Pioneers by Lynn Lorenz

TITLE: Pioneers
AUTHOR: Lynn Lorenz
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 21k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay erotic romance
COST: $5.00

For his latest project, Matt wants to do a documentary about gays living in New Orleans for the past fifty years, and key to that is interviewing his landlord, Sebastian LaGrange. Sebastian’s life has been colorful to say the least, and the stories he has to tell more than revealing…

Note to publishers: If books are interconnected because of recurring characters, I want to know before I buy. It doesn’t matter if they’re not sequels. Some of us readers do not like coming into a story where characters have had history prior to the story’s start that is detailed in other books. Because if I had known that the characters in this had been in another, earlier story? I would never have bought this book. And it makes me not trust you for future purchases, either, because I hate getting caught out like this.

This isn’t your traditional romance. It’s primarily highlights of Sebastian’s life, as Matt asks him questions about being a gay man in New Orleans over the past few decades. It’s interspersed with current happenings, like Matt and his boyfriend Lane being all gooey for each other, and Sebastian reminiscing on his own outside of the documentary format, but this is mostly a lovefest for a character that, while charming, lacked any sort of emotional pull for me because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something.

It turns out I was. I didn’t discover it until I was preparing to write this review, but this is connected to another story set in New Orleans that this author has written. Apparently, Matt and Lane appear in Pinky Swear, a story I didn’t read. Sebastian was in it, too. That explains the constant nagging sense that I was an outsider not privy to certain details about these men. I didn’t have them. I had no history with them. I had questions galore that weren’t answered. But still, the story failed to give me everything I needed to appreciate the characters for who they were. Without a prior emotional connection, they come across as too saccharine and superficial.

That being said, I did like the perspective given on growing up gay in a much different era, even when it wasn’t really that long ago. Sebastian’s life has been colorful to say the least, and getting to hear about some of those exploits was interesting if not emotionally engaging for me.

I’ll be very wary of buying this author or from Amber Allure again. I don’t want to have to work to find out if a story is connected to others in some way. It’s too much like coming into the middle of a movie. Others might not have problems with it, but I’m far too linear when it comes to things like this. I want to start at the beginning and go straight through to the end. I don’t skip ahead, I don’t read the ending first, and I avoid spoilers at all costs. Seeing Matt and Lane’s HEA doesn’t make me want to go out and buy the book where they meet. I already know how it works out (and yes, I know it can be argued that we always know how romances will work out since it’s part of the genre rules, but this goes beyond that because I’ve already been in their future). I read to feel, and if I know specifics about what's to come, I'm very unlikely to immerse myself enough to let emotions win.

Readability	7/10 – Strongest portions are dialogue-driven, I find this author’s voice tends to get a little too sappy for me in the non-dialogue parts
Hero #1	7/10 – Campy and charming
Hero #2	4/10 – Since the story is mostly about Sebastian’s love life, he gets little page time until late in the story, and then it feels very idealized
Entertainment value	6/10 – I liked the way it was set up, and the potential of what was to come, but didn’t connect emotionally to many of the characters; the sense of being on the outside looking in prevailed too much
World building	6/10 – The sense of what he went through when he was still young comes through in the actions if not the prose
TOTAL:	30/50

Getting Even with Warren by Wynter Daniels

TITLE: Getting Even with Warren
AUTHOR: Wynter Daniels
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 15k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $2.49

At the funeral of her much older husband, Macy meets his oldest son for the first time, the biracial Alex. Attraction sparks between them, and both think sleeping together is the perfect way to get back at the man who did wrong by both of them…

Though she left her husband a month before his death, Macy Halstead must still attend his funeral for the sake of appearances. There, she has to sit and watch all his mistresses mourn for the man. The only person who attracts her attention in a positive way is Alex, her husband’s oldest son. The product of an affair, Alex has always believed he wasn’t as good in his father’s eyes as his half-brothers because of the color of his skin, and has resented the man his entire life. He’s attracted to the latest widow, as well as intrigued by how young she is. They come to agree almost at the same time – albeit to themselves at first – that sleeping with the other is the perfect revenge on Warren. If they get fantastic sex out of it, too, all the better.

And that’s what a good part of this story is. Sex comprises almost half of its word count, with conflict generated out of the blue and then disregarded paragraphs later. If that’s all you’re looking for, I suppose it works, but for me, I need to at least feel the attraction first. I didn’t here. I could see why Macy was attracted to Alex – from his description, he sounds hot – but she lacks any kind of personality or enticing description to make me understand why he feels so connected to her so quickly. Without feeling that connection myself, it became a chore to read sex scene after sex scene, in a voice that, while clean and rather unobtrusive, didn’t engage me either. This sex should’ve been charged with so much emotion – his anger, her anger, their sublimated desires – and it fell far short of reaching that. It’s a victim of too much. In this case, too much sex completely obliterated any impact the story might have generated because it didn’t give the characters enough time to come to life outside of their orgasms.

Readability	7/10 – Nothing wrong with it, but never really engaged me either, it felt a lot longer than 15k
Hero	4/10 – By the numbers and flat
Heroine	4/10 – Other than her disdain for her dead husband’s philandering, I never understood what was so special about her
Entertainment value	3/10 – Without being able to engage in either leads, it was just one sex scene after another
World building	4/10 – No attempts are made, and since when do cameramen have secretaries?
TOTAL:	22/50

The Good, the Bad, and the Naughty by Lena Matthews

TITLE: The Good, the Bad, and the Naughty
AUTHOR: Lena Matthews
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 28k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.99

When her right-hand man gives his notice, lingerie designer Maryam James finds herself at a loss on how to replace him. The trick of it is, though, Xavier has no desire to actually leave. He just wants Maryam to realize how badly she needs him off the clock, too…

I knew going into this story that it would focus primarily on the sex. I just wasn’t expecting the sex to be the weakest part of the story.

