When Angels Fall by Lena Matthews

TITLE: When Angels Fall
AUTHOR: Lena Matthews
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 14k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $2.99

Full-figured Lauren knows the angel costume she’s chosen for her father’s company Halloween party is too revealing, but she isn’t quite prepared for her fiance’s angry reception. For his part, Evan has never seen anything so sexy, and the thought that others will be ogling the woman he considers his drives him to push Lauren harder than he’s ever pushed before. Soon, he’s pulling off the road and giving her a taste of the aggressive sex he’s always wanted – and feared losing her over.

One of the things usually lacking in erotic quickies is any type of genuine emotion. Too often, authors are focused on the hot and heavy instead of the feelings that generate it, which makes most of them both interchangeable and forgettable. Not so with this one. In this particular story, I believe Lauren’s insecurities long before the sex actually occurs, which makes it that much more enjoyable to lose myself in the carnality of the acts. Not only is Lauren a size eighteen, but she’s also the only daughter of a wealthy businessman. It makes sense for her to be insecure enough to believe that someone as gorgeous as her fiancé Evan would only be interested in her for the social standing and career advancement marrying her brings.

The author makes the right choice in letting us in Evan’s head as soon as possible. There is no doubt in the reader’s mind that Evan loves this woman, and the differences that lie between them are based purely on misconceptions. Granted, this is an overused romance trope, but because I believed in the characters’ motivations, it was easy for me to overlook that. Evan, when he takes control, is sexy as hell, and Lauren takes it without ever being a wimp about it. Submissive, yes. Wimp, no. For me, there’s a distinct difference.

The sex in this erotic short worked for me on a lot of levels. It’s not perfect – I’m still not sure why so many authors insist on characterizing pussies as weeping when a woman is wet – but in spite of being pulled out by the occasional phrase that makes me frown, I was able to get sucked back in with relative ease.

This is a hot short story, designed especially to play into the fantasies of every woman who isn’t a size two and feels insecure about it. Sexy in this case equals emotionally satisfying, too. A very nice change of pace.

Readability	8/10 – Fast and simple, with only a few of the annoying turns of phrase that can pull me out of a sex scene
Hero	6/10 – Hot and fun, though I would have liked more explanation about the duality of his personality
Heroine	7/10 – I’ve known too many women like her not to see real behavior when I read it
Entertainment value	8/10 – Sexy as hell, one of the better erotic flings I’ve read lately
World building	6/10 – Not much space for it, though really not a huge need for it either
TOTAL:	35/50

Wishes by Stella and Audra Price

TITLE: Wishes
AUTHOR: Stella and Audra Price
PUBLISHER: Phaze Publishing
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 12k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $2.00

When Janey Duvall refuses to help demon prince Cassiel hire assassins from her company, he sends in Djinn Nicodemus Marsh to make her more cooperative. She gets three wishes in exchange for sexual servitude to Marsh for the next 100 hundred years, but what does a girl who already has money and power wish for? Marsh has high hopes for the answer to that, especially when he realizes he’s falling for her.

This is one time that I’m thinking, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to read the first book of a series. This story marks the first in this particular ‘verse for the authors, and from what I can tell, it’s the shortest offering. Subsequent titles are longer, which means that just maybe they get to explore the world the Price sisters introduce in this short story in greater detail. If that’s the case, then I probably should have opted to read one of those instead, because the one thing that keeps this story from scoring higher is most likely its length.

The prose is simple and effective, and if there isn’t anything all that unique about it, at least it isn’t bone-jarringly painful, either. The sex is hot, too, at least for this reader. However, I have to admit it hits a kink for me. Janey is submissive to Marsh's rough sexual nature, and he uses coarse language with her, taunting her and the like. That’s not always to readers’ liking. I also liked each of Janey’s different sides, the submissive side that I already mentioned and her stronger personality outside of the relationship.

Where this story didn’t work for me is in any sense of a smooth arc. The initial reason for Marsh's presence in Janey’s life is resolved almost immediately upon their meeting, leaving the entire rest of the story about all the sex they have and the wishes she makes. The conflict is essentially stripped away. The authors attempt to introduce a secondary conflict over halfway through when Janey starts making her wishes, but without really having that much investment in Marsh, I didn’t buy it. He is never much more than a sexual object in this, which, if the romance is to be believed, is not enough. I also had to suspend a lot of disbelief in their initial meeting. He simply walks into her Rome apartment and they almost immediately start fucking. I mean, she literally has two lines of dialogue before she is touching herself in front of him. The next line, he pins her to the wall. It doesn’t mesh at all with the brief introduction we’ve had of Janey, and in fact, given her very strong interaction with Cassiel prior to this scene, I was quite taken aback by her submissiveness to Marsh. I wanted just a little bit more to smooth it over so that I could believe it more, but unfortunately I didn’t get that.

