Nephilim by Mary Ann Loesch

TITLE: Nephilim
AUTHOR: Mary Ann Loesch
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 70k)
GENRE: Urban fantasy
COST: $5.50

As a nephilim – the child of an angel father and a mortal mother – Faye has certain talents, like being able to heal and encourage life. She’s also sensitive to a lot of other aspects of the angelic realm, but ever since her family and fiancé were killed, she’s turned her back on any kind of heavenly creature, even her guardian angel Azal. When he comes to her with a request to investigate another angel, she doesn’t want to take the task. But the description of Nathan Ink, a tattoo artist who puts the personification of a human’s sin directly into his skin, intrigues her enough to at least check him out. It’s the question he raises, as well as the fact that the people he tattoos keep dying, that intrigue her enough to continue…

Finally, something compulsive and surprising. I was beginning to wonder if these books existed anymore.

Faye is a nephilim, the child of an angel father and a mortal mother. She owns a nursery, where her talents for encouraging life and healing are well utilized, as well as sings part-time at a club. She doesn’t have many friends. Touching people shows them too much most times for her to be comfortable. She’s also cut herself off from everything heavenly, since she blames God for the death of her parents and fiancé. A visit from her guardian angel Azal, however, sends her into a tailspin. He wants her to look into a potential rogue angel called Nathan Ink. Nathan tattoos sins onto people’s skin for the world to see and for the bearer to survive, but the mortality rate of his clients is unnaturally high. Faye doesn’t want anything to do with it, but she’s curious enough to at least go check him out. What she doesn’t know is that it’s a ruse. Azal has set her in Nathan’s path for a reason, though he isn’t telling anybody yet what that reason is. The more Faye learns about Nathan, however, the more concerned she gets about his methodology.

There’s more. So, so, so much more. You can read the blurb at the publisher’s site if you want to be spoiled for it, but honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to be surprised. Because this book offers that in spades. It is twist after twist after twist, some of which left me gasping out loud, almost all of which had me compulsively turning the pages until I was done. It’s not an easy read. The prose is dense, the explanations not always clear, the characters sometimes frustrating. But I couldn’t put the damn thing down, getting increasingly invested in how it was all going to turn out. It doesn’t shy away from the violence that accompanies the darker side of humanity, but at the same time, there’s a certain hope that permeates Faye, brightening the path of the story more than once. I felt much as she did for a good part of the story, especially in regards to her contradictory feelings for Nathan in the first half. He is not your typical angel. His methods are twisted and dark, incredibly nihilistic in tone and deed. Whenever he’s on the page in that first half, the story becomes almost bleak, slowing my reading down even further. I didn’t stop, though. I couldn’t. I needed to know what happened next.

Bear in mind that this is not a romance. It’s not sold as one at Lyrical, and it doesn’t fall within the genre parameters. Expect a romance, and you’ll be disappointed. I knew all this, but the last chapter still managed to upset me, mostly because I’d become so emotionally involved with everyone. As a result, it’s a mild detraction in my overall enjoyment.

Due to the level of violence in this, it’s probably not for those who are bothered by it. And I do wish the editors and the author had taken better care with the use of apostrophes. Their misuse was starting to annoy me about halfway through (you’re for your, possessive apostrophes in the wrong place, apostrophes used on a plural word that wasn’t possessive, etc.). It complicated an already dense read, no matter how compulsive it was. In spite of that and my other minor concerns, however, this remains one of the more memorable, intense reads I’ve had in a very long time.

Readability	8/10 – Dense and compulsive, though the author and editors need a crash course on how to use apostrophes
Characterization	8/10 – The bad guy was a stereotype, and I felt the heroine flipflopped a little too much at the beginning, but by the end, I felt like I knew all of these people
Plot	8/10 – Twisty and turny, just like the way I like it
Entertainment value	8/10 – When story developments make me gasp out loud, I know it’s working
World building	8/10 – Some aspects weren’t as well explained as I needed, but overall, I was impressed with how rich the world was.
TOTAL:	40/50

Whispering Bones by Rita Vetere

TITLE: Whispering Bones
AUTHOR: Rita Vetere
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 61k)
GENRE: Horror
COST: $5.50

