Tag: A MelanieM Review

A MelanieM Review: MCB Quarterly Vol. 4

Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

The MCB Quarterly Vol 4The Quarterly series: A quarterly eMagazine featuring queer short stories, interviews and artist/author features.

The Quarterly is an eMagazine of LGBTQ fiction – of all kinds. This volume features four short stories:
Finishing Touches by Rebecca Cohen
Repetition by J. Scott Coatsworth
Outpost by Dominick Domingo
The Wish Granter by L. Bellamy
It also includes an Interview with Brandilyn Carpenter talking about “What’s in a Review”, and a Featured Author section with Carole Cummings. And our very own Angel Martinez offers an Op-Ed on “Rehoming Lost Books.”

If you are not familiar with either this press or the eMagazine that Mischief Corner Press puts out, then its high time you make its acquaintance.  Full of fascinating articles, great interviews and stories that will send you running to seek out more by the authors (if they aren’t already on your TBR list).  This volume is no exception.

The first article is my Angel Martinez, full of advice to authors and future writers on what happens when publishing houses close and you are left without homes for your stories.  Its a fascinating glimpse into a situation that occurring often now sadly, and no matter what side of the page you are on,  it will leave you thinking.

And then the stories…those wonderful stories.  Four of them here, with the first being my favorite. That would be Finishing Touches by Rebecca Cohen, a author I love.

Finishing Touches, (5 Stars), tells the ‘touching’ story of an inventor and his assistant.  The descriptions of the shop were so imaginative and so perfect, that I was there in my mind from the beginning of the story.  But it was William and Marcus that really drew me in, plus the detailed lovely little mechanisms that one created that drew not only Marcus to them but me as well.  I felt myself leaning forward as though that could let me see further into them as though that was possible. I wanted more of everything of this world, workshop and this couple.  It was magical, in a totally non magical way.  Loved it.

Repetition by J. Scott Coatsworth (4 stars) A mind twister with no romantic plot lines so don’t expect any.  A shocker but a wonderful Moebius plot that will keep you  thinking involving time travel.  The less said about it the better.  No  spoilers.

Outpost by Dominick Domingo (5 stars)  Such a beautifully written story of a man full of regrets, a drifter who find that one place will finally lets him come to terms with parts of his past and allows him to move forward.  Again its the descriptions of the rundown old mining town in the Mojave Desert in 1965, the drifter Jake Preston,  old  Mabel Robins looking after her dying husband, and the rest of the dusty inhabitants of Cold Lake Lodge.  Its haunting, timeless, and the pain of these people stretches across the pages like the thin dry air they are breathing.

But here even the broken can find solace and mending.  Its believable, beautiful and memorable in every way.  Ok, two favorite stories.

The Wish Granter by L. Bellamy (3 stars)  A djinn in a bottle story.  I liked the characterizations just thought the ending felt rushed and the romances doubly so.  In fact I loved the first half of the story so much that when the second came about it felt as though I was reading two different tales.  Perhaps it was me.  Not sure, just didn’t connect with the turn about and the romance.

There was a bonus story buried within the Featured Author section with Carole Cummings, another favorite author of mine.  Cummings talks about speculative fiction, its history, what it means and then gives us ‘Fates Written In Indelible Ink’.  Yes, dragons.  Loved it.

Also a neat interview with a fellow reviewer, Brandilyn Carpenter talking about “What’s in a Review”, which I loved.

All that in one Quarterly  eMagazine.  No, you really can’t pass this up.  Stop by Mischief Corner Books and pick up a copy and check out their authors while you are there!

Cover art is perfect.  

