Review: Man Of His Dreams (a Hot Nights in the Big Easy novel) by Kim Fielding

Rating: 4.5🌈

What a delicious treat Kim Fielding’s new book turns out to be.  Starting with that fabulously evocative cover by Reese Dante to the historically vibrant setting of New Orleans, Kim Fielding has a winner.  The Big Easy of the series title, New Orleans, with its ghosts, the unsettling atmosphere and mixture of peoples, culture, and the history that comes with that is the perfect setting for a unusual love story.

Kim Fielding’s character, writer Flip Devin is a lost man.  He’s ended a relationship, can’t finish his novel, left a place, a state, he’s drifting.  Now he’s landed in New Orleans for a few months, hoping for inspiration and quiet moments to unblock his creative process.  Fielding delivers a most believable Flip in all his stress, his indecision,  and his real anxiety at this point in his life.  We feel him floundering and we get him.

The beauty of the narrative is the author’s ability to make us feel what Flip is feeling, connecting us to his journey through the streets and history of New Orleans, as he engages with the diverse community the Big Easy has to offer, living and the ghostly.

So many amazing , beautifully crafted elements and characters to be found here , from Scratch himself (I would love to hear more about him and his music), to the nightlife scenes that few others can see.  Man of His Dreams just flew by as I was so caught up in the world, relationships, and story.  Just love it.

 I definitely recommend reading this and can’t wait to see what further joys this series brings.

A Hot Nights in the Big Easy series-7 books:

🔷Man Of His Dreams by Kim Fielding ❤️

🔷Mutual Obsessions by L. A. Kaye 9/15

🔷The Richmond Vampire by Liv Rancourt 9/17/2024

🔷Voodoo Caught by Lynn Michaels 9/18/2025

🔷Banjo by TL Travis 9/20/2024

🔷Tagged by Rachel Langella 9/24/2024

🔷The Bone Doctor by D. K. Sutton 9/27/2024

Buy link 

        Man of His Dreams: A Hot Nights in the Big Easy Novella

    

Blurb

Author Flip Devin has arrived in New Orleans with no suitcase, no inspiration to continue his newest novel, and no hope. Then he begins getting dreamtime visits from Scratch, a handsome musician who was murdered a hundred years ago. According to the fortuneteller across the street, Flip has the gift of Seeing.

Soon after, Flip meets Tony Bergeron, a charming local historian… who looks remarkably like Scratch. Both Tony and Scratch have stories to tell, and New Orleans has magic to share. But with the suitcase still in airline limbo, Flip realizes he’ll need to get rid of his baggage to make room for something new.

  • Publisher: Tin Box Press (September 6, 2024)
  • Publication date: September 6, 2024
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 146 pages

Review: Crow’s Fate: Carnival of Mysteries by Kim Fielding

Rating: 4.5🌈

The one of the best gifts I can receive when it comes to my books is a multi-author series, especially when the center focal point or theme is so fascinating. It allows a reader multiple opportunities to view the same elements in a variety of wildly varied ways, including perspectives from characters and storylines vastly different from each other.

Kim Fielding kicks off this series from Tin Box Press with her story, Crow’s Fate. It has many of the best of the Fielding narrative touch that I expect from her tales. Some spare narrative that weaves together elements of mythology, sparsely told but heart wrenching plot lines , compelling characters and an ending that intrigues the mind but still leaves the reader satisfied.

And Fielding includes two of my favorite images from various mythologies, crows and ravens and combines it with the series theme of a Carnival of Mysteries where Midwest farmer to be Crow Rapp first meets English Simeon Bell who works within the traveling Carnival.

The imagery immediately turns from a normal scene of a foursome out for some fun to Crow discovering his world shattering.

We follow a complex duo making hard decisions about their lives, their future fate, including discussing the if humanity has freedom to choose between their own path or does fate choose for them.

There’s so much to this story and these characters that it can’t possibly fit all the exposition I felt it needed to convey all the foundation details of the big picture Fielding’s drawing here. It’s on a huge scale and, honestly, they’re not the room to fill in all the historical gaps or context we need.

However, since what we do get is so dramatically charged up and so emotionally wonderful, I admit to overlooking it at the end. It wasn’t until I finished the story and was thinking back that I realized that certain portions of her explanation for Crow was never delivered here.

It certainly deserves a sequel. For them as us. They are wonderful and the elements are fascinating and could use some additional foundation.

Crow’s Fate: Carnival of Mysteries by Kim Fielding is a grand way to start the series and I definitely recommend it.

