Category: Publishers

Review: In Discretion by Reesa Herberth

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

InDiscretion_500x750Discretionary Thanson Nez is in trouble.  He is just ended his contract with his Guild’s client and the secret he is carrying is so huge, so explosive that he needs to hand it over to his Guild immediately.  But there are obstacles blocking his way, including being attacked by the son of his last client who felt he had as much right to Thanson as his father did, another reason Thanson ended that contract. Now he is stranded at some space station on the outskirts of the Empire with no way back to the Guild while carrying the most dangerous secret of his career, a secret he can tell to no one outside his Guild. The last person Thanson expected to run into on the space station was the boy he loved and left on his home world.

Kazra Ferdow, Station 43’s communications officer, is stunned to see  Thanson Nez in his office asking for a secure channel to his Guild.  It’s been years since he last saw Thanson and now his ex lover stands in his office asking for a secure direct line to his Guild.  It all spells trouble to Ferdow but just how much trouble will shock him.

The space station is rocked by an explosion, and suddenly its inhabitants start to go crazy, killing all around them.  With all communication lines down, failing life support, Thanson and Kaz are just trying to survive. And on top of everything, they are being stalked with Thanson as the target.  Kaz wants answers, Thanson can’t supply them upon pain of death.  Amidst bitterness, injury, and a space station in shambles, love still finds a way back to the men who thought they had left it behind them.   But can they survive long enough to see if they still have a future together?

I love it when I get a new author and a new series to explore and with In Discretion by Reesa Herberth, I get both.  Science fiction is a favorite genre and when paired with romance, it’s certainly doubles the reading pleasure for myself and many others.  Reesa Herberth has done a remarkable job in combining both elements within a taut, highly suspenseful story that pulled me into a new exciting universe full of characters that enthralled me.

Discretionaries are highly regulated, highly paid prostitutes/spies, think Mata Hari in a way.  They gather information, secrets from the people who employ them and turn that information over to their Guild for its own use.  They are bound to secrecy not just by their word but by a far more lethal instrument that insures their silence and loyalty.  They are highly trained, intelligent and of course, attractive beings.  What a great idea for a character, what imaginative possibilities exist for plots for such a creation.  I think I enjoyed speculating over Thanson’s job requirements as much as I did the world building that includes such a Guild in it.

In Discretion’s plot includes a  deadly virus gone wild, killers on the loose, a space station breaking apart, and two ex lovers reuniting under the worse possible circumstances, and somehow it not only works but is a  such a compelling piece of fiction that I couldn’t put it down. I am unfamiliar with the Ylendrian Empire novels, so I am not sure where this fits into that series, but this story will certainly send me running to read the other novels.  Reesa Herberth’s characters were intriguing, entertaining, and so nicely layered that I had not trouble at all in believing in them both.

As Thanson and Kaz proceed through the rapidly failing space station, fighting off infected virus produced killers at every turn, their intertwined past histories and old love is revealed. With bitterness, humor and a pain neither man has been able to discard no matter how many years have passed, Kaz and Thanson relive their first love and the events that separated them.  Between their memories and the heart pulsing excitement of being hunted through the station wreckage, Herberth builds a portrait of  two complicated men still in love but faced with the reality that neither might make it out alive.  It’s thrilling, it’s action packed and so rewarding at every level.  Had I been reading an actual book instead of my Kindle, you could have felt a breeze as the pages flew by.

Herberth ends her story as it realistically should, with the men deciding to try again for a future together.  With this ending, she leaves open the possibility that this couple can be revisited in another adventure just as action packed as this one.  I certainly hope that such a novel is in our future.

As I said before, I have not read any of the other books by this author or stories in the Ylendrian Empire series.  I intend to remedy that as soon as possible.  But this story can stand on its own legs, without the others to support it.  I highly recommend this story to all readers, lovers of science fiction and romance alike.  It has something for everyone.  Grab it up now and begin your adventure.

Cover Art by Simoné, http://www.dreamarian.com.  Just a gorgeous cover.  It will be on my Best of Covers for 2014.

