One Good Year by Rowan McBride

TITLE: One Good Year
AUTHOR: Rowan McBride
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 824k)
GENRE: Gay paranormal romance
COST: $4.99

A year after Spade was on in a card game, he’s still devoted to his master Ace but wondering why he doesn’t feel more secure in the relationship. Ace does everything he can to convince him, but it takes another of Spade’s kind threatening to tear them apart forever for the lovers to face what it means to belong to each other…

Revisiting loved characters in subsequent books is often dangerous, especially when a lot of time has elapsed. Unfortunately, this short sequel to One Good Hand fails to deliver much of anything except a brief walk down memory lane.

Told in 1^st person from Spade’s POV, this is a short revisit in Spade and Ace’s lives together, almost a year after Ace won Spade in a poker game. Spade is an alien species, designed to be the perfect match for whoever owns him, and in the first book, proved he was the right partner for Ace when their bond was solidified. Spade meets another of his kind who has been looking for them ever since they crashed fifteen years ago, but his intentions soon become evident. He thinks Ace will hurt Spade, so he’s determined to separate the two permanently by erasing their memories.

While I really enjoyed the first book, and often find this author very enjoyable, this story ultimately didn’t work for me. First of all, it relies too heavily on knowing its predecessor, with characterizations that tell more than show and too little attention breathing fresh life into them. Even recognizing it won’t work as a standalone, however, it becomes mired in its own over-romanticism and sentimentality. These guys are mushy from the very start, and it borders on nauseating because there’s just no ebb and flow to make their relationship feel real.

On top of that, we’re introduced to Ancel, another of Spade’s kind, who was defective and thus has other abilities that Spade doesn’t. He becomes this omnipotent force that threatens to come between Ace and Spade, but his conflict is introduced too late in the story for it to have much impact, not to mention I had very little opportunity to really get to know him as a character before the threats began. Maybe if he’d seemed more genuine or if I’d known him better, I wouldn’t have been as annoyed by what felt like manufactured conflict.

In all fairness, I think this short novella would do best with readers who were highly invested in the couple as based on their first story and really want to see something – anything – with them again. Otherwise, I’d pass.

Readability	7/10 – Overly romantic and too repetitive to be a quick read
Hero #1	5/10 – Even though we’re in his POV, I felt I knew him better in the first book than this one
Hero #2	6/10 – His constant indecision and fear were grating
Entertainment value	4/10 – Doesn’t work as a standalone at all
World building	5/10 – Too much is left unexplained, new readers won’t get it easily
TOTAL:	27/50

A Waltz at Midnight by Crista McHugh

TITLE: A Waltz at Midnight
AUTHOR: Crista McHugh
PUBLISHER: Carina
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 19k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $2.69

Southerner Susanna Parkwell has been forced into a life of servitude after the Civil War, and when she is offered payment to write some letters for one of the college girls in the house where she works, she takes it, desperate to help her injured brother achieve his dream. Deceiving the girl’s suitor should’ve been easy. After all, all she has to do is convince him he doesn’t want anything to do with courting. But when she begins to have feelings for this man she has never met, she can’t quite bring herself to end the masquerade…

I love epistolic stories, and the romantic premise of this appealed to me. However, the end result proved too simple for my tastes, ultimately becoming something I had troubles remembering just a day later.

As a tale, it’s a simple one. Susanna works as a maid in her aunt’s boardinghouse for young women attending college. A transplanted Southerner, she is now reliant on her aunt’s good graces to support her and her brother who was injured during the war. One of the girls in the boardinghouse receives a letter from a would-be suitor, but because she’s in love with someone else, she asks the more eloquent Susanna to write a letter back posing as her to discourage him. Susanna agrees to do it only after she is offered payment, but after she exchanges a couple letters with the man, she begins to realize it’s not quite the onerous task she originally thought it would be.

Knowing the length ahead of time, I didn’t expect much. There wouldn’t be time for real depth, just some letters back and forth, hopefully romantic, and a sweet HEA. That’s what there is, but the problem lies with the fact that the conflict that gets introduced – a surprising depth to Theodore’s issues as well as his feelings regarding the duplicity when he finds out – get completely dismissed in the transition between his discovery and the ending. All of a sudden, there’s the HEA, with no real explanation as to how Theodore suddenly is okay with the fact that he’s been deceived for so long when more is really needed. He comes across as incredibly wishy-washy as a result, which does nothing to bolster him as an appealing hero.