A child’s horrific death during the Black Plague unleashes a curse that terrorizes generation after generation of the man she blames. It spans time, grows stronger with each kill. When Anna LaServa takes a job to design a hotel on the grounds the child haunts, she has no idea what she’s got herself into…

Though the majority of the books I review here are romance, in my reading world they only constitute a fraction of what I consume. I’ve been reading horror and suspense alongside romance since I picked up my first Stephen King when I was ten, but there aren’t as many small presses doing non-romance genre fiction as there are romance pubs (at least to the quality I’d hope for). I’d definitely review more if I could get my hands on them.

For a good part of this story, the plot jumps between three different storylines. There’s nine-year-old Isabella in Venice of 1576, when the plague is devastating the country. There’s Dr. Rossi in Venice of 1927, recently hired to be the chief doctor at a nearby asylum. And there’s Anna LaServa in modern day Toronto, about to travel to Venice to begin a two-week project designing a new hotel. Anna visits her grandmother – the only family she has left – before leaving, but when her grandmother hears where she is going, she begs Anna not to go. Anna tries to convince the old woman that it’s good for her career and goes anyway. There, she meets Alejandro, the man in charge of the hotel’s construction, and together they go out to the island that will be the site. Anna is spooked almost from the first, but things only get progressively worse the longer she stays and discovers an asylum was once on the grounds.

I usually try to avoid revealing too many spoilers in reviews as I’m particularly spoiler-phobic, but I’m going to give a couple away in this because I think they’re important to get out there. I almost stopped reading this book about a third of the way in. Now, I knew when I started that there would be a child’s death – that’s in the blurb – but by the time I reached page 78, I had to read in some detail about two separate events that are very triggery for me. The first involved Anna. Anna is in her mid-forties and never married, mostly because she never got over being raped when she was fifteen. I was fine with the reference to it, but then there’s a passage where she remembers it, in some detail. Less than twenty pages later, a woman in the 1927 storyline gives birth to a stillborn baby, again in some detail. Frankly, if I’d known the book had contained either one of those I would never have bought it in the first place. They tend to be dealbreakers for me, but after stopping on this for a day or two, I convinced myself to go back and finish it, with the promise that I’d stop for real if something else triggered me.

There wasn’t any one particular event, thank goodness. But after that point, the three storylines begin to converge, and the entire second half of the novel is unrelenting grotesquerie and horror.

It pulls no punches. The events are graphic, the violence frequent and bloody. Evil is a palpable, toxic entity that permeates the Italian setting, and the rising terror all too real. Anna maintains her cool a surprisingly long time, but once she loses it, the knots the story is already tying constrict even more. For me, it was too much. I only kept reading because I figured I’d made it through the worst of what could trigger me, and I needed to see how it ended. But when I read horror, I need the occasional relief from the darkness – a funny line, a sweeter scene, anything different in tone to allow me as a reader to take a breath before sinking back into the terror. I didn’t really get it in this. I didn’t get the ending I needed, either. I finished this frustrated with how everything worked out, even though I know it’s quite a common trope in the horror genre. For me, though, it didn’t work, probably because I was already burned out with the evil overload by that point.

To be fair, I can’t recommend this one way or another. It didn’t work for me, but my reasons are very personal and specific. Other readers of this genre might not have the same problems I did.

Readability	7/10 – Unrelentingly horrific with unseen potential triggers, I almost gave up on this a third of the way in
Characterization	6/10 – While the female protagonist comes to life, most of the secondary characters do not
Plot	7/10 – Maybe not the most original, but the original setting and time elements add to it
Entertainment value	5/10 – Even as much as I got triggered in this, I might have scored it higher if it wasn’t for the truly disappointing ending
World building	9/10 – Atmosphere and setting are so strong, I wanted to go to Venice even in spite of all the terrible elements
TOTAL:	34/50

Wild at Heart by Crystal Kauffman

TITLE: Wild at Heart
AUTHOR: Crystal Kauffman
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 26k)
GENRE: Historical erotic romance
COST: $3.50

Penny Thompson has been promised in marriage to a friend of her brother’s from college, a man she has never met. But her world gets turned upside down when she meets John Black Feather, another friend of her brother’s, the half-breed son of the Navajo chief . John is enthralled by the tempestuous, independent woman, and while he knows he should stay away from her, the attraction between them is too combustible to ignore…

Sometimes I feel guilty admitting some of my kinks. I’ve made it clear before that I have a real soft spot for Native American heroes, but honestly, I’m not sure why I keep bothering since so few authors ever move beyond the stereotypical noble savage archetype, especially in historicals.

