Because of the Brave by Laura Baumbach, Z.A. Maxfield, & Josh Lanyon

TITLE: Because of the Brave
AUTHOR: Laura Baumbach, Z.A. Maxfield, Josh Lanyon
PUBLISHER: Aspen Mountain Press
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 48k)
GENRE: Gay erotic romance
COST: $7.00

A trio of erotic stories about gay military men.

Purchase of the Because of the Brave through the Aspen Mountain Press website through September 11, 2009, will donate 15% toward the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national organization dedicated to helping military personnel impacted by the “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” policy signed into law in 1993. It’s a great charity, and the anthology more than worth it, but I’m going to go on the record and say I just wish the publisher paid more attention to their editing for works that will receive this kind of attention. To be frank, I don’t expect much from Aspen Mountain releases. Their editing is inconsistent at best, and I suspect that’s because the authors themselves vary in the strength of their technical abilities. But it’s frustrating to read something that’s clearly hoped to have strong sales and find it riddled with so many easy mistakes. Even Lanyon’s story suffers (how on earth does canon get mistaken for cannon in a military story?), and as much as I’d urge people to buy this, I do it with the caveat that it will probably really bother those readers who are sensitive to technical mistakes.

The anthology starts with out with Laura Baumbach’s “Designated Target.” Carson Crosby is spending Thanksgiving working at a local food bank. He is alone in the world after the death of his brother two months earlier. He spies a big, burly guy who is obviously military hanging around, and after a very brief conversation with him, flees when the way the man says his name just like his dead brother used to. The man helps out with an encounter with an abusive guy outside the church, and they stick together, getting to know each other and indulging their attraction. In reference to the editorial issues I mentioned, Baumbach’s story has it the worst (His imagination supplied a vivid reason for the respectable fabric bugle made me giggle hysterically because I’m fairly sure that g and l in bugle should be transposed), and thus, makes it harder than it should be to get through the novella. The story is saved by Baumbach’s passion and affecting characters. The chemistry between Carson and China (the military guy) leaps off the page, as does Carson’s grief. I found myself drawn to China, much like Carson is, and wish I could have had even more of him.

Next comes “Jumping Off Places” by Z.A. Maxfield. Peter Hsu has returned to the small town where he grew up to be there when his terminally ill mother dies. There, he meets Robin, the Jamaican CNA taking care of her at the hospice. Robin is out and proud of it, while Peter has hid his sexuality from everyone, including his mother. He’s been trying to live up to the hero image of his dead cop father, and finds himself failing at every turn. Dealing with the impending death of his mother is yet another failure in his eyes. This was the story in the anthology that got to me the most, and the one I found myself still thinking about long after it was over. There are a lot of different emotions going on in this. While there is definitely a romance going on between Peter and Robin, it is cloaked in layers and layers of issues, not the least of which is how these two very different men deal with the loss of a woman who means the world to both of them. The fact that Peter is in the military is miniscule in the face of this, as is the issue of their races (Peter is half-Chinese and has been dealing with that discrimination his entire life, while Robin is black). Neither of these really get explored, but I didn’t mind. I was too invested in all the other feelings that were going on. There’s the guilt, and the grief, and Peter’s inability to come out or let anybody in. I had thought I was affected by Carson’s grief in the first story, but that got eclipsed by how much I related and felt for Peter. He was the heart of this compassionate story.

Rounding out the anthology is “Until We Meet Once More” by Josh Lanyon. Army Ranger Captain Vic Black has a new assignment – to rescue a surviving SEAL in the middle of Afghanistan. He’s even more determined when he learns that it’s Sean Kennedy, the lover from the Naval Academy that he left behind. Lanyon’s story is drastically different from its predecessors, focused far more on the taut action of the moment, interspersed with emotionally taut flashbacks. It’s also considerably shorter, very concise in its presentation. While it’s the most technically proficient of the three, with elegant, crisp world-building that immerses the reader into the razor edge environment of the Middle East, it was also the story that engaged me the least emotionally. I was caught up in the action, but the flashbacks weren’t quite enough to create the fervency it felt necessary to appreciate the wallop of an ending. I’m not sure if making it longer would have helped, because then it would have been a different story rather than the whirlwind action story it was. It works well on that level. It just didn’t succeed as well as a romance for me.

Readability	7/10 – I just can’t get past the weak editing to better appreciate these
Romance	7/10 – The romance is strongest in the first two stories
Characterization	7/10 – More uneven than I would have expected from these authors
Entertainment value	7/10 – Definitely recommendable
World building	7/10 – Lanyon’s is by far the strongest in this area
TOTAL:	35/50

Redemption by E. Jamie

TITLE: Redemption
AUTHOR: E. Jamie
PUBLISHER: Amira Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 27k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: $4.50

Katie became Ben Cready’s wife thinking he was going to hang the next day. Six months later, he shows up on the doorstep, fully pardoned and looking to move on with his life. Their marriage was just meant to be a convenience, but without someplace else to hide, Katie wants to stay. That means learning to live with a man who has no qualms about killing…

Sometimes, I fall for stories when I think I shouldn’t. Elements of this story should be hot buttons for me – a bossy hero with seemingly little regard for the heroine’s sense of self, editorial issues (anyone writing a historical set in the old West should know the difference between reigns and reins, at the very least), a mousy heroine who wants to hide from the world. And yet, in spite of everything, I ended this story with a smile on my face.