The world the authors introduce is an interesting one, but with the brevity of this story, it never really gets explored. The conflict of the assassins is almost immediately tossed aside for repeated sexual encounters, which is a shame because it sounds like there is a lot of room for exploration. I think for readers interested in this as a series, it might be better off to start with one of the longer later books. They probably won’t miss out on much by not reading this one.

Readability	7/10 – Nothing jarring, nothing difficult, but nothing hugely memorable, either.
Hero	5/10 – I never get a real sense of personality from him, though I’ll admit to responding to his rough sex talk.
Heroine	6/10 – The different sides of her are interesting on their own, but they never mesh well within the context of the story.
Entertainment value	6/10 – The sex hit kink buttons for me, but the initial impetus for the characters meeting is too easily resolved to make this much more than sex scenes strung together.
World building	6/10 – There is some intriguing stuff here in regards to the world these people/creatures reside, but it’s never explored to its best advantage.
TOTAL:	30/50

Night Wolf by Karen Erickson

TITLE: Night Wolf
AUTHOR: Karen Erickson
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press (Amber Heat)
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 12k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $4.00

Romance novelist Amanda has been widowed for two years, retreating to a quiet country life for peace and privacy. Hearing howling at night has her writing a werewolf hero for the first time in her career, but when a naked man shows up on her porch, injured with nowhere to go, she takes him in to help him anyway, unaware that he’s a werewolf. The attraction between them is instantaneous, but with a rogue pack determined to kill Dane, indulging in it might be dangerous.

I’ve been reading a lot of short stories lately because of the busy time of year it is. Some of them have been not so good, while others are passable. Some of them read so fast, I wonder where the time has gone. This story was one of those.

The story itself is far from original. Romance novelist heroine? I’ve read three of those just in the past month. An alpha werewolf who’s found his mate? I’m not even touching that one. Yet, I was able to look past those devices in this story. The author’s prose is simple and sound, making it easier to lose time when she very effectively builds on her two characters’ UST. This isn’t a story where they fall into bed together in the first 1k. The author actually takes a little time within the story’s short construct to build the attraction between Amanda and Dane, enough so that I was able to enjoy it. Quite a bit, actually. Dane is very, very alpha, and the brief descriptions of Amanda’s reactions to him hooked me into wanting him, too.

One thing I’m not sure I understand is why authors feel the need to do HEAs on short stories. Frankly, I’d be happy with a happily for now if it meant the plot and emotional development wasn’t rushed. This need for an HEA ends up hurting more of these short stories than it helps, mainly because I’m usually left disbelieving that such a thing could actually happen in such a short time period, especially when the characters are meeting for the first time in the space of the story. If one or the both of them know the other before the story starts, that’s easier to believe and buy into. But for this reader, love might happen at first sight, but a lifetime together takes more than one night of amazing sex to succeed.

Still, this story works better than some others of its length, because the author commits to building the tension – very effectively – before allowing her characters to hop into bed together. It goes a little downhill from there, but thankfully, there isn’t much more after that. For a nibble, this was worth it.

Readability	8/10 – Simple and easy, I read this in one sitting.
Hero	6/10 – I think the jump from shifters to humans as partners was too swift to be believable, but a nice alpha hero all the same
Heroine	6/10 – Nothing too objectionable, but nothing all that memorable, either
Entertainment value	7/10 – The UST in this made it worth it for me.
World building	6/10 – I wanted to know more about the pack stuff, but for its brevity, it mostly worked.
TOTAL:	33/50

An Unholy Embrace by CJ England

TITLE: An Unholy Embrace
AUTHOR: CJ England
PUBLISHER: Aspen Mountain Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 12k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $2.49

When Teran runs from an attack from some of the men in her village, she is rescued by Sebastian, a vampire who resides in the forest outside her home. He takes her home, where he becomes entranced by her, taking her as lover and more. Teran is touched by his protective instincts, but as soon as he breaks his promise not to invade her mind by enthralling her, she vows never to give in to him. Can there ever be trust so that they can go on?

Rape is always a touchy subject in romances. Though I remember a lot of them in the romances I read growing up, I was too young then to really appreciate the emotional impact of it, or the implications of such a violent act. It’s not done nearly as much anymore, at least not in the books I read, but I chose to buy this book anyway. The premise sounded mildly intriguing, and I hoped that it might be a touching dramatic story.

