Maverick's Black Cat by Maggie Casper & Lena Matthews

TITLE: Maverick’s Black Cat
AUTHOR: Maggie Casper & Lena Matthews
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 57k)
GENRE: Contemporary BDSM erotic romance
COST: $5.95

Writer Caterina Vaughn wants to write a BDSM romance. Only problem is, she knows nothing about the lifestyle. Logging onto a chat room, she hopes to do her research online, but the captivating messages of a man who calls himself Maverick push her farther than she ever thought she’d go. For his part, Maverick is tired of women who’ll bend over backwards to please him. He wants one who will challenge him…right before bending over backwards to please him. When these two come together, it’s combustible. Until the online world becomes just a little too small for the both of them…

It’s another oldie today, but not because I’m reading my TBR pile. I picked this one as interesting because of my experience with one of Lena Matthews’ other titles recently. It won an EPPIE, as well as sounded interesting, so I said what the hell.

Now I wonder what it takes to win an EPPIE. Because being technically superior sure isn’t it.

I almost didn’t bother reading this. Nothing irks me faster than finding editorial problems in a book, though I’ll usually forgive the occasional typo. However, when the authors has the error, there was someone out there willing to act out even the most bazaar of fantasies, 150 words into the story, it doesn’t usually bode well. I actually rolled my eyes and shut down the document, filing it to my “cold day in hell” folder for later perusal. It took me a week to try looking at it again, because I just couldn’t fathom how an EPPIE winner could be so blatant with errors. Although that is probably the worst of the word misusages, the authors also occasionally slip on POV (which I hate), and then halfway through the story, start spelling the heroine’s last name differently. How is it possible to take a book seriously when both authors and editors can’t care enough to get stuff straight? It’s very difficult, let me tell you.

It also doesn’t help that I loathed both main characters. Caterina is meant to come across as strong and independent, but her bitchy attitude in the first encounter with Maverick went just too far. I could not understand at all why Maverick was so intrigued by her. Then, when things got moved to the next level, his worst personality traits came to the foreground, and lo and behold, the guy who admits to needing control in every aspect of his life turns out to be a jerk who acts like a jerk, too. This was the one time I agreed with Caterina when she tried to break it off. Too bad she lacks a spine and didn’t stick to it.

But now comes my confession time. I can probably figure out why this book won. I know I’m a stickler when it comes to spelling and grammar mistakes, or editing inconsistencies, or POV shifts. I also know some readers don’t even notice those. If a book sucks you in, it gets even harder to see errors because you’re so completely invested in the story. And that’s what happens here. In spite of technical issues, in spite of characters I absolutely hate, in spite of a trite premise that feels like it’s been done a million times, the story is HOT. Hotter than a lot of stuff I’ve read recently. I could not stop reading the damn thing. The BDSM in this is all about power, with a little bit of spanking thrown in on the side. Maverick might have pissed me off outside the bedroom – much like he did Caterina – but hell if I wouldn’t have been one of those women bending over backwards for him.

I think that’s what must have happened with the EPPIEs. The judges had their brains short-circuited from the heat this story generates. And actually, I’d probably say that’s really not a bad way to go.

Readability	8/10 – Editorial mistakes. Occasional slips on POV. Characters I didn’t like. None of it was enough to tear me away from this.
Hero	5/10 – He’s a jerk. And I have absolutely no idea why he falls for the heroine. But damn if I wouldn’t bend over and beg for his hand if I had the chance.
Heroine	4/10 – I liked her even less than the hero, a bitch at the start that I couldn’t fathom anybody wanting to get to know better. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t wishing I was her by the end, though.
Entertainment value	8/10 – Yes, it’s an 8. Even though I don’t like the characters. And found the premise trite. It works so well as erotica in spite of that, though, it deserves a higher score here.
World building	4/10 – I never really believe or know much about the world outside their cybering.
TOTAL:	29/50

Bachelor Auction by Vic Winter

TITLE: Bachelor Auction
AUTHOR: Vic Winter
PUBLISHER: Torquere Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 4.7k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay romance
COST: $1.29

Professor Jeremy Aberdeen, advisor to his college’s GLBT club, never expected to be put on the auction block for their bachelor charity fundraiser, nor did he expect to get the highest bid. But the biggest surprise of all is who won him…

I saw this Torquere title, remembered how fresh I initially found the previous title I read by this author, and decided to give it a shot. After all, $1.29 is nothing. I can dig that out of the change holder in my car, lol. While maybe I didn’t get a hugely rich reading experience, I did learn one thing. The author can curtail his own bad habits – i.e., the repetition I had problem with in the last story – and make it worthwhile to keep an eye out for him.

There is very little I can actually say about this short story. It focuses on the story and romantic aspects, with the smut at the end almost an afterthought. It’s sweet, maybe more than a little predictable, without really a lot unique about it. But I believed the characters, and I believed the moments, and in the end, that was enough.

