Tag: Loose id LLC

Review: A Beautiful Disaster by Willa Okati

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

A beautiful Disaster coverSean is trying to start his life over after being abused and almost killed by  an ex lover, but he wears his past for all to see in the scars that crisscross his body and the limbs that no longer work as they once did.  Sean’s scars are internalized as well, revealing themselves in his inability to trust and move forward in his life.

Riorden is both a tattoo artist and nurse who also is familiar with scars and life’s unwelcome surprises.  Rio is drawn to the pain filled man he sees waiting for the bus near the hospital, one glimpse and he is hooked although he can’t say why.  An accidental meeting at a bar brings Sean and Rio together again, and while the sexual heat flares, trust remains elusive.

Sean too  wants the gentle inked nurse but can he overcome his painful past and issues of trust to move forward with his life and find the love he has always dreamed about?  Only time will tell if Rio can save the beautiful disaster that is Sean.

This is not a love story for the light or faint hearted but one that is dark, pain filled and shows only glimpses of hope towards the end. Willa Okati delivers two memorable men, carrying traumatic scars of their past.  One is a veritable canvas of scars from the event that cost him everything, his self image, his trust, and his greatest joy, the ability to draw.  The other man’s scars are more easily hidden but no less dramatic.  He too almost lost his life but in a far different fashion, one that left his self image and future intact.  But it is how each man has dealt with the trauma that both pulls them together as each recognizes something about the other, a similarity that exists under the surface.  Willa Okati brings these outwardly disparate yet inwardly compatible men to life in these story of pain, hardship and renewal.

Rio helps cover scars for his former patients with tattoos that help them recover.  An article this week at MSNBC told the same story of a woman who rejected breast reconstruction and had a gorgeous full chest tattoo inked in their place (see picture at breast-cancer-survivor.jpg). We get into his head and heart as Rio talks to and about his patients.  And once we enter the tattoo shop and meet his best friend Jae, we better understand why he is so driven to pursue both careers at the same time.  Sean’s mind is a tough one to connect with, dark, depressed, and in stasis, unable to move forward or back.  All 136 pages chart his faltering progress to jumpstart his life, connect again with his art, and find his ability to love and trust once more.

For most of the book this is a bleak picture.  But each time the story gets caught up in its depths, Okati offers the reader glimmers of light ahead.  That glimpse of hope,plus the compelling characters of Sean and Rio, will serve to pull along those readers in search of a passionate love story.  The rest of us will not hesitate to go where Willa Okati leads  which is to an ending both realistic and heartening. One that leaves the reader optimistic for Sean and Rio’s future and the healing they have found with each other.

Cover Artist: Ginny Glass. I am not sold on this cover.  There was so much within this story for a cover artist to draw from that I am at a loss to say what might have prompted the design on the cover. It doesn’t really speak to anything within the book, not even the tattoos described within that carry so much meaning.  A complete misstep in design in my opinion.

Willa Okati and Loose id LLC post some very important links in the afterword about domestic abuse and organizations that deal with domestic violence.  These are wonderful resources for those in need.

For more information about domestic abuse, please check out the following: National Coalition Against Domestic Violence http:// http://www.ncadv.org/ Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project http:// gmdvp.org/ about-us/ Resources for Victims of Domestic Violence (via The Advocate)   http:// http://www.theadvocates-aplacetogo.org/ Additional-Resources.php

Review: Open Cover Before Striking by Willa Okati

Open Cover Before StrikingRating: 4.5 stars

Davis Carmichael has one focus in life, his job as a writer for Tatterdemalion’s Voice, and he let’s nothing else distract him from that.  This includes sexual encounters, then he meets Cristián in an airport while both are waiting for flights out.   Their one night stand is not only white hot but revelatory and neither man can let go of their memories of the encounter.  And neither man expects to see each other again, afterall they don’t even have each other’s full name.

But fate has something else in store for them.  Because the subject of Davis Carmichael’s next column is a matchmaker who Davis intends to expose as a fraud and that matchmaker is none other than Cristián Baranov.  Cristián Baranov is a believer in the adage that there is only one true love for each person and he believes he has a real gift in his ability to see those who are soul mates.  When Davis travels to the home and office of the matchmaker, he is astonished to find his one night stand is the person he has been sent to interview and the surprise is not at all one sided.  Cristián too is surprised to see Davis but also delighted.  It is a case of big city snarky pessimism versus warm country romance and the winner will be anyone’s guess.  But both will be losers in love if Cristián can’t make the biggest match of his life, that of his own.