Maryam James is a high-pressure designer with even higher standards, both for herself and for those around her. Few can put up with her, but her assistant/right-hand man Xavier Sun handles her better than she can handle herself. They’ve been working together for seven years, but now, Xavier has given his notice, and she has four weeks to find his replacement. She doesn’t want to. Nobody can replace Xavier, but he’s not budging in his decision. For Xavier, it’s a deliberate ploy. He wants Maryam to finally admit to herself that there’s something between them. Leaving is meant to force her hand. But his plans get fast-tracked when an impromptu kiss leaves them both breathless.

There was never any doubt this story was meant to focus on the erotic. I mean, it’s a het romance from Loose Id, written by Lena Matthews. I knew all this going in. I was prepared for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was being turned off by the eroticism rather than vice versa. This author has worked for me in the past, and I adore the hotness potential between the two leads – Maryam is African-American, and Xavier is Asian/European – but the actual execution left a lot to be desired. Its primary fault is that it ultimately tries too hard. For instance, in an effort to keep the prose as varied as possible (since so much of it is sex and repetitive), there are more euphemisms than I generally like. The sex pretty much lost me at “crinkled star” in the anal scene. The attempts at dirty talk always felt over-the-top and unrealistic, even within the context of such a fantasized scenario. That’s because the author had already set up a very realistic contemporary feel with the banter between her two protagonists in the non-erotic scenes. Their dialogue was often funny and unforced, flowing far better than anything created within the sexual escapades, and the contrast ultimately lowers any heat their coming together might have created for me.

It took me a while to warm to Maryam, too. Frankly put, she’s a bitch at the top of the story. She knows it. Xavier knows it. I didn’t like her. My opinion didn’t change until I got to see her through Xavier’s more knowing eyes. His perspective turned her from a harridan into someone human, and I could finally relax and enjoy their chemistry. Or at least, I could until they hit the sheets.

By the end of the story, I found myself wishing it had been done for a different publisher that didn’t have as much emphasis on the sex. Perhaps somewhere else, the characters could have spent more time outside of the bedroom (and the shower, and her desk…) and grown into the people they had the potential to be, but ultimately were not.

Readability	7/10 – Fun banter makes up for the over-the-top sex scenes
Hero	6/10 – I always felt like there was more there that we never got to see
Heroine	6/10 – My first reaction of what a bitch was tempered by Xavier’s perspective
Entertainment value	5/10 – Oddly enough, too much sex because it was definitely the weaker aspect of the story
World building	5/10 – Not a whole lot of attention paid to it
TOTAL:	29/50

Scorpion by Aleksandr Voinov

TITLE: Scorpion
AUTHOR: Aleksandr Voinov
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 71k)
GENRE: Fantasy gay erotic romance
COST: $5.99

Kendras knows two things. How to fight, and how to survive. When he is left for dead, his foot smashed and broken, he somehow finds the strength to get to Dalman, the city he was fighting for. There, a mysterious man with gray eyes offers to pay him for sex. With so few options and no money of his own, Kendras agrees, but one night turns into more when his benefactor finds him a medic and offers him a trade of services – time and a place to heal in exchange for Kendras’s abilities when the time comes. Kendras accepts, but only because he wants to heal and go off in search of the rest of his group – the infamous Scorpions, the deadliest mercenaries of them all…

Aleksandr Voinov is one of my finds this year, but this was the first solo title of his I’d picked up. I started it wondering how it would differ from the collaborative work I’d read. I finished it wondering how long I would have to wait before reading more of his solo attempts.

The story is a complex one. It takes place in a fantasy world where three cities vie for dominance – Dalman, Fetin, and Vededrin, each with their own internal politics as well. Kendras is a soldier of a group known as the Scorpions, an elite band of men led by one known only as the officer. At the top of the story, he has been badly injured, his foot crushed beneath a siege engine when he is left for dead. He has no money, no knowledge if his comrades are alive or dead, so when a gray-eyed man offers to pay him for sexual favors, he accepts. It’s the only way to live. The man, who introduces himself as a mercenary named Steel, takes Kendras under his wing, providing medical attention and offering a place to recuperate. In return, he’d like Kendras’s aid in a job once he’s better. Kendras agrees, as a measure of expediency, and thus starts his participation in a story of politics, fighting to the death, and Machiavellian intrigue.

It’s not an easy read, but it’s made compelling by the author’s visceral prose. Action leaps from the page in slashes of red and gray and black, and the pace is relentless. Even when the characters are at rest, there’s a sense of constant forward motion, made possible by the vibrant description and underlying energies of his cast. It’s the novel’s greatest strength, making it nearly futile to try putting the book down, even to regroup and try to assimilate all of the background information necessary to understand and fully appreciate the machinations of what’s going on.

