Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Cold cases, old enemies, ex-lovers, and vengeful spirits are making life dangerous for psychic medium Simon Kincaide and his boyfriend, homicide detective Vic D’Amato.
The ghosts of Myrtle Beach are restless, trapped by love, secrets, scandals, and spells, keeping Simon busy protecting the living from the unhappy dead. Someone from Vic’s past is out to destroy him and everyone he holds dear, and the high-profile trial of the first case Simon and Vic worked together puts them in the spotlight—and put a target on their backs. As a deadly trap closes around them, can Simon and Vic tie up the loose ends to stop the threat, or will they become the newest ghosts of the Grand Strand?
Loose Ends is an urban fantasy MM paranormal romance with spooky supernatural suspense, hot sex, hurt/comfort, feisty friends, found family, ghosts galore, and dark magic. It is part of a series but can be read as a standalone and features an evolving, established romantic relationship with all the feels. Intended for readers 18 years of age and older.
I love a good ghost story, so there was no way I could have resisted “Loose Ends”. And it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Like the blurb says, this works perfectly fine as a standalone. I haven’t read any of the previous books in the series and while it’s obvious these two guys have a past together, all the important bits are explained.
I really liked the fantasy aspects of this story. There’s a bunch of different ghosts and quite a bit of magic as well. I just wasn’t too fond of coupling of magic and religion, tbh. It all felt a little bit one-sided. There’s angels and saints and the like and it made me wonder if that really is the only way to banish a ghost. What about a Hindu ghost? Can you banish that one with Christian beliefs too? But I did enjoy how the magic was rooted in the traditions of different cultures, though.
We meet a few different ghosts throughout the story and they’re all very different and Simon had a different solution for each of them. It was actually interesting to see how he dealt with them and came up with individual ways how best to help the spirits.
Vic and Simon are in a comfortably established relationship and I often prefer that to a blossoming relationship. It leaves more room for the important parts of the plot. Here, the romance was still very strong and the two of them worked really well together. I really enjoyed how they interacted with each other.
There’s quite a bit of action and suspense going on as well. It takes our protagonists a while to figure out what’s going on and then it gets really dramatic toward the end. There was, of course, a happy end, which I never doubted for a second.
Overall, this was a good, solid book. Nothing spectacular, but still thoroughly enjoyable. If urban fantasy and ghosts are you thing, it’s definitely worth a try.
I’m not a huge fan of the cover. It’s just our two protagonists in front of a pretty landscape. I’ve seen hundreds of covers that look very similar and it’s not very memorable.
Buy Links
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Kobo | Nook
Book details:
Hervé has Asperger’s, a specific kind of autism that makes him unable to interact with other people.
Based on the blurb, this book wasn’t quite what I thought it would be, so I struggled to rate it and review it without spoilers. This is billed as a paranormal erotic romance, and while that is true, it is so much more. Tags are spoilers, so as per usual, I will only give them when I think stories could be triggering to people. This book contains multigenerational family trauma, sexual abuse, incest, attempted suicide in first person, suicide, bipolar and OCD mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, and ghosts thrown in with kinky sex. Since this is told in a single first person point of view, I got very attached to this character, but talking about him is a spoiler. This story is not told in linear time, so it might be difficult to get into the first two or three times it goes from the present to the past, but then it seems very natural as he shares his life through memories. The characters become complex and multifaceted the more the book goes on–one minute I might hate a character and the next I felt sorry for them even though that doesn’t absolve them of their awful choices.
This story started slow for me. I got messed up by the out of order flashbacks until I got further in and was able to “anchor” the time in my own mind. I also wondered why anyone would be attracted to Dr. Grant Anderson, who, in his own words, was “…brusque. Rude. Insulting. Demanding. A perfectionist.” But by the end, I was Team Grant. I totally turned around and loved it. Apparently, I have a soft spot for crusty surgeons who only fall in love once and when they do, their insides turn to ooey-gooey love mush.
For Ben Sanders—traitor, thief, and temporal orphan—time is running out.
Ted is an orphan, a young gay man living on the streets following the death of both his parents. Hope seems futile, though hope is exactly what he finds when a surprising email informs him that an unknown wealthy relative has died, that a reading of a will is soon to occur clear across the country. Ted will inherit something, but what that something is remains to be seen.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 