The story I actually got bordered on really bothering me. Sebastian has the capability of enthralling people, and he intends to do that to Teran to feed from her. But she’s a woman who needs to have control, and makes him promise not to do it. He agrees, he feeds, all is well with the world. Except for the fact that now he wants to do more than feed and he drank too much and Teran is passed out. So he waits until she wakes up to seduce her, but lo and behold, Teran is a virgin. So, because Sebastian doesn’t want to hurt her, he enthralls her in the middle of the act to take away the pain of losing her virginity. As soon as Teran realizes what he did, she announces she can’t trust him, won’t ever trust him, and will never give herself to him again. Sebastian is of the mind that her mouth says one thing, but her body says something else, and sets out to persuade her – over and over and over again – that she really does want him.

In essence, is Sebastian really all that different from the men who chased after her? He uses the excuse that her body is willing, but completely ignores how she feels about it. I think he’s a lot more like the would-be attackers than the author thinks, which makes it very difficult to read this story with much enjoyment. Add on to that unintentionally funny moments (well, to me, at least), like Sebastian standing on his porch screaming, “TERAN!!!” as Teran finally escapes – which smacks too much of Stanley Kowalski to me – and it doesn’t really have a chance.

The romance between these two is based purely on sex instead of anything else, and the author expects you to believe that this is enough for a HEA for these two. Unless you’re a fan of forced heroine fantasies, I say give this one a pass.

Readability	7/10 – There’s headhopping and melodrama, but some occasional lyrical phrasing kept me hopeful for more.
Hero	4/10 – There’s not enough for me to get a real good feel for him, and the alpha male tendencies – especially refusing to take no for an answer – aren’t well handled.
Heroine	4/10 – At least she’s got a backbone. But that’s really all she has.
Entertainment value	3/10 – The forced nature of the relationship is handled awkwardly, and some individual melodramatic moments had me giggling when I’m sure the author didn’t want me to.
World building	3/10 – Individual details are good, but there is very little I could tell you about this world they inhabit.
TOTAL:	21/50

Gamble of a Lifetime by Eileen Ann Brennan

TITLE: Gamble of a Lifetime
AUTHOR: Eileen Ann Brennan
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 14k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $2.99

Coming off a bad break-up, Lauren goes to her best friend’s Halloween bash determined to have a night she’ll never forget. When her ex shows up, determined to get her back at any cost, Lauren is saved from unwanted treatment by Ashton Claymore, dressed as a riverboat gambler. She decides to indulge in the attraction, and the sex blows her away. But Ashton has a secret; he’s a ghost, stuck on the riverboat, able to become corporeal only one night a year. One night will have to be enough…

I know not to expect too much from EC Quickies. With the publisher’s focus on sex over substance, I either purchase the story because it a) hits a kink, b) sounds sexy as hell, c) is an author I trust, or d) sounds like it might vary from the norm. I bought this particular story because of B and D, and while it pretty much failed on the D part, it satisfied enough of B not to feel like a waste.

The sex is hot, mostly because the prose is clean and easy to read, and I don’t need to struggle to like the two leads. There isn’t a lot of character development, but they don’t feel too much like stereotypes, either, which in a short, I can live with. I’m not sure I would have jumped to try the story if I knew the party she was attending was an orgy, though. That tarnished the appeal of the story for me, especially since the author wants me to buy into them finding love in the space of a single night.

I was mildly impressed with how the author resolved the conflict of the central story, though, mostly because I thought she would go another route. While I never really bought Lauren’s terror about her ex – there’s very little backstory to that, and it almost comes as much of a shock to her as it does the reader – I was invested enough in Lauren and Ashton to gloss over that particular aspect.

At the end of the day, a diverting few minutes, though it’s not something I’ll likely remember for very long. It’s just not unique enough nor did it grab me by any of my senses enough to stand out from the pack.

Readability	8/10 – Easy prose with only minimal purple moments
Hero	7/10 – Believable without being too over the top
Heroine	5/10 – I never really got a good feel for who she might be outside the party
Entertainment value	6/10 – Not as much fun as I had hoped, but better than other quickies
World building	6/10 – Starts out strong and degenerates from there
TOTAL:	32/50

Paul's Dream by Rowan McBride

TITLE: Paul’s Dream
AUTHOR: Rowan McBride
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 61k)
GENRE: Paranormal gay erotic romance
COST: $5.95

Lawyer Paul Graham is as cool as they come. Until a mysterious man shows up in his life and turns it upside down. Kian seems familiar, but Paul can’t remember saving him from a magical enslavement four years earlier. That doesn’t stop Kian from setting out to seduce Paul, though, using every ounce of his incubus magic. Paul responds, coming to life in ways he never knew were possible, but Kian isn’t his first exposure to the supernatural. Unknown to himself, Paul is a dream walker, a cipher, a human with the ability to go into others’ dreams, solve the puzzles, and give the person the one thing he wants the most. Together, they burn brighter than the hottest fires, but old obsessions and forgotten memories threaten to tear them apart forever.

Have I really not reviewed a gay romance in a month? Shame on me. At least the one I’m reviewing today is a keeper. That’s a bonus, right?

