Category: Publishers

A Barb the Zany Old Lady Release Day Review: Starting New by S.C. Wynne

Rating 4 stars out of 5

StartingNew_600x900Francis Murphy has been working the streets to survive on his own for years. By doing everything from scrounging through dumpsters to pickpocketing to hooking, he’s managed to survive. Good-looking but overly thin, he’d do almost anything for food, including entering a church reception looking for the goodies from the meeting being held there. It’s been worse for him since the homeless shelter was vandalized and closed down their operation, but Francis has always attempted to maintain cleanliness so he doesn’t stand out as much in a crowd as some others he knows.

When he’s just about to reach for a plump muffin, he’s hailed by Randy Wright, the pastor’s son. Immediately drawn to Francis, Randy engages him in conversation. But Francis knows just how long he can afford to linger, and as soon as he’s done scoffing down the muffin, he’s out of there.

Unfortunately, his good luck takes a turn for the worse when he barely escapes with his life a few days later after a John goes crazy on him with a knife. Subconsciously, Francis seeks comfort at the Grace and Light Church where he met Randy, and Randy happens to spot him lurking in the shadows. Shocked at Francis’s condition, Randy gets his mother, and then his father involved, and before he knows it, Francis awakens in a bed in their home. There, despite his best efforts to shun their help, he finds support and friendship and finally agrees to work for them by helping to repair the shelter in exchange for room and board.

Over time, he and Randy are attracted to each other, shocking Francis because he never gets involved with anyone and shocking Randy because he thought he was straight. But good things don’t seem to last for Francis and he bolts.

Will he ever find peace? And what about Randy? Will he want Francis in his life as more than a friend? Will the pastor and his wife be as accepting as they verbalize they are? And what about the crazed John with the knife? Is he gone for good? 

This was a very interesting story. Dark in some ways, light-hearted and hopeful in others. It’s the first I’ve read from this author, and I was impressed by the character development. And it’s not “preachy” about religion, though it does explore Randy’s beliefs, which are somewhat influenced by his religious family, though in a church that is more liberal than many. I also enjoyed the slow awakening of feelings by and between both Francis and Randy. This is a good slow burn/UST story for those who prefer that theme. It’s also a good story for those who like their stories to feature MCs who seem to have no hope for the future.

Cover by: G.D. Leigh

Sales Links

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Book Details:

ebook, 192 pages
Expected publication: August 8th 2016 by Riptide Publishing
Original TitleStarting New
ISBN 1626494304 (ISBN13: 9781626494305)
Edition LanguageEnglish

When Talk is Cheap & Life Tough, Can Someone Believe in Love? Find out with Starting New by S.C. Wynne (tour/giveaway)

StartingNew_600x900

Starting New by S.C. Wynne
Riptide Publishing
Cover Art by G.D. Leigh

Release Date Aug 8, 2016
Read an Excerpt/Buy it Here

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Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to have S.C. Wynne here today to share her latest release Starting New with our readers.  Don’t forget to leave a comment at the end to be entered in the giveaway. Welcome S.C.

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Hi, I’m S.C. Wynne and I write M/M romance with a little humor and generally a healthy serving of angst. Welcome to my blog tour for Starting New!

For the next week I’ll share some posts about writing and my story Starting New. Join in the fun by leaving comments and enter to win a $30 Riptide gift card!

About Starting New

Life hasn’t been good to Francis Murphy. He’s survived twenty-one years of homelessness by hooking and taking handouts where he can find them. When the local shelter is vandalized, he’s forced to seek food at the Grace and Light Church, where he runs into the pastor’s son, Randy.

Randy Wright believes the best in others. He’s immediately drawn to Francis, even though Francis is hardened and wary. When Francis is attacked by one of his johns, Randy and his family take him in and offer him temporary work. Randy always thought he was straight, but something about Francis has him yearning for more than just friendship, and realizing he might be bisexual.

Francis is attracted to Randy too, and Randy and his parents say they’ve always believed in gay rights. But talk is cheap. What are the odds that these Christian parents will remain open-minded when it’s their own son in a relationship with another man?

About S.C. Wynne

S.C. Wynne started writing m/m in 2013 and did look back once. She wanted to say that because it seems everyone’s bio says they never looked back and, well, S.C. Wynne is all about the joke. She loves writing m/m, and her characters are usually a little jaded, funny, and ultimately redeemed through love.