I will say immediately that while I loved this book, I can see where it is going to be one that people either love or hate depending upon their taste.  And they are going to feel that way from the beginning to the very end.  It will be due to one character and maybe also because of a slight paranormal element that glides throughout this contemporary romance with all the subtly of a light fragrance you can’t put a name too.  It will either  tickle your fancy or make you retch and not too much in between.

First to the characters Willa Okati has created for her story.  I actually loved them both.  The first we meet is the one that will decide this story for the reader.  You might love him or detest him as a total jerk.  I loved him.  Davis is that hot tempered, small bodied prickly hedge hog of a man.  He has a vocabulary both quick witted and foul mouthed and uses words as a weapon more often than not.  Davis pokes and strikes out at people to keep them at a distance and he does not make it easy to like him.  But I did, from the first opening snark.  Because for all his spines, and they are plentiful, there is something about him as Okati has written him that cries out “Don’t discount me, I am going to surprise you”.  And he does.  He has layers, the top of which are distrustful, sarcastic and defensive.  But keep going and the real Davis appears and he is startling!

The one character that will keep the wavering reader going is Cristián Baranov.  A creature of the country and a true romantic at heart, he really does have the power to see personal matches, all but his own in an ironic turn he is not blind to.  He is compassionate and very much aware of human foibles, saying to the couples he brings together that while he can unite them, the rest is up to them.  And as we all know “humans screw up”, and if things don’t work out, then it is only ourselves we can blame.  Not that this makes his pain any less when the couples he brings together don’t make it.  The author makes us believe so totally in his abilities that by the end of the book, you will wish that Cristián Baranov was real and that you could meet with him soon to find the one  you were meant to be with.

The other element that the reader must take on faith is that the events in the story happen very quickly, this is no drawn out love affair, although there is a troubled long term couple also involved.  It all comes down to faith.  Faith in Christian’s abilities and faith that we have a perfect match for each of us out there.  If you can take those concepts to heart, then this story will beguile you and the ending will make you cheer.  And while I may not believe that there is only one for each of us, I loved these characters and their story.  For me it was a darn near perfect Okati, just what I expect from her.  So give this book a chance because really these characters and their story is worth it.

Cover art by April Martinez.  I think you all know by now how I feel about red or yellow cover colors.  I really dislike them and that is once again my only problem with this cover.  I get why the artist did it but still while the models are perfection, ditto the lit match, couldn’t another background work just as well? Sigh.

Review: Silver/Steel (Arcada #2) by Belinda McBride

Rating: 4 stars

Silver:Steel coverDream Hunter Dylan Ryve has one last mission to fulfill, one last hunt to finalize so his geas is honored and he will be free of the one who has entraped him.  The problem is that the one he hunts is inside the town of Arcada and the town won’t let him inside.  Frustrated Dylan waits outside of town in a bar hoping for a way in when a young shifter looking for trouble enters the bar and promptly finds it.  Travis Feris is young, impulsive, and insecure and he hides his pain behind outrageous behavior and stupid acts of hostility.  These actions often find him deep in trouble and this night is no different.  But the men he chose to offend have a far more ruthless, horrific plan for Travis and only the actions of fae named Dylan saves unconscious Travis.

When the town lets Dylan bring Travis home to heal, the assassin has his way clear to find his target and complete his bounty.  But things are never that easy in Arcada.  First of all there is Travis.  Dylan sees the true nature of the shifter and Travis’ innocence and inner beauty calls to him as nothing has in a thousand years.  And worse, Travis seems to return his interest,and  affection.  Plus Arcada is talking to him, making him question his path and his future. The town makes Dylan remember what it feels like to have a home and people around him to care for him.  But always there is Travis, luring him in, making him question everything. During one night as Dylan walks Travis’ dreams to help the shifter find his path, he inadvertently shares much of his own history with Travis too.  And in his vulnerability, Dylan opens himself up to love and the possibility that he will fail in his mission, forfeiting his freedom and possibly his life.

