Out on the Net by Rick R. Reed

TITLE: Out on the Net
AUTHOR: Rick R. Reed
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 18k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary romance
COST: $5.00

Ray Tolliver realizes on the day he’s supposed to get married that he’s gay, so he calls off the wedding…at which point, he begins blogging about his experiences in hopes someone else might be able to learn from his choices…

This short novella is comprised of a series of blogs written by recently out Ray Tolliver. It starts with his wedding day, where he finally admits to himself that he’s gay. His best friend Doug agrees to cover for him when he wants to call it off, at which point, Ray sets out recording his new life. He’s a virgin to gay sex, so his first entries are about the local rest stop notorious for gay hook-ups and his adjustment to being single again. They progress from there to his first date and beyond.

The appeal here is in the chatty nature of the author’s voice. It reads much faster than 18k, which works both for and against it. In the case of the former, it meant getting sucked in and finishing it before I knew it. For the latter, however, I got done and wondered, “That seemed a little easy.” I liked Ray, and I liked the window I got into his life, but without getting more depth into the resolution, I didn’t really buy it. I also wondered why Doug, the best friend who took the brunt of an angry bride and wedding party, never even got a mention after the first chapter. For someone who was so supportive and helpful, I would’ve thought Ray would look to him to for moral support at the very least. But no, Doug is just gone after that.

There are fourteen blog entries, but they lack dates to know just how much time has passed between each one. It’s sometimes easy to pick up on it, but not always. However, in spite of these flaws, the peeks we get into Ray’s life are entertaining and authentic. Reed proves his finesse with multiple genres here, ensuring I’ll keep coming back to his titles, regardless of what he decides to tackle next.

Readability	8/10 – Chatty and breezy, though sometimes the dialogue felt unnatural
Hero #1	8/10 – Believable and sweet
Hero #2	4/10 – This is where I had problems with the dialogue, I never really believed him
Entertainment value	7/10 – Liked the format and the freshness of the protagonist
World building	7/10 – A strong balance of details within the blogs
TOTAL:	34/50

To Die For by Caitlyn Willows

TITLE: To Die For
AUTHOR: Caitlyn Willows
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 42k)
GENRE: Contemporary suspense erotic romance
COST: $7.00

Once a victim of domestic abuse, Zoe has moved on with her life, doing her best to rebuild with the man responsible for the damage behind bars. But now he’s out, and in a chance encounter, lets her know he’s coming after her. When Detective Frank Ludwig finds out, he swears to protect her. He’s been in love with her for six months, and damned if he’s going to let anybody hurt Zoe, even if she’s more than capable of taking care of herself…

Though this romantic suspense had a lot of potential in it, I finished it feeling like it just never quite hit the mark.

It starts off at an emotional high, as Zoe is coming off her shift where she has just saved a cop’s life by talking to him and keeping him engaged. However, in the same incident, she was also threatened. Her abusive ex-boyfriend was the criminal in question, and when he heard her voice, exploded with anger, emotions that have built since he was arrested and convicted after she’d turned him in. She arrives at a Denny’s, trying to figure out what she’s going to do next, and is dismayed to see a group of cops she works with there already. They applaud her as a hero, but when the man she’s been lusting over, Frank Ludwig, decides to join her, the whole story comes out. Frank has been in love with Zoe for months. When he hears about the danger, he refuses to see her slip through the cracks, taking her personal safety into his own hands while the department does what they can to track down her ex. Thus begins an explosive few days, as the threats escalate and the pair come to grips with their mutual attraction.

In spite of the confusing opening pages, enough becomes clear as the story progresses and Zoe opens up to Frank a little. I was intrigued about where it was going. Zoe is sympathetic and relatable to many women, insecure, plus-sized, and I liked her, even though she felt scattered. I disregarded the latter because it felt organic to her situation. I was meeting her in the middle of an emotional crisis. Of course, she’d be scattered. But what was scattered at the start became bouncing around from one extreme to another as the story progressed. It got a little tedious.

Frank proved the same. I liked him from the start, his fierce defense of Zoe, his determination to do the right thing. I was rolling onto loving him until the first time he really put his foot in his mouth. He has a tendency to stop thinking once their relationship turns sexual, and blurts out the first thing he thinks of, which is usually very much the wrong thing to say in the moment. This propensity gets worse as the story goes on, mostly because it felt like that was the only way to create any internal conflict between these two. They yo-yo like this throughout the entire book, a jerky effect that is mirrored by the stop and go nature of the suspense angle. It makes it easy to put down, even though I wanted to pick it up again moments later.

Suspense thrives on building tension, and while there is danger throughout this book, when the lulls come, the tension drops away almost entirely rather than ebb enough to relax the reader into getting sucked even harder into the next swell. I suspect it worked against me because of the extended nature of the romantic scenes within those lulls. I needed that momentum in the romance, but they went on too long for me, even as hot as these two were together.

In the end, the story was enjoyable enough for me not to regret reading it, but I ultimately feel like maybe with some tighter editing, it could have been really great.

