Category: Publishers

A Lila Review: Life Is Not A Musical (Woodstock Love #1) by Vicktor Alexander

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

 

When Nathaniel “Than” Kelly is told to uncover and report on the secrets in widowed billionaire, viral sensation, single dad, Dominic Montgomery’s closet on why he’s so hell bent in giving his daughter the world, he doesn’t expect to lose his heart in the process; but it may be too late to earn forgiveness of a man who has already experienced loss and betrayal.

Widowed, billionaire father, Dominic Montgomery would do anything to make his daughter, Vienna, smile. Whether it’s taking her to see Taylor Swift in concert every time she’s close to Woodstock to dressing up in a tutu and dancing in her ballet recital to singing Disney songs anywhere… anytime. He’s doing everything he can to be the perfect father. Even if that means pretending he’s in a Disney movie, the handsome prince in search of his princess. There’s just one problem.

Dominic’s bisexuality. It’s a secret he was planning to take to his grave, but his wife discovered it and it caused her death. But when word gets out about his “Musical Day” and undercover reporter Than Kelly arrives, Dominic falls… HARD. But, can he put aside his guilt to find his own happily-ever-after with the man who may just be his fairytale come true, or will he allow it to rule him forever?

 

Life Is Not a Musical didn’t live up to my expectations. I’m a big Vicktor Alexander fan but it was hard for me to get into this story. It has interesting characters and a nice premise, but overall, it was too much when put together.

 

The relationship between Than and Dominic adds the most to the story. It’s easy to see Dominic’s guilt and Than’s regret. I enjoyed Than’s interactions with Vienna, but Dominic’s were a bit too over-the-top.

 

The author did create the framework for a Disney-like musical story. All the events and the preparations fill the bill and it’s executed well. Also, Dominic’s bisexuality is an important component and it’s very well-written. As well as the acceptance and explanations for other sexualities and identities

If you are looking for a soap opera-like story, this might be your story.

 

The cover by Jared Rackler shows Than and Dominic during Musical Day. It does show an important scene, but the composition is a bit awkward.

 

Sale Links: MLR| Amazon | Nook

 

ebook, 263 pages
Published: August 11, 2017, by MLR Press
ISBN: 9781370735761
Edition Language: English

A Caryn Review: Midlife Crisis by Audra North

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I’m so happy to have discovered her.  The book was everything I hoped it would be, and then some.

There is something so special about finding love when you’re older – whether you’ve lost a partner, or never had one, it always, to me anyway, feels like getting more than you thought you could expect.  I think when we’re young, there is a part of us that feels life owes us true love, but by the time we hit middle age, we realize life doesn’t really work that way, and finding it then is a true gift.  Which is why I love these older men!

Cam McGhee is 54 years old, and has left his home town of Bitter, Texas, for basically the first time in his life.  Bitter is an all-black farming town that’s existed for generations.  The community has learned to survive the Southern racism surrounding it by being self-sufficient, trusting and relying on each other, which has always meant behaving within a certain set of unspoken rules.  Following those rules kept them safe, and if it restricted the denizen’s freedom a little bit, well, it was worth it.  Cam grew up in this town of very conservative ideals, and though he knew he was gay from the time he was a young teenager, he also knew that he couldn’t ever admit it and still be accepted.  He started dating LaVerne in high school as a cover, but with small town expectations being what they were, he ended up marrying her, having two children, and staying with her faithfully until she died.  He left his successful feed and grain business in Bitter in his son’s hands, and moved to Austin, Texas, for 6 months, where he hoped to finally experience life as a gay man, at least temporarily, before he buried it all again and moved back to Bitter.

Cam met Dave Montoya at a coffee shop.  Cam had no idea how to approach a man, and his shyness was almost crippling, but Dave made things easy for him.  Dave is a successful, independent man from Connecticut who found his home in Austin, and who has lived his entire life as an out gay man.  Dave had his own reasons for not wanting to jump into casual hookups, and so moving slowly with Cam was natural and easy.  Almost without realizing it was happening, and certainly not intending for it to happen, they fell in love.  Which would have been wonderful, but Cam’s stay in Austin had an expiration date.

