Category: Publishers

A MelanieM Review: Precious Metals by L.A. Witt

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Precious MetalsAs a provision inspector below the Chilkoot Pass during the Klondike Gold Rush, Constable Paul Benson of the North-West Mounted Police has seen it all. The monotony, the fights, starvation and even death that has come with the miners rushing to make their fortune in gold. But even as the masses of humanity crowd into camps, Paul has been able to keep himself emotionally separated from the madness and madmen around him.  Until the arrival of Joseph Starling in his life.

Joseph Starling appears in camp, practically dead.  Joseph and his two brothers had been among those mining gold up north but there the brothers met a familiar fate.  They were robbed, one brother killed and the youngest still in the clutches of the men who attacked them.  Now Joseph is on his way to find his brother and bring him safely home.

It’s to Paul that Joseph is brought to and its Paul’s plan Joseph will use to catch up to the robbers.  Only Paul never counted on going with Joseph on a journey that will change them both in ways they never expected.  From eight-legged mechs with minds of their own to crash-prone airships, this is a trip with no guarantees, for success and even coming out alive.

Just the cover and the title alone is enough to recall the wonderful steampunk universe L.A. Witt has created for this remarkable series.  The first novel, Noble Metals, firmly established a steampunk world where the Klondike Gold Rush includes steam driven 8-legged brass mechs, mechanical beasts of burden instead of horses or sleds, where the North-West Mounted Police patroled the borders and camps instead of the Royal Canadian Mounties, but the human frailties, greed, and despair remain firmly entrenched by the pursuit of gold.  I loved that story.  It was inventive, believable, and a terrific romance to boot.

Now comes Precious Metals and that treacherous, amazing world comes alive once more.  Using the same format of alternating points of view,  L.A. Witt takes the reader from perspective to perspective easily without jumbling her narrative.  The story opens with Paul Benson looking over the teeming mass of miners gathered to get permits and head north into the Yukon.  Immediately we realize that being a Mountie is not the passion for Paul that one would think, an aspect of this story both unusual and telling. Into his line of vision comes a tattered group of miners walking beside a worn mech, lying on top is Joseph.  From the minute Joseph wakes up in the make shift infirmary, his heartbreaking portion of the story unfolds and Precious Metals takes flight.

Joseph Starling stole my heart immediately.  There are so many facets to this character, loving and loyal brother, ingenious engineer, and courageous, intrepid explorer and that doesn’t even begin to cover it.  There is another surprise in store for the readers concerning Joseph that the cover happily does not give away.But this element of Joseph’s character and its part in the story adds not only depth but heart to this amazing journey. It’s Paul that I had to warm up to.  Paul Benson has his own decisions to make and he tends to need a lot of internal prodding to get moving forward.  But once he does, then the reader is sure to embrace his character as much as we do Joseph’s.

Oh, the descriptions of the arduous trail north that L. A. Witt treats us to!  Heavy snowfalls, avalanches, bone chilling, death causing temperatures, and always, always something worse waiting to happen just around the bend.  And the vivid, wonderful passages make us feel every exhausting, frozen, torturous inch of the trail north.  And did I mention that there are airships afloat as unreliable and crash prone as the mechs themselves?  By the end of the story I found it hard to believe that the journey itself only unfolds in a short time frame because we were in the trenches with Paul and Joseph,  For them, as well as us, the heightened danger and close proximity brings an understanding, though not love, that feels as real as the journey itself.

For unlike the couple in Noble Metals, here the attachment forms quickly, yet realistically.  Is it a case of instant love?  I think not, but certainly a romance with a future if the men have any say.  Yes, this is a HFN that is satisfying in a book that I loved perhaps more than the last.   I highly recommend Precious Metals and its predessor, Noble Metals.  Pick them both up today and begin your passage to Chilkoot Pass , the Klondike Gold Rush and the men who find themselves and love along the way!