Susanna fares slightly better, as she at least has a spine and stands up to some of the more awful girls in the boardinghouse as well as Theodore’s rather obnoxious responses. But my respect for her wears thin as her letters progress, mostly because I can’t fathom how the early ones are ever meant to truly discourage him from courting her. The intelligence I’m told she has doesn’t seem to manifest, and I’m left only half-invested in whether or not everything will work out.

When all is said and done, it’s a forgettable story with unmemorable characters that never seem to have to live up to the promise that’s hinted at several times within the text. Even for a short novella, it failed to do much more than kill the time it took to read.

Readability	7/10 – Simple and direct, easy to read but rather superficial
Hero	5/10 – Rather generic, and the switch at the end came too abruptly
Heroine	6/10 – Has a spine but seeing those letters as off-putting made me question her so-called intelligence
Entertainment value	4/10 – I love the potential of this, and there were hints of what I love about epistolic stories, but it felt too glossed over in the sections where the conflict should have been prevalent
World building	7/10 – There’s no doubt about the time period, though it took a lot to get me past the initial set-up since it felt so abrupt
TOTAL:	29/50

Sexual Persuasion by Maryn Sinclair

TITLE: Sexual Persuasion
AUTHOR: Maryn Sinclair
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 62k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $6.99

When Charlotte Stone first spotted Alex Andros, she didn’t know he was the lawyer for one of the most dangerous men in Boston or rumored to be his lover. She only knew the reaction she had to him – instant, chemical, dangerous. She’s prepared to take her friend’s advice and avoid him, but when her ex corners outside of the party, Alex is the one who rides in for the rescue. He wants her to come to her own conclusion about him, outside of what she’d heard, but Charlotte is reluctant, at least until her ex decides to try blackmailing her into coming back to him…

I had such high expectations for this book after the first sizzling chapter. But this is one example of things going steadily downhill.

Charlotte owns an upscale furnishing store and attends an auction with hopes of winning some art work to sell. There, she runs into her ex, a man who did various BDSM things to her while she slept the last night they were together. She tries to get away, but ends up getting rescued by the gorgeous stranger who’d been watching her since her arrival. His name is Alex Andros, and he’s the attorney to one of Boston’s top racketeers. He’s also rumored to be the man’s lover, but Charlotte finds it very hard to believe he’s gay after the way he looks at her. She brushes him off, but when her friend has to leave her to get a ride home by herself, Alex comes to the rescue again. They spend a pleasant evening having drinks, only to have Charlotte come face to face with her ex again once Alex drops her off. Charlotte barely escapes being raped, and calls Alex for help. Drawn to Charlotte already, Alex knows he has to do whatever he can to get the ex off her back.

The sexual tension in this story crackles from the very start. My first reaction was that it was too intense too soon, and I almost gave up on it, but I got too sucked in by Alex’s charisma and the chemistry between the pair to stop. I read avidly, drinking it all in even through the near-rape. It all started to fall apart for me, however, once Alex and Charlotte consummated their attraction. The sex scenes didn’t work for me nearly as well as the tension and plottier scenes, and gradually, my interest dwindled. I grew tired of hearing just how terrific Charlotte’s breasts are (they’re very large, very natural, and apparently worshiped by all men who see them), as well as the over the top dialogue and certain terminology (the author has a propensity for using the word “hole” too much during sex scenes). It would ebb when they’d return to their tense, non-sexual scenes, but not for long.

It’s also not helped at all that the big conflict in this is Alex’s absolute refusal to share anything personal about himself. Well, that’s not entirely true. I can understand that kind of reaction if what he’s refusing to share is so truly awful. But he’s ultimately hiding an affair that he had in college with a man. He already neither confirms nor denies his bisexuality to the public or Charlotte. I just never understood why it was such a big deal that this one relationship remain such a mystery except to create artificial drama.

This spiral downwards accelerates at the end, with an added twist (that wasn’t really a twist) that came out of nowhere to give Charlotte something to misunderstand and both of them something to hash out. It turned the entire last scene into something completely unbelievable, and there, the chemistry that had saved much of the story for me already, was gone completely. The last few paragraphs are unexpectedly abrupt and crass considering what’s been going on (I mean, really, she calls it making love to Alex’s face but then turns around and in the big romantic moment tells her employees she’s going upstairs to fuck?!? Um, no.), and I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth. It’s such a shame, too, because there was such genuine heat and allure in the first third of the book. It just fizzled when they actually came together.

