One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance; LGBT
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 236 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the author. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Back in his hometown of Chicago after spending five years in eastern Europe slaying vampires, Gabe Vadas is having a hard time adjusting to life stateside and feeling at loose ends on a Friday night as he cruises the bars downtown. Not sure exactly what he's looking for, he ends up with way more than he bargained for. He bumps into the most doable guy in the place, quite literally, and as luck - and his neglected hormones -  would have it, the guy is a vampire.

It was supposed to be simple. He'd done it so many times before. All he had to do was track the vampire back to its nest and kill it.

Okay, so that plan didn't quite work out as he'd anticipated. Instead  he ends up getting shot in the ass by a tranq gun and when he comes to, he's sprawled out on the couch in the vampire's lair...well...apartment, really. And while the vampire is seriously brassed off, a rather expected response all things considered, he's not so much with the bitey and killy. A decidedly unexpected response. Though by no means unwelcome.

It helps that the vampire, who introduces himself as Harvey Feng when the bellowing and reprimands are done, is even more attractive up close than he was in a crowded bar.

Gabe may not completely trust that Harvey is exactly who he says he is at first, but the undeniable lust that burns between them is hot enough to raise even an undead's body temperature, and Gabe's willing to give the guy a chance to convince him that the vamps on this side of the world are a bit different than those he was used to. The bennies, after all, are to die for.


This is one of those books I'll remember more for how much fun I had while reading it than the actual story, or stories, themselves. Not that the stories were bad. They weren't at all. I just had such a good time with Gabe, Harvey, and all their friends that that's what sticks in my mind the most.

Though the book isn't really what I'd call an anthology, it's also not a single story either, exactly. The book is split into four novellas, and each has it's own self-contained mini plot arc, but from the first to the last each novella picks up where its predecessor left off and the events of everything that happen in each build the backstory and set the foundation for the external conflict in the next. Because of that, it ends up reading more like a single story split into four parts as opposed to four truly individual novellas.

The nice thing is that readers get to see the relationship and romance arc between Gabe and Harvey evolve as each story goes along. I liked that aspect a lot. In fact, I didn't want it to end, and I sincerely hope that Harper will return to them in the future, because I absolutely adored them both and there just seems to be so much potential for them to get themselves into further mischief.

And Gabe and Harvey getting themselves mired in mischief provides a hell of a good time reading.

I will say the writing style wasn't my favorite element of the book. Maybe because the stories were split into novellas, the plotlines of each felt a little thin. The narrative throughout each story also maintains a line-of-sight sort of style. There is quite a dearth of description in the narration and what little there is stays directly in the sight line of each plot thread as it develops. There just isn't much world building, scene description, or detailed action written out, including the sex scenes - which is a true shame, because they were as quirky and kinky as Gabe and Harvey were, and like the greedy fiend I am, I wanted more.

The style makes for a fast-paced tale, but for a reader like myself, who uses description and detail to visualize scenes and gets mental movie clips of events as they unfold, it limits the depth of what I pick up from a story and impacts my emotional connection to the plot.

It did not, however, limit my emotional connection to the characters and their relationship. I was fully engaged and delighted with Gabe, Harvey, and their small band of friends and frienemies.

Gabe and Harvey are the driving force of the book and I loved them to death. I also loved how Harper incorporated their personal histories into the arcs of the external conflicts of each novella's plot. By the end I felt I knew not only who they were as characters, but where they came from and what made them into the men they were at this point of their lives. It was all very nicely done.

It would be a crying shame if this is all there is for Gabe and Harvey. Not only because they're so awesome together, but also because I felt there were a few unanswered questions and unresolved story elements. Nothing that detracted from the read at all. It just made me even more hungry for more. More Gabe and Harvey and more from new-to-me author Lou Harper.

Quotables:

So far this had been the second weirdest day of his life, but as his mother used to say, strange was just something you haven't gotten used to yet.

