Life Lessons by Kaje Harper

TITLE: Life Lessons
AUTHOR: Kaje Harper
PUBLISHER: MLR
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 88k)
GENRE: Gay mystery erotic romance
COST: $7.99

High school teacher Tony Hart stays late one night and ends up in the middle of a murder investigation when a stabbed co-worker literally falls against him. Detective MacLean begins keeping an eye on him, at first for the sake of the case, then because he can’t seem to stop thinking about the young teacher. When Tony’s life becomes endangered, the two men are thrust even closer together. They have to deal with the fact Mac is deeply closeted, as well as someone out there wants Tony dead…

Though closeted gay cops are plentiful in m/m romance, not all of them are worth reading about. Thankfully, this fell well onto the side of worth it.

English teacher Tony Hart has come back to the school late one Friday to pick up a box of books from his classroom. When the elevator doors open, a teacher he doesn’t really care for falls back into the car, and it takes Tony a moment to realize the man’s been stabbed. He calls 911, but the other teacher is dead before they arrive. Detective MacLean arrives as part of the investigation, and the two get off on the wrong foot since until they know better, Tony is their prime suspect. While Tony is out, Mac is deeply in the closet. Both of them fight their mutual attraction. When Tony is almost killed in a hit-and-run, their relationship escalates. But Mac has no desire to expose his sexuality, and there is still somebody out there who wants Tony dead.

While I love a good mystery, I almost gave up on this one in the first few chapters. Tony’s reaction to Mac at first is not a good one. He gets deliberately provocative in their initial scenes, and though he later laments that he’s acting like his friend Marty, it annoyed me to the point where I questioned how involved I could get if I disliked him so much already. I decided to stick it out, though, and am grateful I did. The belligerence Tony displayed at the start disappeared soon afterward, and I was able to fall into the slow evolution of their romance.

And slow it is. These two don’t fall into bed together. Mac is deeply in the closet, and Tony thinks he’s a straight widower. Both fight their attractions, and as they do so, it succeeds in tightening the tension. Much of the focus is actually on the crime and investigation, with romantic scenes ancillary to that. These are done with a deft hand, detailed and believable, and gradually build the suspense of just what exactly happened with the dead teacher. Mac is thorough and competent, without being perfect, while Tony makes enough mistakes to buy into his procedural ignorance. Even after the romance moves to another level, the murder isn’t forgotten. That noose only tightens further, leading into the explosive last fourth that hurtles the reader toward the end.

I don’t have many misgivings regarding this novel. By the story’s end, I loved both men, though I didn’t completely accept that Tony was as young as I was told he was. The story’s HFN worked for me, too, since it’s made abundantly clear throughout the story that Mac is never going to come out of the closet. It’s more realistic than I would find in a lot of m/m, and I appreciated that. It also succeeded in doing something a lot of stories don’t. It drove me to the publisher’s website to see what else the author has done. I will be reading the sequel to this, as well as the free short I picked up on Amazon. I’m looking forward to what life has in store for these two guys.

Readability	9/10 – Tight action, strong balance of plot and characters, I couldn’t stop
Hero #1	7/10 – I didn’t care for him at the start, and didn’t completely buy his youth
Hero #2	8/10 – I loved the dark conflict within him
Entertainment value	9/10 – The first thing I did when I was done was go looking for more, always an excellent sign
World building	9/10 – Excellent detail on the cop end, highly believable
TOTAL:	42/50

Blood Lust by assorted authors

TITLE: Blood Lust
AUTHORS: J.P Bowie, Amber Green, & L. Picaro
PUBLISHER: MLR
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 62k)
GENRE: Paranormal gay erotic romance
COST: $6.99

A collection of three erotic paranormal novellas, each about a gay romance with a vampire involved…

I bought this anthology in August 2009, but then buried it in my TBR pile because I’d decided J.P. Bowie’s voice was just not for me after reading other works by him. When scanning through my pile recently, I decided to give it another chance, since I fully understand readers and reading tastes can change over time and because I’ve seen other readers extol Bowie’s work in that time period. After reading this anthology, however, I probably should have shelved it permanently.

The anthology starts out with Amber Green’s “More Than Memories.” This is the story of a ghost named Dick who manages to survive by feeding on other people’s memories. He’s attached to a young nerdy man in a museum named Harry, tormenting him by feeding him memories of lewd acts that drive Harry closer and closer to experimenting with his sexuality. Of the three stories, this was the one I had the highest hopes for, as I’ve had the best luck with this author in the past. While it is definitely the most original – with the most creative interpretation of the anthology’s theme – and Green’s voice my favorite by far, Dick’s 1^st person perspective makes it incredibly confusing to follow. It’s difficult to tell what is the present – and when the present actually is – and what is Dick’s past, as well as what memories are Dick’s and which are ones he’s stolen to survive. There are glimmers of a smooth story, when the tale sticks long enough in a single scene to add some well needed coherency to its flow, but not nearly enough to compensate for often perplexing narration.