It’s because of the two lead characters, I’m sure of it. Ben Cready is an unrepentant outlaw, who doesn’t want to go to church, who ignores some of Katie’s wishes, who makes it clear that he will kill anybody he perceives a threat. I really shouldn’t like him nearly as much as I do, but behind all that, he had a melancholy appeal that forced me to look past the surface and see the man underneath. That might have been because of Katie. She was frightened of him a bit when he returned, but ultimately, her hero worship – something he recognizes and tries to break her of, admirably so – seeps through her every reaction to him, compelling me to view him in the same way. I was even forgiving when it seemed like his emotional turnaround came too quickly. He more than satisfies a bad boy hero kink anyone (i.e., me) might have.

The story does fall victim to its length, however. Katie is hiding out from her uncle, who she watched kill her mother. The resolution of that gets crammed into just a chapter or two, and it’s not nearly as satisfying as watching Katie and Ben get to know each other. The answers feel a tad easy once they’re over their initial wariness, actually, but it wasn’t until the events with the uncle that I decided that it was just a little too easy. Not the events themselves, but the emotional resolutions, like the author had to stay within a certain word count and didn’t have the room to fully explore the depths.

But even with the rushed ending, I still liked Ben and Katie. I would have loved reading a full length novel with these two, but I guess I’m just going to have to settle for the morsel I got.

Readability	8/10 – Minor editorial mistakes, but genuine emotions and appealing characters made it a swift read anyway
Hero	8/10 – I shouldn’t like him. He’s gruff, the emotional turnaround is too fast, and…for some reason, it doesn’t matter.
Heroine	7/10 – I genuinely liked her, though her quick sexuality wasn’t very believable
Entertainment value	7/10 – I really liked the romance, but the story was too short to fully develop the suspense of the uncle
World building	7/10 – There’s enough detail to create the illusion of the setting, but not so much to make it sparkle
TOTAL:	37/50

Thistle Dew by ALee Drake

TITLE: Thistle Dew
AUTHOR: ALee Drake
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 47k)
GENRE: Paranormal romance
COST: $4.50

Widow Sage Winters is determined to make the Thistle Dew B&B a success, the dream she and her husband had always had. That includes regular writer’s retreats, which brings Hawke straight to her door. The attraction is immediate. He seems to have the approval of her husband’s ghost, too, who works behind the scenes to try and keep his wife and daughter safe and happy…

The short novel starts out strong, as Hawke whips through a cold northeastern October on his new motorcycle to get to the Thistle Dew B&B. The atmosphere is vivid, and Hawke interesting, and when he arrives, he's enchanted by Sage Winters when he finally meets her face to face. I like Sage, too, because she responds as I feel a woman in her position would. She’s strong without being overly so, a good mother, charming. When I reached the ghost coda that’s at the end of the bulk of the chapters, I was quite taken with the set-up and really looking forward to how it would all play out.

Unfortunately, that promise starts to fade. Pacing becomes quite jerky as the flow of time is never really smooth. What do I mean by this? I mean that there are awkward jumps that never get explained, incidents like guests finishing lunch and then getting prose that suggests more time has passed (As afternoon crept closer…) only to have Sage call her daughter to lunch, and so on and so on. It grows wearying to read, especially when the POV starts to float. It’s almost headhopping, but it’s often unexplained whose perspective it’s in. It only gets worse as the story progresses, until I just have a headache by the time the story is over.

My liking of the characters wanes as well. Sage fares better than Hawke, but when Pia comes up missing, her behavior becomes so erratic and blind that I got angry with her more than once. Hawke remains much of an enigma until all of a sudden in the last third of the story, a whole bunch of backstory gets dumped all at once. It’s awkward, and more importantly, too late to matter. Secondary characters tend to blur, with the exception of Lowell who seems stereotypical at best. In the end, my fears for Pia and my soft spot for Eric (the ghost of Sage’s dead husband) aren’t enough to overcome all of these flaws, and I’m left dissatisfied and wondering if Sage and Eric’s story would have been more interesting. I think yes.

Readability	5/10 – Ambiguous POV and poor pacing ended up giving me a headache reading this by halfway through
Hero	5/10 – There are hints of depth here, but all the character stuff gets thrown in the last third which is too late for it to impact
Heroine	6/10 – She started out strong and lovely, but with the disjoin of the story came my disillusionment with her
Entertainment value	5/10 – The ache I felt for the characters in the beginning faded into a wish for it to be over with
World building	6/10 – Everything weather-related was wonderful, but the story lacked everywhere else
TOTAL:	27/50

Cultivating Love by Addison Albright

TITLE: Cultivating Love
AUTHOR: Addison Albright
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 33k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.99

The death of the father Ed Jamison had always believed was dead anyway turns his life around. All of a sudden, he owns a farm, but the only person he knows who could run it is the man he’s been sharing his life with the past few years. Joe Durham accepts the offer, but their change in work arrangements isn’t the only one they have to face. Now, they have to learn how to open up to the other, in a community a little less friendly to gay couples than Omaha, without losing the future each wants with the other…

There is one aspect of this quiet contemporary novella that I have to give it credit for. In what often feels like a sea of emo m/m romances, the author has made a valiant effort to write about two men who are absolutely not comfortable with displaying emotions or weakness. Joe and Ed are both macho men, more comfortable working with their hands than anything else. They haven’t even admitted to each other that they like to bottom for the other. But while the author tries to show this progression of their relationship, it – and the story – never really worked for me.