Readability	7/10 – I had a much easier time with the tension than the sex scenes or later dialogue
Hero	6/10 – The longer it took for him to discuss what happened, the less I liked him
Heroine	5/10 – Other than her physical attributes, I never understood what the appeal was
Entertainment value	5/10 – The tension that crackled at the beginning wasn’t followed through in the sex scenes or overplayed ending
World building	6/10 – More was needed to give the villain any kind of depth or believe Alex’s reputation
TOTAL:	29/50

And Hell Itself Breathes Out by A.R. Moler

TITLE: And Hell Itself Breathes Out
AUTHOR: A.R. Moler
PUBLISHER: Torquere
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 74k)
GENRE: Gay paranormal erotic romance
COST: $6.99

In a bid to gain more power, two young men in an exclusive fraternity begin performing blood rituals, leading to deaths that remain unsolved by DC police and the SIS. Two authority figures, Agent John Benchley and Detective Evan Garrett, are working the cases independently until they realize they can get further working together. Then, their working relationship turns into something more…

I’m always excited about finding books that try to do more than the usual romance, but sometimes, they end up biting off more than they can chew.

In a series of short scenes, we’re introduced to a wide range of characters – the power-hungry, greedy fraternity brothers; agents in the SIS, a special branch of the federal government that deals with the odd and the occult; detectives in the DCPD. It gradually narrows down to the primary players, Agent John Benchley and Detective Evan Garrett. When they start sharing notes, things start coming together, but bodies are still stacking up.

The problem with this novel is that it can’t decide what it wants to be, and as a result, never really succeeds at any of them. There’s the paranormal angle, with the ritualistic murders; the police procedural angle, with the careful deconstruction of the cases; the romance, with the slow, steady relationship between John and Evan. It tries, it really does, but the prose isn’t nearly sophisticated enough to pull it off. The scenes are too short and static to build any sort emotional connection, and the constant headhopping and frequent editorial errors (missing prepositions, missing articles, etc.) only added to that disconnect.

Each does have strengths, though. Careful detail is given to the procedural aspect, sometimes too much. The romance sets itself apart from the norm with the gradual build-up. It was refreshing to have two strong leads not immediately jump into bed together if it wasn’t appropriate. The bloody paranormal angle is effectively gruesome (though more sensitive readers might want to be wary). I just wish it had been put together more smoothly, with a better balance so that I could genuinely care. I’ve had better luck with other stories by this author, so I know it can work. Just not in this one.

Readability	5/10 – Headhopping, proofing errors, and short jerky scenes did nothing to create any kind of flow
Hero #1	5/10 – Nice and intelligent, but it took too long for him to form any kind of personality
Hero #2	6/10 – More interesting than John, but suffers from the same lack of focus for too long
Entertainment value	3/10 – The story’s lack of focus prevented any one angle from succeeding satisfactorily
World building	7/10 – The procedural aspects were well thought if a tad boring
TOTAL:	26/50

Fractured by Sandra Sookoo

TITLE: Fractured
AUTHOR: Sandra Sookoo
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 35k)
GENRE: Futuristic sci-fi erotic romance
COST: $5.25

Major Rick Keenan is on his way back to Earth from his very last mission before getting stuck in a desk job when his shuttle is trapped by a tractor beam on one of Saturn’s moons. When one of his crewmen is captured while in search of crystals they need, he sets off on a rescue, only to discover he’s been taking prisoner to be food by an alien female who needs his blood to survive. Rick agrees to trade places with his crewman, in hopes that he can broker some kind of relationship between their species, but he quickly finds out it might not go as he intends…

My son is in love with Once Upon a Time, which means I’ve been exposed to a lot of fairytales recently. When I saw this was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, while the premise is interesting, the characters don’t live up to their potential.

All of his life, Rick has wanted to explore the stars and meet alien races. With the space program about to be dismantled, however, he’s on his very last mission. At least until he and his shuttle are trapped on one of Saturn’s moons. One of his crew goes out in search of items they need to take off again, but when he calls in a distress signal, Rick does what he has to and goes off to rescue him. He finds him prisoner of an alien female, one with fangs and bloodthirst, who needs the man for food. Rick barters a trade – his life for his crewman’s – and ends up in the unique position to try and find some sort of peace between humans and this strange alien. Marin hates humans, since they’re responsible for the Cleansing and the scattering of her species, but Rick seems different. Her lonely existence is eating her up, and though she won’t admit it, she is desperate for a change. Rick seems like the perfect opportunity for that.

The fact that the fairy tale has been reversed, with the heroine as the Beast, was a great starting point for this story, but for me, it never really got off the ground. Part of it came with some early proofing mistakes (She'd been taught that only members of her own race could make her feels thus, for instance) that jerked me out of the reading experience. It’s a peeve, it really is, but I wanted to like this so much that I stuck with it. Though the rest of the prose is certainly competent enough, the spark I needed from either one of the two leads never managed to materialize. Marin had the potential to be interesting, but her erratic moods wore on me quickly. Rick, on the other hand, bored me. His reactions throughout the beginning and most of his imprisonment were rational and realistic, but that was about it. I never really got what was so special about him, other than being told Marin was attracted to him.

