Category: M/M Supernatural Fiction

A MelanieM Review: The Last Wolf (Sapphire Ranch Wolves #1) by Sue Brown

The Last Wolf 400x600Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Professor Joseph Lowther Jr. returned home to the Sapphire Ranch when his father became gravely ill. His dad is now hospitalized and its up to Joe Jr. to run the ranch he left years ago.

When Joe hears a commotion out near the barn, he shoots a wolf he thinks is attacking their sheep.  But to his astonishment the wounded wolf turns into a young man, a wolf shifter in need of help and refuge.

Callum Pope just might be the last of his pack.  On the run from hunters who specialize in hunting, killing, and the destruction of all shifter wolf packs, he was on the run until he landed on the Sapphire Ranch and was shot.  That may have been the best thing to ever happen to Callum.  Joe offers him safety, friendship, and perhaps even sanctuary from those hunting him.

For Joe, his view of the universe has been shattered.  But in its place just might be something he never expected….a strong connection to Callum Pope, a bond that grows deeper by the day.  Now all Joe has to do is keep Callum alive long enough to figure out what it all means to himself and to Callum.

When a story manages to combine author Sue Brown and wolf shifters, I know I am in for a treat.  That the story is the first in a new series just makes this all the sweeter.  The Last Wolf by Sue Brown sets the stage for the series and the stories to come.  In that respect,  it tended to try to do too much in this first novel.  But the sweetness of Callum, the likability of Joe Lowther and his father, and  the undeniable terror of hunters bent on exterminating an entire race combine to make this story one to read.

I loved the premise of the series.  Its heartrending in its small details, and shocking in scope.  Hunters out to exterminate an entire race of beings on a world wide scale. That the hunters target all ages and genders, from babies to the infirm just intensifies our fear and horror.  They are killing machines who seem unstoppable.  When you put that type of villain up against a vulnerable young main character who has already lost so much, then your empathy is easily engaged and your connection to this shifter and Joe snaps into place.

The relationships make this story shine.  From the father/son bond between Joe Jr. and Joe Sr., this is a family you adore immediately.  Then there is the growing bond between Joe Jr. and Callum, which is swift but understandable given the circumstances.  I loved that one too.  As the story continues, more people and different types of bonds and deep relationships come into play.  Brown is also setting up some of the potential couples for the stories to come.  One is particular has me “growling” in anticipation.  The author has always been able to make her people and their relationships believable (even if one is a supernatural being), and she continues that  here.

There are some shaky moments in the narrative where the author clearly is trying to get in all the elements she needs for the rest of the series, even if they are only hints and glimpses of things to come.  So at times it can feel rushed or scattered.  But the story and characters are strong enough to pull you into their journey to safety, sanctuary, and love.

What makes a pack?  I think Sue Brown is delivering that answer in her Sapphire Ranch series.  It has a wonderful concept, terrific characters, evil hunters, and the type of elements that  will keep the reader returning to see what the author has in store for us next.  While the ending is not exactly a cliffhanger, Sue Brown leaves us with enough questions that the next installment will be eagerly awaited.   What is in store for the Lowthers, Callum Pope and the Sapphire Ranch?  I have no idea but  can’t wait to find out.

If you love shifters, add this to your TBR list today.  If you adore Sue Brown, this story and series are probably already there.  Now the anticipation begins for the next story.  I will be waiting to see where Sue Brown takes her characters next.  I hope you will be along for that journey!

Cover art by Meredith Russell.  Love that cover.  Great job.

Sales Links:   Love Lane Press          All Romance eBooks (ARe)     Amazon     The Last Wolf

Book Details:

162 pages
Published September 5th 2014 by Love Lane Books Limited (first published September 4th 2014)
edition languageEnglish
seriesSapphire Ranch Wolves #1

Book Blast: On Tour with Amelia Bishop’s Water Witch (contest)

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Contest:  3 Winners chosen to receive a eBook copy of Water Witch.  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.  Please use the Rafflecopter link provided below for the entry form and additional contest details.

Book Name: Water Witch
Author Name: Amelia Bishop
Author Bio:

I am a reader and writer of romantic erotic fiction of all varieties. Sometimes, the little stories in my head just need to be shared (and sometimes they are just for me). I enjoy red wine, black rum, shell-hunting walks along the seashore, and solo late-night drunken dance parties.