My biggest problem stems from how interchangeable both Joe and Ed are to me. The beginning opens up with little explanation, straight into Ed’s reaction of finding out about his father’s death. I don’t know these men, and the feeling that I’m expected to was prevalent enough to send me back to the publisher’s website after finishing the first chapter to find out if I’d inadvertently purchased a sequel. I never got a sense of clear personality from either of them until well over halfway through, and by that point, so much had transpired that the emotional impacts were completely gone for me. There is nothing distinctive in either the characterization or the author’s voice to aid the differentiation of the two leads. Both like the same things when it comes to sex. Both are more physical than cerebral. Both are reticent to express emotions. The list goes on. Without recognizing them as individuals, I can’t invest in anything that happens to them.

The bits of drama that are injected into the plot always felt glossed over, as well, though that could very well be my difficulty finding any sense of individualism in the men for so much of the story. While the novella is relatively clean editorially, it still took me much longer to read than a usual story of this length. I suspect this author’s voice is just not for me.

Readability	6/10 – Though relatively clean editorially, the author’s voice does nothing for me, and the interchangeable characters don’t help
Hero #1	4/10 – I found it very difficult to differentiate between them for over half the story
Hero #2	4/10 – Though I appreciated the attempt to create emotionally reserved gay men, I was never able to care about either one of them.
Entertainment value	3/10 – I never engaged, and thus spent most of the story bored out of my mind.
World building	7/10 – The farming world felt authentic.
TOTAL:	24/50

Painting from Life by Anne Brooke

TITLE: Painting from Life
AUTHOR: Anne Brooke
PUBLISHER: Eternal Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 5k)
GENRE: Mainstream drama
COST: $2.50

During a trip to try and reconnect with his wife, a painter discovers a new muse, in the guise of an elderly man on the beach…

More emotions are evoked in this short, haunting story than many longer works I’ve read in recent months. It gets classified as a love story, or a GLBT piece in many places I’ve seen it discussed, but I’m reluctant to so easily define it. The relationship between the painter and Peter, the elderly man, isn’t nearly that cut and dry.

The narrator, a young man who remains unnamed as the story is told in first person, presents at the top of the story as desperate to save his three-year marriage. There are a lot of brewing emotions just packed within that relationship. His wife is the primary earner, and resents her husband’s lack of contributions. She’s jealous of the time and energy he devotes to his art. She’s hungry for contact, and the list goes on. There’s certainly nothing easy about it, and then, when he spies Peter on the beach and his muse is infused as it hasn’t been in years, the situation only gets worse.

But just as his relationship with his wife isn’t simple, neither is his relationship with Peter. It grows from a simple agreement of a single sitting to something far more complex. Nothing sexual ever occurs, but the narrator finds energy and passion in his work with Peter as he never has before. Peter, in turn, cannot bring himself to characterize their relationship as anything familial (when asked if he trusts the narrator, Peter responds with, “Like a son…No, better than a son.”). The give and take between the two satisfies needs in both of them. There is some dark subtext, however, suggesting that the narrator (as artist) is draining away Peter’s life (as muse), but in all honesty, it didn’t overshadow the relationship as I read it. It felt far more symbiotic to me, as Peter is already elderly when they meet. Each is hungry for what the other offers. Peter's health might be failing as the narrator continues to work, but the paintings will give him an immortality he wouldn't have otherwise had if they'd never met in the first place.

The complexity of the relationships is served amazingly well by the lyrical, edgy prose. It offers just the right amount of clear, original detail to paint a picture with words, without getting excessive or too artsy, and intrigues me into pursuing more of the author’s work. Strong, original voices are like gold. This one pays off.

Readability	10/10 – Clean, lyrically edgy prose
Characterization	8/10 – Strong, vivid personalities
Plot	7/10 – Some ambiguity allows the reader to extrapolate exactly what he/she needs from it
Entertainment value	8/10 – Haunting
World building	9/10 – The detail of the seaside crackles
TOTAL:	42/50

Brits in Time by assorted authors

TITLE: Brits in Time
AUTHOR: Bronwyn Green, Aurora Rose Lynn, Cindy Spencer Pape, Brynn Paulin, Lisabet Sarai, Saskia Walker
PUBLISHER: Total-e-bound
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 92k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: £5.69

Six stories of erotic romance, all set in Great Britain’s rich history…

The one most consistent, strongest part of this anthology is all the world building that happens in each of the individual stories. There isn’t a one of them that falls short in that regard, which often help a story along when the narrative isn’t quite as strong.

The first story in the anthology is “To Conquer a Lady” by Aurora Rose Lynn. Edmund de Montfort has wanted Lady Isabelle for years, but without a title, he has no chance of getting her. So he went off to earn one and gain some land, but her father still refused him. This gives him no choice but to kidnap her instead, so he lays siege to her father’s castle without knowing the father has died. Isabelle fears the truth getting out and losing what little control she has. This one starts out a little rough, as I really don’t like either one of the two leads. Edmund is pushy without being engaging, Isabelle is bitchy and bitter, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to want to read about them. The situation does improve, but not very much, and I was a little worried I might end up muddling through this collection.