"Good thing you're a lousy shot."
"You moved."
"Ah! My bad. Is that how hunters do it? Ask the deer to hold still?"

"May I suggest an official ceasefire? No slaying each other for a while. What do you say?"
Gabe screwed up his brows. "It's highly unorthodox. Why would I trust you?"
"Why would I trust you? I've abstained from killing you or even feeding on you twice so far. You, on the other hand, have shown far less self-control. You really don't have the moral high ground here."

"Get dressed. Hurry! We need to get you something decent to wear."
"What's wrong with my clothes?" Gabe protested.
"You have the fashion sense of a drunken marsupial. I'm surprised the fashion police haven't taken your gay card away. C'mon, chop-chop."

Genre: M/M Paranormal Romantic Suspense; M/M Paranormal Romance; LGBT
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 250 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Riptide Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Crawling under his desk to hide from his board of directors is perhaps not the most dignified course of action for museum curator Dr. Wyatt Case, but with members of the board looking to discuss the museum's dismal attendance and subsequent lack of revenue, it seems a prudent option at the time. Unfortunately, it wasn't a successful one.

With his job on the line and not one crowd-drawing idea to speak of, he needs a distraction from the growing probability of impending unemployment. Maybe that's why he lets his best friend Noah drag him out to an odd little gaslight-themed bar called The Gravedigger's Tavern.

Wyatt quickly realizes he should have been more specific about that whole distraction thing. Gravedigger's is definitely not his normal scene. Not that he's gotten laid enough in the last decade to really have a scene, but still. Hey, at least the bartender is cute.

Ash Lucroix, bartender extraordinaire, takes one look at the geeky-chic Wyatt and falls into serious like with a side-order of healthy lust. It's obvious he's not the history buff's normal type, but they hit it off so well that a night spent flirting and talking while he serves the man his drinks certainly put ideas in his head.

Gravedigger's puts ideas in Wyatt's head, too. Ideas for a new museum exhibit featuring history on hauntings and haunted buildings, as the tavern is purported to be. When Wyatt's research uncovers the building's sinister and macabre past, even the skeptical Ash is freaked out. Then a barroom brawl ends with Ash taking a bottle to the head, and suddenly his skepticism is taking a worse beating than his noggin.

Is Gravedigger's really haunted, or is the combination of a concussion and the stories Wyatt has dug up playing tricks on Ash's mind? More importantly, will they live long enough to find out?


Expectations can be so damaging to a reading experience. I went into this one with my mind set on paranormal romance and ended up almost doing this fabulously freaky story a grave disservice. Yes, it has paranormal elements and there is romance, but the relationship between Wyatt and Ash is never really the focus of the plot. At times it's even less than a secondary thread.

Personally, I got way more of a paranormal romantic suspense vibe from the story, and if I had gone into it with that mindset, I think a lot of the problems I ended up having with the romance (and there were several) wouldn't have ever been problems and this would have been pretty close to a five-star read for me. Right or wrong, as a reader I have a different set of wants and needs from the arc of a romance in the two different sub-genres. For romantic suspense, those were mostly met, for romance, they weren't even close.

When I remove my issues with the relationship arc, though, I have to say this book is haunting, chilling, and creepy-good entertainment. Hell, even with the issues, I didn't dislike anything I read.

Wyatt and Ash were solid lead characters, if a little lacking in depth and definition. The plot didn't leave a lot of room for complex personal or interpersonal issues, but as characters they were perfectly likable. They were even quite nice as a couple, though they aren't actually a couple throughout a good portion of the story (part of my problem with considering this a romance). It also wasn't a relationship that was brimming with visceral sexual chemistry - at least, not that I ever felt outside the few sex scenes - but it made up for that with an abundance of endearing charm.

The book has a nice assortment of colorful secondary characters that had more going for them in personality than they did in depth, but that worked for me. They added to the vibrant intensity of the story itself. I really enjoyed Wyatt's best friend Noah and his relationship with Ash's boss Caleb. They were fun together and had a lot of sweet scene-stealing moments. Actually, in a lot of ways, the arc of their romance was more traditionally satisfying than Wyatt and Ash's.

