Tag: m/m romance

Review: Promises Made Under Fire by Charlie Cochrane

Rating: 4.5 stars

Promises Made Under FireIt’s France, 1915, and Europe has been fighting WWI for a year.  Lieutenant Tom Donald and his fellow officer Frank Foden help alleviate both the tedium and the terror by sharing confidences about their family and friends back home.  Frank Foden, a confident popular officer with a positive outlook on life, happily shares his letters from home with Tom, including those from his physician wife, a rarity at that time.  Letter after letter, arriving sometimes twice a week, enliven their day. Frank and Tom laugh about her “doctor’s scribble” of handwriting and her accounts from home, and soon Tom begins to feel that he knows her as well as Frank.  The one thing he doesn’t share with Frank is the knowledge that Tom prefers men to women,  a fact that would see him booted from the army and most likely imprisoned.

Then Frank is killed on the front and Tom injured.  Tom is sent home to recover and act on a last request from Frank.  Frank left several letters for Tom to deliver in person.  One to Frank’s mother, and one to a man named Palmer who Tom has never heard Frank mention.  Tom’s journey to fulfill his mission will uncover some starting facts about Frank, and his life back home, starting with the fact that everything he knew about the man was a lie.

Promises Made Under Fire is just another fine example of historic fiction from author Charlie Cochrane.  Cochrane returns us to the front.  It is WWI and England has been fighting for a year. We are given Englishmen under incredible stress and facing imminent death every moment they are in the trenches and yet touches of civilized society still order the soldier’s day, including their officer’s servant who serves them tea and acts as “nursemaid and housekeeper” to both Tom and Frank, a decidedly English detail.  And because this is Charlie Cochrane, you can count on the historic details she presents during the story as being accurate as well as interesting.  I have always admired the manner in which Cochrane folds her  historical facets into her story while bringing it all effortlessly to life in front of us.  I could hear the sounds of guns nearby and smell the powder on the air but the main focus is always on her characters.

What amazing characters are laid out before us.  Cochrane has a remarkable ear for dialog and her character’s “language” is true for each person and their social status.  Here is Bentham, their officers servant, talking about the Jerry’s(Germans):

“He’s probably plotting even when he’s kicking up Bob’s a dying.” (Bentham)

“Bob’s a dying?” (Tom)

“Dancing and frolicking, sir.”

In just those few sentences, you understand immediately that Bentham is lower class, given his colloquialisms, and that Tom is decidedly upper class, given his  lack of understanding about the same.  Loads of backstory in a few simple phrases, just perfection.

In fact, without realizing it, the reader is absorbing tons of information about the men in the story without having it spelled out for us just through the dialog alone.  The front and it’s horrors are quite real as is its impact upon our main characters.  In fact there is not one element here that isn’t brought fully to life.  This story and its characters, live, react, and painfully try to recover from the devastation the war has wrought  upon them and their world.

I love how this story slowly unfolds, giving us time to know and care about Tom and Frank, and Tom’s journey home is a revelation in more than one way.  The use of letters is a  form of narrative that always charms me and it is used to perfection here to move the story forward. But you never forget that this is a love story, and that love between men is something to be carefully hidden and protected.  Discretion is the rule these men live by and the lengths they must go to in order to protect the ones they loved.

This is an absolutely marvelous love story but the end is in keeping with the times and perfectly realistic for the men involved.  The more I thought about it the more I appreciated the manner in which Cochrane remained true to her characters, and her period.  And leaves us with the possibility of more should she ever wish to return to Tom and see how he is getting on.  Put a pot of tea on, place some biscuits on a plate and settle down with Promises Made Under Fire to return to war torn England and a love that dares not speak its name.

17,000 words

cover artist is unknown which is a shame considering how perfect this cover is for the story.  Lovely in its detail and design.

Inauguration Sunday and the Week Ahead in Reviews

So, we have a three day weekend with Martin Luther King Day and the Inauguration on Monday.  The sky is blue, Saturday saw me scrambling so here I am still in my bunny slippers and looking to stay that way for the immediate future.

With Lance Armstrong’s self serving, “woe is me, not quite getting the whole picture” sob fest still leaving a malodorous odor in the air, I am looking forward to an inspirational speech on two on Monday.  So Monday’s post will be a little different,  No book banter or book reviews,  just some musings on the Inauguration and MLK.