Readability	7/10 – Minor typos and some terminology that usually turns me off, but otherwise swift and easy
Hero	6/10 – His reactions felt realistic in hindsight, but his propensity for stepping in it wore thin
Heroine	6/10 – Liked that she knew how to take care of herself, but she felt a little all over the place
Entertainment value	6/10 – The pacing was rather jerky, making it easy to put down when I hit lulls
World building	7/10 – The emotional reality of Zoe’s past was well-done, but I kept feeling like I was missing something in regards to the suspense portion
TOTAL:	32/50

Bring the Heat by M.L. Rhodes

TITLE: Bring the Heat
AUTHOR: M.L. Rhodes
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 31k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $6.00

For weeks, Detective Riley Ellison has been crushing on a gorgeous guy from afar, going into a different coffee shop than his normal just for the chance to see him. When the guy surprises him by buying him a coffee and giving him his number, Riley is taken aback, but doesn’t follow through, convinced a beautiful man like that would never be interested in a reformed geek. Color them both surprised, however, when the crush turns out to be a person of interest in Riley’s most recent homicide investigation…

This is one of those authors that I see touted around the blogosphere as well loved, but after reading this second offering from here, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s just not to my taste.

The story starts out promising. Riley is a geeky cop, struggling with self-image, who’s been going into a different coffee shop for the past three weeks because he’s crushing on a guy who is totally not his usual type. Meaning, completely gorgeous and out of his league. Unsafe. On the day he vows it’s the last time, the guy surprises him by paying for his coffee and giving Riley his phone number, only to disappear when Riley looks for him afterward. Riley doesn’t follow through on calling, mostly out of fear that it’s all one big game and he’ll be made a bigger fool by trusting it. When he’s out questioning people in relation to a new murder case he has, a stripper at a gay club, he’s shocked to learn his mystery man is Dane Scott, a co-worker and next on his list.

That’s when it begins going downhill for me. I’m not a fan of insta-love, and that’s pretty much what this is. Riley and Dane can’t keep their hands off each other, which is all well and good for having hot sex, but as soon as they start talking commitment and something longer the very same night, my brakes come screaming on. I just don’t believe it, especially with a guy like Riley. It’s romantic fantasy fluff, and not what I read for most of the time. It doesn’t help that Dane is completely idealized. He’s gorgeous, he’s well-off, he cooks, he says all the right things, he’s great in the sack…the list goes on. He’s too good to be true, which makes it all that much more unbelievable that Riley, a cautious guy by nature, would fall for him so hard, so fast.

Any hope that the cop/murder angle will provide some added interest gets tossed aside too soon. Most of the case is handled and resolved off the page, leaving only the explanations for what happened to read after the fact. The characters involved in it never appear on the page themselves, and there’s never any real threat to either Dane or Riley, so calling this a mystery or suspense would be a complete misnomer. The murder is simply a device to shove Riley into Dane’s life, since it’s obvious Riley won’t take that step himself. It’s not even handled gracefully afterward to lift it above its contrivance.

I can’t even say the prose elevates this. There was an editorial mistake in the second paragraph on the very first page that almost had me stopping then and there before I decided to continue on, and unfortunately, more abounded as I made my way through the story. I know for a fact this author is appreciated by a lot of readers, probably for the very same reasons I find myself turned off to her work. But at least I now know that her style of romance is just not for me.

Readability	7/10 – Some editorial mistakes kept jumping out at me, and the off-page explanations were dry and boring
Hero #1	7/10 – Nice to see a cop that’s not Mr. Macho
Hero #2	4/10 – Far too perfect to be believable
Entertainment value	6/10 – Fluffy and romantic if that’s what you’re looking for, but insta-love doesn’t really work for me most of the time
World building	5/10 – Very extraneous to the story, the cop angle was more of a device to get these two connected than anything of real interest or complications
TOTAL:	29/50

Afterlife by Natalie J. Damschroder

TITLE: Afterlife
AUTHOR: Natalie J. Damschroder
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 14k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotica
COST: $4.00

A parachuting jump goes wrong, and Chloe finds herself in the afterlife, facing a choice. She’s been given the opportunity to spend eternity with her True Love. The only problem, she has three of them, and now she has to choose…

Adventurous Chloe goes parachuting, but when her chute malfunctions, she dies and finds herself in the afterlife. There, she’s told briefly how the afterlife works, and that she is fortunate enough to be part of those who have had a True Love. She gets to spend eternity with him now. The problem is, she’s had three of them – her high school bad boy sweetheart, the man she spent ten years of her life with in domestic comfort, and the one she flirted with but never followed through on. She has to choose and gets one day with each to help make up her mind. The days go as expected, meaning briefly getting reacquainted followed by sex. When she’s all done, however, she’s more confused than ever.

The possibility of how this might turn out lent a natural tension to the story as I read, but while that helps in making me rush through to the ending, it ended up distracting me sufficiently from enjoying the moment like Chloe was. Her three choices are very different. Brady was her high school sweetheart, the bad boy she left behind when she went to college, killed before she could return. Then there’s Eli, the man she lived with for ten years, until her miscarriage drove them apart. Finally, there’s Tristan, a man she flirted with when her relationship with Eli was on the decline but never actually slept with. Each offers something different to her, and did in the past as well when she had them in her life. She gets the chance to get a taste of each, but her constant uncertainty of what she’s going to do heightens the stress levels even when she’s supposedly at peace within the scenario. Because the question of what she’s ultimately going to choose hangs like the sword of Damocles over every aspect. By the time I got to the final chapter, I respected all three men and what they had meant for her, but had no clue how to go about committing to one. It’s all so very much wrapped up in who you are as a person and where you are in your life, the questions that are never answered for which you yearn for resolution. Everyone who reads this is likely to have a completely different take, simply because we’re all uniquely positioned when we pick up a story.

