Category: Riptide Publishing

A Caryn Review: Fourteen Summers by Quinn Anderson

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This was a new twist on a coming of age book, with not one, but three protagonists.  And to a small extent it is even a bit of a love triangle – the MCs are not only trying to figure out how to relate to each other, but also how to fit platonic, familial, and romantic love into the right places in their lives.

Aiden and Max Kingsman, as the blurb says, were identical twins who had been pretty much inseparable for their entire lives to this point.  Aiden was the quiet, bookish one, and though he was accepted into a more prestigious university, he chose to attend a less prominent college to stay with his brother and share an apartment.  Max had always been more outgoing, loved to be the boss and usually had no trouble getting Aiden and their best friend Oliver to follow his lead.  Despite the differences in temperament, most people couldn’t tell them apart – even their parents had trouble – but Oliver always knew.

Oliver Jones was the only child of parents who fought loudly and bitterly all the time.  His greatest wish was to be Aiden and Max’s brother (which led to a cute opening chapter of six year old Max marrying Oliver, with Aiden officiating), not only because they were best friends, but because their house seemed so much safer and more peaceful.  When his parents divorced while the boys were in middle school, Oliver moved with his mother to NYC, his father moved to California, and the boys inevitably lost contact.

Years later, Oliver arrived back in their little town of Irvington, NY to spend the summer with his father who had also recently moved back to the area to be closer to Oliver as well as to his extended family. Oliver was thrilled to run into Max and Aiden, and they picked up their friendship pretty much where they left it off when he moved, with one big change – Oliver and Aiden were both gay, and ready to act on the crushes they each had on the other so many years ago.

The book is told in alternating points of view from Aiden, Max, and Oliver.  All three characters were given equal time, and equal priority, which I felt really highlighted the fact that friendship and family are just as important as romantic love.  Both sets of parents are also involved, their own relationships providing good and bad examples of how to incorporate those types of love into healthy (and not so healthy) lives.  Each of the men had some pretty unpleasant epiphanies about why they felt the way they did about each other, attitudes that were left over from their childhood experiences that they needed to let go of.  A lot of buried resentments, trust issues, and jealousies emerged that were much more powerful than any of them expected, and as the summer progressed, threatened to not just drive Oliver out of the twin’s lives, but to drive Max and Aiden apart as well.  The character growth came as they identified these problems and faced them down with compassion, with the underlying confidence that the results would be worth the pain.

Overall, this was a great read, with fully three dimensional characters who adapted and grew, definitely character driven rather than plot driven, but engaging and thought provoking, and I finished it with a real sense of satisfaction and contentment.

Cover art by L.C. Chase really made me think – at first I just assumed it was Aiden and Oliver, but as I read the book and got to know the characters, I realized it could have been any of them.  Their bonds were just that close!

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 287 pages
Published May 21st 2018 by Riptide Publishing
Original TitleFourteen Summers
ISBN 1626497648 (ISBN13: 9781626497641)
Edition LanguageEnglish

A Caryn Review: Cinderella Boy by Kristina Meister

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I have been actively looking for books with non-binary characters, and so was very excited to read about a gender fluid person, especially one in high school, because I wanted to see their journey through that very difficult time of life.  And when I read the first chapter, I was thinking this was going to be a great book.  Unfortunately, it went downhill from there.

The book jumped right in to introducing Declan as gender fluid – his sister found him putting on her dress and shoes when he thought she was out for the evening.  He braced himself for ridicule and misery, and was thrilled when instead she was instantly supportive and worked with him to create Layla – his beautiful, confident, female alter ego.  They went to a party where Layla met Carter, the most popular guy in school, whom Declan had had a crush on for years.  Carter was smitten with Layla, and instantly started pursuing her.  Layla agreed to a few dates because she just couldn’t resist, but underneath Declan was trying to keep things casual because he didn’t like the lie, and didn’t want to hurt Carter, and his plan was to have some fun before Layla disappeared and the school year started.  The dates turned into anything but casual, and though physically they were somewhat restrained, conversation was always deep and meaningful (and much more mature than I would realistically expect a 16 and 18 year old to be).

