Review: Twisted Pretty Things (Shadows of London #1) by Ariana Nash

Rating: 5🌈

I have long needed another urban fantasy author (can never have too many) and now I have one. And a great new series to boot!

I stumbled upon Ariana Nash when I found this urban fantasy story, Twisted Pretty Things. It’s the first book in her Shadows of London series and it’s a grand adventure and showstopper of a stage to a series.

It has a overall series arc of maze like proportions, continually looping back onto itself, then threading through the most obscure of narrative keyholes to keep the reader’s mind throughly boggled and trying to see where this intriguing plot and deeply layered characters will lead us next.

Ah these insanely wonderful characters. All smoke and mirrors, deceptions laid upon deceptively clever and devious personalities. Just when you think you have one completely figured out, wham, there’s a complete turnaround in what you perceive in character.

I love that. Pull that emotional rug out from all of us repeatedly.

All it does is deepen our connection in an odd empathetic way to the people in front of us instead of pushing us away. We need to know more about these obviously tormented individuals and the paths that brought them here.

And the horrors that are about to come. For they are indeed coming.

All the main characters such as the cockney born John “Dom” Domenici who now, through a convoluted journey, to his boss he works for , the elegant, wealthy Alexander Kempthorne , everyone here is fascinating and evolving.

The company, Kempthorne & Co, the main jobs revolve around retrieving magical objects imbued with dangerous powers. However, nothing is even that simple, as serious as it seems.

This story is steeped in British history and culture, including some of its most brutal and painful historical eras.

The author’s talent in using just a few phrases to telegraph something wordlessly barbaric is incredible. It’s used here to great emotional impact over and over.

The characters need to be read to be appreciated. Their growth, the revelations that are sprung on you as a reader cannot be put into a review yet it’s so much a part of them and this increasingly fantastic urban fantasy tale of romance and a fight for survival.

But against what?

That’s what’s coṃing…..

I was up late finishing this story and immediately grabbed up the next in the series. It’s plain addictive.

I can see several sleepless nights ahead.

I’m absolutely recommending this author and stories.

Start here! It’s a must read!

Synopsis:

Something wicked is moving in the shadows of London…

In the underground world of glitzy illegal auctions, fast cars, and stolen magical artifacts, John “Dom” Domenici knows he’s out of his depth. But he needs the job at Kempthorne & Co like he needs to breathe. The alternative—going back to the organized crime gangs of London’s East End—is unthinkable.

So when Alexander Kempthorne, boss of Kempthorne & Co Artifact Retrieval Agency, wants him on a special case to track down an illegal artifact dealer, Dom can’t say no.

It shouldn’t matter that Kempthorne’s world is full of deadly secrets. It shouldn’t matter that the billionaire is sexy as sin, and it really shouldn’t matter how there’s an American agent stalking Dom, an American who knows more than he should about Dom’s case, including the real reason Alexander Kempthorne hired Dom.

The only thing that really matters to Dom is solving the case and finding the artifact dealer. Because there are worse things in London than a conflicted billionaire and a trigger-happy American. Something wicked is stalking London’s streets, and if Dom doesn’t stop it, its shadows will rise and consume them all.

***

Twisted Pretty Things is the first book in the all-new Shadows of London MM urban fantasy series. Action, mystery, and MM romance combine in this fast-paced adventure from the author who brought you the award-winning Silk & Steel series and the best-selling Prince’s Assassin series. Coming August 2021.

Triggering content: mention of past mental and physical abuse.

Please note the Shadows of London series is set in London and the characters are all British (so is the author). Although the series has been edited in US English for the larger US market, to include US spelling and grammar, many English slang words and spelling remain as part of the character of the work

Shadows of London series:

◦ Twisted Pretty Things #1

◦ Tide of Tricks #2

◦ Trial by Fire #3- coming May 31st, 2022 argh! The wait will kill me!

https://www.goodreads.com › showWeb resultsTwisted Pretty Things (Shadows of London, #1) by Ariana Nash | Goodreads

Review: Draw (Overtime #3) by V.L.Locey

Rating: 4.5🌈

Jackie Blue Kalinski has been a strong favorite character of mine in this series and the Cayuga Cougars series since I met him.

