Tag: murder mystery

Review: Ride the Lightning (Sinister in Savannah #1) by Aimee Nicole Walker

Rating: 4.75 🌈

I’ve always found Aimee Nicole Walker to be an excellent author so I was happy to find a series of hers I hadn’t read yet. From just the first book I’m in for an outstanding , exciting journey!

Ride the Lightning is the first novel in Walker’s Sinister in Savannah series and it’s amazing. Located in the historic southern city of Savjannah, Georgia, the author makes full use of Savannah’s well known haunts and southern charm as a solid foundation for her characters and their lives which are as deeply seated within that community.

Sinister in Savannah is a crime podcast run by three friends, one of which is Jonas St Johns , a criminal analyst for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations.

Jonas is truly a mesmerizing character. Tall, scarred , highly intelligent, and haunted by his past, Jonas is half the heart of this story. The other half? That belongs, not to the romantic interest, although he’s quite wonderful, but to Jonas’ neighbor, Marla.

Marla, the magnificent drag queen, who let Jonas into her life and now has some decidedly serious favors to ask of him.

Marla and her pug, Betty (named after the fabulous Betty White of course) are everything! She’s captivating, poignant, flamboyant, and magnificent. It’s her touching, intimate, close relationship with Jonas that immediately connects the reader to them and this story. Within that duo , and then within Jonas’ house, we see a odd but wonderful found family start establishing itself.

There’s Kendall, Jonas’s roommate, Avery, the love interest and Jonas’ intern, Felix and Rocky, the other two men who run the podcast with him. By the time the story has ended , the found family and community has swelled around him, due in part to the murder mystery he was asked to investigate.

The old murder mystery touches off all types of revelations and reverberations. Including ones that bring up old memories that have traumatized Jonas for years.

This story is about growth and healing as it is about leaving and letting go.

And found families and forgiveness.

I’m so happy to have found this novel, new characters and series. It’s such a joy to have been on this first journey with Marla . How I love her.

I can’t wait for you all to meet her and everyone else here. I’m highly recommending this story.

And I’m onto the next!

Sinister in Savannah series:

✓ Ride the Lightning #1

◦ Mr. Perfect #2

◦ Pretty Poison #3

https://www.goodreads.com › showRide the Lightning by Aimee Nicole Walker – Goodreads

Truth seeker. Promise keeper. Guarded heart.

By day, Jonah St. John is a criminal analyst for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. By night, he produces Sinister in Savannah, an investigative podcast, with his two best friends. Jonah’s life revolves around three principles: a man’s word is his oath, friendships are priceless gifts, and love is for other people.

When the Sinister in Savannah team delves into the thirty-eight-year-old murder of a drag queen, they quickly discover that the story doesn’t end with the alleged killer’s confession in 1995. Continuing the investigation could have fatal consequences for Jonah and everyone he holds dear, including his irresistible intern.

To love is to lose: a lesson Jonah has learned the hard way. For a decade, he has embraced solitude as his penance for a past mistake. Then came Avery Bradford, a man whose warmth and sunshine infuses Jonah’s battered soul and challenges his resistance. Over the past eight months, Jonah has soared closer and closer to Avery’s flame until the thing he’s feared the most becomes the one he can’t live without.

The chill of danger merges with the heat of desire, forming a deadly superstorm. Will Jonah seek shelter or ride the lightning?

Sinister in Savannah series is a fictional podcast exploring the city’s most nefarious crimes with Southern-fried snark. The books explore friendship, love, loss, and the irrepressible human spirit. Ride the Lightning is book one of three. While each book is written about a different couple, the series should be read in order. Sinister in Savannah is an LGBT romantic suspense series with mature language and sexual content intended for adults eighteen and older.

Review: Never Stay Gone (Big Bend Texas Rangers #1) by Tal Bauer

Rating: 4.5 🌈

I’ve been so busy with fantasy and contemporary romances that I’ve neglected one really great action suspense author. Tal Bauer.

Tal Bauer writes just amazing stories. Ones that might include such elements as government agencies and military spies, secret missions, and any number of inside sub terrorist organizations to deal with. Along with folding in a wonderful romance to boot.

Never Stay Gone is the author’s first story in his new Big Bend Texas Rangers series and it’s great. Jam-packed with so many of my favorite tropes, it’s a fast paced murder mystery and a second chance at a revived passionate relationship as two men race to find a killer. All throughout the unforgettable location of Big Bend Texas.

It’s starts with a terrifying find of a body dump by Deputy Shane Carson out in the desert wilds of Big Bend country Texas. It’s our initial introduction to the murder victims and one of the main characters.

Shane Carson is a small town’s native son who’s never lived up to its and his family’s huge expectations for him. He carries the years of his “failures” heavily. But Bauer’s created a more damaged man then evidenced on the outside.