At this point I started having my first niggles about the book.  Layla and Carter discussed the nature of love, in the context of Carter’s father having cheated on his mother for years before they divorced, and his mother still having trouble letting go.  Layla commented:

Because that’s the nature of the thing:  to care so much that it doesn’t matter if they ever reciprocate.  If you really feel that way, you can’t hurt them.  You just can’t.  And when they hurt you, you forget it right away.

Hmmm….  sounds like true love requires you to be a doormat, and to me very reminiscent of how battered women justify staying with abusive men.  There was more along that line, and I was getting pretty uncomfortable with it.  They discussed lying in relationships, Layla admitted that she was lying about something but wouldn’t admit what it was.  Carter insisted that he would accept any secret, even if Layla had killed someone – as long as there was a reason.  Yikes!

Layla disappeared right before school started, a little over a third of the way into the book.  After she had schooled all of Carter’s friends on how to treat women right, and demonstrated her superior skillz with her professional paintball rifle.  Oh, and after she and Carter declared their love to each other.  Declan showed up at school and made a splash from the start.  He had been going to a private school where he was bullied and beaten on a regular basis, and his defense had always been to strive for anonymity and inconspicuousness. At the new school, Carter and Declan’s sister Delia turned him into a sort of mascot for the non-popular crowd, and suddenly Declan was popular with everyone, with no bullying in sight.  And he managed to beat up the quarterback of his school’s major rival – which made me wonder why he was beaten up so regularly before when now he could kick the ass of guys twice his size – so everyone loved him.  Snap, bullying over, nothing to it.  The rest of the book involved Carter, Declan, and Delia standing up to the principal’s homophobia and bigotry, and concludes at the homecoming dance which Carter attends with Declan, both openly in love with each other.

By the last third of the book, I was sitting back and finding fault with everything.  Carter and Declan both waffled between uber-confident and meek and doubtful, to the point that they no longer seemed like separate characters.  There was a lot of pointless psychobabble on the nature of love, relationships, truth-telling, labels, bigotry, bullying, etc. with overly simplistic resolution of all their problems.  The dialogue was frequently ridiculous – even adults don’t talk that way, much less teenagers.  There were weird descriptions and misspelled words:  “The pack of dissenters had congealed beside the wheelchair ramp in their purposefully drab color pallet”.  (I hope she meant palette, and how did the pack congeal?).  Another good one – “her warm appearance belied a voice like an ordained opera singer that could strip flesh off the unabashed.”  WTF does that even mean?

In the end, I didn’t even care that Declan a champion of gender non-conforming people, or that Carter was the perfect man for whom gender didn’t even matter when it came to love.  There was so much potential for these characters, and I was so disappointed that the terrible writing ruined it all for me.

Cover art by Shayne Leighton is interesting, the model was androgynous in a way that I saw Declan

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 335 pages
Expected publication: July 2nd 2018 by Triton Books (an imprint of Riptide Publishing) (first published February 5th 2017)
Original TitleCinderella Boy
ISBN 1626497982 (ISBN13: 9781626497986)
Edition LanguageEnglish

A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review: Cash Plays (Seven of Spades #3) by Cordelia Kingsbridge

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

 

The Seven of Spades is back with a vengeance—the vigilante serial killer has resumed their murderous crusade, eluding the police at every turn. But a bloodthirsty killer isn’t the only threat facing Sin City. A devious saboteur is wreaking havoc in Las Vegas’s criminal underworld, and the entire city seems to be barreling toward an all-out gang war.

As Detective Levi Abrams is pushed ever closer to his breaking point, his control over his dangerous rage slips further every day. His relationship with PI Dominic Russo should be a source of comfort, but Dominic is secretly locked in his own downward spiral, confronting a nightmare he can’t bear to reveal.