Cover artist April Lee’s drawing is both lively and a little rough, a bluntness about it that adds to its charm in my opinion.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing       All Romance eBooks        amazon           Precious Metals

Book Details:

ebook, 150 pages
Published October 27th 2014 by Riptide Publishing
original titlePrecious Metals
ISBN139781626491748
edition languageEnglish

Book in the Metals steampunk universe can be read as stand alone novels:

Noble Metals

Previous Metals

A MelanieM Review: Billionaire with Benefits (Romancelandia #2) by Anne Tenino

Rating: 3.25 stars out of 5

 It’s just a friend thing.

BillionaireWithBenefits_400x600For fourteen years  Tierney Terrebonne’, of the Ambulance  Service owning Terrebonne family, has been in love with his best friend, Ian Kelly. Someone he thought was straight and therefore off limits.  But the truth was that his best friend was gay and in love with someone else.  That was a reality that Tierney couldn’t and didn’t handle very well.  Weighed down from years of emotional repression from his authoritative grandfather, Tierney has stayed firmly in the closet where his parents and brother prefers him to remain.  But the cost to Tierney results in a man losing his battles with alcohol abuse and a pattern of self destructive behavior that is costing him the few friends he has left.  Including the one he thinks he is still in love with.

Dalton Lehnart’s life has been one of rejection and rebounding, over and over again.  From parents that threw him away when he was outed in high school, to a series of wealthy, damaged, closeted, lying, cheating, no-good, cowardly men, who kept him…for a while, temporary has been Dalton’s middle name. But now Dalton has a job he likes, and good friends so things are looking up.  Then Tierney Terrebonne weaves into his boss’s office, reaking of booze and demands. Of course Dalton finds he’s immediately attracted to Tierney Terrebonne. Damaged men are his thing, right?

Somehow as Tierney tilts towards a complete meltdown, Dalton is there trying to save the man he sees underneath the posturing and self destructive alcohol-induced behavior.  When Tierney outs himself in the worst possible manner on the worst possible moment, the aftermath finds Tierney checking into rehab and Dalton is there with support.

Dalton soon finds out that timing is everything when the post rehab Tierney can’t  handle anything other than friendship, just when Dalton thinks they might have something more.  That should make it easy for Dalton to leave it at friendship, shouldn’t it?  But what if the safest thing for them both isn’t the best thing for both?  What happens when “just a friend thing” isn’t enough?

I love Anne Tenino.  Her characters have such heart and life to them that’s its almost impossible to leave them behind when the story is done.  I definitely felt that way about Sam and Ian Kelly from the first Romancelandia story, Too Stupid To Live (Romancelandia #1).  Sam was so endearing and hug worthy that he almost levitated off the pages.  Adding Ian Kelly to Sam brought about a romance that was funny, heartwarming, and real.  Luckily, for this story, both have large roles to play out here.  Why is that such an important aspect to Billionaire with Benefits?  Because without them and the character of Dalton Lehnart, this book would sink under the weight of Tierney Terrebonne, a character so problematic that living inside his head is painful and sad at best, irritating and prolonged at the worst.

The story switches pov from Tierney to Dalton and back, but for the most part, its Tierney’s head we live inside.  We are present for all his repressed thoughts and feelings, his sense of entitlement, his endless bouts with the bottle and feelings of insecurity.  We are there through all the countless drunks and sobering mornings, the meanness and the apologies (a pattern anyone familiar with substance abuse will recognize).  He, himself, understands that he is acting like a “douchebag”, a term I’m not fond of.  He’s an extraordinarily well written believable mess of a man, a character so well defined by his issues and past that he is both identifiable and authentic.  And he is the voice for the majority of this story.

