Category: Supernatural

Review of Isaiah (Leopards Spots #4) by Bailey Bradford

Rating: 4.25 stars

Snow Leopard shifter Isaiah Trujillo has always felt like the dumb brother of his family.  He isn’t smart like his brother Timothy, the PhD investigating shifter history and genetics.  Isaiah never wanted more than to be a good mechanic, own his own business and be happy.  And maybe, just maybe find a mate of his own, like his brother and cousins have. When a customer mentions he volunteers at a GLBT youth center that could use Isaiah’s help, Isaiah volunteers and changes his life forever.  At the volunteer dinner, he meets Dr. Bae Allen Warren, a mobile veterinarian and fellow cat shifter.  Bae is an Amur Leopard shifter and Isaiah’s mate. But Bae runs from Isaiah at first sight.  Confused and hurt Isaiah chases after his mate only to learn that Bae carries with him a truckload of trouble.

Dr. Bae Allen Warren comes from a lepe or clan almost cultlike in its actions and outlook.  Amur Leopards are becoming extinct, both as animals and shifters.  Bae’s lepe has kept its shifters isolated to keep their bloodline pure, demanding that each contributes by mating with as many other clan members as possible to produce offspring. These children are promptly sent off to other lepes to live in hopes they enlarge the gene pool. No one has ever questioned their leader or the manner in which the lepe live their lives until Bae brings home his mate, Isaiah.  Bae is gay and has refused to mate with the females of his or any other clan. That is the only reason his father has allowed him the freedom of an outside education and life. Isaiah changes Bae’s perspective on his clans lifestyle to his father’s disapproval and threats by his grandfather, the lepe’s leader. Even as Bae finds Isaiah, his mate, the lepe closes in around them, threatening their bond and their future together.

Isaiah (Leopard’s Spots #4) is the best of the series so far.  Bradford introduced the idea of a spiritual connection between animal and human in the last book, Timothy, that I felt was jarring at the time.  But clearly this idea or story thread is becoming a major theme for the series.  Isaiah is a spiritual man, good and decent.  Only he feels insecure when he puts himself next to his brother’s achievements, never seeing himself as others do.  Bae is a shifter forced to fight for his right to live his own life, while feeling the guilt and pressure brought on by his father and clan.  Both shifters bring to each other a shift in perspective that each desperately needs, along with the message of accepting who you are.

Bradford also brings back the focus on endangered cat species by including Amur Leopards also known as Korean Leopards.  Look them up, they are stunning in their beauty. Snow Leopards remain a center species and the author brings in a hybrid species known as pumapards, which actually existed earlier in the century.  Bradford has clearly done her homework on big cat species and wildlife conservation. Timothy and Otto from the 3rd book are back to help Isaiah and his mate, Bae,  with several of the mysteries running throughout the series.  One is the low shifter population within species as birthrates are at an all time low.  Is it due to inbreeding, like Bae’s lepe?  The fact that none of the isolated clans are finding their mates?  Or something more ominous, that their animal/spiritual side must be nurtured, treasured or they will lose their animal part of themselves, remaining forever damaged.  Bradford obviously has a plan with her series that is just now becoming clearer with each new book.

I loved the characters here.  I find Isaiah and Bae to be the most captivating of the group so far.  And Isaiah with his spirituality and humble outlook charmed me immediately.  I really like where Bradford is taking this series which leads me to my main quibble all around.  These stories are way too short for the goals Bradford is trying to accomplish with each book.  That was my problem with Timothy, which I will now have to reconsider given this story.  She set out so many new plot lines in Timothy (Leopard’s Spots #3) that the main story suffered under the lack of space for its development.  Here she comes close to doing it again but still pulls off her agenda.  If these books would be enlarged even a little, I think the series would benefit as new ideas could be more richly explored.

Another thing about the series is the huge amounts of sex contained within.  I find that realistic as the sexual activity helps in the bonding and if you have ever heard the neighborhood cats yowling during their nocturnal activities, well, let’s just say Bradford has that right too.  There is one section concerning the pumapards that is left completely unsettled here but I suspect that a future book will find that resolved.  At any rate, I am onto the next in the series, Gilbert (Leopard’s Spots #5) with renewed enthusiasm about the series and the vision behind it.  I promise I will let you know how it goes.

Cover by Posh Gosh.  The glorious covers just keep getting better with each book.  Nominated for the best series covers.

Here are the books in the series in the order they were written and should be read to understand the characters and storylines:

Levi (Leopard’s Spots #1) read my review here

Oscar (Leopard’s Spots #2) read my review here.

Timothy (Leopard’s Spots #3) read my review here.

Isaiah (Leopard’s Spots #4)

Gilbert (Leopard’s  Spots #5)

VGB Looks at When Talking Dirty Makes You Giggle or Spank Me Harder, Bunny Poo!

