A BJ Review: Burn the Sky by Jaye McKenna

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Twenty year-old Prince Garrick is eldest son and heir presumptive of the Kingdom of Altan, but he can’t be crowned until his latent Wytch power awakens. Pressure comes to bear on his father, the Wytch King, when the much younger Prince Jaire’s Wytch power awakens instead. But Jaire, a bookish dreamer, is completely unsuited for the role of king. With his father becoming impatient, Garrick agrees to allow his Wytch power to be forced awake by the Wytch Master Tevari in order to protect Jaire. But secrets have been kept about the history and powers that lurk within the family line. When the power of the dragon within Garrick is forced awake, he’s painfully torn apart and unable to control his rage and urge to burn the sky.

Wytch Master Ilya is a century old dragon shifter and the only one with the power to try and help Garrick learn to control his own dragon. And if Ilya cannot teach Garrick to harness the beast within him before it destroys the whole kingdom, it will fall upon his shoulders him to destroy him instead. But when the two men meet, the sparks begin to fly in more ways than one.   Prince Garrick grew so much during this story from the rebellious youth goofing off from his studies & getting off in the corridors with his friend to a strong leader fighting to control his dragon power and take on the mantle of responsibility for an entire Kingdom. Excellent characterizations throughout. Kian was sweet, down-to-earth, and witty almost despite himself. Poor young Jaire, frail and not suited to rule, disliked by his father for reasons outside his control, yet he shows both courage and strength.

But beautiful Ilya with his tragic past and wounded heart steals the spotlight for me, since I’m a huge sucker for wounded men.  Intricate and quite nuanced world-building. Interesting power struggle between the Wytch Council and Wytch King, because even though the Wytch Kings governed their kingdoms, the Wytch Council seemed to hold power over who was allowed to take the throne. Individual intrigue also comes into play in this fast-paced story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It had wit, heat, angst, intrigue, and lots of long-haired men! And I love the contrast between Ilya’s ice dragon and Garrick’s more traditional fire-breathing dragon. I’d easily recommend this well-written fantasy! It’s my new favorite dragon shifter story.

Cover Artist: Chinchbug created a stunning depiction of dragons in flight that grabbed my attention with color contrast and captured motion.

Sales Links: All Romance (ARe) Amazon Buy It Here

Book Details:

195 pages, eBook
Published January 12, 2015

Mythe Weaver Press

A BJ Review: The Protector by Cooper West

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Guardsmen teams comprised of a human Handler and a weredog Protector are rare and highly valued but also feared by some because of their unusual abilities. Protectors always die within a short period of losing their Handler. Except that Alex Taylor didn’t. He’s lived as a widower for three years after his partner’s death. The pairs normal bond in their teens or early-twenties, but Handler Marcus Stephanek, at twenty-six, is well past the age when most have bonded to their Protectors. He’s almost given up hope of ever fulfilling his destiny as a Handler when he meets and bonds with Alex. But Alex is still grieving over his previous Handler and unwilling to let Marcus into his heart. Unexplained murders and strange events seeming to surround Alex, but he doesn’t put two and two together until a friends’ life is on the line. Handler and Protector will need to learn to trust and accept their bond if they are to work together and survive.

Well-written and enjoyable read with a fascinating premise revolving around one of my favorite things… DOGS! The author created a captivating world where Guardmen pairs (Protector dog and Handler) live intertwined lives. The outstanding history behind this AU world was enthralling reading. Early on, I was sure that this would be an easy five star for me. Unfortunately, it lost a bit of ground when it came to building the relationship between Alex and Marcus.

As separate characters in the time before they bonded, I adored both Alex and Marcus. I was rooting so much for them to get together that I could hardly wait for it to happen. When they finally met, the initial bonding was nearly instantaneous and picture perfect—exactly what I’d craved. In the period after the initial bond though, I felt no chemistry between the pair coming through. With so many callous and uncaring actions on both side sprinkled liberally with lots of bickering, the storyline came across as lots of hurt and very little comfort. I wanted to see love grow between them, but I felt as if they were tearing each other apart.

