Category: M/M Contemporary Fiction

A VVivacous Review: The Boy Who Fell to Earth by A. Zukowski

Rating: 4 Stars out of 5

One Day. A body dumped in your front yard. A breathing body. A living one.

As Jay and his mother try to figure out what to do with the obviously injured boy dumped in their yard, a connection is forming, a connection that is going to change the course of their lives because it takes less than one day to change your life forever.

Sasha has no idea why Jay can’t leave him alone but getting to feel loved was something he never thought would happen for him. Now the question is can Sasha turn his life around and be who Jay wants him to be? And does he even dare to be who he wants to be?

I felt numb after reading this one. This was a difficult one to read but despite the pain, I somehow still couldn’t let go of the book and read it almost continuously till the end.

This book is one that improves as it gets further along. Initially, when I started the book, the characterisation of Jay felt a bit unnatural, he seemed, acted and behaved innocently in situations of which he shouldn’t have been innocent of, but I feel like this is a bit of a deliberate misguide. For you see when the story starts off Jay is only fifteen but he thinks of himself as almost sixteen so I kind of thought of him as a sixteen-year-old in my head. God knows why but sixteen seems way bigger than fifteen, bigger than the one year difference would imply. In hindsight, Jay’s behaviour makes sense but initially, I really couldn’t believe the fact that he was as innocent as he claimed to be.

One of the biggest problems I had with this book which was thankfully only confined to the beginning of the book was Jay’s statements of Sasha not being a victim, like, oh he was no victim. I felt like the way the sentence is framed makes it appear like being a victim is a bad thing and that just had me very wary because it seemed to come really close to victim blaming. Either because Jay is really immature in the beginning and he does grow up towards the end, these statements don’t find any place later in the book.

Sasha is a much easier character to love. He is troubled. He is homeless, addicted and soliciting to fund his addiction but for reasons unknown I got him. I got who he was and why he was the way he was and even when he went back, I could never find a fault in his character. He just spoke to me. While Jay, on the other hand, took some getting used to, he starts off as really immature and naïve but I liked his character’s journey and it was nice to see him grow and really flourish. One of the best things about Jay would have to be the fact that he never gave up on Sasha no matter what he did and I felt like something like that is probably the strongest thing to help you heal even though you eventually have to realise that you need to fight this fight for nobody but you.

The way this story is written makes for a very compelling read. I read this book in stretches stopping only for work because I found myself invested in Sasha from the very beginning. I really can’t understand the almost instantaneous connection that Jay forms with Sasha which is the catalyst for all the events in this story but somehow it still makes sense in context with the story. I was really invested in these two characters by the end of the story because reading that epilogue imparted a sense of peace to me.

I feel like this is a very worthwhile read even if it gets too painful at times, it leaves you with a sense of peace.

Cover Art by A. Zukowski. I love the cover for this book. Firstly the picture is amazing and I love the font choices for the cover. Secondly, it really works in the context of the book, the cover really compliments the story inside.

Sales Links:  Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 276 pages
Published April 2017 by Smashwords (first published March 31st 2017)
Original TitleThe Boy Who Fell to Earth
Edition Language English
settingLondon, England (United Kingdom)

 

STRW Author And Series Highlight: J.M. Dabney and her Linked Series

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

Author J.M. Dabney

(Twirled World Ink, Brawlers, Executioners, and Trenton Security)

My first introduction to J.M. Dabney was through the story Ghost (Executioners #1) by J.M. Dabney.  It revolved around a young brutalized woman, Harper Sage and Gideon Jane,  an enormous mountain of man transplanted to the small town of Powers, Georgia.  The author was totally unfamiliar to me, but the elements of the blurb called out to me.  The location of a small town in Georgia for personal reasons, and then the haunting character of Harper Sage, an abused transgender woman who in many ways stood in for the local transgender women recently killed in this area.  This was a story that I just couldn’t turn away from.  And from the moment, I entered the J.M. Dabney universe that the location Powers, Georgia is the focal point for, I was both a captured and  committed fan.