When I say keeper, I mean a book that’s going to linger with me for quite a while. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to re-read it again any time soon, but Paul, the icy lawyer in this, got to me so much that I almost cried in the climax. I’m probably a sucker for a damaged man, and frankly, Paul is as damaged as they come. Closed off. Doesn’t believe in love. Doesn’t really know what passion is until Kian comes into his life. He’s cool and efficient, and when chaos gets thrown into his well-ordered world, he has absolutely no idea what to do so he closes off even more. It takes a lot of love and determination to break through all that, which Kian manages to do. And it’s the glimpses of the vulnerability Paul is constantly trying to hide that suckerpunch me into falling for him almost as quickly as Kian does.

I wish I loved Kian more, though. I know why he’s the way he is – with as unfeeling and uncommunicative as Paul can be, his effusive passion is more than necessary – but after a while, it grated on me. I was good with Kian in small doses – though all the purring was driving me crazy – but more than that, and there were points midway through where I started to wonder how much more I could take. He’s seemingly perfect, and really, perfect is boring. At least, most of the time it is.

All of that disappeared as soon as the last third of the story swung into motion. Just like the first third, it’s tightly written, evocative, and emotional without being maudlin. Read it out of context and it might not seem that way, but honestly, after 40k+ of Paul’s standoffishness, his declarations hit deep. Because I knew he meant them. Add in the very visual scenes the author painted, and I was sucked into the story more thoroughly than I had been for the first 40k. It’s haunting, heartbreaking, and horrific, all at the same time.

This is Book One of the Touching Fire series, and the author has done excellent work in laying out the groundwork for the next books. There are a multitude of secondary characters in this who could be central in future stories, but if readers get a vote, I vote for Asher. Asher is Paul’s best friend and New York’s Guardian of Magic. He’s funny, and hot, and sexy is hell. I think he definitely deserves his own story. :)

Readability	9/10 – Intense and evocative. I devoured this.
Hero #1	9/10 – Maybe I’m a sucker for damaged men, but Paul is the reason I came thisclose to crying in the climax
Hero #2	6/10 – Kian’s perfection grates in long doses for me, though he’s an excellent counterpart to the icy Paul
Entertainment value	8/10 – There were a couple points midway through the story where it dragged for me, but the whole last third had me wound up tight enough to spring when it resolved itself.
World building	9/10 – Some great work here, details used in fresh ways that never seems trite
TOTAL:	41/50

Fiends with Benefits by Johnny Peregrine

TITLE: Fiends with Benefits
AUTHOR: Johnny Peregrine
PUBLISHER: Phaze Publishing
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 35k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $5.00

Ben Watts is having a rough time. First he gets bitten and turned into a werewolf. Then his local pack gets called into Columbus by the vampire Master of the City – who turns out to be a Mistress, instead. When his pack leader gives him to Valda, Ben has no choice but to find a new life for himself. But it’s hard being a redneck werewolf in the big city. And especially hard when your Mistress feeds off you regularly, sends mixed signals galore, and expects you to protect her with your life.

I’m beginning to wonder how Phaze handles its editing. This is the second story I’ve purchased since starting this blog, and it’s the second story to make me cringe with all the mistakes in it. The author is in love with run-on sentences, with phrases being strung together with commas instead of semi-colons, or sometimes with nothing at all. It’s very difficult to tell sometimes when it’s internal observation rather than external – especially since the story is in 1^st person. His spelling can sometimes be unfortunate, as well; for example, cummerbund becomes “cumber bun.” Beyond obvious author errors, however, are the glaring editing issues. There is more than one paragraph where a sentence is repeated in different places, and one of them is clearly meant to be removed, while sentences like this – I even played with her fangs with my tongues which she found amusing and pulled back with a smile – just mean that nobody was paying that close attention to detail.

Struggling with all that makes it next to impossible to sit and actually enjoy the story. I did have another issue early on, in that it wasn’t the story I was expecting. The excerpt as given on the website is the first half of the first chapter, when Valda wakes Ben up and clearly has something for him to do. However, then the author jumps back in time to before Ben got turned into a werewolf and proceeds from there. We don’t hit the present again until ¾’s of the way through the story, and honestly, that wasn’t the story I wanted to read. I didn’t really care about how they hooked up together. I was more interested in what Valda clearly had in store for him. While I’m certain this affected my overall assessment of the novella, it doesn’t account for any of the technical issues that make it so hard to read. If anything, it just compounds an already existing problem.

Is there anything good about the story? Yes, a couple things. It’s refreshing to see vampires act like vampires, feeding off multiple people and not worrying about who they kill. Ben was mildly entertaining as well. I liked his kickass attitude, even when it got him into trouble. The secondary characters were relatively distinct, too. You don’t always get that, especially in novellas. But in the end, it’s just not enough. Maybe if someone had taken the time to really go through this and correct it, it would stand a fighting chance. Right now, it’s down for the count.