Only by flashes of his past and glimpses into bits of his relationships with those outside of work does the reader realize Shane’s floundering there too.

It’s a realistic, painful portrait of a man deeply in trouble.

The reason why appears in the form of Texas Ranger Dakota Jennings, who’s been pulled by the Governor herself to handle the investigation into the multiple murders.

One reason? His history with the region and people. Second? One of the bodies worked for the Governor.

Dakota Jennings is as complex a man, albeit in a completely different way then Shane. Each man was damaged by their past with each other. Neither has ever moved forward.

How Shane and Dakota handle their reunion amidst murder, multiple investigations, heartbreak, forgiveness and redemption is a remarkable story.

It’s so compelling from just the personal elements alone as each man grapples with the past and the trauma it’s done to them. Add to that the police work as they track the killer and trace the identities of each victim. So gritty and tough.

This has first/only love, coming out, lovers reunited, second chance at love, hurt/comfort…all set in the dry open spaces of Big Bend country in Texas as a murderer tries to escape justice. It’s thrilling, heartbreaking, and an amazing suspenseful read!

I can’t wait to see where the series takes us!

If you’re not familiar with Tal Bauer, this is a wonderful place to start. I’m highly recommending this!

Big Bend Texas Rangers series:

Never Stay Gone #1

https://www.goodreads.com › showNever Stay Gone (Big Bend Texas Rangers #1) by Tal Bauer – Goodreads

Synopsis:

Six bodies in a single grave… in the same West Texas country where Dakota left everything behind.

Every beat of my heart belongs to you.

Thirteen years ago, Dakota Jennings thought he’d found his forever when he fell in love with Shane Carson. But one afternoon shattered their love story, and both Dakota and Shane left Rustler, Texas, with broken hearts. Even now, Dakota is still feeling the agony of losing Shane. Sure, he’s a Texas Ranger, but that’s not how he wanted to live his life. All he ever wanted was to love Shane.

Loving you is the only time I feel alive.

Shane’s life was supposed to be different than this. There’d been a plan, ever since he was knee-high to his father. But falling for Dakota spun Shane’s world upside down, and for years, Shane has had nothing but the memories of all that he lost: Dakota’s gentle touch, and the sweetness of his lips, and the star-strewn nights they spent wrapped in each other’s arms.

West of the Pecos, there is no law.

When the Rangers get the call about six bodies being pulled out of a mass grave in West Texas, the governor sends Dakota to run the investigation. Dakota heads back to his hometown and comes face-to-face with the last man he ever expected to see again: only now, he’s Deputy Shane Carson… Dakota’s local partner assigned to the case.

There’s nothing Dakota wants more than a second chance with Shane, but so much is stacked against them: six corpses, a murderer on the loose, and history that refuses to stay buried. And the bodies keep piling up as Dakota and Shane try to run the killer down across the West Texas plains.

In a moment, everything changes: the hunters become the hunted, the past fractures, and all Dakota thought he knew comes tumbling down. Secrets break wide open as Dakota remembers–

This is West Texas, and out here, nothing is as it seems.


Big Bend County is a place of beauty and desolation, of secrets and small towns. Where the past and the present collide, and where nothing stays hidden forever.

This MM romantic suspense is the first in the new Big Bend Texas Rangers series. Come along for the West Texas sunsets, the heart-pounding thrills, and the hard-won Happy Ever Afters.

Review: The Enchanter’s Flame (The Ellwood Chronicles #1) by Michele Notaro

Rating: 4.5 🌈

It was a gorgeous cover that drew me to another new fantasy series and new author. It’s glorious colors and outstanding design had me stopping and grabbing the synopsis.

Never underestimate the power of a great cover!

Michele Notaro’s first installment absolutely lives up to that cover! Full of magical characters, a plot full of mystery and murders, and a universe that has a foundation that expands to embrace each new revelation as the story continues.

And it starts so mundanely. With a series of murders and a detective looking for clues to the identity to the serial killer.

That’s our introduction to Det. Sebastian Fitz, ex Special Forces, now a recently transferred Detective who’s been assigned a murder investigation that soon turns into that of multiple murders, with the same weird MO.

Drained blood, tortured victims, and symbolic markings bring Ailin Ellwood, a specialist, into Seb’s case and life.

The story and characters start off slow but as the author builds more of her universe and the characters get more involved in both the investigation and each other, then it starts to come together.

The further I read , the more the characters revealed about themselves, the more I connected with everyone and this story until at parts I was sobbing.

The ending sets up the plots and major conflicts coming for the next story. I’m headed that way.

I’m definitely recommending The Enchanter’s Flame (The Ellwood Chronicles #1) by Michele Notaro. What terrific characters!