Other awkward aspects that hindered the reading experience included a couple flashbacks that were meant to give some history about Rick, but jolted me out of the moment with frantic searches back in the story to determine what the year header meant in terms of the continuity. It was clumsy, and with the passages so short, felt pointless. I couldn’t help but wonder if the information they were meant to convey couldn’t have been passed along in some other way. An epilogue that happens when there isn’t really a resolution to the story yet (except for declarations) felt even odder, especially since it was divided into two sections, one taking place three months later. The first half of it was actually the real resolution of the story, which for me means it should be part of the story, not part of the epilogue. The epilogue would’ve had much more of an impact had it just been contained to the three months later segment.

One bright spot was the care taken in creating Marin’s species. I could see her clearly, and felt like I understood how her kind had reached the point it had. It would’ve been nice to see the same care taken with the rest of the world-building, but with so much of the story contained to the confinement, this isn’t so much a flaw as it is an annoyance.

I can’t recommend this book except to fans of the author or those who might fare better than I did with the two leads.

Readability	7/10 – Early errors in proofreading almost made me stop, though the rest of the prose is fairly innocuous
Hero	5/10 – Realistic reactions, though he didn’t charm me at all
Heroine	5/10 – Liked the reverse on the Beast angle, but she otherwise felt flat
Entertainment value	3/10 – Though I liked the premise and twist on the fairy tale, I never felt any chemistry between the two which made the story fall flat
World building	7/10 – Some good details, though the concentration on her as an alien species ends up meaning less time on other aspects
TOTAL:	27/50

Blinded by Our Eyes by Clare London

TITLE: Blinded by Our Eyes
AUTHOR: Clare London
PUBLISHER: Carina Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 45k)
GENRE: Gay mystery erotic romance
COST: $3.59

Charles walks into his gallery to find one of his up-and-coming artists murdered with his ex-lover covered in the man’s blood. Joseph is shaken by the crime, but his alibi holds up, leaving Charles and the police wonder months later just who is responsible…

I’m going to be in a minority on this book. I know a lot of people loved it, and I went into it with high hopes, but in spite of adoring the first chapter, I was bored to tears by a third of the way through.

It’s the story of London gallery owner Charles as he attempts to try and find out who exactly is responsible for killing Paolo, a sculptor he was sponsoring he had high hopes of doing well. Paolo’s body is discovered in the gallery with Joseph, Charles’s ex-lover, and when Joseph is clearly shaken and traumatized by the whole event, Charles takes him in. Weeks pass and the police are nowhere closer to getting answers. Charles begins to discover that perhaps he didn’t know the people who surround him as well as he thought he did and begins trying to ferret out who might have been responsible for the murder on his own.

Told in 1^st person from Charles’s perspective, this is a mystery first and a romance second. The love interest, Antony, doesn’t even get introduced until well into the story, leaving the feeling that the entire romantic angle was shoe-horned in so it wasn’t just a mystery. While he’s a nice foil for the oddly innocent Charles, by the time he came onto the scene, I was already struggling to stay engaged with the story. He didn’t really stand much of a chance with me at all.

That bothers me, actually. I loved the first chapter. It was vivid, gut-wrenching, and emotional. The second chapter faded a bit for me because of the odd jump at the start of it, but I still held out high hopes. The third chapter jumps to weeks later, and we discover much of what happened in the interim, as well as information that would have come out during the police interrogations in chapter two, in a long, dull conversation that had none of the sparkle and vibrancy of the author’s descriptive voice. I got increasingly annoyed by the surprise background information that was sprung on me at the end of the third chapter, and never really recovered from that.

Part of this stems from the fact that Charles is such an unreliable narrator, and while I’d like to blame the device for the reason the story doesn’t work for me, I can’t because I’ve enjoyed stories with other unreliable narrators before. It just comes down to the execution, because the descriptive prose and editing are excellent. Though it’s told in 1^st person, I felt an awful disconnect with everything going on due to the methods chosen to convey the necessary information. I’m choosing to see my negative experience with this as an anomaly. The author has a great voice, and I’ve had other good reads with her work. Just not with this one.