Note: Let’s just agree that this column is for mature audiences only shall we? If you continue reading, you are clearly over the age of 18 and don’t need your parents approval. We are serious, people! Words used in the most despicable manner is no laughing matter!!! Ok, well it is a laughing matter or we wouldn’t be here. Getting off course again. Sigh.

 It’s been a while since our last get together and you can chalk that up to the quality of the books I have been reading lately.  While they have run the gamut from middling fair to absolutely splendid, very few have fallen into the rainbow skittle of passionate prose that gets me going in eye blinking disbelief.  That choice of words worthy of a double take or three, the “oh no she/he didn’t” selection that begs the question “why, oh why did he say that?” It’s the mesmerizing moment you realize that someone actually put those words in a sentence in a paragraph on a page in a story that halts you in your tracks. But this particular topic has been running around my head  like a gerbil on a  squeaky wheel for a while now just waiting for something or some word to prod it into action. And a recent novella did just that. It shocked that gerbil into an all out sprint and here we are examining what makes some dirty talk sexy and others hysterical.

I realize that bed talk can be subjective.  What turns one person into a puddle of  goo sends another into paroxysms of hilarity or worse delivers a veritable cold shower to any sexy thoughts or actions that up until then had been looking pretty darn promising.  I get that, really I do! We have the school of “Harder, faster, deeper, there, fuck meeeeee  ” dirty talk.  Short bursts of words that spit forth from a participant’s mouth in the midst of a flurry of physical activity often imagining the verbal directions being given.  I find this can be really sexy if done right.  Say the author has written this vividly described sex scenes and the men are having at it in all ways sweaty and real.  Throw those words in to make the men frantic in their need for each other.  I get it (and so do they if they are lucky).  Done well, I find it to be very effective *waves a fan*.  But add a word or too, and hilarity replaces sexy in a heartbeat.  Example: ” Yeah, do it, do it harder. Fuck me with your big, hairy sausage, boo boo Daddy!” *cough, cough, cough* Sexy turns into spew event and the ambience is gone.

You can also find the “Give it to me now, I want it all, I can take it, make me want it, pound me into the mattress” format.  I call this type  the Drill Master of Smut Talk.  The person, could be a bossy bottom or someone topping from the bottom, is letting the other person know exactly what is expected here and woe to that person if they don’t deliver.  Again, in the right hands *snort*, this can turn up the heat and be informative, all at the same time. You get the how, when and where and a lesson on how to communicate better in bed.  What’s not to love?  Everyone’s a winner!

Some people despise the lack of pronouns from a partner in passion. For these lovers of all things proper and sentence structure, it ‘s all about syntax and semantics. Doesn’t that sentence  just make you quiver?  They shudder (and not in a good way) at “need you, want you, touch me, fuck me”, for those persons complete grammar is required. Who exactly “needs” what? And where do they “need” it?  I can see some frenzied folk getting confused.  Throw out that “fill me, fuck me”, and replace it with “Oh, I need you now, Alphonse.  Please take me to bed post haste, and have your wanton way with my beauteous form, you magnificent bastard.”  That just might be all some need to pole vault into the four poster, all sweaty and raring to have at it.

Others find certain proper nouns a complete turn off.  “Take it slut! You like a big thing up your hole.” Yep, the word causing a heap of “bleck” would be slut, although I do have problems with that entire sentence.  Whore, Daddy, boy, slut are terms that either delight or disgust when used in bed.  Papi was another. It’s almost fifty fifty with people coming (hah) down on one side or the other.  Personally?  Not big on the slut thing, but I won’t mark a book down for it when it comes to the review. If it works for the character, then it works for me.

Then we get to the sounds.  You know what I mean.  Two or more men are having a splendid time writhing about in as many positions possible.  And instead of words, it’s animalistic sounds urging them on to greater highs of sexual heat and prowess.  They moan, they groan, they growl and roar, purr and whimper.  Whew! *waves the fan madly* I am all about the animal sounds, love them in fact.  Except when the mewl turns into a mew, and I start to wonder where the kitties are hidden.  Some men apparently even “chirp” in  bed.  Huh. Hard to picture that one.  Bird fetish perhaps to go along with the whinny?

What doesn’t work? Stilted comments or comments so fatuous that just reading them makes me laugh out loud, never a good thing when the author is going for hot and heavy.  Take this sentence. “Mmm, can’t wait”—Randy lay sprawled on the bed—“to feel that dick of yours stretching my channel.” Again “Stretch my channel, stretch my channel.”  Umm, does that strike anyone as sexy? How about two idiots and a gun? Here they are  covered with lube,“The safety is on, babe! We’ll play a little more with that later. Right now, I wanna pump your ass full of my lead.”  Or perhaps it’s the would-be astronauts, where Rick wants Lance to “ride my pocket rocket into the stars”. And then for me the giggles start. I always want the author to take the time to say those phrases out loud, to take them around the verbal block so to speak.  If it sounds funny when saying it, the chances are pretty good it is going to read that way too.  I’m trying to be helpful here, folks!