How the reader handles that intimacy with such a exasperating character will figure into how well they enjoy or commit to this story.  For me, it felt like spending time with someone with a large substance abuse problem, a person I was not particularly fond of.  I didn’t start to appreciate Tierney until I was able to see him through the eyes of Dalton, a man with a weakness for damaged men with his own angst filled past to boot.  And even then,Dalton was far more the interesting and relatable personality.  Dalton I totally enjoyed, from his perspective on life to his attempts to be supportive while raising enough barriers to keep himself emotionally safe.  Of course, Dalton too is well written, so we can see  how that is going to work out for him.  I think had the time spent within this story been reversed, so that’s its Dalton’s voice we hear most of the time, my feelings about Billionaire with Benefits would be more positive and the rating higher.

The last element  that bothered me was the miracle of “rehab”.  Two weeks and an almost lifetime of alcohol abuse is dealt with successfully.  While a far more realistic approach to Tierney’s recovery and life as a recovering alcoholic would have required almost as many pages as it took him to get there, even a shortened version of the real thing would have made this aspect of the story more believable as Tierney becomes sober.

So again, what saved this story?  Apart from Dalton that is? The inclusion of Sam, lovely, light-hearted, romance story loving Sam.  And Ian of course.  Sam and Ian’s interaction with Dalton amused and informed (along with the romance novels Sam loves so well).  They added just the right type and tone of perspective on Tierney and Dalton that the reader required, and the balance of their relationship versus what was happening with Tierney and Dalton was a welcome relief.

Billionaire with Benefits seems to be along the same time line as Too Stupid Too Live, with some of the same events occuring in both.  This works so both stories can be read as stand alones or together to round out the time frame and relationships between all the reoccurring characters.  Next up is Miller’s story, one I have been waiting on.  I can’t wait to see Miller have his own HEA.  As for Billionaire with Benefits, some will love it, others not. I will leave it up to you as to whether it appears on your TBR list or not.

Cover artist: L.C. Chase.  Love that cover.  It’s adorable and lighthearted, far more so than this book. I only wished I liked the story inside half as well.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing   All Romance eBooks  amazon   Billionaire with Benefits

Book Details:

ebook, 415 pages
Published October 18th 2014 by Riptide Publishing
original titleBillionaire with Benefits (Romancelandia #2)
ISBN139781626491960
edition languageEnglish
urlhttp://riptidepublishing.com/titles/billionaire-with-benefits
seriesRomancelandia #2
charactersTierney Terrebonne

Romancelandia Series, all can be read as standalones or together:

Too Stupid to Live (Romancelandia, #1)
Billionaire with Benefits (Romancelandia #2)

Into the Author Spotlight with Haley Walsh and her Skyler Foxe Mysteries! (book tour

Foxe Tail cover

Foxe Hunt 2 coverOut Foxed 3Foxe Fire cover 4

Who’s sitting in the Author Spotlight today?  Haley Walsh, author of the Skyler Foxe Mystery Series.  Haley is here today to talk about her latest release and the inspiration behind Skyler Fox.  This M/M romantic mystery series follows the teaching and unwitting sleuthing career of Skyler Foxe, high school English teacher!

 

Haley Walsh is giving away one eBook copy of Desert Foxe (Skyker Foxe Mystery Series 5).  To enter to win, leave a comment with an address where you can be reached in the body of the email.  Do you have a favorite sleuth?  Tell us about it and be entered to win.  Contest ends 11/22/2014.

 

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The Story Behind the Skyler Foxe Mystery Series
By Haley Walsh

There’s a story behind every story. What inspired the books? What, if any of it, is from your own life? But the story behind my latest Skyler Foxe Mystery was more than that. It happened quite a few years ago, in fact. Long ago and far away.

It’s strange to have been pals (and have dated) gay guys all one’s adult life and yet not know about m/m romance until recently. Sometimes you walk around with blind spots. But when I did discover it, it sort of became something sitting in the back of my mind. After all, I was working on a career as a novelist. I didn’t have time for this. I was writing serious books! Of course, about that time, I had veered my writing toward the fun genre of murder and mayhem: mysteries! But these were still fairly serious being historical mysteries, something dense with prose and heady research. In fact, research took up a lot of my time besides the day job, but I did finally get that publishing contract from a big New York publisher. No, it’s not all that glamorous and money is not tumbling into my hands, but let’s just say it is slightly prestigious and ego-boosting.