The dense world-building is both a good and bad thing. While it provides a lot of substance for a reader to sink into, there’s so much of it that it took me a while to get everything straight, and even then, I wasn’t always sure I was reading something right. It’s not for the lack of explanation. There’s a lot of it in there. For me, I think that part of my slowness in fully comprehending what was going on politically stemmed from where those explanations were placed. For instance, much of chapter three is a flashback to when Kendras first joined up with the Scorpions. Near the end of his initiation (or betrothal as it’s called), the officer takes him up onto the mountain, presumably to be the last of the Scorpions Kendras spends time with. There, he lays a lot of the foundation of this fantasy world’s history. It’s clear and concise, but honestly, most of it went right past me. Why? Because Kendras wasn’t concerned about any of that. He’s wrapped up in all his strong feelings for the officer and anticipation of what’s to come. I was just as wrapped up in Kendras by this point, which meant the necessary exposition the officer was giving glanced off my awareness. I don’t know if this would be a problem for other readers (though honestly, I don’t consider it a problem for myself, it was just a stumbling block). When I’m that engaged with a story, I’m so immersed I find it difficult to dissociate. It’s a credit to the author that I could get that deep so quickly as much as it is anything else.

Along with the detailed world-building, there is a wide cast of rich characters to discover. Characterizations are generally strong. Kendras and Widow especially leap off the page, as well as minor characters such as Vistar and Kiran. I do have some reservations about two of the other primaries, though. Steel and the officer both have pivotal roles in the way things develop, and while the romance centers around Kendras and his hero worship of the officer, I never really believed Steel was such a bad option. As a reader, I met him first, in an act that if not altruistic was certainly merciful. He was also considerably flawed, which made him more interesting to me than the perfect officer, too. Toss in the fact that the officer’s characterization is colored by Kendras’s rose-colored glasses, and I found it harder to completely write off Steel.

Sex is plentiful and sometimes coarse, so readers who are sensitive to the hero having relations with anyone other than their love interest should probably be aware. It’s also much more heavily focused on the politics and intrigue rather than the romance. Neither of these were issues for me, and in fact, made the book more realistic and absorbing as a result. The author has shot up to one of my favorite finds this year, and I’m excited about what we’re going to get from him in the future.

Readability	9/10 – Addictive, visceral prose
Hero #1	8/10 – Driven and fascinating
Hero #2	6/10 – Slightly idealized for me, I kept wishing I could see more of him as an individual rather than this idol of hero worship
Entertainment value	9/10 – Utterly absorbing, I couldn’t put it down
World building	8/10 – In a world where religion plays such a heavy role, I needed more explanation than what I got
TOTAL:	40/50

Fresh Start by Jane Davitt

TITLE: Fresh Start
AUTHOR: Jane Davitt
PUBLISHER: Total-e-bound
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 17k)
GENRE: BDSM contemporary erotic romance
COST: ₤2.49

Connor and Helen have been living together for the past eight months. It’s the relationship Helen has been wishing for and never thought she would have, with her as a submissive to a Dom she adores. Just before Connor leaves for a business trip, he gives her a letter which details how he doesn’t feel she is truly submitting to him. That’s what Helen thinks she’s been doing but with his unavoidable departure, she has to figure out for herself if giving herself over to him exactly as he desires is what she wants from the relationship, too…

After such a lackluster week, I decided to get a book from an author I don’t have to worry about on an editorial level. While I found her usual clean and elegant prose, I can’t say I actually enjoyed the story.

“Fresh Start” was an entry in the Master Me anthology, but I bought it when it was released on its own very recently. It’s the story of Helen and Connor, an English couple who have been living together in a D/s relationship for eight months. Connor is Helen’s first Dom, though she is definitely not his first sub, and she’s spent the last eight months like a kid in the candy store, eager for everything Connor will give her, disappointed when she hits his boundaries. At the top of the story, Connor is about to leave for an eight-day business trip to San Francisco. He’s writing a letter with Helen kneeling and in clamps nearby. She isn’t supposed to move or fidget, but she’s not entirely successful, so afterward, he gives her a spanking as punishment. Though she usually loves this, on this particular evening she doesn’t get the same satisfaction. She doesn’t want Connor to go, and she’s not relishing spending the next week and a day on her own. It turns out that the letter Connor was writing was to Helen, a list of things he wanted her to do every day while he was gone. She discovers that he isn’t as pleased with the way their relationship has developed as she is. He’s spoiled her by letting her top from the bottom too much, and yielding to her pouting and disagreements when she decides something is too stupid or inane to obey. He’d like to re-evaluate their relationship, but when she points out that telling her this and then taking off before they can discuss it is the worst possible timing, he lets her off the hook. Helen isn’t comfortable with that. She’s especially not comfortable when she reads his letter. But her devotion to him is such that she wants to try, so she sets to learning what she can before he returns to determine if this is a change she wants to embrace or not.

It’s an interesting take on the D/s angle. Many stories that I see focus on the ohmigod so good angle of a new sub discovering a Dom, but in this, we find a sub whose eagerness and ignorance has held the relationship back rather than turning into true love. However, while I loved the idea of this approach, it ended up falling short for me in two areas. First of all, Helen’s ignorance and ultimate quest for knowledge ends up evoking a primer feel that detracts from any kind of emotional weight. The story’s not long enough to sustain it, and it breaks up any kind of flow it might have achieved, especially with a last chapter that felt entirely pointless and tacked on. It’s not helped that Connor is gone for a good part as well, leaving Helen to discover these things on her own.