I have read some terrific books to be reviewed this week, starting with Tuesday’s selection of Charlie Cochrane’s lastest release from Carina Press. And if you missed it, go back for yesterday’s review of J.L. Merrow’s Trick of Time, loved that book.  The movie Somewhere in Time is a favorite of mine so you know Trick of Time hit all my buttons and then some.

So with a drumroll please in keeping with the flair of things this weekend, here are the books to be reviewed this week:

Monday, 1/21:                        Scattered Thoughts on MLK and the Inauguration.

Tuesday, 1/22:                        Promises Made Under Fire by Charlie Cochrane

Wed., 1/23:                              Dirty Laundry by Heidi Cullinan

Thursday, 1/24:                     A Troubled Range by Andrew Grey

Friday, 1/25:                          The Dragon and His Knight by M. Raiya

Saturday, 1/26:                      Too Stupid To Live by Anne Tenino

Review: Trick of Time by J.L. Merrow

Rating: 5 stars

Trick of Time coverDevastated and scarred from the car accident that killed his husband and parents,  Ted Ennis decides to  work as a theatre assistant at the Criterion Theatre for his friend Rob,the manager of the theatre, rather than return to the bankers job he held prior to the accident and his disability. The crash has left Ted with some permanent physical issues as well as emotional ones, his hand shakes and his voice and speech changes under duress.  When stressed, one the of the things that helps to calm Ted is smoking.  One night during a production at the Criterion Theatre, Ted slips out the backdoor to grab a smoke and steps back in time into Victorian London.

With its dim lamps for street lights and sooty air, the sights and sounds of a 1800’s London surrounds him and Ted starts to wonder if the accident had not caused more damage to his brain than had been acknowledged.  Then amidst the horse carriages and people rushing by Piccadiily Square, Ted sees a beautiful young man leaning nonchalantly against a lamppost whose very face beckons Ted away from the theatre doorway.  The lad’s name is Jem and he’s a local whore who has mistaken Ted for competition.  At first, their relationship is a monetary one, but it quickly turns into something neither man is quick to label, drawing Ted back in time again and again searching out Jem just to be with him. But Ted doesn’t understand how or why he can travel back in time, and each time he returns, Jem is getting thinner.  Something tells Ted that time may be running out for them both unless he can figure out the trick of time.

J.L. Merrow has pulled from one of the most romantic, haunting of themes for the central basis of this story – that of opening a doorway or portal and stepping back in time.  Whether it is a door to a wardrobe,the sash of a window,or an unlikely looking machine,  the idea of actually being able to visit the past has enthralled and enchanted many a author and reader.  A Trick of Time, J.L. Merrow’s marvelous take on this theme, gives us a romantic, haunting and satisfying addition to this genre.

I am always so appreciative of Merrow’s ability to bring history to life through the author’s books and tales.  Within Merrow’s stories, the reader is thrust back in time where the air with thick with coal dust, the streets dingy, and life perilous for those poor or gay or just unlucky.  Here is a sample.  Ted and Jem have just sat down at a lowly pub near the theatre .” I looked down at the table, its surface scarred and pitted with use, crumbs of long-digested meals wedged in its crevices.”  I felt as though I could see that table, smell that table with its remnants of old food and greasy stench wafting up from its scarred wooden surface.  Merrow brings that pub to life in vivid detail, and does the same for every other part of this story.  I felt as though I had walked the streets accumulating grime as I strolled.

But it is her characters that bring the magic to the story.  Ted is a haunting and haunted figure with his scarred head, shaking hands, and survivor’s guilt.  How he grabs our empathy from the start and keeps it close throughout the story. We feel his disbelief when he steps into the past, and his terror that it might be his sanity at error. And as Ted’s desperation to see Jem, to be with Jem grows, we feel it as well.  And always in the back of our minds and Ted’s, is the fear that the doorway will close and Jem will be lost.  Merrow skillfully balances the deepening relationship with the growing fear of loss of same and keeps us teetering on the edge, caught between happiness and horror, joy and pain for Ted and Jem.  And make no mistake Jem is as beautifully realized a character as Ted Ennis.  Cocky, beautiful and very much a survivor but for how long?