Sales Links:  Mischief Corner Books LLC

Magazine Details:

ebook, First
Published April 13th 2016 by Mischief Corner Books, LLC
ISBN139781311536679
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Quarterly #4

A MelanieM Review: Jackson & Nick (Storming Love: Wild Fire #6) by Laura Baumbach

Rating:4 stars out of 5

Jackson and Nick coverFireman Jackson Kain and ER physician Dr. Nick Kirby would both like nothing better than to leave behind their high-pressure NY City lives for a just a few days in the peaceful wilds of Northern Ca. Two ordinary men exploring their growing relationship in glorious, undisturbed beauty of nature. Before this trip is over, both men will need all their specialized abilities and training to survive their romantic interlude turned WILD FIRE.

Recuperating from an work-related injury, NY City fireman Jackson Kain convinces new boyfriend Dr. Nicolas Kirby to spend a few days at a secluded California cabin in the woods far away from the hustle and bustle of their stressful worlds.

Nick is a cautious man with protective walls around him that persistent, persuasive Jackson is determined to breakdown, scale or tunnel under. These few days are Jackson’s best chance to convince Nick he is sincere and reliable in all things, including matters of the heart. Unfortunately, both men are going to get more opportunities to prove themselves than either bargained for.

What was supposed to be a relaxing break from the world to get to know one another better turns into a struggle for survival, that pits both men against nature and time.

Another story in the Storming Love series by MLR, this one is highlighted by the fact that its author is Laura Baumbach, an author I love.  Secondly, this is the first new story from that author in a long while so I was so happy to get this story and start reading.  I quickly fell into the author’s style of writing and the two main character’s relationship, which is still in the first stages of working things out and seeing if they mesh with each other.  They are at that first crucial big step, the first vacation away with each other.  This time a trip with a cabin in the woods…de-stressing time for one who is a doctor and a last minute relaxing vacation for another who’s been out on work related injury leave.

Baumbach lets us fall easily into their lives, showing us the rush, pressure, and fears of the 24/7 lifestyle that consumes Dr. Nicolas Kirby and the determination of Fireman Jackson Kain to have Nick put that behind him and enjoy the time together.  And they do, for a while.

We get sweet and sexy scenes and then the scramble is one to survive and outrun the forest fire.  Its a white knuckle trip all the way, mixed in with relationship dynamics and personal  revelations.  I had invested enough of myself in this couple that I was with them emotionally as they fought through the fire and their own fears.

My only issue is that the story was too short. I was connected to these men, their situation was dire, their relationship still new and there was so much to explore here and  plus, hey, its was  Laura Baumbach!  I wanted much, much more.

Still I love the Storming Love series.  They are exciting, wonderful romances and really you just can’t go wrong here.

Why not start your exploration of the Storming Love series here with Jackson & Nick (Storming Love: Wild Fire #6) by Laura Baumbach.  It’s a fast, sexy, story and then go find the others.

Cover art by Kris Jacen is a great representation of the story, setting and with a hint of the characters.

Sales Links:  MLR Press |  Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 73 pages
Published October 8th 2015 by MLR Press, LLC
ASINB016DXVWLS
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesStorming Love: Wild Fire #6

 

A MelanieM Review: Blood and Clockwork by Katey Hawthorne

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Blood and ClockworkAlistair Click set out to lay to rest the superstitious fears about the Mad Prince’s clockwork tower. If that meant he might bring the ghost city of Avalonia back to economic life, connecting the western kingdoms once again, so much the better. So what if no adventurer who’d entered the tower in the last century of desolation had ever re-emerged? They didn’t have his skill and wit. He could do better.

The tower turns out to be far more than Alistair expected, however. Not only are there clockwork puzzles to open every door, but one of them drops a boy from a strange world into his lap–figuratively speaking, if only just. Marco Murphy was just gaming in his New Jersey apartment, and now he’s stuck in what feels like a never ending LARP nightmare.

The deeper they delve into the Mad Prince’s tower, the darker the secrets they uncover. They’re not entirely sure they’ll ever be able to get out again, either. It’ll take all Marco’s charm and Alistair’s cleverness, plus the strange bond growing between them, to get them out together… and alive.