The story is told with alternating scenes from Cam’s present in Austin, and flashbacks to his life in Bitter.  I know flashbacks get a bad rap, but in this case, they were the perfect vehicle to show the stark differences between who Cam was, and who he wanted to be, and why he struggled so hard to reconcile these parts of himself.  As Cam and Dave meet and start dating, the story flashed back to Cam and LaVerne’s meeting, and Cam’s conscious decision to use LaVerne as a beard.  When Cam kissed Dave for the first time, he inevitably compared his physical response – as amazing as he’d always hoped kissing a man would be – to his sexual life with LaVerne.  As he started falling in love with Dave, Cam thought of the love he had for LaVerne – platonic, but strong despite the continual guilt he felt for not loving her the way a man should love his wife.  Cam was faithful, generous, and had a strong sense of responsibility and duty – attributes which kept him in Bitter for over 50 years, and when he saw the opportunity to have a different type of life with Dave, he still struggled with the choice:  could he stay in Austin with the man he loved, and life the life he’d always wanted, when doing so meant abandoning his friends and family in Bitter?

Another aspect of the book that I really appreciated was that racism was not front and center.  While it certainly made Bitter into the community it was (and what an interesting choice of name for the town!), once Cam came to Austin, he was just another man, not primarily a man of color.  There was a lot more homophobia mentioned than racism, but again, Dave’s friends and family showed Cam that homophobia wasn’t ubiquitous, and a full life as an out gay man was indeed possible.

Very highly recommended!

Cover art by LC Chase is perfect for the book

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 205 pages
Published August 28th 2017 by Riptide Publishing
ISBN139781626496453

RIPTIDE TOUR and Giveaway: In His Majesty’s Service by Elizabeth Silver and Jenny Urban

In His Majesty’s Service by Elizabeth Silver and Jenny Urban
Riptide Publishing
Cover art by Lou Harper

Read an Excerpt and Buy it here

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to have Elizabeth Silver and Jenny Urban here today on their tour for In His Majesty’s Service.

♥︎

Hi and welcome to our blog tour for In His Majesty’s Service! We’re Elizabeth Silver and Jenny Urban and we’re so excited to share the next few days with you. Join us as we talk about our writing process, our book, and how we’ve managed not to kill each other after a decade and a half of friendship. And don’t forget to enter for one of two prizes: a swag pack including a t-shirt, a bag, and a $5 Riptide gift card among other goodies; and an all new Kindle Fire 7!

About In His Majesty’s Service

Everyone in the Drion Collective knows that finding your match—the one person in existence with the same soul mark as yours—is the best thing that could ever happen. But the last thing Lord Anders Hawthorne is thinking about when he boards a ship to Drion for the king’s funeral is finding his soul mate.

Captain Zachary O’Connell has the perfect life—his ship, the stars, and no emotional entanglements. When heat sparks between him and Lord Hawthorne, Zach gleefully dives into a no-strings arrangement. He doesn’t expect it to last beyond arrival at Drion, any more than he expects trouble along the way.

Trouble quickly finds them, however, and it soon becomes clear that Lord Hawthorne is not only not who he says he is, but also that he’s the target of a deadly plot. With danger all around them, Zach and Anders must work together to save the Collective. Meanwhile, Zach must come to grips with losing everything he always thought he wanted, to have the one thing he never dreamed he needed.

Now available from Riptide Publishing. 

About the Authors

About Elizabeth Silver

Elizabeth Silver is a writer, a tarot reader, a Level Two Cat Lady, and an internet junkie. Her day job is terribly dull, her hobbies oddly specific and quirky, and her husband the most patient person a writer could ask for.

A New Jersey native, Liz is a proud nerd and an awkward human being. She likes to think it makes her endearing. When not writing, Liz can be found collecting tarot cards, chasing Pokemon, fighting her way out of YouTube spirals, and/or performing online searches that will probably land her on a government list somewhere someday.

Connect with Liz:

● website: www.idkmybff.com

● Facebook: Elizabeth Silver

● Twitter: @LizSilverWrites

 

About Jenny Urban

Jenny Urban lives not too far from Las Vegas—but not too close—with two cats named after fictional wizards. She has been writing with coauthor Elizabeth Silver for nearly fifteen years, with their first book published in 2010.

When not writing or at the evil day job, she loves to sing, play the piano, read, and watch monster-hunting brothers on TV.

Connect with Jenny:

● Website: www.idkmybff.com

● Facebook: Jenny Urban

● Twitter: @JenUrbanWrites

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of In His Majesty’s Service, one lucky winner will receive a Kindle Fire 7, and a second lucky winner will win a swag pack including a bag, a t-shirt, a $5 Riptide gift card and a collection of paper goodies!

  

Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 16, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!