That got banished with the second story. “Mist and Stone” by Bronwyn Green is about Gareth, a knight for Arthur, and Willow, a priestess for the Lady of the Lake. They grew up together, and while harboring feelings for each other for quite a while, each is oblivious to the other’s true feelings. This one engages almost from the opening lines, with smart, sparkling characters, a sweet, wrenching romance, and a great finish. In fact, I liked this story so much, I was even willing to overlook the convenient plot device that forces these two to get intimate. Under other circumstances, the whole “sex must be had to save the kingdom/world/humanity” angle drives me crazy. Here, the writing was deft enough to make me forget my usual dislike.

I honestly thought that was likely to be my favorite story of the bunch. I was wrong. The third story, “In the Dark” by Brynn Paulin, takes that prize. Katherine Wolf has born with a mark on her face, one that would brand her as a witch and probably killed if the outside world discovered it. She stays hidden away in her family’s castle, and when they are all felled by the plague, she is the lone family survivor. The castle is given to Calen the Black, a fierce warrior banished from Court but determined to make the “haunted” castle hospitable. Katherine is drawn to him, and when she sneaks into him at night, he thinks her one of the local girls servicing his men…until she disappears before morning. The set-up is gothic, romantic, and utterly compelling. Katherine is a woman determined to survive, innocent to so many ways of the world because of her seclusion and yet yearning for the things in life so freely given to other women. Calen is honorable and just this side of dangerous, and his obsession with Katherine passionate and compelling. The combination created a wonderful romance that completely restores faith in this author. I’d read another novella by her a year and a half ago that I really didn’t like, so I’ll be honest and say I didn’t bother seriously considering any of her work afterward. But this was enough for me to convince me there’s some real storytelling ability there, and I’m likely to go back and take another look at her backlist, as well as give future work far more credence.

On that high note, I went on to the fourth story. “Shortest Night” by Lisabet Sarai started out interestingly enough, with players in Shakespeare’s company expressing interest in each other. Male players. I thought, “Oh! An anthology that isn’t restricted by sexuality! Yay!” I understand there are het readers out there that don’t want to read m/m, just like there’s a whole army of m/m readers that disdain het (because of so-called girl cooties), but I’m not one of them. Romance for me is about people not their sexual orientation. I was really excited about the possibility of a mixed orientation anthology, but alas, that’s not really what it turned out to be. Hugh, the leading man, sets out to seduce Ben, the new actor for the ingénue roles. They take a room after a successful performance, where the serving girl and the owner’s daughter Jenny, sneaks up to watch them through the keyhole. She’s got a bit of a crush on Ben, and sees Hugh as a lech, so sets out to get Ben for herself. She interferes with Hugh’s attempts to continue seeing Ben in various ways, but the story is too short for me to elaborate without a lot of spoiling. POV switched around so much in this that there is never any true indication of who I’m meant to root for. All I know is that I was left with a distinct distaste in my mouth. The m/m is portrayed as wrong and dirty, even if Jenny gets off on watching them, and the only way to find happiness is with a woman. By far, the story I disliked the most in this.

The fifth story is “Georgie and the Dragon” by Cindy Spencer Pape. In the Welsh town of Draigmor, they offer a virgin up for sacrifice to a legendary dragon in exchange for protecting them. Georgie is the eldest of four, and as recent orphans, she has to figure out how to keep them all together without resorting to marrying off her sister to a man old enough to be her grandfather. She volunteers for the sacrifice, convinced the dragon is a myth but wanting the money that comes with the responsibility. Lord Weir, a man she finds herself attracted to, agrees to help her family should she not return. This story falls into the two middle-of-the-road stories in this anthology for me. While I liked the characters, some of the details annoyed me, stuff about the mythology that made me roll my eyes, dialogue during sex that was purple and overwrought. It let down characters that deserved better, and ultimately spoiled the overall effect of the story.

The final story is “Brazen Behaviour” by Saskia Walker. In 1896, Eleanor Argyle is preparing to travel the world, and with a stop at her aunt and uncle’s in Scotland as an early stop, they send along their manager, Gregory Munroe, to escort her along the way. Eleanor had a teenaged crush on the man, an attraction she still feels, but doesn’t like his autocratic manner, and decides to try and lose him, something he refuses to let happen. While the heroine is strong and likeable, I didn’t care for Gregory, and never really invested in the romance. The prose is capable but never engaged me. I always felt like there was something missing, and never actually found it.

