Category: M/M Paranormal Fiction

An Alisa Review: Demon on the Down-Low by EJ Russell

Rating:  4 stars out of 5

 

After decades of unrequited love, this kangaroo will jump at the chance for a date. Any date.

 

Lovelorn kangaroo shifter Hamish Mulherne, drummer for the mega-hit rock band Hunter’s Moon, waited years for the band’s jaguar shifter bassist to notice him. Instead, she’s just gotten married and is in a thriving poly relationship. How is Hamish supposed to compete with that? But with everyone else in the band mated and revoltingly happy, he needs somebody. Since he can’t expect true love to strike twice, he signs up with Supernatural Selection. Because what the hell.

 

When Zeke Oz was placed at Supernatural Selection through the Sheol work-release program, he thought he was the luckiest demon alive. But when he seems responsible for several massive matchmaking errors, he’s put on notice: find the perfect match for Hamish, or get booted back to Sheol for good. The only catch? He has to do it without the agency’s matchmaking spells, and Hamish simply will not engage.

 

But Zeke starts to believe that the reason all of Hamish’s dates fizzle is because nobody in the database is good enough for him. And Hamish realizes that his perfect match might be the cute demon who’s trying so hard to make him happy.

 

This series has been so great and I love how it was tied up, I’m probably going to have to go back and read the Fae out of Water series because I liked these characters so much and if the author ever makes another series references these characters it will be on my tbr immediately.  Hamish has resigned himself to a life without love and just hopes to find some companionship with the help of Supernatural Selection and against all odds gets registered.  Poor Zeke, he’s just trying to escape Sheol and the hell he lives there but seems to have just traded it for another with the restrictions put on him.

 

I loved that we got to see the couples from the previous books in this one and how great everything was for them even though everyone thought they were mistakes.  The twist of how everything was getting mixed up was interesting but I was so glad to see the culprit get what he deserved along with Zeke being able to break free from the prison his life was.

 

I felt for Zeke from the beginning, all the way from the bullying from the AI and the bullying from his Sheol master, he is just trying to survive and be able to stay in the upper world.  Hamish took a little to connect with but that was mostly because he was lying to himself about being able to find love but he quickly grabs onto the idea when he realizes that Zeke would be the perfect one for him.  I was so happy for these two to find a happily ever after, especially Zeke as we have seem how much he was struggling in the first two books.

 

Cover art by LC Chase is great and I love the visual of Zeke with Hamish’s drums and how it is similar to the others in the series.

 

Sales Links: Riptide Publishing | Amazon | B&N

 

Book Details:

ebook, 320 pages

Published: February 25, 2019 by Riptide Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-62649-858-7

Edition Language: English

Series: Supernatural Selection #3

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A Caryn Review: Shadows On The Border (Lost In Time #2) by A.L. Lester

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

It has been a year since I read the first book in this series, Lost in Time.  Long enough that I had forgotten about the cliffhanger ending that irritated me so much!  And although it is clear there will be at least one more book in the series, this one wrapped up the current story arc well – the next book will take off in a slightly different direction, and follow up on the adventures of some of the secondary characters.

Lew – who is from 2016 and got accidentally drawn back in time to 1919 while following his sister Mira – and Alec – the Detective Inspector who was inadvertently drawn into Lew’s world of magic and secrets while investigating a series of grisly London murders – are once again the main characters in this book.  The Creature who left a string of bodies behind turned out not to be fully destroyed as they had all hoped.  It was merely injured, and dormant, and its presence drew a Hunter from the Outlands to draw it back across the Border.

Fenn was the Hunter – a being of considerable power who was clearly more expert dealing with the energy of the Border than anyone in the human world.  To some he appeared male, and to others she appeared female, and they were evasive about their gender – this was just one of many ways they were completely alien to the early 20th century Londonites they came across. Fenn spoke English, reading the minds of those humans he interacted with, and when they were found by Alec’s group of police and discovered that they were also trying to apprehend the Creature (Carnas, to Fenn), Fenn decided to work with them.  The humans were somewhat reluctant to join forces, but could only acknowledge Fenn’s greater power and expertise.  There were secrets on both sides, and it became increasingly clear that those secrets could bring down the entire operation.

