Tag: Katey Hawthorne

Review of Life as a Fairy Thrall by Katey Hawthorne

Rating:       4.25 stars

Tammas and Aeron have just gotten over one shock to their relationship when two more happen right in a row.  Emry is successful in his work on their bond and Kamala appears on their doorstep with a problem and her nephew, Firez, in tow.  Firez is an old schoolmate of Tammas’ and his sister has been kidnapped by a fae.  He has come to ask for their help in rescuing her, knowing it will take all the magic and the assistance of one of the fae to get her back.  Firez is not totally welcome in their home.  He is a part of those who hurt and bullied Tammas in school. Aeron demands payment for their help and Firez must enter into a Fairy  compact if he wants their help.

Kidnapping humans to keep as thralls is illegal. Only those humans who go willingly may become thrall but kidnapping the unwary is occuring in the Fairy Court.  But Tammas and Aeron know that if they can get her back, the chances of the fairies coming after her again are nil.  So with the help of Aeron’s sister, Awela, Kamala, Tammas, Aeron, Awela, and Firez head out to the portal into the Fairy Realm.  The plan is for Kamala to watch the portal until they are safely back while Aeron and Awela travel to the  Court with Tammas and Firez disguised as their human thralls.

Once at Court, their plans become even more complicated, as the Lady holding the girl wants more humans to take her place.  With danger all around them and the eyes of the Fae upon them, Tammas and Firez must act the part of human thralls right down to the collars they wear.  The girl is there but unaware of who they are.  All must tread delicately or the ones to pay the price will be Tammas and Firez with the cost of their freedom.

Life as a Fairy Thrall is the second story in the Fairy Compact trilogy by Katey Hawthorne.  The first story, The Dangers of a Fairy Compact relates the first meeting of Tam and Aeron,  although they have been connected by a fairy compact all Tam’s life.  Without giving too much away of the plot of that story, it  goes without saying that Fairy compacts always come with a price to be paid, ones that will resonate through the years and even alternate worlds. The trilogy is the story of Tammas and Aeron’s entwined lives and the relationship that comes out of a compact neither made of their own volition.  These are not your Disneyfied fairies but the fae of old Gaelic myths and lore.  Capable of great cruelty as as great good, their moods interchangeable and indeterminable.  They cannot be held to human standards something humans often forget.  Katey Hawthorne gives us the Fae made real, from their diaphanous wings and unworldly beauty to the power and magic that swirls around them like an aromatic.

It is through the author’s vivid descriptions and wonderful characterizations that Tammas’ world comes across as realistic as the neighborhood  I  live in.  I can see the small cottage with its gardens and trees surrounding it, but more importantly I can feel it as the story is as tactile as moss on a stone.  The magic here engages all the senses, it is smelled, and stroked.  It is the burbling of a stream and the mist of the woods and that gives these stories a wonderful depth and realism, both needed when the reader needs to believe in the world and characters before her. This tactile nature of these stories carries just as vividly into the sex scenes.  Who knew that winged sex could be so hot?  Indeed it is so be prepared when  entering Hawthorne’s fairy world or her human world either. At the end of the story we are left with Tam and Aeron’s relationship facing yet another hurdle, with another major decision to be made.  It will be a hard one, full of angst as well as love.  I can’t wait to see how the trilogy finishes up.

I love stories of the Fae and have since I was a child.  Tinker-belle never interested me but the Fair Folk of Irish lore fascinated me as much as they had the ability to terrify me.  Katey Hawthorne is giving us a wonderful trilogy in this same tradition.  Start with the first one.  It can be downloaded for free from either Katey Hawthorne’s website, visit http://www.kateyhawthorne.com/p/fairy-compacts.html.  Or visit All Romance Publishers and download it free  from there.  I think you will love the stories as much as I do plus the illustrations by Ruxandra Lache are not to be missed.

The Dangers of a Fairy Compact (Fairy Compact #1)

Life as a Fairy Thrall (Fairy Compact #2)

Autumn Comes to Maryland, Vote 6 for Equality and the Week Ahead in Reviews

Good morning to all and what a spectacular day it is here in Maryland.  The sky is that crystalline crisp blue that I only see in Fall, the clouds fluffy white and a huge flock of Canada geese just flew overhead, their cries trumpeting the arrival of Fall.  How I love this time of year, my pulse quickens, my step is a tad more brisk (such as it is these days), and I feel like rejuvenated after the sweltering heat of summer. The Monarch butterflies are flitting through the garden on their way to Mexico, and what a journey they have in front of them, over 3, 000 miles of ingrained need to fly to a place they have never been.  Amazing when  you  consider they are fragility on wings.

