Cursed (Magus Malefica 2) By J.P. Jackson Ninestar Press, 2022 Four stars
This, the second of the Coven series, is even more fun than the first book was. Cursed (Magus Malefica 2) By J.P. Jackson Ninestar Press, 2022 Four stars
This, the second of the Coven series, is even more fun than the first book was. It is a little hard to wrap my mind around the gentle city of Edmonton, Alberta, as a hotbed of witches and fae magic, but the creative minds of authors always take me to new places.
Cameron Habersham is not adjusting well to being a fae—and a royal one, no less. The classic case of “be careful what you wish for” turned into a double whammy, because his not-quite-yet boyfriend, Everton Lilch, is a werewolf. On the other hand, Cam’s best friend, Devid Khandelwal is doing much better with his witch powers, and has a good—maybe, too good—business going, while living a happy life with his big ginger bear boyfriend Toliver Mack.
The crux of this action-filled book—which also has a good share of youthful humor and fascinating detail about the fae and magical worlds of Canada—is how these two longtime friends, Dev and Cam, set out to manage the dramatic changes in their lives and find some sort of normality. Not an easy task.
With the collapse of the local guardian coven, Dev and Tully, and their friend Sparks (who is in nursing school) find themselves in the position of starting something new to balance and monitor the control of the shadow world in their region. To do this, they will have to form some sort of alliance with the local werewolf pack, of which Ev Lilch is the alpha.
J.P. Jackson weaves all the threads of this plot, while focusing on his young characters and their individual traumas, into a vivid and compelling narrative. The chief malefactors of the first book have not simply disappeared, and they, too have a large role here.
Jackson has his own carefully considered vision of what magic is and does, and I confess that I rather like this variation. In the end, he cares about his people, and their stories are what bring the larger tale of dark versus light to life.
Plus, it seems there will be a next book—because I still have questions! ...more
Sapphire Dawn (Sapphire Cove 4) C. Travis (Christopher) Rice Published by Blue Box Press, 2024 Five stars
C. Travis Rice knows the ropes of the tropes andSapphire Dawn (Sapphire Cove 4) C. Travis (Christopher) Rice Published by Blue Box Press, 2024 Five stars
C. Travis Rice knows the ropes of the tropes and manages them exceedingly well. If adopting a very translucent pen name is what it took for him to embrace the formulae of the gay romance novel, then I’m all for it. Even if it embarrasses him, he’s really good at this.
Richard Merriweather is the new character in this serial saga: a Martha-Stewart-level party planner who has decided to tie his California office to Sapphire Cove. Recovering from the ugly end of his marriage (which becomes an important plotline in the book), Richard is good friends with Jonas Jacobs, number two at the resort. The character we’ve met before is Donnie Bascomb, old friend of Logan Murdoch (head of security, whose story was in book 1). Donnie is a porn star turned film impresario, and will be acting as Logan’s best man for the wedding we’ve all been waiting for.
The catch, or trigger, here is that Donnie is supposed to work closely with Richard Merriweather to plan the wedding of the century, but being who he is, he hits on Richard in the men’s room before realizing who he is. Donnie and Richard seem to be totally oil and water, but Mr. Rice carefully lays out the truths of these two men until we can all see that they are the unlikely perfect pair. His skill with character development sets the emotional tone of the book; while his ability to weave crazy plots into something plausible and important is on full speed.
Like all the books in this series, Sapphire Dawn reads like the script of a really juicy limited television series, with strong visuals and a cinematic sense of action. I loved every minute of it, especially Donnie Bascomb. To my delight, the very final paragraph of the book seems to make it clear that there will be another installment. Huzzah....more
Sapphire Storm (book 3 of Sapphire Cove) C. Travis (aka Christopher) Rice Published by Blue Box Press, 2023 Five stars
First, let me make it clear that I Sapphire Storm (book 3 of Sapphire Cove) C. Travis (aka Christopher) Rice Published by Blue Box Press, 2023 Five stars
First, let me make it clear that I am a huge fan of m/m romance. To have a writer of Christopher Rice’s caliber (under the pen name C. Travis Rice) tackle the tropes and challenges of this genre is a joy to behold!