Las Vegas is floundering. Levi and Dominic’s bond is cracking along the seams. And the Seven of Spades is still playing to win. How many bad hands can Levi and Dominic survive before it’s game over?

If you haven’t been following this incredibly exciting adventure, by all means start immediately with Kill Game and Trick Roller so you can dash out and buy this.  This book is not a standalone as it builds on the past storylines and brings the characters closer together, and unfortunately, in this one—farther apart. 

Both men are driven by their demons, and they commit the worst relationship sin of all—they fail to communicate.  The author takes them down different paths, and though parallel, they fail to reach out—each thinking the other wouldn’t understand.

This is especially true for Dominic, who is thrown into hell without a way out as he follows a lead on his newest case.  Oh Dominic.  I FEEL for you.  Halfway through the story, I was so heartbroken over what happens, I literally wept.

This author… This author… I give up. There are no words to express how truly gifted she is. 

If you are looking for a breathtaking adventure, heart-stopping romance, danger, self-destruction, recovery, relapse, and so much more, this is the book for you.  The characters are memorable—strong men who aren’t afraid to fight, or to love, or to fight for their love. The supporting cast includes women and men who have become very familiar to readers and are as dynamic and compelling as one would expect real life law enforcement personnel to be.

Dominic is a runaway train by the second half of this story and he deliberately and cruelly breaks Levi’s heart.  I felt that pain and it was so raw that I had to stop to take a deep breath. The scene was just so well done. 

“Gambling excited and empowered him in a way he craved relentlessly, but it also made him feel this—this thick, noxious shame, like choking on bitter smoke, when he hurt the people he loved.”

Oh my gosh, I don’t think anyone could have summarized the effect of addiction any better!  I am totally in awe of Ms. Kingsbridge’s ability to put feelings into words.