Author Contact:

possiblewwTitle: Water Witch by Amelia Bishop
Cover Artist: Cover photo by Dan Skinner
Publisher: Self-published

Buy Links:  Amazon

Blurb:

Vincenzo is a witch with a short fuse, a sexy smile, and dirty mouth.

Life demands little from Vincenzo. Treasured by his mother and grandmother, protected by his coven, and blessed with precognitive skills, he grew up happy and carefree in his snug home by the bay.

Then a sexy Fae walks into his house to steal his beloved heirlooms, and into his dreams to steal his heart. Meanwhile, haunting visions of an unknown disaster on the horizon shake his secure world and force him to take responsibility for the first time in his life.

Now he must master his witchcraft, temper his impulsiveness, and listen to his heart.

Excerpt:

“Salil?” I called again. Maybe I would kiss him? And if he let his guard down, maybe he’d tell me how to release my family’s ritual tools from the bottom of the bay.

“I can’t tell you that until it is time.”

“Shit!” I splashed around, my heart pounding, searching for him. When I located his face bobbing above the waves he was wearing a delighted grin, his fingertips brushing the water in front of him in long fluid motions, keeping him afloat. “Damn it! Do you get off on giving people heart attacks?”

“Your heart is in perfect working order, trust me.” His smile widened and a small laugh surrounded his words.

“Well, thanks for the stress test. Next time you could make a little noise or something, though.”

“I enjoy surprising you. You use such colorful language when you are startled.”

“Glad you find me entertaining.” I was suddenly too hot, my face and chest flushed. “Are you a mind reader now? Eavesdropping on my thoughts?”

“When you talk to yourself so clearly in your head, and if I am near you, I can sometimes hear.” He tilted his head to the side. “It is not the same as eavesdropping, really.”

“Yeah, it kind of is.” It was also something my grandfather could do, though he’d hidden it from everyone but the family. It was a skill most useful when kept secret. So why did Salil just tell me he had it?

He shrugged and swam closer, his eyes hot with desire.


BadgeWaterWitchTour Dates/Stops:
9/8: MM Good Book Reviews
9/9: Book Reviews, Rants, and Raves
9/10: Cate Ashwood
9/11: Elisa – My Reviews and Ramblings
9/12: Love Bytes
9/15: Velvet Panic, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
9/16: EE Montgomery
9/17: Amanda C. Stone
9/18: Prism Book Alliance
9/19: The Hat Party

Rafflecopter Code: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rafflecopter Prize: 3 e-copies of ‘Water Witch’. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter

On Tour with Sue Brown and The Last Wolf (book tour and contest)

The Last Wolf Banner

Get a closer look at Sue Brown’s latest story and new series from Love Lane Books!   Check out that gorgeous cover, read the excerpt, and don’t forget to enter the contest at the end of the post!  Happy Reading! 

 

The Last Wolf 400x600Title – The Last Wolf (Sapphire Ranch Wolves – #1) by Sue Brown
Publisher:  Love Lane Books
Cover Artist:  Meredith Russell

Sales Link:  Love Lane Books

Blurb for The Last Wolf:

The only good predator is a dead one, as far as Joe Lowther is concerned.

That is until the day he shoots a wolf, only to watch the animal turn into a naked Callum Pope. Cal is being hunted by a group of humans who eradicate shifter packs for sport.

Joe makes a decision to help Cal and discovers a deeper connection with the young shifter. One which he’d like to explore. If they live that long.

The Last Wolf (Sapphire Ranch Wolves #1) Excerpt

Joe had seen the wolf for the first time the previous night, a fleeting glimpse of glowing eyes as it tracked a coyote across the paddocks of Sapphire Ranch. He’d been convinced his eyes were deceiving him because he knew there were no wolves in Texas.

“You sure it was a wolf? Are you sure it wasn’t a coyote? What did he look like?” Like all ranchers, his daddy hated predators, but he was peculiarly tenderhearted about wolves. Joe didn’t have the same warm fuzzy feelings. For him, the only good predator was a dead one.

“Four paws, big ears, long fangs. What do you think it looked like?” At his father’s scowl, Joe quit the snark. “I hope I’m mistaken, because if not, the next time I meet it will be at the end of my shotgun.” His father looked upset and Joe cursed himself for mentioning it. “I’ll deal with it.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” his daddy said, shifting restlessly against his pillows. He winced, the lines deepening in his face.