Where this book truly shines, though, is with the superlative storytelling surrounding the Gravedigger's ghostly woes. There is a wealth of interesting historical information throughout the book, some of it disturbing as all hell, and a conflict with a psychotic poltergeist that builds in intensity and horror as the story goes along. Everything is woven together so brilliantly that the blend of historical fact and imaginative fiction creates a stalwart foundation of horror and suspense that seeps into every nook and cranny of the narrative.

It starts with chilling subtlety, with much of the weirdness being written off because of Ash's head injury. It was all so fabulously realistic and believable in that regard. Then things begin to get increasingly weird as Ash draws more and more attention from the spectral sadist. Roux handled it perfectly, keeping me perched precariously on a razor's edge between the unbelievable: a haunted tavern and a serial killer ghost, and the entirely believable: a young man with head trauma.

It was really well done; atmospheric, disturbing, and more than a little scary.

With Halloween just around the corner there couldn't be a more perfect time for fans of creepy ghost stories to make note of this little bundle of spine-tingling fun. Just check your expectations at the front cover. There's some hot M/M sex, solid characters, an understated romance, and one mightily brassed off ghost with a yen for the freaky life. Enjoy.

Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 217 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


No one wants to get cases involving kids. It doesn't matter that it is the first real case Detective Matt Bennett had been given in the fifteen months since his world exploded, when he not only lost his partner, but had the full nature of his personal relationship with the man become public knowledge. No one wants kid cases.

And no one wants to be standing in the house of frantic parents before dawn on Christmas Day, watching his or her captain question those parents about the timeline of their six-year-old daughter's disappearance.

Regardless of what Matt wants or doesn't want, that's the grim reality of his situation. Or it is until he hears the first giggle, then the words that draw him down the stairs to the basement of the house. That's where Matt finds Abby. Where he sees her, speaks to her. And then his reality takes a detour into a hellish nightmare, because the missing little girl with the too-large eyes and so-pale skin vanishes just after she points him to her own corpse.

Forced off the case and onto administrative leave after he unwisely tells his captain he saw Abby's ghost, Matt is at lose ends. Then his best friend drags him to see Kiernan Fitzpatrick, a well-known medium. Ghostly encounter aside, Matt is highly skeptical, but even the staunchest skepticism falters under the weight of one small little ghost who keeps making her presence known.

To catch a killer, Matt is going to have to believe. In ghosts, in Kiernan, and maybe, after all this time and everything he's lost, in the power of love.


Wow, this book is just a whole lotta awesome. With layered, sympathetic characters who had complex personalities, flaws, and foibles, and a solid plot that ran my emotions through the wringer, this book delivered pure reading entertainment. The romance arc was well-paced, with a relationship evolution that maintained a believable timeline, and Copland did a very nice job balancing that evolution with the murder mystery storyline.

The crime against Abby was truly horrifying and tragic, and sometimes very hard to deal with, but the sweet, sexy, and sometimes scorching hot yumminess that started building between Matt and Kiernan from the moment they met helped keep that horror from overwhelming the narrative. That's always a delicate balance for me, because stories that feature crimes against children always hit me harder than the rest.

I liked Matt a lot and I adored Kiernan. Matt was the broodier, more wounded of the two, and sometimes - especially in the beginning - I wanted to smack him around a little for his attitude, but Kiernan had the exact right amount of good-natured acceptance and easy charm, bordering on boyish enthusiasm, to draw Matt out of his grief prison and give him what he needed to finally heal from his past. They were great together.

And Kiernan's tee shirt slogans were a total riot.

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for ghost stories, so I was predisposed to liking the tale, but it was Copland's imaginative, wonderfully descriptive storytelling and authorial voice that really brought it home for me. The whole book felt very well rounded, offering everything from ghostly spookies to gritty crime, touches of humor, hot sex, and heart-melting romance.