Though there’s a sex scene associated with each of the men, this is much more emotional erotica than sexual. That’s not to say it doesn’t get graphic because it does, but it works as well as it does because of the knotty feelings that are involved rather than heat of the moment. It does feel manipulative at times, but when you’re dealing with such complex feelings, that’s probably to be expected a little bit. Can I recommend this, then? I think it depends on what you’re looking for, to be honest. I didn’t check back with the publisher site before starting it and thought I was reading a romance. It’s not. It’s very much not. Some of the genre expectations I have from that ended up diminishing my overall reaction to the story. On the other hand, there’s some real feelings generated by it, and the characters are well-rounded and believable. It does have the use of a miscarriage to generate emotional conflict, so if this is a trigger issue, it might be worth skipping because of that, but otherwise, go into it with open eyes and you might be rewarded.

Readability	8/10 – Clean, unassuming, but much of the same tempts me to skim
Erotica	7/10 – More about the emotions than the sex, which makes a nice change
Characterization	8/10 – Surprisingly differentiated and believable
Entertainment value	7/10 – Expecting a different genre as I was reading altered my expectations enough to diminish my appreciation of the work as a whole
World building	6/10 – Within scenes, rather lovely; as a greater whole, I needed more answers
TOTAL:	36/50

Letter of the Law by C.K. Crigger

TITLE: Letter of the Law
AUTHOR: C.K. Crigger
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 71k)
GENRE: Western
COST: $7.00

When gunslingers decide they want to take over Endurance, only one man seems to be standing in their way. They do their best to take down Sheriff Pelham Birdsall, but through the sheer tenacity of his wife Delight, he survives the attack. It lays him up, however, leaving the town wide open. His deputy is lazy and a drunk, and the only man Delight seems to have any confidence in helping is the ex-gunslinger who’s currently housed in one of the jail cells. Tuck Moon doesn’t want to get involved, but Delight isn’t a woman who takes no for an answer, and together with a recovering Pel, the trio do everything in their power to take care of the gunslingers, once and for all…

It saddens me to think that westerns might be a dying genre. There’s something about the grittiness of the Old West and the kind of people it generates that fascinates me. So when I find one I really like, I want to shout it to the world.

This was one of those books. On the surface, it’s not really that original. The story is about the Birdsalls, Pelham (the Sheriff) and his wife Delight. A new gang has rolled into town, and while he’s out doing his duty, Pel gets shot in the chest. It’s touch and go there for a while, since the town doctor is a drunk, but Delight is determined not to let Pel die. She’s left somewhat watching over things, since Pel’s deputy is lazy and spends more of his time drunk as well. Currently housed in one of the cells is Tuck Moon, an ex-gunslinger who was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. He’s respectful and helpful to Delight, and she learns to trust him very early on. With her husband out of commission, it’s up to Delight to try and keep everyone believing that he’ll be back on the job as soon as possible to take care of the latest threat, knowing full well that he’s lucky just to be alive. Through a series of incidents, Tuck ends up becoming a deputy as soon as his sentence is up, and together the three of them do what they can to stop Endurance from becoming another ghost town.

What sets this story apart is the rich cast of characters. Each of the three primaries are strong yet flawed individuals. Pel has a sense of honor and code that goes all the way to his core, Delight was a sheriff’s daughter before getting married and finds newfound strength in the face of her husband’s adversity, and Tuck is a drifter who gets a new lease on life when someone completely unexpected trusts him. They make mistakes, but the best thing is, they learn from them and bounce back. Sometimes, they get knocked over again. They might even make the same mistake more than once. But their tenacity and force of character drives the story forward, making me care with everything I have that it all works out, even when it looks like there’s no way it possibly can. There are no cheats when it comes to the consequences of their actions. When Tuck takes a beating, it flattens him for real. He has to heal up. He doesn’t miraculously jump back to his feet to beat the bad guys down. And for all her determination to see things through, Delight doubts herself all the time. She questions her strength. She acts, oh my god, like a real person. What an absolute joy, especially since she’s not the only one.

The villains of the piece don’t have the same textures the protagonists do, but that’s a flaw of the genre in general. I also felt that some of the townspeople blended together a little too much, since so many of them weren’t willing to do anything to stand up against the bad guys (understandably so, but to the detriment of their uniqueness). Other weaknesses of the story are harder to pinpoint. For instance, I can’t tell if there’s actual headhopping going on, or if it’s just faulty formatting on the ebook side. Plus, some of the language used borders on trite and stereotypical. Considering how gritty and vivid the setting and primary characters were, that was disappointing.

Overall, though, this stands proudly with other excellent stories in its genre. With characters to care about and root for, plot twists that keep it racing forward to its conclusion, and a setting that makes the reader practically feel the dust beneath the sole of his shoe, this cements my opinion on this writer. This is the second of her westerns that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I’m confident it won’t be the last.

