Lavender Skies by Stephen Kelley Roos

TITLE: Lavender Skies
AUTHOR: Stephen Kelley Roos
PUBLISHER: Literary Road
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 65k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary humor
COST: $5.50

Trey Olson arrives on his Uncle Mars’ doorstep expecting to be able to sponge off his relative’s supposed wealth from his acting career, to discover the man’s so-called gated community, Lavender Skies, is actually a trailer park where for the most part the elderly eccentric come to live out their last years. Each trailer is named after a Hollywood classic, but the residents prove to be even more colorful than their homes. There’s orgies, love affairs, secret love children, real estate scams, and, oh yeah, an ex-Mafia guy with a thirty-five year standing appointment with his boyfriend. Trey’s not sure what exactly he’s walked into…

Tell me how I’m supposed to resist looking at a blurb that describes the story as a fun read in the tradition of E.F. Benson and Armistead Maupin (…or if you’re not the literary type, it’s like “The Golden Girls” and “The Nanny” were gay guys). The excerpt, which is the opening scene of the book, has an 87 year-old ex-showgirl with orange hair, cowboy boots, and a physical description that paints her this side of grotesque, walking through Palm Springs in August with a shopping cart and her 65 year-old Eurasian son, Vivian. It’s vulgar, and over the top, and completely not PC, and I just had to see more. So I bought it. Does it live up to its initial promise? Yes and no.

I haven’t seen this many colorful characters all grouped together – and mostly completely distinct – in an e-book in a long time. There’s Frannie and Vivian from the opening, who share a trailer called Beach Blanket Bingo with Saul, a retired professor from Boston who’s obsessed with the retired Marine next door who insists on walking around nearly naked and goes by The Commander, and Wayne Fontaine from Boar’s Head, Wisconsin, who leads HIV support groups and works part-time as a realtor. Then there’s Connie and Butch, the resident lesbian couple, LaSalle LeSueur, the resident orgy organizer and so-called distant cousin to Joan Crawford, and Federico, the ex-opera singer who’s been having an affair with Ginger Biscotti the Mafia hitman for thirty-five years. Do you see what I mean about colorful? What’s even nicer is that most of these characters stand out. It takes a little while to get the more normal names straight – these are just the extra memorable ones – but once I did, I believed each and every one.

Don’t expect anything remotely PC about this. Part of this story’s appeal is its sheer vulgarity. It has no qualms about going over the top and then trying to find someplace else to climb even higher. The plots are all straight out of soap operas, which means things happen out of the blue, coincidences occur just to keep things going, and being a secret love child means misunderstandings galore.

It’s not always an easy read. Editorially, it’s a bit of a mess, with tense changes the biggest offender of the bunch. There’s a lot of jump cutting between scenes, which is inevitable when there is this much stuff going on. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll get lost. The author seems a little too obsessed with describing – in painstaking detail – décor and locations, which drags down the otherwise manic prose. If you’re not familiar with movie history, a lot of the references might be lost on you. That’s half of what these characters live for. It’s fun to read if you’re into that thing – which I am – but a warning for those who aren’t.

Is it high art? Absolutely not. Does it entertain? Well, I most definitely was. I’m not sure it’s as slap your knee funny as the blurb maintains, but I’ve spent a lot of money on stories I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as this one.

Readability	6/10 – Editorial issues, a fascination with décor, and a cast of dozens hold back the manic prose
Characterization	8/10 – Over the top personalities might border on stereotypical, but they almost all stand out, even when they’re lost in a crowd.
Plot	5/10 – The actual plot meanders all over the place, jump-cutting from characters to characters, which makes it difficult in the beginning to keep everything straight.
Entertainment value	7/10 – In spite of its excessiveness and vulgarity – or maybe because of it – I laughed out loud quite a bit.
World building	8/10 – It’s garish and too much, but you know, I saw it playing out anyway.
TOTAL:	34/50

Reason to Believe by Leslie Ann Dennis

TITLE: Reason to Believe
AUTHOR: Leslie Ann Dennis
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 53k)
GENRE: Contemporary romance
COST: $6.00

If there’s one word Lane Douglas hates, it’s “tradition.” But even though she thinks it’s crazy, when her ailing grandfather begs her to go to Scotland to save the tree he is convinced is tied to his life, she complies. The man responsible for the tree’s care, however, is nothing like she expected. He might be young and gorgeous, but Conlan MacGregor is as steeped in tradition as her grandfather. They shouldn’t have anything in common…except for the physical attraction neither one of them can deny.

I have to admit, this review is hard for me. It’s not because I’m afraid of what I’m about to say. It’s because I’m not exactly sure how to articulate why it is this book didn’t work for me.

