The Deadliest Fall By Charlie Cochrane Riptide Press, 2023 Five stars
What I love about Charlie Cochrane’s books is that they’re so very British. I mean, The Deadliest Fall By Charlie Cochrane Riptide Press, 2023 Five stars
What I love about Charlie Cochrane’s books is that they’re so very British. I mean, she is British, but part of her charm for this American reader is that she embraces the individuality of her small-town characters. In this book, that Britishness is emphatic, because it’s set in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II.
Leslie Cadmore, walking his naughty labrador Max in the park near his mother’s house, happens to run across two young women, one of whom is a childhood friend he hasn’t seen in years. His chance meeting of Marianne Sibley, who is then invited by his mother to tea, opens a veritable Pandora’s Box of memories, questions, and regrets.
At the center of this is Leslie’s five-year rift with Marianne’s twin brother Patrick, another childhood friend who had been his lover for years before a stupid argument broke them up. That argument was triggered by the sudden death of a mutual acquaintance of theirs, a death that was ruled an accident. Leslie is not so sure, and his tea with Marianne sets off a chain of little events that lead to conversations that lead to something bigger, deeper, and darker than any of them ever imagined.
The restrained, stiff-upper-lip quality of Cochrane’s writing for this book is spot-on. This is not the England of today, but a world hardly remembered now, as people were putting their lives back together after the war dislocation and destruction. The world was still full of Victorians and Edwardians, and their influence held sway in English life.
This is the tipping point between modern Great Britain and the old Great Britain, when everyone was polite and circumspect—and love between two men was still something that could send you to prison. Cochrane captures that nostalgic primness, in language and behavior, while also depicting the growing cracks in the social strictures of the past that would eventually shatter and fall away.
Leslie reconnects with Patrick in order to discuss difficult questions about the past, and finds in his old friend the same regrets that he himself feels. Together, they start a quiet dance of inquiry and honesty, asking questions and having conversations previously suppressed by circumstance.
It’s a beautiful story, beautifully rendered by an author who sees the past in living color.
Merged review:
The Deadliest Fall By Charlie Cochrane Riptide Press, 2023 Five stars
What I love about Charlie Cochrane’s books is that they’re so very British. I mean, she is British, but part of her charm for this American reader is that she embraces the individuality of her small-town characters. In this book, that Britishness is emphatic, because it’s set in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II.
Leslie Cadmore, walking his naughty labrador Max in the park near his mother’s house, happens to run across two young women, one of whom is a childhood friend he hasn’t seen in years. His chance meeting of Marianne Sibley, who is then invited by his mother to tea, opens a veritable Pandora’s Box of memories, questions, and regrets.
At the center of this is Leslie’s five-year rift with Marianne’s twin brother Patrick, another childhood friend who had been his lover for years before a stupid argument broke them up. That argument was triggered by the sudden death of a mutual acquaintance of theirs, a death that was ruled an accident. Leslie is not so sure, and his tea with Marianne sets off a chain of little events that lead to conversations that lead to something bigger, deeper, and darker than any of them ever imagined.
The restrained, stiff-upper-lip quality of Cochrane’s writing for this book is spot-on. This is not the England of today, but a world hardly remembered now, as people were putting their lives back together after the war dislocation and destruction. The world was still full of Victorians and Edwardians, and their influence held sway in English life.
This is the tipping point between modern Great Britain and the old Great Britain, when everyone was polite and circumspect—and love between two men was still something that could send you to prison. Cochrane captures that nostalgic primness, in language and behavior, while also depicting the growing cracks in the social strictures of the past that would eventually shatter and fall away.
Leslie reconnects with Patrick in order to discuss difficult questions about the past, and finds in his old friend the same regrets that he himself feels. Together, they start a quiet dance of inquiry and honesty, asking questions and having conversations previously suppressed by circumstance.
It’s a beautiful story, beautifully rendered by an author who sees the past in living color....more
Puzzle for Two By Josh Lanyon Published by JustJoshin, 2023 Four stars
There is a certain familiarity about Zach Davies and Flint Carey—they call to mind Puzzle for Two By Josh Lanyon Published by JustJoshin, 2023 Four stars
There is a certain familiarity about Zach Davies and Flint Carey—they call to mind the bookstore owner and the police captain I like so much in the Pirate’s Cove series. But Zach and Flint are a bit edgier, and this isn’t a cozy mystery. Like Davies and Flint, this story is edgier, as embodied by the truly creepy character of Alton Beacher. Zach is maybe too sweet to be a private detective. Then, again, he’s not too trusting, just lacking in self-confidence. Flint is the perfect foil for him. Flint is the tough guy that Zach hasn’t seen as anything other than a business rival, until things get very dark and Zach suddenly sees Flint in a different light.
Two broken relationships are at the psychological core of this book—Zach’s ex Ben haunts the page like an unresolved bad dream; and Alton Beacher’s possibly-not-sane wife, Zora is quite literally ghostlike. It’s nicely arranged so that the reader can understand how it takes two to kill a relationship. Again, this isn’t the cozy version of this kind of dynamic you see in Pirate’s Cove; Both Ben and Zora take on sinister qualities that provide two distinctly different kinds of shivers as the plot unrolls.
I finished this book definitely feeling it should be the first of a series, although that is not made at all clear by Lanyon. I’d love to see more of Flint and Zach—not to mention Brooke, Zach’s “little” sister, who has untapped potential as a character just begging for more page time.