And yet, here at the back of my mind was this other story just squirming around taking up my daydreaming time. Since I was in mystery mode now it began being shaped as a mystery, and since I love writing characters with depth, it started to be populated with all kinds of interesting people with detailed backstories. For my day job, I had been working with kids and teens for six years, and with the teens there was so much drama from the least little thing. My writer’s eye took note, memorizing details like the toss of a head, the scrunch of a nose, someone wearing their sunglasses at the back of their head, the slouching, the strutting, the posturing, the slang! Yes, an idea was definitely forming.

I like stories to have all sorts of things going on. And especially in a mystery, it isn’t necessarily the puzzle that is the most important thing in the book. The characters and their lives and loves can become the main thrust and the mystery can come along and screw it all up. Making my detective an amateur sleuth and putting him in a high school setting as a teacher added just the right amount of angst, red herrings, and plot galore to keep a series going for a good long time.

I do use my own past experiences with teens, my own sense of humor, some of the characterizations of gay men I have known. These books are supposed to be funny, light-hearted romantic mysteries but they also deal with some serious themes and issues, including homophobia, murder, and the sexual orientation of teens. It’s fluff but deep fluff. Fluff noir.

And then I got the idea from watching the television show, Veronica Mars, that one could have a mystery solved in each episode but still have an on-going story arc stretch throughout the season. And I got it in my head to do that with the first three books of this series, making it like a mini-series pilot. Each book will have its own puzzle, its own murder to solve, but there will be something going on in the background, something strange and dangerous to keep the characters on edge for three books until the final denouement in book three.

And so we started with FOXE TAIL. Skyler Foxe is a young, fun-loving player, a brand new high school English teacher in a bible belt sort of region inFoxe Tail cover southern California. He loves teaching, loves his school kids, has an unnatural obsession with Motown music, and loves going out dancing with his friends, who are all former hook-ups—what are affectionately known as the Skyler Fuck Club or SFC—and just wants nothing more than partying on weekends and getting down to English Lit during the week. Of course—this being a mystery—he also falls into murder.

In the first book, FOXE TAIL, Skyler finds a dead body outside a dance club and discovers it’s the son of his high school principal.

Foxe Hunt 2 coverAnd in FOXE HUNT, Skyler meets up again with former hook-ups and friends, Jeff and Evan, just kicked out of the Army for don’t ask don’t tell. Evan came home wounded and very depressed and winds up dead. The police call it suicide but Skyler discovers it’s murder. Meanwhile, through all this, something fishy is going on behind the scenes at the high school. A math teacher, hinting at her own fears and suspicions, is pushed down the stairs and ends up in a coma. And the gorgeous new assistant football coach, Keith Fletcher, is acting suspiciously himself, and seems to know more than he should.

In book three, OUT-FOXED, while chaperoning a high school dance Skyler has just been dragged out of the closet by the hunky assistant football coach—a man he thought he knew. But when Sky discovers Keith has been keeping a big secret, he breaks it off, leaving both of them lonely and confused. With troubles mounting from the press, angry parents, confused students, Skyler’s own mom, andOut Foxed 3 a murdered teacher, what’s a boy to do but discover—once and for all–who’s behind all the dirty doings at James Polk High? A novella followed, volume 3 ½ called FOXE DEN: A Holiday Collection. It has no mystery at all, but what I call “DVD extras.” We see Skyler and his Foxe Den 3.5main squeeze Keith through the holiday season with some hot action as well as navigating the scary territory of a first time relationship.