S.C loves red wine, margaritas, and Seven and Sevens. Yes, apparently she is incredibly thirsty. She loves the rain and should really live in Seattle, but instead has landed in sunny, sunny, unbelievably sunny California. Writing is the best profession she could have chosen because she’s a little bit of a control freak. To sit in her pajamas all day and pound the keys of her laptop, controlling the every thought and emotion of the characters she invents, is a dream come true.

If you’d like to contact S.C. Wynne, she can be found amusing herself on Facebook at all hours of the day, or you can contact her at scwynne@dslextreme.com.

StartingNew_TourBanner

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Starting New, S.C. is giving away $30 in Riptide credit. Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on August 13, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

A BJ Audiobook Review: Patchwork Paradise by Indra Vaughn and Narrator Craig Beck

Rating:    3.5 stars out of 5

PatchworkParadise_AudiobookOliver and Samuel’s relationship is fairy-tale perfect. They share a gorgeous house in Antwerp, go out with their friends every weekend, and count down the days to their dream wedding. But their happy ending is shattered one late night, and just like that, Ollie is left bereft and alone.

The months that follow are long and dark, but slowly Ollie emerges from his grief. He even braves the waters of online dating, though deep down he doesn’t believe he can find that connection again. He doesn’t think to look for love right in front of him: his bisexual friend Thomas, the gentle giant with a kind heart and sad eyes who’s wanted him all along.

When Thomas suddenly discovers he has a son who needs him, he’s ill prepared. Ollie opens up his house—Sam’s house—and lets them in. Ollie doesn’t know what scares him more: the responsibility of caring for a baby, or the way Thomas is steadily winning his heart. It will take all the courage he has to discover whether or not fairy tales can happen for real.

Usually a blurb is a taste of what happens in the book at the beginning, but this blurb seemed a bit misleading as it pretty much tells about the whole entire book. For instance, Thomas’s son does appear until well past the halfway point in the story, perhaps only in the last third it seemed.

The first third of the story was a total tearjerker, so very, desperately sad and hard to listen to. I felt so awful for Ollie and for Samuel. The aftermath of his death I felt was handled well as far as the grieving process, but I found it interesting that he had no real interest in seeing justice served on the man who had killed his fiancé.

In the second third of the story, I began to feel bad for Thomas as well. I also found myself wondered what it had been about Ollie that had him fall in love when he first met him on what he’d thought was a date, so deeply that it lasted all those years. Thomas was an interesting character, and I especially liked that he was unabashedly bisexual. Although I did connect with him and feel for him, I felt his history and backstory was a bit sketchy. And his messing around with everyone, and I do mean everyone… even a friend, and then hooking up with a guy on a trip even though he still obviously was not over Ollie rather bothered me as well.    

Aside from the moments of joy at the beginning, there was mostly angst, pain and grieving, loss and unrequited love, and problems coming from right and left for the first full two thirds of this story. Not only for Ollie (and Sam), but also Thomas, as well as their friend Chloe. Also I felt awful for Peter, the nice vet who Ollie hooked up with and used as his first sex with another man (ever) after Sam’s death. He seemed such a sweet guy, and he obviously cared. When little Milo arrived on the scene, things begin to lighten up just a bit, but even then, it was interspersed with yet more problems, drama, and angst. 

Despite that, I enjoyed this audiobook. The writing was good, and I felt that the narrator did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, making me feel their individuality and emotions. It was also easy to listen to and understand, which is not always true when there are accents. The narration was consistent, sounded authentic to the area, was easy to listen to and held my attention. I would be glad to pick up other audios narrated by Craig Beck.

I liked the cover by Lou Harper, although the guy with the darker hair who is Thomas doesn’t seem to be larger than the other guy as described in the book.

Sales Links

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Book Details:  6 hrs, 42 mins

Published July 14th 2016 by Riptide Publishing

A Jeri Review: Jersey Heat by DC Williams

Rating: 3 Stars out of 5

Jersey HeatI have to admit that I requested to read and review this book because it was set in NJ. And I am born and bred Jersey girl. So while it didn’t have a lot to do with Jersey- unnamed city they live in, unnamed beach town they visit (although I could guess), it was still a decent steamy read. I just have to put my Jersey bias aside.