Uniquely awesome, endearing, funny, and able to be the focal point of every scene, regardless of the nature, Jackie Blue grew up through these books and is now a 19 year old ready for his future.

In other stories a 19 year old seems young, but Jackie is in college, is sure of what he wants out of life and who he is personally. He’s a centered being with the full support of his family.

Then he meets Martin McKittrick, Marine fire chief , 45, divorced father of two adults,soon to be grandfather. Martin is also a player on the gay hockey team that Vic, Jackie’s dad, coaches.

It’s a moment of intense instantaneous connection between them, making any differences in age vanish. At least for them.

The main thread is the intense romance and immediate bond between Jackie Blue and Martin. It’s also how their families and friends respond to them as a couple, see that 25 age gap as a factor as a part of a realistic relationship, and if it’s possible to have real acceptance for such a May/December couple.

Having a 19 year old and a 45 year old as a couple and the heart of your story is a risk. Having it be successful really hinges on the writer being able to make each of those characters a completely fleshed out person who’s personality is set out in depth for the readers across the story’s pages so we believe each man’s passion for the other. Including the fact that age has both been factored in, discussed, and then discarded, because it’s about the inner connection here.

Locey also is aware that there are readers that are looking at this couple and that age gap with real misgivings. It’s a honest reaction and one of many that finds it’s way into the mouths and dialogue of Jackie Blue’s dads (yep, Vic went off the rails) or one of Martin’s adult children. The characters for whom acceptance was not an easy road stood in as a family Greek Chorus of questions and honest disapproval, voicing thoughts that I’m sure there were readers out there thinking.

And as both the couple weathers obstacles, Jackie and Martin continue to communicate with each other’s families and inner circles. The couple talks to them about their relationship, allowing those close to see into their dynamics, and slowly the disapproval and misunderstandings dissipate. Each point that had been a major misgiving had been dissected through honesty and open communication in scene after scene. Great job by the author.

There are other elements to this story as well. Jackie adjusting to life as a partner of a firefighter and the stress that comes with that. That felt very well done.

Also the joyous aspect of Jackie Blue pursuing his career as a clothier and designer. This section I could see so clearly. His drive , the love of the clothes as well as fashion. It was perfect.

Draw turned out to be just like Jackie Blue. Unusual, unanticipated, unconventional, wildly moving, as well as satisfying. Turns out just what Jackie Blue hoped for and what he got. In every way.

V.L.Locey wrote an intelligent, beautifully crafted book. It had a risky premise but in her hands it turned into a gorgeous love story.

One I’m recommending.

There’s one last novella in this series. That’s Jackie Blue and Martin’s wedding. How could you miss that?

Now on to Black Tie (Overtime #3.5)

Overtime Series complete:

Rebound #1-Vic’s story

Final Shot #2 -Dan’s story

Draw #3 – Jackie Blue’s story

Black Tie #3.5 – a Overtime novella

Synopsis:

They say first loves never last. Jackie Blue Kalinski was about to show them—whoever they are—that the word never is not in his vocabulary.

From the time Jack Kalinski was a preschooler he had a good sense of who he was and where he wanted to go in life. His childhood was spent drawing beautiful dresses for pretty people, male and female alike. Growing up with two dads who played hockey wasn’t exactly conducive to late night talks about tulle or tailor’s chalk, but he never let that stop his dreams of becoming a fashion designer or expressing the genderqueer heart that beat in his chest. His family’s love and support helped him through some painful losses that shaped him into the strong, vivacious, and charismatic college student he is today. Life hasn’t been a smooth ride, but Jack has persevered and is about to take the fashion world by storm.

Little does he suspect that his tidy life is about to be scorched by a chance meeting with one of the men playing hockey on the gay team his father coaches. Martin McKittrick not only catches Jack’s eye, but the much older man wins his heart. The passionate affair with the captain of the Marine Unit of the BFD burns red hot until the new couple run into a few snags that might dampen the inferno: Jack’s ascent into the fashion world, Martin’s job and the inherent dangers that come with it, and the fact that the well-kept secret romance has just been exposed to the world in a rather big way.