This story is no better. The heroine, Penny, is a tomboy at heart, helping as much with the horses as her big brother does. She can’t cook, she hates dresses, and the last thing she wants is to get married. Except her big brother Will has decided it’s time for that to happen and arranged for her to marry one of his friends from college back east. The story opens with her trying to catch a wild stallion, only to discover that it actually belongs to Will’s Navajo friend, John Black Feather. John is the son of the Navajo chief and a white woman, and acts in many ways as a liaison between the tribe and the local white men. To Penny, he’s the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, and her first attraction to him explodes when he reciprocates.

It’s evident from the start that the prose isn’t anything special. It’s clean enough editorially, but it tends to lack verve or passion, even during the sex scenes. Part of that stems from the sheer predictability of the whole thing. The story feels like it’s been written a thousand times before, twenty years ago. The misunderstood Native American, the misunderstood heroine, the attraction of his savage beauty, and so on and so on. If that’s what a reader wants, then great, but really, I felt guilty as I was reading, partially because I could actually see a superficial appeal in John, partially because it felt like I should be reading something that actually gave the Native Americans some new depths. That’s my issue, though. I fully recognize some readers, especially those that might be drawn to this in the first place, won’t care about either things.

For them, Penny is appropriately strong-willed and relatable, while John is sexy and enigmatic, disappearing like a ghost after nearly every encounter. The plot chugs along with little surprises, and ultimately, it just turns into a waiting game to get to the end. The sex scenes are serviceable, if formulaic, and for the traditionalist, John gets to be the hero in the end (though that should not be a surprise at all).

But none of it is new or fresh, and I'm left still hoping that someone out there is interested in creating a three-dimensional Native American hero that I can fall in love with.

Readability	6/10 – Simplistic prose and a sense of the throwback makes it an easy, but unchallenging, read
Hero	6/10 – Lots of potential never realized
Heroine	6/10 – Spunky but ultimately incredibly predictable
Entertainment value	4/10 – Felt like a throwback to older romances that were all about the allure of the noble savage
World building	6/10 – Some of the attempts to recreate the western historical life are there, but it doesn’t leap off the page
TOTAL:	28/50

Moving Target by Rosalie Stanton

TITLE: Moving Target
AUTHOR: Rosalie Stanton
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 18k)
GENRE: Erotic romantic suspense
COST: $2.50

Wolf Thornton has a job – to kill Anna Winter. Someone powerful wants her dead, but the more he learns about her, the more convinced he is she’s not the threat she was made out to be. When other assassins show up to do the job he’s stalling in, he decides the game has changed. But protecting her just might cost both of them their lives…

My bad luck streak continues, though today’s review isn’t flawed for the same reasons as the last few books. It started out well enough, but halfway through, everything fell apart.

Anna Winter is recently unemployed, having lost her job in Washington, DC. She’s been forced to move back home to Springfield, Missouri, but what she doesn’t know is that someone has been hired to kill her. Assassin Wolf Thornton watches Anna for weeks before making his move, but it’s not the move to kill her. No, he doesn’t think she deserves to die, not after everything he’s witnessed. His move is more personal, because Anna intrigues him as no other woman has in a very long time. It’s cut short, however, when another assassin shows up to finish the job he hasn’t done, only now, Wolf isn’t going to let that happen.

This short novella starts out well enough. Wolf is sympathetic, and his confusion about Anna and his assignment realistic, based on what we see of her. There’s even a certain amount of sympathy to be had for Anna when we get into her POV, though I found her whiny almost from the start. She’s very “woe is me” about everything that is wrong with her life, and she seems reluctant to do anything that will make it better. Wolf sweeps her off her feet in a club, and they have a lot of chemistry on the dance floor, enough to give me hope this will work out, even if it isn’t very long. That hope prevails during the following action sequence, too, when they flee Springfield to try and keep Anna safe.