This book is once again primarily a fantasy/adventure, and there is even less romance than there was in the first book.  Lew and Alec are an established couple, and I really enjoyed how the focus became more about how they thought about their relationship.  How could it work between them when Lew could only tell Alec minimal amounts about his life before he went back in time?  How could Alec trust Lew, for the same reasons?  How was the fact that Lew was a Worker, and responsible for maintaining the Border, allow him to fully open himself up to Alec?  I also enjoyed the interactions between Fenn – not quite human if you looked closely – and the rest of the group interesting, especially in regards to their gender, or lack thereof.

I still had some quibbles with the writing – this time it was primarily the names and pronouns.  Sometimes first names were used, sometimes last names, and though the distinction made some sense – for instance, they were Lew and Alec when they were by themselves or with close friends, but Tyler and Carter when interacting professionally, or with others.  It did not help that many of the names could be first or last names (Will Grant, for example).  I just found it to be unnecessarily confusing, and it literally took me until half way through the book before I consistently had them all straight!  I do not like working that hard to read for pleasure.

I am really looking forward to the next book, when the focus will move away from Alec and Lew.  I hope it won’t be another full year though…

Cover art by Written Ink Designs fits well with the previous book in the series.  It was easy to imagine the Creature hiding somewhere in this alley.

Sales Links:  Amazon | Kobo | Barnes&Noble

Book Details:

ebook
Published March 9th 2019 by JMS Books, LLC
ISBN13 9781634868716
Edition Language English

Review Tour for Shadows On The Border by A.L. Lester

ADD TO GOODREADS
 
Release Date: March 9 2019
 
Publisher: JMS Books
 
Lost In Time Series
 

The Gate (a FREE short story introducing the characters from Lost In Time)
Amazon US | Amazon US | JMS Books

Book #1 – Lost In Time – Amazon US | Amazon UK | JMS Books
 
Blurb
 

Newspaper reporter Lew Tyler and his lover, Detective Alec Carter, are working out the parameters of their new relationship. Meanwhile, time traveler Lew is trying to decide whether he wants to stay in the 1920s or find a way to get back to 2016, and Alec doesn’t know if he can bear the vulnerability of being in love with someone who uses such dangerous magic.


Fenn is a Hunter from the Outlands, come through the Border to search for the murderous Creature and its offspring at the behest of the Ternants, who maintain the balance between Fenn’s world and ours. Fenn strikes a bond with Sergeant Will Grant, Alec’s second in command, who is keen to learn more about his own magical abilities. As time goes on, Will grows keen to learn more about Fenn, as well.


Fenn has their own painful secret, and when they appear to have betrayed the team and goes missing in London, Will is devastated. He has to choose between following his heart or following his duty.


Moving through the contrasting rich and poor areas of post-First World War London from West End hotels to the London docklands, the men need to work together to capture the Creature … and choose who – and what — is important enough to hold on to and what they may need to give up to make that happen.


Author Bio


A. L. Lester likes to read. Her favorite books are post-apocalyptic dystopian romances full of suspense, but a cornflake packet will do there’s nothing else available. The gender of the characters she likes to read (and write) is pretty irrelevant so long as they are strong, interesting people on a journey of some kind.


She has a chaotic family life and small children, and she has become the person in the village who looks after the random animals people find in the road. She is interested in permaculture gardening and anything to do with books, reading, technology and history. She lives in a small village in rural Somerset and is seriously allergic to both rabbits and Minecraft


Website: http://www.allester.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CogentHippo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ALLesterAuthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cogenthippo/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/A.-L.-Lester/e/B01MZ6R1QR/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/allester

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Release Blitz and Giveaway for The Demon Lord Of California (Infinity 8 #1) by Jeanne Marcella

 

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Universal Link
 
Length: 77,500 words 
 
Blurb



Earth, 1900.


Calico Winghorse has no choice but to flee to the plane of existence called Earth. His great grandfather, suffering from a terrible curse, strips him of his psychic abilities and nearly murders him.


As a mixed-blood phoenix concealing himself in human form, Calico first settles in England, then in the San Francisco Bay Area. In order to make a living, he opens a small bakery and quietly licks his wounds.


But just how Calico escaped his childhood home—via interdimensional portal—is the very reason why he’s drawn the unwanted attention of Infinity Corporation.


Representing this angelic-run company is Agustín Chávez de la Cruz, the Demon Lord of California. Even though Agustín is IC’s heir, he finds himself demoted from his daily duties for a new assignment: take absolute control of Calico’s portal.


