Tag: m/m romance

Baby, It’s Cold Outside and The Week Ahead in Reviews

Maryland has actually been feeling like winter for the past week and my body is going into shock.  Last year was Nomageddon (nothing, after Snowmaggedon) but no one really knows what will happen this year.  We really haven’t had any snow or ice and believe me, I am not complaining about that.  It’s been cold but not for very long.  In fact we are due to go back up into the 50’s in a day or so.

I look at my bird feeders and find that they are staying fairly full for longer periods of time, Ditto the suet feeders,  Even our squirrels are looking complacent as opposed to frantic for food.  But it is early yet.  February is normally our fiercest winter month here and that is still a month away.  I will let you know how it goes.

Until then, today the Redskins play the Seattle Seahawks and the area is on pins and needles.  I must go climb into my Redskin regalia and prepare to lose my voice.  So here is the week in reviews:

Monday, 1/7:                   Daddy’s Money by Alan Chin

Tuesday, 1/8:                   Bayou Loup by Lynn Lorenz

Wed., 1/9:                         Pete’s Persuasion (Shifters’ Haven #7) by Lavinia Lewis

Thursday, 1/10:               All I Want Is You by Marguerite Labbe

Friday, 1/11:                     A Boy And His Dragon by R. Cooper

Saturday, 1/12:                 Aria (Blue Notes #3) by Shira Anthony

I will leave you with this image of the man who has made the Redskin fans smile once more and dance in the streets, RGIII!

RGIII

Review: Beau and the Beast by Rick R. Reed

Rating: 4.5 stars

Beau and the Beast coverBeau is a street artist barely scrapping painting portraits of tourists by on the pier in Seattle.  On a good day, he makes enough selling his portraits to get a room in a hourly motel for the night and some soup for dinner.  And on the bad days? Well, the doorways of shops are his home and  hunger his companion. On this night, Beau’s feeble luck runs out.  He is late leaving his customary location on the pier and is making his way back the alleyway where he will sleep when he is jumped and brutally attacked by a gang of thugs.  When Beau awakens, he is bandaged and alone in a luxurious bed unable to remember what has happened to him. Then a terrifying figure opens to the door to the bedroom. The man’s form is huge and formidable but it is what he is wearing on his face that frightens Beau.  The man is wearing a hood and the mask of a wolf, all Beau can see are his eyes, eyes that ask Beau to trust him.

When Beau can talk, he finds out that the man rescued him and brought him home to heal from the attack.  When asked his  name, all he says is to call him “Beast” because that is who he is.  As Beau heals, the two men grow close but the “Beast” will disclose little of who he is. Beau yearns to know more about the man behind the mask, the man he is falling in love with.  When faced with the reality behind the Beast’s mask, will the burgeoning love  Beau feels for the Beast be destroyed or is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder?

Beau and the Beast is Rick R. Reed’s version of the timeless tale, “Beauty and the Beast,” by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont.  Rick R. Reed has remained true to the original story while still putting his own touches to a tale renown for its storied love affair and message of the heart.  The concept of love being so strong that it can overcome all obstacles including a hideous visage is so profound, so awe inspiring that we have seen version after version of this fairy tale, from the animated Disney movie to the wonderful television series Beauty and the Beast from the 80’s.  Now Rick R. Reed adds his book to the list of renditions and it is a most welcome one.

Reed’s love for this story carries through his version in every aspect.  The author depicts Beau’s harsh life with vivid descriptions, bringing us close to the young artist barely making it through life.  And Reed’s Beast is both enigmatic and majestic beneath his wolf mask.  The author’s gifted narrative pulls in the reader so throughly that you can feels the loneliness of the lives they lead and how fear is keeping them back from the love they are starting to feel for each other.  It is so easy for their emotions to become yours. Rick R. Reed’s Beau and the Beast is both haunting and lovely, doing more than justice to the original that inspired him.

I have read other books by Rick R. Reed but this is the first that I have reviewed, a fact I can’t understand as I have always enjoyed his writing.  So look forward to more of this author’s works to be reviewed here.  They range from the humorous to the dramatic, and I will be reviewing both. If you are not familiar with Rick R. Reed, definitely start here.  You won’t be sorry.  My only quibble with this story is I wished for much more as it is only 62 pages long.  A perfect length, however, for a winter’s eve or afternoon before the fireplace, to revisit a fairytale reborn once more.