Readability	2/10 – Riddled with editing mistakes, run-on sentences, and spelling errors, this was a nightmare to try and muddle through
Hero	5/10 – In spite of the weak prose, I kept wanting to like Ben.
Heroine	5/10 – Nice to see a vampire being a vampire, but there’s not enough of her in this to get a well-rounded picture
Entertainment value	3/10 – All the technical issues made it impossible to read this story for pure enjoyment.
World building	6/10 – It’s a valiant effort, but ultimately, unbelievable. Details don’t always a world make.
TOTAL:	21/50

Something Wild by Sable Grey

TITLE: Something Wild
AUTHOR: Sable Grey
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 24k)
GENRE: Shapeshifter historical erotic romance
COST: $4.99

Jack the Ripper is on the loose, and Detective Baden Sikes has been called in to solve these grisly murders. What the officials don’t realize is that Baden has his own dark secret, one he hopes he won’t have to unleash in order to find the Ripper. When he catches a would-be thief on the street, he takes her home in a gesture of good will. Cora is a survivor, and he responds to her innate goodness in ways that surprise him. But can he resist the temptation she presents before it’s too late? For either of them?

Before I say anything about the story, I have to say that this cover is one of the scariest I’ve purchased this year. Scary bad. I know it’s supposed to be Baden, but to me, it’s a frightening cross between Johnny Depp and Michael Jackson. It freaked me out enough when I first saw it that I almost didn’t read the blurb. It took everything I had to block the image out as I read the book, so that I could give Baden a fighting chance.

I know Cobblestone has had this Shifters series for a while, but this is the first one I’ve bought. I always thought that they were standalone stories, with a shifter as its main character, but after reading this, I’m not entirely convinced of that. To start, there’s a prologue on the front of this story with Baden’s housekeeper witnessing a scene with an old blind woman. I waited the entire story for this to play into the primary plot, but it never happened. A rune of destruction is mentioned, but none of that is ever brought up again, which, for someone new to the series, is a massive flaw. It left me questioning more than I should, and when I go back to look at other stories, I just don’t see how they can all be connected. They run the gamut in regards to genre. And yet, if this isn’t related to the series, what in hell does it have to do with anything else?

Those kind of questions don’t come until after I’ve finished the story. For the most part while I was reading it, I enjoyed myself. The prose is simple and clean, and nothing jars too much as being out of period. I was even able to tolerate the couple instances of headhopping. Baden is likable, in spite of being a little brusque, and if Cora is a little too good to be true, I’m mostly okay with that. The author builds the romance between them realistically, without anything happening too fast, so that when passions finally do explode, I believed it. The erotica is simple but direct, not overwhelming in the least, nor unfortunately all that memorable. The focus is more on the romance, which somehow seems right for these two.

When things began to unravel was the final chapter and resolution of the story. I won’t spoil what happens, but I finished the story completely disbelieving how it could have finished the way it did. Oh, it’s an HEA, no doubt about that. But the success of the plot’s solution relies on one fact – that the heightened sense of smell Baden has, and utilizes throughout the story even in human form, fails him. I don’t buy it. At all. Maybe if there was explanation of his shifting abilities, or less attention paid to his heightened ability throughout the story, I could’ve believed it. As it was, the entire ending of the story failed to work for me so utterly that I didn’t even care about the romance anymore. It’s a shame. There was actual potential in this short little story. In spite of its godawful cover.

Readability	8/10 – Mild head-hopping only slightly detracts from mostly readable prose.
Hero	7/10 – Solemn and mysterious, his enigmatic appearances intrigue enough to keep my interested.
Heroine	6/10 – Not a damsel, but I’m never completely sure why all the men fall for her.
Entertainment value	5/10 – I was actually rather enjoying myself with this, until the ending disappointed me enough to drag this score down.
World building	7/10 – The world of late 19th century London is believable, though I have no clues at all about the paranormal aspects of it.
TOTAL:	33/50

Unbreakable by Sydney Somers

TITLE: Unbreakable
AUTHOR: Sydney Somers
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 72k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $5.50

When her lover and partner dies in her arms, cop Jordan McAdam’s life is changed forever. Absorbing some of the essence of the demon that killed Gage, she takes a new direction and becomes a Rogue Destroyer, intent on killing off the Shadow demons that stalk the earth. She’s not prepared when Gage shows up five years later, however, alive and hunting demons himself. With a new threat on the loose, can they work together to stop it? Even more, can they get past the pain of their separation to start over?