Autumn is a time of movement, a time of activity, both measured and frantic.  Beaver and muskrats are busy with caches of food and antlers, so too are the squirrels and white footed mice. All have plenty to do to make sure the food stores are full for the winter.  Bees zoom around the garden, gathering pollen and nectar from the spectacular profusion of gold, white and purple flowers of the season.  The  New England asters, goldenrod, the Black-eyed Susans, and the Joe Pye weed that linger on.  Most people think of Autumn colors as red, yellow and orange, but the fall gardener knows that the harbinger of Fall also carries the colors of white, gold and purple to all the gardens and fields around us.

Fall brings change.  Leaves swirl to the ground as the sap returns to their roots in preparation for Winter, seeds are scattered by wind and animal alike, and the animals start their migration to the winter feeding grounds.  The songbirds seek the safety of the night for their travels while the raptors, secure as top predators of the air, wing their way south during the daylight hours, soaring above as they follow the coasts and mountains. I watch the squirrels stuffing leaves into the neighbors chimney with all the energy and enthusiasm of teenagers on energy drinks.  I have never seen those neighbors use their chimney and hope that for the squirrels sake that this continues.   My old bird feeder finally fell apart from the relentless onslaught from the non flighted visitors and  a new one should arrive any day, carrying with it the hope of a squirrel proof feeder. Hah, I say from experience.  My money is on the squirrels.

I am hoping for another change in Maryland this fall.  It is 51 days until the election and I am hoping that this fall brings Marriage Equality for all in the state of Maryland.  If you  live here, please vote for Question 6 and make it legal for all GLBTQ to marry here.  It is long past time for this to happen, equal marriage rights are long overdue.  Let’s be a voice for progress and become a partner in movement for equal rights for all.  Vote yes for Question 6 and let’s make the promise a reality!  I will be there on voting day and hope you will join me.

Finally, October will see several special events on my blog.  First up, actually the very first week is Regency Sci-Fi week with JL Langley in preparation for My Regelence Rake release October 1st.  I have an interview with JL, recap of the series to date, a discussion about  Regency novels, and a contest to give away a copy of My Regelence Rake to someone who comments during the week!  Whew!  I am also participating in the Howloween Blog Hope at the end of October where I will be giving away a Amazon gift card during the blog hop!  So stay tuned, my pretties, we have a great time planned this fall.  Change is in the air, I can feel it.  Can you?

Here are the books to be reviewed this week:

Monday:                         Life As A Fairy Thrall by Katey Hawthorne

Tuesday:                         Making Contact (Sci Fi Anthology)

Wednesday:                   Nate’s Deputy by Lavinia Lewis

Thursday:                       Gregory’s Rebellion by Lavinia Lewis

Friday:                             The Melody Thief by Shira Anthony

Saturday:                         Wolf’s Own Book One Ghost by Carole Cummings

Why A Series Can Make My Heart Sing!

It’s no secret that I love books and always have.  From my earliest memories of listening to someone read to me then transitioning to being old enough to pick up a book myself to while away the time. When I was younger, my family moved around every couple of years or more as my father’s job was to evaluate school systems. While not a hardship, it’s not conducive to the young who find it hard to leave friends and special places behind again and again.  As I got older and the moving proved more stressful, I turned to books for companionship.  Books, never far from me from birth (a given with parents as educators), became my constant companions. They became my escape from reality, an acceptable form of “invisible friend”, my Harvey. I was lucky in that one of my uncles, a great uncle really, worked at Charles Scribner’s & Sons. Uncle Wade sent us boxes of books of all types and genres, most of which were too old for me (Frank Yerby, really?) and that created its own special allure, to be old enough to read all those  books!  A new goal and easily fed addiction formed early in life – I was seven by then.

Have I said that books fascinate me? It was always just a matter of minutes before I lost myself in an author’s special universe. Their characters jumped to life on their pages waving swords or crawling through tunnels, the places they created became worlds whose paths I wished to tread and on whose seas I wished to voyage. Don’t you remember picking up a book and starting to read, and thinking please, please, never let it end?  That was me, out in the woods or under a blanket in bed, book in hand, eyes shut tight and wishing with all my might for a magic wand and horses with wings.