Review of Sullivan (Leopard’s Spots #7) by Bailey Bradford

Rating: 2.5 stars

Sullivan Leopards Spots 7Sullivan “Sully” Ward is heading off to college, full of excitement and ready to try new things, a true small town boy come to the big city.  Sully lands in Texas, San Antonia to be exact, ready for life as a student at UTSA and to see what life in San Antonio will hold for a young inexperienced leopard  shifter.  And it isn’t long before he runs into trouble in the wrong side of town and ends up saving a young hustler named Mando.  Mando is under age , just another teenager thrown away because his parents didn’t want a gay son.  Sully takes him into the awful apartment he rented online, feeds him as Mando reminds him of his younger brother and decides now Mando has a home with him.

When he talks to his parents back home, his story stirs up concerns that Sully is in over his head so they contact Bobby Baker, the wolf shifter brother to Josiah, pack alpha and mate to Sully’s cousin.  Bobby and his pack live in San Antonio. All Bobby has to do is check to make sure  Sully is fine and that Mando isn’t a trouble maker.  But from the first meeting, it is clear the trouble is not from Mando but from the fact that Sully and Bobby are mates.  Sully is ignorant of the effect it has on the partners who have found their mates but Bobby isn’t.  He knows Sully is his mate and it scares him enough to send him running after a bout of intense sex, especially for a virgin like Sully.

To make matters worse, there is a psycho stalking Bobby’s pack and an arsonist loose setting fires in Bobby’s clubs. And they both appear to be targeting Bobby and anyone Bobby loves.  Bobby must come to grips with his destiny and accept Sully as his mate and soon.  Sully and Bobby have an arsonist to track and in a horrifying turn of events, an attack to revenge.

Out of the seven books of the Leopard’s Spots series, this is the worst by far.  Bradford is getting farther away from the unique elements of this series, that of the Leopard Shifter history, their interaction with the Amur Leopards, and the mystery of a group of people intent on drugging and experimenting on them.  All of that is not even mentioned here as we track back to the wolf shifters of Texas that are attached to the story via Josiah and Oscar (Leopard’s Spots #2).  But that is the least of the problems here.

Bobby Baker was introduced in the last book and he was an exciting, exasperating character.  I would have hoped that if Bradford was going to abandon the Amur Leopards, at least we would have a good book out of it.  But instead we get a book that is 5 percent promise, mostly because of the character of Mando, the vulnerable, underage hustler Sully has taken under his wing and his “brother like” relationship with Sully.  Those scenes were charming, endearing, funny and held out the promise that the rest of the book would be of a similar vein.  Not so as the remaining 95 percent focuses in on the mate relationship between Bobby and Sully.This turns out to be much less affecting as they  have little chemistry as a couple, and Bobby spends most of the book fighting his role as Sully’s mate.  His club is literally burning down around him,a person close to Sully is heinously attacked by the nutjob stalking Bobby, and the two of them are having ridiculous amounts of sex and paying no attention to anything else.  These two act in such an irrational manner that the reader’s frustrations almost exceed the amount of sex they are having.

Finally, most of the goodwill this book generates is destroyed in a grievous attack on a character we have come to adore.  Mostly because it seems superfluous to the rest of the action going on and the depth of emotional and physical destruction visited upon this person is really unnecessary. It really seems such a waste of characters that had such marvelous potential and a mess of a storyline that was resolved far too quickly for the buildup and really made little sense.

I will probably stick with this series because I can’t believe it can get much worse than this.  But like a TV columnist says in his intro, “I watch these shows so you don’t have to”.  I will just say I am reading these books so you don’t have to.  And trust my word,  you really don’t want to read Sullivan (Leopard’s Spots #7).

Levi (Leopards Spots #1)

Oscar (Leopards Spots #2) read my review here.

Timothy (Leopards Spots #3) read my review here

Isaiah (Leopards Spots #4) read my review here

Gilbert (Leopards Spots #5) read my review here

Esau (Leopards Spots #6)

Sullivan (Leopards Spots #7)