Readability	8/10 – Simple, mostly clean prose
Hero	6/10 – Likable and sweet
Hero #2	5/10 – Not as sharply drawn, but it’s a short, and I’m oddly forgiving.
Entertainment value	6/10 – Exactly what the cover says. Just a sip. A sweet one, but a sip, nonetheless
World building	5/10 – The story focused more on the emotion than the detail, and it shows here.
TOTAL:	30/50

Breaking Free by Karen Erickson

TITLE: Breaking Free
AUTHOR: Karen Erickson
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press (Amber Heat)
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 11k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.00

With a new membership to the sex club, the Kama Sutra Club, Mallory wants a night of anonymous passion. The manager Blake spots Mallory and decides to make her dreams come true, including her desire to have a threesome for the first time in her life. The night of passion that ensues is more than Mallory ever dreamed…

As I was reading, I had every intention of focusing my review on this story about how short stories shouldn’t be afraid of being erotica if they can’t work a romance angle. I got to the final chapter in it, however, and was completely thrown aback by the gotcha ending the author tacked on. Seriously. So now I’m going to complain about gotchas.

Gotcha endings are great when they work. When is that? When the reader can go back into the text and see all the signs that the author planted along the way to point at the gotcha. Then, a reader gets that feeling of, "Oh, I should have seen that coming." Surprise is a very good thing. If there aren’t any signs, however, a reader is left with a whole feeling of “what the hell is going on here?”. Like Bobby dreaming away an entire season of Dallas. It’s lazy, and it’s annoying, and I don’t know about other readers, but it turns me off a writer faster than almost anything else. Because I feel cheated.

Why does it feel like I was cheated? Because there are internal monologues for both hero and heroine before the last chapter that contradict the end. Or at the very least, feel like they contradict. Maybe if the story had stuck with a single POV, I could have bought into the gotcha. But it didn’t, and I didn’t, and honestly, I doubt I’d trust this author again to buy another of her stories. It’s a shame because if it had stayed simple as a piece of erotica, I would have liked it a lot better. But the entire feeling of, “Oh, I need an HEA! Quick! I better tack one on!”, leaves me cold.

Readability	8/10 – Easy prose that maintains a nice balance of eroticism
Hero	5/10 – When the focus is on the smut, there leaves little room for characterization.
Heroine	4/10 – I know even less about her than I do the hero. At least, until it’s too late.
Entertainment value	2/10 – I wasn’t minding this too much as an erotic story – not a romance – until the gotcha ending pissed me off.
World building	4/10 – This is about the smut. Who has time to create a real world here?
TOTAL:	23/50

Rules of Engagement by Loribelle Hunt

TITLE: Rules of Engagement
AUTHOR: Loribelle Hunt
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 14k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $3.99

MP Sergeant First Class Janey Foster is done with controlling men. Until she meets the perfect physical specimen in Captain Jake Turner. She breaks all her personal rules for a weekend of passion, but when his behavior afterward borders on the same lines as her ex-husband’s, Janey breaks it off. Can Jake convince her that he’s not the man she thinks he is?

I can’t answer that question for Janey, but I can answer it for myself. A big fat no. I love my big alpha heroes, but only when they’re done well. This starts out promisingly, with some delicious description of Jake’s physique. I can even stick with it for that first weekend of hot sex. It’s not the most erotic thing I’ve ever read, but it was solid enough not to have me cringing.

Then Janey goes out for dinner with a male friend. Friend, being the operative word here. Not a date. And Jake turns into a possessive, Neanderthal jerk. And I can’t blame her when she shoves him to the side.

What truly weakens this story is that the author then chooses to skip a year into the future. I frowned when I saw the note about the time jump at the top of chapter three, but I figured, “Hey, maybe Janey hasn’t seen him in a year. After all, she was getting deployed.” But no, that wasn’t the case. What’s actually happened is that Janey and Jake have been in contact that entire time, and the reader is brought back into the story after she’s already decided she’s in love with him. The entire romance part of the story – the convincing Janey he wasn’t a jerk, the wooing, the deepening of Janey’s feelings – is condensed into just a few paragraphs. The author robs the reader of any sort of development in favor of either meeting a word limitation or to get to the good stuff, neither of which is justifiable when you’re calling yourself an erotic romance.

Kind of hard to recommend something as a romance when there isn’t any romance in it.