Harper Sage was my introduction to J.M. Dabney’s ability to create incredible authentic people who bleed off the page.  The author got under this character’s skin, crawled through her psyche, and let us know what had brought her to this broken emotional state, and how much resiliency she had left in her to allow her to recover to learn to love herself and Gideon.  Dabney brings alive not only Harper’s intensity and yes, delicacy while remaining true to her choices as a transgender woman, but then  she went into the mind and heart of Gideon Jane, a musician in the band Executioners and organic farmer.  At points in this story, the reader feels as emotionally wrecked as the characters, drawn up into their lives and the small town dynamics.

There is violence in a Dabney story.  These people have been subjected to unbelievable abuse, and her characters are often violent, brutal, and borderline psychotic in return.  Their past, their upbringing has made them so, and the author doesn’t shy away from that fact.  Pain, anguish, brutality, it’s all there but it’s also offset by a deep love found by the characters who get their HEA.

So by the end of Ghost, I knew I had found something extraordinary.  J.M Dabney had created not just an incredible love story, but characters so memorable that I can see them and hear them so clearly even now.  Harper and Gideon were also surrounded by characters that resonated with me with the same impact that they had, one of which Joker was the next story in the series.  Joker is another man abused, hardened and brutalized by life.  And my second story by the author.  Into it I dove and found another astonishing tale of heartbreaking abuse, torture, and finally, if not recovery, then the ability to let someone in enough to find love.

From two novels, I then found out that Executioners was the third in a group of connected series.  Be still my heart.  I had a journey to go on!  Back to the beginning series and the original men, couples, and location that started it all, and the series that links the two.  That would be Twirled World Ink (#1), Brawlers (#2), and Executioners (#3).  What an incredible narrative journey it’s been…to see all the characters that have filled the stories, seen their growth, as well as the town’s evolution, and know there’s still more to come. .

I wanted to share my discovery of J.M. Dabney with our readers as well let them in on where this linked series are going.  Welcome, J.M., thanks for agreeing to answer Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words author interview questions.  Your characters and series have me captivated by their gritty tales and small town location,  I know I need to know more.

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words Interview with J.M. Dabney

Characters.  All or most of the men in your series, from the first Twirled World Ink right up to Joker (so heartbreaking) in Executioners are men who have been abused, violent, hardened by their life experiences, and have expressed little hope in finding love until it happens to them.  Usually someone with a past equally painful.  Why these men?  What started you on writing them?    And was there a special inspiration behind Berzerker, the first? Or any of them actually?

 

To be honest, I like the idea of someone who’s harder to love, those antiheroes/heroines, getting that happily ever after. Finding love in real life or literary form shouldn’t be a color by numbers type thing. It’s like in Japan they have a process of repairing pottery with gold called Kintsugi. I mean, for me I think even the broken can be beautiful. It’s not perfect, but still beautiful. Berzerker came around when I was seriously considering that writing wasn’t for me. The characters I loved weren’t physically or emotionally perfect, so, this big, gruff and hairy guy formed in my head. I said to myself that I was going to write the book. It probably wouldn’t get published, but I wanted to write Zerk’s story. As I was writing Zerk, Trouble popped up, and he was what people would consider the epitome of the romance hero. Tall, blond, and buff, but inside he was broken and I dissected what I thought would be that tragic hero of sorts. To me, they were these amazing men, broken and hardened, sometimes violent, but they needed their other halves. I found the more I typed the more I fell in love with these characters that you wouldn’t typically see in romance. But I’m also a huge believer in body positivity and what better way to show that everyone deserves love then writing these men and women into romance?

 

 

Location:  Powers, Georgia:  Why small town Georgia particularly?  My father is small town Georgia boy  as is that entire side of the family who is spread across the state (Americus, Perry, etc.).  I understand the draw but is there a reason you chose it?

 

Small towns have a colorful history, an eccentricity to them and I’m from Virginia so I typically pick Southern states to base my stories in. As I was writing, I needed a town name and Powers, Georgia it was. I don’t like using real places because I love the challenge of building the world or town from the ground up. I wish the answer was more interesting, but Southern towns and people are where I feel at home. The ones I know best, I guess.