Who knew talking dirty could be so funny? Well Jade Buchanen for one. Thank you, Tam, for this one:

From Jade Buchanan’s Del Fantasma: Duck Fart

“Drake let Bailey go just far enough to look at the other man. He wanted to hear more spilling from Bailey’s lips. “Come on, talk dirty to me, baby.”

A look of panic crossed Bailey’s face. Drake hid his grin. This should be fun.

“Uh…I want you to put your alligator in my love tunnel?”

Eyes wide, Drake started to choke. He could barely breathe, bent over the steering wheel now, laughing so hard his belly hurt.”

From hot to hurl, from sexy to snigger, dirty talk provides us with memorable moments in stories, from wonderfully realistic sexy scenes to the WTF smut verbalizations of a hominid in heat.  Authors, before you write it, say it, try it out!  Ask around, find out what real people are really saying or yelling as it were.  It might amaze you to find out what you think works in bed is far more suitable to Barnum and Bailey’s Circus or Cirque de Soleil than to two or more people getting their lust on.

If not, then your characters might just end up saying something like ” “I want you to stuff your massive demon cock in my tight, waiting hole.” Thank you, Julia, for that little gem.  And if they do, the chances are they might just end up being featured in a  Vocabulary Gone Bad.  I’m reading away, people, gobbling up page after page.  You’ve been forewarned and now it’s up to you.  If your characters “want it, need it, hurts so bad, Bunny Poo”, make sure its as sexy as you think it sounds, or the giggling you hear might be mine.

Review of Lashings of Sauce Anthology

3rdRating: 4.5 stars

Lashing: British slang for lots or large amounts.  In celebration of 2012 Olympics, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the 3rd Annual UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet, a lashing of authors from all over the Globe put forth an GLBTQ anthology of stories that highlight everything that makes Britain  (and mainland Europe) a great place for GLBTQ people to love and live.

Here is a list of stories and authors in the order they appear:

• Post Mortem by Jordan Castillo Price
• Dressing Down by Clare London
• Et Tu, Fishies? by JL Merrow
• Zones by Elyan Smith
• Sollicito by Charlie Cochrane
• A Few Days Away by Elin Gregory
• Vidi Velo Vici by Robbie Whyte
• Shelter From Storms by Sandra Lindsey
• Faulty Genes by Rebecca Cohen
• Lost in London by Tam Ames
• My Husband by Zahra Owens
• Waiting for a Spark by Lillian Francis
• Social Whirl by Emily Moreton
• School for Doms by Anne Brooke
• Dragon Dance by Josephine Myles
• Reclaiming Territory by Becky Black

The stories contained within this anthology really run the gamut of GLBTQ sexuality as well as genre.  Here you will find stories of wereshifters of London (no, not those, quite the contrary) to lesbians in love, love in transition, timeless love or should that be love amuck the ages and finally lost lovers reunited after a long separation.  There is humor, ok, humour (sheesh) and brooding, and angst, all the emotions love pulls out of you and more.  And oh what authors await you between the pages, it is almost sinful to have such a wealth of talent in one book.

Some of the stories don’t fall into the realm of books I normally read and review but I will say that I enjoyed them all.  Thank you for my visit into f/f fiction as well as D/s.  There are stories of transgender persons and one who cross dresses with panache. These stories manage to combine great characterizations, vivid descriptions from locations all over Britain and plots that make you guffaw and break down in tears.  Here were some of my favorites among a list of outstanding stories:

Et Tu, Fishies? by J.L. Merrow.  When Bill leaves his fish tank along with his flat in the hands of Marty for the week, Marty was prepared for many things.  Cleaning, feeding the fish, masturbating in Bill’s bed, lots of things.  Nothing, however, prepared him for Arthur, the weird upstairs neighbor.  That would be Arthur Prefect. When Marty challenges him on his name, he says it used to be Herbert Wells.  Right.  And Arthur has lost his lover.  That would be..nope not giving that one away.  Yes, indeedy, we are off on a wonderful romp involving lashings of vodka, wine , walnuts and cheesy balls.  And time travel, snappy dialog and drunken sex.  Loved it.

Sollicito by Charlie Cochrane.  She did it, she went ahead and did it. Charlie Cochrane gives us weresloths of London.  With shifters of all sorts bounding across the pages of book after book, there was nary a weresloth among them.  Until now. Told from the point of view of an unnamed bloke who sprouts fur and long curved claws at the most inopportune moment, he bemoans the fact that his shifting, unlike the numerous wolf shape shifters, has no rhyme nor reason to it.   One moment he is fine, the next he has fur and the urge to move slowly along a balustrade.  Yes, insert spew event.  The whole story is like that.  While laughing out loud, I found a new phrase to use “divvy doo dah”.  Love the sound of that.  Had to look up Martin Johnson (not a clue), read the words “brolly dangling stage” several times as obscene images flittered across my mental landscape while remaining completely in the dark about the Junction 6 of the M40. Yes,I know.  It’s a British thing!  Love this story even as it boggled my very American mind.