With some books, just one book is sufficient to satisfy your need for the world the author created.  You read it and are happy to have visited there.  They were great hosts, told you a marvelous story and fed you a meal that left you full if not completely replenished. When it came time to take your leave,you wished those characters well and felt that while you have enjoyed the visit other destinations were calling and you must be off. My Friend Flicka was one. Treasure Island was another.  So was Old Yeller, Dahlgren and National Velvet and hoards of nameless books of my youth. But then there are those books whose characters became friends or heros, the worlds they lived in were places I yearned to go, each and every element necessary and magical to me at the time. Those stories had multiple books called a series! From the mundane to the mystical, I gobbled up series with all the ardor and fervor of a zealot.

For me a series meant never having to leave your favorite characters behind or the universe they inhabited.  After you finished one story, you could look forward to a new adventure, a new challenge or a new journey taken with the same beloved people/beings you met in the first book.  Sometimes the characters stayed the same, they lived in their old house, had the same friends and stayed the same age.  I am thinking Nancy Drew here with Beth, George and Ned.  And sometimes the characters grew up like those in C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia.  But whatever the shape the narrative took, I knew that I would be visiting a familiar place but with unknown consequences. Oh the anticipation, the agony, the  time I spent daydreaming about what was to come next for my heros (of all genders and species).

Whether it was L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz books or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings , book series have been my affordable addiction. Not possible to own a herd of horses in a suburban backyard? Let’s substitute dragons for horses and scarf up Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern. My parents inform me that we are southbound, going to visit the relatives again this summer. My first reaction? OK, second reaction? Hide all of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover books in my suitcase to pull out at the cousins first suggestion to Dippity Do my hair and head out to the Dairy Queen. Series after series, genre after genre, my addiction grew and my bookshelves groaned.

Has my addiction to series dwindled as I have aged? Not on your life! Don’t look at me like that!  I know you have been there along with me. Haven’t you ever reached the end of a book that has kept you mesmerized from word one and wanted to scream out ‘Noooooooo, I don’t want it to end”?  Or had the characters in the latest book you were reading seem so real that the last sentence of the epilogue left you feeling bereft? Or maybe the world that came alive in between the pages was so vivid that you could smell the alien air and feel the magic in the landscape?   It still happens to me at 2 or 3 am in the morning (just like always) when I come to the end of a gripping saga I started earlier that day and never put down.  I scramble to get back to the pages in front and then in the back to see what else the author has written. If stymied, and who wouldn’t be  at that time of the morning, I turn on the computer (ok this part is new) and check for updates at their publishers or websites, never mind the dogs glaring at me because I have disturbed their sleep.  And when my search turns up that the book is a part of a series? Well, let’s just say I give the ol’ Rebel Yell a run for its money and make my Celtic ancestors proud!

Some of my favorite series?  Hard to separate them out as I have so many in different genre’s.  Mystery authors make it easy for me.  Love you Martha Grimes and Inspector Jury, same to you, P.D. James and Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, and on right to up Sarah Paretsky and her female private eye, V I Warshawski and Stieg Larsson and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Once a mystery author creates a character, a series is sure to follow.  Authors of the supernatural and fantasy are much the same.  Look at Laurell K Hamilton and Anita Blake.  Hit List is the 20th Anita Blake novel.  Or Terry Pratchett and his Disc World series that is comprised of 33 novels.  That could be a little daunting if not for the treasure that is Disc world.

Sooooo, where was I? Oh yes, my love for book series.  Today with the advent of eReaders and ePublishing, the novel and book series has never been more popular.  Especially with my m/m fiction, I have so many favorite series that I hardly know where to start.  Perhaps I will start with a series I began my m/m journey with.  That would be Carol Lynne’s Cattle Valley series, still going strong today at book no. 27. I love  Josh Lanyon’s Adrien English series and Kate Steele’s Bond of the Maleri books. Can’t go wrong there.  I would wave Jet Mykles Heaven Sent series at you, can’t miss those! Or JL Langley’s With or Without series with her wolf shifters that are so hot and memorable. So many that I need to start a list.  And just look at the books I have reviewed lately.  Some of my must read series are among them: Cut and Run from Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux (now just written by Roux), Infected by Andrea Speed (I groan just thinking about Roan – snicker), the Lost Gods series by Megan Derr, the Cambridge Fellows books by Charlie Cochrane, Katey Hawthorne’s Superpowered Love series and so many more.  I feel like one of those people at an awards show with a never ending list.  I could go on and on and on while a guy in the wings gives me the signal to shut up.

So here I am all these years later and nothing has changed.  OK, yes some things have changed.  Sheesh! You think you would let a girl get by with some things…but my love of books and a series of books?  Never.  A great series still fills me with excitement and the expectation of wonderful surprises just on the horizon.  I look forward to each new twist and turn the author can think up and that I never saw coming.  I can’t wait for the paths unexplored and the roads not yet taken by characters I love on worlds new and known.  And  that is why a series makes my heart sing.