 

The series starts with the Twirled World Ink Tattoo shop.   I think people are fascinated by tattoos. I know I am as well as the artists, the tattooers themselves.  I have tattoos and i know the, at least for me, slow process in deciding what I wanted and who I wanted to do it.  But why start here?  Did you already have the characters in mind as well as the shop?  

 

Tattoo Artists are smart, creative, and unique. In my teens, there was this shop that I went to and one of the guys that worked there we could debate anything and I learned a lot about the history of tattoos in that shop in Edgewater, MD. I have several tattoos including a full sleeve. I always loved the process. It’s almost meditative for me sitting in that chair. So, my guys have bits and pieces of every tattoo artist or biker I’ve met in my almost forty years. I love bars and tattoo shops, so I put not just my passion for body positivity into my stories but these places I felt most at home.

 

Series.  Each series has four books, one for each man.  Has it evolved that way or was that the original plan?

 

I’ve been asked this before, I absolutely love series, short or long, doesn’t matter to me, but four seemed like a nice solid number. A close-knit group with potential for more, but I’m also an impatient reader. So, some of my decision was to keep the series short with as little wait time as possible because as I said I’m an impatient reader.

 

The Future:  Reading backwards has been sort of a literary excavation, its been wonderful to get to the beginning of it all.  But I still wish to look forward as will all our readers.  I know there are at least 2 more books in the Executioners series.  Can you tell us about them and the characters involved?  When can we hope to see them?

 

The Executioners have two more books, King who you see a little of in the course of the series. Unconsciously, I believe I kept him a bit more sequestered for the fact I wanted a bit more mystery with him. Readers see him as a player, but I also highlight his love for his son. It the dichotomy of what allow the readers to see and what is actually happening behind the scenes. Hinting at what is to come, but hopefully surprising them when they finally to read the book. The final Executioners book is Sin & Saint, it’s a menage romance, their man comes in the package of the mature and reserved new Sheriff of Powers, GA. Camden Pelter is strong and dependable, mired down in the challenge of taking over and I gave him the crazy and completely loveable twins. They are exactly what he needs. As for release dates, King should be out later this month and Sin & Saint should be ready for release in December.

 

Will there be more connected series?  Another after Executioners?

 

Yes, there will be another connected series, Trenton Security deals with Linus’s Crew. They’re a bit more hardened, some would say I made their pasts darker, but we’re dealing with men such as Livingston who is severely scarred. Some who grew up and aged out of the foster care system. There’s more action in the Trenton Series and I hope everyone loves them as much as the rest of the guys from Twirled, Brawlers, and Executioners. If people have read the Executioners I start bringing the Trenton guys out of the dark and showing the personalities that my readers will meet in the future.

 

Is there something you would like our readers to know about these men and all these series?  

 

I would just like the readers who take a chance on my books will see a love that transcends physical or emotional perfection. These are just real people. Guys you could meet in your local bar/pub or even just bumping into one of them on the street. They may be scary, you may want to cross the street, but to me these men are the type you’ll want in your corner when life gets hard. I think they are what shows that true love doesn’t have to adhere to a certain package. As I said earlier, even the broken can be beautiful.

 

What’s next for J.M. Dabney?

 

Wow, that’s a hard question, I’m generally a writer of LGBTQ+ Fiction and Romance, but I write across all genres with all pairings including M/F. If anyone ever got their hands on my Work in Progress list they’d think I’m crazier than the characters I create. With the more books that come out they’ll see that I’m all over the place and I hope in the future that I gain more readers who just want to read a great story about a character that might not be your cup of tea, but you love them nonetheless.

J.M. Dabney

Author of LGBTQI Fiction and Romance

www.jmdabneyauthor.com

About the Author

By day, she’s an introverted cook hiding out in her kitchen in the middle of nowhere Ohio, by night and any free time she may have, she is a writer of mainly LGBTQ Fiction and Erotica. Although. she’s equal opportunity when it comes to telling a story, she’ll even write a bit of straight erotic romance when the mood strikes.

She has been writing for years in old notebooks. At the age of eight, she wrote the worst poem in the history of poetry, but it sparked her love for writing. She reads too much and loves to get lost in other worlds and her favorite stories have to include laughter and having the reader doing at least one double take. Thirty-something, forever restless she uses her stories to ground herself, and find her place of peace.