Readability	7/10 – Solid enough, though my intolerance for headhopping and the occasional error bugged me.
Hero	5/10 – Started out well, but the rapid descent into Neanderthal made it very difficult to like him after he attempts to save himself in the heroine’s eyes.
Heroine	5/10 – Not enough there for me to believe or understand why she’d want to be with the jerk
Entertainment value	4/10 – Brevity robs the story of the romance when the author completely skips over the entire time needed to redeem the hero.
World building	8/10 – The backdrop of the military seems relatively real to me.
TOTAL:	29/50

Bone Deep by Bonnie Dee

TITLE: Bone Deep
AUTHOR: Bonnie Dee
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 60k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: $5.95

When widow Sarah Cassidy first spies the tattooed man at the traveling carnival, she’s drawn to him in ways she can’t explain. When he shows up in her barn the next morning, after having run away from the owner who kept him a prisoner in his own life, the attraction is even stronger. She takes him in, offering shelter even though he claims to have had a dream about her. His visions later lead him into helping the small community find a missing girl, but his appearance creates mixed reactions. Sarah isn’t willing to hear any of it, too protective of the man she has fallen in love with to listen to any of her neighbors’ warnings. What she doesn’t know, however, is if they really do have a future together, and Tom’s visions aren’t any help at all with that…

I have never had any doubt that Bonnie Dee knows how to write on a technical level. In the two anthologies I’ve read that she contributed to, her prose was consistently solid with very little wrong with it, if a trifle dull. In at least one of the stories I read, there was genuine characterization that rose above, “Oh, I’m horny, let’s have sex!” characterization that cripples a lot of erotic romance. That works to her advantage in this particular story, when it’s critical that the reader understands and likes her two main characters.

Tom, the man whose body is covered entirely in tattoos, is as damaged as they come. He’s frightened at the start of the book, reluctant to communicate even with coaxing, and pretty much knows nothing about interacting with people. This is every “Oh, I can save him” fantasy anyone has ever had, all rolled up into one guy. To the author’s credit, Tom remains realistic, grows in a credible fashion throughout the story, and is pretty much the emotional anchor for the story. Without him, I very much doubt I would have been as invested in the story as I was. Sarah, the heroine, is solid and believable, but when Tom wasn’t around, she suffers from the sort of sameness feel I get from other stories I’ve read of this author. I believe her. I just don’t engage with her.

While the romance works quite well for me, the conflict generated by the community’s bigotry didn’t meet the same level of satisfaction. Ms. Dee does an excellent job carefully constructing the prejudice of a small town in the ‘40s, so much so that when she resorted to a Timmy’s stuck in the well plot device in order to introduce him to the people who fear him, I was hugely disappointed. The fact that Tom had supposed visions inherited from his mother – the carnival’s fortune teller – never sat well with me anyway, but then to turn around and use one of the oldest tricks in the book to gain sympathy for him set my teeth on edge. It was too easy. Way too easy. And the world the author created up to that point was far too complex for such a copout answer. Granted, it doesn’t completely work. But she had enough people falling for it that my disappointment tarnished my enjoyment of the second half of the story.

It is incredibly difficult to categorize this story, which in the end, becomes its greatest asset. It’s sold as a contemporary, though it falls into that nebulous mid-20^th century timeframe that seems to confuse a lot of publishers. I’m calling it a historical, because the narrow mindset of the 1946 timeframe is crucial to the story. It’s also sold as an erotic romance, but I’m going to make a confession. I almost never remember this author’s sex scenes when the story is over. It’s only been a few months since I read her short stories, and all I remember is thinking one had too much sex and the other had an m/f/f threesome in it. Where this story resonates is not in its plotting, or its eroticism, or its prose. It’s in the character of Tom. He is the heart and soul here, and the reason why most readers probably won’t even notice the things that bugged me.

Readability	8/10 – Gentle prose evoking a gentle story
Hero	8/10 – As damaged as they come, this one satisfies readers’ savior instincts better than most.
Heroine	7/10 – Solid and believable, if a little boring.
Entertainment value	7/10 – The romance in this worked for me a lot better than the plot the author laid on top of it.
World building	9/10 – Tightly detailed with some absolutely exquisite minutiae that lent even more credibility.
TOTAL:	39/50

The Succubus by Sarah Winn

TITLE: The Succubus
AUTHOR: Sarah Winn
PUBLISHER: Whiskey Creek Press Torrid
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 31k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: $5.49

Crippled Lord Kendrick wants an heir. In an attempt to keep the bloodline pure, he arranges for his young, beautiful wife to seduce his healthy nephew. They try to drug Daniel, but when that eventually fails, Isabel is forced to come up with a lie hiding her identity in order to keep from being punished. Neither she nor Daniel expects the sex or relationship they find to be as rewarding as it is, but when Daniel learns of her duplicity, his fury knows no bounds. Can he forgive her before it’s too late? Is it even possible for them to have a future with her married to his uncle?

My good luck with a historical last week has me looking through other historicals I’ve got to read, but unfortunately the quality just isn’t quite as high. I’d heard good things about this author, but I’m afraid I must have picked the wrong title of hers to read. The only thing this one really had going for it was the period detail. That was nice. Unfortunately, I don’t read historical romances in order to get steeped in atmosphere.