The turnaround between the two men finally came, but by then it felt weak to me, more like an acceptance of their fate and a giving in to their need for one another than the thrilling tale of falling in love I’d hoped for after the initial build up at the beginning. It felt like compromise.

This AU world where dogs and men bonded was beyond awesome. Some well-developed and fun secondary characters added depth as well, but in the end, the MCs love story felt too weak to warrant a five star.

Cover art by Reese Dante who created a lovely cover with a gorgeous representation of the two MCs plus the Protector in his canine form.

Sales Links: Dreamspinner Press All Romance (ARe) Amazon Buy It Here

 Book Details:

ebook, 250 pages
Published May 5th 2014 by Dreamspinner Press (first published May 4th 2014)
ISBN 1627984437 (ISBN13: 9781627984430)
edition languageEnglish
url http://www.cooper-west.com/

A BJ Review: Where Willows Won’t Grow by Lia Black

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

After months of investigation aimed at bringing down a powerful cartel ends with undercover agent Alex Kley up on the auction block, he finds himself sold into sexual slavery at Willow House, an elite brothel on Omanai Station catering to humans and aliens alike. It doesn’t take long for Alex to realize that Illythe, the beautiful alien manager of Willow House, is actually little more than a slave himself. As Alex gets closer to Illythe in order to get the information he needs, he’s unable to keep himself from falling for the dark-skinned alien. Soon Alex may have to choose between his mission and his love for a man deeply involved in the hateful organization that Alex has worked so hard to take down.

Where Willows Won’t Grow is a freebie written for the 2014 M/M Romance Group’s DRitC event. Don’t make the mistake of letting this excellent read slip through the cracks because of a misguided thought that freebies are of lesser quality than books we pay for. Because I’m here to tell you, this story is an amazing read from start to finish and far more enjoyable than a large percentage of books I’ve spent good money on.

Set on a sensuously dark space station full of intrigue, sex and aliens, this story hooked me in from page one. The main characters are complex, well-drawn, damaged guys—one a human and one an alien. It’s hard to express how much I adore Illythe. I found him to be a uniquely memorable character that stayed with me long after I finished reading the story. And on the other side of the coin we have the ultra creepy Scion who made my skin crawl. Want a bad guy you love to hate? Yeah, well, I absolutely detested this dude about two minutes after he came on page. Ok, maybe less.

Reading Willows was by turns dark, exhausting, frustrating, horrifying, amazing, fascinating, and touching. It took me through the wringer with these characters, but kept me rapt the whole darn time. I simply couldn’t put it down.
I read it twice, a few months apart, because one reading wasn’t enough–the characters called me back. So if you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for? Didn’t I mention that it’s free?

Cover Artist: Author
There was a cover change from my first reading to now but since both represent the author’s interpretation of Illythe, my favorite character from the book, I enjoy them both. Both covers can be seen here.

Free Book: Find It Here at Goodreads M/M Romance Group

Book Details:

ebook, 132 pages
Published July 9th 2014 by M/M Romance Group @ Goodreads
original titleWhere Willows Won’t Grow
edition languageEnglish
seriesLove’s Landscapes
charactersAlex Key, Illythe settingOmanai Station

A BJ Review: A King’s Ransom by Lia Black

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

Kaidos Vailinn is a Wander-born thief trying hard to overcome an unfortunate past when he’s approached by a gentleman offering him a large sum of money to recover a kidnapped prostitute for return to the King of a distant kingdom. Kaidos is surprised when he undertakes the mission and discovers upon trying to bed Veyl that not only is the prostitute in question the highest paid companion in the brothel, but also very much male.

Thus begins a journey of epic fantasy proportions. A King’s Ransom is a longish book separated into two parts. Part One was awesome—I adored it. Veyl and Kaidos are sexy, quirky well-developed characters that captivated me and had me thoroughly invested almost immediately. I was absolutely riveted watching them fall in love on their journey across the kingdom to an unknown end. As their pasts are revealed in all its delicious angst, they had me enthralled. Then about midway through came part two and everything changed.