25 year age gap, genderqueer, 19 yrs,

Draw

(Overtime #3)

by V.L. Locey

Nmby-genderqueer-femme, extreme age gap,

Review: Final Shot (Overtime #2) by V.L. Locey

Rating:4.75🌈

Two of the most complicated men and one of V.L.Locey’s most deeply complex couples is that of the Arou-Kalinski hockey romance. It’s now spanned two , maybe more series, as these characters are too large, too dynamic to be contained within just one series.

They also required their own short series to see their family together facing emotional battles and physical struggles. Rebound was Victor’s book. Final Shot is Dan’s story.

While it seems that the issues stems from Dan’s injuries, his growing dependency on opioids, and his addiction, the strength of the story much like that of the couple’s relationship comes from the fact that it’s still very much a Dan and Vic love story.

They don’t work without each other. Whether it’s facing the enormity of addiction, the battles of withdrawal, the fears of admitting that you’re an addict to yourself, family, friends and organization, that your grounding, your support is always there is evidenced here by this couple in every way.

It was with Vic’s alcohol abuse, and now with Dan’s opioid addiction. The struggles with their injuries and daily pain is portrayed realistically and heartfelt.

The other heart rendered elements, that of their son Jackie Blue, a genderqueer teen who went to live with his mother and her new husband, is painfully on point for these times.

That it’s layered on top of issues already needing to be dealt with seems about right as well. Things have a way of doing that. Complications always seem to pile up, not the other way around. No matter how much we wish it would.

Locey has written an amazing story of addiction, bullying, loss, recovery, family, and love.

It’s really remarkable. As is the Arou-Kalinski family at its heart.

You don’t need to have read the other series to appreciate this one, though it helps.

Read the Overtime series in the order it’s written. You’re going to love each and every book.

Synopsis

Sometimes family is the light that leads you through the darkest parts of life.

Living the dream. That’s been Dan Arou-Kalinski’s life for the past ten years. That life hasn’t always been an easy one though. Dan has worked hard to get where he is and has faced some major obstacles on his road to success. It’s not always been a rose garden being married to Victor, but his love for his sometimes thorny husband has no bounds. His career has given him years of great success, memories, and championship rings. Yes, fate has been kind to Dan Arou-Kalinski for quite a long time. Looks like destiny is about to start calling in some markers.

The paybacks come due when a recurring health issue turns into a life or death situation and threatens to take him out of the game he loves permanently. Then there’s Victor’s son Jack, a proud and out nonbinary preteen who is living a daily nightmare in a small southern town. Juggling two major life issues is taking its toll on him, and just when he thinks he’s found the path out of the woods, Dan will face an unexpected and devastating loss that will require all three of the Kalinski men to pull together to help each other through the dark times

Overtime Series complete:

Rebound #1

Final Shot #2

Draw #3

Black Tie #3.5 – a Overtime novella

https://www.goodreads.com › showWeb resultsFinal Shot (Overtime, #2) by V.L. Locey – Goodreads

Final Shot

(Overtime #2)

by V.L. Locey

Review: Forget-Me-Not by V.L Locey

Rating: 3.5 🌈

This is just an adorable holiday hockey romance with just the right touch of nerd romance.

We have gamers, a cute ferret, a cuddly florist in his forties yearning for love, and a outright gorgeous younger hockey player who just so happens to be playing the online RPG game our florist is.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and a team event that suddenly is in need of arrangements. Voila! Meet cute and a sweet and engaging story that follows.

It’s short and definitely a HFN but you can see them gaming happily into the future. They are a sweet and absolutely compatible couple.

I could wish for a sequel and another holiday with this couple in mind. Need a quick sweet romance?

Check this out. It’s lovely.

Synopsis:

Is it possible that the soft smile and furtive looks from Bailey are flirtatious, or is Hadley just living in a floral fantasy world?

It was supposed to be just another day in the life of Hadley Burton.