The Ellwood Chronicles series:

✓ The Enchanter’s Flame #1

◦ The Witch’s Seal

◦ The Enchanter’s Soul #3

◦ The Witch’s Blood #4

◦ The Enchanter’s Heart #5

◦ The Enchanters New Kids #6

https://www.goodreads.com › showThe Enchanter’s Flame by Michele Notaro – Goodreads

Synopsis:

Strange things are happening all around Brinnswick. Things that remind me of a piece of my past I’d rather forget. Girls are being killed, drained of blood, and left with strange markings on their bodies. When I finally connect the cases together, a specialist is called in—though, what he’s a specialist of is beyond me.

When the chief assigns him as my new partner for the case, I can’t help but groan on the inside. Why of all people would I be assigned to Ailin Ellwood? The man is a disaster waiting to happen and a jerk to boot. A sexy jerk, but a jerk nonetheless.

What will Sebastian think when he discovers Ailin’s specialty? Will he make a run for it or will he stick around and discover a world of magic hidden beneath the city’s surface?

***The Enchanter’s Flame is the first book in the Ellwood Chronicles. It’s a paranormal romance that contains explicit material and is intended for mature adults 18 and over.***

A MelanieM Review: Inheritance (Deadly Curiosities #4) by Gail Z. Martin

Rating:  4.5 stars out of 5

Cassidy Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an antiques and curio shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read the history of objects by touching them, and she teams up with friends and allies who use magic and paranormal abilities to get rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the world safe from supernatural threats.

Caribbean ghosts terrorize Charleston and start racking up a body count. Then Beckford Pendlewood, the heir to a powerful family of dark warlocks, shows up raving about a bound demon locked in a lost box and begs sanctuary. Can Cassidy and her friends find the demon box, stop the killer ghosts, and break the Pendlewood curse before Beckford’s murderous cousins and the vengeful demon destroy them all?

Whether this author is writing as Morgan Brice or Gail Z. Martin, I am in awe of her.    I am still scrambling to find all the connected series she is writing that is assembling this rich paranormal (and now I find out possibly inter-galactic) universe she is building.  Made up of couples of all ages, genders, even species as one happens to be a vampire even, I’m sure I haven’t found them all.  But as I do, more narrative “puzzle pieces” snap beautifully into place, adding their couple, their folklore, their ghosts and mysteries, and yes, their particular specialty or nature of threads for the tapestry the author is weaving.

Inheritance (Deadly Curiosities #4) acts like a magnificent reference for me in that respect, adding a ton of “ahah” moments as well as providing me with a outstanding mystery and several bodies along the way. This is the first book in this series I have read (will remedy that and pick up the rest later) but not , of course, the first time I have heard of this character and some of her associates.  They have already made various appearances in other series I have gobbled up along the way.  So I stepped into somewhat familiar, or what I thought was familiar territory here.

But of course, Martin starts in with her great twists and turns.  She gives us new organizations, a Briggs Society I need more of, visits by Simon and Vic, great local supernatural and paranormal beings and myths.  Just everything I count on and find absolutely delicious and rich.  This is homework to be savored, layered through a story, meshed with mystery and murders most wonderful.  It’s why I love this universe so.

If you are thinking, well, this is M/F, what’s it doing on STRW, well there is no sex, none.  And little to no romance.  It’s investigation with LGBTQIA couples that figure large from this authors other connected series and this series plays a major part in connecting them all together.  So yes, I feel it belongs it.  You will too when you read it.    And I highly recommend you do.  As well as all the connecting series that are part of the grander picture this author is still building.  I hope it’s never finished.  More please!

cover art is perfect!

Buy Links – ebook and paperback 

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK

Book Details:

Kindle Edition
Published October 22nd 2019 by SOL Publishing
ASINB07ZHKR2LD
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Deadly Curiosities #4

 

Some of the Series I have found and read that are closely linked and the chracters all appear on each others books:

Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z Martin

Badlands The Rising Loose Ends

Badlands (3 books) by 

Morgan Brice
I know there are other mentioned in the author’s notes.  I will add them in at a later date.

A MelanieM Review: The Hunt by J.M. Dabney & Davidson King

Rating: 4.5 stars out of  5

Disgraced detective turned private investigator, Ray Clancy, left the force with a case unsolved. Finding the killer was no longer his problem, but it still haunted him. How long would he survive the frustration of not knowing before he gave into the compulsion of his nature to solve the crime?

Server, Andrew Shay, existed where he didn’t feel he belonged, living behind the guise of a costume. Yet it paid the bills, and he refused to complain about the little things in life. One night he returned home from work to find his roommate dead and the killer still there. Afraid and alone, his life spiraled and he didn’t know what to do. Could a detective at his core and a scared young man join forces to bring down the killer in their midst?