And therein rests my second problem with this short novella. Helen comes across as an entitled, petulant, spoiled child in spite of being a successful professional. She tops from the bottom and when Connor attempts to explain things to her, gets defensive and argumentative to the point where I was thinking, “Just dump her, Connor, you’ll be so much better off.” I wonder if my perspective on her would have been altered if I’d had the chance to get to know her before she fell into such a sullen role, but that wasn’t to be in this case. She is incredibly distrustful and borderline disrespectful of much of what Connor suggests, which became the root of my disbelief that she would ever change her ways, no matter how much she said she cared about him. Personally, I think she was just too afraid of not finding somebody else, which isn’t conducive to believing in an HEA. I finished the story thinking, “She’ll leave him as soon as somebody else comes along who doesn’t make her do the stuff she doesn’t want to.”

Considering my respect for this author, I’m thinking of this one as a miss.

Readability	8/10 – Clean and elegant, just like all her prose
Hero	5/10 – An absent figure for much of the story, though his presence looms throughout
Heroine	5/10 – I can’t say I believed her transformation, she seemed too much like a petulant child
Entertainment value	6/10 – I was really looking forward to the promise of this but without liking or believing in the heroine, it’s hard to actually enjoy it
World building	7/10 – Much discussion about the variances of BDSM contributes to a sense of verisimilitude, though it can feel like a primer, too
TOTAL:	31/50

The Stolen Warrior by Anastasia Rabiyah

TITLE: The Stolen Warrior
AUTHOR: Anastasia Rabiyah
PUBLISHER: Sugar and Spice Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 15k)
GENRE: Fantasy erotic romance
COST: $3.99

Hessa is a slave owned and branded by the Omi House, but her scarred face keeps her to hard labor rather than as a pleasure slave. As she’s delivering food to the men used to fight in the pits for the enjoyment of the masses, one in particular grabs her attention when he asks for her help in escaping. Attracted to a man for the first time in her life, she opts to do what she can, though considering how little power she actually has, she’s not sure how she’s going to do it…

The first short story I read by this author got to me on a gut level. I was hoping for a repeat of that experience, but unfortunately, it never quite materialized.

Hessa Omi is a branded slave, scarred at a young age. The marring of her beauty makes her unfit for being a pleasure slave so instead she works hard labor. One of her jobs is feeding the imprisoned pit fighters. A select group who have survived are waiting to be used to breed more fighters, and Hessa is drawn to one in particular. He introduces himself as Gunnar, an air singer from a distant island, and asks for her aid in escaping. She initially says no, since she has no idea how to get him out anyway, but she can’t stay away from him, and when an opportunity arises to do as he requests, she grabs it.

For a short story, a lot actually happens in this, which ultimately proves to be its greatest weakness. There’s too much story going on to make it fleshed out enough to enjoy. It’s a fantasy world that only gets a minimal amount of building, with a heroine that is a passive archetype (outside of her one act to help Gunnar escape). Many of the events that occur happen around Hessa, and the changes that come do so at the behest of other characters instead of her own actions (again, with the single exception of the key to their escape). It makes her very dull as a result, and I never understood why Gunnar would be willing to trust in her…except, oh yeah, he prayed and then she showed up and he just knew she was the one. It’s completely circumstantial and uninteresting, as well as flattens any depth he might have otherwise had.

The potential of the story never fully appeared. It’s not overly erotic, so it doesn’t appeal on that level, the heroine is too passive for me to really root for her, and the hero so two-dimensional I didn’t have the romance to latch onto, either. Disappointing, though I haven’t given up on this author yet.

Readability	7/10 – Not the cleanest, and some telling instead of showing, but swift and mildly intriguing
Hero	5/10 – He’s a figure more than a person, I kept expecting more depth
Heroine	4/10 – A victim of circumstance, except for her big moment in the middle she has things done to her rather than instigates change for herself
Entertainment value	5/10 – I kept waiting for the potential of the story to play out, but it didn’t really come
World building	6/10 – Not nearly enough explanation or detail to do more than hint at the promise of the fantasy world
TOTAL:	27/50

Hearts Afire: September by Philippa Grey-Gerou and Michael Barnette

TITLE: Hearts Afire: September
AUTHORS: Philippa Grey-Gerou and Michael Barnette
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 49k)
GENRE: Gay erotic romance
COST: $5.50

A pair of erotic novellas, each about a gay romance with a fireman involved…

I didn’t buy all the books in this series that Liquid Silver did a couple years ago, but based on the ones I did, I’d say that’s a good thing.

This two-author collection begins with Philippa Grey-Gerou’s “High Heat.” Chef Roman Geary finds himself in trouble when his home and restaurant go up in flames, leaving him without facilities to prepare his upcoming catering jobs. At the suggestion of his house manager, he rents out the catering kitchen at the local firehouse, the same group that put out the fire on his restaurant. One of the firemen, Jacob, shows an interest in him, and through the time they spend getting to know each other, the two develop a relationship. Roman’s left wondering, however, whether or not he can be involved with someone who could die at any time.

On the surface, there’s not much that’s really wrong with this novella. It’s clean, it’s evenly paced, and there’s a lot of detail to make the background seem real. But by halfway through, I wasn’t connecting with anybody in the story, and that never really changed. None of the characters felt like they leapt off the page. In fact, the most vivid portrayal in the whole thing is Roman’s cooking. There, the story goes into incredible detail with his various responsibilities and cooking sequences, so much so that I always forgot it was about a fireman romance. When Jacob’s job would get mentioned again, I was often jolted back, because it seemed so inconsequential and unnecessary compared to the loving attention paid to what Roman was doing. If the same care had been given to either of the men, I might have responded more positively to the story as a whole, but that imbalance ends up being the story's biggest downfall.