Wake up alone, go to work at his flower shop, go home, eat a frozen dinner, play his favorite online fantasy game, go to bed. Alone. So when his shop gets a frantic call from a harried guy from the Albany Beavers hockey team, looking for flowers for the annual Mother’s Trip wrap-up dinner, he’s stunned and thrilled. Working like a madman, Hadley and his lone employee burn the midnight oil and arrive at the arena just in time to place the centerpieces and meet a few of the players.

Thinking that this business boon was the best thing that could happen to him, he’s not at all ready to run into Bailey Rust, the considerably younger phenom forward of the Beavers. Nor is he prepared to discover that Bailey is a huge gamer and is the prettiest thing he has seen in years. After an hour spent talking gaming, the two go their separate ways. Until Bailey shows up at the flower shop the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that

https://www.goodreads.com › showWeb resultsForget Me Not by V.L. Locey – Goodreads

Age gap, meet cute, holiday romance, gamers, m/m hockey romance, nerd/jock

Review: Soft Place to Fall by B.A. Tortuga

Rating: 4.5🌈

Soft Place to Fall is a heartbreaker of a book. Full of a broken partnership , a past of broken dreams and broken promises, and a mother who is being shattered by that most Insidious of diseases, Alzheimer’s, this story is one guaranteed to have you sobbing.

Often.

It’s so well written that the pain and sheer exhaustion pouring off Stetson Major as he’s watching his mama rapidly decline tears at you. You feel every bit of his feelings and the fact that there’s very little left for Stetson to give, he’s done in.

That’s where the call goes out to his ex partner, the man his mama is calling for, to please come. And rodeo rider Curtis Traynor does.

What a story. One of reconciliations, of loss, grief, forgiveness, love, and the journey back to home and each other.

The men are strong characters and you absolutely feel the incredible loving pull they have for each other. It’s also easy to see how, in their youth, their stubbornness and goals drove them apart.

The woman dying of Alzheimer’s is difficult element as she’s so realistically portrayed. Muddled one moment, clear headed another, and then wild, anger filled, and needing to be restrained the next. If you haven’t experienced this, count yourself lucky. It’s often a very hard read. As it should be.

That’s balanced by the two men now , years later, still as deeply in love as they ever were, picking their way back to each other over obstacles still strewn across the path as it was years ago.

I was so emotionally connected to these men and their romance I didn’t even notice the pages flying by.

The only thing that kept this from an absolute 5 star rating was that I thought it wrapped up too quickly for everything that had gone on before.

I was still happy for them and us at the end.

If you love cowboys and want a heartwarming love story, look no further. Grab up Soft Place To Fall and a box or two of tissues and settle in for a marvelous read.

It’s one I highly recommend.

Synopsis:

Stetson Major and Curtis Traynor are about as opposite as two cowboys can get. Stetson is a rancher, tied to the land he loves in Taos, New Mexico, while Curtis is a rodeo cowboy whose wanderlust never could be tamed. But now Stetson’s momma is dying of Alzheimer’s, and she can’t remember that Curtis hasn’t been Stetson’s boyfriend for a long time. Curtis’s absence makes her cry, so Stetson swallows his pride and calls his ex-lover. To Curtis, Stetson is the one who got away, the love of his life. And Momma is his friend, so he’s happy to help out. Yet returning to the ranch stirs up all sorts of feelings that, while buried, never really went away. Still, the rodeo nationals are coming up, and Curtis can’t stay—even if he’s starting to want to, especially to support Stetson when he needs it most. Stetson and Curtis want to find a place where they both fit, to be there to catch each other when they fall. But family, money problems, and the call of the rodeo circuit might end their second-chance romance before it even gets started.

Soft Place to Fall

Review: Two-Man Team (Stick Side #5) by Amy Aislin

Rating: 4.5 🌈

Kris Xappa’s getting ready to make his post season retirement announcement. On top of that, there’s the eminent launch of the charity youth foundation, Forward Thinking, he started with his two long time best friends but nothing is going according to plans.

In trying to stop a fight at a friends bar, Kris comes off looking like the instigator in a vid someone posted to a media account that went viral. That’s had a huge negative effect on every part of his life.

Additionally , there’s his teammate, Rory Stanton ,who’s also the younger brother of his best friend. Rory is injured and and in need of his assistance.