Readability	6/10 – Lush voice didn’t end up helping to involve me in the story, bored to tears by a third of the way in
Hero #1	7/10 – Sweet and oddly innocent in spite of his age and experience
Hero #2	4/10 – A good foil for the narrator, but came too late in the story for me to care about
Entertainment value	3/10 – Love author’s voice, but the vast jumps and odd juxtaposition of recapping against sudden surprising background information annoyed me early, then bored me
World building	7/10 – A strong feel for the art world and moments
TOTAL:	27/50

Incarnate by A.C. Ruttan

TITLE: Incarnate
AUTHOR: A.C. Ruttan
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 84k)
GENRE: Urban fantasy
COST: $5.50

As an Incarnate, Cia’s main job is to protect the portal she guards. But when her Warden gives her the job to find another Incarnate suspected of numerous murders, she takes it. Because the other Incarnate is Arthur, the husband she hasn’t seen in ten years. Finding him isn’t difficult, but finding out what is really going on, why a symbol only he would use is showing up on dead bodies, is another matter entirely…

My summary is woefully inadequate, as is, honestly, much of anything I could write. This was a densely constructed urban fantasy, playing with religious themes like angels, Heaven and Hell, and demons, that try to blend/merge with a plethora of historical references. The end result was a confusing mishmash that could’ve been so much more.

So I’m not going to even try summarizing this. There are twists and turns galore, so what I would say would get trumped within a few chapters anyway because I’m reluctant to give spoilers. But therein lies its greatest flaws. In its attempt to convey this complex world, it gets mired in too many flashbacks and too many information dumps to get the point across. The best parts were the action sequences because the story actually moves along at those points. Luckily, there were enough of those to keep me reading rather than giving up after the first third. (The fact that there are editorial inconsistencies don’t help, i.e. Arthur’s eyes changing color while he’s human when he doesn’t have souls anymore.)

Characterizations get lost in the world-building, too. Cia fares the best, but even hers is lacking. Incarnates have two souls, and frankly, her older soul is far more developed than she ever was. I couldn’t tell you much about who Cia really was, but I could write reams on Boudicca. Arthur is more interesting in demon form, mostly because when he’s human, he comes across as a block of wood. These two are supposed to be in love, but I didn’t feel it until close to the end. A whole host of supporting characters flit through the pages, but because their various roles are so muddy for most of the story, it’s hard to really care about any of them, either. The one thing that got me through to the end was simply the need to discover how it all turned out, but even then, I’m pretty sure I don’t have it straight.

I do know, however, I won’t be bothering with the second book. None of the characters were interesting enough to follow, the author’s reliance on flashbacks as a narrative device was tedious, and the lack of clarity as the story attempts to construct its world was too frustrating to overcome.

Readability	6/10 – Editorial inconsistencies and too many flashbacks made this more of a chore than it had to be
Hero	4/10 – More interesting as a demon, but still lacked much of anything to really capture me
Heroine	6/10 – Her older soul’s personality was stronger than hers
Entertainment value	4/10 – I finished because I was curious about how it played out, not because I cared
World building	7/10 – While it’s obvious a lot of care/attention has gone into it, it’s not conveyed efficiently
TOTAL:	27/50

Heart of Gold by Laurel Natale

TITLE: Heart of Gold
AUTHOR: Laurel Natale
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 88k)
GENRE: Historical romance
COST: $7.00

Matt Sutherland has one goal – to earn enough money mining gold to return East and marry the woman he loves. When he arrives in Arizona, he happens across an auction for a claim, or rather half a claim. The other half belongs to the seller’s sister, who refuses to sell. Matt decides to take a chance and ends up purchasing the claim, partnering up with Deidre Connelly. She teaches him what she knows, and they develop an easy alliance. Over time, they even develop more…

While I love finding memorable characters I actually like, if I can’t get past technical issues like headhopping, it doesn’t make a difference what kind of story they might have.

Set in old west Arizona, this is the story of two opposites who come together. Matt Sutherland is from Pennsylvania, with dreams of marrying the rich young lady he’s in love with. Deidre Connelly is an illiterate young woman with dreams of making enough money panning gold to be independent someday. Matt purchases her drunken brother’s claim, and the two become uneasy allies. Dee teaches Matt what he needs to know, and he teaches her how to read and write. He treats her with respect, something she’s not used to, and while she’s attracted to him from the start, he takes longer to accept his attraction. She’s not a lady, after all, and he’s in love with someone else. But their proximity and circumstance conspire against them.

The two leads are actually quite enjoyable. Dee is spunky and determined to fight for herself, mostly because she’s had to do it for so long, while Matt has an honorable streak a mile wide. Combined with his strong work ethic, he makes an appealing hero for a while in the beginning, at least until he starts treating Dee as less than she is just because she doesn’t match his definition of refinement. It doesn’t last, thank goodness, but it was there long enough to annoy me. I imagine I probably would be more forgiving toward him if I didn’t like Dee as much as I did.