Website:http://jmdabney.wix.com/jmdabneyauthor

Goodreads Author Page

Twitter: jmdabney_author

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the series to date.  I can’t recommend these men and their stories highly enough.  If you love hurt/comfort, broken men, and extraordinary tales, then discover the world of J.M Dabney and the town of Powers, Georgia.  There’s still so much more to come.

  • Brawlers – second series:
  • Executioners – third series

A Stella Review: Making Home (Bay Valley U #1) by Dev Bentham

RATING 3 out of 5 stars

In his real life, Manu Contrares makes a decent living as a videographer in New York. But when his mother goes into hospice, he heads home to Bay Valley to help take care of her and ends up back at his first job on the janitorial staff of the local college. It feels like a long step down for a proud Hispanic man.

Chris Hall loves teaching but hates research. That’s becoming a big problem because his third-year faculty review is coming up and if he doesn’t make something happen soon, he’ll be out. He’s spending his nights working in the lab on a Hail Mary attempt to save his job.

When the two men meet, it’s explosive. And complicated. Chris is lily-white and culturally tone-deaf and Manu’s only in town for a short stay. It’s a recipe for heartbreak. Still, the pull between them is too strong for either to ignore. Can they overcome their different backgrounds and somehow surmount the geographical problems, or is this a fling that will leave them both more exhausted and lonely than before?

I chose to review Making Home because although the author is well known in the mm community, I actually read just another book by her and specifically this story’s blurb interested me quite a lot and I was curious. I have to say I dived into the book as soon as I had it in my kindle and finished it in one night. That’s to say that I liked this novel, I found the plot heartbreaking and lovely. How Manu left his life in New York to be beside his mum for her last days on the Earth and how he met Chris and fell in love with him was sweet and simple and so natural it made the story very real.

I liked this story but it didn’t fully satisfy me. Although it has all the elements that could have caught my heart and put me in tears, it missed something. And it probably what I missed come from the characters. All of them were enjoyable characters but they needed to tell me so much more. I read about them be connected to each other. I saw their need to be together. I saw Manu struggle with his grief. I saw and read everything but the point is I didn’t feel them. And this is the only reason I’m giving Making Home only three stars, my inability to be involved in the story. Probably due to my mood of that day, I’m surely going to reread this new release by Dev Bentham in the next future. And I would love to read Kyle’s story. I hope the author will give it to me sooner.

The cover art by Fiona Jayde is simple and well done, I like its lightness and colors.

Sales Links: Loose id LLC     |   Amazon

BOOK DETAILS

ebook,128 pages

Published October 3rd 2017 by Loose Id

ISBN13 9781682523940

Edition Language English

Bay Valley U series #1

A MelanieM Review: Scary (Twirled World Ink #3) by J.M. Dabney

Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

Welcome to Twirled World Ink where the crazies run the asylum.

Gene Sheridan earned the appropriate nickname when Legend Gib Phelps employed him at Twirled World Ink—Scary. No one made it out of his old neighborhood without scars both mental and physical. At one time, Scary thought he had a chance that is until his ex-boyfriend discovered slumming with someone like him wasn’t worth his trust fund. No-strings hookups became his go-to when he needed to relieve some tension. Co-owning a bar called Brawlers with his best friend, Tank, made it easy to find a body to use for the night. If not happy he was content with his life, but one man made content seem like such a terrible thing.

Elijah Vaughn worried about everything. His life was put on hold at eighteen when his mostly-absent parents died on one of their many adventures leaving him to raise his six-year-old brother, Brody. He’d never had anything or anyone that was just his. When Brody met a tattoo artist named Trouble, Elijah hadn’t realized how much it would change his life too. He met a huge man named Scary and how the man made him feel terrified him.

Tank Davis lost his voice the night he was attacked and had this throat slit ear-to-ear. It kept him in a world of silence. Silent and intimidating, he scared off more men than he drew to him. His best friend Scary and him made a life for themselves in small town Georgia with their bar Brawlers. Most night everyone could find him working security at the door. Scary called in a favor, and Tank met the one man he couldn’t resist, proper and upstanding Elijah Vaughn.