Carnival of Mysteries series:

✓ Crow’s Fate by Kim Fielding

◦ Step Right Up by L.A. Witt – July 19

◦ Magic Burning by Kaje Harper July 26

◦ Night-blooming Hearts by Megan Derr – Aug 2,

◦ Assassin by Accident by E.J.Russell-Aug16

◦ Dryad on Fire by Nicole Dennis – Sept 13

◦ Gods and Monsters by Rachel Langella – October 25

Buy Link

Crow’s Fate: Carnival of Mysteries

Description:

You can’t fly away from destiny.

Crow Rapp assumes he’ll spend his life growing corn in rural Illinois, like the grandparents who raised him. But during a visit to a traveling carnival, he encounters a handsome stranger named Simeon Bell—and receives a prophecy of a horrifying future. When that future materializes soon afterward, Crow flees… only to find that no matter how far he goes, fate pursues him.

Simeon reenters his life a decade later and causes Crow to consider whether actively fighting his fate might be better than constant attempts at escape. In a world tinged by magic, where myths are as real as the sky above them, the men try to determine Crow’s true identity. Along the way, they test the powers of friendship and love and explore the boundaries of free will—ultimately discovering whether the force of destiny can be overcome.

Crow’s Fate is part of the multi-author Carnival of Mysteries Series. Each book stands alone, but each one includes at least one visit to Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries, a magical, multiverse traveling show full of unusual acts, games, and rides. The Carnival changes to suit the world it’s on, so each visit is unique and special. This book contains an Illinois farmboy, a roustabout from London, and realizations about the power of love.

CARNIVAL OF MYSTERIES Welcome, Traveler! Join us for a series of M/ M fantasies by a talented group of both new and established authors. Whether you enjoy mystery, action, danger, or just sweet romance, there is something for everyone at the Carnival of Mysteries!

Authors:

Kim Fielding * L. A. Witt * Kaje Harper Megan Derr * Ander C. Lark * E. J. Russell Morgan Brice * Sarah Ellis * Kayleigh Sky”

Nicole Dennis * Elizabeth Silver * Ro Merrill T. A. Moore * Z. A. Maxfield * Ki Brightly Rachel Langella”

Review: The Solstice Kings by Kim Fielding

Rating: 3.25🌈

I was excited to see a book by Kim Fielding published by Tin Box Press, which meant I would be able to read and review it. Unfortunately, this fantasy tale is a bit of a mixed bag.

There’s so many potentially interesting elements here, ranging from the main character’s adopted family and it’s magical “castle” ancestral home to the lore that Fielding’s narrative inhabits so well.

But the issues start immediately with the main characters. One, Miles Thorsen, adopted son of the strange Nordic Thorsens, is not particularly likable. From the beginning he’s a bit self centered, passive, and the minute he arrives home, rude and disrespectful. So, not someone I really wanted to spend time with.

The next was Remy. Fielding made such a odd choice here regarding an aspect of his character . It’s hard to tell you all what my issues are with him without major spoilers but it’s so not in keeping with the idea and mythology that Fielding is building here to mix into her climatic point at the end. Not that we hadn’t already guessed by then. It had been telegraphed heavily by so many bluntly written clues. You are left wondering how and why he fits into this exactly . Why this form? Why not something Scandinavian? From Odin’s mythology? Just doesn’t add up.

True Fielding’s mixed Paranormal beings, beliefs, and myths before to a successful storyline but here it’s just weird. Off putting.

The story winds up as a HEA but we are left asking questions, or at least I was. Just too many holes and ill fitting narrative pieces for this to fill like the Fielding story gems I look forward too and love.

Read it if you’re a fan of the author.

Amazon

Description:

Miles Thorsen’s adopted family is… unusual. But that’s not why he fled after graduating from college. Now, after ten years of restless wandering, he returns home for the winter holiday celebration. The solstice is a time of change, and perhaps it’s time for Miles to face who he is, who he loves… and who he’ll become.

Review: Caught (Bureau #9) by Kim Fielding

Rating: 4 🌈

I needed to double check the release date because of cultural references Fielding’s used in the story, but she’s stated it takes place in the 70’s , not present day. So mentions of President Carter, Mork & Mindy, and , RIP, Burt Reynolds, makes sense.

Of course, given it’s the Bureau, you just never know.

There’s all sorts of beings that are featured in Bureau stories. This time it’s sasquatch.

Kim Fielding, as she has a way of doing, gets to the heart of her character’s history and momentous occasion in the prologue. Simple, unerringly haunting, and concise.