Book four, FOXE FIRE, is a standalone though it does continue the story arc of Skyler and his boyfriend Keith while Skyler is trying to stop an arsonist and a murderer, worrying that it might be one of his students. And in the latest release, DESERT FOXE, Skyler and his cadre of friends goes to the White Party in Palm Springs for some fun, frivolity, and luscious men but wind up getting involved in murder and more when the FBI asks Skyler to do the unthinkable.Foxe Fire cover 4

There are more books in the future with Skyler tackling some of the knottier issues of LGBT life and, of course, solving murders.

DesertFoxe_WDDesert Foxe by Haley Walsh
Published by MLR Press

Genre: M/M mystery/humor
Is it Part of a Series: It is number 5 in the series, which is also available for review
Publication Date: Nov 7
Length of book: 230 pages
Formats: Print and ebook: mobi, pdf, Kindle
Website: http://SkylerFoxeMysteries.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skylerfoxe.mysteries

Sales Links:   MLR Press   All Romance Ebooks (ARe)
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You can find out more about Haley Walsh’s series at her website  or friend her on Facebook /skylerfoxe.mysteries

Author Bio:

Haley Walsh tried acting, but decided the actor’s life was not for her. Instead, she became a successful graphic designer in Los Angeles, her hometown. After fifteen years of burning money in the ’80s and early ’90s, she retired from the graphics industry and turned her interests toward writing. She became a freelance newspaper reporter, wrote articles for quirky magazines, published award-winning short stories, and now writes an acclaimed gay mystery series, the Skyler Foxe Mysteries. She’s lived all her life in southern California, sampling wines and chomping chocolate. Yeah, it’s a living.

You can contact Haley Walsh at:

Website
Goodreads Author Page

A MelanieM Review: The Best Corpse for the Job by Charlie Cochrane

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

Best Corpse for the Job cover

Tea and sympathy have never been so deadly.

The private school of Lindenshaw St Crispin’ has long lost the luster it once had.  Once a sought after place of high education, it has now sild slowly into the ranks of lesser schools and its dwindling enrollment reflects that.  But the governors want a return to its glorious days and to do that they need to hire a new Head Master or Head Teacher as the title is now called.  Among those chosen for the selection panel is schoolteacher Adam Matthews.  All Adam wants is to chose the best person for the children and go home to his quiet life at the end of the day.  But when one of the applicants is found strangled in the school, everyone looks to be a suspect, even Adam himself.

Inspector Robin Bright isn’t thrilled to be back at St. Crispin’s. the scene of the crime and his old alma mater.  The school and its grounds,  as well some of the old staff that still remember him, bring back old painful memories Robin would rather stay forgotten.  The one bright spot is one that he shouldn’t be thinking about? That would be the handsome and kind schoolteacher, Adam Matthews.

 

All the secrets of Lindenshaw St. Crispin’s start to surface as another body is discovered.  As the stakes get higher and the murderer becomes more desperate, Adam and Robin have to decide who they can trust and rely on, even deciding if that includes each other.  The complications rise up and the race is on to find the killer before Adam and even Robin himself are targeted.

If you look up the definition of Cosy Mystery in the dictionary, it includes this statement ”

“Cozies are mystery novels typically set in English country houses, villages, or other benign environments. Cozies feature very little violence, aside for the murder, and few gory details. The term arose from the relatively genteel settings, the common use of amateur sleuths as protagonists, and the fact that all loose ends are tied up and the villain caught and punished by the novel’s conclusion.”

To that I will add, the Cozy Mystery is a popular trope found in all forms of media, from Agatha Christie, the grande dame of Cozies to Murder, She Wrote.  It has a timeless appeal with its small town settings and the intimacy found between all the various townspeople… victims, murderers, suspects alike.  It lacks the brutality and rawness of other mysteries, concerning itself with the amateur sleuth and their ability to reason.  Small wonder that Charlie Cochrane, that marvelous author of stories composed of civilities, history, and relationships has written a cozy to delight us all.