When I think of those memorable noir detectives I grew up with (of paper novels and of course film), they have that distinct voice, that precise background that marks them as one of the most complex and compelling characters ever to draw a reader in.  That noir private investigator who usually was once a cop.  Or in this case a Detective.  They are bitter about their fall from the brotherhood in blue, cynical, and just scraping by on the worst of P.I. jobs.  And yes, often haunted by past case or cases.

They are our Sam Spades, Philip Marlowe’s, Mike Hammer’s and more recently Jack Reacher.  They started in novels and spread out into film and other media because they captured something deep in us.  The cynical, partly broken man who still rises up to fight again for an innocent against an evil, or what they perceive to be an innocent against what they perceive to be an evil.  It sometimes gets very messy in noir.  Another reason to love them so.

But those dark, gritty growly voices?  Once heard, they can’t be forgotten.  Those narrators of crimes both mundane and horrendous get under your skin.  They make you want to stay close, fascinated and drawn to them.

Ray Clancy,  framed ex cop joins their ranks, standing out only by his sexuality, something still unacceptable on the force. Here Ray was especially bitter as it had never affected his job, all those years on the force. It wasn’t his sexuality but his iffy background with some suspect criminal ties as kid he had to fight against.

Older, bitter, trying to adjust to his new stature when an innocent seeks his help from a killer of young gay men, a case of his from his days as a Detective.  And with one acceptance, The Hunt is alive!

Authors Dabney and King work several threads here.  One, of course, is the serial killer of all the young gay men and trying to catch him before he strikes again.  There is a revelation here mid story that nicely shakes things up.  Another is the issue of who framed Clancy to get him off the force, and another still of the slowly forming relationship between Ray and Andrew, and what it might mean to them, if they make it through the  case alive.  Always questionable with bodies falling around them.

The writing was wonderfully succinct, sparse in that noir detective way when necessary.  Great twists and turns in the plot, the suspense was a killer, and those scenes towards the end?  Absolutely white knuckle all the way.  I adored it.

I hope to see Ray Clancy hang up his shingle and more cases come his way.  His is a voice you could definitely get addicted to.

 

 

Cover Art:  Morningstar Ashley.  I love this cover.  Dark and mysterious.  Perfect for the story.

Sales LInks:  Amazon  |

Global link: mybook.to/JMDKHunt 

Goodreads:  https://bit.ly/2p7qwug

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 218 pages
Published September 15th 2018 by Hostile Whispers Press, LLC
ASINB07HD1BH75
Edition Language English

SERIES BLAST : Hunter Dane and Camden Snow Series by Adira August (excerpts and giveaway)

 

BOOK 1 

On His Knees (#1 Cam & Hunter 4Ever)

Author: Adira August

Publisher: RedDeer

Length:  13k words/76 Kindle pages

Genres: Contemporary gay, BDSM, erotica

Blurb:

Sometimes it’s the cop who needs to hit the floor…

As a homicide cop, every blood-soaked crime scene settled in my bones and snaked around my spine. There was only one way to exorcise the images from my soul …

Inside the club, I stopped to scan the room. He was here, Camden Snow. A Norse sex god in the guise of unpretentious youth. Only his ice-blue eyes gave evidence of the Dom who took whomever he wished, whatever way he wanted, with a look and a nod. Merciless.

Cam found me watching him and fixed me with his arctic gaze. This time, I didn’t walk away. He cocked an eyebrow. Well?

The last thing I needed was mercy.

I dropped to my knees.

A frank exploration of the D/s dynamic between two powerful men. Consensual. Adult. Intense.

Buy Links

Amazon US  

Amazon UK  

Free on Instafreebie until Nov 24th

Excerpt

It was an early summer evening, the sun half set. I was making my way to the door with one of the club’s boozeless Bloody Marys to find a deck chair and keep an eye on whoever came up the stairs. Decide what I wanted after sunset.

The door opened before I could touch it. He paused, backlit by the setting sun. Golden. Glowing. Idealized male beauty wrapped in an invisible cloak of incredible power. He was so careless of it. He scanned me and grinned. As if the sight of me delighted him. No one grinned here. Not with genuine pleasure.

He passed close to me, still scanning. It was the kind of moment that called for locked gazes and hardening cocks. Instead, he happily looked me over like I was a pastry display and he was deciding which succulent treat to select.

Cam was fresh from deep powder and Olympic triumph. Exuding health and vitality and bonhomie and danger.

I wanted to give him everything, simply because he existed. And looked at me.

He reached out and put a hand on the side of my neck, his thumb skating lightly along my jawline and down, across my larynx. My insides turned to water.

Don’t pick me. Please.

His eyes narrowed a little as if he’d heard. His hand tightened – scarcely, definitely – and withdrew.

“Kneel for me when you’re ready,” he said. And was gone.