Can one man accept that there’s not one perfect man for him, but two damaged souls who need him to be whole?

These three men get referred to as the first threesome throughout the second and third series because there is another triad that arrives late in Brawlers.  But the strength of the bonding and relationship you find between Scary, Tank and Elijah here often makes you forget, even later on, that another threesome even exists.

The power of Scary (Twirled World Ink #3) by J.M. Dabney lies in the enormous ability of Dabney to create such vivid, strong, damaged men and then launch them and their lives  directly into our hearts.  Triply so here with Scary because the  dynamics that have to be worked out involve relationships multiple ways.  Scary and Tank have known each other as friends for years, they have shared men separately but when their attraction to Elijah threatens their old arrangements and perhaps more, something needs to change…quickly.  And then it proceeds to change even further into an area neither was aware they wanted or needed between them.

While these old friends are redefining their friendship, Elijah is there in their midst trying to figure out how he has jumped from no boyfriends and commitments to two and a family. Elijah is also working through major life changing issues, not just his romantic ones.  Every element here feels believable and authentic. We get multiple povs, a staggering amount of supporting secondary characters (Twirled World Ink characters and Brawlers characters) none of which are superfluous.  When one man is hurting and confused, you feel it in your heart, when Tank starts to withdraw from his men because of certain events and guilt, you feel every bit of his pain.

That’s due entirely to the superb writing and depth of characterizations you find here.  And with every detail and new additional character (such as Juvie, how I love Juvie, a foster child whose role I won’t reveal) I found I just wanted more. More of Princess, all of the other people that make up this gritty, wonderful world.

There is one couple left in this series. That would be Lucky and Priest in Lucky (Twirled World Ink #4).  Then the wait is on for King, the third book in the Executioners series.  Be here with me for Lucky, that’s next!  For now, I absolutely recommend Scary for everyone who love romance and gritty, hardened men finding their HEA, this one times three.

Cover art by Reese Dante.  That cover is perfection.  First Scary, then Tank, then Elijah.  Each one exactly as I have them pictured in my head.  Gritty, dark perfection.

Sales Link:  Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 196 pages
Published January 17th 2017 by Hostile Whispers Press, LLC
ASIN B01N5B9YX6
Edition Language English
Series Twirled World Ink #3
Characters Gene “Scary” Sheridan, Tank Davis, Elijah Vaughn
setting Powers, Georgia(United States) 

In the Spotlight: Watch Point by Cecilia Tan (Riptide Publishing Tour and Giveaway)

Watch Point by Cecilia Tan
Riptide Publishing
Cover art by Natasha Snow

Read an Excerpt/Purchase it here at Riptide Publishing

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to host Cecelia Tan on her Watch Point tour.  Welcome, Cecilia!

✒︎

Hello! I’m Cecilia Tan, and right now I’m virtually touring my gay Navy SEAL romance, WATCH POINT. At each stop on the tour, leave comments to be entered to win a gay/queer romance prize pack from yours truly, including not only a copy of Watch Point, but a few of my other books (The Prince’s Boy, Magic University) and a Daron’s Guitar Chronicles swag pack with notebook and stickers.

About Watch Point

Eric Sakai-Johnson joined the Navy SEALs to protect his country and the people he loves. After discharge, he finds himself relegated to protecting big pharma billionaire Aiden Milford from assassination attempts and kidnapping. Until Aiden reneges on a promise, fires Eric, and lets Eric’s mother die with millions of dollars in medical debt.

Now Eric is the kidnapper. Snatching Aiden’s twenty-two-year-old son, Chase, for a multi-million-dollar ransom is the only way to get justice. It’s time for Aiden to learn what it’s like when someone you love is at the mercy of forces beyond your control. Eric has it all planned out. The one thing he didn’t plan for is the intense erotic spark between him and Chase.

Chase has been chafing under his father’s autocratic control. A gay hookup app has been his only ticket to rebellion—to clandestine moments of freedom, excitement, and danger. Now it’s his ticket to a deep connection and amazing sex with his “captor.” On the rocky island where they’re sequestered, Chase finds Eric to be everything he wants in a man: quiet, strong, capable, and honorable . . . until he finds out he’s been captured for real.

