Tag: mystery

Review of Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander

Rating: 5 Stars

At 26, Austin Glass appears to have it all. He’s a trust fund baby with a loving fiance. He drives fancy cars, wears tailored suits and is a decorated cop with his eye on advancement to the FBI.   His future is bright, shiny and planned out, including his rapidly approaching wedding.  Or is it.  Appearances are often deceiving, so the saying goes. And Austin’s glossy exterior hides a painful past,  bitterness and a self imposed isolation from all around him.

In a heartbeat, everything in Austin’s life changes the minute he spies a young man clearing tables in a dinner.  He’s supposed to be waiting for an informant but all he can concentrate on are the freckles sprinkled across the young man’s nose, red hair, and the tattered bunny slippers adorning his feet.

Peter “Rabbit” Dyachenko, wearer of said bunny slippers, is far older than his twenty years.  His life has been incredibly tough and traumatic.  Peter has done what he had to in order to survive, and its left its footprint on his back.  He’s no one’s fool and everyone is his target.  A case of murder and illegal aliens brings the two men together in a clash that forever changes each others lives.

Where do I start? Well, this story is just jaw droppingly good.  No,  it’s better than that.  It’s amazing. Its a stunning debut novel from Dani Alexander that blows you away from the very first sentence that introduces you to the world of Austin Glass.  Austin Glass is such a vivid, unique creation that he is on my list of all-time favorites characters.  The story is told from his POV, with dialog so amazingly genuine and realistic that I alternated laughing out loud with wanting to hit him on the head with a nerf bat depending upon his predicament, much like everyone who comes in contact with him.  Austin is sarcastic, whining, bitter, funny and good at interrogating criminals while antagonizing his fellow cops.  And his father, and his friends. His inner running commentary on his life and events is telling, the unhappiness seeping through as well as his recognition that all is not well in the state of Austin Glass.

Peter has him confused and off kilter from the beginning.  And you get it! You get it all, as Austin tries to cope with the demands of his job, his fiance, his perfectly laid out future with his increasingly obsessive need to see, to be with Peter no matter the cost.  And there is no doubt that it is going to cost him everything. There isn’t one false note here, nothing!  As Austin starts to unravel, you are right there with him on his emotional rollercoaster right to the shattering end.  And while it’s Austin’s voice in your head, all the other people circling  around his mental drainhole are just as authentic as he is. His fiance could be a one-dimentional obstacle in the way of love and happiness.  But Angelica is heartbreakingly real, and you feel for her as her future with Austin crumbles around her. I could not put this book down, often reading until 3am.  Then I had to go back over chapters the next day because I was too afraid I had missed something by being so tired.

This story has everything, laughter, angst, great characters, mystery, lots of bad guys, cartels, FBI, and hot m/m sex.  Oh, and did I mention a HEA?  It has that too.  But it’s the journey to get there that stays in my head.  I have been meaning to write this review for 2 days but I knew I was going to have trouble with it.  How was I going to keep from gushing? I don’t like to gush.  OK, I’m gushing.  And I always have a quibble or two…where are my quibbles?  Nada, zip, nothing.  And I can’t even say it’s too short, because it’s not.  It clocks in at around 450 pages on my Kindle.  Sooooooo……what to say, what to say?

How about brilliant, absolutely wonderful.  I always mention the publisher when writing a review so imagine my surprise when I learned it was self published.  Why are the publishers not beating this woman’s door down?  Shattered Glass and Dani Alexander deserve a much larger audience, as large as they can get.  So here is another drum banging out a call to all readers who love a great story.  Here it is!  Come meet Austin Glass and Peter Rabbit.  You won’t forget them and neither will I.

And my thanks go out to Chris over at StumblingOverChaos.  It is due to her that I have my copy of Shattered Glass and a new found obsession.  Way to go, Chris, and a thousand catnip toys to Chaos for this one.

Go to Goodreads for more quotes from Shattered Glass but here is a sample:

Shattered Glass Quotes:

“Do you know what I did to the last guy that called me Tinkerbelle?”

“Slept with him?”

Darryl was silent for a second. “After that.”
― Dani Alexander, Shattered Glass

“You’re rich, spoiled and used to getting your own way.”

“Not true. If I had my own way you would have kissed me and ridden me like a cowboy while screaming ‘yeehaw’.”
― Dani Alexander, Shattered Glass

Cover:  Dark and simple.  It’s good, fits in with the story but that is not Austin Glass, the suit is too ill fitting.  He wouldn’t be caught dead in a suit like that.  Available at Amazon, Smashwords, and Goodreads.

Review of Lessons in Discovery, Cambridge Fellows #3 by Charlie Cochrane

Rating: 5 stars

Lessons In Discovery is the third in the Cambridge Fellows series, and the one that cemented my love for Jonty and Orlando. With the first book, the characters felt very removed and dispassionate. I loved the historical feel of the book, but the men? Not so much. The second book, Lessons in Seduction, started to draw me in, as the characters fleshed out and become real. Then the angst and layers of Lessons in Discovery pulled me completely into the world of St. Bride’s and the pairing of Drs. Coppersmith and Stewart.

Previously, Orlando had finally gotten over his fear and made love to Jonty as he had long wished. Now, an enthusiastic partner in their love making, Orlando runs up the staircase to the bedroom ahead of Jonty, slips, and hits his head. The result is a catastrophic head injury that causes partial amnesia. Gone is the year in which he met and fell in love with Jonty. Gone is all memories of first friendship as well as first love. The pain that Jonty feels upon learning that Orlando doesn’t remember him is palpable. But the worst is to come when Jonty decides to tell Orlando that they weren’t just friends but lovers. Trust me when I tell you to have the tissues handy for this one.

Lessons in Discovery take the reader on a journey with Orlando, as he uncovers the layers to his past with Jonty and starts to fall in love with him all over again. Charlie Cochrane does a splendid job with the setting and dialog. I actually felt as though I were walking the frozen fields and paths with Jonty and Orlando during their visit to Jonty’s family at Christmas time. The descriptions of the Hogmanay Ball filled me with delight. And as usual, there is a mystery for the fellows to solve. This time is the mystery of the Woodfield Ward, whose skeletal remains have been found in a well. Both the resolutions of the mystery and Orlando’s missing memories are interwoven beautifully, creating a tapestry of love, mystery, and murder that leaves the reader so very satisfied and content.

So it’s merrily on to the rest of the series. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Jonty and Orlando. I am sure that there will be love, angst and a good mystery as the sun shines over the Cambridge landscape. I think I will go find a supply of bulleyes in preparation for our next visit. Join me.

Blurb from the Publisher, Linden Bay Romance:  Cambridge 1906, On the very day Jonty Stewart proposes that he and Orlando Coppersmith move in together, Fate trips them up. Rather, it trips Orlando, sending him down a flight of stairs and leaving him with an injury that erases his memory. Instead of taking the next step in their relationship, they’re back to square one. It’s bad enough that Orlando doesn’t remember being intimate with Jonty—he doesn’t remember Jonty at all.

Back inside the introverted, sexually innocent shell he inhabited before he met Jonty, Orlando is faced with two puzzles. Not only does he need to recover the lost pieces of his past, he’s also been tasked by the Master to solve a four-hundred-year-old murder before the end of term. The college’s reputation is riding on it.

Crushed that his lover doesn’t remember him, Jonty puts aside his grief to help decode old documents for clues to the murder. But a greater mystery remains—one involving the human heart.

To solve it, Orlando must hear the truth about himself—even if it means he may not fall in love with Jonty the second time around

Cover:  Love these sepia toned covers, perfect for the time period and the story contained within.