Merged review:
Puzzle for Two By Josh Lanyon Published by JustJoshin, 2023 Four stars
There is a certain familiarity about Zach Davies and Flint Carey—they call to mind the bookstore owner and the police captain I like so much in the Pirate’s Cove series. But Zach and Flint are a bit edgier, and this isn’t a cozy mystery. Like Davies and Flint, this story is edgier, as embodied by the truly creepy character of Alton Beacher. Zach is maybe too sweet to be a private detective. Then, again, he’s not too trusting, just lacking in self-confidence. Flint is the perfect foil for him. Flint is the tough guy that Zach hasn’t seen as anything other than a business rival, until things get very dark and Zach suddenly sees Flint in a different light.
Two broken relationships are at the psychological core of this book—Zach’s ex Ben haunts the page like an unresolved bad dream; and Alton Beacher’s possibly-not-sane wife, Zora is quite literally ghostlike. It’s nicely arranged so that the reader can understand how it takes two to kill a relationship. Again, this isn’t the cozy version of this kind of dynamic you see in Pirate’s Cove; Both Ben and Zora take on sinister qualities that provide two distinctly different kinds of shivers as the plot unrolls.
I finished this book definitely feeling it should be the first of a series, although that is not made at all clear by Lanyon. I’d love to see more of Flint and Zach—not to mention Brooke, Zach’s “little” sister, who has untapped potential as a character just begging for more page time....more
Matthew Langford, loved and pampered son of a self-made man and a doting mother, finds out on his 21st birthday that he has a twin brother, from whom Matthew Langford, loved and pampered son of a self-made man and a doting mother, finds out on his 21st birthday that he has a twin brother, from whom he was separated as an infant. He finds out that the twin, Tremaine Wheal, is fraternal, and in terms of looks, they share only their eyes. Awkwardly, while they hit it off immediately, Matt discovers that he reacts to his long-lost twin as if he were also a cute guy to whom he’s immediately attracted.
I’ve no problem with consensual sex between relatives, despite cultural taboos. The premise here is that, having never known each other, but having felt a something missing all their lives, these two young men respond as more than just brothers, and with all the instant emotional intensity of long-separated twins. There’s a nice prince-and-pauper aspect in that Tremaine grew up poor and is now orphaned. Matt is literally his only family.
The lack of deep trauma in the book didn’t bother me; at the core of the story is the understandable anxiety over a profound cultural taboo. But Lyons makes the point that taboos are purely cultural and exist for reasons that don’t necessarily hold true in every situation. So the fact that the story runs remarkably smoothly from horror to acceptance (both from the boys themselves and from those who find out) didn’t bother me. It is a modern world we’re in, after all, and “Separation” makes a cogent and contextualized argument for the rightness of this relationship.
My only gripe with “Separation” is that it is the kind of love story that could have been a serious, beautiful literary exploration of taboo and longing and the very idea that another person completes you. Louise Lyons does a workmanlike job building up these characters, but she doesn’t make them into memorable, “Wuthering Heights” level literary figures—and I think they deserve it. She includes the parents importantly, but they, too don’t become significant literary figures. They are more than ciphers, but not much more. It’s all so prosaic. This story wanted something gorgeous in terms of writing, and the whole book feels too short and too streamlined to really pack any impact beyond the initial titillation of twincest and the author’s heartfelt effort to look closely at a major taboo and break it down.
This isn’t a bad book at all; but it could have been much more powerful.
Merged review:
Matthew Langford, loved and pampered son of a self-made man and a doting mother, finds out on his 21st birthday that he has a twin brother, from whom he was separated as an infant. He finds out that the twin, Tremaine Wheal, is fraternal, and in terms of looks, they share only their eyes. Awkwardly, while they hit it off immediately, Matt discovers that he reacts to his long-lost twin as if he were also a cute guy to whom he’s immediately attracted.
I’ve no problem with consensual sex between relatives, despite cultural taboos. The premise here is that, having never known each other, but having felt a something missing all their lives, these two young men respond as more than just brothers, and with all the instant emotional intensity of long-separated twins. There’s a nice prince-and-pauper aspect in that Tremaine grew up poor and is now orphaned. Matt is literally his only family.
The lack of deep trauma in the book didn’t bother me; at the core of the story is the understandable anxiety over a profound cultural taboo. But Lyons makes the point that taboos are purely cultural and exist for reasons that don’t necessarily hold true in every situation. So the fact that the story runs remarkably smoothly from horror to acceptance (both from the boys themselves and from those who find out) didn’t bother me. It is a modern world we’re in, after all, and “Separation” makes a cogent and contextualized argument for the rightness of this relationship.
My only gripe with “Separation” is that it is the kind of love story that could have been a serious, beautiful literary exploration of taboo and longing and the very idea that another person completes you. Louise Lyons does a workmanlike job building up these characters, but she doesn’t make them into memorable, “Wuthering Heights” level literary figures—and I think they deserve it. She includes the parents importantly, but they, too don’t become significant literary figures. They are more than ciphers, but not much more. It’s all so prosaic. This story wanted something gorgeous in terms of writing, and the whole book feels too short and too streamlined to really pack any impact beyond the initial titillation of twincest and the author’s heartfelt effort to look closely at a major taboo and break it down.