The Best Corpse for the Job brings us into the small English village of Stanebridge and a school in decline.  Lindenshaw St. Crispin’s is a school mired in its past.  And its teachers, well, most of them, realize that to survive it needs a new Headteacher (formerly known as Headmaster) and direction to pull it into the present.  A panel is chosen to decide who is the best candidate for the job and then hire that person.  So deceptively simple a decision and yet so fraught full of politics, personality clashes, and ambition that you know it will go wrong right from the start.  And it does, deliciously so.

Cochrane brings us into the civilized halls and playing  fields of this most austere establishment, letting us feel our way through the aged paneled hallways, noting the deep history of the school while subtly highlighting the wear, tear, and worn nature that its lowered status has caused.  Through Cochrane’s descriptions one doesn’t have to had stepped foot in such a school to feel the atmosphere of stress, age, and years of children of all ages trooping in and out have wrought upon St. Crispin’s.  It’s all marvelously there, a perfect setting for murder most foul.

Adam Matthews, a kind and caring teacher who prefers to keep his homosexuality quiet from some of the more bigoted members of the staff, is such an attractive main character.   His geniality, his concern for his students and the future of the school make him immediately likable.  We get his concerns and we adore the way in which he appreciates his life, from the school to his small house, complete with enormous Newfoundland called Campbell.  He’s the perfect amateur Cozy sleuth and he acquits himself handsomely here from start to finish.

More complex, definitely more brooding, Inspector Robin Bright has a painful history that is deeply rooted in the very school that is the scene of the crime.  And this crime has brought up all the old hurtful memories and issues that Robin thought he had put in the past.  Again, Cochrane makes us feel the bitterness and anger Robin has carried with him all these years and it’s a stark contrast to Adam and the type of teacher he represents. Robin too is someone the reader will care about greatly.

And at the heart of this story is the crime and murderer who remains hidden for most of the story.  It’s a twisty little mystery, one that the reader will enjoy puzzling out along with Robin and Adam, as the scares, clues, and suspense ratchets up the stakes for all.  Is there a heart thumper or two?  Why, yes, there is and it makes the ending all the more enjoyable.

I hope that there are further mysteries ahead for Robin and Adam, they make quite the team.  And Charlie Cochrane’s ability to bring the gentility, intimacy, and sometimes deadly village goings on to life makes her a Cozy Mystery author to write home about.   Consider The Best Corpse for the Job, and its author, Charlie Cochrane both among Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words highly recommended reads.

Cover Artist: L.C. Chase.  I have to admit to being disappointed in the cover.  Too modern for a Cozy, it missed so many opportunities to highlight the story and the mystery it involves.  It looks more like a modern office than ancient private school.

Sales Links:  Riptide Press (available for pre order)   All Romance eBooks   Amazon – all links to follow

Book Details:

ebook, 298 pages
Expected publication: November 24th 2014 by Riptide Publishing
original titleThe Best Corpse for the Job
ISBN139781626491571
edition languageEnglish
urlhttp://riptidepublishing.com/title

Let’s Go Back to Bluewater Bay with Starstruck by L. A. Witt (book tour and contest)

Welcome to Bluewater Bay!BWBlogo_Web

This quiet little logging town on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula has been stagnating for decades, on the verge of ghost town status. Until a television crew moves in to film Wolf’s Landing, a soon-to-be cult hit based on the wildly successful shifter novels penned by local author Hunter Easton.

Wolf’s Landing’s success spawns everything from merchandise to movie talks, and Bluewater Bay explodes into a mecca for fans and tourists alike. The locals still aren’t quite sure what to make of all this—the town is rejuvenated, but at what cost? And the Hollywood-based production crew is out of their element in this small, mossy seaside locale. Needless to say, sparks fly.