Readability	7/10 – It’s hard to tell if it’s headhopping or the formatting, and some of the stereotypical language grated after a while, but otherwise engrossing
Characterization	9/10 – Loved the main characters. Gritty and flawed and completely believable
Plot	8/10 – It’s not the most innovative of ideas, but the twists that came along to get where they were going made up for it
Entertainment value	8/10 – Thoroughly entertaining, with a memorable cast
World building	9/10 – Gritty and grimy without sacrificing the newness of being in the Old West
TOTAL:	41/50

Pioneers by Lynn Lorenz

TITLE: Pioneers
AUTHOR: Lynn Lorenz
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 21k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay erotic romance
COST: $5.00

For his latest project, Matt wants to do a documentary about gays living in New Orleans for the past fifty years, and key to that is interviewing his landlord, Sebastian LaGrange. Sebastian’s life has been colorful to say the least, and the stories he has to tell more than revealing…

Note to publishers: If books are interconnected because of recurring characters, I want to know before I buy. It doesn’t matter if they’re not sequels. Some of us readers do not like coming into a story where characters have had history prior to the story’s start that is detailed in other books. Because if I had known that the characters in this had been in another, earlier story? I would never have bought this book. And it makes me not trust you for future purchases, either, because I hate getting caught out like this.

This isn’t your traditional romance. It’s primarily highlights of Sebastian’s life, as Matt asks him questions about being a gay man in New Orleans over the past few decades. It’s interspersed with current happenings, like Matt and his boyfriend Lane being all gooey for each other, and Sebastian reminiscing on his own outside of the documentary format, but this is mostly a lovefest for a character that, while charming, lacked any sort of emotional pull for me because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something.

It turns out I was. I didn’t discover it until I was preparing to write this review, but this is connected to another story set in New Orleans that this author has written. Apparently, Matt and Lane appear in Pinky Swear, a story I didn’t read. Sebastian was in it, too. That explains the constant nagging sense that I was an outsider not privy to certain details about these men. I didn’t have them. I had no history with them. I had questions galore that weren’t answered. But still, the story failed to give me everything I needed to appreciate the characters for who they were. Without a prior emotional connection, they come across as too saccharine and superficial.

That being said, I did like the perspective given on growing up gay in a much different era, even when it wasn’t really that long ago. Sebastian’s life has been colorful to say the least, and getting to hear about some of those exploits was interesting if not emotionally engaging for me.

I’ll be very wary of buying this author or from Amber Allure again. I don’t want to have to work to find out if a story is connected to others in some way. It’s too much like coming into the middle of a movie. Others might not have problems with it, but I’m far too linear when it comes to things like this. I want to start at the beginning and go straight through to the end. I don’t skip ahead, I don’t read the ending first, and I avoid spoilers at all costs. Seeing Matt and Lane’s HEA doesn’t make me want to go out and buy the book where they meet. I already know how it works out (and yes, I know it can be argued that we always know how romances will work out since it’s part of the genre rules, but this goes beyond that because I’ve already been in their future). I read to feel, and if I know specifics about what's to come, I'm very unlikely to immerse myself enough to let emotions win.

Readability	7/10 – Strongest portions are dialogue-driven, I find this author’s voice tends to get a little too sappy for me in the non-dialogue parts
Hero #1	7/10 – Campy and charming
Hero #2	4/10 – Since the story is mostly about Sebastian’s love life, he gets little page time until late in the story, and then it feels very idealized
Entertainment value	6/10 – I liked the way it was set up, and the potential of what was to come, but didn’t connect emotionally to many of the characters; the sense of being on the outside looking in prevailed too much
World building	6/10 – The sense of what he went through when he was still young comes through in the actions if not the prose
TOTAL:	30/50

Master Bear by Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks

TITLE: Master Bear
AUTHOR: Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 20k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary BDSM erotic romance
COST: $5.00

When his Master decides not to undergo a fourth round of chemotherapy, Chris finds himself forced to take part in finding his next dom, someone to take care of him when William is gone, someone he can serve with the same dedication and love. Through his Master’s decline, he tries to be strong, but it’s only with the new friendship of William’s hospice nurse that he’s able to start having hope for his future…

High angst is a hard sell for me in romance, though I do occasionally get sucked into buying one. This particular story worked for me in some regards, but not so much in others.

For the past five years, Chris has been William’s sub, his slave in many senses of the word. Things were good for the first three years, but then William was diagnosed with cancer. The first three rounds of chemotherapy failed, but William doesn’t have the strength to endure a fourth. He’s decided to have a quiet, dignified death. His only regret is that he has to leave Chris behind. Because he doesn’t want to leave Chris alone, he decides to find his boy a new Master, a prospect that fills Chris with trepidation. He loves William with everything he has and cannot imagine life without him. His only source of solace is Mike, the hospice nurse who comes two days a week to check on William. He becomes a quick friend, and helps Chris stay strong while William conducts his search.

There’s a fervent desperation in Chris right from the start. His anguish over William’s impending death is palpable, heartbreaking in its intensity. Though there’s little hope for William, I found myself yearning for a miracle, just to save Chris the pain of what was to come. Watching William interview prospective masters for Chris was uncomfortable, but some of that was mitigated by the arrival of Mike, William’s hospice nurse. He helped balance out Chris’s angst, giving him a healthy outlet for some of his confusing and pent-up feelings.