The elements were there. Scottish hero. A smart heroine. A slightly quirky premise. But by the end of the second chapter, I was already trudging along, struggling to stay engaged with the story. There weren’t glaring editorial problems, or at least, nothing I can remember. There wasn’t dialogue that grated, except for maybe the fact that Conlan turned everything into a “Well, do you know what that means?” kind of discussion. Lane didn’t annoy me, because her reactions in the beginning seem reasonable, if more than a little predictable.

So how do I pinpoint where the story went wrong for me? I think part of it lands with my inability to accept Conlan as the hero. I never believed him. It started when he was practically introduced. He asked Lane for a wrench because he was working on a leaky pipe. Brits don’t use the word “wrench” in that context. They call them spanners. At that point, I went and checked the author’s bio, because if the author was British, then I was going to have to admit that maybe somewhere in rural Scotland, they used American terminology. But no, she’s not, so my suspension of disbelief lost its footing. Conlan’s constant commenting on not understanding Lane’s American slang seemed overdone and farfetched as well. He even professed not to understand a reference to Twenty Questions, which actually started out as a British game (albeit in Dickens’ time, it was called something else).

I always got the impression that Conlan was an amalgam of every hero stereotype under the sun. Scottish? Check. Laird of a castle? Check. Drives a Jaguar and is rich enough to own a helicopter? Check and check. Considerate enough not to want to have meaningless sex? The list goes on.

The biggest sign the story didn’t work for me was realizing two hours after finishing it that I couldn’t even remember the heroine’s name. Not a good sign. Sadly, it pretty much describes my whole experience with this particular book. Forgettable.

Readability	7/10 – The constant throwing out of folklore, combined with instances that didn’t feel authentic, made it a less than ideal read.
Hero	4/10 – Felt like every stereotype lumped together into one.
Heroine	5/10 – I never got much of a sense of what attracted Conlan to her except the physical.
Entertainment value	3/10 – Bored mostly. A couple hours after I was done, I remembered very little about the whole thing except…feeling bored.
World building	6/10 – Several of the details of the Scottish world felt off which detracted from the atmosphere
TOTAL:	25/50

Prophesied by Liz Craven

TITLE: Prophesied
AUTHOR: Liz Craven
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 70k)
GENRE: Sci-fi romance
COST: $5.50

Lia isn’t running from her past; she’s running from her future. After hiding for a decade on a remote mining planet, her true identity has been discovered, and the man she was married to at birth has come to take her home again. Talon Dhakir doesn’t know quite what to make of the fiery woman he finds after so many years of searching, but he does know she has a duty to perform and he is going to do his damnedest to make sure she fulfills her prophesied role. Assuming their roles as husband and wife might prove to be even harder…

I’m not normally a fan of plots that use prophecies or fate as primary devices. 99% of the time, if I see either word in a blurb or excerpt, I immediately click away. My experience has mostly been that these tend to be author shortcuts for actual plot or character development. So when I saw this particular title, I almost immediately closed the window. The captivating cover art got me to read the blurb, which led me to the excerpt, and I decided to take a chance. I’m incredibly glad I did.

A tense and intriguing beginning segues into even tighter sexual tension as Talon and Lia rediscover each other. Talon only ever saw Lia as a child and an obligation, while Lia had a childhood crush on the older man who was the one bright spot of her year. Talon is a gorgeous blend of alpha posturing, with an underlying driving need to make sure the women in his life are happy, but he’s far from perfect. It’s difficult for him to see Lia’s perspective on why she might not be eager to return to the prophecy, and the pair constantly butt heads on the issue. For her part, Lia makes several choices which make sense after the fact, but up to and during had me wondering if she really was an idiot. As the pair gets closer to their home planet, it gets harder to read their obtuseness to each other’s situation, enough to the point where I worried Talon was going to turn into a jerk about the whole matter. Luckily, both he and Lia redeem themselves, and the result is a wonderfully satisfying romance wrapped in political intrigue.

While the author is masterful at creating the rich worlds her characters populate, I have to admit to being mildly let down in one specific regard. Samhain typically has some of the best edited books out there, and while this manuscript is clean of most editorial mistakes, one place where it lapses is homonym misusage. It’s not an occasional thing, which can be overlooked. It’s every instance of certain words. “Principal” always gets mistaken for “principle,” and “gage” gets mistaken for “gauge,” for instance. The first time made me blink and go, “Huh.” The second, third, and fourth times made me realize it was a distinct trend. It’s a little disappointing, actually, because for whatever reason, I expect more from Samhain books. This failed to meet the high standard their editorial staff usually meets.

To be honest, though, a lot of readers might not even notice the mistakes. These are things that I know bug me, but might not be as important to others. When a story is as gripping and romantic as this one is, too, it’s easier to get swept along with it and overlook technical errors. If it weren’t for those damn homonyms, this would be even higher on my keeper list.