Austin and Carter are roommates in a one bedroom apartment with very little air conditioning in the middle of a heatwave. In an effort to keep cool, they decide to leave super early to hit the beach. There is a lot of flirting and rubbing, but even though Austin is gay and out, Carter is presumably straight, and nursing a cracked- not slight broken- heart after his girlfriend dumped him.

*Cue porn music*  This was definitely not a thinker type book, but definitely more a porn screenplay in book form. There was a bit of story there, squeezed in so it isn’t all sex. It’s a fun, hot short story with zero angst. Which is sometimes exactly what you need.

The cover alludes to the heat, the coupling and the beach. What more could you want?

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Sales Links

      MLR Press Books  

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 61 pages
Published July 2nd 2016 by MLR Press
ASINB01HOW0QJG
Edition LanguageEnglish

An Ali Audiobook Review: For Real (Spires Universe) by Alexis Hall and John Hartley (Narrator), Paul Berton (Narrator)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

For Real AudiobookLaurence Dalziel is worn down and washed up, and for him, the BDSM scene is all played out. Six years on from his last relationship, he’s pushing forty and tired of going through the motions of submission.

Then he meets Toby Finch. Nineteen years old. Fearless, fierce, and vulnerable. Everything Laurie can’t remember being.

Toby doesn’t know who he wants to be or what he wants to do. But he knows, with all the certainty of youth, that he wants Laurie. He wants him on his knees. He wants to make him hurt, he wants to make him beg, he wants to make him fall in love.

The problem is, while Laurie will surrender his body, he won’t surrender his heart. Because Toby is too young, too intense, too easy to hurt. And what they have—no matter how right it feels—can’t last. It can’t mean anything.

It can’t be real.

My heart is so zing I can’t even….. Seriously. Not enough words to express how much I loved this story. I had a bunch of friends who had read this and loved it but although I like this author’s work I was still a little dubious about the age gap. It wasn’t the amount of years as much as the fact that Toby was only 19. I went into this feeling a lot like Laurie did. I thought Toby was too young for this story to feel real to me.

This story looks at two very different men at two very different stages of their lives. Toby is working and still living at home with his mother. He knows he has dominate tendencies but really all he has are fantasies. He’s not had any real experience or opportunity to learn how to be a Dom. Laurie is on the opposite spectrum. He’s in his late 30’s and is a doctor. He has an established career and is financially stable. He’s had both short and long term sexual and bdsm relationships. While Laurie should be the one with the most self-confidence he really isn’t. He’s jaded and a tad bitter and he really doesn’t believe love will happen for him again. Toby also has a lack of self-confidence in some ways but his is more an age thing. He’s not sure what he has to offer Laurie. Watching these two try to work through their respective issues was just beautiful. While Toby struggles with not knowing what he wants to do with his future and how to have the sexual relationship he wants, he’s filled with enthusiasm and maybe most importantly, hope. And after awhile with him, those thing start to spread to Laurie.

I felt the author did a great job with both characters. The magic in the storytelling for me was that we got the story told from each characters point of view. I felt like this really helped me to understand what each of them were going through. I found myself identifying with both of them at one point or the other. I understood the doubts Laurie had in regards to Toby’s age. I’m not sure I could date someone that much younger than me. On the other hand I’ve been 19 and I though Toby was a great representation of what it’s like to be at that stage of life.

I also really enjoyed the kink aspect of the story. So often in BDSM books there is a type of formula that seems to be used. This book contained none of that. Toby has the desire to dominate but no real idea how to do it and it stands to reason a young Dom would need to be taught by someone. I loved how Laurie does that in this story and how he gently helps Toby to figure out who he is and what he wants in that regard.

An added bonus to this story was listening to it on audio. I highly recommend you give the audiobook a try. There are two narrators and they both do an excellent job. I think a great narrator can add to and enhance a story and in this case I feel like these narrators did just that.

I read a lot, like 300+ books a year, and there are usually only a handful that really stand out as something unique. Something that makes me think about it for days after I’m done. This book is one of those stand outs and I really can’t recommend this book highly enough.

Cover art by Simoné. I liked the cover and I feel like it does a good job representing the characters and the plot.

Sales Links: Riptide Publishing | Audible | Amazon | iTunes

Audiobook Details:

Audible Audio, 13 pages
Published November 30th 2015 by Audible Studios (first published June 1st 2015)
Original TitleFor Real
ASINB018IJCQWY
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesSpires Universe
Literary AwardsRITA Award by Romance Writers of America for Best Erotic Romance (2016)