Tag: A BJ Review

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

Rating:   4.25 stars out of 5

A King's Ransome cover

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

Spiretown coverIn 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

The Hardest Thing coverDan 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: Perfect Day by Josh Lanyon

Rating:  5 stars out of 5

Perfect Day coverOn a camping trip, Wyatt lets the L word slip big time during a hot and heavy session. Unfortunately, he’s well aware that his lover, Graham, is far from over his last boyfriend, Jase, and thus his declaration isn’t going to sit well.

What ensues is a short, sweet and perfect little story that had me teary eyed nearly from page one. In only twenty-eight pages, this ran the gamut from breaking my heart to making it soar and came complete with all the tentative stages of hope in between! Josh Lanyon writes beautifully. Darn it all, I wish I could use words like this for just one day… now that would be my perfect day.

 

 

 

Cover Artist: ?Simple but fitting cover that epitomizes the title. The addition of the bee makes it perfect.

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

Book Details:  28 pages
Published May 28, 2012 by JustJoshin Publishing, Inc

A BJ Review: Wedding Favors by Josh Lanyon

Rating:  4 stars out of 5

Wedding Favors coverWyatt 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.”

Wizard's Moon coverA 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

Song of the NavigatorTover 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

Heading Into March and This Week’s Schedule at Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

We are heading into March and this week holds many wonderful things for all of you.  The Pulp Friction Gang is back and talking about this year’s series which is located in New Orleans and set within Laura Harner and T.A. Webb’s Altered States universe of supernatural beings and events.  If you are thinking vampires, werewolves and ghosts you would be right. I will be reviewing the Altered States books all week to lead up to the first in the Pulp Friction series story !  Stay turned for more developments!

Here is our schedule this week at Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

Splat coverOpening Day coverSong of the NavigatorStones in the Road cover

Monday, March 2:

  • Extended book blast ‘Oliver‘ by Catherine Lievens (Lion and Bear shifters….oh my!) (contest)
  • A Paul B Review:  Ansleigh’s Grotto by JT Cheyanne
  • A MelanieM Review: Splat by Anna Ankh
  • A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review: Lights! Camera! Cupid! A Bluewater Bay Valentine’s Day Anthology

Tuesday, March 3:

  • In the Spotlight:  Annabeth Albert ‘Served Hot’ (contest)
  • A Stella Review: A Stone in the Road by Nick Wilgus
  • A BJ Review: Song of the Navigator by Astrid Amara
  • A MelanieM Review: Stolen Dreams by Sue Brown

Wednesday, March 4:

  • Opening Day by Alexis Woods‏ Book Tour and Author Interview
  • It Over by Hurri Cosmo Tour and contest
  • Catherine L. Byrne’s Some Other Freedom Tour and Contest
  • The Pulp Friction Gang is Here, And Its All About Pulp Friction 2015!
  • A MelanieM Review: Deep Blues Goodbye (Altered States, #1) by Laura Harner and T.A. Webb

Thursday, March 5:

  • On Tour With BA Tortuga’s Ever The Same exclusive excerpt tour and contest
  • Lissa Kasey’s Inheritance Book Tour and Contest
  • A Sammy Review: True Brit by Con Riley
  • A Paul B Review: Layne, River & Damion by Vicktor Alexander (Storming Love: Blizzard #4)
  • A MelanieM Review: Deadly Shades of Gold (Altered States, #2) by Laura Harner and TA Webb

Friday, March 6:

  • A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review: Rules to Live By – A BDSM Anthology
  • A MelanieM Review: Road Trip by A.F. Henley
  • MelanieM Review: Free Falling Crimson (Altered States, #3) by Laura Harner and T.A. Webb
  • A Stella Review: Shaken Up by Nicole Forcine

Saturday, March 7:

  • A Stella Review: Lucky Seven by E.L. Esch

someotherfreedom72 (2)Lucky Seven book coverShaken Up coverLights! Camera! Cupid! cover

 

 

 

A BJ Review: Nelson and Caleb (Storming Love: Hurricane:One Storm, Twelve Men #5) by Kaje Harper

Rating:   4.5 stars out of 5

Nelson and Caleb Storming Love coverNelson’s a retired a cop who now works evenings as security-guard job, while also helping out his community on his days off with his therapy dogs. He’s at the hospital with one of his dogs when Hurricane Lauris comes barreling down on his community. Caleb, an attractive man who works at the building Nelson guards, is at the hospital to get a cast taken off his broken foot. After taking Nelson up on the offer of a lift home, Caleb finds himself stranded in Nelson’s home with three dogs when the storm worsens.

This novella had me from the first scene where Bonnie, the handicapped therapy dog in a wheeled cart, is entertaining kids at the hospital with her big, sweet bear of an ex-cop owner. I adored Nelson from the get-go.

I’m a huge animal lover, so throw together two unique, highly relatable main characters, three dogs, a pregnant cat, a couple adorable kittens and a hurricane and that equals out to one thoroughly enjoyable read for me.

There’s heat and attraction from the start, but the guys run into a few stumbling blocks. For one thing, Nelson’s a dog guy while Caleb’s a cat lover. Then there’s the little fact that both men prefer to bottom. And just for good measure, the author throws in a little twist that sets it quite apart from most books I’ve read in this genre.

A well-written, short but sweetly enjoyable read with some heat.

Cover Artist: Kris Jacen.  While the cover is nice enough, the identical photo is used for all the books in the series. A tiny bit of individualization, maybe even just different silhouettes, would have spiced it up.

Sales Links:   MLR Press LLC         All Romance (ARe)        Amazon         Buy It Here
Book Details:

ebook, 87 pages
Published October 3rd 2014 by MLR Press
ISBN13MLR1020140301
edition languageEnglish
url http://kajeharper.wordpress.com/books/
Series Storming Love: Hurricane, One Storm, Twelve Men:

  • Gage and Collin (Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #1) by S.J. Frost
  • Bradley & Mike (Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #2) by Stephani Hecht
  • Bear & Travis (Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #3) by Parker Williams
  • Austin & Troy (Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #4) by Kendall McKenna
  • Nelson & Caleb (Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #5) by Kaje Harper
  • Doug & Neal (Storming Love: One Storm, Twelve Men #6) by Diana DeRicci