This collaborative story world is brought to you by ten award-winning, best-selling LGBTQ romance authors:  L.A. Witt,  L.B. Gregg,  Z.A. Maxfield,  Aleksandr Voinov,  Heidi Belleau,  Rachel Haimowitz,  Anne Tenino,  Amy Lane,  SE Jakes, and  G.B. Gordon. Each contemporary novel stands alone, but all are built around the town and the people of Bluewater Bay and the Wolf’s Landing media empire.

Join L.A. Witt and L.B. Gregg for the Welcome to Bluewater Bay Tour, and check out Starstruck and There’s Something About Ari to meet the cast, crew, and locals!BWB_150x300

About Starstruck

Starstruck_150pixels4pwHollywood is full of dirty secrets, but Carter refuses to be Levi’s.

Retired action star Levi Pritchard has made a quiet life for himself in the sleepy logging town of Bluewater Bay, Washington. But then Hollywood comes to film the wildly popular television series Wolf’s Landing, and Bluewater Bay isn’t so sleepy anymore. His retirement doesn’t stick, either, because he’s offered a part on the show—exactly the kind of complex role he’d always wanted, one that would prove him more than a glorified stuntman. The only catch? He has to stay in the closet—no matter how attractive he finds his co-star.

Carter Samuels is the critically-acclaimed male lead on Wolf’s Landing. And now, the man who inspired him to take up acting—and made him realize he’s gay—is joining the cast, and sparks fly between them instantly. But Carter is out and proud and determined to stay true to himself.

Remaining just friends is the only thing to do, as both the studio and Levi’s disapproving, dysfunctional family keep reminding them. Except their friendship deepens by the day, tempting them with what they can’t have but both desperately need.

About L.A. Witt.

L.A. Witt is an author of gay erotic romances, and has been recently exiled from Okinawa, Japan, to Omaha, Nebraska. She resides there with her husband, a telekinetic goldfish, and two incredibly spoiled cats. It’s unclear if the exile was the result of the mostly classified “Aquarium Incident,” or if she’s actually being hidden, for her protection, from the Polynesian Mafia and her arch nemesis, erotic romance author Lauren Gallagher.

Should you encounter Lauren, don’t tell her L.A. is in Omaha. This bio will self-destruct in 17 seconds.

Connect with L.A.:

Contest:  Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a choice of two eBooks off my backlist (excluding Starstruck) and a $10 Riptide Publishing store credit. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on November 9th, and winners will be announced on November 10th. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

A MelanieM Review: Sleigh Ride (Minnesota Christmas #2) by Heidi Cullinan

Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

Sleigh Ride coverArthur Anderson is just plain unhappy.  His roommate, best friend with benefits, Paul, has decided to move out, leaving  Arthur’s house cold and lonely.  Paul wanted more from Arthur after years of living together and casual sex (at least that’s how Arthur looked at it).  The town’s mill has closed, albeit temporarily, leaving Arthur without a job and his mother wants Arthur to act as Santa and ride a sleigh for a benefit for the town’s library.  And to top it all off,  his mother wants to fix him up with the librarian who so clearly despises Arthur.  No, Arthur is not a happy man at all.

Shy, lonely, and cut off from the community he serves as the town librarian, Gabriel Higgins isn’t happy either, unless he is seated among children at storytime or busy with all things books.  When  Arthur is mentioned by Arthur’s mother (and member of the library board) as the benefit Santa, Gabe doesn’t want him, either—as a Santa, as a boyfriend, as anyone at all. But when Arthur’s efforts to wiggle out of the fundraiser lead to getting to know the man behind the storytime idol, he can’t help but be charmed.

One things leads to another and soon the men find themselves happy and  sort of involved.  But a small town is full of pitfalls as well as positives.  Can Arthur and Gabe surmount all obstacles, including the ones they raise themselves, to find a  sleigh ride to HEA?

This story absolutely threw me.  I started off unsure about the characters, the town, and the unlikeliest of romances but before I knew it, Heidi Cullinan had pulled me into her world of quixotic characters, small town life and a burgeoning love affair between two such dissimilar men and kept me happily there for hours.  I ended up loving this story completely and for so many different reasons.