On first glance, this seemed exactly my thing. I love urban fantasy. I love heroines who kick ass. I love reunions. But by chapter two of this book, I seriously contemplated not bothering to finish it at all. Only my own stubborn nature kept me plowing through.

Before the real story even starts, before the prologue, the author provides a little history into the creation/source of the Shadow demons. It’s told in third-person omniscient, kind of like a formal lesson: Four thousand years ago an ancient civilization was marred by a history not unlike our own past… Then, the author has a prologue on top of that, where the reader gets introduced to Jordan and Gage and has us seeing him die in her arms. So before she ever gets around to modern day, she’s had over 4k of story told, of information dumped into my lap in not necessarily the most graceful manner. Even more gets dumped in the interminably long first chapter (almost 5k). And my attention is lost. It’s too much. I have little doubts from the way she presents Gage’s death in the prologue that that author intends this to be suspenseful, action-packed, and yet, by the end of the first chapter, any tension she could have built is gone.

It’s not just the information dump that’s at fault here. While there aren’t enough spelling or grammar mistakes to make note of, there are constant missing articles like a or the, or prepositions, even added verbs once in awhile. It’s like somebody was only skimming the story in editing, instead of reading it word for word. On top of that, the author makes the decision midway through the first chapter – after having been entirely in Jordan’s perspective for the entire prologue and first half of the first chapter – to switch to Gage’s POV. We get their first face-to-face with Gage seeing Jordan for the first time in 5 years –when he knew she was alive – rather than the much more dramatic, and more emotionally invested, perspective of Jordan’s. Why? I don’t get it. Why toss away all that potential drama and water it down by letting the reader know about Gage too soon? It completely didn’t work for me, and any ties I had to the story were loosened enough by that point so that as it progressed and the characters alternately annoyed or bored me, they disappeared altogether.

About two-thirds of the way through the story, the author starts to really find her stride, balancing action with character scenes with exposition far more gracefully than she did in the beginning. For me, however, it’s too little, too late. I couldn’t help but feel that this should have been a first draft. The beginning feels too much like the author in search of her story. When she found out, she should have gone back and chopped off all the extraneous stuff in the beginning and found more strategic ways of placing it throughout her story. She wouldn’t have lost me as a reader then.

Readability	6/10 – A massive information dump at the top of the story along with editing issues throughout had me fighting not to skim by a third of the way through the story
Hero	6/10 – Consistent, but nothing original to catch my attention
Heroine	6/10 – The anger gets really old and heavy-handed after awhile.
Entertainment value	3/10 – Boredy McBored. The elements are there, but by the time the author got around to finally presenting them in a way that engaged me, I didn’t care anymore.
World building	8/10 – Considering how much information is dumped on the reader in the beginning of the story, it would be impossible not to know this much about this world.
TOTAL:	29/50

Straw Into Gold by Nina Merrill

TITLE: Straw Into Gold
AUTHOR: Nina Merrill
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Heat
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 20k)
GENRE: Fantasy erotic romance
COST: $5.00

A weaver who recognizes her womanly wiles. A father who drunkenly tells the king his daughter can weave gold from straw. A horny goblin. It’s Rumpelstiltskin for the erotic romance market.

I read the excerpt for this out of curiosity more than anything else. I’ve read a few fairy tales gone adult, and I wasn’t entirely sure how this could be anything new. The excerpt was in first person, from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view, as he watched Bella get it on with the captain of the king’s guard. And I thought, Damn. This is going to be all voyeuristic. I gotta get me some of that.

Well, the excerpt was a tad misleading.

The author switches between two perspectives, both told in 1^st person. First is the heroine, Bella, the miller’s daughter, who’s being held by the king because her oh so wonderful father bragged about her being able to turn straw into gold. Bella is a bit of a slut, all too aware of her feminine wiles, all too willing to use them to get whatever she wants. I can’t really blame her for much of it; after all, if she doesn’t make this gold, she’s going to get killed. If my choices were flirting or death, I’d be flashing my cleavage at anybody remotely interested, too.

The other perspective is Rumpelstiltskin, and he is one horny little devil. Sometimes, ickily so. His first demand for payment from Bella is the chance to suckle milk from her breasts, and when he doesn’t get that (not from lack of trying on his part), he settles for jerking off while watching her with the captain (the excerpt I had read). We’re not meant to like Rumpelstiltskin, I’m pretty sure, and it’s pretty easy to be a tad repulsed by him. But when half the story is told from his POV, it’s difficult for some of those feelings not to carry over into Bella’s sections, especially when she’s slutting it up.

That lowers my overall appreciation for the fun in this story. I would have been more than happy to hear the whole thing from our horny goblin’s POV, or just Bella’s. The sex is reasonably hot, and while some of her metaphors – keeping with the fantasy spirit/escapism of the whole thing – don’t work for me, I can overlook them to simply have fun. But don’t read this for the romance. That is most definitely not its strength.