It sticks with the reader too , following through the story, tugging at you. So when Fielding’s plot neatly threads it into place, as a reader, it’s less surprise but more just a moment of content and satisfaction.

Art Gundersen is a lovely, gentle big, very big, man. One directed into his job with the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs by Ralph Crespo, our Dragon agent of the previous story.

He’s mostly someone who’s devoted to his lab and research until the Director asks him for assistance with a special case up in the woods. One of murder.

Jerry Humboldt is the Forestry Agent who found the hiker’s body and called for help.

Jerry is quiet, protective of his woods, and worried about the circumstances the dead hiker’s been found in. As everything points to another species having been the culprit.

Fielding’s story builds slowly around these two shy huge men , getting to know one another as they try to investigate the murder and maybe the other mysteries surrounding each other.

There’s a bit of Instant love here. But it’s so cute , and neither has had any relationship at all . So well, let’s just give them a break.

The solution to the murders and dramatic climax is a good one! Thrilling.

And it was great seeing a old friend once more.

Wonderful to dive back into the Bureau series again, I’m recommending it!

The Bureau:

Corruption #1

White Clay #2

Creature #3

Chained#4

Convicted #5

Conned #6

Caroled #7

Camouflaged #8

Caught #9

https://www.goodreads.com › showCaught (Bureau, #9) by Kim Fielding – Goodreads

Art Gundersen did not make it as an agent with the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs. But when Chief Townsend orders him out of the lab and into the mountains of northern California to collect evidence from a murder scene, Art’s happy to go. He looks forward to tromping around in the wilderness—and finds he enjoys the company of the forest technician who discovered the hiker’s corpse surrounded by Sasquatch footprints.

Jerry Humboldt lives a somewhat reclusive life in the fire lookout tower. Nobody comments much on his enormous size. Or his unusually hairy feet. Then Art shows up, and Jerry is forced into some new realizations.

As Art and Jerry interact, they discover some long-past connections as well as some very present dangers. It’s a risky equation: an awkward not-agent, a virginal “wild man” of the forest, and a multiple murderer—with the Bureau’s help six hundred miles away.

Review: Firestones by Kim Fielding

Rating: 4.75🌈

With any Kim Fielding tale there’s sure to be a hint at least of darkness, a layering of sadness or brokenness threading throughout the narrative.

But in Fire Stones it’s sheer horror, terrifying pain, and unescapable terror that lies waiting for the reader and main character.

Little match girl or fellow indeed.

In just 35 pages, in the typical Fielding way, the author brings us believably, heartbreakingly, into Brand’s cold, barely surviving life as an indentured servant to an mediocre magician.

In one terrifying night everything changes for him. In the worst possible way.

If you’re not a fan of horror fiction, this isn’t the story for you. It gets ever more quietly frightening for Brand, gut wrenchingly terror-stricken by the circumstances of his situation.

It’s definitely not for the faint-hearted. The ending, is at best, happily bittersweet . Completely Fielding.

There’s a slender romance, that we don’t have much of a framework for. Had that been a little more firmly established, this would have been a 5 star story.

As it is, Fielding’s given us pure chill-worthy Fielding. And that’s plenty great.

Love the cover.

https://www.goodreads.com › showFirestones by Kim Fielding – Goodreads

Synopsis:

Born with a deformed foot and abandoned as a young child, Brand spent his youth in indentured servitude to a mediocre wizard. Now Brand is grown, but with no other prospects to support himself, he remains in his master’s employ, doing small chores and selling firestones on the bleak streets of Greynox. Until one bitterly cold day.

In this dark take on a classic fairy tale, Brand encounters the most sinister of magics. With his firestones gone, can he find his way to the light?

Review: Camouflaged (A Bureau Story) by Kim Fielding

Rating: 5 🌈

It’s been a while since I’ve delved into Kim Fielding’s Bureau universe but this book stands on its own feet and what superlative feet they are.

Considering it’s a Bureau tale, it’s remarkably straightforward. Agent Ralph Crespo, ailing dragon, has been given the assignment to deliver a sealed letter to Anton Steinmann.

That meeting has unexpected ramifications for both Ralph and Anton, including an immediate emotional connection and physical attraction.

In the fantastic, Kim Fielding manner, Camouflaged many storylines and romance slowly comes together, as aspects of Ralph’s and Anton’s species mutual histories are revealed as well as a murder plot against Anton’s clan.