Next comes “Vampire Dreams” by J.P. Bowie. Edward is an author struggling through his latest assignment, a story about a vampire for a publication named Gayfantasia. Unhappy with what he’s done, he goes for a walk to help clear his head and perhaps find some focus. Instead, he runs into David, a gorgeous Scot who goes home with him. When Edward wakes up the next morning, he’s convinced he had the best erotic dreams ever, but even better, he’s figured out what’s needed to fix his story. But then he meets David again, and realizes none of it was a dream. Though I’ve confirmed his authorial voice doesn’t work for me – I find Bowie a tad too saccharine and idealized for my tastes – his story is by far the most accessible of the three. It’s complete with its romantic flow, and leaves the fewest number of questions unanswered about its particular world. There’s little original about it, however, so it’s a trade-off. When the other two stories in the anthology are this unsatisfying, it was probably a worthwhile one.

Finishing up the anthology is “Blood Lust” by L. Picaro. Set in a futuristic society, Noah is out with his friend Anne when she disappears on him. He’s convinced she’s been attacked or kidnapped by vampires, and becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her. His search leads him into the path of Russian vampire, Adrian Staritsky, who is in the middle of his own search. They decide to join forces, but other vampires within the city have different ideas for them. This was yet another story where the authorial voice did nothing for me. My primary problems with it rest with word choices, like comparing an anus’s response to a flower opening in the sun. Little thought is given to explaining the world in which this is set, either, though at the story’s end I wondered if its cliffhanger ending meant that it was a prequel to another work. If it is, it completely failed to interest or attract me as a reader, because it left me bewildered and very dissatisfied with its conclusion. Some readers would probably appreciate being warned that this story also has multiple erotic scenes that include both het and lesbian sex. Since some m/m readers would prefer to avoid those, it merits mentioning.

Probably the only thing reading this anthology did for me was confirm I’m not a fan of Bowie’s voice. I’m glad I gave him another chance, though.

Readability	7/10 – Mostly clean, but two of the stories suffer from inadequate exposition
Romance	6/10 – Only the second comes anywhere close to delivering
Characterization	6/10 – Problems with each of them leaves a lot of the characters a tad flat, though not always uninteresting
Entertainment value	3/10 – Really not my cup of tea
World building	6/10 – Attempts are made to make two of these unique, but lack of expositional detail and muddied execution means they are only tries, not achievements
TOTAL:	28/50

The Geography of Murder by P.A. Brown

TITLE: The Geography of Murder
AUTHOR: P.A. Brown
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 79k)
GENRE: Gay BDSM mystery erotic romance
COST: $5.99

Waking up next to a dead man is frightening enough. Getting hauled away in handcuffs for his murder is even worse. Jason Zachary protests his innocence over and over to Detective Alex Spider, and when DNA evidence places someone else at the scene, he’s finally released. But Alex isn’t done with Jason, not by a long shot. Not now that he knows the young man is a very willing sub…

When a book has a plethora of technical errors, it has to excel in other areas in order for me to fall for it. Whether that’s the romance, the setting, or the characters, something has to compensate for the fact that mistakes muddy the reading experience. In this novel’s case, there just isn’t any one aspect that shines brightly enough to distract me from the multitude of grammatical errors that tarnish it.

The story is told in alternating 1^st person perspectives, jumping between Jason and Spider from chapter to chapter. On the one hand, it allows the reader to follow the procedural aspect of the plot, with much better ease than the romance angle is served. On the other, it’s not that skillfully done, as many of the technical mistakes in this come from inaccurate verb tenses. It doesn’t happen as much when they’re doing something as it does when they’re thinking something. But it gets worse as the story goes on, pulling me out of it more and more often. There are also consistency errors, like when Alex goes to a taxidermist to try and learn more about a clue, a stuffed raven, and wavers on mentioning exactly what the bird is because that’s one of the pieces of evidence they’re holding back from the media. Yet, when the paper runs a full article about Alex and his less than stellar progress on the case, it starts out with, “What do ravens and bloody trophies and horrific murders done in the name of vigilante justice have in common?” Things like this don’t help the reading experience.

Because I wanted to love this. One of the things that drew me in from the start was the notion that these were not your typical m/m heroes. Jason is a user, with serious esteem issues, while Alex is a control freak who lacks the ability/desire to get attached to anyone. Frankly, neither guy is very appealing on an aesthetic level, yet somehow, there’s an appeal in seeing them get together. I had better luck getting attached to Jason, however, when Alex’s control issues and BDSM tendencies slip into what felt like abuse to me. It felt like abuse to him, too, because it prompts him to do some serious soul searching, as well as abuse to Jason. But abusive men are one of my hot buttons. They automatically raise all my hackles, and I very rarely recover from it. I recognize there is a fine line to be walked with BDSM stories, but when both leads recognize behavior as abusive, it’s clear which side of the line that action falls on. Because of this, any interest I had in seeing Alex happy disappeared, and without wanting to see one of the heroes get a happy ending, it’s next to impossible to care about the romance.