At that point, the book shifted from a tightly focused love story to a sprawling Lord of the Rings style epic set within a complex world of elves, werecreatures, mages and demons in a kingdom of political intrigue. The storyline complexity bumped up to encompassed three m/m love stories, and to facilitate that there are several new POV characters introduced. None of them were bad, in fact, all were interesting and well-drawn. But I’d become so completely invested in Veyl and Kaidos, that this shift threw me.

The entire book is well-written with compelling characters, wonderful storytelling and world-building. Part two just wasn’t the story that I personally craved after having become engrossed in part one. Having the main couple separated for nearly the whole second part of the book had me itching to hurrying through all the other fun stuff going on in order to get back to the relationship of Veyl and Kaidos again. In the end, the brief time on-page after they were reunited left me wanting just a bit more.

Veyl and Kaidos are an awesome couple. I enjoyed them so much that my only niggle with this book centers around my annoyance at having them share the spotlight with any other couples no matter how interesting and fun they were.

Cover Artist: Cinchbug. I appreciated the cover more after reading the story than before.

Sales Links: Smashwords All Romance (ARe) Amazon Buy It Here

Book Details:

ebook, 432 pages
Published February 1st 2014 by Smashwords
original titleA King’s Ransom
ISBN139781311782328
edition languageEnglish

A BJ Review: Spiretown by Lia Black

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

In this urban fantasy novel, the human population has been split into two factions after the Mage wars, plainbloods born with no magical abilities and mages born ‘tainted’ with magic. Mages are considered dangerous and separated from the rest of humanity into compounds like Spiretown, a ghetto city within a city that serves as a prison. Templar Commander Collin Anderfels has a duty to contain the mages and protect plainbloods. When a group of power-crazy mages target Logan Gray, the powerful self-proclaimed leader of Spiretown, Collin finds himself forced to protect a man that embodies everything Collin loathes.

Spiretown features exceptional world-building, lots of plot twists, and a story that runs the gamut from fun, witty dialogue to delicious angst, from hot and sexy moments to intense action, and from sweet emotion to gory horror.

The characters are well-drawn, complex guys with imperfections and hurtful pasts (oh, how I love the broken boys). Logan and Collin represent the two sides of this separated world. Each have reasons to hate the other, but when fate brings them together, can they come to trust each other in order to survive? Logan, the emotionally damaged, tattooed and pierced mage initially uses his androgyny and flamboyance to taunt and flirt with Collin. Collin is strongly anti-Mage due to both personal events from his past and his sworn duty as a Templar. Both characters must change in order to stay alive. As a side note, I enjoyed how Collin’s repressed dominant tendencies were just waiting to come out when Logan opened that door. Very tasty.

There’s also a strong and relatable female character in Collin’s mother, Penny. I mention this mainly as its not often in M/M that I encounter female characters that aren’t props, stereotypes or bad exs, but rather a real character that participates in moving the story forward in a positive way.

I consider Spiretown a picture perfect M/M urban fantasy of forbidden love between two guys from opposite sides of the track in more ways that one. Put this one on your must read list right now. It’s awesome.

Cover Artist: Author
Love this cover. Eerie city spires darkly silhouetted against the blaze of setting sun. What could be creepier than facing encroaching darkness alone in such a scary, godforsaken place?

Sales Link: Amazon US Amazon UK Buy It Here

Book Details:

ebook
Published August 28th 2014 by Lia Black/ VineDark
(first published December 2nd 2012)
ISBN139781310068072
edition languageEnglish

A BJ Review: The Hardest Thing: A Dan Stagg Mystery by James Lear

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Killing is easy. Love is… The Hardest Thing

Dan Stagg, formerly Major Dan Stagg in the military, was forced out of the Crops when he lost his partner Will to a sniper in Afghanistan and in his grief violated the DADT system in place at the time. Now, having recently lost his job as a bouncer at club, he’s ripe for the picking when offered a lot of money to get a sexy young male “secretary” safely out of town and provide him protection. But Dan quickly comes to realize that something is fishy and soon things begin to go very wrong.