Yes, there are places where some will argue that you have to suspend your belief, but don’t you have to do that to accept time travel as a possibility? This is a story of magical possibilities, a visitation to those dreams held close to the heart, of a love that not even time can deny to one who hopes. And who can deny the enchanting miracle of that?  Not me.  I loved this story and I think you will find it magical too.

Lovely cover although credit is not given to the artist in the book.

Review: Precogs in Peril series by Theo Fenraven

Rating: 5 stars

Lightning Struck TowerSeries Description:  When Gray Vecello’s grandfather Graham dies, he leaves his grandson his boat, The Constant Companion, his worldly possessions and the young man, Cooper Key, Graham rescued and let live aboard his boat.  This series charts their romance, personal growth, and Gray’s acceptance of and ability to use his amazing paranormal gifts.

In the first installment, Three of Swords, we are introduced to this extraordinary couple and watch as their grow into a relationship that captures our hearts and minds.  Central to the romance is that both men have paranormal elements to their natures.  Gray Vecello has the sight, he reads Tarot cards  passed down through his family, and has visions of the future.  Cooper Key also has matching protective powers and together, they are a power to be reckoned with.  Each book title is a card in the Tarot deck and has meaning for each story. Because along with The Constant Companion, Graham has also left to both Gray and Cooper a mystery to solve, a safe to open, and a secret paranormal group to investigate .  And that is where the second book in the series starts.

The Knight of Wands picks up where Three of Swords left off, literally at the instant the other stops.  Gray and Cooper  have found the contents of the safe, Jolly Roger (a member of the group with special abilities) comes back into the picture and Gray’s lesbian cousin, Harper, makes another appearance in their lives, moving into The Constant Companion with them when her romance goes bad.  With Gray and Cooper still in the honeymoon stage of their romance, having one more person on their boat is a tight fit, and then another mystery pops up concerning his grandfather’s precog group, and all chances of a life of leisure on the river disappears.

The third book, Lightning Struck Tower, brings all the elements of the previous books together and whips them into a frenzy of mystery, murder and action adventure.  Oh and much more of the paranormal world then ever before in the series.  The secret paranormal group that Gray’s grandfather had ties to comes into play as Gray and Cooper are kidnapped.  Secret individuals want to use their special abilities for a crazy task and won’t take no for an answer.  More people with special abilities are met and a new circle of friends form around Cooper and Gray in their fight against those who would use their abilities to do harm instead of good.

I first reviewed Three of Swords back in October 19, 2012 and gave it a 4.25 rating.  I loved the story but had a problem with the cliffhanger ending.  But now that I have finished all three books, I have to revise the rating upward to 5 stars for  the series and the books within.  So when I got the 2nd and 3rd books, I went back and started from the beginning and oh what a marvelous and seductive ride the author laid out for us.  Each book flows seamlessly into the next, and that is the way I finally read them and appreciated the full extent  of this author’s vision.

Gray Vecello and Cooper Key are the foundation stones on which Fenraven tells a story of individuals fighting to understand who they are and then gaining acceptance for the person they are inside.  Cooper is still trying to overcome the shame of the life he lead after his parents kicked him out for being gay, Gray is still trying to figure out who he is even  as we watch him mature and deal with the gifts he was given.  Character after beautifully realized character rolls across the pages…and then we meet Wade, a young paranormal whose heart-wrenching backstory had me in tears.  Wade’s story is so remarkable that I would recommend buying the story just for that element alone.

But luckily for us, there are so many outstanding facets to this series/trilogy.  We have mysteries, we have murders, we have secret psychic organizations and above all, we have a romance so deeply felt, so warm and right, that I kept going back and rereading parts of their journey towards love and a full partnership.  Gray and Cooper are perfection in their imperfections.  Neither comes across as anything less than authentic.  They feel real, became very real to me, and therefore I invested 100 percent of my affections and interest in their story and their futures.

Lightning Struck Tower is perhaps the most intense of all three stories, and as it ties up so many loose ends, it is also supplies the most satisfying  conclusion to this incredible trilogy.  This portion took me on a roller coaster of emotions, gasps of “no, no, that didn’t just happen”, to sobbing like a baby over Wade’s traumatic past, and I loved every minute of it.  Fenraven skillfully builds our anticipation and anxiety as we can see enemies gathering around our couple, and then adds some wonderful twists and turns that I didn’t see coming.  I feel that every facet of this story is so well done that, really, I have no quibbles other than I wanted much more.