This story is one of those that’s feels effortless because it’s that well crafted. You can easily miss some special small elements tucked here and there because it flows so smoothly. I had to reread it again to pick up a few of the tiniest clues and pieces I’d passed over because I was reading it so quickly. I was just that involved in both the romance and that conspiracy!

Kim Fielding’s a must author. I think I’d read a new urban dictionary if she wrote it. Camouflaged is simply just one more example why Fielding’s an auto buy, auto read for me.

I’m highly recommending Camouflaged, and the Bureau series if you’re not familiar with it.

Enjoy! And happy reading!

The Bureau:

Corruption #1

White Clay #2

Creature #3

Chained#4

Convicted #5

Conned #6

Caroled #7

Camouflaged #8

https://www.goodreads.com › showCamouflaged (Bureau #8) by Kim Fielding – Goodreads

Synopsis:

Life isn’t always easy for a Bureau agent who’s also a dragon.

Ever since Ralph Crespo was trapped in human form, he’s been going through the motions at a job he once loved. Maybe that’s why the Bureau chief seems to have demoted him to messenger. But this time a letter delivery allows Ralph to meet Anton Steinmann, and Ralph’s life takes a turn toward the unexpected.

Anton loves his remote home with its extensive caves. He’s less fond of his leadership position, however, and definitely doesn’t want the offer Agent Crespo hands him. Then Anton is kidnapped and tortured. Someone wants him dead and he doesn’t know why.

How can anyone be true to himself in a world where he doesn’t really belong? Perhaps Ralph and Anton can find the answer together—if they survive long enough.

☃️❄️❄️Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words Favored Holiday Reads this 2021!❄️❄️☃️

12 Days of Christmas (or Whatever you Celebrate) Reading List!

❄️Tis the season for holiday stories and I’ve read some outstanding ones so far, one’s that made me roar with laughter, some that had me reaching for the tissues, and so many that had me shaking my head at the mad writing skills and imagination of the authors represented on the list here.

⛸❄️Here’s my list of Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 12 Days of the Holidays 2021 Favorites to Read!🎄⛄️

⭐️Merry Measure by Lily Morton

❄️Cosy & Chill by Jackie Keswick

❄️Christmas Wish List (Hartbridge Christmas #2) by N.R. Walker*

❄️A Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding

❄️The Christmas Tenor (Laurel Holidays #3) by V. L. Locey

❄️Dreidels & Do Overs by Kim Fielding

❄️Snowed (Boston Rebels #3) by R.J. Scott and V.L. Locey

❄️The Geek Who Saved Christmas by Annabeth Albert

❄️Merry Elf-ing Christmas by Beth Bolden

❄️Gingerbread Mistletoe (Lighthouse Bay #2) by Amy Aislin*

❄️Holigay by K.M. Neuhold

❄️The Wishing Tree by R.J. Scott

⛄️❄️Just Missed the 12 Days of Christmas list…barely…mostly because I wanted 12….

✓ Dearest Malachi Keogh (Dearest Milton James #1.5) by N.R. Walker

✓ Ethan and Jag Destroy the World by Maz Maddox

✓ The Fairy Dance by Tara Lain

✓ The Holiday List (Script Club #4) by Lane Hayes

✓ Tic-Tac Mistletoe Christmas by NR Walker

✓ Christmas Lane (Lighthouse Bay #1) by Amy Aislin

There were a couple of Christmas series above that I loved. They are indicated by a *, so gather up all the books there.

Honestly many authors are listed multiple times because they just rocked the holiday tales! That includes a review to come on the wonderful On A Midnight Clear by Lily Morton so it will be on an updated and expanded End of Year list

Have I left out some of your favorites this season? Let me know! I’m always on the hunt for new authors and stories. Or just plain out stuff I missed.

It’s just me now, and since I’m buying the books I’m reading , I actually have a TBR list that’s growing. 😂🤷‍♀️Help me add to it. **

Happy Holidays whatever you may celebrate from myself and my blog, Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words.

** (No DSP or related businesses pls, Ty).

Review: Dreidels & Do -Overs by Kim Fielding

Rating: 5 🌈⛄️

The wonderful Kim Fielding is at it again this holiday season with the absolutely wonderful new story Dreidels & Do Overs. It’s a true heartwarminer of a holiday contemporary romance that landed itself in my top ten books this year with its unconventional characters and lovely, gentle love story.

It’s not as often that we get a romance that is focused around Jewish men and their religion, and does so authentically. Then encapsulates so many potentially problematic issues as we might expect a angst filled story.