I started reading the second story, “Five-Alarm Lover” by Michael Barnette, with reservations, too. This is a futuristic sci-story set on a distant mining moon. Del Preston and his partner work at putting out a horrendous fire in one of the mines, during which they’re both convinced they see a man made of fire racing through the flames. They save two of the suits who were down in the shafts, one of which turns out to be a telempath. Del is drawn to Aaron, and vice versa, but the difference in their stations seems a stumbling block to acting on their desires. That is, until the heat between them gets too hot to ignore.

I hadn’t bothered re-reading the blurbs before starting this anthology. I just knew it was two erotic m/m firemen stories. Thus, I wasn’t prepared for the lack of information at the start of this one letting me know where and when this was going on. In fact, much of the world-building that prevails throughout this novella is sketchy at best, provoking more questions than answers. This didn’t bother me as much as it could have in the first third of the story. In spite of the holes in my knowledge, I was mildly intrigued by the two men and their dilemma. But then they finally come together. And in that single night, in a single act of sex, when Aaron gets into Del’s head and vice versa, they decide they love each other, and all my interest in them disappeared. It became too much insta-love, with feelings that felt entirely manufactured rather than organic to the men or their situations. Not my cup of tea at all. Add in the fact that it suffers from more editorial issues than the first (using affect for effect, subjective pronouns used instead of objective, etc.), and it never regained my interest.

I’d like to think my luck with the books I chose from this series was just bad. Unfortunately, I’m not willing to try any of the others to find out.

Readability	7/10 – Information dumps slowed down the first, while editorial mistakes marred the second
Romance	5/10 – The insta-love of the second really ruined the characters for me
Characterization	5/10 – Characterizations feel flat in the first, and over the top in the second
Entertainment value	4/10 – Failure to engage in the first and the too-swift love in the second made this not really worth it
World building	7/10 – The first goes overboard with setting and the second not nearly enough
TOTAL:	28/50

The Mitchell Money by Sue Fineman

TITLE: The Mitchell Money
AUTHOR: Sue Fineman
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 76k)
GENRE: Contemporary romance
COST: $6.50

Rachel Woods hasn’t been widowed for long, but she’s already discovered that she didn’t know her husband as well as she thought she did. For starters, he’s made all their money disappear, but when she tries to find out, she hits a blank wall. She’s forced to seek the help out of a young lawyer friend in town, who trades her services as a cook for his ex-cop father’s investigative abilities. Gary Martinson is surly and obnoxious from the moment they meet, but Rachel has little choice but to rely upon his expertise as she tries to ferret out the truth of the life her husband led without her knowledge…

Honestly, the blurb is the most interesting thing about this book. If I’d had another book available to me at the time I was reading this, I wouldn’t have finished it. Extra innings at my daughter’s softball game is the biggest reason I did.

It’s not like there isn’t potentially interesting stuff that happened. Rachel is a forty-five year-old widow who has only just discovered that her husband emptied their bank accounts right before he died suddenly, leaving her in the middle of their house construction with no marketable job skills and a mountain of debt. With nobody else to turn to, she goes to the young lawyer who helped them buy their land. He offers her a job cooking for him and his widower father, and in exchange, his dad, an ex-cop, will do what he can to find her money. It’s the only deal Rachel feels she can get so she accepts. She soon discovers that the surly man she literally ran into in town is the lawyer’s father, but after a rough start, agrees to stay in the agreement. Gary starts digging around and it quickly comes to light that Rachel’s husband was leading a double life. He had a son by another woman, a young teenager who has been living on the streets since his mother died, as well as an entire history Rachel never knew about. Rachel and Gary work together to unravel the truth, and slowly end up building another family in the process.

Sounds like it should be good, doesn’t it? There was so much potential here. Rachel and Gary are an older couple, which always makes for a nice change, and if the living a double life angle is a tad overdone, I thought the second chance at romance approach was a nice way of going about it. It might have been, too, if the prose itself wasn’t so awful. It’s clean enough technically, I suppose, but it’s all telling instead of showing, and the headhopping is insane, often switching perspectives within the same paragraph. Everything that’s wrong with this comes back to its dishwater voice and pedantic presentation:

As the days passed, Johnny and Rachel settled into a routine at the ranch, and the four of them became a family. Johnny worked in the barn or bunkhouse after school, helping Joe get ready to open the ranch for business again. With Gary’s encouragement and Joe’s brotherly love, Johnny thrived. Rachel did her part, too, cooking nutritional meals and reassuring him he’d always have a home with her. She loved the boy as if she’d known him forever.

This is what passes for character development. Instead of showing me how Gary and Rachel manage to get over their antagonism with each other (it just seems to evaporate out of nowhere after being so caustic in the first few chapters, I was convinced they would never work through it), I get this convenient little time jump. There’s also no sense of tension in the external plot, as Gary conveniently removes the obstacles that make it dire for Rachel to find the money. Her need for independence remains, but honestly, most of the time it felt like an excuse to act stubborn rather than organic to any kind of character development.

Simply put, I was bored to tears. The characters were flat, the writing style immature, and the potential lost.

Readability	5/10 – The prose is overly simplistic and pedantic, with too much telling and headhopping
Hero	5/10 – Flat and uninteresting, a victim of the colorless narrative
Heroine	5/10 – She suffers the same fate as the hero
Entertainment value	2/10 – There might have been some good ideas in the basic plot, but I was so bored by halfway through, it didn’t even matter
World building	4/10 – As uninteresting as the rest of the story
TOTAL:	21/50

Cold Victory by Fiona Jayde

TITLE: Cold Victory
AUTHOR: Fiona Jayde
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 33k)
GENRE: Sci-fi futuristic erotic romance
COST: $4.99

Zoya Scott has specifically been assigned to the battleship Victory, though nobody but her knows why. All her commander Galen Stark knows is that he’s got a convicted thief on board, and that every time he touches her, all he can think about is taking her to bed…

After so many ho-hums lately, I decided to go with an author I’ve had better luck with in the past and opted for this space erotic novella. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a cut above the rest of the stories I’ve read recently.