My problems arose primarily with the hero. Daniel is young, handsome, and seems fairly with it in spite of Kendrick’s private assertions that he’s an idiot. He cottons on to the drugging fairly quick and then when he falls for her, it’s really quite sweet. All of that vanishes when he discovers the truth. Now, I can’t blame him for being pissed off. After all, he just found out that basically he’s been used as a stud service for the past week, and it was done primarily to bilk him out of his inheritance. I’m actually okay with his reaction.

Fast-forward a year later. Daniel ends up inheriting anyway. He’s angrier than ever at Isabel, and decides to force her to be his public mistress, to shame her for what she did to him because he’s convinced she’s a whore anyway. Daniel becomes very unlikable at this point, even though I understand why he feels like he does. I can even go along with his plans, because what I’m hoping is that eventually he’s actually going to listen to each and every single person who tells him what an innocent Isabel is and how awful Kendrick was. As I’m waiting, however, he gets meaner and more unreasonable until Isabel feels she has no choice but to play the seductress in order to make the best of her new awful situation. I actually start feeling sorry for her even though she’s been an absolute wimp for the whole story. But when Daniel finally makes the change, it’s out of the blue. There is no gradual understanding, no really telling event, no way for me to believe it at all. It just happens. And then the story ends.

It’s frustrating when characters do such a turnaround. It doesn’t help that the prose is fairly amateurish, with inelegant headhopping and silly mistakes – such as slipping verb tense within a single sentence. I can’t recommend this one, not even for historical lovers. I think you’ll be far too frustrated by the hero to enjoy it.

Readability	6/10 – Mild headhopping and scattered technical errors, as well as scattered characterizations ends up making this more muddlesome than it should be.
Hero	4/10 – Showed real potential until he turned into a complete ass in the second half of the story.
Heroine	6/10 – Wimpy and ultimately inconsistent
Entertainment value	5/10 – This had real potential until the HEA out of nowhere and a hero who turned into a jerk.
World building	8/10 – Very nice period detail draws a reader in.
TOTAL:	29/50

Wheels by Vic Winter

TITLE: Wheels
AUTHOR: Vic Winter
PUBLISHER: Torquere Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 13k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay erotic romance
COST: $2.25

Online, they’re HammerDude and Wheels95. Offline, they’re Gordy and Brian. Online, they’ve been best friends for months. Offline, they’re about to have their first date.

Gordy is a clumsy, computer geek meeting his online best friend for the first time. He’s nervous about the first date anyway, but when he discovers that Brian is in a wheelchair, his nerves go into doubletime. In spite of a rocky start, the date goes off brilliantly, leaving these two trying to figure out where to take it next. The online world doesn’t seem quite enough anymore…

The best way for me to not be quite as bothered by technical mistakes is for me to be charmed by other aspects of a story. The narrator in this particular short is not your typical romance hero. He’s clumsy, a self-professed geek, and an e-mail addict who spends most of his time on the computer because frankly, it’s easier and more fun than most real life stuff. He has a self-deprecating sense of humor that attracted me from the beginning, and the prose is written in a third person, stream of consciousness style that’s just fun to read for a change.

For a little while. The one disadvantage to stream of consciousness is that people are creatures of habit. We do the same things, say the same things. Well, so does Gordy. By 2/3’s of the way through the story, I rolled my eyes every time he said “wow.” Seriously. I counted. The word “wow” comes up 31 times in the story, and 23 of those come after they’ve left the restaurant from their date. Which happens 5k into the story. Can we say overkill?

What that’s indicative, however, is an editor not having a tight enough control on the story. There are technical issues scattered throughout – passed for past, for instance – but not enough that I would have singled them out, if it wasn’t for the repetition in the stream of consciousness aspect. I understand that this is probably explained away as a Gordy quirk, but it’s the author’s job to keep it fresh. And the editor’s job to point it out to the author when he doesn’t.

Since so much attention is focused on Gordy, Brian ends up being shortchanged in the characterization department. I’m sure he’s solid and interesting enough, but with all of Gordy’s wows and breathless adulation, he’s not the most reliable of witnesses. I would have much preferred breaking it up to get Brian’s POV at some point. That would have given me a better handle on him, while also providing an outside perspective on Gordy. Is he really as geeky as he proclaims? Is his clumsiness a magnification of his insecurity issues or something real? These are questions I would have loved to get the answers to, but the way it’s currently written, those are denied me.

Still, it’s nice reading about real guys falling in love for a change. The sex is pleasant enough, the emotion seems mostly real, and best of all, I’d probably try this author again. That’s one of my real measuring sticks. A lot of authors don’t make that cut.