Available now from Riptide Publishing. 

20% of all proceeds from this title will be donated to the Russian LGBT Network.

Each year, Riptide Publishing releases a holiday collection in support of an LGBTQ charity. Twenty percent of the proceeds from this year’s collection will be donated to the Russian LGBT Network.

The Russian LGBT network was founded in April 2006. It is an interregional, non-governmental human rights organization that promotes equal rights and respect for human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. They unite and develop regional initiatives, advocacy groups (at both national and international levels), and provide social and legal services.

To learn more about this charity or to donate directly, please visit their website: https://lgbtnet.org/en.

This collection would not be possible without the talent and generosity of its authors, who have brought us the following holiday stories:

● Cecilia Tan, Watch Point

● Roan Parrish, The Remaking of Corbin Wale

● Katie Porter, Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Pre-ordering this collection will allow you to download each story two days prior to its official release date, as well as save 20% off the list price of the individual books.

About Cecilia Tan

Cecilia Tan is “simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature,” according to Susie Bright. RT Magazine awarded her Career Achievement in Erotic Romance in 2015 and their prestigious Pioneer Award. Tan’s BDSM romance novel Slow Surrender (2013) also won the RT Reviewers Choice Award in Erotic Romance and the Maggie Award for Excellence from the Georgia Romance Writers chapter of RWA.

Her professional writing career began when she was still a teenager and her father offered to match every dollar she earned from writing while she lived at home. She immediately landed a gig writing a monthly column for Superteen magazine and provided articles to Teen Machine and other teen magazines. Her first professional fiction sale didn’t come until after college, though. While working a day job in book publishing in Boston, she began sending out erotic short stories. On the day she left her job to pursue a master’s degree in writing, her first short story acceptance arrived.

That was in 1992, several months after she’d founded Circlet Press, Inc., then the only book publisher dedicated to erotic science fiction and fantasy. Her first book, Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords, was self-published through Circlet because there was literally nowhere else that would even consider it.

Since then, Tan has authored many books, including the ground-breaking erotic short story collections Black Feathers, White Flames, and Edge Plays, and the erotic romances Slow Surrender, Slow Seduction, and Slow Satisfaction, the Secrets of a Rock Star series, The Prince’s Boy, The Hot Streak, and the Magic University series—as well as various nonfiction books on baseball including The 50 Greatest Yankee Games and The 50 Greatest Red Sox Games.

Her short stories have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Nerve, Best American Erotica, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and tons of other places. She was inducted into the Saints & Sinners Hall of Fame for GLBT writers in 2010, was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Leather Association in 2004, and won the inaugural Rose & Bay Awards for Best Fiction in 2010 for her crowdfunded web fiction serial Daron’s Guitar Chronicles.

She is the editor of the Baseball Research Journal and is publications director for the Society for American Baseball Research. She is also a part-time taekwondo instructor and is a certified therapist in an Asian bodywork style known as Okazaki restorative therapy. (That’s a fancy way of saying she can break you and then fix you up again.)

Tan has also been a lifelong activist in the BDSM and leather/fetish community. She is the founder of the Fetish Fair Fleamarket, the largest BDSM event in New England, and served for twenty years on the board of directors of the New England Leather Alliance (NELA) before stepping down to concentrate on writing and education.

She lives in the Boston area with her lifelong partner Corwin and three cats. Find out more at www.ceciliatan.com.

Connect with Cecilia:

● Website

● Blog

● Facebook

● Twitter

● Tumblr

● Pinterest

● Instagram

● Google+

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Watch Point, one lucky winner will receive a swag bag including a copy of Watch Point, The Prince’s Boy, Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Vol 1, a DGC T-shirt, notebook, and stickers! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on November 11, 2017. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

Cover Reveal for Jackie Keswick’s Undercover Star (giveaway)

 

Release Date: November 22 2017
 
PreOrder: Amazon US | Amazon UK
 
Add to Goodreads
 
Cover Design: Emma Griffin
 
Length: 41,000 words approx.
 
Blurb
 

It sounds like the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas. Detective Inspector Josh Ingram wants to find a deadly medieval locket and through it, a murderer. So why does his boss decide to team him up with Matisse Vervein, a pop idol many consider just a pretty face… and expect the two of them to hunt down an art thief?