Galen Stark is the commander in mankind’s latest battleship, preparing to continue the war with an enigmatic species they’ve been fighting for years. Resources are stretched thin. Personnel is short. He’s forced to take on pilots with no battle experience, trained exclusively in holofights. Not all of them are so inexperienced, though. One in particular has flown extensively before, but Zoya Scott is a convicted thief who was caught stealing supplies from the military. He doesn’t want her around. When he confronts her on her first day, however, he’s shocked at the intense physical reaction both of them have to each other. Zoya is equally dismayed at the reaction, though for different reasons. She has ulterior motives being on the ship. One of the few survivors of a planet that was sacrificed in the war, she has been tasked with a suicide mission that will hopefully put an end to the war, once and for all. Nobody onboard knows about it, especially Stark. But she can’t keep her physical response to him under control and quickly discovers, neither can he.

Something about the way this author writes gets to me. Her stories aren’t perfect. She often sacrifices world-building for expediency, and keeping choreography straight – either of action scenes or ensemble dialogue scenes – isn’t her strong suit. But her lush hand in evoking emotion compels me to ignore a lot of my normally critical assessments in favor of getting lost in what she describes. This novella is no exception. In all the more intimate scenes, I was completely and utterly enraptured. For instance, there’s a scene midway, after one of their pilots has died in an attack, where Stark and Zoya come together. For her, it’s meant to obliterate her grief. For him, it’s meant to help him forget. It ends up being so seductively sensual I was breathless by the time it ended. Every time he whispered, “Will you come for me?”, it ratcheted the heat up another twenty degrees. It sold me on Stark as a romantic hero far more than any of his macho posing prior to that (especially since Zoya keeps describing him as too muscled from all his implants, for too much of the book I kept picturing over pumped weight lifters which did not work for me at all). It’s the push/pull of their attraction and mistrust of the other that fuels the first third of the story, but it’s all so much hotter and better once they indulge in it and start letting the other one in. It’s an honest emotional core to an otherwise vague sci-fi story and helps it overcome its other shortcomings.

The action driving these two toward their goals is vaguely formed. Zoya is working with another survivor on this suicide mission, but the details about it and her physical well-being aren’t clearly delineated until far too late into the story. Without that solid basis, it feels very nebulous. I understand it was probably a deliberate choice to create tension, but its ultimate effect was to dilute it since I never really understood the risks that were being undertaken. I can’t appreciate the sacrifice if I don’t see what the potential loss might be. The ending itself, too, is incredibly anticlimactic. There’s a sense of fatality that pervades the last quarter of the story, but then the resolution ends up coming so abruptly and so…cleanly that I didn’t buy it. I felt cheated, in fact. Especially since Zoya and Stark get one more page of post-climax time together, and then poof, the story’s over. It dragged down my overall enjoyment of the story, because even in spite of my other niggles, I was committed emotionally to what was going on and to the characters. After the disappointing climax, that commitment was lessened.

Still, I can’t say it puts me off this author, because in the end, even with its flaws, this was a superior read to much of what I’ve consumed lately. The emotional truths she roots out with her characters call to me. For any romance reader, that’s worth it’s weight in gold.

Readability	8/10 – I love this author’s lush prose, though the space battles probably required a bit clearer pacing and verbiage to make them visual and understandable
Hero	8/10 – He won me completely over in the scene where they’re grieving together
Heroine	7/10 – I understood all her reasons for what she was doing, but her tight rein on her emotions distanced me from her as well
Entertainment value	8/10 – This probably would’ve been higher if it weren’t for the very abrupt ending
World building	6/10 – Air battles were confusing, enemies deliberately unclear, and the delineations between political/military divisions too indistinct to really make an impace
TOTAL:	37/50

Make Mine Midnight by Annmarie McKenna

TITLE: Make Mine Midnight
AUTHOR: Annmarie McKenna
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 15k)
GENRE: Contemporary menage erotic romance
COST: $2.50

Erotic romance author Claire hasn’t had nearly all the experiences she’s written about. So when two hunky guys seem interested in her at her best friend’s New Year’s Eve party, she decides to throw caution to the wind. The thing is, the guys aren’t strangers. Hunter and Mason have been in love with Claire since high school, and now that they’ve outgrown their gawky stage, they’re ready to show Claire everything she’s been missing…

This book has been sitting on my TBR for quite a while. I bought it before I changed my personal rules about what I was willing to pay for, and actually helps cement my conviction to stick with those from now on. The rule in question? Don’t buy books with heroines as romance authors.

The plot is simple. Plain Jane Claire is at her best friend’s New Year’s Eve party when a hunky guy begins checking her out. Then his friend is checking her out, too. They ask her for a dance, at which point reveal they knew her in high school, when they were computer geeks and nobodies. They’ve filled out nicely since then and both men are determined to finally have Claire the way they always wanted. She takes them back to her place for a night of fantastic sex, then wakes up convinced it was all a dream. But of course, it wasn’t.