So far, so good. The arrival of the second interview, however, sparked the beginning of my trouble with this short novella. Until this point, the story was deeply entrenched in a contemporary setting, within the context of this 24/7 Master/slave relationship. The second Dom mentions something similar to the first, a warning of sorts about another one called Master Bear. It’s repeated in the third encounter, which is all well and good, but when the time comes that Chris actually meets Master Bear…I hate the idea of spoiling readers, I really do, but this is the crux of why this book ultimately fell apart for me. Because every ounce of respect I might have had for Chris fell apart in that moment. I knew exactly what was going on, mostly because it’s insanely obvious and partially telegraphed beforehand, but Chris was completely and utterly blind to it. The fact that he’s grieving isn’t an excuse. What he’s blind to is so basic and so simple that when he finally sees it, I rolled my eyes, mildly disgusted it took him so long. It didn’t work, because it yanked me entirely out of the reading experience. I lost my empathy for his grief, I lost caring about Mike, I lost it all in the face of my mounting frustration.

The BDSM in this is tastefully done, though mostly within the context of trying Chris out with new Masters. The variety of partners didn't bother me, though it might others who are more sensitive to sharing partners. In this world, however, it made sense, and I accepted it enough to enjoy it when it was appropriate.

There’s a lot of potential in this short novella, enough to keep me interested in the authors’ work. But Chris missing something so obvious, I lost respect for him as a character. And when his emotional journey is the primary thrust of the story…there’s not much else to grab onto.

Readability	7/10 – Delicate and simple, but much gets telegraphed early on
Hero #1	6/10 – I liked him a lot more before he seemed overly blind and stupid to what was really going on
Hero #2	6/10 – Sweet and heartwarming though too good to be true
Entertainment value	6/10 – Though I felt for the grief/loss aspect of the story, I couldn’t get into the potential romance because it just felt too obvious
World building	6/10 – Most care is given to the BDSM aspects, not so much to anything else
TOTAL:	31/50

Want Ad by Philippa Grey-Gerou & Emery Sanborne

TITLE: Want Ad
AUTHOR: Philippa Grey-Gerou & Emery Sanborne
PUBLISHER: Amber Heat
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 10k)
GENRE: Contemporary BDSM erotic romance
COST: $3.00

Stacia Lewis places an ad, looking for someone to explore bondage with her in a no-strings relationship. What she gets is a blind date with the bane of her professional existence, the antagonistic Will Sutton…

With short stories, it’s often hard to find much constructive to stay, especially when it’s essentially a single scenario that gets played out. In this case, we meet ad execs Stacia and Will, adversarial to the nth degree at work. Stacia loathes Will with a passion, from his attitude to his shallowness, but when he turns out to be her blind date for the ad she placed looking for someone to introduce her to bondage, she decides to go through with it rather than listen to him give her hell forever for being a chicken. Thus ensues the big bulk of the story, as he takes her upstairs and fulfills her desires.

As erotica, it’s not the lushest prose I’ve ever read, nor is it very original, but in spite of its rather terse quality, it has its own heat that makes the sex mostly work. The BDSM borders on too tasteful for me, though. He takes it very easy on her, starting with plain cuffs, moving to a simple spreader and a glass dildo. It all felt very restrained and proper. For such fiery temperaments outside of the bedroom, inside was a tad disappointing.

I didn’t like Will, though. I thought he was a jerk outside of the bedroom, and didn’t recognize him at all once they were behind closed doors. I kept waiting for this juxtaposition to be smoothed out or explained away or something, but it didn’t happen. Because of that, trying to believe in the ending was too hard. I would’ve had a much easier time of it if it had been left as erotica rather than attempting to find some sort of HFN.

Readability	8/10 – Simplistic but clean
Hero	4/10 – Too much of a jerk outside of the bedroom, I never saw the link or justification between his two different personas
Heroine	5/10 – Strong, but rather one-dimensional
Entertainment value	6/10 – The erotica was on the terse side but hot for what was there
World building	5/10 – Some attention is spent on their corporate world, but this is all about the sex
TOTAL:	28/50

Muse by Clare London

TITLE: Muse
AUTHOR: Clare London
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 13k)
GENRE: Paranormal gay erotic romance
COST: $4.00

Painter Gavin McGrath has been on a decline for years. Growing ennui with his work has meant a waning interest in his paintings, and now, his wife has finally decided to leave him. She’s tired of all his affairs with pretty young men, and tired of losing him to his art. Frankly, Gavin’s tired, too. So when a pretty young guy named Matteo shows up mysteriously in his studio one day, his first instinct is to send him away. Only Matteo’s continued persistence, and his appreciation for Gavin’s talent, allows Gavin to let him stay…

There’s something about finding characters that go against the norm in m/m romance that always makes me happy. Perhaps I’m responding to that craving for something different, but when I find one – and even better, it works – I feel like shouting from the rooftops. Muse is a story like that, and if I had a few problems in the last third of the story, it certainly didn’t detract from my joy at discovering a hero to stand out from the crowd.

Gavin McGrath is around forty (I assume, the closest mention to an age we get is that at the top of the story he says he’d left college almost twenty years earlier), and feeling the brunt of years of only half living. His art is suffering, he’s sleeping around with his models – really, his art is turning into an excuse to get the young men into his studio and bed – and he’s simply bored. When his wife leaves him, it’s kind of a wake up call, but only because she ruins the canvas he’s working on and he kicks his current model out. It’s at that point Matteo starts showing up, his enigmatic muse who jumpstarts his creativity again.