BOOK 2

Matchstick Men: Hunter Dane Investigation 1

(Book 2 of 3 in the HuntandCan4ever series)

Author: Adira August

Publisher: RedDeer

Genre/s: Police Procedural, Murder Mystery, Contemporary Gay Erotica, BDSM

Length:  48k words/ 274 pages

Blurb:

SEX, GAMES & MURDER Want to play?

It was munch night at the most elite underground BDSM club in the Rockies. Relaxed and informal, highlighted by the weekly Matchstick Challenge game. Detective Sergeant Hunter Dane, reigning champion, looked forward to a relaxing evening to start his 3 days off. A few beers on the deck. An interlude with a sweet sub. Stumping a challenger with a new puzzle. Home early for a decent night’s sleep.

Some people are SO deadly serious about their games.

Now Hunt has a fresh body and a new puzzle to solve in twenty-four hours if he wants to find a killer.

A 48k police procedural with a liberal dose of M/M hotness. Which means our fave full-metal Dom shows up to collect on Hunter’s offer of his … coffer. So to speak.

There are puzzles for the reader and mysteries to be solved. Based on characters introduced in the short story On His Knees. 

Buy Links

Amazon US

Amazon UK 

Excerpt

Cam looked out the window, leaving me to myself  while I drove us through the quiet dark of the Capitol Hill streets. I wondered why this killer wasn’t perfectly obvious to me. I wondered if it was impossible for me to see them, being so close that everything blurred at the edges and melded together.

“Did anyone ever tell you, you think too much?” Cam asked.

“Did anyone ever not?”

“Take the next alley,” he told me.

“What? Why?”

“You need to stop thinking.”

“Cam,” I put a warning in my voice. “There’s not much time-“

The bastard grabbed the wheel and cranked it hard right.

“Shit!”

“Steer!”

I lifted my foot off the gas, or tried to. He had his left hand on my thigh just above my knee, digging in, pressing down.

“Stop it, goddamn it!”

“Pull into that parking lot.”

“Alright! Just let go, for Christ’s sake!”

He released me instantly and sat back. I managed to miss the light pole and the dumpster and slide into a parking space behind a converted Victorian housing psychologists’ offices. An appropriate place to stop when riding with a no limits lunatic.

The offices were dark, now, but the mosquito bulb over the back door and the security lights at the rear of the building illuminated the lot. And the car’s interior. Anyone walking by could see us. If they saw us in flagrante delicto, they’d call the cops.

Cam had gone too far. I shut off the engine but before I could turn and bust his ass, his fingers found my seat belt release and he launched himself up and over the console into my space, his big hands slid down my arms toward my wrists. I twisted sideways and we wrestled for control of my hands.

I was at a distinct disadvantage under the steering wheel. He bent me toward him and my head was on his thigh.

“Stop it, Cam! Not now, we are not playing!”

He fell back into his seat, taking me with him and manacled me with one hand. But we were sweaty from the struggle and I managed to break his grip, freeing my hands.

He didn’t try to regain them. He simply raised himself and laid his body over mine. My head pressed into his crotch, his weight forced me onto the hard lump of the console.

“You can always safeword you know,” he said. I heard the challenge. The taunting. He was having fun.

“Fuck you,” I grunted underneath him.

I’d never safe worded in my life. Not to “red,” anyway. “Yellow” a few times when I had a cramp or was on call and my cell went off with a dispatch tone.

Safewording might have been an option for me now, if his power and the idea of being at his mercy, of which he possessed none, hadn’t given me a blazing erection.

He’d been betting I wouldn’t go there—confident I wouldn’t safeword. He really was good at this.

I felt his hand at my belt in back. Handcuffs. A thrill of fear and excitement made me choke on air. I struggled again, just enough to feel my inability to stop him from doing exactly what he intended. Jesus, I was hard, weeping against my thigh, trapped by the elastic briefs.

My legs were twisted and caught under the steering wheel. His body locked my right arm against the seatback. He deftly handcuffed my left wrist and calmly found my right and ratcheted the other cuff around it.

This was not the infamous Dom of the club, calculatedly giving me what I needed. Not the sexual virtuoso of last night, expertly bringing me everything I never knew I wanted. Pleasures I never thought existed.

This was the sadist in his element. Loving what he did to me because of what it did for him.

Then, suddenly, I knew who the killer was.

 

BOOK 3

Book Title: Dancing Men: Hunter Dane Investigation 2

(Book 3 of 3—and counting—in the HuntandCam4ever series)

Author: Adira August

Publisher: RedDeer

Genre/s: Police Procedural, Murder Mystery, Gay erotica, BDSM

Length:  70k words/385 pages

Blurb:

You have to bury the past, or the past will bury you.

An ancient burial urn, empty for millennia, is suddenly not so empty.