It’s pure fantasy and shouldn’t be read in any context of realism whatsoever. The characters are all types rather than individuals, slotted into the appropriate place in bed to try and make this as painless and hot as possible. Claire doesn’t buy her own attraction, the guys went from zero to hero and are now the perfect men, and so on and so on. It’s all been done before, and better. Not even the sex is enough to save this, especially with the attempt at drama right near the end that gets resolved almost as quickly.

I must admit, I don’t understand the appeal of authors as heroines. Every time I see a blurb like that – which is at least a couple times a week, it is so overdone – I automatically think it’s fantasy material for the author. And placing the author into the story is incredibly uncomfortable. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want it even hinted at. But this book in particular makes it hard not to, when the heroine’s voice is so casual and conversational (and really tries too hard as it strives for that) and she shares things in common with the author. Like I said, I’ve changed my policy about buying them. I’m not sure I’d even buy an autobuy author who did it. I probably should have filed this one away as unread and trusted that I’d made the right choice by skipping it. Lesson learned.

Readability	7/10 – Clean but boring with a casual voice that tries too hard
Menage	4/10 – Complete fantasy
Characterization	3/10 – Stereotypes to play into the fantasy
Entertainment value	3/10 – The sex wasn’t hot enough to counter how unbelievable the rest of it was
World building	4/10 – There’s not enough room or development for any of this
TOTAL:	21/50

Winning Joanna by Kathleen Coddington

TITLE: Winning Joanna
AUTHOR: Kathleen Coddington
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 39k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: $5.20

In a bid to keep a preferred hunting estate accessible, the king orders the widow who owns it to marry the Earl of Reston, an order she flatly refuses. Determined not to lose, he sends the Earl to win her over, but Hugh is caught in a storm along the way and ends up on her doorstep half-frozen. Joanna has no idea who he is, so he decides to pretend to be someone else in hopes of finding out why she refused the marriage proposal. He doesn’t expect to fall in love, though…

I’m not having great luck this week. It’s not that books are terrible. It’s just that they’re all kind of bland, and this one, the blandest of them all.

Set in 1347 England, it’s the story of Hugh, Earl of Reston, a widower recently returned from fighting in France, who gets told by the king that he’s going to marry Lady Joanna Leland. The king considers it a good match – Joanna lost her husband and son two years earlier, Hugh lost the mother of his daughter nine years earlier – but he’s mostly interested in keeping the estate for hunting. Joanna has decided to give it to the abbey, and since the king won’t have that, he sends Hugh along to change her mind. Hugh gets caught in a winter storm as he’s traveling and arrives on her doorstep half-frozen. He takes advantage of the fact that nobody knows who he is and poses as someone else, slowly gaining favor within the household. He and Joanna become close, and he knows he has to come clean about his identity, but the situation just never seems appropriate.

It’s a story of mistaken identity and deceit, and honestly, a very blatant one. Hugh claims to be a widower with a nine-year-old daughter he never saw, and yet, nobody seems to question the odds that the very same man Joanna refused was also a widower…with a daughter he never saw…who fought in the war…and has the same first name. I mean, really? All these supposedly astute people in the household and nobody even suspects? It’s made even worse because Joanna is supposed to be highly strategic, boasting about always beating her dead husband at chess. She’s not. She’s dim. Just like the rest of the characters.

The story isn’t helped by its dishwater prose, either. Love scenes are uninspiring, and the pacing drags along. Because Joanna is overly chaste and prim, and this is an EC title, extra sex scenes amongst the servants are also included and feel completely out of place. Joanna and Hugh watch a pair of younger servants going at it, and there’s a chapter in the middle between the older pair, told from their perspective, that really does little to advance the plot. We hear them discuss how it would be better for Joanna to marry, and that Hugh is a wonderful option, and then they have sex. None of this was necessary. It was already obvious the servants were behind this option, and the sex is there as padding. It’s all so superfluous that I was bored out of my head. That feeling never abated, especially since everybody kept acting increasingly stupid regarding Hugh’s true identity.

In the end, there’s little to keep me engaged. I can only hope that I pick better books next week.

Readability	7/10 – Bland prose meant my mind kept drifting
Hero	6/10 – Not nearly as bright as he thinks he is
Heroine	5/10 – Even dimmer than the hero if she didn’t see who he was right away
Entertainment value	4/10 – A bland and kind of generic romance, based on a lie so transparent it made the protagonists look stupid
World building	6/10 – I can’t attest to the accuracy but it never really came alive for me
TOTAL:	28/50

Hearts in Darkness by Laura Kaye

TITLE: Hearts in Darkness
AUTHOR: Laura Kaye
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 29k)
GENRE: Contemporary romance
COST: $3.75

Makenna James and Caden Grayson have one thing in common on this Friday night – getting stuck in an elevator. Caden’s claustrophobia is only eased by Makenna’s voice, and thus starts an evening of getting to know each other, all without really knowing what the other person looks like…

Sometimes I’m drawn to simple ideas. That doesn’t mean they always work. The premise in this novella is very basic. Two strangers get stuck in an elevator, and with the complete lack of light, they’re forced to get to know each other first through words rather than appearances. Caden is convinced this works in his favor since he’s scarred, inked, and pierced. People are always judging him on his rough appearance. On the other hand, Makenna is used to being one of the guys. Being thought pretty is rarely on her radar. Caden has to fight his claustrophobia, and talking to Makenna helps. Gradually, they get to know about each other and discover they have a lot in common, as well as learn they’re attracted to each other, too, just from the sounds of their voices.