Readability	6/10 – A fresh voice gets held back by loose editing and repetition
Hero #1	7/10 – Quirky and likable, though it gets tiring reading in his voice
Hero #2	6/10 – Suffers from not being as well characterized since it feels like the author is spending too much time making Gordy quirky
Entertainment value	6/10 – In spite of technical issues, I liked this for the new kind of heroes it presented and for having a sense of humor
World building	8/10 – Brian’s disability is treated intelligently and realistically, and I’d buy Gordy’s world without blinking
TOTAL:	33/50

Twist of Honor by Karen Welss

TITLE: Twist of Honor
AUTHOR: Karen Welss
PUBLISHER: Awe-Struck E-Books
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 94k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $4.99

Puritan widow, the Countess of Cranbourne, finds herself pursued relentlessly for her wealth. Unwilling to remarry, she simply wants to live her life in peace, but her impoverished suitors have different ideas. One in particular enlists the aid of a poor, illegitimate relation to kidnap the Countess to force her hand. Kit Fitzgeorge, a disabled soldier returning to England with his ill daughter, feels like he doesn’t have a choice in the matter but to take the job. A chance encounter has the Countess offering him a position as a bodyguard, but instead of making his job easier, it only makes things harder for Kit. Because that’s when he falls head over heels for her, and finds himself torn between his love and his responsibility.

I’m not sure if it’s the season or my mood or what, but I have been very uninspired by the new releases I’ve seen of late, so I’m delving into my TBR pile when I find myself in search of something new to read. There have been some real gems – as well as some real duds – but because I know I tend to review a lot of mediocre books, I’m trying to focus on the really good stuff to share when I find it.

Twist of Honor falls into that category of books I don’t expect to love. I find a lot of English history dull as dishwater – hell, I find a lot of history dull as dishwater – so historicals have to work a little harder for me to enjoy, sometimes even to finish. For some reason, this book surpassed both of those and leapt straight into keeper status. Oh, the history is still there – this is set in Restoration England, with all the schisms and debauchery of the classes and religion – and there are a couple of long-winded passages about period detail that make me yawn. But it works because of the truly fantastic characters, sympathetically drawn and so realistic I finished the story feeling like I’d been spying on people I knew and loved.

Antonia, the Countess, leads a simple life. The daughter of a merchant, she married into nobility through her father’s wealth, but finds herself widowed very young when her older husband dies of smallpox. She is left scarred as well, which doesn’t end up deterring the suitors determined to get their hands on her money. What I loved about Antonia was the fact that she was both intelligent enough to realize the predicament she was in and to do what she could about it, without losing the strong spirit bolstered by the tenets of her faith. She’s a good person without being too good, and I sympathized with her plight even when I knew half her plans were being shot out of the water.

Then there’s Kit. Ah, Kit. There was such a possibility that he could have been a laughable character. I mean, really. He’s a disabled soldier, with a bad hip, and yet fights brilliantly a good portion of the time. He’s a widower, still vastly in love with his dead wife when the story opens, with a small sickly child. He swallows his pride to accept a job he finds distasteful from a relative he doesn’t respect just to ensure his daughter has a future. So many opportunities to go overboard, and yet, at the author’s careful hand, he never does. We feel his pain when he’s fighting, know how much he’s pushing himself. We feel his conflict between selfish pursuits and what he knows he has to do for his daughter. Kit ends up being a man to admire, not mock. And admire him I did.

The plot device is common enough, but the story twists into the King’s court in such ways to keep it seeming fresh. The sense of realism is compounded by the gentle pace of the story; these characters don’t go too far too fast, so if you’re looking for a quick romantic fix, you’re not going to find it here. You’re going to fall in love with the characters long before they fall in love with each other. And that only made me fall in love with the story even more.

Readability	9/10 – Considering how much I hate history lessons, I couldn't stop reading.
Hero	9/10 – Rich and human, his fallibility is exactly why I loved him so much.
Heroine	8/10 – Some of her motivations annoyed me, but that’s a period thing and not any fault of the character or author.
Entertainment value	9/10 – In spite of an overused basic premise, the romance and machinations of the plot sucked me in.
World building	9/10 – With my history not as good as it could be, I was left with some questions that should have been answered, but otherwise, absolutely brilliant.
TOTAL:	44/50

Secret Lovers by Cassie Stevens

TITLE: Secret Lovers
AUTHOR: Cassie Stevens
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press (Allure)
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 12k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay erotic romance
COST: $4.00

In twelve weeks since the fateful car accident that introduced them, firefighter Alex and Marine Sam have been nearly inseparable. On the surface, they claim it’s because they’ve discovered a best friend. While that’s true, they’ve also discovered a secret passion for the other. Both are gay, but neither knows it about the other, until the afternoon when both decide they’re tired of denying their lust. Their feelings are real, but their careers mean keeping them secret. To the world, at least. Not to each other.

If there is one thing I would tell authors who pen short stories if I had the chance, it’s this.

Every. Word. Counts.