Vidi Velo Vici by Robbie Whyte. Whyte uses a clever format for this story of lust, if not love discovered during a daily commute through traffic.  Each day Evan sets out for the office in his car only to find himself trapped in horrific traffic. Each day finds him on the phone to his sarcastic assistant, Tia, to have her rearrange his schedule as he is going to be late into the office.  Monday, 8:38 am and Evan’s car mirror is clipped by a cyclist weaving through the clogged cars.  Evan’s rage is only abated by watching some outstanding glutes in tight spandex peddling away.  Day after day, Even and the faceless cyclist appear on the same road and at the same time.  You listen in on Evan’s inner dialog as he watches for that magnificent physique to appear in the mirror, Evan consults with his sat-nav with the voice of Vader, Evan talks to Tia whose droll comments on Evan’s current legal case involving a shih tzu,  dog custody and someone named Antonio who he keeps sleeping with had me giggling madly.  It’s funny, it’s real, and has a great ending.

Shelter From Storms by Sandra Lindsey takes us back to the French Revolution as a wounded, frail Louis appears on the doorstep of Daniel Elcott in England.  He has made his way through war torn France to Daniel’s country manor with only a small dirty calling card to hand the butler. Once the men were lovers when younger, now Daniel is married with children.  But Louis has no where else to go as he has lost it all.  The men reconnect as Louis falls ill and Daniel attends to his needs.  Their love sparks once more as Louis convalesces.  Daniel finds that with Louis’ return so does the man he once was.  Lovely, well told story that brings history to life and makes a gay relationship seem not only possible but realistic as well.

Lost In London by Tam Ames.  Here we meet Kevin Larton, from Calgary in Canada.  He’s in London to go to school but finding it difficult to navigate his way.  He is finding his courses difficult, making new friends more so and when it comes to reading maps and getting around town, he is at a complete loss.  It doesn’t matter that he is here to get his PhD in Economics or was a city planner.  Kevin just can’t read maps so he is always lost. A chance meeting with Benjamin White gives Kevin a change in direction.  Everything starts to become possible, friends, degree and perhaps even a boyfriend.  There is a hilarious drunken scene, wonderful characters and I learned what a feedlot was.  Ewww.  Great story, though.

My Husband by Zahra Owen charts one person’s marriage through the tumultuous stages of their transitioning from female to male.  There is never a missed step as Owens treats the subject with sensitivity and authenticity.  Told from Sam’s POV, we meet Sean their husband and see their courtship and marriage through Sam’s memories.  Owen gives us a glimpse of what it must feel like to be born in the wrong body and the journey one person makes to correct nature’s mistake. Poignant and lovely.

Dragon Dance by Josephine Myles is the penultimate story and one of my top two (I have no intension of telling you all the other, guess why don’t you).  I love going to Chinatown here in DC and watching the Dragon Dance during the Chinese New Year so imagine my delight over a story wrapped around two friends and their families preparing the costumes and dragon for their neighborhood’s New Year celebration. Gan and Archie are two lifelong friends whose families are equally close in their small village’s Chinese community.  As their mothers make the Dragon from crimson parachute material and fashion the pearl it will chase after, the boys discover their sexuality and the love that has always been present.  Myles pulled me in completely from the vibrant portraits of the boys as they dance the Dragon Dance. As they practice, their movements are jerky and uncoordinated with respect to each other but as they communicate their love and desire  it becomes sinuous, motions beckoning each other forward that mimic the depth their relationship has finally achieved.  I could picture it unfolding so real did it all become. Sigh.

Reclaiming Territory by Becky Black is the last story of the anthology so it is fitting that it is the story of  an old love lost and then later reclaimed.  Jim and Andy are riding a motorcycle and sidecar to Whitby, a place full of memories for both men and their relationship, good and bad.  As they wander through town, making various stops we learn their history and what is has taken for the men to get to this stage in their relationship where they are now.  The story bounds between 2012, 1987 the year they broke up, and 2009, the year they reconnected.  Jim is so very human in his fears and faults as is Andy in his anger over Jim’s betrayal and cowardice.  All it takes is a look at the date and remember what it meant to be gay during that time period.  Yes, things have changed, yes, they have gotten easier in some parts of the globe but this story is a reminder of the fears of coming out and staying together as a gay committed couple that many had during the 80’s.  It is fitting that in celebrating our present, the past is never forgotten and Black does an outstanding job of bringing that  to us in the forms of Jim and Andy riding into the future firmly hooked together by vehicle and by choice.