I really liked the idea of this. The notion of a blind attraction appealed to me when I was in need of something sweet and not so superficial, and in some ways, satisfied what I was looking for. It’s not a challenging read in the slightest. Prose is simple, characterizations easy. The author doesn’t have to worry too much about description or scene building since they’re sitting in the dark for a good part of the story. Makenna and Caden are sympathetic protagonists – she’s a tomboyish accountant, he’s a damaged paramedic with anxiety issues – but they felt a little paint-by-numbers for me, never really leaping off the page though there’s certainly nothing wrong with them. Caden fared better, but then I have a soft spot for inked, pierced, damaged men.

Technically speaking, this was another headhopping story and one in which it ended up becoming very obtrusive. The author has a tendency to backtrack a few moments every time she switches heads, which creates this jerky rhythm as I’m forced to re-experience the latest events from the other perspective. This can be done effectively, but not here. It got very annoying the further into the story I got. What I didn’t understand is why the author would headhop all throughout the story, but then, towards the end, have a scene break to show a switch in perspective, complete with scene markers to show it, when that device was never used before in the story. Oddly inconsistent and lowered my opinion of it more because I thought, “Well, someone clearly understands the potential of scene breaks to show POV changes so why the hell didn’t they do it throughout the story?”

Not an awful read by any means. It’s swift and a change of pace from more superficial romances. It just wasn’t great, either.

Readability	6/10 – Headhopping and mild backtracking every time it switches POV annoyed me rather than added to the story
Hero	7/10 – I liked him more for the idea of him rather than actually believing he’s as real as the author might hope
Heroine	6/10 – Attempts to be strong and level-headed but doesn’t always come across that way
Entertainment value	6/10 – Mild escapism. I liked the idea of it, but the execution left me wanting more
World building	6/10 – With two characters trapped in the dark for over half the story, the focus isn’t here
TOTAL:	31/50

The Manny Diaries by Kilt Kilpatrick

TITLE: The Manny Diaries
AUTHOR: Kilt Kilpatrick
PUBLISHER: Ravenous Romance
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 59k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.99

Evan hasn’t come out of the closet; he’s been dragged out by his best friend. In his bid to get over his new identity crisis, he starts out by trying to find a job. As a struggling artist, though, he doesn’t have many options. A chance encounter at the museum leads him to what seems like the perfect opportunity – as a manny to a precocious eight-year-old. He gets a Vespa, gets paid to play with a child he adores, and, oh yeah, the dad is the Clive Owen-lookalike of his fantasies. What could go wrong?

I’m always hesitant to buy things from this publisher. My luck with them has not been the greatest. Then when I do, they tend to sit on my TBR pile for that very reason. When I get around to reading a book from them, however, it never seems to sway my opinion one way or another. This one was no exception.

Told in 1^st person, this is the story of Evan, a young man in his twenties, who has only just realized that he’s gay. He’s had no experience. Until six months prior to the story’s start, he’d been dating the same girl for over five years. Once he realizes the truth, however, he’s ready to embrace it, starting with turning a new leaf in his life. First priority: find a job. As a struggling artist, he has few marketable skills, and much of his early efforts are frustrating. He goes to the museum as a treat before another interview, and there bumps into two people who will change his life – a gorgeous Clive Owen-lookalike and a precocious eight-year-old girl. He takes to the girl immediately, and when her mother offers him a job as a manny, he leaps at the opportunity. It’s only later that he learns that his dreamboat is also the girl’s father, so he has to figure out how to keep his libido in check and not ruin the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time.

This is pure fluff escapism right from the very start. The characters are slightly over the top and often funny, and Evan’s propensity to go off into fantasies at the drop of a hat indicative of the slightly whimsical nature of the entire story. In order to be best enjoyed, this is the nature in which it should be read. Anyone expecting a lot of realism and well-roundedness, things that are usually found in contemporaries, will likely find themselves very frustrated.

Evan’s humor and light tone go a long way in helping the story along. For a good chunk, it doesn’t feel like a romance, but rather, the gay man’s version of chick lit. Evan goes about his life, trying to find himself, being attracted to people along the way, before finding a path that ultimately leads him to the man he really does want, who in this case turns out to be his charge’s father. The humor helps in perpetuating this tone, and if some sections get bogged down in discussions and details that do little to advance the plot (and honestly, feel more like attempts to show just how much research has been done), I was forgiving of it, because I still liked Evan at that point.

But then he and Liam, the girl’s father, get involved. And things went downhill from there. It’s not just because Liam is dry and boring (their first real conversation that went on for pages about science and religion and other stuff almost had me stopping right there). It’s also because it didn’t feel like the same book I’d started. Gone was the madcap nature. In its stead was a bland, predictable romance that felt like it was trying to be more realistic in tone but couldn’t break free of its more escapist beginnings. By the time Evan’s boss suggested the trip to Cancun, I was ready for the book to be over. I wasn’t believing or enjoying any of the characters by that point, and the pacing really got stuck in the mud.

I never recovered from that. What charmed me at the start failed to remain consistent throughout the story, and ultimately, I felt let down.

Readability	7/10 – Evan’s lighthearted voice makes up for the sometimes sluggish pacing and minor editorial stuff that niggled at me
Hero #1	6/10 – Likeable but hugely inconsistent
Hero #2	5/10 – Bland and a little boring
Entertainment value	6/10 – It started out well, as long as I considered it as pure fluff and escapism, but I really had to struggle to read the last third
World building	8/10 – A ton of detail, not always deftly doled out, gives Evan’s world a very vivid feel
TOTAL:	32/50