Readability	8/10 – Consistent homonym misuse yanks me out of the flow of a story I couldn’t stop reading otherwise
Hero	8/10 – A wonderful mix of alpha posturing with beta tendencies
Heroine	8/10 – Strong, though several actions veer her toward TSTL until we learn the whys of what she’s doing
Entertainment value	9/10 – I got swept up by both the intrigue and the romance in this, making it near un-put-down-able
World building	9/10 – I would have liked just a little bit more explanation on the Damaia, but otherwise the worlds were fresh and crisp
TOTAL:	42/50

The Englor Affair by J.L. Langley

TITLE: The Englor Affair
AUTHOR: J.L. Langley
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 95k)
GENRE: Gay sci-fi erotic romance
COST: $5.50

In the patriarchal society of his home planet Regelence, Payton is a prince. On Englor, where there is public disdain for same-sex relationships, he’s merely the aide to Admiral Nate Hawkins, a masquerade they concoct in an attempt to discover who is behind the recent kidnapping of Nate’s consort, Payton’s brother Aiden. It’s the first time Payton has ever been able to move about freely, without chaperone, without someone watching his every move. But in his hunt to help Nate discover the truth, Payton encounters the most gorgeous man he has ever seen. What he doesn’t realize, though, is that his Simon isn’t just a Colonel in the Englor Marines. He’s also the planet’s future king. And he has his own problems to deal with…

NOTE: This is a review originally written for Uniquely Pleasurable.

The long-awaited (in e-book terms) sequel to My Fair Captain is out for all those who fell in love with Langley’s sci-fi/Regency gay romance the first time around. It surprised me when I checked after finishing this that it had been almost a year and a half since I’d read the first book. It’s often touted as one of the favorites among m/m bloggers, so I guess the constant exposure to it has warped my sense of time a little bit.

Though I enjoyed the first book, I can’t say that I’m as enamored with it as some other readers I’ve seen. Still, I must admit to a certain excitement when I saw the sequel was out. I really liked Nate, and the sex scenes were off the scale. I looked forward to more of that, with the addition of – hopefully – finally getting some answers to the intrigue that was set up in the first book. What I actually got in The Englor Affair isn’t really anything that I expected, much to my delighted surprise.

First of all, though the society is meant to mirror Regency England, I never get the feeling of Payton as a damsel in distress. He is smart and competent, a valuable resource for Nate as they search for the secrets behind Aiden’s kidnapping. Though he’s slight and shorter than most of the other soldiers, he never lets that hold him back from pushing his boundaries, taking the advantage wherever and whenever he can. This makes him more than an equal match for the far more forceful Simon, so when they first meet, the sparks that fly feel ready to combust at the slightest touch. Neither man knows who the other is at that first meeting – though the reader does – but because of our foreknowledge, it’s pathetically easy to root for them to see the truth about how good they are for each other. Payton has led a very regimented and protected life, but with the freedom Simon offers – even briefly – he comes into his own sexually.

Though Simon is presented as the dom in the relationship, he’s not the kind of dom that rolls over his partner. He takes charge, yes, but only because Payton is at first too shy and inexperienced to take the first step, and then later because it turns Payton on. He’s thoughtful and generous, with a moral core that loathes the narrow-minded perspective of many of his fellow Englorians. That doesn’t make him perfect. He has a tendency to focus too much on the big picture and miss some of the smaller details, which end up contributing to most of the romantic blocks in the last third of the book. But that just endears him more, because the big picture he is looking at is the welfare of his planet. It’s hard to begrudge a man who has the lives of millions in the palm of his hand.

The book’s greatest improvement over its predecessor is in plotting. The political intrigue of My Fair Captain was never truly deftly handled, probably because the author was trying to introduce too much. But the problems that plagued the first book aren’t here. The focus of the intrigue is very narrowly focused, unlike MFC, in Nate and Payton’s attempts to figure out what exactly is going on with the spy Englor sent to Regelence. Because Simon is trying to find out what happened to his emissary, the two paths end up converging into one shared goal – find out why the IN is interfering in Englorian and Regelence politics. Information is doled out as needed, without the dumping that held MFC back, and the action is crisp, intricately interwoven with the budding romance. Combined with the story’s easy readability, the book flies by. I was shocked to find out after I’d finished that it’s nearly 100k. With how quickly and smoothly it flowed, it felt much shorter.

What quibbles I have are few. First, the sex – while hot – never reaches the same sort of scorching levels that the first book created for me. I think I suffered from too high expectations, considering just how much I loved the sex scenes in MFC. Then, there’s the issue that this is clearly a book in a series. It’s not a standalone in the slightest. Anyone coming into this book without reading the previous will likely be lost for much of the beginning, sorting out the societies and all the events that shape the intrigue in this one. I’ve read and enjoyed the first, but it still took me time to reacquaint myself with some of the characters and details. Because it’s part of a series, too, the intrigue isn’t wholly resolved. In fact, the resolution felt kind of like a copout considering the magnitude of the events leading up to it. There are still a lot of prevailing questions and dangers to be explored – too many, I thought, to keep the ending as satisfying as the rest of the book.