As I said earlier, the mystery aspect of the story fares much better than the romance, and thankfully, takes a lot of page time. It was worth finishing for that, but for any sense of emotional satisfaction for the men, it fell far short.

Readability	6/10 – A lot of the technical niggles kept pulling me out of the story, though it certainly worked as a procedural
Hero #1	7/10 – Damaged and believable
Hero #2	6/10 – The borderline abuse merited a better resolution than he got
Entertainment value	6/10 – I liked the mystery part of this so much more than the romance
World building	8/10 – The cop world was crisp and believable
TOTAL:	33/50

Hard Working Men by assorted authors

TITLE: Hard Working Men
AUTHOR: Victor J. Banis, J.P. Bowie, Jardonn Smith, & William Maltese
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 61k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotica
COST: $5.99

An anthology of four gay erotic stories, each one centering on blue collar men in some fashion.

I’m at a loss. Truly. I debated over writing this review. I wish I could slap a DNF on this anthology, but it was like a ten-car pile-up. You just can’t look away. Because as it went on, it got worse and worse and worse until I just couldn’t believe that I was supposed to take any of it seriously.

The exception to everything negative I have to say about this anthology is the first entry. It’s a short story by Victor J. Banis called “If Love Were All.” The prose has texture, the characters felt human, and best of all, it actually had a meaning. Sadly, I can’t say the same about the other stories.

Bowie’s story, “One Brick at a Time,” isn’t awful. It’s just forgettable. With a silly revenge plot that was transparent almost from the first page. His voice doesn’t work for me, either, with stuff like yet Tony innately intuited that wasn't a part of Steve's character indicative of problems throughout the text. Because, hello, can we say redundant? I just have to conclude Bowie isn’t for me, since this is the second of his stories I’ve had problems with.

The third story in the anthology, “The Thomas Coleman Full Nelson” by Jardonn Smith, is schizophrenic at best. As long as it’s not a sex scene, I actually enjoyed finding out about his two window installers. They’re lifelong buddies, separated by a bad marriage, then brought back together again as they always should have been. The relationship built – outside of the sex – is plausible and more than a little sympathetic. But the problem here lies in the numerous sex scenes. This is some of the purplest prose I have read in a long time. Stuff like He knew I was going nowhere until I got my second injection of the morning, so he gave it to me with the violence of a dominating beast, twisting and turning and rapid-firing his impaler mad-doggiestyle. And, Overflow of his manly syrup sugar-coated his ready-to-explode mushroom, its bulging sheen inviting my mouth to taste. And since there’s so many sex scenes, you can just imagine how hard it was for me to read.

But then there’s the real puzzler. The last story in the anthology. Now, I’ve heard of William Maltese before, though I have never read him. The only thing I knew about him was that he’d written a lot. I wasn’t even sure what it all was, though for some reason I assumed it was all gay fiction. (It wasn’t apparently. I went and checked out his backlist. He’s been writing for decades and spent a lot of years writing het romance under a female pseudonym.) But I just do not know what to make of this story. It’s told in first person, and the narrator is a high-priced prostitute who usually masquerades in blue collar/white collar scenarios. It starts out with him and a trick. Okay, I’m still fine there. Then on the fourth page in the story, the narrator pulls his trick into an alley and starts talking dirty. Describing everything that’s going on. There is absolutely no action. All there is for 14 pages is dialogue. Not even dialogue. Monologue. And it’s all like this:

“See how I lick my fingertip just flavored by the seepage strained through your trousers like deliciously salty curd strained through cheesecloth? Sexy as hell that taste. Making my dick harder ... harder....

“Go ahead and touch my prick, where it is, buddy. Feel it straining to get free of my jeans, and underpants, wanting you, needing you, anxious to have at you, excited by the prospect it of being belly-to-belly with your phallic truncheon and, then, deep-dived up your funky tight rich-man's asshole…

There’s more. Lots more. I mentioned 14 pages of this, right? It happens again in a later chapter of the story, only it’s a tow truck driver the narrator has found who does the talking this time.

Oh, and the narrator has the same name as the author. William Maltese. If this is an affectation of the author’s, it’s creepy as hell. If it’s meant to be autobiographical, it’s still creepy. And if it’s meant to be something else, like satirical or punny or amusing in some way…it’s still definitely creepy. I have no idea if he does this in all his work. Unless someone tells me, I’m never going to know because I’m not sure I can sit through another of his stories.

So…for being at a loss, I guess I wrote a lot. Am I supposed to take this anthology seriously? I just don’t know.

Readability	4/10 – I don’t even know where to begin on three of the stories in this
Content	4/10 – Banis’ work is the only that felt complete
Characterization	4/10 – I’m a broken record; Banis is the best here.
Entertainment value	3/10 – I just…can’t.
World building	3/10 – Do I really need to repeat Banis is the only one who works for me in this
TOTAL:	18/50