When I finished Katey Hawthorne’s Blood and Clockwork, several things popped immediately to mind.  First?  What a spectacular world and engrossing plot! That Mad Prince’s clockwork tower?  Spellbinding…literally. Step by step, I was peering over the shoulders of those wonderful characters, Alistair and Marco as they carefully maneuvered their way thru the mechanisms the Mad Prince has laid out before them.  Be prepared to hold your breath.

And right on the heels of that thought?  More, there needs to be more.

From the moment I meet brave, enterprising Alistair entering the deserted town of Avalonia, the reader comprehends he is someone special.  How special emerges as the story unfolds.   He wants the secrets to the Mad Prince’s clockwork tower that never seems to wind down, even centuries later in the middle of a city devoid of life.  Others have tried and never returned.  Alistair is determined to be the first.  Be prepared to fall deeply in loved with this character.  He’s intelligent, non-judgmental and open to life’s possibilities.  Also very brave which helps with what’s about to come.

Surprisingly, the tower has another occupant.  A visitor from another dimension.  Marco, an artist from our world.  Charming, easy going, intelligent and a perfect match for Alistair in ways that Alistair is not prepared for, this includes sexually.  For Alistair is asexual and the discussion had between them is thoughtful, easy and open,  another wonderful element here.  Marco is stuck in the tower and has no way home.  Together they must work as a team to solve the tower’s puzzles in order to send Marco home and let Alistair solve the riddle of the tower.

Sounds simple but its anything but as the terrific narrative will show.  Marco will pull in some of his skills from his home world, Alistair will use his, and the combination is lovely, imaginative, occasionally funny, and heartwarming.

When the story finished, I was happy yes, but not completely satisfied.  I wasn’t done with these two or their world.  I felt as though we had just gotten started with each  other.  Surely this was but the first in many adventures right?  Katey Hawthorne?  Are you listening?  With their combination of talents, surely  more stories and adventures are to follow?  Just let me know.  I’ll be ready to join in the fun or horror or both.

Cover art is beautiful yet horrific and works within the framework of the story.

Sales links:  Less Than Three Press | ARe | Amazon link coming

Book Details:

ebook
Expected publication: March 16th 2016 by Less Than Three Press
ISBN139781620047392
Edition LanguageEnglish

 

 

A MelanieM Review: Mantled In Mist (SoulShares #6) by Rory Ni Coileain

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Mantled in the MistIn the sixth novel in the Rainbow Award-nominated paranormal M/M SoulShares series, Fiachra Dubhdara is a Fae living a stolen life, in a body that isn’t his own. He’s also the most junior detective on the D.C. Vice squad, assigned the task of infiltrating and shutting down Tiernan Guaire’s Purgatory.
Peri Katsura is the newest and hottest masseur at Lochlann Doran’s Big Boy Massage, inexplicably drawn to the gorgeous cop assigned to bust him but needing to hide a dark secret of his own.
And the owner of Fiachra’s body has a plan to get it back – a plan that may cost Fiachra his SoulShare and close the doors of Purgatory forever. Unless the Marfach gets there first…

Mantled in the Mist by Rory Ni Coilean takes one of my favorite series and with this story made it even deeper and more fantastical.  The author has added several new magical beings, ones we have never heard of before, to this tale of pain, loss and magic.  We are now introduced to races that played major roles in the ancient war that sundered Earth from the other dimension the Fae now reside in.  The price for one race?  They became the subject of mockery, bullying, and deep outright cruelty by the purer fae on the other side for their racial bloodline and past history.  The price paid by the others on Earth? Well, I’ll leave that for the story.

By overlaying such emotional elements, one you can interpret by modern standards so many ways, Ni Coileain has elevated this series to new heights.  The overlays and  similarities can be made for the aboriginal races around the world today and their treatment at the hands of the “superior” races that followed, or to the nature/earth religions who suffered at the developing cultures that encroached and exterminated them.  There is a richness of interpretation here that makes the enjoyment of reading the story swell along with the tale of romance, suspense and yes, horror that follows.