What more could go wrong? Ah yes, mutual attraction and Kris ‘s sexuality which has always been identified as “straight “ to his fans and team.

Once more Aislin has given us complicated men in hockey, off the wall chemistry, a great story, and a romance to sigh over.

Hockey romances are my jam and Aislin’s Stick Side series is just one amazing book after another. Each managing to loosely connect the characters and their stories to each other’s by their teams and struggles with their sexuality and battles to navigate homophobia within and without their sport.

Each character is layered, individualist, and nuanced. From the main couple to everyone who supports them, all feel believable and relatable.

When Kris is feeling the intensity of the exposure from the media and the unfairness of the slights against his character, which he’s not allowed to push back against, it’s such a real situation that the reader feels absolutely in his corner.

Everything in the book will connect you to these men and their journey towards love and happiness.

It’s a pleasure to join them on the road to HEA and whatever their future may hold. Have i said how much I adore this series?

I truly do. Indeed I do. Including Two Man Team.

Highly recommended. All of them.

Stick Side Series:

On the Ice #1

Christmas On the Ice #1.5

A Valentine’s Trade #1.7

The Nature of the Game #2

The Nature of Christmas #2.5

Shots On Goal #3

Risking the Shot #4

Calder & Lacroix #4.1

Two-Man Team #5

Two-Man Team

Synopsis:

NHL team look bad. Now, with orders to keep his head down, the last thing he needs is to develop feelings for his younger teammate—and best friend’s brother. The fact that he can’t stop thinking about their one illicit kiss doesn’t mean anything.

Rory Stanton is perfectly capable of taking care of himself and doesn’t need his brother’s best friend keeping an eye on him. Sure, he likes having Kris’s attention, but he’d rather have it for entirely different reasons. Too bad that one kiss they shared wasn’t enough to convince Kris to take a chance on him.

When an injury lands Rory in Kris’s care, will these teammates be able to see past the obstacles to become a two-man team?

Review: Corruption (The Bureau #1) by Kim Fielding

Rating: 3.5 🌈

Corruption is a short story that begins a new series by Kim Fielding.

It’s supernatural with what hints to be the beginning of a complicated hurt/comfort relationship with one clearly in the Master side of a D/s Angel/demon relationship.

The characters, only loosely set here but enormously fascinating with tremendous chemistry, have most of their background still to fill in.

So does the nebulous Bureau we only see or hear pieces of.

Corruption is like receiving the tantalizing first chapter of a new novel…. And now you want more. More foundation, more of the characters history and current predicament. And future going forward.

I’ll follow the promise set down here and look forward to all the stories to come.

The Bureau series:

Corruption #1

Clay White #2

Creature #3

Chained #4

Convicted #5

Connect #6

Caroled#7

Camouflaged #8 out now

Synopsis:

Once a proud demon of the night sky who carried nightmares to humans, Tenrael has spent decades in captivity as the star attraction of a traveling carnival. He exists in miserable servitude to men who plunk down ten dollars to fulfill their dark desires.

Charles Grimes is half human, half… something else. For fifteen years he’s worked for the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs, ridding the country of dangerous monsters. When his boss sends him to Kansas to chase a rumor about a captive demon, Charles figures it’s just another assignment. Until he meets Tenrael

https://www.goodreads.com › showCorruption / Clay White / Creature by Kim Fielding – Goodreads

Review: Extraordinary Things (Star Shadow #4) by Beth Bolden

Rating: 4.75🌈

Extraordinary Things is the series finale for Star Shadow, Beth Bolden’s rock band romance.

While all five musicians got their HEA, the heart of the band and much of its drama centered around the couple Leo Humphries and Caleb Chance. It was the disappearance of Caleb that caused Star Shadow to disband and Leo to shatter. And it was his reappearance that eventually put them all back together…4 books later.

In Terrible Things, we got the background of the band, the group’s long friendship and the couple’s relationship. It was completely Leo’s perspective, including watching and being unable to help a Caleb who’s addiction to alcohol was spiraling out of his and everyone’s control.