Readability	8/10 – Varying 1st person POV’s actually isn’t that jarring once it’s established, though some of her metaphors are a little unfortunate
Hero	4/10 – It’s a fairy tale. Since when does the hero really have a personality?
Heroine	6/10 – Spunky with a side of slut.
Entertainment value	6/10 – Parts of it were hugely entertaining, others highly uncomfortable
World building	8/10 – For rewriting a fairy tale, the details worked for me.
TOTAL:	32/50

Spirits Shared by Jory Strong

TITLE: Spirits Shared
AUTHOR: Jory Strong
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 40k)
GENRE: Paranormal ménage erotic romance
COST: $5.20

Jessica and Clay are engaged to be married. The only problem is, Clay has just informed the woman he loves more than anything that he’s bisexual, and he can’t be satisfied with only her as a lover. Somehow, someway, he needs to incorporate a male into their relationship, or worry for the rest of his life that he’ll succumb to his desire for another and lose her trust. A storm sends them off the road, and they are rescued by Native American Tekoa. Tekoa’s spirit has told him that Jessica and Clay are the mates which he’s been praying for. Now they just have to take it slow and get to know each other, in their attempts to find true happiness.

Maybe I’m a cynic. This certainly isn’t the first soulmate story I’ve read, and while I know it’s not the last, the fact that I’m about to say how this didn’t work for me either is going to lead people to think that maybe I shouldn’t be reading soulmate stories. After choosing this story on a recommendation from someone else, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I should start considering that suggestion a little more seriously.

In spite of headhopping, there’s nothing really wrong with the author’s writing style. She uses terminology that isn’t to my taste, but it’s certainly mostly effective in putting together a hot scene, or building suspense as the story progresses. Where it began to fail for me – other than the headhopping – was in some of the character choices that had me rolling my eyes. Like the fact that Clay refers to his penis as a separate entity in lines such as, He arched his hips slightly to press his cock into her cupped hand. “He’s a big fan of yours too.” or “If I weren’t afraid of him catching pneumonia after all he’s been through today, I’d pull these sweats down so he could greet you properly.” It definitely doesn’t help that Jessica encourages this kind of talk. I always find this juvenile, I’m afraid. The only guys I ever knew who talked like this were in high school and college.

Then there’s Tekoa’s talk about breeding. That’s his word, not mine. The Thunderbird’s spirit urged him to take her to her hands and knees and breed her. Because he keeps talking about knocking her up. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find it a romantic notion in this situation, especially when he’s only just met the woman. It objectifies Jessica in a way that bugs me, and makes me lose respect for him as an individual, even if it is a cultural thing.

My dissatisfaction with the two men probably contributed to my reluctance to buy into any of the spiritual connections. I wholeheartedly believed that Clay loved Jessica. That Jessica loved Clay. That both of them were incredibly attracted to Tekoa. But the entire aspect of the Thunderbird soulmates rubbed me the wrong way. The Creator leaves two cups on Tekoa’s mantle, signifying his blessing for the threesome. After Clay drinks it, Tekoa denies that there’s any drugging influence, but then he turns around and is adamant that Jessica has to drink hers; otherwise, they can’t be joined. Obviously, it’s a ritualistic thing, but the way it’s presented reeks of taking the choice away from Clay and Jessica’s control, and it makes it much, much harder for me to invest in their emotional bonding then.

I’m glad this story works for some people. The writer knows how to write, and if the story’s not entirely to my taste, that’s hardly her fault. It might be worth it for me to keep an eye out for her future releases.

Readability	7/10 – Relatively clean prose loses impact with headhopping and character foibles that pulled me out of the story
Menage	6/10 – The sex is hot, but the emotional/spiritual connections are hard for me to buy as a ménage.
Characterization	6/10 – Solid enough, if not enjoyable for me
Entertainment value	5/10 – Without being able to connect emotionally, it was difficult to overlook annoying aspects of the story enough to enjoy it more.
World building	8/10 – For as much as I didn’t believe it, the author still managed to show me what the Thunderbird mythology was like.
TOTAL:	32/50

Sweet Revenge by Peggy Hunter

TITLE: Sweet Revenge
AUTHOR: Peggy Hunter
PUBLISHER: Whiskey Creek Press Torrid
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 25k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.99

For 15 years, Allison has nursed the hurt that the only guy she has ever loved took her to prom simply to have sex with her. Now on the eve of her wedding, she needs to get Randy Gallagher out of her mind, once and for all. She buys a single night with him at a charity bachelor auction, but has she started something she can’t stop? Suddenly, she’s not so sure.