When Detective Lieutenant Hunter Dane probes the murder at Natural History Museum, it’s his own past that haunts him. To solve the complex case, Hunter needs the talents of Camden Snow, the brilliant, beautiful, “no limits” Dom who’d helped him unravel a very peculiar, and very personal, murder.

But Cam’s ready to kill Hunt, himself! Their high-intensity D/s relationship that began in a playroom, ended in an emergency room.

“If you want to be with me, you’ll have to do more make some big re-entry gesture,” Cam said. “That’s just more drama. You’ll have to work for this, Hunter.”

“All right. What work would that be?” Hunter asked, eager to perform any penance Cam gave him.

“You’re the champion puzzle-solver and ace detective. Unravel a mystery.”

Hunter’s brows pulled together. “What mystery?”

“Me.”

For adults who love some mystery with their men. A 70k police procedural with a liberal dose of M/M heat. The 2nd of the Hunter Dane Investigations. Matchstick Men, their 1st case, also available on Amazon. Their next case, Psychic Men, will be out in spring of 2018

Excerpt

The Mystery

“You are familiar with the Tamil burial jars case I’m hearing?” the judge asked as she led him into her chambers.

“Enough to know the case exists,” he said, putting his professional face on. Why would they need a homicide investigator for an international property dispute? “I should mention I’m acquainted with Doctor St Clair who was appointed head of the research team.”

“I see,” she said, taking her chair but not inviting him to sit. “Do I have to go over confidentiality? I was informed with you it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“It isn’t,” he said.

“Good.” She sat forward and clasped her hands on the desk. “Expert testimony the Court finds to be compelling establishes the impossibility of determining the geographic origin of the jars or when they were created and sealed without extensive testing. There will be a problem of international relations if I award the urns to the Denver museum and later testing reveals clearly that the plaintiff did have standing.”

Hunter nodded. The judge cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. “You understand the issue?”

“It will look as if we must have known all along and used a technicality in the law to keep the jars here. I imagine they have more than scientific value?” he said.

A slow and very small smile appeared. “Have a seat,” she told him. He did.

“At my request, Doctor St Clare sent a doctoral fellow to take air samples from the jars to determine how long ago they were sealed. That was ten days ago. I received the results on Friday. So did the attorneys. After which, I issued a gag order.”

Hunter waited for her to get to the point.

“I’m curious, detective, what you would guess the tests showed?”

“At least one of the air samples had a much higher level of carbon dioxide than would be present when the jars were made. And traces of methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide and nitrogen. Decomp gases.”

Her Honor nodded.

“There’s flesh rotting in one of those jars and it wasn’t put there a thousand years ago,” Hunter said.

Buy Links

Amazon US

Amazon UK

 

GIVEAWAY

November Rafflecopter Prize 1 x $25 Amazon gift card 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

SERIES BLAST AND REVIEW TOUR SCHEDULE

NOVEMBER

 

November 13

Millsy Loves Books    

Gay Book Promotions 

November 16  

Lily G Blunt   

November 21

Bayou Book Junkie 

Men & Men Midnightcafe.uk  

November 24

Gay Book Reviews 

November 30  

The Blogger Girls

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 

Stories That Make You Smile      

MORE POSTS TO FOLLOW IN DECEMBER

 

 

About the Author

TYPOS ARE MY TRADEMEARK

I write mostly BDSM EROTICA because I love exploring the power dynamics in terms of the love relationships. The work is explicit. It’s always consensual. If you have triggers about certain kinds of practices, use discretion. I do not make kink lists for my titles.

I went to school interminably, it seemed like. I studied anthropology and paleontology and genetics and literature and theology and ancient Greek. I chased down bad guys, raised children, climbed mountains, played poker, searched for dinosaurs and have had a rather large number of lovers. (I’m not giving up any numbers because TMI) Through it all, I wrote.

No wonder I’m so tired.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

You can read all my books stand-alone. There’s plenty of information about what happened previously in Hunt and Cam’s story for you to easily follow their relationship arc. The mysteries are always complete within the stories.

BUT if you’re a romance lover, the relationship story is not a romance. It is a love story. But it’s also the story of two independent Alpha males: one gay and one bisexual, one Dom and one switch with a preference for BDSM. And they aren’t simple, take it from someone who shares headspace with them.

I love these guys. They surprise me and challenge me and break my heart, sometimes. They inspire me.

(Just some FYI for the new readers. Hi. Welcome.)

Addi

Social Media Links

Blog/Website

Facebook Author Page

Addi’s Facebook Spoiler Group

Twitter

 

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An Alisa Review: Loose Ends by Jeff Erno

Rating:  3 stars out of 5

 

Homicide detective Tucker Brown hasn’t always made the right decisions, but one thing about his life he’ll never regret is his son Jaydin. While at the hospital for his four-year-old’s tonsillectomy, he encounters Jaydin’s nurse, Ivan Ramsey. Tucker is taken aback, however, when he discovers he’s been assigned to investigate the potential murder of Ivan’s mother.