Marissa Godwin, Matisse’s no-nonsense manager, isn’t stupid. Neither is her brother-in-law, Detective Superintendent Tim Montgomery. Each is looking out for a lonely man on the verge of quitting what he does best, and both believe that their charges would make a great team.


The attraction sizzling between Josh and Matisse is hard to miss, but there’s plenty of resentment, too. Focussed on pushing Josh and Matisse towards each other, Marissa and Tim haven’t imagined the kind of trouble a music star and a detective can find when they ditch their prejudices and accept that the attraction between them is mutual. Or how far each is prepared to go to prove it to the other.


A standalone, feel-good, action adventure romance set in England and Scotland, featuring a reluctant pop star who’s not out, a detective trying his hand at being a bodyguard, plenty of adventure, and a happy ending.

 
Author Bio
 

Jackie Keswick was born behind the Iron Curtain with itchy feet, a bent for rocks and a recurring dream of stepping off a bus in the middle of nowhere to go home. She’s worked in a hospital and as the only girl with 52 men on an oil rig, spent a winter in Moscow and a summer in Iceland and finally settled in the country of her dreams with her dream team: a husband, a cat, a tandem, a hammer and a laptop.


Jackie loves stories about unexpected reunions and second chances, and men who don’t follow the rules when those rules are stupid. She has a thing for green eyes, blogs about English history and food, and is a great believer in making up soundtracks for everything, including her characters and the cat.


And she still hasn’t found the place where the bus stops.


For questions and comments, not restricted to green eyes, bus stops or recipes for traditional English food, you can find Jackie Keswick in all the usual places:


Website
Twitter
FB
Newsletter

Giveaway

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A MelanieM Review: Drama Detective (Nicky and Noah Mystery #5) by Joe Cosentino

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Theater professor Nicky Abbondanza is directing a Sherlock Holmes musical in a professional summer stock production at Treemeadow College, co-starring his husband and theatre professor colleague Noah Oliver as Dr. John Watson. When cast members begin toppling over like hammy actors at a curtain call, Nicky dons Holmes’ persona on stage and off. Once again Nicky and Noah will need to use their drama skills to figure out who is lowering the street lamps on the actors before the handsome couple get half-baked on Baker Street. You will be applauding and shouting Bravo for Joe Cosentino’s fast-paced, side-splittingly funny, edge-of-your-seat entertaining fifth novel in this delightful series. Curtain up, the game is afoot!

A  singer is belting out “Acting Butch on Baker Street”,  there’s a Scotland Yard kick line, and yes, bodies falling, well, like murder victims in a Holmes story.  Be still my heart, we are back at Treemeadow College, murder’ s afoot and Nicky Abbondanza, husband Noah Oliver, son Taavi, friends and family are all back and center stage in a fantabulas high camp, and larger heart murder frolic!

Drama Detective (Nicky and Noah Mystery #5) by Joe Cosentino continues with all the wonderful hilarious humor and murderous fun I’ve come to expect from this series but with the addition of Taavi, their adopted son (Drama Luau (A Nicky and Noah Mystery #4) something more has entered the series, an enlarged heart.  We always had the love between Nicky and Noah, but it was sometimes on the charming, adult romance Nicky and Nora type of “love”.  But with Taavi who often needs  reassurance of family, stability, and love, a sense of emotional heft entered that brought a depth to this series without taking away from the high camp and fast paced adventure that’s also a trademark here.  So be prepared to want to cuddle a character or two as well as laugh out loud!

With a Lestrade striding about the stage, a Moriarty on the loose, and Taavi as a Baker Street Irregular, Cosentino has conjured up the  play Is Holmes a Homo? as the vehicle for murder most foul.  I’m halfway surprised it’s not an actual play already.  The play goings on are hilarious as always as director Abbondanza tries to get the thing staged, bodies start to fall, all the parental units arrive in Vermont, and oh, by the way, did I mention that Tony, Nicky’s brother is staying with them and is the choreographer? As the hilarity and misunderstandings rachet up, the murder mysteries get more complicated.    Would we expect anything less?  Why no!