On the whole, though, The Englor Affair does what sequels should – propel the series forward while improving on the last. It’s a strong entry for Langley, and my favorite of her work to date. Sexy, romantic, and fun…but what else would you expect from gay Regency romance in space?

Readability	9/10 – Nearly impeccable editing and tight plotting made this breeze by
Hero #1	8/10 – Well-rounded and honorable, with just enough of a naughty streak to appeal to the bad boy lover in all of us
Hero #2	8/10 – Smart and resourceful
Entertainment value	8/10 – Far more well-balanced than its predecessor, though I still wish there weren’t so many questions left unanswered in the end
World building	9/10 – As someone who hasn’t read the previous book in over a year, I would have liked just a tad more explanation earlier about Regelence to refresh my memory
TOTAL:	42/50

Bound by Deception by Ava March

TITLE: Bound by Deception
AUTHOR: Ava March
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 24k)
GENRE: Gay historical bdsm erotic romance
COST: $4.99

When Oliver Marsden discovers his best friend has a monthly appointment at a prestigious brothel with a man instead of a woman, he’s thrilled. After all, he’s been in love – and lust – with Lord Vincent Prescot since they were boys. He scrapes together enough money to pay the brothel for the privilege of replacing Vincent’s usual partner, doing everything in his power to hide his identity from his friend. He doesn’t expect the restraints and bullwhip, but the night they spend together surpasses any and every expectation he ever had. Too bad that’s all he can ever have…

I have to be honest and say that I had low expectations going into this book. I bought it for the sheer erotic factor; the thought of two staid Englishmen having a BDSM relationship hit a kink in me I hadn’t realized was as strong as it was. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised, not only by the level of heat this short novella managed to produce but also by the genuine emotion on the part of the primary hero. Oliver has been in love with Vincent for years. His earnestness while he was preparing his deception practically reaches through the page and grabs the reader by the shirtfront, demanding to be heard. I was completely immersed in his emotions by the time Vincent even enters the picture. That only served to intensify the already erotic encounter that followed.

Vincent, while solid, seems very much a fantasy figure until we finally get to see him outside of the brothel. There, the true depths of his friendship with Oliver get revealed, and he becomes far more human than the masterful god Oliver worships in the beginning. Unfortunately, we don’t get to truly plumb their relationship before everything hits the fan, but there’s enough characterization allowed in their encounters to invest me in both men as the story progresses.

But the story’s length works against it to make the romance truly successful. While there is definite chemistry between the two men, the entire last quarter of the story seems rushed in order to get to an HFN. Vincent’s feelings aren’t allowed to run a full course, and the ensuing resolution is only vaguely satisfactory. For such serious matters and emotions, I wanted – needed, really – more to be explored. It leaves this falling short of a fulfilling romance, and instead offers a seductive piece of erotica instead. But very seductive, mind you. I finished this story in what felt like record time, and was hungry for more. It’s definitely worth it to see what else this author might have to offer this voracious reader.

Readability	9/10 – When all I can think after I’ve finished is, Wow, that went fast, that’s definitely a good sign
Hero #1	8/10 – His earnestness makes up for some ridiculous assumptions.
Hero #2	7/10 – Enough there to understand why he’s adored so much
Entertainment value	8/10 – The erotic part works far better than the romance, and does so tremendously well.
World building	7/10 – There’s quite a bit of believable detail within the confines of the bedroom; outside was scantier.
TOTAL:	39/50

Hawk's Woman by Madeline Baker

TITLE: Hawk’s Woman
AUTHOR: Madeline Baker
PUBLISHER: Cerridwen Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 91k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $6.99

Seventeen year-old Hallie McIntyre has led a life as sheltered as it comes. Left alone at a young age, she was raised first by her grandmother and then by a convent of nuns. Now, on the eve of becoming a nun herself, she finds a man half-dead in their garden, and helps hide to protect him, nursing him back to health. John Walking Hawk has spent the last two years hunting down and killing the men who killed his parents, and raped and murdered his wife. The law has finally started to catch up with him. He has no desire to do anything but find the last one eluding him and return to his daughter, but Hallie’s gentle presence throws a kink into all of his plans…

I am not the type of reader who goes off in search of everything there is to know about an author after I read him/her. My interest is in the story, so I usually only go to author’s websites and poke around when I love their work and want to find out where to get it. I also try and find websites for the purpose of my reviews, which is the only reason I went to find Madeline Baker’s. Now, if I’d gone there first instead of after reading the book, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to buy this. Because I found out that the author also writes under the pseudonym Amanda Ashley, who I have never been able to enjoy, either.