Readability	7/10 – Some of the dialogue is over the top, and there are scattered issues that hold me back, but overall, fairly consistent
Romance	6/10 – Two of the six stories really excel at the romance
Characterization	7/10 – As a whole, stronger than most anthologies
Entertainment value	6/10 – Two stories shine, two are very weak, and the other two are middle of the road
World building	8/10 – By far, the strongest and most consistent part of the anthology
TOTAL:	34/50

Rude Awakening by Veronica Chadwick

TITLE: Rude Awakening
AUTHOR: Veronica Chadwick
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 107k)
GENRE: Suspense erotic romance
COST: $6.50

Widow Jaimee Turner is trying to get on with her life, but the attention of the devastating Lucas Grayson is not what she expected. He’s straight off a romance novel cover, and she’s…well, at a size eighteen and with a job as a middle school English teacher, she’s not. But Lucas is determined to prove to her she’s sexy, even if she doesn’t believe it. He has to. It’s his job as the FBI agent assigned to get close enough to her to discover whether or not she’s complicit with her dead husband’s embezzlement…

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

The story starts out wonderfully, with an incredibly sympathetic heroine getting attention she neither trusts nor expects. Jaimee is a grieving widow, who had sublimated a lot of her own needs and desires in deference to her dead husband. She’s also plus-sized, which in a skinny mini world, has all its own baggage. The book opens up with her at the gym, getting approached by a guy who looks like he walked off a romance novel cover. She tells him off, expecting him to say something demeaning, only to be taken by surprise when he seems to like her curves and sticks with the charm the entire way.

Little does she know, he’s Lucas Grayson, undercover FBI agent, who’s been assigned to get in her good graces and search her house for information her dead husband had. Her husband was an accountant with an organized crime organization, and embezzled a ton of money from them, putting it all in an overseas account in Jaimee’s name. Jaimee knows none of this, but the FBI is determined to take down The Collective. They’ll either protect Jaimee or arrest her, as they deem appropriate for the circumstances.

Lucas is convinced she’s innocent. In fact, he’s attracted to her in a lot of ways he’s not normally. He works incredibly hard to get past all her defenses, and while some of the charm is attributable to his job, he actually means it. The chemistry between them sparked from the very beginning. Jaimee stood him down, then was appropriately horrified when she realized she was judging him the way she had just accused him of judging her. She doesn’t find it easy to believe that someone as gorgeous as Lucas could ever be interested in someone like her, but slowly, bit by bit, he chips away at her resolve. There’s a bittersweet edge to all the seduction, because the closer Lucas gets to her, the more he likes her, and the knowledge that he’s going to end up hurting her far more than The Collective could eats at him. I believed in all of it, though, because I trusted the chemistry between them and wanted to think it would find a way to work out.

Then the sex happened. It was good, don’t get me wrong. In fact, it was very good at the start. But it just kept going, and going, and going, and going, like it was necessary to get as much sex in as possible before the suspense part of the plot could really take off. It just got to be too much. I got bored with it before it swung back into the main thrust of the other story arc, and ultimately, because it took me time to get re-invested in everything due to that temporary disconnect, that’s the reason this story doesn’t score higher for me.

When the suspense arc swings back into action, it’s all tense, emotional, and swiftly choreographed. I did think the HEA was a tad too easy considering the depths of Jaimee’s turmoil, and I really could have done without the saccharine epilogue, but the latter at least is one of those issues people never agree on. For every reader out there like me that tends to go into sugar overload on them, there’s another who absolutely loves them. It certainly doesn’t affect my overall enjoyment, probably because it had already been marred due to the concentrated glut of sex scenes. But the characters maintain their credibility and – more importantly – their likeability throughout the story, and end up carrying this successfully to the end.

Readability	8/10 – Minor editorial details and a glut of sex scenes in the same section slow down an otherwise strong read
Hero	8/10 – Demanding and sexy, with a side of tenderness that can’t be beat
Heroine	8/10 – Suitably insecure when the need arises, with a backbone of steel when it counts
Entertainment value	7/10 – The imbalance of sex scenes holds back an otherwise satisfying read
World building	8/10 – The details of Jaimee’s world are fantastic, but I needed more about what was exactly going on to fully appreciate the potential danger she was in
TOTAL:	39/50

Outrageous Behavior by Amy Corwin

TITLE: Outrageous Behavior
AUTHOR: Amy Corwin
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 7k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $2.00

Laura Brownell is of money and not title, so a marriage to a poor man related to an earl seems like her only option. She just can’t keep her eye away from his far more attractive cousin…

This short offering from a very talented author extends a mild diversion into London of 1811, and the life of Laura Brownell. The youngest of four daughters, she’s late getting a Season, and has no illusions that she will be hard-pressed to find a match. Part of her doesn’t really care. She’s not really suited to the Season, anyway. She’s also not excited about the young man who seems to have her father’s favor, an odious fortune hunter who has the unfortunate advantage of being related to an earl. It’s as good as she can hope for, she supposes.

The problem with that is she is absolutely crushing on her suitor’s cousin, Lord Warnock. He is gorgeous, at ease, and her stomach flutters every time she sees him. She believes he has all the attention from women he can possibly manage, though, and when her first meeting with the man is cut abruptly short by her suitor, she resents the fortune hunter even more.

The author has created a lovely heroine here in just a short space. She’s bound by the rules of her society, but chafing at the bit because she doesn’t want to have to settle. She’d rather be alone than deal with this awful fortune hunter, and takes it upon herself to make sure it’s impossible for them to marry. The story is over almost before it begins, and while there isn’t a traditional HEA, there’s a hint of an HFN that’s adequate for the story’s length. I can’t say that Lord Warnock shines in this, though. He spends most of the story as an idolized object of Laura’s affections. I have no idea if he’s the real deal, and my cynical side doesn’t really believe he’s any better than the others.