Writers of short stories have to be so much more careful about the words they choose, simply because in a condensed format, your reader is that much more aware of them. You don’t have the luxury of losing their suspension of disbelief because you don’t have the time to get them back. Don’t give them reasons to laugh when you choose unfortunate phrases, like “log of hot velvet” as a euphemism for a hard cock when you’ve spent the first 4k of the prose being modern and graphic. Be aware of your choreography/editing, too. Don’t mix up your heroes’ names when one is standing and the other is on his knees, because when that happens, readers spend five minutes reading and re-reading the paragraph, trying to figure out how Hero #1’s hard nipples can be stabbing into Hero #2’s inner thighs when #1 is standing and #2 is blowing him.

Oh, and please, please, please…if you’re going to write about a man’s prostate, make sure you spell it right. I realize it’s very easy to type prostrate instead of prostate, but that’s what editing is for, right? Catch those mistakes, because you know what? Half the time, scenes that utilize that word are being read more often and more closely than the rest of the story. Readers will notice. This reader certainly did. And don’t use the excuse that you missed it. If you know you’re not particularly good at catching that kind of mistake, use a find function to see if you’ve misspelled it. In this day and age, there’s really no excuse for such errors to get into a final copy.

Maybe it’s not fair that I’ve chosen this particular story to put my rant on, but there were too many examples in it of why I think most short stories don’t work the way the authors want them to. It suffered from all of the above. In addition, the heroes, while nice enough, were practically interchangeable. The conflict was nearly nonexistent, since they both wanted exactly the same thing, had practically the same thoughts, and thus, had no reason not to fall into bed with each other or admit stronger feelings – see above about being interchangeable. While not the worst story I’ve ever read, it’s very forgettable. Except for that log of hot velvet falling into one of the heroes' hand. That still makes me snort.

Readability	6/10 – Stretches of clean, fun prose is marred by other stretches with editing errors and hokey description in the sex scenes.
Hero #1	4/10 – Nothing really wrong, but ultimately, hard to distinguish from the other guy
Hero #2	4/10 – Since the two characters feel like the same, can my reason for the score be the same, too?
Entertainment value	4/10 – I was too busy snorting at some of the phrasing to be able to enjoy this the way I’m sure the author wanted me to.
World building	7/10 – The author doesn’t shirk responsibility in trying to make the world they reside in realistic.
TOTAL:	25/50

The Ride of Her Life by Natasha Moore

TITLE: The Ride of Her Life
AUTHOR: Natasha Moore
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 51k)
GENRE: Contemporary romance
COST: $4.50

With her life about to change for the worse due to a terrifying diagnosis, Sarah Austin is looking for a little adventure in her boring, sensible existence, and the bad boy crush from her youth has just walked into her bank. About to return back west on his Harley, Dean Bastian represents everything Sarah has always yearned for – freedom, adventure, and passion. She asks him to let her hitch a ride with him, unknowing that he’s calmed his wild ways. Dean agrees, but Sensible Sarah isn’t exactly what he expects. Much to her delight.

I’d heard a lot of good things about this book, and reading a contemporary with real problems sounded like a nice change from some of the other material I’ve been reading lately. Plus, the cover reeled me in. Guys with long hair and scruff? The description of every other crush I had before getting married.

But as I started the book, I couldn’t sink into it like I’d hoped. Oh, the writing is solid enough, and since it’s a Samhain title, the editing was top-notch. The characters seemed real enough, too. I knew a lot of Sarah and Deans growing up. But as their adventure on the road unfolds, I kept coming across scene after scene that felt like I’d read it a thousand times over. There was a checklist quality to their relationship that nagged at the back of my mind the entire time I was reading. Hot makeover that makes Dean notice Sarah? Check. Getting caught in the rain? Check. Quaint encounter with older woman/couple to remind Sarah of the happily ever after she wants and won’t get? Check. It just all felt like I’d read it a hundred times over, which, okay, I primarily read romance so it’s all been done a hundred times over, but if the story engages me, I don’t care about that.

Other than individual scenes that felt very unoriginal, though, there’s nothing I can find direct fault with to credit my boredom with this story. The characterization is reasonably rounded without sliding into stereotypes. The logical arc makes sense. I did have issues with Sarah ignoring her diagnosis and the implications of it in order to put her health at risk, but that was minor. The fact that she’d only found out the week before meant she was still in denial. Of course, that also raises the question of why she was also in such a fatalistic mode so quickly, but when I wasn’t emotionally invested in her behavior anyway, that became a moot point.

I’m left to conclude that this is one of those unfortunate books that falls into a gray area for me. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has it. It’s that area where it seems like all the elements are there but for whatever reason, it just doesn’t engage you emotionally. It’s a shame. I still think the guy on the cover is hot.