Calico and Agustín’s first brief encounter ignites sparks of attraction. Their second is highly explosive, bogging down initial communication with innocent mistruths and a healthy dose of fear.


As Agustín struggles to restore trust, Harper, the demanding head of IC interferes, further complicating matters. With negotiations slowed, Calico and Agustín realize they both wish to establish more than just a business deal.


However, until the extensive and brutal psychic injuries Calico received from his great grandfather are healed, the portal remains vulnerable to the darker forces that want it at any cost. Agustín will have to push both his angelic heritage, and his psychic powers to the very limits to mend someone who bears more than celestial blood, but who is also the god of space and time.


And the clock’s ticking.

 
About The Author
 

Jeanne Marcella was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Granted unlimited access to books at a very early age via the library, she quickly acquired a fondness for creating her own stories through word and drawing.


She writes queer dark fantasy not for the faint of heart, and fun (but sometimes gritty) urban fantasy soaps, all with romantic elements.

 

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A Caryn Review: Demon on the Down-Low (Supernatural Selection #3) by E.J. Russell

 Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This is the third and final book in the Supernatural Selections series.  I have truly enjoyed the ride on this one, but I wish Ms. Russell had not limited herself to only 3 books in the series.  I posed several questions in my review of Vampire with Benefits, as the first two books were building up towards some complex and sinister plot, and I couldn’t wait to see who, or what, was behind the series of inexplicable mistakes that ended up with two improbable, but extremely successful pairings.  This book does indeed answer those questions, but in an incredibly hasty and disappointingly superficial way.  The resolution fell flat after all the foreshadowing in the first two books.  I wish there had been a more substantial villain and motive, but I don’t think that was possible with the length of these books.

Zeke Oz was the front man, and seemingly only visible employee, of the supe dating service, Supernatural Selections.  He showed up multiple times in the previous two books, of course, and was always adorably flustered when everything kept going wrong.  His back story – a demon on the Sheol work-release program – is fleshed out a bit here, as well as the conditions of his life in Sheol that made him so anxious to do the right thing by his clients.  Adorable and innocent are perfect descriptions of him, despite that fact that he is a demon and should by rights be evil and ugly.  He was caught up in an impossible situation between his superiors in Sheol, his bosses at Supernatural Selections, and his AI – angel interface – and was guaranteed to piss off someone, and doing so would probably land him back in Sheol.

And then Hamish walked into Supernatural Selections, complicating Zeke’s predicament even more as his contract was the result of another baffling glitch in the software.  The spells guaranteeing a perfect match were offline, so the witches just told Zeke to make Hamish happy, or else.

Hamish was a member of Hunter’s moon, the band introduced in Bad Boy’s Bard of the Fae Out of Water series.  He was a kangaroo shifter – Australian, of course – and had been hopelessly in love with one of the other band members for decades.  When she found her bliss in a poly relationship, Hamish was devastated.  Everyone around him seemed to be paired up and happy, and in a fuck-it-all type of mood he signed up with Supernatural Selections, hoping they could accomplish what he clearly was a total failure at.  When Zeke told him that the spells were not working and he would have to actually date – well, it wasn’t what he hoped for, but nothing else worked, so why not?

As Zeke worked to make Hamish happy, several things became clear:  Zeke was exceptionally dedicated and smarter than he realized, and Hamish had a depth of compassion and protectiveness that he had never tapped into before.  Both men recognized that what would really make them happy was each other – but how could Zeke stay in the upper world when he was a demon, and freedom and happiness were things he was categorically denied?

The depth of characterization in this book wasn’t as deep as in the others, and I felt that Hamish especially fell in love just a little too easily, given that his heart was supposed to have been so broken in the beginning.  And Zeke was just a little too good.  And then the ending wrapped up just a little too neatly, and on a much smaller scale than I was expecting.  So maybe my relative disappointment in this book was just because I had such great expectations after reading the other two.  All that being said, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and the series, and I probably will reread them in the future.  And I hope the author is not tired of writing in this universe, because I think there is still tremendous potential for more stories there, and I would love to see more of all of of these characters!

Cover art by L.C. Chase again fits perfectly with the series, and Zeke is very cute in his glasses and hoodie, but don’t you think he looks like the same model for Single White Incubus??