Still, we don’t get a lot of him, so it’s a minor complaint in the story’s short span. As a morsel, it satisfies well enough to keep me invested in this author’s abilities.

Readability	8/10 – Swift with only a few minor editorial mistakes
Hero	4/10 – An object of the heroine’s affection rather than a true personality
Heroine	7/10 – Lovely and sweet, bold when she needed to be
Entertainment value	6/10 – A sweet diversion, but nothing more
World building	7/10 – For its brevity, remarkably thorough
TOTAL:	32/50

Lone by Rowan McBride

TITLE: Lone
AUTHOR: Rowan McBride
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill (Allure)
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 57k)
GENRE: Gay paranormal erotic romance
COST: $7.00

A trip to DC to speak at Georgetown for Seth Anderson is meant to be a little vacation as well with his lover of three months, Rafe Dirisio. But a random stop at a pool hall for a game ends in a bloodbath that leaves Seth standing and everyone else bloodied or dead around him. Rafe has questions, but when he learns the answers are more supernatural than he first expected, he needs to figure out how to deal with Seth’s other nature, and whether or not it’s worth it…

Rowan McBride writes damaged heroes like nobody else. There is always something unique about them, something so utterly broken that it seems impossible for them to be fixed, and yet, almost always, he finds a way. The case is the same in this, too. Seth has lived his entire life as an omega wolf, but even more, he’s an abomination that is usually put down at birth. He spent his childhood in the system and then tried to get a life for himself, but hunters always manage to track him down, and he always manages to destroy them before escaping. He manages to eke out a life for himself by getting his degrees via correspondence, and moving around a lot. His most recent move settled him in Brier, Iowa, at a small college and with a man who took him in almost from the start.

Seth is not a large man, only 5’5”, with the appearance of someone much younger than his thirty-two years, while his lover Rafe is 6’6” and as imposing as it gets. Rafe has always assumed he’s the one with all the physical strength in this relationship, a misbelief Seth is more than willing to foster, so when he learns the truth about just how powerful Seth is – and has to experience it for himself – it’s as much of a shock as learning about werewolves and the supernatural. His diligence as he struggles to come to grips with it riveted me to the page, and all my favorite parts of the book are most likely due to him. He is the one to show emotional vulnerability first. He is the one who keeps repeatedly making all the efforts. I liked Seth, but not to the same degree as Rafe, mostly because except for defending Rafe, Seth ends up coming across as rather passive. That’s a result of who and what he is, and is certainly understandable and explained well throughout the story, but that’s not the kind of character I always respond strongest to. It’s far easier to get involved with Rafe because of his attempts to actually do something, even – or especially – when they fail. Seth’s regression after his true nature is exposed is heartbreaking to read, but it wears thin even while I understand why it’s happening. If he’d only been a little more active a little bit sooner, it might not have been that way.

The sex is erotic and often lyrical, and the emotional moments heartfelt, but my absolute favorite part of the book – hands down, without a doubt – was the time they spent visiting Rafe’s family. Dialogue was natural, the people were real, and the whole section read like a true family. I wanted to be a part of Rafe’s family as much as Seth craved it. This cemented my feelings for Rafe.

While Seth’s angst and reversal of nature into a more primal state is a tad heavy-handed and repetitive, Rafe’s characterization and the author’s easy, lyrical voice more than made up for it for me. There’s a reason I like this author so much. Rafe is yet more proof of it.

Readability	9/10 – Some of Seth’s angsting gets a little much, but otherwise, utterly engrossing
Hero #1	7/10 – The angst wears thin as the novel progresses, but he’s still a poignant figure much of the time
Hero #2	9/10 – Absolutely adored Rafe and his attempts to come to grips with everything
Entertainment value	8/10 – While Seth’s angst weighed it down, my engagement with Rafe and his involvement more than made up for it
World building	8/10 – I loved the different take on the werewolves, it freshened what could’ve been a run of the mill story
TOTAL:	41/50

Saddled by Delilah Devlin

TITLE: Saddled
AUTHOR: Delilah Devlin
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 24k)
GENRE: Contemporary menage erotic romance
COST: $3.50

A bad winter storm drives distraught Kate Duvall off the road and into a creek. The two ranchers behind her pull over to rescue her. For Cale, the only way to get his best friend Bobby and this mysterious woman recovering from hypothermia is to get them back to the cabin he shares with Bobby and warm them up personally…

You know, when I buy stories like this, I’m fully aware I’m buying it for the hot factor and not for any real semblance of romance. Outside of erotica, ménages don’t really work all that great for me, mainly because it always feels like the author is taking easy roads out in trying to make it a romance. So I didn’t have high expectations when it came to this short novella, but two hot guys – one Native American, which I freely admit is a hotspot for me – and a locked cabin felt like some escapist fun.

It wasn’t. It was a chore. And it’s not even all the ménage’s fault, though that certainly didn’t help matters any. There is enough technical stuff that drove me crazy in this to give me a headache, even before I get to my issues with the story itself.