Readability	8/10 – Easy and error-free, it just didn’t grab and hook me in.
Hero	7/10 – There’s potential here, but my inability to connect emotionally to the story kept me at too much of a distance.
Heroine	6/10 – I had issues believing she’d put herself at so much risk, but at least she didn’t spend the book whining too much.
Entertainment value	4/10 – The elements were all there, but the constant nagging feeling that I’d read those kinds of scenes a million times kept me from investing.
World building	8/10 – I liked the details of the times they were on the road, very nicely done.
TOTAL:	33/50

Hold by Zannie Adams

TITLE: Hold
AUTHOR: Zannie Adams
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 40k)
GENRE: Futuristic erotic romance
COST: $5.20

When Riana is convicted of a minor crime, she is sentenced to life imprisonment on Genus 6, a prison planet. The only way to survive is to trade herself for protection with the strongest man in the place. She chooses the silent and deadly Cain, but life in prison is a daily danger, especially when there are others who would love to keep her for themselves.

I’ve been played. And I don’t even mind. In fact, I’d do it again for this author.

We’ve all got our hot buttons, guilty pleasures. One of mine – one I’m almost embarrassed to admit – is prison romances. They can be gay or het, contemporary or otherworldly, but the grittier they are, the happier I am. So when I read the blurb for this story, I did a little jig and then scolded myself for being too indulgent. I even left the EC site without reading the excerpt. And promptly went back. I’m weak. I’ll admit it.

When the story started, the rather trite prose made me think I was going to get caught out. A badly written story in one of your quirks is enough to spoil them for you for a while. But then, in came Cain. Big. Broody. Uber-alpha. He beat the crap out of the prisoner threatening Riana, took Riana back to his cell, and…well, you can pretty much figure out how Riana paid him back. Repeatedly. And in many positions. Lucky girl.

By the end of the first chapter, I was a goner.

I’m not even sure if it’s safe for me to review this story. By the second chapter, I wasn’t noticing any triteness in the prose, and my early irritation with the heroine – imprisoned for such a stupid crime in order not to make me think less of her, but boy did that not work – vanished. Cain is alternately responsive and mysterious in how he deals with Riana, leaving the reader on edge just as much as he leaves Riana. He's not nearly the monster the other inmates are, conditioned by this awful atmosphere, but there are times when you're not entirely sure he's really all that different. I gulped down this story and when I was done, whined for more.

It’s not even about the sex, because honestly, it’s hot, but now, 24 hours later, I’m hard pressed to remember specific details of the acts. It’s about the emotion involved. That sense of the unknown, fearing for your life, doing everything you can to survive. Toss in a hero who seems just as dangerous, and the recipe for success is well on its way. I loved Cain’s plans, the whole build-up of the climax, Riana's independent thinking in order to make the plans succeed. My single biggest complaint about the story is the damn epilogue. The one where all the grittiness and unknown that I loved about the rest of the story is gone. The one that’s so saccharine sweet, it makes my teeth ache and not more fun parts of me. I would have much preferred ending the story without that. In fact, the next time I read it – and read it again, I shall – I’ll probably stop at the chapter before. Why spoil my guilty pleasure with unneeded sugar?

Readability	7/10 – Not the most sophisticated prose, but at least mostly error free
Hero	8/10 – Guh. Though maybe some of the moodiness did occasionally get annoying.
Heroine	7/10 – I liked her more as the story progressed, but I was well and truly prepared to dislike her during the first scenes.
Entertainment value	8/10 – Totally hits my kinks. I’d just scrub the too-saccharine epilogue.
World building	8/10 – The details of the prison were great, but I would have loved more of the outside world.
TOTAL:	38/50

Threads by Michelle L. Levigne

TITLE: Threads
AUTHOR: Michelle L. Levigne
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 87k)
GENRE: Fantasy romance
COST: $7.00

In a world struggling with wars and reconstruction, one woman holds its future in the magic her fingers weave. She holds no memories, knows only the sheltered existence in a protected valley where once a month, priests bring her supplies to weave their tapestries. And yet, at night, she dreams of a man who knows her better than she knows herself. As the years pass, Dia slowly questions her existence, until Asha’s unexpected arrival at her sanctuary sets them off on a new adventure. One in which they have to save the world as they know it.

This is not your average e-book. It’s not because it’s not erotic, because you can certainly buy non-erotic romances online. It’s not because it’s a fantasy, because fantasy is actually a substantial part of the romance market. It’s in the execution. Threads is not a fast read. It’s not an easy one. It has dense, dreamy prose that requires a reader to pay careful attention to detail, and it has a story construct that necessitates actually thinking about what’s being told. But if you stick with it, it delivers a punch like few other e-books I’ve read this year.

Dia, the heroine, has no memory at the top of the story, and since much of the beginning is told from her POV, it means the reader must try and figure things out at the same time she does. She is a Weaver, and through the course of the careful telling, we learn that her weaving is not just about tapestries. There is magic in her touch, magic that frightens her as much as it intrigues. I felt like I was right there with Dia as she struggled to come to grips with not only her quiet existence, but the question of why she existed at all.