Then, things start to unravel. It starts with Anna. I already didn’t care for her a lot because of her negative attitude about everything, but my opinion deteriorated during the course of her various conversations with Wolf. In one word? Inconsistent. She worked doing glorified admin work for the Secretary of Agriculture, and displays intricate knowledge of how the political system works, and yet she think Quebec is a country. I think her dimness is meant to be endearing, but when it’s juxtaposed against obvious intelligence, it makes her look either flaky or inconsistent. I’m going with the latter. Because there’s repeated incidents of this throughout the story, enough for me really not like her by the story’s end.

Wolf’s not much better. There’s a lot of banter between the two that I’m sure is meant to make him look charming, but honestly, he comes across like an ass more than half the time. His propensity for pet names, as well as singing his own praises, is eyeroll-worthy rather than seductive, and the good will he’d garnered from me in the beginning dissipated.

If the assassin plot was any good, I might be willing to overlook these shortcomings, but ultimately, the conspiracy around why Anna is being hunted is unnecessarily convoluted for a short novella as well as downright silly in a few parts. Worse, it doesn’t even get resolved onscreen. Anna does something she could (should) have done weeks earlier, makes a phone call, and poof! Problem solved. It’s lazy storytelling and emotionally unsatisfying, and none of it encourages me to try this author again.

Readability	7/10 – The dialogue didn’t flow well, and the sex felt manipulative, but the opening and action scene held promise
Hero	5/10 – Inconsistent and often the opposite of charming
Heroine	3/10 – Even more inconsistent than the hero
Entertainment value	4/10 – Though the opening held promise, the story’s too short for the plot it tries to convey
World building	6/10 – Moments are well realized, but the greater picture is grainy and unclear
TOTAL:	25/50

The Quickening by Antonia Tiranth

TITLE: The Quickening
AUTHOR: Antonia Tiranth
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 56k)
GENRE: Fantasy romance
COST: $5.50

Jo Moreau gets a shock when her best friend from high school shows up at her parents’ house in the middle of the night, after a five year absence. Aer Gwindor disappeared before graduation without a word, leaving Jo to pine after him all this time. Now, though, he needs her help to rescue his brother. The catch? Neither Aer nor his brother are exactly human. In fact, they’re Rikashi, dragons who can shift into human form. Oddly enough, Jo isn’t that freaked out, since her dreams lately have taken on the same tenor…

Dragons aren’t normally my thing, but when an idea catches my eye, I’m willing to take a second look. What caught my eye on this one was how spunky the heroine seemed she could be in the excerpt, so I bought it to give it a go. While she was spunkier than many heroines out there, it wasn’t in a way I expected, and I’ll admit, a style I don’t particularly like.

There’s a reason you won’t find YA reviews on my blog, just like there’s a reason you won’t find ones for inspirational romances. As a general rule, they don’t work for me. I find the idealism in a lot of YA too much to take, and often, the issues and emotions end up feeling very After School Special. I don’t know, maybe I was never really a kid. Either way, I don’t buy or read them anymore, not since I’ve decided to stop trying to convince myself that just maybe one out there will work for me.

This isn’t billed as a YA. It’s billed as fantasy romance. Fair enough. But reading it, I get overwhelming impressions of YA writing. It’s not that it’s a fairly clean romance; there are enough romances out there that don’t open bedroom doors or do much more than a few simple kisses. The subject matter is mostly adult, too. Aer and Jo have to deal with finding his brother, and then dealing with the fact that somebody is trying to kill off dragons. The action is fairly continuous, with a lot of cliffhanger chapter endings, and it clips along at a brisk pace. It’s more about the tone and the idealized emotions the two leads have.