Gavin isn’t very likeable at the beginning, but then again, I’m sure he isn’t meant to be. He’s brusque to the point of rudeness, he’s seemingly shallow, and his self-involvement is borderline annoying. Matteo’s innocent and enthusiastic presence softens his edges, and as he gradually rediscovers his art, he also rediscovers his humanity. The desolate tone throughout his portions of the story create a yearning in the reader, that need to see him understand where it’s gone wrong and to fix it. As he does, it’s glorious.

The point where it starts to fall apart for me a little bit occurs about two-thirds of the way through the story. There’s a time jump, though it’s not immediately obvious, and it’s that skip that makes the story stutter. The questions it raised stopped my reading. Because I suddenly had doubts about the timeline, I went back and re-read sections – and for me, re-reading is often a kiss of death. It disrupts my flow and jerks me out of the emotional moment. For this short story, losing the grip of that emotional tug meant ending the story from an outside point rather than the center of all the tumultuous feelings.

There is an HEA in this, though this is hardly a traditional romance, and I can still recommend it as a solidly written, evocative, different short story. The lack of real flow in the last third is the only reason this doesn’t rate higher for me.

Readability	8/10 – The lack of mention of concrete time spans in the last third of the story slowed me down enough to make me go back and re-read
Hero #1	8/10 – I liked his gruff, realistic nature, a welcome contrast to usual heroes of this genre
Hero #2	5/10 – An ideal more than a personality
Entertainment value	7/10 – I loved the desolate atmosphere and potential, but the disjointed nature of the ending yanked me out too much
World building	7/10 – His studio world – the art, Matteo – was incredibly well done, it was just the intrusion and time jumps of the last third that fell far short of the standard set in the beginning
TOTAL:	35/50

Orientation by Rick R. Reed

TITLE: Orientation
AUTHOR: Rick R. Reed
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 61k)
GENRE: GLBT drama
COST: $7.00

Christmas 1983, Robert lost his lover to AIDS. On Christmas in 2007, he found him again…in the body of twenty-four year-old lesbian Jess. He doesn’t know it then, of course. He only means to take a walk, to forget about his increasingly unbearable relationship with his current lover, but discovering Jess about to commit suicide gives him renewed purpose, especially when the connection between them is so instantaneous…

Amber Quill sells this particular story in its romance section, but I have to say I don’t necessarily agree with that appellation. This is a love story, which is far more freeing than the genre definition of romance. More importantly, this is a story about self-identity, about trying to figure out who you are beyond the restriction of conventional labels.

In spite of their physical and financial differences, Robert always thought of Keith as his soul mate, his one true love. He was young, relatively innocent, and pretty, while Keith was a leather daddy. One night of passion should not have led to the most fulfilling relationship either of them had ever had, but it did, only to end as Robert nursed Keith through AIDS. After Keith’s death, he goes through a string of boyfriends who grow younger with the passing years. Ethan is the latest, but Ethan’s addiction to drugs is spiraling out of control, creating problems in their arrangement, turning them into roommates rather than lovers. When Ethan lies about where he’s going on Christmas, Robert waits as long as he can, then strikes out to take a walk and clear his head. He finds Jess about to kill herself over the recent break-up with her lover, takes her home, warms her up, and gives her fresh hope.

The story starts out with an emotional bang. The opening chapter is Robert taking care of Keith on his deathbed, and the palpable sorrow in his life. I would defy anyone not to be moved by it, and in fact, was in near tears when it was over. I suspect it would hit people who have experienced loss like this harder than those who haven’t, but as I fall into the former group, that’s just a supposition on my part. All I know is that I haven’t been that wrecked by a chapter in a long time, and it sucks me into wanting more for Robert as the story progresses.

That emotional wallop shifts the further into the novel you get, however. Ethan’s drug addiction is treated baldly, and anyone even remotely sensitive to this kind of subject – as well as the sex addiction he displays when he’s high – is likely to be turned off by its graphic portrayal. I wasn’t. Each detail helps to paint Ethan into a fully realized person, rather than the caricature he could have been in less deft hands. In his desperation, he latches onto the idea of killing Robert for his money, a villainous act that could have lost him all sympathy with the reader. Because he’s more of a character in this play of events than a plot device, that doesn’t happen. The reader understands what has driven him to this desperation, all because of the prevailing theme of the book, the fact that every individual in this world will, in some form or another, defy the label that has been placed upon him/her.

Nobody is safe from this dissection. Not Keith, the leather daddy who made his fortune writing YA novels for young teenaged girls. Not Robert and Jess, who find a whole new kind of love in spite of the fact that neither is attracted physically to the other. Not Ethan, whose degree with honors in English literature should have put him on an entirely different path than the drug/sex addicted one rushing him to an early death. Not even Tony, Ethan’s drug dealer, who questions his morality when Ethan makes an offer to him he knows he should refuse.