First of all, the author is a headhopper, obtrusively so. The prose jumps around enough without formal breaks to slow me down dramatically while I’m reading, and it didn’t do a thing to really make any of the characters more relatable. One thing it did do, though, was highlight another weak technical aspect – clumsy information dumps. For instance, in chapter three, Bobby ruminates on his and Cale’s past, for the reader’s edification since he’s alone at the time and doesn’t say any of this out loud. We learn all about how they hooked up then. However, less than two thousand words later at the top of chapter four, Kate proceeds to grill them about their lives, and we get to hear it all over again in dialogue. It’s repetitive, unnecessary, and slows down the story to a snail’s pace.

None of it is helped by characters that lack any real sort of personality or a romance that never works. Kate was stuck in a relationship because she liked the security of her fiance’s money primarily. Cale and Bobby are still struggling to make it on a year to year basis. I’m expected to believe an HEA – complete with heroes who admit out loud they’re trying to knock her up – based on one weekend of amazing sex? The only thing it had going for it is that she didn’t jump into the decision. She took time off. That wasn’t nearly enough, though.

I can’t even enjoy it for the sex parts. I have to admit to wincing at the double vaginal penetration scenes, and a lot of time it felt like badly staged porn, like when Kate doesn’t want to come too quickly and asks Cale to back off a little: Cale let go of her breast and shifted, coming up on his knees beside her and placing both hands over her breasts, continuing to massage her while he glanced back at Bobby. Without even the vicarious erotic thrill, that leaves very little at all to recommend this story.

Readability	6/10 – Duplicate information dumps and headhopping made this a real chore to slog through
Menage	3/10 – Even for just considering it as erotica, it just wasn’t sexy to me most of the time
Characterization	3/10 – Flat and interchangeable
Entertainment value	2/10 – The romance didn’t work, the sex didn’t work, which doesn’t leave anything else to work
World building	6/10 – I liked the locked in the cabin feel, but the focus was elsewhere for this
TOTAL:	20/50

A Heart Divided by JM Snyder

TITLE: A Heart Divided
AUTHOR: JM Snyder
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill (Allure)
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 42k)
GENRE: Gay historical romance
COST: $7.00

Lieutenant Anderson Blanks of the Confederate Army is hoping to wait out the rest of his term, just a few short months before he’s up for re-enlistment, but when pickets complain about ghosts in the woods where they’re currently encamped, he sets out to take care of it, convinced it’s just a dying man. He’s right, but the man is no stranger. It’s Sam Talley, the man Andy has been in love with most of his life, the man who was forced to leave his father’s plantation after their affair was discovered, the man Andy was going to go off and find as soon as he was free of the war. Sam’s been hurt, and now Andy is the only one who can make sure he doesn’t die from his wounds. The only problem is, Sam isn’t fighting for the South…

From the very start, there’s a poignancy to this short novel that overlays the grittiness of the war period in which it’s set. The American Civil War often gets romanticized in historicals anyway, and while there are definite elements of that to this, it still manages to be a touching, emotional, satisfying ride.

The entire story is told from Andy’s POV, which has definite advantages and disadvantages to enjoying it. On the plus side, we get to experience firsthand Andy’s sense of loss regarding his first love, his anxiety when he fears Sam won’t make it, his exhilaration in those moments when Sam is lucid and they can simply be together. It completely puts us in Andy’s corner, because he’s a caring, intelligent, honorable young man. On the down side, however, is the fact that we learn very little about Sam but the superficial. Sam spends the vast majority of the story unconscious, or in pain, or some state in between, so it’s very difficult to get a true bead on him. We get some of Andy’s memories, but those are more of boys than young men, and highly rose-colored. They’re Andy’s means of retaining his sanity about the whole war, so perhaps not the best yardstick to really measure what kind of a man Sam is. As such, Sam ends up being more of a figure for Andy to fixate on rather than a fully developed character in his own right. Does it hurt the romance? A little, though I will say that because Andy’s feelings were so strong and such a rush that I still managed to get swept up in all of it anyway.

Because of the situation, there’s very little intimacy in this, just a few kisses and some casual mentions of what they did in the past. The true thrust of the story is the tension that coils throughout it as Andy tries to reconcile his responsibilities to his Army with his responsibility for Sam. The world conspires against him. Other soldiers. Time. Piece by piece, it adds up and tightens the noose around the reader’s neck, until I had no idea how Andy was going to get out of all of it. One or two of the twists seem a bit contrived, but for me, since I needed the release so badly, it worked well enough for me not to care too much at how convenient it was. It’s also the reason why it doesn’t bother me so much that, outside of Andy’s father’s reactions in his memories, there doesn’t seem to be that much backlash from his contemporaries when the truth about his relationship with Sam starts to come out. I think if I’d had to deal with the ramifications of the wrongness of homosexuality of the period on top of the tense action, it would have been too much to take.

I tend to be hit or miss with this author, but this one is definitely a hit. It’s a tightly paced, poignant love story, with a truly heartbreaking leading man.