This isn’t a bad book at all; but it could have been much more powerful....more
Sapphire Spring (Sapphire Cove 2) C. Travis Rice (Christopher Rice) Blue Box Press, 2022 Five stars
Christopher Rice uses a pen name to produce this serieSapphire Spring (Sapphire Cove 2) C. Travis Rice (Christopher Rice) Blue Box Press, 2022 Five stars
Christopher Rice uses a pen name to produce this series of romances set in a fictional resort hotel on the Orange County coast in California. Although he (sort of) disguises his name for this “lesser” form of literature, he does not stint in the writing or the storytelling. He puts his heart into this series, and it shows. It’s even better than the first book, “Sapphire Sunset.”
“Sapphire Spring” has all the necessary tropes for a classic m/m romance (closeted jock and shy nerd, enemies-to-lovers plot arc). This book is beautifully written and emotionally powerful. I was surprised to find myself in tears in several places—but also laughing out loud in several other places.
Naser (na-SAIR) Kazemi is the head of accounting for the Sapphire Cove resort hotel, which is run by his best friend, Connor Harcourt. At a party thrown at the hotel by his sister Pari to launch a new fashion line, Naser runs into Mason Worther, the high-school football player who bullied him mercilessly and left deep emotional scars. Mason ends up drunk and falls into the hotel pool, and Naser is assigned to drive him back to his Newport Beach house. There he manages to lock himself in Mason’s laundry room without his phone, after Mason passes out upstairs.
While there are aspects of a screwball comedy here, there are a lot of dark subjects that drive the emotional tone of the story: alcoholism and recovery, bullying and sexual assault, cultural identity and racism. Rice pushes and digs, never hesitating to touch a painful nerve or broach an uncomfortable truth. He loves his characters, even the secondary ones (Naser’s mother, Mason’s father, as just two examples). He also throws in a couple of plot twists that shocked me completely—and made the plot richer and more emotionally layered.
We learn a surprising amount about being Persian in California, focusing on the substantial community of Iranians forced to flee their homeland and make a new life in the USA. There’s also a plotline about the caustic power of toxic masculinity empowered by great wealth. It is not a hearts-and-flowers kind of romance, but it is very much a story about the healing power of love.
C. Travis Rice does his homework, and respects his readers....more
This second book in the Altered States series picks right up on the cliff-hanger from Deep BlueDeadly Shades of Gold
By LE Harner and TA Webb
Four stars
This second book in the Altered States series picks right up on the cliff-hanger from Deep Blues Goodbye. Sam Garrett, New Orleans detective on the Paranormal Investigation team, known as the Odd Squad, wakes up to find that his world has changed forever.
As a newly-minted werewolf under the protection of Russ Evans and his pack, Sam has no choice but to see the world through new eyes, as he and his former police partner Travis Boudreau have to discover the identity and the motivations behind a series of preternatural killings in the Crescent City.
With echoes of the film “The Big Easy” and “True Blood” flickering in my head, not to mention Anne Rice’s many books set in New Orleans, I kept trying to wrap my mind around the complications inherent in unraveling Louisiana mob crimes with a not entirely trustworthy police force, all mixed in with corrupt vampires and werewolves who have decided to take advantage of their superior powers to cash in on human weaknesses. Sort of makes one’s head spin.
I was a little disappointed that detective Danny Burkette doesn’t get much to do in this book, which focuses more on Sam and Travis and their readjustments, both to their altered states and to being friends again. A black gay cop prejudiced against preternaturals has a lot of baggage to unpack, and we get a front-row seat for Sam’s struggles with his new identity. Travis, turned into a vampire and abandoned by Henri du Champ, oldest vampire in Louisiana, has never quite come to terms with who he is and what that really means. All of this makes for interesting reading and is, for me, the best part of this book.
The personal aspects of Sam and Travis’ story is set against a truly sinister background: Henri du Champ’s machinations against the Fontaine crime family, and their retaliation against him as they struggle for financial and political gold. We learn about this from multiple viewpoints, most vividly through that of Henri, who, with all the arrogance of an ancient vampire, is sure of his superiority and immortality and has no qualms about destroying innocents, human or otherwise, to ensure his success. There are some scenes that are truly upsetting involved with this dark side of Harner and Webb’s narrative. But I guess when you’ve got organized crime and supernatural creatures mixed up, it’s gonna get ugly.
I won’t pretend that this is profound or literary gold; Harner and Webb write well and move the plot forward at a good pace. There is enough romantic interplay for us to care increasingly about the main characters and to ponder what their futures might hold. The setting, in my beloved New Orleans (I’m only a tourist, mind you, but I’ve had family there for decades), is authentic and creates the right tone of faded elegance and vital grubbiness.
There’s no cliff-hanger on this one, but the ending is just right to hook us into a keen anticipation of the next book. In a world where vampires and werewolves ally with the cops and the federal government to protect the innocent, anything can happen.
Oh, goody.
Merged review:
Deadly Shades of Gold
By LE Harner and TA Webb
Four stars
This second book in the Altered States series picks right up on the cliff-hanger from Deep Blues Goodbye. Sam Garrett, New Orleans detective on the Paranormal Investigation team, known as the Odd Squad, wakes up to find that his world has changed forever.
As a newly-minted werewolf under the protection of Russ Evans and his pack, Sam has no choice but to see the world through new eyes, as he and his former police partner Travis Boudreau have to discover the identity and the motivations behind a series of preternatural killings in the Crescent City.
With echoes of the film “The Big Easy” and “True Blood” flickering in my head, not to mention Anne Rice’s many books set in New Orleans, I kept trying to wrap my mind around the complications inherent in unraveling Louisiana mob crimes with a not entirely trustworthy police force, all mixed in with corrupt vampires and werewolves who have decided to take advantage of their superior powers to cash in on human weaknesses. Sort of makes one’s head spin.