It was raw, angry, and painful.

And I wondered about Caleb’s viewpoint in that book.

In Extraordinary Things Bolden gives us Caleb’s story and missing voice. A perfect way to come full circle and wrap up the series.

We’re able to go back into the past with Caleb, his addiction, his feelings about what drove him away from Leo and his friends. As well as what’s still driving him today. It’s a complicated and complex internal picture of a man still struggling with forgiveness and the destruction he caused to those around him.

The other side of which is Leo who also is trying to adjust his life to Caleb’s needs as well as his own.

Bolden’s story, the band’s new dynamics, and ongoing trust issues are beautifully defined and well written. I love that communication works out to be key to forward movement here. Frank discussions and finally a leap of faith in each other’s feelings and strength.

This is an emotional story who’s journey starts with Terrible Things. For me books one and four are the jewels here but the others are the necessary pathways to get there.

Read them all in the order they were written with pleasure. I’m highly recommending them.

Star Shadow series:

Terrible Things (Star Shadow #1)

Impossible Things #2

Hazardous Things #3

Extraordinary Things #4

Synopsis:

Leo and Caleb have been through hell—addiction, destruction, and even a five year separation—but they’ve come through on the other side with their love stronger than ever.

Caleb knows he’s earned Leo’s forgiveness. He wants to believe he deserves it, but just when Leo needs him more than ever, a voice in his head insists that maybe he doesn’t. It’s so loud, he can’t block it out. So loud, he’d do anything to silence it.

Including risking everything he and Leo, and the rest of Star Shadow, have built together.

Extraordinary Things is a continuation of Leo and Caleb’s love story from Terrible Things. It should not be read as a standalone.

Review: Gingerbread Mistletoe (Lighthouse Bay #2) by Amy Aislin

Rating 4.5

Gingerbread Mistletoe is a story who’s events and romance runs concurrently with those of the first book in the series, Christmas Lane. So yes, they really need to be read together and in the order they were written to understand the relationships and personal dynamics.

Ah, Christmas tales and loves stories! Honestly, I think they go together better than at Valentine’s Day, a holiday if I’m truthful I’ve never been on board with.

But Christmas? White snow? If you’re not Australian that is, holiday tunes to sing, candy canes, icicles, sleigh rides… magic! Fireplaces blazing and hot chocolate even. Yup. Romance.

While this story may have its earliest beginnings in LA, it’s heart and romance lies in the Christmas ready and heavily decorated town of Lighthouse Bay, Maine where both men have returned to. One , Mika Jones, seeking comfort, his family and a place to recover.after his diagnosis and treatment for cancer.

The other is lonely, and unsure what he’s seeking, and has returned to a town that used to be home after years of absence. Divorced, amazingly successful, his grown children spending the holidays elsewhere, loss and loneliness are driving Jeff Bellmoor, to return to his dad’s favorite place to discover why.

Mika Jones, hugely successful actor in LA was diagnosed with cancer and returned to the only place he knew he had love, family, and support… Lighthouse Bay.

There was enormous drama behind Mika’s return, a broken romance and two men left unable to trust, including himself.

Here Mika’s dealing with the aftermath of recovery, chemo after effects and the physical alterations to his system which are now permanent. He’s doing that while running Christmas events for the town and the shops.

Aislin does a beautiful job of realistically showing how undergoing chemotherapy and other cancer treatments has permanently affected Mika’s life and body, from issues with memory to joint pain. It’s not overly dramatic but with a plain acceptance of his new state. It made me love him all the more . Especially as Mika never refuses to take a hard look at the issues that have happened in the past to make him arrive at the state he’s at now.

The author has truly done a outstanding job with this character.

Jeff Bellmoor, CEO, lonely and seeking… his father who’s recently died …is equally complicated. Angry , isolated at first….and then as the town and Mika works their charm on Jeff, the man changes. The memories start to flow as well as feelings for Mika.

We get a swirling rush of romance among the Christmas pageantry of a town putting together its holiday list of events, a new hockey tournament, a parade, and an overall sense of homecoming. For Mika, for Jeff …well , I’ll say no more.