I know it doesn’t bother some people, but the biggest thing holding me back from getting anywhere near invested in this story is the headhopping. It doesn’t start out too bad, but it doesn’t take too long before it’s fairly consistent. This is one of my characteristics as a reader. I’m immersive. I need to sink into character or place in order to best enjoy it. I love well-done 1^st person stories because of that. But it also means that when a story hops paragraph to paragraph – and short paragraphs, at that – from one person’s head to another, I have no time to get into that person’s head. I’d rather be completely in touch with one character’s feelings extremely well than a lot of characters not at all. So I just never really felt much of anything for anybody in this book.

It doesn’t help that Hallie is a mere babe. Clay is one of the few men she’s even seen in her lifetime. She knows little of the world, little of most people. I found it difficult to believe that her feelings for him were anything more than idolatry or puppy love. On the other hand, Clay has emotions all over the place. He’s disparaging of Hallie in the beginning, determined to get away, and then in the blink of an eye, he’s hugely attracted to her. He changes his mind on certain issues at a pin drop. With the lack of connectability within the prose itself, I never really understood or cared about these changes.

In a lot of ways, it feels like one of the very first romances I ever read when I was twelve. A lot of stuff happens to these two. One or the both of them are in constant danger. She is starry-eyed, and he is tortured and misunderstood, two things I used to eat up with a spoon (and still do on the hero part, a lot of the time). Maybe I’m just getting jaded from having spent two decades reading romance, or that I can’t relate to a 17 y/o girl who has ultimate faith in God and zero exposure to the real world. Either is a distinct possibility. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter, because I still didn’t like the book.

Readability	5/10 – The consistent headhopping is a serious problem for me.
Hero	5/10 – His emotions seem to be all over the place which makes it hard to believe any of them
Heroine	4/10 – So sheltered and so naïve, I can’t believe this is a romance that’ll last
Entertainment value	3/10 – At least stuff happens in this…even if a lot of it is eye roll-worthy
World building	8/10 – The details are there – especially for the Lakota world – but not rich enough to immerse me in the story.
TOTAL:	25/50

Slave to Love by Nikita Black

TITLE: Slave to Love
AUTHOR: Nikita Black
PUBLISHER: Whispers Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 124k)
GENRE: BDSM thriller erotic romance
COST: $7.95

SIS officer Caroline Palmer is itching to get into Homicide…until Mick McGraw pulls her in on a special task force to find a new serial killer in town. It’s not that she doesn’t want to prove her mettle. It’s that Mick isn’t known as the Iceman for nothing. And that she’s been harboring a serious crush on him for a year, a crush he soundly rebuffed. And that taking the job means posing as his lover in a Master/slave relationship…

I’ve had this sitting on my virtual TBR file for the longest time, so since I’ve had some extra time on my hands with Halloween over and before Thanksgiving shows up, I pulled it out. And promptly devoured. Seriously. I could not. Stop. Reading.

The first half doesn’t read like romance. It’s straight out of any erotic thriller I have sitting on my paperback shelf, because I haunt the mystery section of my local B&N as much as I do the romance section. The writing is taut, the characters are vivid, and the crime violent. Caroline seems marvelously competent as she trades zingers with the other cops, and especially when she is first confronted with Mick. She can more than hold her own, so even though she’s leery of the assignment, she also knows she can’t refuse. It’s a smart woman I’m more than willing to throw in with, in her attempts to hold Mick at bay.

Ah, Mick. Homicide cop. Untouchable. Gorgeous. Unavailable. A grade A jerk to Caroline much of the time, with a dark, seductive, sinister side I absolutely, positively could not resist any more than Caroline could. I know I shouldn’t like him. He treats Caroline like crap in the beginning. He pushes all her buttons, winds her up, and does everything he can to get her to bend to his will. And yet…and yet…there was something else there. He’s clearly damaged goods. Highly protective of his heart and his past. And maybe it’s the “let me kiss it better” instinct that sometimes rears its head in me taking over my better common sense. I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that while he was becoming Caroline’s Master in every sense of the world, I was there, holding my breath, wondering if the dark side was going to come out and play. Because it is dark. There’s a scene of forced consent. There’s the manipulation of Caroline’s job. There’s a lot of things that might set off warning bells with other characters. They did ding here, but…well, not very loudly. Because his need for power, to show ownership of Caroline, combined with his tormented side that he so carefully guards, completely got to me.

The story is definitely edgy. The serial killer is a sex crime killer who picks his prey from a BDSM club. Mick does everything he can to prepare Caroline for it, though in his defense, he also gives her opportunity to back out before she’s in too deep. Their games are fairly intense, and while the prose borders on purple in those scenes – I’m sorry, but I can’t see the word “tumid” without snickering and rolling my eyes – the rest of the writing is crisp and tight enough to make up for it.

As dark and seductive as Mick is, this was the most intense ride I’ve taken in a story in a while. I was as breathless when I finished it as I was at every crucial point throughout the book. A keeper, and one I’m definitely rushing off to buy in print.