However, liking the characters is different than liking the story, and the fact of the matter is, this is riddled with headhopping. Sometimes it’ll last in a single POV for a few pages, but there are too many sections where it will jump back and forth after only a few paragraphs. It destroys any sense of anticipation of what the other character might be feeling in tenser situations and gave me such a feeling of whiplash that I put this down constantly because I just couldn’t take it. By all rights, I probably should have stopped reading because it bothered me so much, but I liked these two. I wanted to see their happy ending. It took me way too long to get to that point, however, and wanting to see it and actually feeling it in my gut like I would a really great romance aren’t the same thing. Because I didn’t feel the HEA at all. All I got from it was a sense of closure and a certainty that this author’s style is just not for me.

Readability	5/10 – The headhopping gave me whiplash and made it all too easy to put down
Hero	6/10 – I liked his hardworking ideal, but his attitude toward Dee for the first third really annoyed me
Heroine	7/10 – I really liked her spunky, determined attitude
Entertainment value	4/10 – Not even characters I could warm up to could save my irritation with the headhopping
World building	8/10 – I don’t know if it’s all historically accurate, but it did feel authentic
TOTAL:	30/50

Bring the Heat by M.L. Rhodes

TITLE: Bring the Heat
AUTHOR: M.L. Rhodes
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 31k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $6.00

For weeks, Detective Riley Ellison has been crushing on a gorgeous guy from afar, going into a different coffee shop than his normal just for the chance to see him. When the guy surprises him by buying him a coffee and giving him his number, Riley is taken aback, but doesn’t follow through, convinced a beautiful man like that would never be interested in a reformed geek. Color them both surprised, however, when the crush turns out to be a person of interest in Riley’s most recent homicide investigation…

This is one of those authors that I see touted around the blogosphere as well loved, but after reading this second offering from here, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s just not to my taste.

The story starts out promising. Riley is a geeky cop, struggling with self-image, who’s been going into a different coffee shop for the past three weeks because he’s crushing on a guy who is totally not his usual type. Meaning, completely gorgeous and out of his league. Unsafe. On the day he vows it’s the last time, the guy surprises him by paying for his coffee and giving Riley his phone number, only to disappear when Riley looks for him afterward. Riley doesn’t follow through on calling, mostly out of fear that it’s all one big game and he’ll be made a bigger fool by trusting it. When he’s out questioning people in relation to a new murder case he has, a stripper at a gay club, he’s shocked to learn his mystery man is Dane Scott, a co-worker and next on his list.

That’s when it begins going downhill for me. I’m not a fan of insta-love, and that’s pretty much what this is. Riley and Dane can’t keep their hands off each other, which is all well and good for having hot sex, but as soon as they start talking commitment and something longer the very same night, my brakes come screaming on. I just don’t believe it, especially with a guy like Riley. It’s romantic fantasy fluff, and not what I read for most of the time. It doesn’t help that Dane is completely idealized. He’s gorgeous, he’s well-off, he cooks, he says all the right things, he’s great in the sack…the list goes on. He’s too good to be true, which makes it all that much more unbelievable that Riley, a cautious guy by nature, would fall for him so hard, so fast.

Any hope that the cop/murder angle will provide some added interest gets tossed aside too soon. Most of the case is handled and resolved off the page, leaving only the explanations for what happened to read after the fact. The characters involved in it never appear on the page themselves, and there’s never any real threat to either Dane or Riley, so calling this a mystery or suspense would be a complete misnomer. The murder is simply a device to shove Riley into Dane’s life, since it’s obvious Riley won’t take that step himself. It’s not even handled gracefully afterward to lift it above its contrivance.

I can’t even say the prose elevates this. There was an editorial mistake in the second paragraph on the very first page that almost had me stopping then and there before I decided to continue on, and unfortunately, more abounded as I made my way through the story. I know for a fact this author is appreciated by a lot of readers, probably for the very same reasons I find myself turned off to her work. But at least I now know that her style of romance is just not for me.