Go out and grab this anthology, read each story, find your own favorites, Mine might shuffle as I read it once more.  Happy Jubilee, Queen, Great Olympics, Britain and have a wonderful time at the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet.  I really wish I was there with you.  Divvy doo dah!

Cover art by Alex Beecroft.  Smashing I say! lol

Review of (Un)Masked by Anyta Sunday and Andrew Q. Gordon

Rating: 4.25 stars

Jayden Walker has two goals in life, he wants to see the plays he wrote with his best friend, Gristle, performed at Wellington’s Tory Street Theater and he wants to meet his soul mate.  But for now he and Gristle, brother of his soul and best friend, are struggling to make ends meet in a moldering plumbing challenged home, aka the hovel.  On his walk home from a despondent meeting with the theater manager, he hears an accordion busker playing a tune of irresistible joy and hope.  Drawn to that sound, he sees a small figure in a hoodie dancing on the street corner and spies a thatch of blond hair and an eyebrow divided by a scar.  Something about the moment seems magical, but Jay hurries on as Gristle is expecting him home.

Jay waits tables to earn money, but things are so tight that Gristle decides to become an”escort” to get the extra money they need to put on their production.  This decision tears Jay up inside and while Gristle says it doesn’t bother him, it is clear that it does but his mind won’t be changed.  As Jay heads out to the public bathrooms, he sees the accordion musician being attacked by a man near the beach.  Oddly enough, the busker is not fighting back, just letting the man pummel him.  Jay runs up to intervene and stops the attack.  The man under the hoodie is Lethe Cross ( a name heavy with portent). Jay and Lethe are pulled together by a mutual attraction that gets stronger which each meeting.  But Lethe’s life is full of mystery.  People keep calling him by different names, his head is always covered by a hood as he never wants his face to be seen, and won’t let Jay bring Gristle to meet him. The last is a huge bone of contention between Gristle and Jay.  Before long Jay is being pulled in two opposite directions by the two people he loves the most and who need Jay more than they have ever needed him before.  Gristle is hiding things from Jay and Lethe finally tells Jay that he is the last of his family that has carried a curse for over a century.  The curse is slowly killing Lethe as all in his family have died young because of it.  There is a way to end it but it may cost Jay everything he loves, even his life.

Never have I felt so ambivalent over such a beautifully written book.  Authors Sunday and Gordon give us characters of heartbreaking beauty in the gorgeous setting of Wellington,the capital of New Zealand, where the ocean meets hills and nature is just a step away from civilized zones. Here the geological earthquakes are mirrored by the earthquakes of the heart and soul that happens to the characters in the book.  Jay is our narrator, the actions of the others seen from his point of view.  But that is not to say that Jay sees all that is happening around him with clarity. To the authors credit, the readers can see where Jay’s vision has become clouded by emotions in turmoil, we can see the storms coming even if we are helpless to stop them.  I loved Jay.  An artist dying to get his vision out to the public, he dreams of writing plays that people will see and he wants to accomplish this goal with Gristle, his “bro”, the brother of his soul, even if they are not related by blood.  Jay also has a certain pragmatism about him.  He does see that the bills get paid and hold down a job. Jay is gay and wants to find his soul mate.  Gristle, his “bro” is Jay’s best friend and roommate.  Gristle is straight and has a traumatic past that he has never recovered from.  One of the things missing from the book is Gristle and Jay’s back story.  I wanted to know how they met, under what circumstances did these two get together and become so bonded that they almost breathe in unison.  Then there is Lethe Cross, the musician who turns out to be Jay’s soulmate.  Lethe starts out as a complete mystery to Jay and the reader, although the name is a portent in every way as memory itself is a cross Lethe has to bear.  As the little oddities about Lethe start to add up in Jay’s mind, they do so with us too.  As person after person mistakes Lethe for people in their pasts, an aura of magic starts to pervade the story, and not in a good way.  More in a Grimm’s fairy tale overtone, suffused with darkness and angst.  When the truth behind the mystery is uncovered, we feel Lethe’s pain.  His life has never been his, the curse brought on by an ancestor that everyone in his family had paid for with their lives.  But for as much as I felt for Lethe, in some ways he remained a chimera for me, parts of him remaining as elusive as a wisp of smoke.

It is Gristle who is the heart of the story for me.  It is Gristle who captured my heart.  And it is Gristle who made me weep, bawling like a baby for the second half of the book. I was/am 100 percent invested in Gristle. His heart so huge, his love for Jay so all encompassing, so beautiful and pure.  Their bond is one of precious metals and the red petals of the Pohutukawa tree.  It is the two of them I loved.  From their nightly excursions that Gristle surprised Jay with to help Jay step outside his inner boundaries to their “hovel” decorated with bits of their dreams and a room full of kites to fly.  They were so magical that in many respects Lethe felt like the intruder Gristle came to regard him as. Neither Gristle nor I ever recovered from Lethe’s introduction into Jay’s life.