Aer and Jo are five years out of high school and have been secretly in love with each other all that time. Both are too honorable and proud to actually say or do anything about it, and there’s a distinct pedestal quality to the way they treat each other. Aer, especially, acts more like a teenager than any young adult I know or have known, and while Jo fares better, she lapses into the same sort of behaviors in the latter half of the story. The charm of her fire wears off quickly as I increasingly feel that I’ve stepped into the middle of an episode of Veronica Mars, with added dragons. It just never ends up working for me, in spite of chapters done in alternating 1^st POVs for both protagonists.

It’s hard for me to tell if this story ends up falling short because of something in the story that I failed to put a finger on or my own inability to enjoy stories that suggest YA to me. It’s very possibly the latter. Sometimes, personal biases are just too difficult to overcome.

Readability	7/10 – Quick and mostly clean, but the simplistic presentation felt so much like YA that it was hard to get into
Hero	6/10 – Charming enough at the start, but simplified, idealistic emotions help contribute to the whole YA feel that distances me from the story
Heroine	7/10 – I liked her more than Aer, because at least for the first half, she seemed more like an actual adult
Entertainment value	6/10 – I really liked the ideas, and the pacing was fine, but not being able to shake the YA feel kept me at arm’s length
World building	7/10 – Some good stuff there, though the occasional information dumps were clumsily done
TOTAL:	33/50

Billy Bong by Yeva Wiest

TITLE: Billy Bong
AUTHOR: Yeva Wiest
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 24k)
GENRE: Horror satire
COST: $3.50

A decades-old murder. An aging killer with a twisted sense of vengeance. Oh, don’t forget the hoodoo man, two grave robbers, a senior citizen hairdresser and her seventy-six-year-old client determined to solve the riddle of her son’s death, Betsy Wetsy, and a skull called Billy Bong…

Few authors create such whacked out, unique, colorful characters like Yeva Wiest. Sometimes, she reminds me of Carl Hiaasen, the zany plots and bright casts he always manages to come up with. Even when the humor might not necessarily work for me, her characters are never dull and always unusual.

This novella starts out in 1970, with Billy Boone getting high in a motel room with a prostitute he’s picked up. Their “date” turns sour quickly, and he ends up dead. His biological parents never learn the truth until decades later, when the prostitute who killed Billy gets mad at him all over again and hires two men to steal his head for her so she can get a bong made out of the skull. Yes, you read that right. And the story only gets crazier from there, zigging and zagging from character to character until they inevitably crash together at the end.

To try and describe all the characters would take the joy out of reading it. As always, they are a cast that runs the sexual gamut – lesbians, married men, straight men, cross-dressing men, straight women, you name it. Several shine, like Janice and Sarah Beth. In 1970, Janice had stolen Sarah Beth’s husband from her, but once she realized the only thing he had going for him was his cock, she dumped him. Sarah Beth in turn decided not to hold it against Janice because a good hairdresser is always hard to find, and the two women have been friends ever since. They’re the ones who hop a bus to Houston to try and find out what happened to Sarah Beth’s son (Janice’s stepson), and their antics drive the plot forward, even when it lurches into creepy territory with the killer.

Did I laugh at the story? No, not really, but I did smile, and when it was done, I had vivid impressions of each and every single one of the characters. One thing to note, too. I’ve read and reviewed two other releases by this author from this particular publisher, and had issues with them editorially. That was not the case in this one. There is still some headhopping, and there are still occasional errors, but nothing nearly as detrimental to the reading experience as before. It’s wonderful to see. It makes it so much easier to enjoy the author’s creative imaginings when I don’t get tripped up on spelling mistakes.

Readability	8/10 – Swift and graphic, and far fewer editorial mistakes as previous works
Characterization	8/10 – This author creates some of the quirkiest characters out there
Plot	7/10 – Points for originality, though some of the coincidences seemed extreme
Entertainment value	7/10 – Not as funny as I expected, but always interesting
World building	8/10 – Unique and immersive
TOTAL:	38/50

Dangling by Yeva Wiest

TITLE: Dangling
AUTHOR: Yeva Wiest
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 27k)
GENRE: Gay black comedy
COST: $3.50

Archangels Michael and Gabriel are about to witness another city get destroyed because of its own arrogance. This time, it’s Washington DC…

There were a number of books I was looking forward to reading this year, based on previous experiences with the authors. This was one of them. Because of my backlogged TBR pile, it’s taken me longer to get around to it, but here it finally is. I only wish I’d enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the first book I tried by this author.