 

Ivan Ramsey is a pediatric nurse, and he loves his job more than life. Raised in a devoutly religious family, he’s not yet out to a lot of people, but on the very night he chooses to come out to his mother, she dies tragically in a house fire. Devastated by the news, Ivan all but falls to pieces, and to make matters worse, a cocky, know-it-all police detective shows up asking nosy questions. The cop implies his mother’s death might not have been an accident and even infers a family member might be responsible.

 

Tucker and Ivan at first clash. Their strikingly different personalities are oil and water, but soon they begin to work together to determine the real cause of Ivan’s mother’s death. In the process, sparks begin to fly and a romance ignites. Ivan falls hard, not only for the sexy detective but also his adorable son.Tucker, equally smitten, has made some discoveries he can’t yet reveal to his lover. There are so many loose ends and unanswered questions for both of them, and when the truth finally comes out, it just might tear them apart.

 

This was a sweet story about family and love.  Ivan loves kids and working in the pediatrics unit in the hospital is the perfect place for him.  Tucker can’t help but think about his son’s nurse even though he knows he should keep his distance especially because of his job.

 

Ivan makes some assumptions about Tucker and his life that he soon learns are not quite valid.  Tucker is trying to solve the murder of Ivan’s mother and keep Ivan in his personal life.  Ivan needs something stable in his life when everything seems to go wrong at once and Tucker seems to be that person.

 

I felt so bad for Ivan when he got the news about his mother’s murderer and feeling what he portrayed as Tucker’s betrayal.  I loved that Tucker has an endless amount of patience with his son and with Ivan.  While I really liked the story the further I got into it the more name mix ups and misspellings that kept coming up and it unfortunately took away from my enjoyment of the story a bit.

 

Cover art by Louca Matheo is nice and gives nice visuals of Ivan, Tucker and Jaydin.

 

Sales Links: Amazon | B&N | Google | Kobo

 

Book Details:

ebook, 183 pages

Published: August 28, 2017 by Ai Press

Edition Language: English

Back from GRL, Pulp Friction Week, Book Contests and the Week Ahead in Reviews

It’s Sunday and I have been back from GRL in Atlanta a whole week but it feels like only yesterday.  How does that happen?  I still haveGRL ATL -Atlanta-skyline one small suitcase to empty, my swag bag contents are scattered across parts of the kitchen table like so much titillating, lovely fall debris.  And I have yet to take all my books and stack them close to the bed for reading.  Sigh.  I have an awful feeling that I will open the suitcases to pack for GRL in Chicago next year only to find the remnants of GRL Atlanta still laying inside ready to be put away.

It was an outstanding conference.  So many wonderful authors, publishers, bloggers, and readers to meet and talk with.  Amy Lane, Shira Anthony, JP Barnaby, Lynn Lorenz, Venona Keyes, Marguerite Labbe, Wade Kelly, RJ Scott (making the journey from the UK), Mary Calmes, Jessica Freeley, Kaje Harper, Anne Tenino, Laura Harner, Tom Webb, Katey Hawthorne (my roomy), so many more.  I know I will kick myself when I realize who I have left out. Oops Keturah from Riptide, Dolorianne from Wilde City, Kris Jacen, editor extraordinaire from MLR, ack my brain cells are running out….My head and thoughts swirl under all the great people I got to see and meet there.  TJ Klune and Eric Arvin got engaged in a tearful and heartwarming engagement in front of a Q & A audience to our delight.  The Heaven and Hell Ball sawDSCN4099 DSCN4103so many great costumes from the sublime to the silly and everything in between while the gorgeous Atlanta city lights twinkled as our backdrop. That is Edmond Manning (King Perry)to the right and the sexy Drake Jaden, porn star and model for the cover of JP Barnaby’s Painting Fire on the Air (Survivor Stories #2). Be still my heart!  I don’t know who that funny person is in the Queen of Hearts wig and outfit! lol.  From Heidi Cullinan, Reese Dante ,Ethan Day , Teresa Emil ,Carol Lynne , and  Damon Suede , thanks for organizing a great conference.,They made GRL memorable for me and everyone else I talked to.  I can’t wait for GRL in Chicago next year!

I will probably still be packed for it.

Now I am so excited for the week ahead as I am trying something new here.  Next week is Pulp Friction Week at Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words and a multiple book contest to go along with 4 great authors and 4 wonderful intertwined series.  The Pulp Friction group consists of Havan Fellows, Lee Brazil, LE Harner and TA Webb.  They got together (I will let them tell it in their own words) and decided to write a group of serialized stories reminiscent of pulp fiction that interconnected through a group of tightly bonded men.  I have slowly been reviewing each series at four books a piece.  Now it all culminates in a fifth book each and a guest post from each corresponding author.  A review of the fifth book follows the author’s post in the afternoon.  This is how our week shakes out.