Something happens to Gristle halfway through the book and because of that event, I found myself so emotionally let down and distraught  that I detached myself from the story and never quite recaptured the original feeling I had when I started the book. I feel Gristle deserved a better script that the one he was given.  I know I felt that way right to the end. We all bring our personal baggage to the books we read that  let’s us take one character over  another into our hearts or takes one part of the story and highlights it above all the rest of its elements. Gristle was my focus here, my true north instead of Lethe and his mystery.  You may find yourself feeling completely different. That possibility stems directly from the wonderful writing that is (Un)Masked.

I enjoyed learning things about Wellington, New Zealand from the official Christmas tree to the aboriginal magic that resides in its hills. That setting gave the story an extra layer that enriched it from start to finish. And I have a final quibble to leave you with. For all the pain, all the loss that occurs and reverberates through the story, at least at the end the enemy should have been defeated unequivocally, vanquished forever and we were not given even that satisfaction.  It would have balanced out the darkness with the light of hope for total peace at last, at least for me. But where I found despair in the latter part of the story, others might find hope. So while I won’t ever be picking up this book to read again, the wonderful writing, the memorable characters, and the different ways people come to stories, lets me give this tale a 4.25 star rating and a recommendation for you all to pick it up.  Drop me a line after you read it.  I will be curious on what you take away from (Un)Masked.

Cover photograph by Caroline Wimmer, graphic layout by Anne Cain.  I loved this cover.  I only wish the font color and the mask were a wee bit lighter to make it easier to distinguish the names and title.

Review of Word Play – A Story Orgy Anthology

Rating: 4 stars

Word Play is the first collection by a wonderful group of authors who post serial stories under the collective name Story Orgy.  Lee Brazil, Em Woods, J. R. Boyd, Havan Fellows, and Hank Edwards give us novella length stories of love and relationships from the first throes of passion and discovery to an old loves lost and then renewed.

Harper’s Discovery by Em Woods is the story of Harper Evans journey from betrayed boyfriend to a man happy with a new love and  new life as Pitt’s sub with some remarkable stops along the way.

Wicked Reflections by Hank Edwards is a supernatural mystery story that will keep you on edge even as our hero finds time for romance.

Harlan’s Ryde by Havan Fellows brings us the story of Ryder and Harlan’s last chance at love after Ryder threw it away in a moment of insecurity and self destruction.

Off The Beaten Path by J. R. Boyd shows us best friends Mitch Sterling and Colby Merritt on a jaunt in the country that brings them revelations about their  relationship and their sexuality.

The Park At Sunrise by Lee Brazil is a heart wrenching story of love lost and those left behind.  What happens when a threesome is reduced to two? Can a love survive the loss of a partner?

This is a remarkable collection of stories by a group of authors I have come to admire.  Their Story Orgy Mondays was my first introduction to all of them.  I eagerly awaited for Monday to come around so I could see a new installment on stories I was following from each author as they linked  all their stories together.  Follow one, follow them all.  So imagine my joy when I found out that they were publishing their stories in one volume (now several) so I could have them at my finger tips at a moments notice.  And what a diverse group of stories these are.  A real smorgasbord of love from every angle and a couple of kinks.  And while I enjoyed them all, I will admit to having some favorites.

Harper’s Discovery by Em Woods introduces us to Harper Evans just as he is dumping his cheating boyfriend, a long overdue event as far as Pitt Mullen is concerned.  Pitts has been waiting for Harper to get up his resolve and get rid of someone not worthy of him.  Of course, Pitt is ready to step in and make Harper his own in every way, including being the submissive to his Dom.  As someone not in the lifestyle, I have no idea whether their D/s relationship is accurate but I do know that the men come across as real people trying to find a base upon which to build a mutually satisfactory relationship, one that includes love and respect.  Add to this a side story involving a young man in need of a kidney transplant and you have a story you will love even if D/s is not your typical read.

Wicked Reflections by Hank Edwards was one story that should not be read at bedtime.  He kept me up all night with nightmares reliving scenes from this book.  When Kirk Stanford moves into his new house, the real estate agent had left some things out before selling the house to Kirk, including the fact that the previous owner was murdered upstairs in the master bathroom.  Now ghostly warnings appear written on the steamed surface of the mirror in the bathroom.  And different men start to enter Kirk’s life from Alan, his new neighbor next door, Lance Hawthorne, a detective looking into the death of the previous owner, and Damon Swain, a local librarian helping Kirk research his new residence.  Little by little, scene by scene Hank Edwards starts ramping up the anxiety level of the reader as more facts are revealed about Kirk’s new house, as more warnings are left by the ghost, and everyone becomes a possible suspect.  Like Kirk, you have no idea who to trust, and who will turn out to be the bad guy.  And those last pages? Had me biting my nails and making sure my doors and windows were locked. Edwards keeps all the balls up in the air as he juggles his thriller scenario with hot sexy scenes between Kirk and his new acquaintenances.  Kirk is a bit of a slut which just gives us another dimension to his character.  You will love this story, the plot will make you scream.  Just read it during the daylight hours, ok?

