who tends to have more conversations in his head than what comes out his mouth, whereas Travis has no problem saying what’s on his mind. And even as they both struggle to communicate, struggle to make sense of need versus want, Charlie can see that he’s pushing Travis away – yet seems helpless to stop it.

When it all boils down to whether Travis should stay or go, maybe the decision won’t be theirs to make.

Red Dirt Heart 2 looks into Travis’s and Charlie’s relationship months after they became a couple. They’re cautious, but every day gives them an opportunity to learn more about the other. Solidifying their decision to be together.

I like how their relationship moved forward and how they integrated it to their everyday chores. Finding that combination between life and work took them a while but it became central to the book. I’m not a fan of stories in which the main characters had trouble or break up just to add more books to a series. So, I’m glad it was more to this second book than relationship issues.

This is a sweeter, warmer story. It seems slow in parts, but it shows how relationships really work. We get to see Travis and Charlie getting comfortable in their skins and with their relationship. Just like before, Travis helps Charlie be a better man and in return, Charlie shows Travis the beauty of small acts of love.

Book two is raw and filled with emotion, not only from the MCs but from the rest of the cast. They all play an important part in Travis’s and Charlie’s future and added color to their days. There are very sad moments, but the happiness around Sutton Station compensates for it. Keep an eye open for unexpected guests and lovely quiet times.

Joel Leslie continued to impress me with the narration. It was up-to-spot, not missing a single beat from the previous installment. He gives the characters more than a voice, he makes them real. It’s hard to imagine than Sutton Station doesn’t house all these characters in real life. It’s like they came together to tell us their stories.

Another fitting cover by Sara York. Just like book #1, the cover makes more sense after you read the book.

Sales Links:  Amazon | iTunes | Audible

Audiobook Details:

Narrator: Joel Leslie
Length: 7 hours 10 minutes
Published: January 18, 2017 (Audio Edition) by Love Lane Books
ASIN: B01N9RLT2B
Edition Language: English

Series: Red Dirt
Book #1: Red Dirt Heart
Book #2: Red Dirt Heart 2