I fell in love with Matt and Kiernan as a couple and through them, Copland's writing. Though I had a few minor issues with a couple of plot points that seemed a tad cliched or predictable, the vast majority of this story was just great reading fun. So much so I was disappointed to find out this wasn't connected to a series. I would love to revisit Matt and Kiernan and their colorful family and friends, but I guess I'll have to settle for rereading this book to do so. Definitely not a hardship.

Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance; LGBT
Series: Mates, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 250 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle





Zev Hassik is running out of time. The Alpha of the Etzgadol wolf shifter pack is young for his position, but at thirty, he's lived far longer than any male shifter ever has without tying with a female. And it's slowly killing him. Well, killing his humanity anyway. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak. The females of his kind are necessary to keep the males balanced between man and wolf.

That balance is quickly slipping from Zev's grasp. If he doesn't tie, he will soon no longer be able to reclaim his human form after a shift. He will be forever lost to the wild inside him.

Despite his family's worried intervention and what they feel is his inevitable fate, Zev has no intention of tying with any female. First of all, he's gay, though his family refuses to acknowledge it. Shifters aren't supposed to be able to be gay. If it weren't for one very important thing, even Zev would worry that he was abnormal and flawed, but Zev knows something that he hasn't even told his family. He has a true mate. A male, human true mate.

A gift beyond price and rare to the extreme, Zev has held strong against his very nature for the promise of that future bonding with the man who has been his best friend since they were children. Jonah Marvel has always been his, Zev has loved him for years, but he had to let Jonah go when they graduated high school. Jonah had to leave town to follow his dream of becoming a doctor and Zev had to stay to take over the pack.

Twelve years have passed now, though, years of struggle with the agony of being separated from his true mate. And if Jonah doesn't return soon, even a shifter as powerful as Zev will lose the battle to conquer the wolf inside him.


Stylistically unique and deeply emotional, the story of Zev and Jonah is told mostly through flashbacks of their lifelong history with each other and the friendship, then more, that bind these two amazing men together so tightly. It was more than a book, it was a sweeping emotional journey through time and across two very different cultures and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I don't normally favor books that have a lot of flashback scenes, and the first seventy percent or so of this book is mostly flashbacks, but in this case, it totally worked. It did more than work. I don't think the book would have been nearly as emotionally intense if it hadn't provided such a deep and rich history for the characters' and their lives from their first meeting as children through every haunting moment of their time apart as they grew into adults.

Those flashbacks were my favorite part of the story, and that's not something I ever expected to say. With touches of gut-clenching angst, gentle humor, and searing passion, the path of Zev and Jonah's romance is fraught with a myriad conflicts and hazards both internal and external that were woven together into a very powerful read.

It wasn't flawless, though. Even as the story captivated my emotions and held me in tense anticipation of the culmination of their relationship, there were things that niggled my more analytical side. For all that the pain and misery that both men went through while they were apart made for a gripping story, and as amazed as I was by Zev's utter selflessness and patience with Jonah, I got a little frustrated that Zev kept him in the dark for so long.

If Jonah had known why it was so important that Zev withhold some specific things, or had even the first inkling of the sacrifice Zev was making for him, it may have eased some of the burden on both of them. It certainly could have prevented the most painful moments of fear, doubt, and recrimination, and all the subsequent bad decisions. It's not like Zev wasn't going to have to tell him eventually anyway, so the fact that he didn't when it could have helped bugged me.

The few threads of external conflict that cropped up in the present timeline were also a little underwhelming. Light on development and a bit awkward in places, I couldn't quite connect with the ancillary plot threads that related to Jonah's mother. They offered a chance at creating some three dimensional conflict in the adult lives of the characters, but the execution wasn't as successful as I'd hoped. It lacked the gravitas and emotional complexity that had been present in the flashback scenes, so it never felt like it added much to the story.