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon | Kobo

Book Details:

ebook, 320 pages
Published February 25th 2019 by Riptide Publishing
Original Title Demon on the Down-Low
ISBN 139781626498587
Edition Language English
Series Supernatural Selection #3

A MelanieM Review: Bitten By Fate (Regent’s Park Pack #6) by Annabelle Jacobs

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

Daryl plays with fire and gets burned by fate…

Former Primrose Pack member Jason Black happily accepted his role as beta in the new Regent’s Hill pack, knowing that merging the two was the best decision for everyone involved. Daryl Easton is loyal and honest but wary of change. The joining of the two packs wasn’t his preferred outcome, and he’s struggling to see all the newcomers as pack, including those now working alongside him.

When the alpha council proposes a two-week pack-building course to help improve troubled relationships, Jason and Daryl are sent along as backup. It soon becomes clear that the unit members and their betas won’t be the only ones taking part in tasks—Daryl and Jason will have challenges of their own to complete.

With the full moon adding to the rising tension, emotions are volatile, and tempers flare among the unit members. Jason and Daryl become closer than either of them expected, but with such opposing views on relationships, a messy outcome seems inevitable unless Daryl can let go of the past.

Bitten By Fate is the series finale for Annabelle Jacobs’ Regent’s Park Pack series, a group of novels I have thoroughly enjoyed.  Each with a Bitten By in the title, they tell the story of a new pack, the Regent’s Park Pack, struggling to come together under a new Alpha after devastating pack wars.  The animosity and territory arguments escalating between a neighbor pack cause most of the anguish, built in mystery, and suspense.  And even romance.

Really this series has it all.  But by the sixth story, most of characters highlighted by the many plot threads had found their mates and completed the mate bond .  Plus all the danger and tension was almost gone as the two packs were now combined under one Alpha, Cam, and his pack.  So a finale story made sense to bring a sense of closure and tie up any loose ends.

Is Bitten By Fate the strongest story in the series?  No, not in my opinion.  For one reason, I don’t feel that Daryl and Jason are “fated” for each other, like the title implies.  great and yes, given the timing in their lives, perfect now for each other.  But fated, in that sense, they were meant to be together?  I never got that.    Which is not to say I didn’t adore them as a couple because I certainly did.    But maybe Bitten Finally At Last would have suited these two far better.

The idea of the Council using corporate “pack building” sessions and exercises, albeit ones only a werewolf could handle, tickled me.  And it worked so well in this story for so many characters.  I could easily identify with both sides pulling together to accomplish their goals.  And Jacobs’ descriptions went a long way to bringing it all to life. What was over the top hot?  The two person Beta exercises the Council had Jason and Daryl do, especially the blindfold ones.  Get out the fans now for those.    They also accomplished the job of bringing the readers intimately into the evolving relationship and making us care where it was going.  Right into that bedroom!

There was a subplot about characters from the other now defunct pack still causing trouble that led to a major story element towards the end.  That aspect of the narrative I felt needed more substance and plot development to work.  Not the reverberations, but the actual person behind it.  That was very shallow and I wished we had more of his story to give his actions more power.

In the end, I was happy to see so many characters that I had come to love throughout the series in this story and to watch Daryl and Jason get their HEA.

Bitten By Fate, like all the other books, is not a standalone story but rather one that should be read as part of the whole series and in the order they were written  to understand the universe and the history behind the pack and its members.  Highly entertaining, full of action, suspense, romance, and heat, if you love the supernatural and werewolves, this is a series for you.  That includes Bitten By Her, I loved that one too.  Strong female betas?  You bet!  And she’s a familiar character throughout the series.

So six books to read, six books to love.  Six couples to get to know.   Six HEA. What more could you want?  I highly recommend them all.

Cover Design: Natasha Snow. Nice cover with the wolf in the background but not especially pertinent to the storyline.

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Universal Link – Exclusive to Amazon and Available to Borrow with Kindle Unlimited

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 215 pages
Published March 5th 2019
ASINB07P6MGCBM
Edition Language English
Series Regent’s Park Pack #6

Regent’s Park Pack Series


Book #1 – Bitten By Mistake – Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #2 – Bitten By Design – Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #3 – Bitten By Desire – Amazon US | Amazon UK
Book #4 – Bitten By The Alpha – Amazon US | Amazon UK

Book #5 – Bitten By Her – Amazon US | Amazon UK