While the reincarnation angle is well researched, it never seems to integrate as organically into the story as other, more salient devices. Perhaps, it’s because that, compared to the moral grayness of the rest of the book, there is no wiggle room in it. It is what it is. The recognition is immediate, if unnamed. The dreams are confirmation. Everything falls into synch almost too easily in comparison to everything else that occurs. I know its purpose is to provide a foundation for the author to further his argument that love is more than body parts, that even that, like the rest of his cast of characters, is subject to defying its conventional labels. I understand this intellectually. It’s the emotional resonance that was lacking. That’s not to say it wasn’t there at all, because it was. It just didn’t impact as strongly as I think it could – or should – have, due to the sheer power encompassed by that riveting first chapter.

Still, it’s a harrowing, provocative read. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but in all honesty, neither is real love.

Readability	9/10 – Harrowing and relentless
Characterization	9/10 – Personalities leap from the page, both good and bad
Plot	7/10 – Perhaps the weakest aspect of the novel, though only because the rest of it overshadows its potential richness
Entertainment value	9/10 – Gut-wrenching and provocative, both intellectually and emotionally
World building	10/10 – No corner is safe from scrutiny
TOTAL:	44/50

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Lynn Lorenz

TITLE: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
AUTHOR: Lynn Lorenz
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 21k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $5.00

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans isn’t the only thing struggling to survive. Nineteen-year-old Scott has been on his own for years, lives at a shelter, and works as a busboy/waiter in an attempt to keep his head above water. When he is mugged on the way to work, he gets rescued by Tony, another man fighting just to stay alive. The connection between them strikes deeper than the physical, but how can it work out when each day presents its own difficulties to overcome?

I have never been to New Orleans. I don’t have family in the south, and nobody I knew was affected by the devastating Hurricane Katrina. None of that matters when it comes to enjoying this heartwrenchingly different novella from author Lynn Lorenz.

Lorenz ignores traditional romance stereotypes to put two homeless men at the center of her moving story. Scott is a high school dropout, an orphan who survives by living in a shelter and working early morning shifts at a restaurant called Tiffany’s Waffles and Wings. Tony is the product of a prostitute mother who disappeared before the hurricane, squatting in a deserted part of the city, robbing people in order to have money to buy food. These two meet when Tony is contemplating mugging Scott, only to let him pass and then watch somebody else get the drop on the skinny young white boy. Tony intervenes, then takes Scott’s money for himself, but guilt overrides his needs, and he seeks Scott out again to return it.

This starts one of the more unusual m/m romances I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a while. Lorenz bypasses the maudlin and writes straight to the unrepentant core of these men’s situations. It’s never heavy-handed or overtly graphic, but there’s never any doubt about the tenuous circumstances these men navigate on a daily basis. Each is only trying to survive and hold on to what little self-respect they still have, and that, in and of itself, is honorable. Scott is the more fully fleshed of the two, with his sweet, deceptively innocent demeanor, but while Tony’s backstory is held back until almost the end of the story, there is still enough of a core there to respond positively to him. His greater physical strength conceals his inner struggles with self-identity and worth, and even is offered to tantalize the reader into falling for him.

The story’s brevity worked against Tony’s characterization in the long run, however, just like it weakened my commitment to believing the swiftness of their coming together. As much as I liked both guys, I didn’t wholly buy into just how fast Scott was willing to trust Tony. He’s not a stupid kid. He’s lived by his wits for a long time. I was taken a little aback at how quickly he was willing to forget all that for Tony. If I hadn’t liked both of them as much as I did, I probably would have been more cynical about the outcome (though the pragmatist in me still finds it very difficult to believe that two guys who struggle over every dollar would waste ten bucks on a box of condoms – yes, I know they’re responsible guys, and yes, I would prefer them to be safe, but come on, these are two guys who live dollar to dollar and boxes of condoms are not cheap).

These niggles aside, it’s hard to go wrong with this sensitively written novella. I’m not convinced these two will be together forever, but in this moment, at this point in their lives, I whole-heartedly believe they are exactly what the other needs. That’s all anyone can ever ask for.

Readability	8/10 – Simplistic, but heartbreaking
Hero #1	8/10 – Sweet and adorable
Hero #2	7/10 – His outer strength hides inner turmoil well
Entertainment value	8/10 – A slice of real life that proves romance doesn’t need fancy packages
World building	8/10 – Some great touches painting the underbelly of Katrina’s aftermath
TOTAL:	39/50

Written in Blood by Luisa Prieto

TITLE: Written in Blood
AUTHOR: Luisa Prieto
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 30k)
GENRE: Gay historical paranormal erotic romance
COST: $6.00

Reporter Collin Foster wants to turn his London into a better place, ferreting out stories he hopes will save lives. His latest has turned into scandal headlines, as men who frequented male brothels were outed to the public. The matter leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, as it strikes a little too close to home, and when his best friends attempt to take him out to get his mind off it, he slips away, only to find himself sharing a carriage with the enigmatic Eduard de Sonnac. An attraction brings an invitation, but very quickly, Collin discovers Eduard is not what he seems, and his business in London touches Collin’s very life…

For some reason, while I don’t jump to read historicals, I find myself excited when I find paranormal historicals. I can’t figure out why. The elements that often drive me crazy in regular historicals are still likely to be there. But I spy one, and I always, always look twice.