I need to mix things up when I read. If all my choices were only werewolves, or gay erotica, or historicals, I would get bored very quickly. That’s why I deliberately chose a straightforward contemporary romance for today. After the headache I got reading the last book, I wanted something simple.

Simple is what I got. Too simple, actually. With only the price to go by, I knew this wouldn’t be a huge long read, but I didn’t anticipate being as bored with it as I was. Revenge scenarios can be a lot of fun if handled well, but there was little in this story to truly engage me.

Allison’s motivations remain unclear at first. When they are finally revealed, their shallowness drove me to look for enjoyment elsewhere. First, I tried Randy. You know what? He’s a jerk. He calls women, “babe,” which is a major turn-off for me, and he freely admits to simply wanting to sleep with whatever woman catches his eye. Supposedly, he’s changed his mind by the end, but I don’t believe it for a second. Neither he nor the heroine do anything that merits such a change of heart except have sex. For a guy like Randy, sex must equal love. Not for me.

I tried getting immersed in the story’s plot and/or voice instead then. But while the author has a simple, readable style, there’s nothing original about it. It doesn’t help that the storyline is predictable either, all the way down to Allison’s wedding and the events that transpire afterward. In the end, without any one thing to keep me hooked into the story, I read just for the sake of killing time. Looks like I got bored mixing it up anyway.

Readability	6/10 – Simple prose, unencumbered by anything very challenging, though the occasional word misuse mars it
Hero	3/10 – Forgettable and kind of a jerk
Heroine	6/10 – A tad dim, and enough of a wet noodle outside of Randy’s presence to make me prefer her sister
Entertainment value	3/10 – It left me bored and annoyed, not a great combo
World building	6/10 – Fairly average, with nothing exciting or vivid to draw me in
TOTAL:	24/50

The Seagrass Whore by Ellen Ashe

TITLE: The Seagrass Whore
AUTHOR: Ellen Ashe
PUBLISHER: Forbidden Publications
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 40k)
GENRE: Paranormal romantic suspense
COST: $4.99

Leena has the Sight, which has only gotten more acute since a bad car accident a year ago. When her fiancé Colin takes her to Calloway Cove to meet his estranged father, she gets caught up in the sight of a ghostly woman with blood on her hands. The legend of the Seagrass Whore captivates both her and her future father-in-law, even more so when it looks like the old love story about a woman falling in love with her husband’s father might be repeating itself. Together, they try and free the ghost's soul, and at the same time, save their own.

The cover of this book captivated me. It was haunting and sensual, and though the title and excerpt threw me a little, I decided to try it anyway. I thought it might be worth trying something a little offbeat for a change. Offbeat is probably the best way to describe this in the end.

The prose is…uneven. That’s probably the best word. There are sections where it’s very lyrical and flows well enough to suck me in. Then there are sections where it feels like reading a grade school primer. I don’t know if this is the author’s style since this is the first title of hers I’ve read, but it almost seems like she’s trying to obtain a haunting voice to match her haunting subject matter. If that’s the case, it only worked for me half the time.

The other half, I was too busy trying to figure out what was going on. Characterization is all over the place. Most scenes – especially between Leena and Cole, the father – have such a dizzying array of emotions that I can never tell what the scene’s true intent really is. I really liked Cole in the beginning; the author set him from the start to be this great anti-hero. By the time the real meat of the story hit, however, I started wondering what was going on with him. It doesn't help that the writing suffers in some of the more intimate scenes; I've never seen a hero purr so much that wasn't a shapeshifter. That feeling only got worse throughout the climax when it felt like Cole was saying one thing, doing another, and thinking something completely different, none of which was meshing or explaining the other. It climaxes with the very last scene of the book, which I refuse to spoil, but I walked away from the story unconvinced it was a happy ever after, or even a happy for now.

I really liked the idea of mirroring the tragic events of the Seagrass Whore with the triangle of Colin/Cole/Leena, but ultimately, it didn’t work for me. I had nobody to connect with, or respect, or even empathize a little for. Colin is trashed from nearly the get-go, while Leena and Cole suffer from behavior that borders on unstable. Maybe that was the point. I’m not sure. But I don’t buy escapist fiction to spend hours afterward wondering what I had just read. I buy it to get sucked into the story. I’ll settle for getting sucked into the haunting cover of this for now.

Readability	7/10 – Lyrical prose gets hindered by poor pacing and inconsistent characterization
Hero	5/10 – Compelling for the first half, then falls apart with ambiguities
Heroine	4/10 – Other than her Sight, I never know much about her, and if the ambiguous ending means what I think it does, I have even less respect for her.
Entertainment value	5/10 – A fascinating concept fails on follow-thru
World building	4/10 – In spite of interesting prose and some interesting ideas, the details fill in the wrong kind of holes and leave me trying to imagine what’s going on.
TOTAL:	25/50