Readability	9/10 – Tense and anxious
Hero #1	8/10 – Honorable and heartbreaking
Hero #2	5/10 – Harder to get a grip on since he’s unconscious or in pain most of the time
Entertainment value	8/10 – I got swept away by the tension of the situation and the love between the two men
World building	9/10 – Gritty and real, in spite of the romanticism of the prose and men
TOTAL:	39/50

A Gypsy's Vow by Bonnie Dee

TITLE: A Gypsy’s Vow
AUTHOR: Bonnie Dee
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 21k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $4.25

As an innkeeper’s daughter, Bess Andrews should be flattered that a man of title and land would be interested in marrying her, but she’s not. She has dreams of more than her small English town, and would rather take care of herself than have someone marry her for her money. Then she meets a gypsy currently encamped in town. Alexi Comescu is charming, gorgeous, and attentive, and offers an escape she doesn’t dare accept…

This sweet novella is a mild diversion from some of the steamier offerings out there, though the two specific sex scenes are most definitely passionate. It’s told from the heroine’s perspective, a smart, capable young woman more practical than anything else. She manages her father’s inn, since he spends much of his time drunk, but dreams in her most secret place of escaping the boundaries of Framingham, a small town in Dorset, England. She notices a gorgeous gypsy in the market, and he dares to approach her, offering to carry her basket as she walks home. It’s a charming, simple opening, that does more to build sympathy for Bess than much of anything else.

Alexi comes across as more urbane than Bess, certainly very intuitive and appreciative without ever crossing gentlemanly borders. To be honest, he felt too good to be true much of the time, and though the details of his gypsy life are there, I didn’t necessarily believe him as a gypsy. I even know the point where it broke credibility for me. He hasn’t been formally educated, learning to read from “a friend,” and a third of the way through the story, tells her, “A man doesn’t need a Harvard education to study the classics.” The statement itself is certainly true, but I just can’t see an itinerant gypsy in 1902 England referencing an American college as a guideline standard, in such an off-handed, casual manner. Oxford or Cambridge, yes. Even any number of European universities. But an American one? Not believable for me, and unfortunately the straw that destroyed my suspension of disbelief for him as a real character. I liked him well enough, but without really believing him a man of his time and people, never was able to fully invest in the fairytale aspect of the romance.

The main crux of the conflict rests in Bess being torn for her desire to escape and the practicality of accepting a marriage proposal she doesn’t want. Lord Wallace plays a little flat until he’s thrust into the forefront, and then he fulfills the villainous role the story necessitates adequately if not originally. I thought the resolution of that part of the novella a tad disappointing in its ease, but the fact that it then allows Bess to demonstrate some real strength of character helps to mitigate that considerably. The ending is expected, but as satisfying as I can hope for since I don’t really believe in Alexi. It’s powered by my respect for Bess, and therein lies the story’s real strength for me.

Readability	8/10 – A swift if not original read, with some dialogue I didn’t believe
Hero	6/10 – Though I liked him, I never really believed he was a gypsy
Heroine	7/10 – Capable without being over the top
Entertainment value	6/10 – Sweet, but difficult to suspend disbelief long enough to invest in the long-term possibilities of the romance
World building	7/10 – For the most part, I bought the setting, though I think the short format holds it back from being as rich as it could have been
TOTAL:	34/50

At My Window with a Broken Wing by Ric Wasley

TITLE: At My Window with a Broken Wing
AUTHOR: Ric Wasley
PUBLISHER: Wild Child Publishing
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 15k)
GENRE: Mainstream drama
COST: $3.25

An encounter with a girl too good to be a groupie has one musician reflecting on his own values…

The blurb on the publisher’s website is a tad misleading. It presents the story from, “What if a girl…?” and “Suppose she meets…?” which suggests the story is about her. It’s not. Far from it. This short story is told in 1^st person, from the musician’s POV, and the girl in question doesn’t even come into real play until a third of the way through. So when you buy this character study, it’s not to discover why a girl would seek out that kind of situation. It’s to learn about a young man in 1966 starting to discover who he is as a human being.

The narrator seems like your average college musician from the sixties. He does weekend gigs, parties hard, somehow manages to stay in school. At the top of the story, he seems nearly a stereotype, but as he intercepts a sorority pledge from getting treated like crap, he starts to take on a little more life. He hooks up with Debbie, who, as his friend is always quick to remind him, is a good girl, and a weekend they plan together, where he assumes they’ll do the usual partying and sex thing, turns into something else entirely. He thinks she is looking to be debauched, to experience what it’s like to be a bad girl, and while that might partially be the case, it’s not where the story’s depths rests. No, that falls onto how the narrator reacts to it all, his reticence to smear her, and his caustic behavior afterward.

For all its tender prose, this is not a sugar-coated fairy tale. It is not a romance. I wouldn’t even call it a love story. This is the careful presentation of how one young man learns and changes from a very specific set of circumstances, and even more, how he doesn’t change. The narrator could have come across as a real jerk in this, considering some of his behavior. He doesn’t. He’s just a young man, who made some good choices and some not so good choices. It’s incredibly real and could easily happen today as it did then. The end result is a bittersweet character study that surprises you when it’s done for refusing to take an easy road.

Readability	8/10 – Charming and real
Characterization	8/10 – The narrator is the one who really shines in this
Plot	7/10 – Surprisingly gentle without being preachy
Entertainment value	7/10 – Nothing earth-shattering, but a tender character study that hits deeper than you first think
World building	7/10 – The sense of time isn’t as strong as I would have expected, could have almost been anywhen
TOTAL:	37/50