Book Details:

ebook, 109 pages
Published December 30th 2013 by Riptide Publishing

Reesa Herberth’s In Discretion Blog Tour and Book Contest

InDiscretion_TourBanner
ScatteredThoughtsandRogueWords is happy to welcome Reesa Herberth, author of In Discretion, a wonderful story in the Ylendrian Empire series.  She has brought with her a fun trivia contest (details included at the bottom of the post).
Good morning, Reesa!
Hello out there, humanoid creatures of above-average intelligence and taste.  I’m Reesa Herberth, and this fine establishment InDiscretion_150x300has seen fit to let me mingle with you on my release day!  I brought a party hat, a trivia contest, a silly interview, and a special, exclusive excerpt, just to thank you all.  I’m on tour all week, and you can check out my schedule here
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I’m running a trivia contest throughout the tour, with a winner to be drawn from the entries on Friday, January 10, 2014.  I’ll be giving away the winner’s choice of any e-book in my backlist, plus a reading gift pack featuring books and treats!  The contest is open to U.S. and International entrants.  In the event that a winner outside the U.S. is chosen, a gift certificate to Riptide Publishing or Amazon will be substituted for the physical prize.  To enter, email me the answers to the following trivia questions (answers to all questions can be found in In Discretion):
 
1.      What is the name of Thanson Nez’s father?
2.      Who is Tynna?
3.      What item did Thanson steal from Kazra the last time they saw one another?
 

All you need to do email me the answers to be entered to win.  I can’t promise I’ll be wearing the party hat when I reply, but if it makes you feel special, I can be talked into it.

I enjoyed this book so much that  I had a few questions for Reesa Herberth about the series.

 STRW: How many titles are there in this universe?

RH: There are three published books so far in the Ylendrian universe: The Balance of Silence (m/m, novella, aid worker finds mute man in the jungle on a hostile planet), The Slipstream Con (m/f/m, novel, married bounty hunters capture the con man they’ve hunted for 3 years and find themselves on the wrong side of a nanotech heist gone wrong), and In Discretion.
The fourth book, Peripheral People, (m/m, novel, Imperial law enforcement and psychic cops on the trail of a psychic serial killer) is due out this summer from Riptide Publishing.

STRW:Are there plans for more?

RH: We currently have plans for several more Ylendrian books, including sequels to The Slipstream Con and Peripheral People.

Thank you again, Reesa, for being here today!

About In Discretion:

InDiscretion_500x750Thanson Nez thought his career as a Discretionary would take him to the stars, not strand him on a space station at the ass-end of the Empire. Thanks to his last client, he’s carrying a secret he can’t get rid of fast enough, but his oath to the guild means a swift, painful death if he shares it. Already desperate for help, he runs into yet more trouble: his ex, and an explosion that paralyzes the station moments after their uncomfortable reunion.
Kazra Ferdow, Station 43’s communications officer, is almost as blindsided by the return of his first love as he is by the sudden loss of power and life support. The station is a floating graveyard in the making, and something is turning its inhabitants into savage killers. Fighting human monsters and damaged tech, Kazra and Thanson must put aside their past long enough to  try to save everyone.
The more light they shine into dark corners, the more Thanson realizes how many people might die for the secrets locked in his head—and what he’s willing to sacrifice to make sure Kazra isn’t one of them.
Buy Link here.
About the Author:
Reesa Herberth is the co-author (with Michelle Moore) of the Ylendrian Empire series.  She can often be found tweeting, blogging, and messing around onFacebook when she should be writing.  Likewise, she is easily distracted by the sound of new email, and encourages you to contact her atylendrianempire@gmail.com

Review: Mindscape by Tal Valante

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Mindscape_500x750History of family service in the Spavy meant that Shane Cawley was just continuing in the family tradition when he joined the Interstellar Navy.  But for Mark Sayre joining the Interstellar Navy meant money for his mother and brother, for food and rent. Plus Mark had another goal, that of keeping his little brother out of the colony mines that sent their father to an early grave. When the two men met on the spaceship Cyclopes, Shane is an officer to Mark’s enlisted status but their affection grew despite Spavy regulations against it.  Mark completes Officer Candidate School  so that Shane and Mark are now free to move forward with their love. A love made deeper by the Resonance, a joining of two minds so rare that the odds were in the millions against it.

Then intergalactic war breaks out, the Cyclopes attacks and one of the couple is captured by the enemy.  In the aftermath of war, can love and their Resonance survive, when one of their minds is shattered?

Tal Valante’s Mindscape is an inventive jumble of romance and time periods, flashbacks and present day events, all set in outer space.  We enter the story as Shane walks down the hallways of the Rigsby Psychiatric Ward.  He is there to see Mark, a returned POW whose mind is shattered by torture endured while in captivity.  As Shane tries to reach Mark’s mind, the narrative moves back and forth between their past and their present.  This format is a little confusing to start off with, but in a strange way it works.  Tal Valante’s story is formed around the nightmare landscape of Mark’s mind and Shane’s attempts to reach him inside that mental framework.  It is full of shards of memory so a jumbled, somewhat confusing format works within this situation.  It takes a while to get used to it but once it starts to feel as real as the broken mind that Shane is trying to heal.