The Magic of Family, of Love and of Christmas is alive and well here in Gingerbread Mistletoe.

This series and story is the perfect holiday reads! Grab up a Snickerdoodle or three, a cup of hot cocoa and settle in for a wonderful magical Christmas read!

I’m highly recommending it!

Gingerbread Mistletoe

Lighthouse Bay series:

Christmas Lane #1

Gingerbread Mistletoe #2

Synopsis:The last thing Jeff wants is to spend time with the man who totaled his car—the one he spent years restoring with his late father. But if he wants to resurrect his childhood town’s annual outdoor hockey tournament, he’s got no choice.

The last thing Mika wants is to work with the guy who took off right after the accident, without ensuring he was okay. And working together on organizing Jeff’s proposed tournament sounds like a complete nightmare. He’s got enough on his plate after surviving cancer.

Sparks fly as they’re forced to work together, but is that enough for them to set their differences aside and pull off the tournament in only two weeks? Or will they prove to be

immune to the magic of Christmas?

Review: Desert Dreams (Owatonna U Hockey #6) by R.J. Scott and V.L. Locey

Rating: 5🌈

It’s been about a little over a year since the events of Valentine’s Hearts, the preceding book in the Owatonna U Hockey series. In that story we saw two momentous events, a sexual assault on Jacob and finally Ryker and Jacob’s wedding.

As the series finale opens, Jacob’s dreams have been realized and Mountain Vista Ranch is a reality. And ready to receive its first occupants, at risk LGBTQ youth and their families.

I love this story. Desert Dreams feels not so much like a final chapter but a novel full of new beginnings. Honestly by the end I was even surprised to find Ryker still a Raptor because so many new paths had been opened up here for so many new outstanding new characters.

R.J.Scott and V.L. Locey are great at crossovers when it comes to their various series and characters so I wasn’t surprised to see a prime character from Scott’s Texas series (and others) make a important appearance here. Seeing him sets the foundation for the ranch and potential storylines. Again with my assumptions.

Can I say my heart embraces the ranch and it’s environment, animals and people immediately? It did. Jacob is it’s heart with Ryker providing needed support but all the staff, including a Russian security guy who’s found his inner Clint Eastwood, it’s accumulating, and the animals (horses, goats, dog… each and every one with huge personalities) are also part of the chemistry and narrative magic that makes Mountain Vista Ranch work.

Then there’s the family that arrives needing shelter and so much more. They will grab at your heart. I’m hoping the son will be making more appearances in stories to come. I need to know what happens to him.

Desert Dreams isn’t about endings but new beginnings.

I’m hoping that means a series called Mountain Vista Ranch because never has a place cried out for a series than this place.

If you’re a Owatonna U Hockey fan, this book is a fantastic way to see the series out.

But if you’re like me, you’re hopeful that this a bright, beautiful start to something wonderful….a way to not only usher out a certain stage in Ryker and Jacob’s lives but to see them into a new journey and series.

I’m most definitely recommending this book, and series.

Note. There’s a element of physical domestic abuse , already happened,as well as threats here so for those who might see these as triggers, please take note.

Owatonna U Hockey Series: 6 books

Ryker #1

Scott #2

Benoit #3

Christmas Lights #4

Valentine’s Hearts #5

Desert Dreams – #6

Synopsis:

When danger stalks their new home, it’s only their strength as a couple that keeps them safe.

Ryker misses Jacob every day he’s away. At the start of a new Raptors season with everything to play for, Jacob, the desert ranch, and their small menagerie of animals have become an oasis of peace in a turbulent world. He’s never ridden a horse, he’s never considered how much this place would mean to him, but suddenly he’s forming a connection with a mare called Tops and loving every moment of this new life. Balancing hockey with his love for Jacob, he feels that nothing can ever go wrong.

With his life finally on track, Jacob is pouring all of himself into the dream he shares with Ryker. Putting the final touches on Mountain Vista Ranch, a halfway home for troubled LGBTQ youth and their families, fills his heart with pride. When their first clients arrive, he finds himself drawn to the small family and their plight. Little does he or Ryker know that the darkness the newcomers have fled from is following them.

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