Readability	7/10 – Some editorial mistakes kept jumping out at me, and the off-page explanations were dry and boring
Hero #1	7/10 – Nice to see a cop that’s not Mr. Macho
Hero #2	4/10 – Far too perfect to be believable
Entertainment value	6/10 – Fluffy and romantic if that’s what you’re looking for, but insta-love doesn’t really work for me most of the time
World building	5/10 – Very extraneous to the story, the cop angle was more of a device to get these two connected than anything of real interest or complications
TOTAL:	29/50

Soul Survivor by Misty Evans

TITLE: Soul Survivor
AUTHOR: Misty Evans
PUBLISHER: Carina
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 52k)
GENRE: Paranormal romance
COST: $4.49

Keva Moon Water’s dead body is at the center of what looks like a ritualistic murder, the bodies of five dead women surrounding her. FBI agent Rife St. Cloud knows evil when he sees it, but when Keva comes back to life right before his eyes, he’s just glad to have a living witness to this awful crime. The hospital declares Keva a miracle, but she only cares about one thing – finding out why Rife doesn’t remember the brief life they shared together a thousand years ago…

While I’m not a big fan of soul mate stories, I am a fan of reincarnation ones, as well as Native American lore. I jumped all over this when I saw it, but unfortunately, its execution left it severely lacking.

It starts out all right, with Rife St. Cloud, an FBI agent on vacation, called in to look at a crime scene by his cop grandfather. The murder scene looks to be ritualistic, with six dead women, but as he’s looking at the woman at its center, she comes back to life. She is rushed to the hospital, where the doctors and nurses are amazed at her miraculous recovery. For his part, Rife is just glad that he has a witness he can interrogate now. Keva Moon Water is a bit of an enigma, and while he has a lot of questions regarding her past, his primary concern is who would want to kill her. What he doesn’t realize is that Keva is immortal, living the past thousand years as a result of trying to save her lover’s soul. She recognizes Rife as his reincarnation, but Rife has no idea about the truth, still disbelieving even after she tells him her story.

There’s the ongoing thread of Keva’s spurned fiancé wanting to prove to her he’s worthy of her—the core of the murder plotline—but it takes forever to get to a point where that plays a strong part. With the exception of a brief scene or two, the first half is dedicated to Keva trying to show Rife the truth about his soul in clumsy, boring information dumps. It tries to break up the flow by jumping back in time with flashbacks, but those never felt like they gelled with the rest of the story. It’s all tell, tell, tell, and boring telling at that. I got so bogged down with all the backstory that is necessary to get even a fraction emotionally invested in the current events of the story that I didn’t even care about the people it was trying to sell me on. Rife felt generic and predictable, while Keva’s attitude got on my nerves. She tells their story to Rife in hopes that he’ll remember, but there’s no finesse to it. I couldn’t help but think that someone who’d lived a thousand years should’ve been better at that kind of thing by now.

The pace does pick up in the latter half, but that just meant it got me to the end faster, not that I actually enjoyed it. Of all the characters in the book, I actually thought the bad guy was the most interesting, even if he did do some truly horrific things. But that’s not nearly enough to make up for my other misgivings about the story. It could be that this author’s voice isn’t for me, which is a shame since I really liked the ideas behind the basic story. I probably won’t read another one to find out, though.

Readability	6/10 – Lots of clumsy information dumping in the first half makes this read a lot slower than it should
Hero	4/10 – Kind of generic and boring, to be honest
Heroine	5/10 – Strong, but I found her brand of bluntness a tad offputting
Entertainment value	4/10 – I was bored to tears by the middle of the story, it took a lot to finish it
World building	7/10 – I liked a lot of the ideas, blending the Native American lore with the paranormal, it was just the execution that was clumsy
TOTAL:	26/50

Icing on the Cake by Shayla Kersten

TITLE: Icing on the Cake
AUTHOR: Shayla Kersten
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 19k)
GENRE: Gay contemporary erotic romance
COST: $4.45

Slated with getting the last minute cake for his best friend’s wedding, uptight Jeff is taken aback by his visceral response to the bald and tattooed baker he’s supposed to hire. He’s thrilled when Ollie is interested in him as well, but when he discovers Ollie wants him to give up his control, he’s not so sure the exchange will be worth it…

I’m only labeling this an erotic romance because of the HFN that gets tacked onto the end of this novella. For the vast majority of the story, it’s just plain erotica. Hot erotica.

Jeff is an uptight businessman who is playing maid of honor for his best friend’s whirlwind wedding. She gets called out of town at the last minute and asks him to get the cake sorted out, citing a specific bakery she wants him to use. He goes down and is greeted by the bald, tattooed, biker-type baker, a man that throws his libido into overdrive. It’s obvious very quickly that Ollie, the baker, is interested, too, and their flirtation expands into a consensus of sex, at least until Jeff sees the dungeon set-up the man has in his bedroom. Ollie is determined to make Jeff lose control, however, and Jeff, for all his anxiety about doing so, can’t seem to walk away.