I think you will notice that I switch back and forth between calling this a trilogy or a series.  I did that for a reason.  I just don’t know what it is.  As a trilogy it works beautifully, but there is enough left open ended that additional stories would fit in nicely without taking anything away from these three books. Theo Fenraven told me that it is possible that the author might return to Gray and Cooper,but there are no guarantees.  So I will hold onto that hope, and return back to this trilogy to start over when I need my Gray and Cooper fix once more.

Here are the Precogs in Peril books in the order they should be read to understand the plot and the characters.  Read them one right after the other for full enjoyment and to quickly get over those dang cliffhangers:

Precog in Peril Series 5 stars:

Knight of Wands small Three of Swords small

Three of Swords, Book 1

Knight of Wands, Book 2

The Lightning Struck Tower, Book 3

Cover art by Theo Fenraven

All I Want Is You (Mountain Boys #1.5) by Marguerite Labbe

Rating: 4.75 stars

All I Want Is YouAfter the tumultuous events of the past year, Eli Hollister and Ash Gallagher have settled into their lives, taking their relationship one step further by moving in together at the Hermitage.  Ash is still not satisfied, Ash wants a deeper commitment from Eli. Ash realizes that more than anything he wants to marry his strong-minded, independent lover, but Ash is uncertain about Eli’s views on marriage, especially marriage to him.

It’s their second Christmas together and this time Eli and Ash are headed to Tennessee to spend the holidays with Eli’s family, a visit fraught with anticipated family squabbles, too many people and not nearly enough space for Eli to keep his sanity and Ash work up the courage to propose. Either way it looks to be a memorable Christmas for both men deeply in love but will everything be resolved in time for New Year?

All I Want Is You is a wonderful followup to one of my favorite stories, All Bets Are Off (Mountain Boys #1), published last year by Dreamspinner Press.  That novel charted the romance of professor Eli Hollister and former Marine Ash Gallagher from a rocky beginning when Ash turned up in one of Eli’s classes to a couple in love and committed to making their relationship work.

Marguerite Labbe’s characters have always been so realistic that it is so easy to identify with them, become attached to their happiness.  We can relate to them because their emotions,expectations  and problems  mirror those of the people around us.  From lovely settings to authentic relationship issues, the author delivers a remarkable portrait of two men working their way towards a  Happily Ever After that is both realistsic and romantic. We get to watch as Eli and Ash get to know each other.  We listen as they relate their backstories to one another, and exhibit the push/pull on each other that all new relationships exhibit.  And when they full commit to each other as a couple, the reader is right there with them, as fully involved in their story and relationship as they are.  So imagine how happy I was to hear that Marguerite Labbe was writing a Christmas story for Eli and Ash. And what a Christmas present to her readers it turned out to be.

We listen into Ash’s inner discourse ( I love Labbe’s dialog) on his decision to ask Eli to marry him and then slightly panic when he hesitates to go forward.  Eli too has his hurdles to over come this holidays and it is a huge one.  But the issues raised here about family are ones that have to be addressed and dealt with before another relationship can proceed, and this element will ring out as authentic because so many of us have been there too.

This is so much more than your typical Christmas story where the holidays themselves are central to the story but rather another step forward in Eli and Ash’s relationship.  I hope and feel confidant that Marguerite Labbe will be bringing the boys back for further updates, perhaps even a wedding?   What happy speculations stretch out before us, either way I can’t wait.  But the real present here is that this wonderful story is free.  Download your copy here and settle in to enjoy another warmhearted lovely tale about these captivating Mountain Boys.

Length:  71 pages

Lovely cover art by Fae Sutherland.

Pete’s Persuasion (Shifters’ Haven #7) by Lavinia Lewis

Rating: 4.75 stars

Pete's Persuasion coverTony has been examining his life in New York and doesn’t like what he sees, a shallow man pursuing his career, without friends or a man to love. Tony is missing his best friend, Jake who is now living with his cowboy in Texas and happier than Tony has ever seen him.  So when Tony decides he is due for a change, its to Texas and Jake that he decides to vacation.  A vacation that will land him in the middle of a killer’s quest for revenge and into a world of wolf shifters.