This isn’t flowery prose or whitewashing. This author puts you right inside this hardened former military man’s head, and he pulls no punches. Its raw, gritty, and lots of messy sex. Lots. But don’t let that fool you. This book is in no way light on story. There’s a plot here with plenty of twists and turns. It’s humorous at times and rip-you-heart-out sad at others.

Here’s the thing… I toyed with giving this less stars for a brief minute because normally, I don’t enjoy books in which there’s detailed sex happening being the MCs and other people. Usually that comes across to me as cheating and often prompts me to put the book aside. I never once considered doing that here. I can’t say I enjoyed reading those parts, but the author did make me understand. These are both broken guys who are a product of what they’ve been taught and the lives they’ve led.

Just when I thought I’d gotten a handle on them and on how the story was going to play out, I realize I’m wrong. There are twists right up to the end, folks. Which is why I’m not revealing too much of the story in this review. I will say that the end had me in tears. Because yeah, sometimes love is the hardest thing. While I didn’t quite understand exactly why Dan loved Jodi, aside from the sex, I did completely believe that he loved him. Sometimes the heart just loves whom it loves. I will be eager to read the next installment in this series.

Cover Artist: ?I like the cover in that it’s gritty and urban, giving a good clue of contents. But when I read that Dan Stagg is actually bald, I felt a bit unhappy at the cover model being so unlike the character. (Note if anyone knows who the artists is please send us the name so we can credit them.)

Sales Links for eBook and paperback: Cleis Press Amazon Buy It Here
Book Details:

paperback, 255 pages –
Published November 14th 2014 by Cleis Press (first published January 1st 2013)
ISBN 1306434912 (ISBN13: 9781306434911)
seriesDan Stagg Mystery #1

Note: James Lear is the nom de plume of prolific and acclaimed novelist, Rupert Smith. He lives in London and is the 2008 Winner of Erotic Awards “Best Writer”.

A BJ Review: Wedding Favors by Josh Lanyon

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Wyatt and Graham are getting married. Or are they? With the wedding just days away, Wyatt is the one having trouble committing this time around.

Starts out by making me laugh and quickly re-affirming how much I love these two guys. Minutes later, the angst sets in. Lanyon takes me from laughter to sinking heart at lightning speed. I swear I actually felt my smile turn upside down as I read the first few pages of this.

This story takes place largely inside Wyatt’s head as he desperately tries to figure out what’s making him have cold feet over marrying the man he loves. I could relate to Graham’s frustration, hurt and anger extremely well. But what I adored about the story was how Graham didn’t go all angsty and dramatic. He kept his cool and patiently gave Wyatt space and time to figure things out. Rather than overreacting and bailing on Wyatt, which could have made things so much worse, they actually talked! Hallelujah.

Beautifully written as I’ve come to expect from Lanyon, and I welcomed the chance to revisit with a memorable couple. For me, the sequel didn’t have quite the impact of the first book in the series, which was near perfection.

Cover Artist: ?
This cover is simple and unassuming with very little color. Not a grabber. Wouldn’t have caught my attention, especially since author name is small and in a bit of a harder to read typeface.

Sales Links: All Romance (ARe) Amazon Buy It Here

Book Details: 34 pages
Published March 8, 2015 by JustJoshin Publishing, Inc

A BJ Review: Wizard’s Moon by Josh Lanyon

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

“I wish to buy a boy.”

A handsome one-eyed stranger visits a whoremaster asking to buy a boy and ends up with Faro. But not everything is as it seems, and Faro soon comes to question whether he was purchased for the reasons he’d assumed.