Readability	8/10 – Slightly purple prose during the smut in the first half, but so well structured with such fascinating characters that I couldn’t put it down
Hero	9/10 – A jerk. Grade A most of the time. But there’s something so icy and seductive about him that I just don’t care.
Heroine	7/10 – Strong enough, though some of her vacillating on the want him/don’t want him got old.
Entertainment value	9/10 – A total guilty pleasure. Extremely seductive and thrilling in more than one sense of the word.
World building	8/10 – The BDSM world is portrayed well, though I would have liked more clarity in their normal lives.
TOTAL:	41/50

The Priest by Jackie Barbosa

TITLE: The Priest
AUTHOR: Jackie Barbosa
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 5k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotica
COST: $2.99

Marisol has had one fantasy since she was a teenager – to have sex with a priest in a confessional. With the benefit of The Pleasure Club, she finally gets to make that a reality…

Cobblestone has had a new series of erotic shorts subtitled The Pleasure Club. I’ve looked at a couple of them, but this was the first that interested me enough to try out. Make of that what you will. But it’s honest about its purpose, I knew it was going to be short – though maybe not quite that short – and I figured what the hell.

For what it is, it works. The prose is clean and builds effectively, with that sense of breathless expectation of finally getting something you’ve always wanted. Marisol is a thirty-seven-year-old workaholic who has always wanted to be naughty and could never find a man to satisfy her needs, so she’s gone ahead and tried the professional fantasy route. She pretty much gets everything she ever wanted. The man impersonating the priest remains faceless throughout the story, but he offers the right sort of demanding attitude to push all her buttons.

It’s hot, easy to read, and far too short. Marisol is interesting enough to continue exploring, especially with the little tease at the end of the story. I’m not convinced almost $3 for 5k is worth it, but at least I enjoyed this particular offering. I would be a lot less forgiving if I’d hated it.

Readability	8/10 – Smooth and easy
Hero	6/10 – There’s not really much personality since he’s a faceless, nameless man fulfilling a fantasy, but he doesn’t ring any alarms, either
Heroine	6/10 – Considering it’s an erotic short, more personality than I would have expected.
Entertainment value	7/10 – Smooth and relatively effective
World building	7/10 – Surprisingly evocative
TOTAL:	34/50

Chasing Winter by Rowan McBride

TITLE: Warm Rush, Book 1: Chasing Winter
AUTHOR: Rowan McBride
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 65k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $7.00

At 26, Jesse Winter is on the brink of life. The store he opened at 19 is about to go international, he’s healthy, and he lives his dream in a middle-class Connecticut neighborhood, complete with the teenager across the street who seems to idolize him. Then he goes off to Europe to open the overseas stores and his entire life changes. Three years later, he returns to Connecticut crippled, scarred, and barely going through the motions. The last thing he expects to see is little Keith Taylor from across the street. Keith has had more than one growth spurt in Jesse’s absence, and now, he’s a muscled sex god claiming to have wanted Jesse for years. Jesse tries to refuse at first, but Keith has a way of getting what he wants…and he wants Jesse.

There’s a lot more going on in this story than a simple May/December romance. Written in 1^st person from Jesse’s POV, it clings to its contemporary vibe with a stubborn tenacity, while at the same time hinting that all is not as it seems. The publisher has this marked as paranormal, but that is only true in the loosest of terms. The reason for this is Keith’s growth spurts, and though those play definitive roles throughout the story, the mechanisms and story behind them never cloud the otherwise bittersweet contemporary romance.

Jesse is a broken man, struggling just to survive. He actually died on the operating table after the horrific accident that crippled him. A large part of him is convinced he should have stayed dead. But while he fights, he never seems to wallow in his depression and anger. Instead, he seems resigned and sad, even while he’s fighting not to be an invalid. Keith’s intervention is exactly what he needs, a source of unblemished devotion, a font of strength. Because of his relationship with the young man, he’s able to slowly but surely start to recover.

While I adored and admired Jesse, Keith gave me a few problems. It’s not his youth that bothers me; I really like May/December stories. It’s his attitude. Keith admits to Jesse that while he was gone, when Keith had his growth spurts, he got too cocky. He started to think he was privileged and terrorized those who opposed him, including his family. He’s suitably contrite and trying to mend his ways when Jesse returns, but there remains an instinct to lash out physically whenever Jesse gets threatened. People get hurt. People get scared. He feels very much like a bully at these points, which makes it very hard to like him, even though I know he’s doing it for Jesse. There were even times when I wondered if this attitude wouldn’t at some point turn back on Jesse, resulting in him getting hurt. Because of this ongoing discomfort, I never warmed to Keith the way I did Jesse.