That’s not to say it’s bad. It’s not. There seems to be a definite improvement in the story’s editing, with fewer errors, but the author continues to choose an omniscient POV and hops from head to head all the way throughout, sometimes even in the context of the same paragraph. It’s not as jarring as it was the first time, maybe because I expected it, so that helped make the reading smoother. The author’s fearlessness shines through, as well. Characters will flame, and characters will be over the top, and it all serves to further the story along.

That being said, it just didn’t ring as original or funny to me as her first story. In this, we have two angels who, through the ages, are responsible for helping God with finding and/or destroying evil cities. Sodom. Gomorrah. Now Washington DC. Gabriel is a transgender, unable to decide whether to be a man or a woman, and swaps between the two identities with ease. The men they are after are convinced America needs to be saved from the homosexual and Muslim agendas, and they’re prepared to do whatever it takes to get America on board with their plan. The entire treatment is very heavy-handed, and while the humor is there – albeit not as fresh – it’s not enough to counteract the very preachy nature of the ideas, even as topical and important as they are. Then, just when it seems like everything is going to get interesting, it kind of stops. A one-page epilogue is there to tie up the loose ends, but it feels far too convenient and like shorthand for actual development of the climax and denouement.

Still, I have to love authors who dare to take these kinds of risks. Sometimes, stuff like this needs to be said. I sincerely hope Ms. Wiest never stops holding back. There’s a unique voice in all of this, even if this particular story didn’t work as well for me.

Readability	7/10 – The satire and boldness carries this through, not the prose
Characterization	7/10 – Some border on caricature, others were richer
Plot	7/10 – The ending is far too rushed and convenient to hold the plot’s earlier weight
Entertainment value	6/10 – Not as funny as the first of her works that I’ve read
World building	6/10 – It felt like too much got bitten off for the length of the story.
TOTAL:	33/50

What Worse Place Can I Beg in Your Love? by Syd McGinley

TITLE: What Worse Place Can I Beg in Your Love?
AUTHOR: Syd McGinley
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 10k)
GENRE: Gay sci-fi erotic romance
COST: $1.50

Being captured on an alien planet is hard enough. Being submissive and sold as a pet to one of those same aliens might be a dream come true…

I bought this short story at the recommendation of a friend of mine, who’d read it, liked it, then came back to me a few weeks later to tell me how much more she liked it upon reflection. Now, after having read it myself, I think I understand what she meant. At first pass, this is a rather simplistic short story, slightly disturbing if you’re not comfortable with some of the D/s aspects or alien sex. I can’t even say that I was moved one way or another by it. The story is told in first person, and much of it has the rhythm of, “This happened, and then this happened, and then this happened…” The two lead characters aren’t even named.

Yet, well after I’d finished the story, I found myself thinking on it some more. I still wasn’t emotionally entangled with the characters, but I couldn’t stop thinking about them. The lead – a submissive human who doesn’t wish to have to make any decisions – retains an odd sort of individuality and strength, in spite of his many passive choices and lack of control within his situation. I wondered if it was due to the perspective – completely in his head – or because of the actions that transpire, and even now, have not reached a satisfying conclusion. It’s likely a combination of both. The narrator coaxes the reader into his head, and because he doesn’t have a name, subsequently usurps the reader’s identity. Or this reader, anyway. It becomes, not a story, but a diary of events, and with no embellishments to the prose, uncomfortably easy to claim as your own.

There are a lot of potentially disturbing elements in this story that might bother more sensitive readers. This is not your traditional D/s story. The narrator has no say in his circumstances, and he becomes a pet in every sense of the word. He lives in a cage, and is exercised as a pet, fed as a pet, and punished as a pet. The addition of his owner’s sexual release is merely a recognition of the narrator’s sentience, and in fact, though it’s starkly described, I found it more clinical than erotic. There is also the matter that the alien is very much one. There is no anthropomorphism here. He has alien habits, moves like an alien, and looks like an alien. The narrator never lets you forget that.