There are so many wonderful aspects to this story.  The “mindscape” that Valante creates for Mark is as haunted, and harrowing a place as one would expect from a prisoner of war.  That is the part that feels the most immediate and alive in the story.  I also found Shane’s emotions and the details from the Psychiatric Ward to be as painful and emotionally intrusive as the author intended them to be.  Shane’s many attempts to enter Mark’s mind and the anguish with which each failed attempt is met is believable and human.  I thought the twists of the plot as Shane moves through the obstacles raised by Mark are ingenious and some of the best elements in the story.

Did I think there were some less effective aspects here? A few, that with additional length could have been readily solved.  I thought the author’s universe building interesting but lacking in details that would have given it more substance.  The enemy was telepathic, that we find out.  But what else made them attack?  What did they look like? Where is the history behind the war?  That would have been a great layer to add.  Also a huge deal is made of the Resonance, that rare joining/meeting of minds.  I felt that again we needed to “feel” more of the Resonance between Shane and Mark in order for it to become as real as the men did.  And finally, I wish we had been given a few more scenes of Mark and Shane’s earlier relationship so the devastation that Shane feels upon losing Mark and the Resonance between them (and their long term love affair) felt as authentically deep  as they told us it was as it is central to the story.

I love science fiction and can absolutely recommend Mindscape by Tal Valante to lovers of romance as well as science fiction.  It is an inventive story by an author I was not familiar with.  This book has remedied that fact and now I look forward to investigating more works Tal Valante, whose creative mind brought this story forth.

This is how it starts…..

The first time Shane enters the Rigsby Psychiatric Ward, the noise and smells slam into him like a fist to the solar plexus. The air reeks of some lemony disinfectant. Somewhere, someone is screeching a song, and from nearby comes the hissing of a man whose burned hands are being tended by a nurse. It’s all Shane can do not to throw up. The thought of Mark, of all people, being locked in this place . . .

He’s grateful when the head nurse comes out to meet him, if only because it gives him something else to focus on. She insists on giving him the third degree.

“Shane Cawley,” he answers. “From New Wyoming, yes . . . His name is Mark Sayre. With a Y . . . I’m his partner.” His Resonance partner, he doesn’t add. “Not married, no . . . Yes, I know about his condition.” And finally, “Can I see him now ?”

She leads him down a hallway, past a woman who laughs at him like a hyena, and into a small room with two beds. One is occupied by a man who is lying on his back and burping repeatedly. On the other bed, looking dazed and oh so out of place, is Mark.

Cover art by LC Chase.  What a superb cover.  One of the best of 2013.

Book Details:

book, 94 pages
Published December 23rd 2013 by Riptide Publishing
ISBN13 9781626490918
edition language English

Tal Valante’s Mindscape Blog Tour and Contest

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Hello and welcome to the online tour of Mindscape! Thank you for joining me, and thank you to Scattered Words and Rogue Thoughts for having me.

Mindscape_150x300

First, a quick note about the giveaway. I’m raffling off three $10 Amazon.com gift certificates at the end of this tour. For a chance to win, simply comment on this post with an answer to the following question: if your mind was a landscape, what would it look like? Winners will be picked randomly from all tour stops, and will be announced on 12/29. Drop me a comment at each stop to increase your chances of winning!

About the author:

Tal’s passion in life is building worlds, whether digital ones using programming languages, or literary ones using plain ol’ English.

When she’s not buried neck-deep in code, you can find her editing manuscripts, designing fantasy worlds, or torturing characters in her own original works.

You can get Tal going forever on her favorite subjects with a few well-placed words, such as “Babylon 5” and “Assassin’s Creed.” A word of caution, though: “forever” means just that . . .

Connect with Tal: Website, Goodreads

About the book:

Mark Sayre joins the Interstellar Navy for the money—his only goal is to keep his little brother out of the colony mines that sent Mindscape_500x750their father to an early grave. With concepts like duty and honor floating high over his head, he hardly expects to fall for the serious, idealistic Shane Cawley. Not to mention that Shane is his commanding officer . . . and his Resonance partner, a one-in-ten-thousand mental connection so profound that they can travel in each other’s mindscapes.

Shane Cawley is carrying on the family tradition by serving in the Interstellar Navy. He hardly expects to fall for the quirky, happy-go-lucky Mark Sayre. But as the Resonance between them grows, neither can deny what he feels for the other.