Talk about your odd pairing! That would be short, bearish, red-headed Arthur Anderson, a gruff, handyman with certain needs, and the tall, slightly built, curly haired librarian, Gabriel Higgins. Gabe is eloquent, shy, and literary in his conversation.  He too has hidden needs that will surprise all.  Even their backgrounds couldn’t be any more different from each other. Arthur’s family is a delight.  Gabe’s? Not so much. Arthur is actually hard to like at the beginning, He comes across as rude, boorish, and intractable.  Not someone who endears himself to the reader immediately.  No, Arthur has to slowly reveal the elements to his personality and the facets that he shows only to those he trusts before the reader starts to first like, and then finally fall deeply in love with him. Gabriel’s true self is hidden under a shell of protection Gabe has erected, so its hard to see at first that he has an inner fire and strength that comes out at the library where he feels safe and secure.

The scenes with the children and the stories at the library as well as the  feeling of the library as a small town hub are conveyed  realistically here.  The authenticity of the setting and the references to childhood stories and graphic novels made this story so believable that I felt I had been there before.  Cullinan is able to show the many facets of a librarian’s profession that few see past the person reshelving the books or stamping them out as you leave.  It’s a lovely reveal and it makes Gabe’s character so much more interesting, giving him a depth that plays off nicely against the alienation Arthur feels from his past experience with books and reading.

And that pull of opposites is one of the major charms of this story, it’s the joy of watching the men slowly move towards each other and a future together.  Loved that, truly I did.  Mingled with scenes and relationships of those around them, they are  pushed and pulled, tugged and marched towards each other until something gives.

Another highlight here is the relationship between Arthur and his nephew, Thomas, a sensitive child who loves a babydoll named Soupy.  Aspects of their relationship, including Gabe’s part in making Thomas feel understood and accepted had me in tears.  A book titled William’s Doll, a mesmerized group of children and some childhood companions combine to deliver a powerful message and turn what a mother perceived as an embarrassment into riches.  Heartwarming, totally heartwarming.  It also shows the ability and power of the written word (or pictures as the case might be) to change a situation as well as perspective.  It was an enchanting scene that has continued to stay with me.

Cullinan has packed this story full of such dramatic and moving moments.  In addition we have the exploration of two compatible if kinky sexual needs, desires that both men have trouble revealing. That difficult part of Arthur and Gabriel’s relationship  is handled with the same sensitivity and thoroughness of other elements in this story while  not discounting how sexy and hot it is.

So much joy and discovery, so much love and acceptance.  I adored this story and all its well defined and all too human characters.  It had been a while since I read Let It Snow, the first Minnesota Christmas story.  It was only until I was halfway through Sleigh Ride that I realized I knew Marcus and Frankie already. I don’t think its necessary to read that story before this one.  Just consider it a perk and pick it up later.  You will enjoy watching Marcus and Frankie get together, while bringing back memories of this story all over again.  You really can’t go wrong with either story.  So get them both!

I love Heidi Cullinan, her stories  always so full of heart and understanding.  Sleigh Ride contains all the wonderful Heidi Cullinan trademarks with a great plot and a small town you just might want to put on your next itinerary.  Consider this one of Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words highly recommended reads.

Cover artist: L.C. Chase.  Love that cover, just as heartwarming and wonderful as the characters and story within.

Sales Links:    Samhain Publishing        All Romance eBook (ARe)     amazon    Sleigh Ride

Book Details:

ebook
Expected publication: November 11th 2014 by Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
edition languageEnglish
urlhttp://www.heidicullinan.com/sleigh-ride
seriesMinnesota Christmas #2

Minnesota Christmas series:

Let It Snow (Minnesota Christmas #1)
Sleigh Ride (Minnesota Christmas #2)