I was a little disappointed that detective Danny Burkette doesn’t get much to do in this book, which focuses more on Sam and Travis and their readjustments, both to their altered states and to being friends again. A black gay cop prejudiced against preternaturals has a lot of baggage to unpack, and we get a front-row seat for Sam’s struggles with his new identity. Travis, turned into a vampire and abandoned by Henri du Champ, oldest vampire in Louisiana, has never quite come to terms with who he is and what that really means. All of this makes for interesting reading and is, for me, the best part of this book.
The personal aspects of Sam and Travis’ story is set against a truly sinister background: Henri du Champ’s machinations against the Fontaine crime family, and their retaliation against him as they struggle for financial and political gold. We learn about this from multiple viewpoints, most vividly through that of Henri, who, with all the arrogance of an ancient vampire, is sure of his superiority and immortality and has no qualms about destroying innocents, human or otherwise, to ensure his success. There are some scenes that are truly upsetting involved with this dark side of Harner and Webb’s narrative. But I guess when you’ve got organized crime and supernatural creatures mixed up, it’s gonna get ugly.
I won’t pretend that this is profound or literary gold; Harner and Webb write well and move the plot forward at a good pace. There is enough romantic interplay for us to care increasingly about the main characters and to ponder what their futures might hold. The setting, in my beloved New Orleans (I’m only a tourist, mind you, but I’ve had family there for decades), is authentic and creates the right tone of faded elegance and vital grubbiness.
There’s no cliff-hanger on this one, but the ending is just right to hook us into a keen anticipation of the next book. In a world where vampires and werewolves ally with the cops and the federal government to protect the innocent, anything can happen.
Rating: 5 stars Review By Ulysses Dietz, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team Name of Book: The Death Bringer Series: Tharassas 4 Author:Rating: 5 stars Review By Ulysses Dietz, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team Name of Book: The Death Bringer Series: Tharassas 4 Author: J. Scott Coatsworth Publisher: Dragon Water Publishing Release date: 2024 Page Count: 328 Genre: Sci-fi Fantasy MM
The powerful and fascinating finale to the Tharassas Cycle was not a disappointment! The trick with ending an epic adventure like this is to make it NOT obvious (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc). Scott Coatsworth does it, and with a distinctive point of view that is his alone.
So, it’s all about to hit the fan (although in Tharassas they don’t seem to have fans, or air-conditioning, even though they have electricity and plumbing). As the title suggests, this is all about the looming threat to the people of Tharassas, coming from inside Anghar Mor, the dark mountain in the north east. Well, THAT sounds sort of obvious, doesn’t it?
But it’s not. We have to remember that until about five hundred years earlier, there were no humans on Tharassas, and the planet had grown and evolved and thrived just fine without them. The humans arrived from earth—specifically a group of what I suspect were what we would call survivalists. This human civilization flourished in its sort of quasi-primitive way, as the technology brought from earth on spaceships was slowly archived and forgotten. The only intact piece of earth technology on Tharassas is Spin. His presence provides a kind of comic relief from the seriousness of the plot, but also adds a powerful emotional backstory that we finally learn in full.
Thing is, humans were the second alien species to arrive on Tharassas, and they arrived thousands of years earlier. In a way, this book is their story, and it is what makes Coatsworth’s effort unique.
Meanwhile, our young trio of heros—Raven, Aik, and Silya—have all been transformed. Raven has bonded with the verent, the race of sentient white dragons. Silya has bonded with the hencha—the life-sustaining but sentient plants upon which Tharassan culture depends. And Aik, poor insecure, beautiful Aik, has bonded with the gauntlet, and thus has bonded with the Death Bringer. Each of these three youngsters, all of a sudden, find themselves with the world in their hands.
The important thing is that they are not alone. They have not gone rogue; they have joined to something bigger, older, and infinitely wiser that each of them is. More than this, they are surrounded by people who care about them and depend on them. They are necessary, but they are not solitary. None of them can do it alone, and herein lies the great lesson of this series.
Coatsworth gives the reader an unexpected twist, which will not totally surprise any reader who has been paying attention as the story begins, and we first hear the voice of the Spore Mother deep inside Anghar Mor. With stunning visuals and careful emotional control, Coatsworth gives us the epic battle for survival, while taking it in a direction both unexpected and philosophical.
Burning Boundaries (Elemental Evidence 2) By Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham Published 2017 by Pride Publishing Reviewed 2024
I realize I read theBurning Boundaries (Elemental Evidence 2) By Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham Published 2017 by Pride Publishing Reviewed 2024
I realize I read the first book in this series when it was first published, and then lost track of the authors. I’m glad I found this, and got to see what became of Mari Gale and Jake Chivis. I’ve also bought the third book in this series (Surfacing Secrets) because the writing is very good and the characters are compelling.
Can people simply burst into flames? Is spontaneous combustion real? Given that these two men are elementals, and bear the bloodlines of powerful Air and Fire magic, it’s not as far-fetched as it might seem.
Mari (contracted from the amazing Finnish name Ilmarinen) Gale is being interviewed for a new job—a position in the secret service that would make great use of his amazing Air Elemental powers (which here translates into doing unheard of things with computer systems). Meanwhile, Jake is still looking for a new job, leaving his work with the Detroit Police Department far behind him.