When war breaks out, Mark and Shane find their military training and their Resonance link tested to the edge of sanity. Shane is haunted by memories and flashbacks, and Mark becomes trapped in his own mindscape. But with help from an unlikely ally, they may be able to salvage their futures and the love they share.

Read an excerpt and order online at Riptide Publishing!

Review: Christmas Wish (a Romanorum world story) by Shayne Carmichael & Mychael Black

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

All I Want Christmas WishIt has been ten years since Elian was forced to leave his soulmate, mortal Ryan Nixon.  Elian was a angel, a grigori who is a watcher angel who teaches human certain life lessons.  They are not supposed to get involved with humans and Elian broke all their rules when he fell in love with Ryan and became his lover.  Forced to separate from Ryan, Elian has now completed his punishment and returned to Earth to find Ryan.

But the man has greatly changed.  The man Elian left was brash, intelligent and ambitious.  The Ryan Elian found was homeless, gaunt, and on the verge of dying.  Both men have now paid for their mistakes.  Ryan has lost everything his ambition and greed initially won him.  Elian lost ten years in isolation, banished from Earth to pay for breaking the rules.  Now the angel has found his lover once more.  Is it too late for their love to succeed?  Or will their christmas wish make a miracle happen so they can find a way back to each other?

Shayne Carmichael and Mychael Black’s Romanorum stories are among my favorites so I was delighted to see this Torquere Holiday Sip that ventured back into that universe and brought back a major character, Cian, albeit in a minor role.  The authors gifts of characterization and description bring the plight of Ryan Nixon powerfully to life.  This is Elian’s first sighting of Ryan after ten years apart and it is a heartbreaking one:

Elian spotted a lone figure on a wooden bench, partially hidden by a tattered coat. Elian’s heart broke all over again. Ryan had indeed learned about the dangers of greed and avarice, and the lesson had taken everything — everything — away from him, leaving him a broken, destitute man.

Threadbare gloves barely covered the hands that held the coat closed against the bite of the winter wind. Though he was only thirty-two, time had etched lines in the once- youthful face, and a sprinkling of gray dusted the black hair.

Huddled on the bench, he appeared to pay no attention to the few who braved the cold on their own business. A half-eaten sandwich lay forgotten in its plastic wrapping as Ryan stared off in the distance at a grove of trees.

Elian crouched in front of him, meeting Ryan’s empty gaze. He reached out and smoothed a lock of dark hair back from green eyes that once held a spark of life. Now they just seemed… lost.

The man Elian is confronted with is someone who has lost all hope and seems ready to die, one of many found on any winter street in any city or town.  An added layer to Ryan’s despair is the fact that he is to blame for his downfall, that his avarice and overwhelming ambition that made him rich also ruined him and Ryan has had ten years to realize that.

Carmichael and Black make Ryan believable in his self-loathing and despair.  He has gone beyond bitterness into an emotional place of isolation and emptiness that gives this portrait of homelessness a feel of authenticity.  Elian’s character, an angel who defied Heaven’s laws to be with his lover, is harder to grasp, probably because he is more of a two note persona, goodness and light, to feel entirely credible.  And their love story and reconnection, while emotionally engaging, felt too rushed to be believable, especially after all that has occurred during their ten-year separation.

These authors have made their angel characters multidimensional in the past so I think the issue with Elian is that the story length doesn’t give the authors enough space to imbue Elian with the depth of character he needs to feel real.  In fact, I think that shortness hurts this story in almost every way.  For those readers unfamiliar with the Romanorum universe, the lack of backstory will leave many of them confused about the plot.  Especially when Cian appears to offer his apologies to Elian.  Most people will wonder exactly what and who Cian is referring to (or exactly who Cian is and why he is important) when offering his explanation for his actions.  Unless you have read all the previous books or at least The Prince’s Angel, you will be lost during this section of the story.

I did really like this story but I had the background to do so.  I absolutely recommend this series and would want any new reader to start at the beginning with The Prince’s Angel to get a better understanding of the universe and the huge cast of characters to be found there, including angels and vampires.  Used as a part of the whole, then I can absolutely recommend Christmas Wish to all.

Cover artist is not listed as I suspect this is a blanket cover used for many of Torquere Holiday Sip stories.

Books in the Romanorum series:

The Prince’s Angel (Legends of the Romanorum, #1)
And the Two Shall Become One (Legends of the Romanorum, #2)
Forever May Not Be Long Enough (Legends of the Romanorum, #3)
Christmas Wish (Legends of the Romanorum, #4)

Book Details:

ebook, 26 pages
Published December 4th 2013 by Torquere Press