Fiachra, dark skinned, dark haired, tormented, Fiachra thought it better to fade than continue his existence as it was.  But fading did not go as planned and he ended up in another’s body.  Tall, gorgeous, blonde, everything a pure fae looks like.  I love the comparisons and problems this poses here when Fiachra meets his SoulShare and wants him to love the real Fiachra.  The problem of getting his body back was a maze of pain and problem solving that I loved  watching play out over the story.  Actually one than one problem, something else I will leave for the story.

Peri Katsura is another one of those damaged souls that Rory Ni Coileain does so beautifully.  Drag queen, masseur, Peri has many faces and a inability to trust, especially the big blond cop that threatens to bust him.  The two of them together are so engaging in their painful pasts and colliding confusions of the heart.   To help them/blockade them are all the other SoulShare couples from the previous stories still working together to stop the horrific Marfach from their planned assault on the Fae world, a task making the Fae ruthless on both sides.

The characterizations here are vivid, believable and have staying power.  I can pick up these stories and remember exactly who is who.  The terror engendered by the Marfach just grows with each story, something I had not thought possible given some of the past scenes of torture that are rendered somewhat graphically in previous books. Here it is more of the imagination because we know what it/they are capable of.

It ends, as they all do, far too quickly, setting us up for the next in the series.  If I am reading the author right, it should be an entirely different take on the SoulShares element.  Could be wrong, but I can’t see to see it play out.

Here is a series that has it all.  Fantasy, romances, bdsm, horror, mythology, beautiful world building…and six books and growing. I highly recommend it to lovers of all of the above and more.  But don’t read them out of order as they build on each other.  New to the series?  Start with the first, keeping up with me?  Pick this one up and  continue along.

Cover art is lovely, I like the celtic elements and its very different from the ones before.

Sales Links:  Amazon | All Romance eBooks | Riverdale Avenue Books

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 334 pages
Published January 20th 2016 by Riverdale Avenue Books
ASINB01AVNC1N4
Edition LanguageEnglish
SeriesSoulShares #6

SoulShares Series in the order they were written and should be read (add them to your Goodread list):

A MelanieM Review: Lovers Leap by JL Merrow

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

LoversLeap_600x900If they looked, would they ever leap?

Good-looking, confident, and doted on by his widowed mum, Michael is used to thinking only of himself. Getting shoved off an Isle of Wight pier by an exasperated ex ought to come as a wake-up call—but then he meets Rufus and he’s right back to letting the little head take charge. Rufus is cute, keen, and gets under Michael’s skin in a disturbing way.

Would-be chef Rufus can’t believe his luck when a dripping wet dream of a man walks out of the sea on his birthday, especially when Michael ends up staying at the family B&B. Life is perfect—at least until Michael has to go home to the mainland.

Rufus can’t leave the island for reasons he’s entirely neglected to mention. And though Michael identifies as bi, breaking his mum’s heart by coming out and having an actual relationship with a guy has never been his plan. With both men determined to keep their secrets, a leap of faith could land them in deep water.

I just  love JL Merrow and her ability to deliver characters that, whether you adore them, look at them with a little dislike and (yes, contempt for some), always feel downright real and human.   In Lovers Leap, Merrow delivers just such a story full of characters that are almost guaranteed to put readers down on one side or the other.  I fall firmly down on the side that sees this as a story full of characters that I understood, believed in and even when I was less then fond of their actions, I accepted them once I got the back history and foundation upon which they were based.  That’s wonderful storytelling.

The character in conflict, for the reader, himself and Rufus?  Michael, the man who came from the sea…the reason for which is one that is startling and is probably the basis for many readers dislike.  His actions that follow don’t help.  But there is something, as Merrow has written him, that draws you in, a certain vulnerability that pays off the more the story unfolds.  There are some very serious issues for Michael to deal with, his sexuality, his faith and family, and some are deeply shattering as the story unfolds.  Especially when it comes to his mother.  All his prior arrogance and obnoxiousness in words and deeds?  Well, there are reasons and a basis for all of them and Merrow lays it out for us like a very sad banquet.