There’s not much more to describe. The men have a lot of sex, with Ollie admitting first to himself and then to Jeff that maybe it’s time for him to start think about serious dating again. Jeff is a fly-by-night kind of guy, though, and all the talk about “substantial” freaks him out. Not enough to say no to a second night, though. The novella benefits from the fact that the sex is mostly hot. It reads swiftly, and except for the occasional snort-worthy phrasing (like …his come rushed to freedom), succeeds at what it intends. If this was sold as straight erotica, it would likely rate higher, because my expectations for characters and the ending wouldn’t be quite as stringent. As it is, though, the author clearly strives for the HFN, but can’t get there for me, mostly because her two heroes are more archetypes than fully-fleshed characters and little time is spent doing much of anything but having sex.

Readability	8/10 – Hot with only a few phrasing things that made me snort
Hero #1	5/10 – Little is known about him except he’s uptight
Hero #2	5/10 – More of a type than a character, though I do have a soft spot for that type
Entertainment value	7/10 – I got lost in the heat of it which helped since the HFN is weak, reads more like erotica than a romance
World building	5/10 – The food stuff is excellent, but very little is done about everything else
TOTAL:	30/50

Honor Bound by Myla Jackson

TITLE: Honor Bound
AUTHOR: Myla Jackson
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 23k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: $3.50

Escaping the Indian tribe that held her captive, Honor stumbles across two miners pleasuring each other in a stream. She’s aroused by what they’re doing, but recognizes an opportunity when she sees one. She goes to their cabin while they’re washing, intent on stealing what is necessary to survive, but their early return turns her plans on their head, especially when the men don’t seem eager to let her go…

On Mondays, I review either gay or ménage stories, which is why I pulled this one out of the stack to read next. However, while the publisher might think ménage scenes qualifies it as such, this romance definitely has a het HEA. I decided to review it anyway, if only to warn others who might be misled by the publisher’s labels, too.

Honor is running away from the Indian who has been holding her captive for nearly six weeks. A parson’s widow, she’d been on her way to San Francisco to start her life over when they were ambushed. Everybody else was left for dead, while she was secured as some kind of trophy wife. She’s tired of being manipulated and used by men, and determined to live life as she wants. She comes across two miners in a stream, Zach and Jake, who are in the midst of pleasuring each other. Rather than be appalled by what she’s witnessing, she becomes aroused, and gets herself off before realizing she can use this chance to steal supplies to help her escape. Her attempts are foiled when Zach and Jake return early, however, and Zach ties her up, unsure of what to do with her next.

You can figure out what happens from there. Lots of sex. Both men are desperate for a woman, though they have finally admitted to being attracted to each other, too. The three of them fall into bed together fairly easily, with Zach quickly becoming possessive of Honor. But while the publisher calls this a ménage, it is only in the sense that there are threesomes involved. The ending is all about Zach and Honor devoting themselves to each other, with the agreement that if she wants Jake to play with them, he can. Zach makes it very clear that she is his, though, and seems to only agree to the threesomes so he can touch Jake, not to share Honor. In my opinion, this doesn’t make it a ménage. It’s an erotic romance with threesome scenes. Readers expecting an HEA for all three of them will be sorely disappointed.

That might not be the only thing that disappoints them. While the erotic scenes are pretty good, the characters themselves are shallow caricatures, serving as placeholders for the fantasy fulfillment of the plot. It’s hardly anything new. A lot of stories do that for the sake of getting to the sex. Zach comes across as both a caveman in his behavior and a prude in his thoughts, the latter most likely a vague attempt to give him depth as he struggles with what he’s doing (having sex with Jake and moving so quickly with Honor). Honor seems to be the sort of strong heroine that many readers prefer, but honestly, as soon as sex gets involved, she throws a lot of her dreams out the window in favor of lust.

While this is the first in a series, I won’t be bothering with any of the subsequent stories. Threesomes don’t make the entire story a ménage. HEAs are about emotional commitments, and in this case, only two of them do it. I don’t trust the rest of the stories not to try and fool me again.

Readability	7/10 – Nothing offensive about it, but there’s nothing special, either
Hero	5/10 – A weird dichotomy of caveman behavior with puritanical thinking that never gelled for me
Heroine	5/10 – Wants to come across as strong, but is just fantasy fulfillment rather than a real character
Entertainment value	4/10 – The erotic scenes aren’t bad, but the story lacks any depth or believability not to mention mislabeled
World building	6/10 – Some of the grittiness of the period, but little to make it memorable
TOTAL:	27/50

Bad Company by K.A. Mitchell

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