Pete Johnson, beta of alpha Kelan’s Wolf Creek pack, is tired of seeing all the shifters around him find their mates while he remains alone.  After the madness with the council member gone mad, all he wants to do is buy the bar he manages and settle down.  But once more, a killer rises up from the ash of the plot by a Supernatural  Council rogue member to threaten all the members of the Wolf Creek pack.  The night Tony arrives, someone burns both the bar and Kelan’s Crazy Horse Ranch to the ground, killing humans and shifters alike.  During the investigation, Pete meets Tony for the first time and realizes Tony is his mate.  When Jake gets critically injured during the blast that brings down the bar, Tony sees something so unreal, so unbelievable, that he thinks he is hallucinating.  Both Kelan and Pete’s features start to change and Tony discovers the reality of shifters.

As the killer escalates their plan to make the people involved in the rogue Councilman’s death pay, Pete must make Tony understand they are mates, sooth his concerns over shifters being real, and try to keep him safe until the killer is caught.  Not a easy take when Tony is divided between wanting to help and wanting to flee back to New York.  Can Pete persuade his mate to stay with him in Texas or will the killer take revenge on all the shifters in Wolf Creek, and their mates as well.

Shifters’ Haven is a series that continues to grow in depth and complexity and Pete’s Persuasion is the best book yet in this terrific series.  In fact, I still find it hard to believe that it is only 92 pages long as it has the feel and emotional heft of a much larger book.  Pete’s Persuasion continues with the aftermath of the death of the rogue Council member who was killing the mates of shifters who wished to remain hidden from the human world.  Now someone is seeking revenge for his death and everyone is a target.  I loved the continuity that flows smoothly from one book to the next, with nary a dropped plot point.  Lewis never gives us extraneous storyline side trips but instead juggles all the characters and locations masterfully as she maneuvers her characters and the reader towards a goal yet unseen.  If a certain element appears, whether human, shifter or Council law, then you can be sure it will figure seamlessly into the plot at some point, even if it takes a book or two to accomplish it.

Another facet of Lewis’ stories that I admire is that there are no throwaway characters.  If she mentions someone, then you can be sure they will make another  appearance down the line.  Tony, Jake’s best friend of 10 years, is first mentioned in Kelan’s Pursuit (Shifters’ Haven #3), but it took four more books until he reappeared as a main character.  And there is no such thing as a cookie cutter character in her stories either.  These men or shifters laugh, love, and hurt in such a believable fashion that there is never a strain to remember the cast of characters and their relationships to each other, something that can happen with long running series.

A nice element that Lewis works into her shifter universe, is that there is no instant love between mates.  There is desire certainly (hot sex too), there is a feeling of completeness and a recognition that each melds with the other but it takes time for the love to form.  Her shifters also physically shift instead of  a blink of an eye transformation, but there is no physical pain, just a momentary disconnect between the wolf and the man.

And finally, Lewis gives us scenes of such intensity, such fear, that she can make your heart pound and your pulse rate speed up with her action sequences, fight scenes and blazing conflagrations as the  burning buildings start coming down around our characters.  Really, she does an amazing job with her harrowing descriptions and vivid scenes that you feel like you are there.

So I cannot wait for the next in the series and one of the main reasons is that at the end of this book, the killer is once again on the loose.  The plot continues, the anxiety and dread rises with the stakes higher than ever.  Shifters’ Haven has me well and truly hooked.  You will be too but don’t start here. Go back to the beginning and read the series in the order they were written, which is the only way it will make sense.  You are going to love this.

Luke’s Surprise (Shifters’ Haven, #1)

Cody’s Revelation (Shifters’ Haven, #2)

Kelan’s Pursuit (Shifters’ Haven, #3)

Aaron’s Awakening (Shifters’ Haven #4)

Nate’s Deputy (Shifters’ Haven #5) – my review here.

Gregory’s Rebellion (Shifters’ Haven, #6)  – read my review here.

Pete’s Persuasion (Shifters’ Haven, #7)

Cover art by Posh Gosh.  The covers for this series is lovely but not up to the heights of the Leopard’s Spots series.  Still, it pulls in many of the elements of the story and still manages to brand the series from other shifter books.