Author Bio:

Sue Brown is owned by her dog and two children. When she isn’t following their orders, she be found haunting coffee shops to feed her coffee addiction. She spends hours people watching instead of typing. She feeds the plot bunnies, not the word count.

Sue discovered M/M erotica at the time she woke up to find two men kissing on her favorite television series. The series was boring; the kissing was not. She may be late to the party, but she’s made up for it since, writing fan fiction until she was brave enough to venture out into the world of original fiction.

Connect with Sue

 

Competition:

The contest is for $15 ARe/Amazon gift card, plus two other prizes of a free ebook from Love Lane.  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.  Please use the Rafflecopter link provided to enter and for additional contest details.

A MelanieM Review: David’s Dilemma by Rae Brewer

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

“Two shifters walk into a bar…”

Jaguar Bk 4Panthera Agency Operative Johnny Walking Bear is in San Francisco for a case. A head cold is making him miserable but with the job not starting until Monday, Johnny wants to take advantage of the city and a free weekend to enjoy eating out, drinking and having lots of sex.  Especially the sex now that he is away from his family home and siblings.  Johnny wants a mate but while he’s looking some honey and mead would make this bear shifter very happy.

Cat shifter David Kern is very unhappy at the moment.  Another confrontation with his ex has David depressed and looking for a diversion.  When his friends call to invite him for a night out at the bars, not even his nasty cold can deter David from a night of clubbing and the chance for a hookup.

So two shifters walk into a bar, in this case David and Johnny.  Their attraction to each other is immediate and intense. No wonder that they end up in bed together at the end of the night.  Their night together is memorable and sexy.  Neither wants the night to be over but Johnny has a job to do. He  leaves David’s house without leaving his name or contact  information.  What neither shifter is aware of is that they are mates.  Between David’s cold blocking his senses and Johnny’s drunken state and cold, neither could sniff out the truth before they parted.

What is a shifter to do when a chance encounter brings him the very mate he has always wanted but he doesn’t realize it at the time?  Through a series of mishaps, miscommunications and wrong assumptions, David and Johnny have  a rocky road to love and HEA, one that also comes with a secret organization  with evil plans who might just be the biggest obstacle of them all.

Rae Brewer’s David’s Dilemma has some terrific elements to it.  One of my favorites is the premise.  Two shifters unable to use their senses, one because of a head cold, the other because he’s drunk, meet, connect, have great sex and then part.  What they miss is that they are a mated pair because neither could smell out the truth at the moment.  That’s funny, a great use of natural history and kind of poignant.  I only wish Brewer has used this element to its fullest promise, instead it gets a temporary treatment and then its gone.

Another great aspect of this story is the bear shifter clan that Johnny belongs to.  Here bear natural history and behavior comes across beautifully.  Large, lumbering, that Johnny is a bear  shifter is evident from his actions to his physiology.  Throw in a terrific family unit of healers and other gifts, and the package is complete.  Again, this book could have focused on the Walking Bear  clan alone and made me a happy reader.  That was a fully realized group of characters and their household was one I could have spent much more time in.

But most of this story deals with other elements.  There is the David/Johnny hookup and mishaps to follow.  That was kind of charming even though I never felt that Brewer made her panther/bear pairing believable.  Also this is the fourth story in the Panthera Agency series and the only one that I have read.  They seem to be a lesser part of this story until the ending.  I couldn’t get a real feel for what they do other than they are run by a group of shifters who help locate and return missing shifters to their families.

That agency and Johnny’s job felt less solid and less an integral part of this story than perhaps Brewer had planned.  It needed more background into the agency  and its operatives to make sense of the events that followed and to understand who all the characters mentioned fit into the story and series.  Brewer also throws in a twist that comes off as more contrived than believable.  Someone realizes they have been drugged and their reaction is almost nonchalant?  This part of the story alone called for a suspension of belief that it was never going to get, as did all the events that stemmed from that act that followed.

I wish Brewer has almost made this into a shifter romcom.  That premise just begged for a lighter treatment and narrative.  That is was bogged down in a less than stellar sort of espionage  plot towards the end made little sense  while making those elements of the story that were well done stand out starkly in contrast.  Which is did by bringing in the Walking Bear family to reintroduce a semblance of a well achieved characterizations to that chaotic ending.