But Jesse’s arc intrigues me enough to stay engaged, in spite of my reservations about Keith. It’s his journey from broken to better that pulled at my heart strings. This is McBride’s greatest strength, I believe. The emotions he infuses into his protagonist always resonate deeper than the few words on the page would suggest. This is why I trust him so much as an author.

Readability	9/10 – McBride is a master of few words conveying great emotions
Hero #1	8/10 – Broken by the best
Hero #2	5/10 – His sometime violent nature made it very difficult for me to fully accept him.
Entertainment value	7/10 – This works as well as it does because of the author’s sensitivity to Jesse’s pain and need.
World building	8/10 – Ultimately, there are questions raised by the slight paranormal elements of the story, but I imagine those will be answered in subsequent books.
TOTAL:	37/50

Her Savage Lover by Brenda Williamson

TITLE: Her Savage Lover
AUTHOR: Brenda Williamson
PUBLISHER: Aspen Mountain Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 14k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $2.50

Eden has returned west, to the home where she was raised, to the half-breed Cherokee she loved before getting pregnant and being banished to Boston. She brings their son with her, to finally tell Brant that he is a father. But Brant can’t forget that she left him once. How does he know she’s not going to try and take his son away from him again?

One of my kinks came around to bite me in the butt again. I knew it was short. I knew that it sounded like there was a lot to cram into such a small space. But the excerpt seemed kind of sweet and romantic, and I decided to give it a shot. More like a shot in the foot.

Editorially, the story is a mess. One character changes name halfway through from Sully to Scully. Words get used incorrectly. Even the heroine’s last name has one spelling in the blurb, and a different one in the story itself. The simplistic prose doesn’t help matters, and the lack of any smoothness in character development or growth makes it next to impossible to engage with the characters. Reading it was a real chore.

The characters are just as muddled as the prose. Brant goes from cold, to hot, to seductive, back to cold again, while Eden is at turns fearful, needy, hateful, and loving. Sometimes all on the same page. There are no smooth transitions from mood to mood to mood, which steals any life the characters might have on their own. It doesn’t help that the story’s brevity takes away any opportunity to explore the complicated feelings involved for both parties, or give them any kind of time to react to the dire events that transpire. Maybe if it was longer, there would’ve been space, but then I can’t help but wonder if the author wouldn’t have just tried to cram even more stuff in. Either way, it just doesn’t work.

Readability	5/10 – Multiple editing issues and immature writing don’t help a story too compressed to be effective.
Hero	4/10 – Flat and scattered
Heroine	3/10 – Even flatter than the hero, with no reasonable flow to her multiple moods
Entertainment value	3/10 – Only the fact that I have a thing for Native American heroes helps this.
World building	4/10 – There’s a lack of real time or place in this, which is dangerous for a historical
TOTAL:	19/50

Jackson's Jewel by N.J. Walters

TITLE: Jackson’s Jewel
AUTHOR: N.J. Walters
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 85k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $6.99

For the past year, Jackson Connors has lived alone. His brother and sister have married and moved out, and now he is left to cultivate the family farm. Unfortunately, that means housekeeping takes a back seat to other responsibilities, so his sister hires Emerald Jewel as his new housekeeper. Emerald is on the run from a stalker, and needs someplace to hide away, so the room and board opportunity seems too good to pass up. She just didn’t count on being so attracted to her new boss. Or vice versa…

The latest installment of N.J. Walters’ Awakening Desires series returns to the Connors clan, with brother Jackson finally getting his chance at the love wheel. Jackson is the rock of the Connors family, the oldest son who raised Erin and Nathan after their father took off. He is the most solid, the most dependable, the most wholesome of the bunch. When I saw that this was his story, my first thought was, “It’s about time.”

Jackson is just as wonderful in this as he was in previous books. This is a man where duty and honor are paramount. He does what needs to be done, regardless of how it might affect him. When he first learns of Emerald’s plight, he makes the only move he can – he offers to help. And that is the crux of why I adore him so much. He’s not perfect. He closes himself off in order not to get hurt. He can’t relax enough to laugh. But there is a core of steel running through him that I freely admit I find attractive. And it’s this basic goodness that makes me want to follow his story.

As much as I liked Jackson from the start, though, Emerald was harder for me to love. Much of her backstory is condensed into telling in the first chapter, so it’s a slow warm-up to her personality. Then, in the first sexual encounter between Emerald and Jackson, he stops things because a) he doesn’t have a condom, and b) he thinks it’s too soon. She immediately overreacts and flies off the handle, accusing him of being too closed off (which is true but really not relevant in this case) before storming off and hiding in her room for the rest of the night. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t get off. And he’s right. They had zero protection. She’s a city girl, raised in a contemporary setting where condoms are the norm. Her reaction annoyed me, and it took the rest of the book to lift her back up to a level where I was invested in her danger.