But the evil that owns Dylan is waiting impatiently for Dylan to complete the last mission and when it stalls, he takes things into his own hands, putting Arcada and its inhabitants in peril.  Will Dylan betray Travis and all of Arcada to finish his bounty or will he make the ultimate sacrifice to save those he loves?

This is a very different book from Blacque/Bleu which started the series I have fallen in love with.  And it is that difference that most readers will have a problem with when approaching Silver/Steel.  I too found I had some basic issues with this story and even, now find myself wavering in my feelings over some of its elements and scenes.  But let’s start with some of the basics first.

I love the whole idea of Arcada, the sentient town that gives the series its name.  In Silver/Steel, the town makes an actual physical appearance, in that it gives itself a temporary shape and we learn a little more about it, but never enough to satisfy the questions that the story brings up.  I love  everything about this town.  Its protective nature, the fact that it nurtures a diverse group of citizenry from gremlins to a pack of wolf shifters and everything in between.  Such a great idea and I look forward to how the author develops this concept further.  This is one of the best elements of the series.

Then we come to McBride’s characters.  I fell in love with Lukas Blacque and Oliver Bleu immediately and never lost my connection to them throughout the novel.  That did not happen here.  Travis Feris initially comes across as a sullen, somewhat infantile brat.  He is constantly picking fights, he’s impulsive to the point of obnoxiousness and although everyone tells us how talented he is, we are given almost no examples of his artistry.  He is just not that likable at the start.  Then McBride pairs him up with a main character his equal in spirit and inability to connect with the reader.  Dylan Reyvn is an ancient fae who gave up his freedom to save others but that is not the person we meet,  Instead we are given a single minded killer on  a mission.  The complexities of this character reveal themselves more slowly and with each revelation, I found my liking for Dylan growing as well.  For me  that never really happened with Travis.  Travis remained a five note character.  Loves Mom, loves Pack, loves Arcada, loves Dylan and some bdsm.  Where as for Dylan, he has a past to equal his many layered persona and I appreciated that.   True, the Travis at the end of the book is far more palatable than the first one we meet, but I never felt that the growth he achieved was realistic within the context of the story.  Dylan on the other hand is on the cusp of a major transformation and I wished that we would have seen more than just hints of what the future has in store for him and Arcada.

Finally, there are two more elements that have me divided about the story.  One is a major scene towards the end of the book where our main characters and the evil fae come together in a traumatic scene that for me was just on this side of nauseating.   It was very well done in terms of the emotions it will bring forth from the characters and the readers. However, that said, it was just not my thing and only my need to get to the end took me through it.  For others, it won’t be a problem at all.  But I found it a little too graphic in nature for my comfort zone.  There are elements of bdsm and dominant/submission here between Dylan and Travis that do fit in with their personalities.  I didn’t mind that so much, but others might.  No, my largest quibble I save for the plot at the end.  We have a major battle going on, we see and hear some of the aftereffects.  This section is very well done.  But where is the conclusion to this part of the story?  I don’t want to give anything away by going into details but what  happened to the instigators here?  I went back and forth, electronically flipping pages and found nothing to satisfy my biggest question. That frustration alone almost knocked this story down into a 3 rating.  But maybe it really is there and I just could excavate it out.  If you know otherwise, write me and tell me where it happens.  Perhaps McBride is saving this for the next novel in the series.  If so, then she could have done better than just vanishing an important thread to the woods and leave it dangling there.

So, yes, this book has some remarkable components and  characters that will grow on you if you take the time to get to know them. Lukas Blacque and Oliver Bleu are back as well.  It is not a stand alone book by any means, you need to have read the first in the series to have a basis for this one.  Not a problem as that is a 5 star rating story.  There are some editing issues here, some vanishing plot threads as well but the town of Arcada is mesmerizing and will keep you coming back for more.  So will the promising stories of the various inhabitants you meet here.  I want to know what happens to them too.  Belinda McBrides offers you so many tantalizing glimpses of future Arcada stories that she has me truly hooked.  You will be too.  So pick this one up, just lower your expectations a little as you find yourself in Arcada once more for another terrific paranormal tale.

Cover is the least favorite thing about this book.  From the models to the poor photoshop work, just awful.

Books in the Arcada series in the order they were written and should be read to understand the characters and the plots:

Blacque/Bleu (Arcada #1)