If I could give this ten stars, I would.  I very highly recommend this book and this series to anyone looking for an action-packed, law enforcement adventure in combination with MM romance. 

~~~

The cover by Garrett Leigh features a set of cards and poker chips against a dark background that is splashed with blood.  Similar to the first two in the series, the cover cleverly ties them all together.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 339 pages
Published June 4th 2018 by Riptide Publishing
Original Title Cash Plays
ISBN 1626496382 (ISBN13: 9781626496385)
Edition Language  English
Series Seven of Spades #3

In Our Spotlight Tour: INSIDE DARKNESS by Hudson Lin (giveaway)

Inside Darkness by Hudson Lin

Riptide Publishing
Cover by: Natasha Snow

Sales Links: Riptide Publishing | Amazon

 

 

Welcome to the blog tour for Inside Darkness! I’m Hudson Lin and I’m here to share some behind the scenes sneak peaks about my debut novel, available June 11th. Leave a comment on the tour posts for a chance to win a $10 gift card from Amazon!

 

About Inside Darkness

 

He’s come in from the field, but the darkness has followed him home.

 

After a decade as an aid worker, Cameron Donnelly returns home jaded, tired, and with more than just a minor case of PTSD. Plagued by recurring nightmares but refusing to admit he has a problem, Cam quickly spirals into an alcohol-infused depression, and everyone around him is at a loss for how to help.

 

Journalist Tyler Ang met Cam on a reporting assignment in Kenya, and their first encounters were rife with hostility and sexual tension. Back in New York, their paths continually cross, and each time, Cam’s brokenness reminds Ty more and more of his own difficult childhood. Letting Cam in goes against Ty’s instinct to live life autonomously, but the damaged aid worker manages to sneak past his guard.

 

Their relationship is all sharp corners and rough edges, and just as they’re figuring out how to fit together, a life-threatening accident puts it all in jeopardy. If they want a future together, both will have to set aside their egos and learn to carry each other’s burdens.

 

 

About Hudson Lin

 

Hudson Lin was raised by conservative immigrant parents and grew up straddling two cultures with often-times conflicting perspectives on life. Instead of conforming to either, she has sought to find a third way that brings together the positive elements of both.

 

Having spent much of her life on the outside looking in, Hudson likes to write about outsiders who fight to carve out their place in society, and overcome everyday challenges to find love and happily ever afters.

 

When not engrossed in a story, Hudson knits, drinks tea, and works the nine-to-five in the beautiful city of Toronto, Canada.

 

Connect with Hudson:

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Inside Darkness, Hudson is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on June 16, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

A Lucy Review: Detour (Transportation #1) by Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Ethan and Scott were best friends and boyfriends.  All through high school they planned on this amazing cross country trip.  They were going to see all the kitschy things together.  An all too common tragedy occurs senior year – Scott is killed by gunfire in a school shooting.  Ethan has to get out of his town because of the guilt he feels for still living and the sympathy/pity of people, even as he doesn’t want to do this trip alone.  So he hits the road, promising his parents he will call them and will not pick up hitchhiker’s who might take him to a murder cave and kill him.

He’s driving on a stormy night in the dark and nearly hits a hitchhiker.  Despite his parents’ warning, he can’t leave the man there in the rain, so he offers him a ride.  This is Nick and Nick is running away from a ton of bad things as well.  Namely, he just escaped an abusive pray-the-gay-away conversion camp as well as an abusive ex-boyfriend, Kyle.   Nick has a painful history and he knows what it’s like to grieve for someone, having lost his little brother to cancer.  He accepts the ride with Ethan and Ethan offers him the chance to be a part of his great adventure, seeing all the ridiculous roadside attractions they can see.

There is a moment when Nick admits he has no money to do the sights and Ethan tells him Scott’s parents had given him a large amount, probably what they were going to give Scott for graduation, and it just made me cry. There are so many shattered dreams here.   Ethan suffers from panic attacks, which Nick handles with care and kindness.  For his part, Ethan treats Nick with the same care and kindness.  The two of them can be snarky and funny and I thoroughly enjoyed.  The scene at the haunted train tracks just made me happy and made me think that they could learn to be happy again.

Nick has a seriously abusive ex-boyfriend in Kyle and feelings of betrayal by his parents after being sent to Camp Cornerstone, i.e. abusive conversion therapy.  He was able to walk away from the camp only because he turned eighteen.  Ethan’s gift to him really showed the sweetness of Ethan and the vulnerability of Nick.  “Eventually it became too much, got too close to the place inside him that wanted nothing more than to beg for any scrap of care he could get.”  Oh, Nick, you deserve so much. 

Ethan sends text messages to Scott and he’s very afraid he’s doing the trip wrong. “I don’t know if I want my life to happen without him.”  There is no shying away from all the emotional turmoil for these guys.  They have to work through it and though they have different issues, they are equally painful and hard to deal with.  Nick’s trip through Cornerstone is horrific and it is brought on by the abuse of Kyle.  And Kyle continues to be crazy, abusing, texting and going as far as to call Ethan’s parents, posing as Nick’s brother, to get information.  That’s probably the least of what he did but stalker, abuser and psycho cover it.  Add in that Nick doesn’t feel worthy of happiness sometimes.  He has his own survivor’s guilt. 