Wicked Solutions coverFifty Fifty Chances Are coverMonday, October 28:    Havan Fellows and Wicked’s Way series

Review of Wicked Truths (Wicked’s Way #5)

Tuesday, October 29:    Lee Brazil and Chances Are series

Review of Chance In Hell (Chances Are #5)

Wed., October 30:         L.E. Harner and Triple Threat series

Review of Duplicity (Triple Threat #5)

Defiance coverStarry KnightThurs., October 31:       T.A. Webb and City Knight series

Review of Darkest Knight (City Knight #5)

Friday, Nov. 1:       Pulp Friction Wrap up, Announcements, and

Winners of the book contests

Saturday, Nov. 2:          October Summary of Reviews

To be entered into the contest, just leave a comment on any post this coming week and you will automatically be entered one of four books being offered up by the authors.

Author Spotlight: Meet Lee Brazil!

ST: Good morning, everyone.  Today’s guest author is Lee Brazil, author of the wonderful Chances Are series in the Pulp Friction offerings.   Good morning, Lee!

*pats chair and hands Lee a cup of coffee*.

“Don’t mind the terriers, they will ask their own questions later”  *shoos away dogs*

LB: Good morning! Thank you for inviting me over to talk today. For those who don’t know me, I’m Lee Brazil, author of m/m romance with Breathless Press, Silver Publishing, Evernight, and Total E Bound. I’m also a member of a writing association known as Pulp Friction.Chances Are cover

*sips coffee*

LB: Which is what Melanie invited me to discuss today. Pulp Friction came about as a mash-up of old fashioned pulp fiction writing and modern romance. Laura Harner suggested it to us, and the three of us jumped on the band wagon quickly. Originally, it was supposed to follow a strict format of 8 thousand words, and other tried and true pulp strictures.

ST: “Tell me about Chance.  How did he come about?”

LB: When Chance was born, I knew keeping it with in those bounds was going to be impossible. Telling his whole story, getting across the complexity of who he is in eight thousand words wasn’t going to happen. So it became a serial.

ST: “When we think of Pulp Fiction, we think tough, wise-guy detectives who have seen it all.”

LB: Chance is my version of the hard boiled tough guy, he’s known grief and pain, and disappointment, and that’s where we meet him, wallowing in his past. He presents a cold and unfeeling persona to the world and tells himself he’s happy with what he has.

That’s Chance in the first book, Chances Are, where that façade begins to crack. As the stories progress through small mysteries and tragedies and life happens to Chance, the cracks grow bigger and wider and eventually the walls fall down, blasted to rubble by his stalwart friends and a feeling he hadn’t been aware of growing inside.

ST: But that changes, doesn’t it?

LB: When he wasn’t looking his heart was sneaking people in, from the drunkard cop who sits at his bar every night, the cocky but dependable Gerry the bartender, the melancholic chef Blake and all Chance’s old buddies from his days on the force, Wick and Marcus and Zack the civilian. Turns out, he’s never been as alone as he thought.

And into this mix comes Rory. The golden-skinned, golden-haired open-hearted antithesis of Chance’s lost love. He finagles his way into Chance’s bed, and into his life, seeking more at times than Chance is willing to give.

Chance’s own sense of integrity eventually convinces him that his relationship with Rory is wrong, but events transpire that force him to take a deeper look into his closed off heart and make changes in his life. In the end, Chance learns to let go of the past, to embrace the possibilities of the future and to allow himself to be happy.

And the stubborn mule headed ex-cop turned my whole pre-drafted story line upside down in the second installment of the serial. Because that’s who he is. A man who has to follow his own path even when it wanders through hell.

ST:  I just love Chance and the entire series.  I can’t wait for the next book to be released.  Thanks for coming by today, Lee.

LB: *sips coffee. Thanks for joining while I blather about my sexy ex-cop. You can pick up the latest Chances Are book, Chance in Hell at ARE, Smashwords, and Amazon on September 1. In anticipation of that release, I’m offering a discount of 33% on the first four stories at ARE from August 28th until September 4th.

If you want to know more about me and my work, you can find me at the following places on the web:
Lee on FB http://www.facebook.com/lee.brazil
Lee on Twitter @leebrazil
Lee Blog http://leebrazilauthor.blogspot.com/
Pinterest http://pinterest.com/leebrazil/
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKmjXLWlO4c2_5ZZQigbeZg?

Books in the series to date in the order they were written and should be read to understand the characters and events within:

Chances Are (Chances Are #01)
Second Chances Are (Chances Are #02)
Fifty Fifty Chances Are (Chances Are #03)
Ghost of a Chance (Chances Are #04)