And they’re still dating, months after the case they worked together turned them into a couple. But are they a couple? Mari’s mother, Annabel, seems to think so, and even Jake seems to think so; but Mari’s baggage makes it difficult for him to share that vision.
The distraction of this book—which, of course, is the main mystery—is a brief but violent fire in the basement dungeon of a BDSM bar above which Jake happens to rent an apartment. Two people die in this fire, and although they have no official ties, Jake’s friend on the Metropolitan Police asks his advice. Something is very weird about the fire, and about the man who seems to have started it.
Like the first book in this series, there is a fascinating and increasingly creepy mystery that brings both men and their special elemental skills into play.
More importantly, however, is the authors’ careful deep dive into the two men’s relationship. As with the first book, there is more on-page sex than I generally care about (but, again, very well done, and emotionally potent). There is no denying that these two men are interesting, and good, and OBVIOUSLY destined for each other. But the joy of books like this is watching the protagonists stumble into the truth that the reader can already see.
What I took away from this second episode is that these two men are special, and they need to be very careful about whom they let make use of their special talents. Not all of the bad guys interested in them are obviously bad; and not all the good guys (i.e. the government agencies who want their skills) are actually entirely good either.
Will they find the reason for the fire-related deaths? Will they get good jobs with benefits and security? Will they just admit what they feel for each other, already?
Very good. And I expect book 3 will be just as good.
Merged review:
Burning Boundaries (Elemental Evidence 2) By Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham Published 2017 by Pride Publishing Reviewed 2024
I realize I read the first book in this series when it was first published, and then lost track of the authors. I’m glad I found this, and got to see what became of Mari Gale and Jake Chivis. I’ve also bought the third book in this series (Surfacing Secrets) because the writing is very good and the characters are compelling.
Can people simply burst into flames? Is spontaneous combustion real? Given that these two men are elementals, and bear the bloodlines of powerful Air and Fire magic, it’s not as far-fetched as it might seem.
Mari (contracted from the amazing Finnish name Ilmarinen) Gale is being interviewed for a new job—a position in the secret service that would make great use of his amazing Air Elemental powers (which here translates into doing unheard of things with computer systems). Meanwhile, Jake is still looking for a new job, leaving his work with the Detroit Police Department far behind him.
And they’re still dating, months after the case they worked together turned them into a couple. But are they a couple? Mari’s mother, Annabel, seems to think so, and even Jake seems to think so; but Mari’s baggage makes it difficult for him to share that vision.
The distraction of this book—which, of course, is the main mystery—is a brief but violent fire in the basement dungeon of a BDSM bar above which Jake happens to rent an apartment. Two people die in this fire, and although they have no official ties, Jake’s friend on the Metropolitan Police asks his advice. Something is very weird about the fire, and about the man who seems to have started it.
Like the first book in this series, there is a fascinating and increasingly creepy mystery that brings both men and their special elemental skills into play.
More importantly, however, is the authors’ careful deep dive into the two men’s relationship. As with the first book, there is more on-page sex than I generally care about (but, again, very well done, and emotionally potent). There is no denying that these two men are interesting, and good, and OBVIOUSLY destined for each other. But the joy of books like this is watching the protagonists stumble into the truth that the reader can already see.
What I took away from this second episode is that these two men are special, and they need to be very careful about whom they let make use of their special talents. Not all of the bad guys interested in them are obviously bad; and not all the good guys (i.e. the government agencies who want their skills) are actually entirely good either.
Will they find the reason for the fire-related deaths? Will they get good jobs with benefits and security? Will they just admit what they feel for each other, already?
Very good. And I expect book 3 will be just as good....more
Entwined (Darklight, book 3) By Sean Ian O'Meidhir & Connal Braginsky Ninestars Press, 2024 Five stars
Well, everything the authors (and the mysterious coEntwined (Darklight, book 3) By Sean Ian O'Meidhir & Connal Braginsky Ninestars Press, 2024 Five stars
Well, everything the authors (and the mysterious corporate spook known as HR) withheld in the previous two books comes pouring out in this one, flooding the reader with more information and emotional baggage than anyone might have imagined. However weird you expected it to be, it goes way beyond. Somehow, it still all makes sense. Mostly.
It’s almost impossible to write about this in any detail without spoilers, so I’ll leave it to the readers to discover the rather overwhelming direction in which the story veers. As simple as “Rescue” was, “Entwined” is the opposite. Cameron joins Nathen in the employ of Impetus, and together with Syn the boys head off on a road trip that takes them first to Texas, and then to Louisiana—and right into the middle of what appears to be a magical war between fae factions. The series’ lingering sci-fi tech fantasy turns into a full-on paranormal nightmare.
But it’s not all action, or not physical action, anyway. Nathen and Cam, and a new friend named August, find themselves sucked into a dreamlike experience that is as philosophical and existentialist as paranormal surprise can be. Both Nathen’s and Cameron’s psyches are plumbed and exposed, but then woven back into the larger story of their unique bond and the shared quest they seem to have been handed without their consent. Indeed, consent becomes a critical lynchpin in this story as Cameron and Nathen struggle to cope, their love and their differences becoming points contention as the unbelievable narrative unfolds around them.
It is better to let yourself go and just read—not trying to make sense of anything. There is a logic and a linearity here that works best when you allow the authors’ imaginations simply flow over you.
I felt that Syn rather got short shrift in this book (and she lets you know it); but both Cameron and Nathen continue to be touching amusing and highly appealing characters.