Instead, Fielding proceeds to deliver a realistic, believable, moving story of reconnection,redemption belief in oneself, self discovery, and love.

The heart of every Fielding story remains her characters. It’s the same here. Caleb Stern, a janitor working a holiday craft fair, is a man we slowly we get know. His history and current living situation will reveal itself in bits and pieces, through conversations with his boss and with Jasper Adams, a man who knew him years ago in high school. Caleb is such an amazing person, a bit worn, hesitant, and yet courageous in a quiet way. I loved him.

Jasper Adams also is in many ways a quintessential Fielding personality. He’s someone who’s reevaluated his life choices and struck out on what most people would call a different, even lesser path. Jasper’s not got a ripped body, he feels a bit self conscious about that, but he loves what he does and is content that he’s happy in his new choice of careers. And when a chance to connect with a person he had a crush on years ago appears, he takes a chance on that too. And the man.

Fold two lovely lonely men together at Hanukkah and you have a beautiful story for the holidays.

It’s perfect Fielding and one I’m highly recommending.

Happy Holidays!

https://www.goodreads.com › showDreidels & Do-Overs by Kim Fielding – Goodreads

Synopsis:

Caleb Stern was the high school hotshot, but a bad attitude and poor decisions led to years of misery. Now he’s trying to do better, and a job on the cleaning crew at a holiday craft fair could be a new beginning. What he didn’t expect was that his new start might be tangled up with ties from long ago.

Jasper Adams left an unfulfilling career and unsupportive boyfriend to follow his dreams. His handmade journals are a big success at the craft fair, which is great, but the real holiday miracle turns out to be a blast from his past.

Hanukkah nears, and both men yearn for holiday happiness. But moving forward often means first making peace with where you’ve been.

Review: A Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding

Rating: 5⛄️🌈

What a wild and crazy and totally merry Christmas tale Kim Fielding has gifted us with this holiday season.

Unlike any story I’ve read and EXACTLY like sooo many I’ve read and adored, A Very Genre Christmas is a bibliophile noir “find that reference “ Christmas romance mystery…and more.

I heart this sooo much.

Told from PI Nick Bozic’s pov he sounds exactly like Sam Spade, his sentences liberally sprinkled with words like “doll” or “sister “. Fielding has 1950s Portland, Oregon down perfect, from the sights to the corrupt politics, and the era is point on from clothing to cars to cinema. We and the characters are authentically submerged in the 50’s. Albeit with just a smidge difference.

There’s a odd Rift that move and allows certain characters and beings to fall through into Portland. It’s one of Nick’s jobs to see they get home, if possible.

Now see, here’s where Fielding must have had a true literary romp because I can see her laughing as she writes these sort of vague ish descriptions for those that have come through the Rift. You might want to whip out and make notes to see how many you get down, how many you can identify…. correctly that is, and what novels/world they came from. Utter bliss! I’m telling you.

I think I missed a few. But it starts with his secretary! How delicious! And I love her… in all her many versions.

As I do the main couple….

Evindal the Christmas Elf is a marvelous character. Never a joke or caricature, his infectious joy over his new experiences and his love of helping others carries such incredible warmth that you can almost feel it. He’s Christmas spirit personified.

Nick Bozic’s slow change of heart , the changes visible first in alterations to his appearance (new brighter shirts) and decorations showing up at his office, are a realistic element. Because the reason Nick’s so resistant to Christmas is only revealed at the end, but the tiny hints are everywhere.

This is a absolutely joyous and celebratory Christmas romance! One where the true spirit of Christmas is found once more and love of two very different people triumphs.

I love Kim Fielding so much because as a author she continues to surprise and enchant me as a reader with her choices and imaginative twists when it comes to characters and plots. There’s always just that something unexpected….

Here there’s a bookstores full. In fact, an entire story. So much to love.

I highly recommend A Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding. Grab it up now!

Synopsis:

Very little is merry in a private dick’s world.

Private detective Nick Bozic works the mean streets of 1950s Portland, Oregon, shadowing unfaithful spouses and nabbing thieving employees. He may be lonely, but at least he’s not crooked. Despite the festive season, Christmas simply means less dough in his pocket.

With the holiday only a few days away, a regular client drops a new case on him: yet another being has come through the Rift and needs help finding his way home. Maybe Evindal the elf will help Nick find something too—a bit of cheer and magic amid the usual brew of corruption and betrayal

https://www.goodreads.com › showA Very Genre Christmas by Kim Fielding – Goodreads

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