Cosentino ties up all the storyline threads in a marvelously humorous epilogue that has me wondering how he’s going to top this next.  Drama Detective (Nicky and Noah Mystery #5) by Joe Cosentino is  high camp, warmed hearted, murderous fun!  A series that, like Nicky and Noah themselves, keeps getting better with each story as they adjust to each other, grow, and yes, continue to love, act,  and investigate murders now as a family.  I think this is the best yet!I can’t recommend the series and this story enough!

Sales Links

Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | MyBooks

Cover Design by Holly McCabe is wonderful.  I love the movie theatre old style to it.  Great job.

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 178 pages
Published October 28th 2017 by Amazon Digital Services
ASINB0755PKXNG
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Nicky and Noah Mystery #5

Series:

Drama Queen (Nicky and Noah Mystery #1)

Drama Muscle (Nicky and Noah Mystery #2

Drama Cruise (Nicky and Noah Mystery #3) 

Drama Luau (A Nicky and Noah Mystery, #4)

Drama Detective (A Nicky and Noah Mystery #5)

A MelanieM Review: The Royal Marine (The Sin Bin #4) by Dahlia Donovan

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Who keeps the Royal Marine’s heart safe when he’s running headlong into danger?

Akash Robinson fuses his Indian and British heritage into his baked creations. His life is all things sugar and spice, especially when a blind date leads him to the older military man of his dreams. Family, friends, and an unwanted admirer all threaten both his sanity and his budding romance.

Hamish Ross carries the names of his lost soldiers on his back. He takes his work seriously with no time for love. All it takes is one impulsive kiss to lead him into uncharted romantic waters.

When a sarcastic baker mixes with a stoic alpha marine, who will come out on top when the flour settles?

The Royal Marine is book four in Dahlia Donovan’s international bestselling gay romance series, The Sin Bin. Each one features hot rugby players and the men who steal their hearts.

So once again, I’ve found myself starting a series at book four!  What a surprise! Not!  I give up, it really seems to be just a path I’m meant to take so I’m embracing it because again I’m going to have to go back to the beginning and pick up all the preceding stories.  Why?  Because of the heartwarming success of The Royal Marine (The Sin Bin #4) by Dahlia Donovan.

Dahlia Donovan must be a part of or know intimately a warm Indian /mixed Indian family. How she writes Akash or Aki, as he’s called and his family is just plain wonderful and authentic.  From the family dynamics to the linguistic rhythm of the dialog that sings out to the reader (often leaving them smiling or outright laughing in commiseration), it’s all a part of letting one gently feel the culture, the love, and the family without anything really shouting out at you.  It’s just a lovely part of this story and the main character and it brings Aki and his family so alive that you connect with him (and them) immediately.  Plus I really wanted to taste his baking!

Hamish, aka The Hamster, Ross  is The Royal Marine.  He’s the man Aki is set up on a blind date with, one of two actually, but he’s the one that Aki has something in common with and likes immediately.  The connection is mutual.  The Royal Marine would be one of the slow burn sort of stories excerpt for Hamish’s job which takes him away for long, dangerous stretches at a time and an interesting sort of WiFi  dating/getting to know you courtship ensues.  He too  is surrounded by his own version of  family, that of his “crew”, the marines that retired with him and they now work together.  The characters here are believable, memorable, and people you want more of in this story and perhaps the next.

The story is told from two perspectives which is necessary given that they are apart and they get to have a long distance “romance”  that we “peek” into.  Then around them, there is further drama which heightens the suspense for the couple on several levels.  Yes, there’s plenty of suspense,  anxiety, and danger to go along with the romance.  It’s really a  wonderful story.  And I loved that ending!

So now it’s onto  books 1 through 3.  I’ll let you know what I find.  You can easily read this one without the others and I think you should.  It’s  lovely and I  absolutely recommend it.

Cover art by Claire Smith is sort of bland, would have preferred the bakery or another element from the story.

Sales Links:  Hot Tree Publishing |  Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 192 pages
Published October 14th 2017 by Hot Tree Publishing
ASIN B0753CSBF9
Edition Language English
Series The Sin Bin #4