The ending is an all-out cliffhanger, foreshadowed in the prologue, that is a totally sneaky way to get us to buy the next book when it appears. ...more
Rescue (Darklight, book 2) By Sean Ian O'Meidhir & Connal Braginsky Ninestars Press, 2023 Five stars
The unexpected charm of this series is that the threeRescue (Darklight, book 2) By Sean Ian O'Meidhir & Connal Braginsky Ninestars Press, 2023 Five stars
The unexpected charm of this series is that the three protagonists (“heroes”) are both highly skilled and in over their heads. Cameron is a mage with unimaginable telepathic powers; Syn is a cybergenius who makes her living hacking into unhackable networks for a fee; Nathen is a longtime online friend of Syn’s, and also Cameron’s boyfriend. Oh, and an autistic vampire.
The core plot of book two in this series is that Kat, a friend of Syn and Cameron’s, is kidnaped. Using Nathen’s skills (and some hired help), they set out to rescue their friend, and to figure out why the abduction happened in the first place.
We learn rather a lot of dark stuff about Cameron’s past, which sheds some light on the peculiarities of the present—including, why a major American corporation is creating vampires (without permission) because of their high-tech skills? High-tech begins to mix with the occult, and there are murmurs of fae involvement—although nobody but Cam has actually ever seen a fae.
It's all pretty confusing (especially the computer geek conversations), and that’s the point of it. Our three young protagonists are sort of like a gay magical Hardy Boys trio (Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys?), up against things they can’t quite grasp. Even weirder, Nathen’s mysterious corporate boss, known only as HR, may or may not be on their side.
We only get glimpses of a sentient corporate database known as SpArk, and an evil sadist named Todd Jacks, who is supposed to be dead but apparently isn’t. All of this seems to be a set up for book three, which I’ll start as soon as I post this review.
What nobody seems to quite grasp is that Nathen Hale and Cameron Corazon have a blood-related bond that has created something unique, the potential of which is as yet untested (except accidentally). I rather suspect that our young lovers are a secret weapon that only they can control, and in the third book of this series that will come to the fore.
Not a book to inspire trust in corporations, the Darklight series will inspire one’s belief in the power of love. ...more
Desert Reunion (Dante & Jazz Mystery 3) By Michael Craft Questover Press, 2024 Five stars
Each mystery in this three-books-so-far series offers us an engaDesert Reunion (Dante & Jazz Mystery 3) By Michael Craft Questover Press, 2024 Five stars
Each mystery in this three-books-so-far series offers us an engaging take on the death-in-a-luxury-rental theme. It’s a perfect scenario for this unique American resort spot: affluent, possibly self-indulgent, folks arrive in the desert, settle into a beautiful modern house, and then something goes terribly wrong. The crimes all unreel before our eyes with a kind of stately progress. Maybe stately isn’t quite right (after all, it’s not Downton Abbey); but there is a precision to Michael Craft’s storytelling that allows you to breathe, to consider the facts, and to study the characters as they play their assigned roles. Even if his characters rush about, Craft’s action never feels frenzied.
Dante is a concierge for a luxury rental agency, his job giving him access to the nicest houses and the most interesting clients. Jazz is a former police detective, working as a private eye (another great tradition). Once enemies, now friends, they help each other in personal ways as well as professional ones. Both of them have faced setbacks and recovered from them; now they seem solid, ready to face whatever life throws at them. It’s important that the personal side of Dante and Jazz’s overlapping lives is as significant in our enjoyment of Craft’s book as the mystery is.
Dante O’Donnell and Jazz Friendly aren’t the most likely detective duo, either. I can’t really imagine them as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot poking about St. Mary Mead, and yet I rather want to. The greater Palm Springs area, a glamorous miracle rising out of the western desert, is as mythical in its own way as the quaint English village in which so many dire things have happened in British detective fiction. Dante and Jazz are modern American avatars of a cherished literary type in England. Their stories come richly flavored with a sense of place, deeply immersed in a distinctive American locale that is unlike any other.
Craft’s careful, polished writing is not about page-turning or breathless anticipation. The narrative is both cinematic and thoughtful, laying out a big picture and then filling in details that bring the scenario to life. Dante’s new domesticity with his boyfriend Isandro is as important as Jazz’s evolving relationship with Wade Blade, a rising star in the contemporary art world. The fact that Jazz’s ex-husband Christopher and their daughter Emma are part of Dante’s life, too, says a great deal about the importance of community in this story. Both Dante and Jazz have found secure places in the world, and it gives them the confidence to approach even murder with equanimity.
The reunion of the book’s title is a fraught gathering of two long-estranged sides of an old California family, brought together by DNA testing. From the very beginning, the players in this drama defy expectations with their behavior, keeping both Dante and Jazz off-balance until the crime is uncovered. I suppose it is a cautionary tale in this age of newly-discovered family connections made possible by the dual siren songs of science and technology. Craft handles all of the moving parts of his novel with wry humor and a deft hand.
It is critical that the personal stories that make this series so special are not static. Even when the mystery is solved, our interest in this place and these people is not finished. We want to see them again, and to find out what happens next. ...more
Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Sequel to the House in the Cerulean Sea) By T.J. Klune Tor Publishing, 2024 Five stars
As strange and fanciful as the book that Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Sequel to the House in the Cerulean Sea) By T.J. Klune Tor Publishing, 2024 Five stars
As strange and fanciful as the book that preceded it, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” first establishes the backstory—what happened before Arthur Parnassus became the father of six magical children on an eccentric island—and then continues the story after Linus Baker has become a second advocate for those children, and the two fathers take in a seventh child. As with the first book, it shows a maturity and elegance of writing, while carrying on on the madcap humor mixed with heartbreaking tenderness that kept me chuckling and my eyes wet for much of the narrative.