Harlan’s Ryde by Havan Fellows.  OK, I just loved this story.  It has it all.  Humor, great characterizations and two great sequels.  This is the first in the Synchronous Seductions Trilogy.  Read my review of all three here.

Off The Beaten Path by J. R. Boyd is a wonderful story of two friends and business partners realizing that they have come to mean much more to each other than they have admitted to.  One day Colby Merritt and Mitch Sterling take a drive to scope out new projects/jobs for their landscaping business.  Friends for 24 years, a chance dip in a pond on a hot Texas day gives Colby the opportunity to show Mitch how he has always felt about him and what better time than when both are half naked and dripping wet.  Boyd’s vivid descriptions makes us feel that hot Texas heat and the delights of a summer pond.  Then give us two old friends who have buried their attraction to each other in the name of that friendship and the moment explodes with sexual fireworks and revelations of long hidden sexuality.  Did I say hot?  Hot on every level.  A coming out story done with humor and heat, what’s not to love?

The Park At Sunset by Lee Brazil.  Heartbreaking, just heartbreaking, but in a wonderful way.  This story will resonate with anyone with a lost love in their past.  Thirty two year old Morgan shows up at the bench by the beach and is overwhelmed by memories of a love he had lost.  Joining him is Jason, an artist and his former lover.  Jason sent Mason a painting that has brought them back together after a long separation.  The cause? The death of their lover, Paul.  They were once of happy threesome but the loss of one has meant the loss of all.  Now sitting on a bench on a beach full of memories, they relive their past, examine their present lives in hopes of finding a way back to each other.  Brazil makes their pain palpable, their loss of  Paul and each other gut wrenching as their emotions flow and the memories of what was lost comes back.  These men touch us in every way.  We identify with them and their have our complete empathy.  And when the story comes to an end, you will be smiling through tears at a love reclaimed.

Don’t pass this anthology by.  If you are unfamiliar with these authors, it is a great introduction.  If you love their works, read these stories and remember why.

Cover artist Victoria Miller has created a hot sexy cover for Word Play.  Great design with easily read fonts. Great job.

Available through Breathless Press , Amazon, and All Romance eBooks.

Olympic Games, the Week Ahead in Reviews and The Michelada Cocktail

So many things going on to talk about today.  First let’s get right to the Olympics.  Closing ceremony is tonight, bringing to an end one of the best Olympics I can remember.  I have been glued to the television watching this incredible spectacle unfold from the beginning, from the high drama of the swimming pools and gymnastic mats to the cross country course of the Equestrian events to the river and glistening rowers then to track and field, and all the sports in between.  So many athletes, so many stories, so many tears of sorrow to match the tears of joy.  How not to feel a part of something bigger, to feel connected to other nations and nationalities when you see people cheering the athletes on regardless of the colors they wear or the countries they represent.  Oscar Pistorius? Who wasn’t cheering that man on?  Some of my favorites? Katie Ledecky, Misty  and Terri, Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis, Michael Phelps, Gabby and the rest of the US gymnastic womens team,  Misty Franklin….so, so many.

And what will the closing ceremony look like?  Who knows?  After the dancing nurses and their twirling hospital beds, massive shrubbery moving, the Tor, and best torch ever, I am waiting in anticipation to be confounded, baffled, and touched beyond measure.  I know we will all be watching it together.

I am also going into this week with a working generator (dances for joy) so once more I am able to enjoy the rumble of thunder, the darkening skies, the sound of pounding rain for their beauty and music, secure in the knowledge that a storm no longer equals loss of power, food and appliances!  Take that, Pepco.  Now only if I could send you the bill.

Finally, Monday brings my review of Stars & Stripes, the latest in the Cut & Run series from Abigail Roux featuring Ty and Zane.  So many people were trying to download their pre-ordered copies at midnight on the 11th that they crashed the servers over at Riptide Publishing.  Wow.  So was the wait worth it?  Read my review on Monday.  So here is what the week is looking like in books:

Monday:                                Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run #6) by Abigail Roux

Tuesday:                                Synchronous Seductions Trilogy by Haven Fellows

Wednesday:                         Inertia (Impulse #1) by Amelia C. Gormley

Thursday:                             Brook Street: Thief by Ava March (rescheduled from last week)

Friday:                                   Mending the Rift Series by Valentina Heart

Saturday:                               Word Play Anthology by the Story Orgy authors

And finally our summer cocktail of the week. The Michelada, perfect for grilled foods and watching Olympic closing ceremonies!