I think I understand what it was my friend meant now. This wasn’t a story that engaged my emotions, but rather challenged to think about it beyond its simple structure. I’m not sure I’d read it again, though considering how much I’ve thought about it afterward, that’s likely unnecessary. The characters are already ingrained. That’s a lot more than I can say about most stories, especially short ones.

Readability	7/10 – The simplistic style isn’t very engaging, and it felt like telling more than showing more than once, but it works sufficiently well for a short story of this length.
Hero #1	7/10 – Sympathetic and surprisingly realized
Hero #2	6/10 – His alien nature remains so for much of the story, though it’s the lingering aftereffects that strikes me the hardest
Entertainment value	7/10 – For the way it made me think long after I’d finished it
World building	7/10 – The detail might be scarce in parts, and it might not be the most originally presented, but by the end of the story, it feels like this other world really exists.
TOTAL:	34/50

Practical Purposes by Yeva Wiest

TITLE: Practical Purposes
AUTHOR: Yeva Wiest
PUBLISHER: Lyrical Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 22k)
GENRE: Gay black comedy
COST: $3.50

The small town of Salem, Texas is not the place to be if you’re different. But when a death in the family forces Dr. James Cole to return, he decides he is not going to do it with his tail tucked between his legs. He’s going to have his partner there at his side for the funeral, even if his father warns him not to bring the “white boy” with him. Too bad his father doesn’t really want either of them around to embarrass him…

Not everyone enjoys black comedy. Some people take offense at serious issues being treated without the respect they deserve, which is fine. Personally, I love it when it’s done well. There is a lot that can be learned by looking at topics from different angles.

Practical Purposes easily falls into this category. It’s small-minded America at its worst, with colorful misfits struggling to fit in and others who have managed to escape. James' father, King Cole – and there are plenty of Ol’ King Cole jokes in this, most of which actually work – is as conservative as they come, and he has never approved of his son’s sexuality. He is bound and determined James is not going to disgrace the family by showing up at the funeral when there will be fourteen black Baptist preachers in attendance. His plan to sidetrack both James and his lover Zach is ill-conceived at best, acted out by a group of the epitome of the narrow-minded American – white, conservative, teenaged boys. The fact that they’re all clearly idiots adds to the absurdity of the entire situation, especially as it barrels at breakneck speed throughout the story.

The characters populating the story are colorful to say the least. Each has its own distinct personality, and even though there are a ton of them, it was easy to tell them apart. There is no single character that controls the lead, as several weave in and out of the telling. In fact, if anything, James and Zach – the two gay men who prompt all the action in the first place – are probably the sanest and most vanilla of the bunch. Considering they’re the outsiders in Salem, it makes perfect sense, and their sensibility offers a wonderful contrast to the likes of Tallulah the dollar store clerk/plumber/lesbian, Donnie the nerd in love with Tallulah, Petey-bird the high school boy with less sense than ears, and Odessa Collins the 84-year-old deceased whose presence hangs over the entire tale.

In spite of such vibrant storytelling, the story gets let down by its editorial mistakes. Headhopping isn’t a minor thing in this; it’s widespread enough to include a scene that starts out with James in a moving car, jumps to Tallulah and Donnie on the sidewalk, back into the car again, then ending hopping between James and his father – all without a scene break. It’s indicative of the style that plagues the whole story. To make matters worse, there are technical issues that really should have been caught – like loose for lose, and the one character who spends half the time with the last name Lawson and the other half as Lawton. It holds back what could have been some biting commentary on homophobia and small town America. For this reader, it ends up being entertaining, but only as a nibble.

Readability	6/10 – Headhopping and editorial issues distract from what could be sharp, funny prose
Characterization	9/10 – Everything is over the top, like most comedy is, but the characters are crisp and distinct
Plot	7/10 – Could be offensive to some, and certain areas beg for further explanation, but I was willing to go along for the ride as long as it lasted.
Entertainment value	7/10 – Dark and bold, but the technical things hold it back.
World building	9/10 – I’m not sure how realistic the world is that’s been painted here in its extremes, but I am sure I believed it.
TOTAL:	38/50