Speaking of…the strength of N.J. Walters’ writing lies in creating hot sex scenes. Plotting in this – the addition of the dangerous element of Emerald’s stalker – seems secondary to the ramping up of the seduction. The execution of finding out her stalker’s identity never flows as well as the rest of the book, though the action gets much tighter at the end. Oddly enough, I’m more forgiving of it in Walters’ writing than I am elsewhere.

I’m also a little more forgiving of phrases that normally make me cringe in other stories, like Her pussy wept with need for him. I don’t consider Walters’ prose anything outstanding or original, but for some reason, her seductions and sex scenes almost always work for me. My friends call books like this brain candy. That’s probably an apt description for my attraction to this author’s work. In this case, though, I’m more than happy to spend a few hours devouring Jackson. Oops. I meant, Jackson’s story.

Readability	8/10 – Brain candy. Even though I know it’s not perfect, I can’t stop reading.
Hero	9/10 – I’ve always loved Jackson. This only made me love him more.
Heroine	7/10 – Overcomes some serious early over-reacting to be a worthy partner for Jackson.
Entertainment value	8/10 – I said it before. Brain candy. I read and read and I end up with a huge smile on my face.
World building	8/10 – The farm thrives. Experiencing Emerald’s world in order to better appreciate the stalking doesn’t.
TOTAL:	40/50

If Wishes Were Horses by Sarah Leslie

TITLE: If Wishes Were Horses
AUTHOR: Sarah Leslie
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 20k)
GENRE: Gay fantasy erotic romance
COST: $3.50

The fey are finally at peace, but for wounded Forge Master Alaric, the scars will be permanent. Disfigured, he hides away from the world, including abandoning the lover he had only just found. His best friend Lily takes it upon herself to play matchmaker one last time, by dragging Alaric to a fairy ball where Valerian, the man Alaric left behind, is set to attend…

NOTE: This is a review originally written for Uniquely Pleasurable.

The story will be familiar to many. It’s CinderFairy, minus the ugly stepsisters. There’s the ball, and the fairy godmother answering wishes, and the prince – okay, the Captain of the Guard. But the similarities are too striking not be deliberate, all the way down to the button Alaric leaves behind when he flees before midnight. Rather than the Cinderella eager to escape her drudgery, though, Alaric is a reluctant hero in love with his quiet, private life. He doesn’t want to go to the ball, and only complies when his best friend – a woman with too much time on her hands, if you ask me – shows up ready for him to accompany her. He can’t say no to her, a trait she is willing to exploit to get her own way. Of course, her motives aren’t selfish. She knows Alaric’s ex-lover, the one he’s still in love with, the one he’s convinced he’s lost forever, is going to be at the party. All she wants is for Alaric to be happy. It’s hard to begrudge her behavior when she really does mean well, and honestly, she’s not doing any harm.

Part of attending a fairy ball is receiving a single wish. In this case, Alaric wishes to be handsome in an attempt to mask his disfigurement. The fairy in question changes him into a goneril, which is the same type of fey Valerian is. It makes him unrecognizable, so when Valerian asks him to dance, he agrees. The romance is sweet if predictable, and there’s an earnestness between the two men as they struggle to overcome their history. Just as things start to get interesting between them, however, the story jumps to the fey politics, with Lily or Valerian’s companion Darvan.

Therein lies my biggest problem with the story. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t read a lot of fantasy about the fey. I am not well versed in what might be considered canon or standard or anything of the like. This story, however, gives the distinct impression that there’s a greater world that’s already been explained. The fey have had this civil war, with various factions vying for power, and I spent a good bulk of the story trying to unravel it all in my head. The blurb on Samhain’s website describes this as a “Land of the Fey” story, but this is the only one written by this author. If it’s a Samhain collection of sorts, I couldn’t find other stories labeled as such. So I end up having questions, and having to backtrack to keep the politics straight, and ultimately wonder if there’s something I’m missing. I spent far more time considering the history than contemplating the romance. If the author is intending to target all m/m readers rather than those who might only read this type of fantasy, I’m not sure she hit her mark.

Because of my preoccupation in trying to sort out the complicated backstory and world – for which the author deserves kudos, for making it interesting and varied enough to capture my attention in the first place – I’m never as invested in Alaric and Valerian as I should be. They’re sweet, but in the end, forgettable. In a way, it’s characteristic of the entire story. I never did manage to get all the details straight on the world building, and the prose, while clean, never sparkled enough to make me notice it.

Readability	7/10 – Technically clean, but the questions about the world and backstory keep it from being a fast read, even with its brevity
Hero #1	6/10 – Sweet and angsty
Hero #2	6/10 – Appropriately strong where the other hero is stubborn
Entertainment value	5/10 – My questions regarding the world kept popping up and derailing my immersion into the romance
World building	7/10 – It’s clearly part of a series, but the lack of explanations of what the different sects might be or the history involved keeps it from reaching its potential.
TOTAL:	31/50