The plot of this book is outrageous, both an homage and a spoof of the excesses of Hollywood and the wild creatures of both Los Angeles and Orange County, CA. The denouement of the book is even more outrageous, and I suspect that in a less skilled hand, it might not have worked. Rice believes in what he’s writing, and because of that he makes the reader care and believe.
Each of the books in this four-part series, set at an opulent beachside resort in Orange County (south of Los Angeles), has a different romantic pairing dynamic. This is the age-gap book—with forty-three-year-old Ethan Blake and twenty-five-year Roman Walker. Significantly, both of these are changed names, as both men have fled an unhappy past that has shaped (scarred) their life. The backstories are really important, and I will give no clues.
Blake is an award-winning pastry chef at Sapphire Cove. He’s finally caught his dream job, and loves working at this particular hotel. Roman is a professional gym bunny and trainer, the personal fitness guru for an old-time Hollywood goddess and her rising star daughter, who is also his best friend.
Although it is Blake’s connection to Roman that serves as catalyst for the romance, it is the larger geographically specific plot (i.e. Hollywood and its madness) that forms the warp and weft of the narrative. Or maybe it’s more like a spider’s web. The two men’s backstories get caught up in the machinations of the aging celebrity and her daughter. Rice’s skill with character and dialogue keep this whole thing from becoming a hysterical mess, and it is both emotionally powerful and absurdly soap-operatic. Like Dynasty.
Rice offers up a note that he was writing this at the time his mother died—a major celebrity who was devoted to her gay son and influenced his gifts as a writer. Nobody was better at a complicated plot than Anne Rice, and you can see that in “Sapphire Storm.”...more
Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? By Liam Livings Published by Fluffy Cat Publications, 2024 Four stars
Liam Livings doesn’t write epics or wildly imaginShould Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? By Liam Livings Published by Fluffy Cat Publications, 2024 Four stars
Liam Livings doesn’t write epics or wildly imaginative fantasies. He writes real stories about real people. The fact that they’re British people young enough to be my children makes them slightly exotic for this old American, but their realness is essential in the book’s success.
Livings’ Characters are engaging and three-dimensional; but they’re also slightly heartbreaking, since none of them have gotten through life unscathed. Under the surface of a straightforward romantic story lie layers of sadness, uncertainty, and fear. What enlivens and flavors this book is watching the characters work their way up through the layers (some of which they don’t even realize) toward the light of the happy ending we are all waiting for.
Drew Barton and William Grateley are the same age. In fact, they went to a private secondary school together a dozen years ago. In a classic romance trope, Drew was horribly bullied by William when they were adolescents. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that, as we learn. The less typical trope is that William was strongly attracted to Drew, and the fear of that reality triggered the bad behavior that scarred them both.
At a school reunion during an ill-timed snowstorm, William meets Drew again. It is one of the most wonderfully awkward, even painful, scenes in the book. But it is critical. The thing is that both of these young men have found a certain happiness in their lives. They have grown along very different paths with very different family experiences. Drew has perhaps found more overt joy along his path, but both he and William leave much buried and unexamined.
Until that reunion during the snowstorm I mentioned. For me, the gently ironic pleasure was watching these two young men, beginning to feel that they’re getting older (thirty!), begin to really grow up emotionally and to look closely at what happiness is.
I always like Livings’ books because I know he has seen what he writes about. I’m sure of myself because I’ve seen it, too—just a generation earlier. Things change, but not everything. ...more
Dust Bowl Magic (Carnival of Mysteries, Season 2) BY Z. A. Maxfield Published 2024 by ZAM I am Five stars
This is a very good one, although I confess the Dust Bowl Magic (Carnival of Mysteries, Season 2) BY Z. A. Maxfield Published 2024 by ZAM I am Five stars
This is a very good one, although I confess the ending felt like there should be another book to explain exactly what happened. I’d read it.