The book doesn’t pull its punches on dealing with some serious issues but it also conveys that these guys are young and they talk and act that way, even through stress and grief.  They are there for each other, through the biggest guitar and talking to the police, but they work through their grief and guilt on their own as well. Their conversations could be so emotional, other times so sweet and funny.  The “lie to me” made me want to cry sometimes. 

“But, mostly, I think we get so obsessed with missing someone, trying to stay connected with who they were as people.” That is so true and it was the lesson both of them needed to understand.  Ethan’s grasping that Scott was really, truly gone was just heartbreaking. “Scott would have changed.  He would have learned things, and seen things, and we’d both be different people now than we were when he died.  I think that was the ghost I was hoping to find.  The person Scott would have become.”  And that’s what you really can’t find, because that person will remain the same as you remember them while you continue to learn things, to grow and to change.   “Instead of keeping Scott’s memory alive, I was trying to get away from the person I was becoming without him.”

Both Nick and Scott, so young to be dealing with such things and yet they do, working their way through guilt and through grief, through fear, learning they can lean on each other.  I was pulling for these guys to get a little happiness.  The one thing I would have appreciated was an epilogue to show that they were still together, still happy and still working on it.

The cover art by Kanaxa light and fun. Which doesn’t exactly speak to the reality of the storyline.

SALE LINKS  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

BOOK DETAILS

ebook, 339 pages

Published May 7th 2018 by Riptide Publishing

ISBN 1626497435 (ISBN13: 9781626497436)

Edition Language English

In Our Spotlight: Cash Plays (Seven of Spades #3) by Cordelia Kingsbridge (giveaway)

Cash Plays (Seven of Spades #3) by Cordelia Kingsbridge

Riptide Publishing
Cover Art: Garrett Leigh

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing |   Amazon

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to host Cordelia Kingsbridge’s tour for Cash Plays.  Check out the details below and don’t forget to enter the giveaway.

 

♦︎

Thanks for checking out the blog tour for Cash Plays, the third book in the Seven of Spades series!

After the Seven of Spades returns at the end of Trick Roller, they resume their vigilante mission with a vengeance. Levi and Dominic do their best to keep up, but a bloodthirsty serial killer isn’t the only threat they face…

 

 

About Cash Plays

 

In this game, the stakes are life or death.

 

The Seven of Spades is back with a vengeance—the vigilante serial killer has resumed their murderous crusade, eluding the police at every turn. But a bloodthirsty killer isn’t the only threat facing Sin City. A devious saboteur is wreaking havoc in Las Vegas’s criminal underworld, and the entire city seems to be barreling toward an all-out gang war.

 

As Detective Levi Abrams is pushed ever closer to his breaking point, his control over his dangerous rage slips further every day. His relationship with PI Dominic Russo should be a source of comfort, but Dominic is secretly locked in his own downward spiral, confronting a nightmare he can’t bear to reveal.

 

Las Vegas is floundering. Levi and Dominic’s bond is cracking along the seams. And the Seven of Spades is still playing to win. How many bad hands can Levi and Dominic survive before it’s game over?

 

About the Seven of Spades Series

 

Las Vegas has never seen a serial killer like the Seven of Spades.

 

The self-styled vigilante is on a mission to cut down the wicked and treacherous, and Sin City has no shortage of targets for their bloody wrath. What happens in Vegas . . . ends with the Seven of Spades’s calling card on a grisly corpse.

 

Standing against the killer are Levi Abrams, a dedicated homicide detective locked in a constant struggle to restrain his own dark side, and bounty hunter Dominic Russo, a charming rogue with a heavy secret weighing on his shoulders.

 

The hunt for the Seven of Spades sends Levi and Dominic on a collision course, igniting a passionate relationship forged in conflict and sealed with blood. Together they’re stronger than the sum of their parts, but a wily, elusive serial killer isn’t the only threat that will strain their bond to the breaking point.

 

Ante up, because the Seven of Spades is all in. Are you?

 

 

About Cordelia Kingsbridge

 

Cordelia Kingsbridge has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, but quickly discovered that direct practice in the field was not for her. Having written novels as a hobby throughout graduate school, she decided to turn her focus to writing as a full-time career. Now she explores her fascination with human behavior, motivation, and psychopathology through fiction. Her weaknesses include opposites-attract pairings and snarky banter.

 

Away from her desk, Cordelia is a fitness fanatic, and can be found strength training, cycling, and practicing Krav Maga. She lives in South Florida but spends most of her time indoors with the air conditioning on full blast!

 

Connect with Cordelia:

Giveaway

 

To celebrate the release of Cash Plays, Cordelia is giving away a $15 Riptide credit! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on June 9, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!