“Somewhere Beyond the Sea” digs deeply into why Arthur desperately wants to give these kids (who are, after all, just kids) everything denied to him. We learn of the misery at the hands of a cruel DICOMY schoolmaster (Division in Charge of Magical Youth) that shaped Arthur Parnassus, and also why that misery couldn’t keep him away from the island.
Ultimately, it’s not about magic, but about difference and how governments (ours included) cling to a bureaucratic pretense of keeping children safe in order to suppress them and grind them into conformity so that the majority community is neither afraid nor uncomfortable. Klune is explicit in his dedication of this book to trans people, but his tale’s paean embraces anyone who has been made to feel excluded and other, especially when young, especially when part of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow.
The fire hidden within Parnassus is akin to the author’s own fire, his need to tell this story that, while entertaining and exciting, is also dark and serious and upsetting. The writing is wonderful, the characters are wonderful, and the plot gives you hope against hope that prejudice can be beaten down by love, given a chance. ...more
Spun! (Shamwell tales 4) By J.L. Merrow Riptide Publishing, 2017 Five stars
I am a longtime fan of J.L. Merrow, whose cozy British love stories never failSpun! (Shamwell tales 4) By J.L. Merrow Riptide Publishing, 2017 Five stars
I am a longtime fan of J.L. Merrow, whose cozy British love stories never fail to touch me. This, the fourth of the Shamwell stories, which I seem to have missed when it first appeared, is no different. It is sweet, it is heartfelt, it is funny, and it made me cry.
The story concerns a slutty, beautiful young man named David, who manages to get himself fired for his inability to control himself at a company party. He ends up a ways from London in the little village of Shamwell, renting the spare room in a tiny house from Rory, the forty-one-year old divorced father of two small children.
David is not much impressed by Rory at first—in much the same way the reader is not much impressed with David. It’s not David’s promiscuity that’s at issue, but his general carelessness about consequences and others’ feelings. Rory, on the other hand, is careful of others’ feelings to the point that he allows himself to be something of a doormat. His is a postman and loves his job. He gets to see his kids every other weekend. He loves his job and his children. It’s all he needs.
There are quite a few bisexuals in this story, which is, of course, the point. David is not one of them, but both his new boss and his boss’s partner are. Then there’s Rory, who thinks of himself as straight, until he has the flamboyant David settle into his spare room. Amazingly, they get along from the very start, and that’s the complication that triggers the whole story.
Rory, who seems so ordinary to David at first, is in fact an extraordinary person. He just gets no credit for it, but J.L. Merrow makes sure we understand. She also takes the time to make us understand David. Among other things, the author lets us understand how a loving parent can unintentionally mess up their child’s life without in any way meaning to. Love is not a superpower; it does not make one perfect. “Spun” is full of imperfect people, and we learn to care about all of them, and forgive those who need it. ...more
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (Doomsday books 1) By K.J. Charles Sourcebooks, 2021 Five stars
The bonus pleasure in reading one of K.J. Charles’s The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (Doomsday books 1) By K.J. Charles Sourcebooks, 2021 Five stars
The bonus pleasure in reading one of K.J. Charles’s “regency” romances is that you always learn something. Charles is a very good writer, and captures the feel of period language and manners as skillfully as anyone since Georgette Heyer (Heyer, but gayer!). She manages the prejudices and legal dangers of British reality in the early 1800s very neatly, without letting it bog down either her stories or her readers’ enjoyment of her fictional world. At the same time, she always engages with class and/or race differences in ways that are very much in tune with today, without feeling forced or false.
A young London lawyer meets up at a dim, hidden tavern with a longhaired working man known to the lawyer only as “Kent.” To Kent, he is “London.” They have had a lovely week together, meeting at night and enjoyed each other to the full. Then it all falls apart—for reasons that are frustrating but entirely expected. The lawyer, Gareth, expects that he’ll never see his Kent again, which sort of breaks his heart. Already at this moment we see Gareth for all his weaknesses—timid, snobbish, mistrustful, lonely; but we also see that he is special in the eyes of the mysterious Kentish workman.
And then Gareth receives a letter, announcing that his father—whom he hasn’t seen in twenty years—is dead, and he is now Sir Gareth Inglis, Baronet, with all the property, money, and privilege attached to the title.
Where we (and the new baronet) find ourselves for the rest of the book is in Romney Marsh, the vast waterlogged flatland along the Kentish coast, in which Gareth’s estate (and childhood home) is situated. The author immediately makes it sound as bleak and unappealing as possible—and then proceeds to make us fall in love with the place and its inhabitants (animal and human). We begin to see Romney Marsh in a new way as Gareth desperately tries to make sense of his fate and his abandonment by his father at six years old.
Needless to say, Sir Gareth Inglis soon runs a cropper of the Doomsday clan, a family of coastal smugglers as ancient as the Inglis baronetcy itself. At the head of the clan, under the iron hand of the matriarch Sybil Doomsday, is Josiah, known as Joss. Of course, Joss Doomsday is Kent, Gareth’s anonymous paramour from the tavern in London.