Dr. Lucas Hamilton is a hot-shot thoracic surgeon who discovered he had a daughter when she was fifteen; and then moved from Los Angeles to Santa Fe to protect her.
The Carnival in this book is not one we get to know well—although we know it well enough, I suppose, from all the other books. In Maxfield’s take, it is a critical pivot point dropping Lucas into the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma in 1935, where he meets Dr. Sumner Delano. Now I have to say that Sumner Delano is a great character, intelligently crafted with a bit of actual history spun into his fictional being. This is where the magic of the Carnival steps in: each of these men, a good doctor in the moment he lives, is missing something in his life. The Carnival helps them find it.
This book is a particularly “Twilight Zone” episode, where Lucas’s displacement in time and space makes him see the world in a new way. Sumner, on the other hand, gets to see possibilities that he thought were closed to him forever. As always, the Carnival knows what is needed. It seeks balance; it favors justice; and of course it always seems to care about love.
It is so much fun to see how each author uses the Carnival in a way that complements their story and their particular style of storytelling. It is never dull, and very often a surprise. ...more
Silver Shield (Jimmy McSwain’s Early Files 1) By Adam Carpenter Published by JMS Books, 2024 Five stars
I loved the Jimmy McSwain books, and thus was readSilver Shield (Jimmy McSwain’s Early Files 1) By Adam Carpenter Published by JMS Books, 2024 Five stars
I loved the Jimmy McSwain books, and thus was ready to embrace this novella, which is, essentially, his origin story. While we know what it was that sparked Jimmy’s career, and his obsession with his father’s murder, we had never learned just how he became a private investigator. This book does just that, and also opens up some personal insight into Jimmy’s status as a romantic loner.
All the people in Jimmy’s life are there, people who we see again and again in the course of the later series. The central emotional theme is still Jimmy himself, and how he decided the path he was going to follow. It’s short (just 88 pages) and sweet, and written in that distinctive way we’ve come to expect from Adam Carpenter. ...more
The Guncle By Steven Rowley Published by Putnam/Penguin, 2021 Five stars
Boy, this would make a great movie. Both smartly hilarious and tenderly heartbreaThe Guncle By Steven Rowley Published by Putnam/Penguin, 2021 Five stars
Boy, this would make a great movie. Both smartly hilarious and tenderly heartbreaking, “The Guncle” is the story of Patrick O’Hara, a retired TV sitcom star who takes in his brother’s two young children after their mother’s death.
What I loved about this book in particular is that Patrick is in some ways a stereotypical Hollywood “A-Gay,” and the author really leans into that. Snarky and clever, Patrick is still young, but in that dangerous time of life (early forties) that is a danger zone in Hollywood. He has withdrawn into his lavish house in Palm Springs, and has all but become a recluse, including from his family.
He loves his brother Greg (and their more difficult older sister Clara), and his parents—all back in Connecticut; but Sara, his brother’s late wife, was Patrick’s best friend long before she met his brother and became his sister-in-law. Everybody is reeling from the death of this young woman, who by all accounts was wonderful, including Patrick. Maybe especially Patrick, because he was so far away during her illness.
There are plenty of references to “Auntie Mame,” as well as other sly pop culture insertions that the author sometimes doesn’t even bother to note. I’m old enough to be Patrick’s father, so I got them all. Maybe. It is this slightly camp edge to Patrick and his life that drives the emotions and the plot of this story. I laughed a lot; but I also found myself weeping a lot. There’s an enormous quantity of love and loss here, grief enough to touch every character and, ultimately, to bind them together.
In the end, it’s the story of a gay man who spent his life feeling “less than” in America, and who thrived and succeeded in spite of it. It is the man within himself, a man that Patrick has stopped seeing, that rises to the occasion to heal a broken family and bring them joy. ...more
Rating: 5 stars Review By Ulysses Dietz, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team Name of Book: A World Away Series: Learning to Breathe, boo Rating: 5 stars Review By Ulysses Dietz, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team Name of Book: A World Away Series: Learning to Breathe, book 1 Author: Carole Cummings, Carole Cummings Publisher: Gallorious Readers LLC Release date: 2023 Page Count:426 Genre: Sci-fi, paranormal, m/m romance
I remember reading a version of this book some years ago under the title “Relativity: Lateral Parallax.” This recent re-boot of that book has a more romantic cover and title, as well as a lushly romantic epilogue, clearly targeting readers’ expectations. I was glad to have the chance to reread this book and enjoy the authors’ ambitious mashup of sci-fi and paranormal romance.