This novella takes the reader to Victorian London, to the world of Dracula and Varney. Collin has no knowledge of vampires outside of his reading, but takes it surprisingly in stride once the truth comes out. The author’s notions of vampirism tend to coincide with Varney as well. For instance, it’s still possible for them to go out in sunlight, though the light hurts their eyes and gives them headaches, and while the notion of a gentler vampire is hardly new to romances, the fact that de Sonnac is in town to avenge an old friend – and is himself a turned Templar Knight – fits neatly into the Varney image. It’s a fun correlation to be drawn, though artfully subtle.

While there is a definite sense of period to the entire story, the lack of a specific year niggles more than once. It detracts only when a detail crops up and I’m left wondering, Is that appropriate to the time? It’s not a lot, but it happened more than once, so merited mentioning. However, the author’s elegant prose smoothes a lot of those rough spots over. It’s actually quite spare, and most definitely technically competent, with a slightly florid touch to help give an even stronger impression of the era. In a contemporary setting, it might be viewed as more purple, but here, it works, and does so effectively well.

While I liked Collin, and appreciated the sensual heat between the two men, I was far more intrigued and interested in the technical aspects of the story than its emotional merits. I like the story, not because I got embroiled in their romance (because I didn’t), but because it offered something different, and did so technically well. It doesn’t shy away from more gruesome details, for instance, another way it typifies the era. It also doesn’t take the easy way out on the ending, which ends up being a potential HFN rather than an HEA. The one part I didn’t buy was the shift in de Sonnac’s decision in the last quarter of the book. I never understood the reasoning, if one was really offered in the first place. It left the last third feeling very underdeveloped, like it needed another 10-15k to fully tell the story.

I do recommend this story, however, to anyone who enjoys the paranormal. The romance might not have leapt off the page for me, but the author’s elegant prose as well as the risks she’s so clearly willing to take made it more than worth it.

Readability	8/10 – A definite elegance in its spareness
Hero #1	7/10 – Oddly naïve considering what he’s seen, and his lack of self-awareness grates a little bit
Hero #2	6/10 – I didn’t believe his later shift from, though he was appropriately enigmatic and charming for the seduction
Entertainment value	7/10 – I enjoyed this more for what it did differently, especially the ending, rather than the characters or romance
World building	7/10 – There’s definitely a period feel to it, but it felt difficult to grasp exactly when
TOTAL:	35/50

Bounty of the Heart by J.M. Snyder

TITLE: Bounty of the Heart
AUTHOR: J.M. Snyder
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 18k)
GENRE: Gay historical romance
COST: $5.00

Bounty hunters Emmett Ward and Jack Robison find themselves in icy Alaska, on the outskirts of a small mining town where a dog sled race is about to commence. Their purpose? To kill Lin Ji, a Korean criminal responsible for more horrors in both men’s histories than either wants to talk about. When Jack’s old partner shows up, however, his dogged interest in Emmett creates strife between the partners – in Emmett because he loves Jack but has never had the benefit of more than his platonic friendship, in Jack because there is more to this old partner than meets the eye…

The single greatest strength to this story is the reason the reader gets sucked in from the very first page – its vivid Alaskan setting. The temperature chills from beyond the page, the sense of isolation exacerbated by the young and innocent Emmett’s emotional distance from the partner he’s been in love with for years. It’s an excellent use of setting to act as a metaphor for the protagonist’s turmoil, primarily because it’s not one often exploited in romantic fiction. This sense of place puts the reader right in the spot with these two men, with promises of an intense ride to come.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the ride never really happens. While this is most definitely a very smooth and swift read, it doesn’t meet the standards set in those first couple pages. For one thing, it’s labeled a historical, and while that becomes evident as the story progresses, there is still a very contemporary feel to a lot of the various elements – Monty’s (Jack’s old partner) openness regarding homosexuality, some of the dialogue, and so on. The characterizations never quite reach the depths the opening hints at, either. Everything is told from Emmett’s POV, and it’s apparent very early on that his perspective is very unreliable. We see Jack only through his eyes, and frankly, he hero worships the man. So much time is spent in his head, and with Monty, we get little opportunity to actually get an opinion of Jack for ourselves, except as a grizzled older man determined to protect Emmett at all costs. I liked Jack, but I never felt like I knew him, and considering he’s half of the romantic pairing in this short novella, that’s a problem.

The progression of both the romance and the action plot never runs as evenly as the prose would suggest, either. Both rely on convenience and coincidence to run its course, and as a result, neither really manages to fully satisfy. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the story, though. In spite of its flaws, Emmett is full of such longing for Jack that it’s impossible not to want him to get it. I’m not convinced it wasn’t misplaced gratitude, but it’s still far too palpable to ignore. Add in the vivid setting, and I found myself smiling when the story was done. Hope sprang from the frigid terrain, warm and rich where their world was not. My one wish is that the story was longer, to better give the author time to more fully flesh out her characters and streamline the plot they were given. Then, it could have been incredible.

Readability	9/10 – Smooth and clean, with enough variation in pacing to keep it interesting
Hero #1	7/10 – Sweet and innocent
Hero #2	5/10 – Focus on Emmett without more of Jake makes Jakes more of an enigma, even if he is an intriguing one
Entertainment value	7/10 – Room for so much more, and the romance is underdeveloped, but I liked the characters and mood of this
World building	8/10 – Vivid Alaskan setting, though the time period feels more contemporary than I think is intended
TOTAL:	36/50