So David’s Dilemma is a bit of a mixed bag here.  Some elements were wonderful, others did not achieve the same level of believability and completeness.  The decision is yours.

Cover art: Jess Buffetf.  Loved this cover.  Great job.

Sales Links:          All Romance         Amazon         David’s Dilemma

 

Book Details:
ebook
Published August 26th 2014 by Smashwords Edition, JK Publishing
ISBN139781311637376

On Tour with Rae Brewer and David’s Dilemma! (contest)

 

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Rae Brewer’s David’s Dilemma

Book Tour and Contest

For contest details and link, scroll down after the excerpt to the end of the post. And look for my upcoming review of David’s Dilemma!

Jaguar Bk 4Book Name: David’s Dilemma
Author Name: Rae Brewer

  • Author Bio: Rae Brewer is new to writing romance and has found a niche in the M/M paranormal genre. After growing up in San Francisco, Rae now calls Chicago home. Author Contact: Facebook

Publisher: JK Publishing, Inc
Cover Artist: Jess Buffett

 David’s Dilemma Blurb: It’s been three years since David broke up with Michael. He’s ready to find his mate. Only the only man he’s attracted to at all is a hookup from a bar. After hours of passion they separate and David only discovers the next morning the man was his mate. Where can he find him again? And what is his name?

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David’s Dilemma Excerpt:

David woke late Sunday afternoon with a headache, which didn’t seem fair because he hadn’t drunk very much the night before. Damn head cold! He still remembered every minute of the night before. Part of him wished he’d broken his own rule and let the handsome hunk stay over. He got what he wanted, he would have blown me off when he saw me in the light of day. Getting out of bed he stumbled to the bathroom sneezing. He decided to take a hot shower, the steam would clear up his sinuses, for a while. He wanted a clear head so he could convince himself it was time to settle down and find a forever love. No more casual sex!

Setting the temp as hot as he could stand, he stepped into the oversized stall. The room quickly filled with steam and his nose started running. He gave a fleeting thought to the scents he was washing down the drain before he remembered his sheets. His cougar wasn’t very happy with him for kicking HH, the handsome hunk, out of their bed and was pouting by being silent. Of course his cougar was generally subdued when he was showering.

After twenty minutes in the steam his muscles were loose and he could breathe again, for now. Stepping out of the shower onto the bathmat he grabbed a clean towel off the shelf and after a quick rub down, wrapped it around his waist. Taking a look in the mirror he decided to take some cold medicine and spend the day being lazy. He was already envisioning a long afternoon on the couch snuggled in a blanket with a pitcher of lemon water and some chicken soup within easy reach. I’m wallowing, because I already miss him.

First though, he needed to strip the bed and put the sheets in the wash. Later, he knew he’d want cool fresh sheets to sleep in. And right now he was as awake, alert, and as energetic as he was going to be for the rest of the day. Walking through the door to the bedroom the scents from his sheets hit him all at once. His inner cat roared and David was so surprised he didn’t stop the shift.

Leaping onto the bed in his puma form, he rolled around in the sheets before sneezing. Sitting up in the bed he had a sheet wrapped around him, the end flopping over his head. He could see his reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. Big tough cat, not! Mate! We found our mate!
Shifting back into his human form allowed him to say what he was thinking. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Untangling himself from the bedding he began to pace around the room. I don’t even know his name!

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DavidsDilemmaBadgeTour Dates: 9/4/14
Tour Stops: Parker Williams, Prism Book Alliance, Rainbow Gold Reviews, Velvet Panic, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Elisa – My Reviews and Ramblings, Guilty Indulgence Book Club, Andrew Q. Gordon, The Hat Party, Cathy Brock Romances, MM Good Book Reviews, Hearts on Fire, Multitasking Mommas, Up All Night, Read All Day, Iyana Jenna, Redz World, Nic Starr, Carly’s Book Reviews, Michael Mandrake

Rafflecopter Code:    a Rafflecopter giveaway

Contest: Rafflecopter Prize: One of three copies of David’s Dilemma.  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.  Prize awarded is not supplied by ScatteredThoughtsandRogueWords.  See the Rafflecopter link  above for entry form and additional contest details.