Camilo Almenara is the son of possibly the most powerful non-elected man in America, Col. Caesar Almenara. His best friend since childhood is Nathan Duffy. As is necessary in books like this, Cam and Nathan, nicknamed Puff by his friends, because of a childhood misunderstanding of his surname, are semi-secretly in love with each other. That is the thread that runs all the way through this book.
The romantic inevitability of these two college students has been complicated by two twists of fate: the sudden death of Cam’s mother when he was a teenager, and a near-fatal accident with a drunk driver that left Nathan partially paralyzed and Cam unscathed.
A brilliant world-building twist from the authors tells us that this is a world in which magical power, known as talent, is innate in some significant minority of humans, and is inherited in a generation-skipping pattern. The unhappier aspect of this is that, above a certain magical talent level, young people are automatically drafted into the military to help fight a global war (East vs. West) that has gone on for decades.
All of this excellently written narrative takes a surreal turn when the book abruptly veers into classified military research and quantum theory far beyond my comprehension. Suddenly Cam and Nathan are no longer just star-crossed lovers, but unwitting players in a terrifying sci-fi drama with military implications that had my head spinning.
It’s very well written and utterly spell-binding. Plus, the young central characters are marvelous, and their romance is never forgotten; indeed it becomes one of the catalysts for the action.
It’s an ambitious concept that could have failed in less skilled hands. I’m already reading the second book in the series. ...more
Rating: 5 stars Review By Ulysses Dietz, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team Name of Book: Vine Series: Ré Island series Author: Fearne Rating: 5 stars Review By Ulysses Dietz, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team Name of Book: Vine Series: Ré Island series Author: Fearne Hill Publisher: the author Release date: 2024 Page Count: 236 Genre: m/m romance
This is the third book set on the Ile de Ré, north of Bordeaux on the west coast of France. Aside from the salt flats and the oyster beds of Ré, there are the vineyards, and it is in this locale that the third romance takes place.
I loved the premise of this: a popular English cable-TV series called “My Big Gay Adventures,” has zeroed in on a five-acre vineyard that has not been harvested in a while. Having followed a gay couple—Caspian Watts and his husband Leigh Pumkin—for several highly successful years as they undertake a wide range of skill-building adventures (French chef, Formula 3 racecar drivers, master plumbers), the show’s producers have decided that Caspian needs to become a vintner. The unseen premise of the show is that Caspian and his husband have divorced over Leigh’s adultery with Jonas, the show’s main producer and Caspian’s former best friend.
The flip side is Max LaForge, who, unbeknownst to the Brits, owns the vineyard. We met max in the earlier two books, but never learned much about him. Here the author lets us get to know him well. Max lives in one of the gatehouses to the property, and works with his father and brother managing the family’s generations-old oyster beds. But Max is also on the autism spectrum, and copes with the challenges of life among the “normal” in various creative ways.
It's a great set-up. Almost predictably, as Caspian seeks to distance himself from his ex-husband and ex-friend, during what is intended to be the reality show’s final season, he manages to quite literally stumble across Max late one rainy night.
These two oddly-matched men forge a bond—Max huge and powerful, but with a brain that works differently from everyone else’s; and Caspian, petite and fragile, with profound anxiety and an addiction to cutting himself. We move back and forth between their two perspectives, rooting for them all the way. There is painful darkness in this story, but not a huge amount of suspense—and that’s fine by me. There are some plot twists, mostly due to the unexpected nastiness of a couple of the characters—a distinct lack of candor is revealed most painfully, and it adds a sharpness to the otherwise charming arc of the romance.