Small list of my favorite series in no particular order and yes I know I left a lot out.  Please send us your favorites:

M/M Series (3 or more books):

Promised Rock series by Amy Lane
Lost Gods series by Megan Derr (fantasy)
Conquest series (rockers) by S. J. Frost
Heaven Sent by Jet Mykles (rockers)
Adrien English Mystery series by Josh Lanyon contemporary
Cut and Run by Urban and Roux, now just Abigall Roux – contemporary
Infected series by Andrea Speed (science fiction)
Sanctuary series by RJ Scott action/adventure
Faith, Love, and Devotion series by Tere Michaels contemporary
St. Nachos series by Z.A. Maxfield contemporary
Cattle Valley by Carol Lynne cowboys contemporary
With or Without series (shifters) by JL Langley
Sci Regency series by JL Langley
Cambridge Fellows series by Charlie Cochrane
A Matter of Time series by Mary Calmes
Warder series by Mary Calmes
Home series by TC Chase
Superpowered Love series by Katey Hawthorne

and all the series I have written about this week, Infected, Cambridge Fellows, Lost Gods, Dance with the Devil, The Sanctuary series…..

Bellingham Mysteries series by Nicole Kimberling  – last day to make a comment and be entered into the book giveaway contest for Primal Red.

Favorite Series Covers and Cover Artists!

Book covers have always fascinated me.  Some repel me, others draw me in immediately.  Think “ooh, shiny, pretty…” lol.  Others intrigue me by their content or graphic design, while others leave me “meh” or confused. When I think of series covers that are successful, all they have some of the same elements incorporated into their design.  The first being I can tell the books belong together at a glance, they have a cohesive design element consistent in every cover.  The fonts stay the same.  Each cover contains the same overall design with small changes that  don’t affect the overall picture they present to the reader.

So we are looking for consistency, cohesiveness, clarity and recognition.  Designs that convey a sense of connectedness between the books. Look over my choices and see if you agree with me. Many of my favorites series also have some of my favorite series covers. Yes, I have let quite a lot out but I need something for the next cover post, don’t I? Lets get started.

1. Cut & Run series by Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban, now being written by Abigail Roux,cover design by Mara McKinnon:Simple and elegant.  The central object, which is prominent in each storyline, is changed out with each book.  I can tell a Cut &Run book in a heartbeat.

2. Lost Gods series by Megan Derr, design by London Burden. Each cover is a map of the kingdom the story is set in.  The color is important as it is a prime element for each kingdom and its culture.  Blue for the kingdom of Kundou, a land to whom the sea is all important.  It’s people have hair in all shades of blue and green, the color of water.  The orange/red cover of Burning Bright is self explanatory and so on. Subtle, expressive, simple on the surface yet contains hidden meanings just like the books.

3. Sanctuary Series by RJ Scott, artist/cover design by Reese Dante.  Each cover depicts the two men who will be the novel’s romantic couple, usually one is a Sanctuary op.  The design stays the same with the men being switched out.  The models are  consistent with the descriptions of the men inside.  Reese Dante  does the fantastic design.

4. Dance With The Devil series by Megan Derr, design by London Burden.  Effective use of a simple graphic design where the object floating in the center of a black cover is switched out for each new book. Again the main element is important  to the storyline. Effective, elegant, and easy to recognize that the books belong together without having to resort to the publishers note.

4. Cambridge Fellows series by Charlie Cochrane, cover design by Scott Carpenter: All the covers have a lovely vintage feel to them, sepia toned with elements such as furniture, buildings and mens clothing from 1900’s included on the design. Unfortunately, the last cover from Samheim had a more modern looking model which threw off the design. The newest title in the series has a completely different look as it was published at the different company. Can you pick it out?

3.  Superpowered Love by Katey Hawthorne, artist P.L. Nunn:  Just wonderful art by PL Nunn, the covers really set the stage for the stories within.  I just love these.  Again while the content changes, the style is the same and makes the books easy to identify.

4. Infected series by Andrea Speed, art by Anne Cain, cover design by Mara McKinnon: These covers blow me away.  Intense, dramatic, with that hint of menace.  Outstanding.  They are offered to download at Andrea Speed’s website.  I grabbed them, you will want to as well. Andrea Speed’s website http://www.andreaspeed.com.

5. Cattle Valley Series by Carol Lynne, art by Anne Cain.  It doesn’t matter if it is Book 2, Book 12 or Book 23, you can tell it is a Cattle Valley book immediately due to the great design and artwork by the wonderful Anne Cain.  This series is branded, folks! Total E Bound does more of a series branding than any other publisher or so it seems to me.