This is the stuff of romance, and K.J. Charles handles it so very well, even if we are half expecting it. Joss and Gareth are opposites, physically and culturally, and yet we know for a fact that they are good, and somehow, they are each other’s destiny. That’s the mindset of a romance enthusiast, and the task of the romance writer is to make it so without seeming trite or dull or over-obvious.
The characters in this book are as rich as Dickens (and I’ve read all of Dickens), and the plot is complex and fascinating and plausible given the time and place. It is also full of humor. Because it is a modern m/m romance, there’s plenty of intimate shenanigans; but I’m in that minority who doesn’t care about that. It’s everything else that makes me love this book—and Charles’s books in general.
There are more books in this Doomsday series, and I’d bet that they’re all as good as this one. ...more
Awakening (Darklight book 1) By Sean Ian O'Meidhir & Connal Braginsky Ninestar Press, 2020 Five stars
You had me at gay autistic vampire.
Nathen Hale (didAwakening (Darklight book 1) By Sean Ian O'Meidhir & Connal Braginsky Ninestar Press, 2020 Five stars
You had me at gay autistic vampire.
Nathen Hale (did the irony of this name register?) is a computer genius, and also (as he’s just discovered) on the spectrum. The surprise is, sitting in this anonymous corporate conference room, that he is also apparently a vampire. And he doesn’t know how that happened.
Nathen assumed that this was a world without either magic or monsters, and was content to live a quiet, if lonely, life with his mother in Marin County in their family’s Victorian mansion. Apparently, the healthcare benefits offered by this corporation were attractive, given that his mother’s treatment for MS was going to be costly and longterm. The rest, however, is a little fuzzy.
Nathen’s new employer is very concerned about a cyber-terrorist group that calls themselves the Sons of Discord, who have infected the software systems in a San Francisco children’s hospital and demanded a ransom. Dealing with this is part of his job, his skills as a cyber-hacker heightened by his new vampiric powers.
Then Nathen gets a message from his longtime online friend Syn, who is also very concerned about the Sons of Discord and their attack on the hospital. Still vague about his new powers, he breaks protocol and goes to her apartment for a gathering intended to discuss this problem and consider how to help. There he meets Cameron Corazon, a tall redhead with magical powers the likes of which Nathen has never imagined.
What I loved about this book is that the plot is important, and while the instant and unexpected connection between Nathen and Cameron goes beyond mere attraction, the crisis they are trying to avert at the children’s hospital remains front and center.
There’s a weird Hitchcockian darkness to the plot, leavened by the rom-com goofiness of Nathen’s autistic perception of everything around him. Nathen doesn’t worry about how others see the world—only about how HE sees the world around him. Cameron, however, is an enormous distraction, and both of these young men quickly begin to understand that their connection is something nobody—cyber terrorists or sinister corporate suits—anticipated.
My favorite line toward the end is “It probably doesn’t matter,” voiced by Cameron. Rather than a cliffhanger, the authors cleverly drop this line into a casual conversation, just before the reader finds out that, after all, this is only the first book in a series.
I’ve bought the whole series because it is such a fascinating and fun take on vampires, while also being a high-tension adventure and a great gay romance. Boom....more
Sapphire Sunset (Sapphire Cove 1) By C. Travis Rice (Christopher Rice) Blue Box Press, 2022 Five stars
I really loved this. It’s a good romance for sure, Sapphire Sunset (Sapphire Cove 1) By C. Travis Rice (Christopher Rice) Blue Box Press, 2022 Five stars
I really loved this. It’s a good romance for sure, but more than that, it is wonderfully written. It’s also complex, filled with great characters, thought-provoking ideas and issues, and enough emotional power to move me to tears more than once. The icing on the cake is the humor, sometimes laugh-out-loud, that Rice brings to his prose.
It’s been a while since I read Christopher Rice. I have loved earlier books of his, then hated two books I bought—one was DNF, and one I deleted without reading it. I don’t ask a lot, but there are unforgivable things for me, and Rice’s being a gay author was no protection. So, it had been a while, and I picked up “Sapphire Sunset,” part of a four-book series written by Rice under a semi-pseudonym, apparently to brand his gay romance books—which I guess would be inappropriate for his serious readers? Regardless, I have already bought the rest of the four-part series on the strength of this one.
In some ways this is a classic m/m set up: blue collar ex-Marine Logan Murdoch takes a security job at a California luxury resort in order to pay his father’s medical bills. On his first night, he meets Connor Harcourt, the grandson of the owner of Sapphire Cove. It’s Connor’s graduation party from UC Irvine, and Logan is impressed that this privileged young man is very clearly a caring host and a considerate boss. Logan is six-foot-plus of handsome muscle. Connor is five-foot-four of fey blue-eyed prettiness. Ach, the stereotypes are important, because they become one of the critical plot threads that wind through the narrative. This book doesn’t just toss an archetypal gay class and sexuality scenario at you: it dives deep into that scenario in every possible way.
If there is such a thing as a profound romance novel, then this is it. This is as good as the books of British m/m novelist Harper Fox (who I think is the best).
Connor and Logan are marvelous, richly developed young men. Moreover, their friends and family are given equally lavish treatment, so the book is full of people you get to know and care about (or hate, depending). Nobody is perfect, but nobody is undeserving of some measure of compassion.
Rice is a gay man, and his writing reflects an understanding of the complexity of the “gay community” beyond what most writers can achieve. Given the legacy he has to live up to (Anne Rice was his mother), he more than does himself proud. ...more
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