Blind Tiger (The Pride 1) By Jordan L. Hawk Published by the author, 2021 Five stars
I bought the second book in this series, newly-published, having appaBlind Tiger (The Pride 1) By Jordan L. Hawk Published by the author, 2021 Five stars
I bought the second book in this series, newly-published, having apparently missed this one a few years ago. I love being back in “Hexworld,” with its witches, hexmakers, and animal-shifter familiars.
For this series we’re in Chicago in the 1920s. The two major motifs here are the crime gangs initiated by Prohibition (the Volstead Act), and the psychological aftermath of U.S. soldiers who fought in World War I. Hawk handles the lingo and the feel of the time very well, and her characters (even if they’re shifters) fit well into the imaginative story she’s created.
The Pride is a speakeasy run by a family of shifter familiars who call themselves Gatti. They are very obviously not blood relatives, but they share a common story: all were orphaned and abandoned because their animal nature is that of large predatory cats. Interestingly, race per se, and sexual orientation, are less problematic than the idea of having someone who can shift into a lion or (as is the case with our hero, Alistair) a cheetah.
Alistair, handsome and proud, but wounded by both his family story and his war experience, finds his counterpoint in the shorter, plumper, redheaded Sam Cunningham. Sam’s own emotional barriers come from an unhappy family situation with roots in religious bias. Having run away to Chicago to escape his family, he finds shelter with a cousin, Eldon Cunningham.
Sam is a witch—but doesn’t know it because his family always frowned on magic, even as they used it the way everybody in this world does. Alistair immediately recognizes that Sam is not only magical, but is in fact HIS witch. This presents new problems, complicated by the fact that Alistair and Sam are drawn to each other from the get-go.
Then a brutal murder sends Sam into the arms of the Gatti family, and in the midst of this hodgepodge of big-cat shifters he finds a kind of family he’s never known before. What ensues is a romance interrupted by urban adventure and flavored with the unique spice of Hexworld…
I’ve already started the second book, “Lion’s Tail.” ...more
Pining for the Prince (Fang & Fae 1) By Rebecca Cohen Published by the author Five stars
The first of what promises to be an entertaining series, we are wPining for the Prince (Fang & Fae 1) By Rebecca Cohen Published by the author Five stars
The first of what promises to be an entertaining series, we are welcomed to a modern London mostly familiar, but for the fact that magical creatures not only exist, but are to some degree integrated into the human world.
The human world, however, is not of much concern, because the protagonists in this comic drama/mystery are Gwillam Hilt, a 200-year old vampire, and his business partner Hyax, who is a Fae prince and even older than Gwil.
The opening salvo in the plot is Gwil being asked by a rich and powerful vampire—Mr. Flume—to retrieve a long-lost family heirloom from the British Museum. By stealing it. This introduces the reader to the irritations and complexities of dealing with the vampire social hierarchy in Gwil’s world, where his only status comes from a fairly important sire, and the fact that his sister, also a vampire, married up into the vampire aristocracy.
The next major complication appears when Gwil has to break the news to Hyax, his Fae partner. The obvious problem is that the Fae have a keen dislike of vampires in general. The less obvious problem is that Gwil has a profound crush on Hyax, who has been his best friend for years. The fact that Hyax has a similar crush on Gwil, but fears acting on it for more or less the same reasons as Gwill, adds another frisson of romantic nonsense that should be catnip to people like me who love books like this.
I won’t spoil the fun by telling you anything more about the various little plot twists that ratchet up both the fun and the anxiety in the action. We get to see the skill of Gwil and Hyax as a detective team, but also their vulnerability when dealing with the prejudices and byzantine politics of the world of magical creatures. We see a world that can’t help but evoke that of Hogwarts and Muggles, but one which is entirely fresh and different. For all the humor generously salted through the plot, there’s more than enough emotional insecurity and danger to keep things on edge without making it too stressful.
Hyax and Gwil are great characters, and I expect some of the secondary roles will make welcome reappearances in future books in this series. Fingers crossed. ...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
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