6. Sci-Regency Series by JL Langley, cover by Anne Cain.  Sigh!  I love Anne Cain and her artwork.  Especially her cover for My Fair Captain.  That one is so drool worthy that I have to bring out the towels. Yeah, I know TMI!  But just look at that chest!  And the same goes for the other two books in the series, the last of which, My Regelence Rake, is to be released in October 2012.

7.  Leopard’s Spots series by Bailey Bradford, artwork by Posh Gosh. What a lush, rich group of covers,  They are like a feast for the eyes, I just don’t know where to look next.  The design pulls your eye around the cover, so nothing is missed.  Just superb.

So that’s my short  list. What is yours? Yes, I see the same artists over and over on covers I like.  Anne Cain, PL Nunn, Reese Dante, Posh Gosh and London Burden.  Lately I have also noticed Alessia Brio too.  I know I have missed so many great artists, help me fill in the blanks.  And don’t forget to leave a comment and be entered in the contest.

Review of Nobody’s Hero by Katey Hawthorne

Rating: 4.8 stars

Jamie Monday is living two lives. In one life, he is normal and outwardly gay, he’s the life of the gay party scene, the office extrovert, everyone’s favorite homo.  Then there’s his other life, the hidden one as a member of the Awakened, people who can control the elements. As an Awakened, Jamie is deep in the closet. He hides his sexual identity from his mother and the Awakened community who expect him to marry and procreate.  Additionally, Jamie hides the fact that he is an Awakened from those in his “normal” life. Jamie has been good at keeping his identities compartmentalized but the increasing pressure by his mother to marry and the hot new IT guy at work has upset his equilibrium.

Kellan Shea is brainy, adorkable, and a Sleeper, the name given to Humans with no supernatural abilities.  From the beginning Jamie feels drawn to him.  It doesn’t matter that Kellan is socially awkward, defensive, and downright prickly,  Jamie realizes that Kelly is who he wants.  Kellan has a pure core within a sizzling exterior and Jamie finds himself falling in love.  But Kellan hates lies and Jamie’s life is one of deceit.  Can Jamie find the courage to be himself  or will he lose the only man he has ever loved?

This is the third book in the Superpowered Love series and just a great read.  I have come to expect wonderful and quirky characters from Katey Hawthorne and Nobody’s Fool is chock full of them, starting with Jamie Monday.  Jamie seems superficial to begin with but a shallow gorgeous surface hides a deeply conflicted man.  Jamie wants to please his mother, his only family.  The Awakened community they live in is close-knit, rigid, and almost incestuous in their intermarrying.  They all have high expectations of their progeny. Jamie acknowledges all of that while still trying to have a “normal” life.  It’s not so much that he wants to lie as he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone.  Each time my frustrations build with his character’s seeming inability to deal truthfully with those around him, Jamie’s inner dialog makes his position seem all too human and understandable.

And then there’s Kellan Shea.  I adored Kelly right from his mumbled fingernail chewing introduction to Jamie and friends at the office.  He is such a contradiction.  Kellan is Catholic and not just in name only.  He believes in his religion and is unafraid to say so.  He has a potty mouth, hot temper, and a vulnerable soul.  He is so very interesting in his outlook on life and sex that I feel as though I haven’t come across a someone like him before. These two characters ease into their relationship with all the grace of two porcupines waltzing.

The beauty of this story is that we all can relate to Jamie and the way he has complicated his life.  Who hasn’t wanted to please their parents to the point of suppressing their own wants and needs?  Who hasn’t told a lie or smudged the truth so someone isn’t hurt?  Life is full of complications, ones we create and those created for us.  For Jamie, it is not only his sexuality but his supernatural powers that he is hiding.   There is not one part of his life that is clear and open.  And not even Jamie realizes the full impact that has had on him until the end.  All the conflict, all the hurt that emerges are realistically and vividly portrayed.  I ached for those characters as I watched them fumble and sometimes fail as they reached for each other.

And did I mention the hot sex?  I should have because this story is full of it.  It’s that wonderful falling in love/lust/love sex where you  can’t get enough of each other.  And it’s also diversion sex, makeup sex and everything in between.  It’s sloppy, and all encompassing.  There’s also great music, wonderful locations and a great Irish family I couldn’t get enough of. I was so sorry to get to the end of Nobody’s Fool and it’s endearing cast of characters.  I hope you will feel the same.

Cover:  Cover art by P.L. Nunn.  A great cover that beautifully captures the characters.

Available from Loose Id.