We meet Asha, the hero, first in Dia’s dreams, then later in sections told from his POV. His world is vastly different from Dia’s, and it’s reflected in the prose. Where Dia’s perspective is slow and sedate, Asha’s holds more intrigue, clipping along at a faster pace. By the time Asha takes his destiny into his hands and sets out on the mission that ultimately takes him to Dia, the juxtaposition of these two styles has merged into one, making the second half of the book much more unified than the first. I don’t necessarily consider this a flaw. I think it’s a sign of an author who knows exactly how to craft a tale that fits the world she’s created.

Though this book is labeled Book IV of the Bainevah Series, it is entirely possible to read this lush fantasy on its own without losing too many of the nuances of earlier tales. The author takes great pains to keep a new reader informed, and while these sections can drag a little bit – because she has a lot of history to explain – the pay-off is more than worth it. Threads is a magnificent read. I’ll be remembering Dia and this world for a long time to come.

Readability	9/10 – Lush, dreamy prose that sets the languorous rhythm of the story perfectly.
Hero	8/10 – The construct of the story makes it harder to get a firm handle on Asha, but I thought he was heartwarming, strong, and real.
Heroine	8/10 – Dia’s amnesia works against getting to know her well, but in light of the entire story, I liked learning about her at the same time as she did herself.
Entertainment value	9/10 – Though the beginning was a little slow for me, I fell in love with the characters and world created here to follow along rabidly to the end.
World building	10/10 – Dense, careful detailing that stands alone in spite of being part of a series.
TOTAL:	44/50

Rode Hard, Put Up Wet by Lorelei James

TITLE: Rode Hard, Put Up Wet
AUTHOR: Lorelei James
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 84k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $5.50

Rancher widow Gemma Jansen needs help in order to be taken seriously by the male-dominated cowboy circuit, so she seeks out Cash Big Crow in order to hire him on. Cash doesn’t just want a job; he wants to share Gemma’s bed, a deal she strikes with more than a little excitement. Cash is determined to bring out her wild streak, but he’s got to contend with his fledgling relationship with his grown-up daughter, the man determined to make his daughter his muse, and Cash’s own feelings for Gemma.

In spite of the extremely cheesy title, I was really excited about this book. First of all, with Halloween over, I have more time again to read longer stories. Secondly, the blurb and excerpt made this sound like a more adult love story. Gemma is in her late forties and Cash has a grown daughter. Hot sex with an older generation? I don’t get to read that very often. Plus, Cash is a Native American, which I 100% admit is one of my hero kinks. So I leapt through the first two chapters in the blink of an eye.

Then chapter 3 came along. And the story took a different path. In came Cash’s daughter Macie, and there was cowboy/artist Carter, and all of a sudden, I was getting two romances in one.

Normally, I wouldn’t knock this. The sex was hot, I was in the mood for cowboy loving, so it should have been fun. Except the problem was, I didn’t like either of the younger people. Carter was temperamental and in spite of his charm, acted like an asshole often enough for me to just want him gone. On the flip side, Macie never gelled for me as a real character. There was just too much about her personality and past that screamed, “Oh, woe is me!” She resented a father for not being there? He was sixteen when she was conceived, which, don’t even get me started on because her mother was supposed to be 26, and any adult woman who gets herself knocked up by a teenager – I don’t care how hot he is – is just dumb, especially since it wasn’t a one-night stand.

So for as much as I really, really, really liked the love story going on between Gemma and Cash, I resented each and every time the author cut to Macie and Carter. And they’re easily half the story. She even finishes the book on them, because by that point, Gemma and Cash are resolved. I’m not convinced that the author didn’t consider them the primary love story of the piece, though why she didn’t have the blurb and excerpt about them then, I have no idea.

The author’s style is dialogue-driven, meaning few tags, scanty detail, and quick pacing. It’s definitely not very challenging to read, and while the sex scenes were very hot, I found myself wanting more meat to the whole thing. That’s a personal preference, though. I tend to like denser prose than this. This style works for a lot of people, though, and I can’t fault her erotic scenes. They were hot. Even if I did have to sit through Macie and Carter half the time. :P

Readability	7/10 – Simplistic with not a lot of detail. Very easy to read.
Heroes	7/10 – I like Cash a hell of a lot more than I liked Carter, but points to the author for at least rounding Carter out.
Heroines	7/10 – Same deal here as there is with the heroes.
Entertainment value	6/10 – This would have been higher if it wasn’t for the younger romance that I didn’t care for.
World building	7/10 – Characters felt real and belonging to that milieu, but with the scanty physical detail, I never get much of a sense of the rest of it.
TOTAL:	34/50