This is not your typical Josh Lanyon, although there is a kernel of mystery to be found. Lyrical and lush writing wrapped me up like a blanket as it whisked me away to another place/time. Knowing this story was short, I deliberately chose not to read it all in one sitting. Because Josh Lanyon writing a rentboy fantasy? I knew this was one to be savored slowly.

Often the fantasy genre invests a lot of storytelling time into world building, sometimes to the point where the story get bogged down in it. I was delighted that it wasn’t the case here. The author gave just the right amount of detail to create an extremely satisfying visual of a dark and moody world that I want to explore.

All the characters were rich and interesting, even those we see for only a short time such as the whoremaster at the beginning and the witch-wife near the end. Moren Ke creeped me out, such evil in a beautiful package. And Faro and Jaxon Re had me intrigued from the beginning. Their connection and chemistry came across well despite the speed of its development.

In the short forty-six pages of this well-written book, we have sexy men, suspense, magic, torture, knife play, angst, sex and mayhem. What more could one ask for? Well, I do wish it had been longer, but overall this is a yummy tidbit.

Lanyon indicates in the afterward that the story was written some time ago. I’m glad he released it for us, but my wish is that he’d expand on it. The end left all sorts of possibilities. Mr. Lanyon, more please?

Cover Artist: ? Those beautiful eyes in such an intense and sad face set against the lush mysterious background screamed fantasy as it caught my eye. When I saw the author name snugged in small amidst the title, it was an instant had to read.

Sales Links: All Romance (ARe) Amazon Buy It Here

 Book Details:

ebook, 46 pages
Published March 8th 2015 by JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
ISBN139781937909772
edition languageEnglish

A BJ Review: Song of the Navigator by Astrid Amara

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Tover Duke is an improvisational navigator, one of only forty-two people in the universe who can move things (and people) across space using the power of his mind. Despite his ability and the glamour and wealth it brings him, his life is routine save for a few bright spots: his birds and his passion for Cruz Arcadio. On the day of his birthday celebration, Tover’s world changes irrevocably when he’s betrayed and kidnapped by none other than the man he loves.

This book isn’t for the faint of heart. There’s extreme violence, torture and betrayal. It’s harsh and hard to read in parts, BUT it’s also romantic, poignant and absolutely amazing.

Seldom outside of an epic fantasy series have I encountered such excellent world-building. From the DK station to the green and vibrant Carida, the settings are so vibrantly alive and peopled with characters so real that I felt like I could step right into the book and shake their hands (or punch them out as the case may be). Beautifully written. I loved Tover’s from the start, spoiled and aware of how special he was, of his tremendous worth, yet not really full of himself. Coming from a pampered lifestyle where he’s almost worshipped, I didn’t expect such strength from him. Tover’s never weak or whiny despite all that happens to him. The betrayal itself almost seems to wound him worse than the physical torment he’s subjected to.

I found myself hating Cruz right along with Tover, hating him with a fiery passion. What could redeem a man who could betray the one who’d trusted him enough to risk all to save his life? What indeed. Tover begins to understand that the safe world he thought he was living in may all be built on lies. Only then do we begin to get a picture of the real Cruz. By the end of this story, I adored both of these characters and would gladly embrace a second book with these characters.

I cannot recommend this book more highly to those who appreciate darker reads. It’s my first read by this author and definitely will not be my last.

In the afterward, the author indicates the possibility of stories set in this world eventually coming from two other authors as well, Ginn Hale and Nicole Kimberling. I’ll be crossing my fingers.

Cover Artist Kanaxa. The cover wonderfully encompassing the elements of the story. The two very different figures standing isolated but touching amidst the backdrops of space and other worlds. Joined against huge odds. Best of all maybe is the embracing warmth of the colors, highlighting the passion and emotional arousal this story evokes.

Sales Links: Available for preorder now at Amazon Buy It Here
Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 224 pages
Expected publication: May 26th 2015 by Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
ASINB00SB49GJ8
url http://astridamara.com/portfolio/navigator

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