Rufus is not without deep issues himself.  They too start at home with a father and stepmother whose fragile relationship with each other and perhaps Rufus is keeping them all tied in a knot that might be choking them in the B & B in which they all work and live.

Lovers Leap is all about twin needs that speak to each other without Rufus and Michael realizing how much at first, and then slowing pulling towards each other, with humor, with heartbreak, with passion…in true English form on the Isle of Wight.  I even adored the best friend, and her surprise coupling.  Definitely could have used more of them.

If you like your main characters with flaws that you can handle, you know a little gruff, nothing too bad, certainly not obnoxious or bi, perhaps this isn’t your story.  But if you love layered characters, people who need to work on themselves, and relationships that need just that bit of luck as well as love?  Don’t let Lovers Leap pass you by.  I highly recommend it and can’t wait to see what the Isle of Wight inspires JL Merrow to write next.

Cover art by Lou Harper is well done and indicative of the characters and story. Loved it.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | ARe | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 202 pages
Published February 27th 2016 by Riptide Publishing
Original TitleLovers Leap
ISBN 1626493820 (ISBN13: 9781626493827)
Edition LanguageEnglish

A MelanieM Review: Wolf, Becoming by Rory Ni Coileain ( A Release Day Redux)

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Wolf BecomingVolyk learns very young that he has to hide what he is—oboroten’, shape-shifter—after his father is killed and skinned by a hunter, and the pack that takes in his pregnant mother is hostile to his kind. When Volyk is ordered to fight the pack’s beta to prove his fitness, but instead obeys his hormones and tries to mount him, he’s declared an abomination and forced to flee.

Ilya, too, hides a secret. Being young and gay in modern Russia is dangerous, and he knows it. But the truth eventually gets out, and his brothers lure him into the forest to kill him. They’re stopped by Volyk, who hides the mortally wounded Ilya in his den. The only way to heal the human is to turn him into an oboroten’.

Unfortunately, Ilya’s gentle nature is ill-suited to the life of a wolf. But when Volyk’s old pack returns, seeking to take away Volyk’s magickal den, Ilya will have to embrace—truly become—the wolf Volyk made him to save both his mate’s life and his own.

Very few authors do primal, elemental characters like Rory Ni Coileain which is very good for this story full of such characters.  They feel steeped in Mother Russia and the ancient earth they trod on and the blood they easily spill.   It may take place in Modern Russia but the actions and dark emotions feel anything but.

Those hatreds and fears are timeless and the author makes us experience it through her story and the lives of characters of Volyk and Ilya.

I found Wolf, Becoming to be part old Grimm fairytale and part shifter romance,  with some horror story thrown in for good measure and it all kept me enthralled.

Volyk’s past is one we are tumbled into at the beginning of the story and its heartbreaking.  Nor does it get any better for him as a young kit.  For him life is one of loss, endurance, and pain.  Then a chance meeting with Ilya changes everything for both of them.  I love the language that Rory Ni Coileain employs in her narrative, somehow it seems old and modern at the same time, anchored in the past with Volyk and yet modern with Ilya, the freshness of the current times must coming from  him.

There are some things I would have loved to have seen enlarged on here, Marik is a formidable and evil character, one that this author does so well.  I’m torn between wanting to have more and less of him.  And definitely wanted more of Ilya and Volyk’s relationship.

As it is I can absolutely recommend Wolf, Becoming to all lovers of shifter romance and romance in general.  It kept me enthralled from the first page until the end and the storytelling was everything I expect was this wonderful author.

Cover art by Maria Fanning is beautiful and perfect for the characters.

Sales Links: Dreamspinner Press | ARe | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook
Expected publication: February 24th 2016 by Dreamspinner Press
ISBN139781634771405
Edition LanguageEnglish