The Michelada

Ingredients:

1/4 teaspoon piquin pepper
1/4 teaspoon salsa picante
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (12-ounce) can Mexican lager, chilled

Garnish: lime wedge

Directions:

In tall beer glass, stir together pepper sauce, salsa, lime juice, salt, and lager. Garnish with lime and serve immediately.

Happy viewing and have a great week!

Review of Forever May Not Be Long Enough (Legends of the Romanorum #3) by Mychael Black and Shayne Carmichael

Rating: 4.25 stars

Mael Black and his consort, Cian, are busy with their responsibilities and their plan to bring a son with their joined blood into their lives. The fact that Mael Black is the Vampire Prince of London and Cian, a vampire hunting angel, makes their combined duties that much more complicated.  The vampires under Mael’s rule are unhappy with his choice of consort as is his father, the powerful Lord Nigel.   And while Cian no longer hunts vampires, sometimes his very nature can cause misunderstandings in their relationship as Cian is still trying to figure out what it means to be human.

A messenger brings a summons from the court in Rome.  An ancient force is awake and coming to destroy the Romanorum and with it all that Mael and Cian hold dear. When their plans for a son is revealed to Nigel, he plots to separate his son from Cian by any means possible, including death.  With court intrigue, mysterious were deaths, and  unexpected betrayals to deal with as well as the new threat, it will take Mael, Cian, along with a contingent of gods, vampires, and angels to combat the ancient evil and save their world.

It’s been four years since the last book, And Two Shall Become One (Legends of the Romanorum #2) was published and I had forgotten how much I had loved Mael Black and Cian.  And now with Forever May Not Be Long Enough (Legends of the Romanorum #3), their saga is finally over, although other couples in the series look to be getting their own books.  Here, the authors have given Mael and Cian a wonderful sendoff that left me happily satisfied and looking forward to more.

The premise of the series hooked me in from the very start.  You have a vampire Prince and a vampire killing Angel attracted to each other when by their very natures they should be deadly enemies. The first book covers their unconventional  romance from the beginning, where we see the emotional turmoil and mental anguish their feelings bring.  The second book in series sees their relationship continue to deepen as Mael announces to the court that Cian is now his consort and the consequences of that decision. Now they are an established couple but still discovering parts of each other previously unknown.  Cian is a 3,000 year old angel who is still trying to figure out what it means to be human and that includes jealousy.  Mael understands human nature but has not seen what a angry Angel can mean.  I love the fact that Black and Carmichael take the issues that might pop up as a couple navigates a new relationship and applies it to a new couple with diametrically opposed natures. And does a great job with it.  Yes, Mael and Cian are busy with their jobs that they forget to make time for each other.  Typical issue.  But Cian is Mael’s ghoul and needs to feed from him, not so typical. Mael needs to understand that Cian accepts his job as Prince and understand the pressures he is under. Typical.  That is job contains meeting with were rulers and messages from the devil, not so typical. And so on.  Typical relationship ramped up to nth degree.

The characterizations here are wonderful, full of beings is it easy to love.  In fact Cornelius, court sorcerer, and Brandon, a young vampire rescued off the streets almost stole the second book away from the two main characters, they were that special and endearing in every way.  For those of you who loved them as I did, both Cornelius and Brandon appear here as well.  Another couple starts a relationship here that I suspect will continue, along with Cornelius and Brandon, in other books.  In fact, I would say the problem here is that there is a surfeit of great characters and couples all striving for the readers attention.  Along with the couples already mentioned, back from previous books are Michael and Selena, Dio and Josh,  and so many others that it becomes hard to remember who is paired up and what their backstory is.  An abundance of wealth that could have been spread over additional pages or another story.  Then start throwing in Egyptian gods, Lucifer, werewolves, and the cast inflates almost more than the story can handle.

And that comes back to my final quibble.  If you have not read the first two books, you will be a little baffled once you start reading this book as the backstories and character development is contained in the previous stories . It is taken for granted that the reader is familiar with the convoluted plot lines and familial connections here.  This is a richly layered saga.  Coming in on it cold is definitely not recommended.  Start from the beginning.  Watch the relationship happen.  Weep and shout for joy during the second book. Come to love the characters as I did and then pick up this book.  You won’t be sorry. And now I will wait to see which couple gets the next book.  I hope it won’t be another four years before I find out.

Books in the series, in the order they were  written and should be read:

The Prince’s Angel (Legends of the Romanorum #1) Rating: 4 stars

And Two Shall Become One (Legends of the Romanorum #2) Rating: 4.5 stars

Forever May Not Be Long Enough (Legends of the Romanorum #3) Rating: 4.25 stars

Cover:  Gorgeous cover by Alessia Brio