Don't get me wrong, it didn't detract much, either. The rocky, emotional road to Happily Ever After for Zev and Jonah was really enough to keep me fully entertained and leave me pleased with the read. I'm looking forward to continuing with the series and hope that future books will include at least some mention of both of them. I fell a bit in love with the guys in this book, and I'm dying to see how their lives progress from here.

Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance; LGBT
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 175 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Danny Van Doren sees dead people. In fact, that's all he sees. Blind since the accident that stole his sight, his lover, and his career, the writer has been working with Phoenix PD, helping them solve the cases of the spirits he sees.

Unfortunately that help has drawn a lot of attention from media types who want to neatly label him as a charlatan or a fraud. It's making Danny popular for all the wrong reasons and in all the wrong ways.

Ghostwriter Logan Riley works for a publisher who wants Danny's story, and they're willing to pay Danny a lot of money to let Logan hang around and write it. What Logan doesn't tell the man is that his publisher prefers when he digs up the most scandalous and salacious bits of interesting people's lives and puts all the gritty details in print.

Some might - and have - said that makes Logan no better than a pack of paparazzo, but Logan doesn't care about the sensationalism of his subjects' lives. He just cares about finding the truth. Truths like whether or not the seemingly earnest Danny is a con man or just mentally ill.

Because Logan knows he doesn't really see spirits. They don't exist.

And he's steadfast on that stance right up until a pissed off poltergeist decides he's getting a little too cozy with the handsome ghost detective.


There's something intrinsically appealing to me about heroes or heroines who manage their lives despite having a disability of some sort, so the idea of a blind guy who sees ghosts and helps the cops find the monsters responsible for them sold me on trying this book. I'm glad I did. Well-written and fast-paced, flavored with spooky ghost activity and two hot guys who were totally into each other, this was a great read. I especially appreciated the nice touches in keeping Danny's blindness realistic and believable while still providing a balanced, descriptive narrative.

The depth of character in both male leads and a solid and nicely layered plot kept me entertained as it provided a few touches of horror, some chills and thrills, and some temperature raising sex scenes. I liked both Logan and Danny. They had genuine chemistry that hit fast and burned deep. Each has inner demons that impacted the evolving relationship as the story progressed, creating realistic, organic conflict and romantic tension.

I wasn't expecting the level of detail and complexity provided in the main characters' backstory. It built slowly, with little bits and pieces of their past disclosed as it pertained to the growing external conflict with the freaky-deaky poltergeist. And there were a couple of secondary characters I really enjoyed. There was even a very subtle secondary romance thread between Danny's sister and her ex-husband that tickled me. All of these elements worked together to create a balanced, well-rounded story.

The romance arc was the only thing that caused me some problems. As much as I enjoyed Danny and Logan together, the timeline of the story was short, with everything happening over a handful of days, so I had some problems with how quickly they became as important to each other as they were. It was the only thing about the read that didn't work for me, and unfortunately, it hampered my appreciation of what was supposed to be a sweeping romantic scene towards the end of the book.

It ended up coming off as cheesy to me instead of romantic.

I loved the epilogue, though. It was set long enough into the future that the issue I had with the romance arc was resolved and the strength of Danny and Logan's commitment to each other was sweet and endearing. As a whole, I felt this was a meaty, entertaining novel that fully engaged and entertained me, even with my issues with the romance arc. I look forward to reading more from Hunter Raines in the future.

Genre: M/M Paranormal Romance; LGBT
Series: Green's Hill, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 106 Pages
Formats: Kindle





As unique and magically peculiar as the sidhe are, none are quite like Whim. Flighty, forgetful, adorably but perpetually inconsistent, Whim isn't a very powerful sidhe. Power struggles, dominance displays, and general strife just don't hold his attention. Nothing does, really. He's the freest of all free spirits.

Nudged by his prince to step beyond his Green's Hill home, Whim passes into the mortal realm on Litha, the night of the summer solstice. Whim had no idea that taking that one risk, slipping outside his comfort zone that one time, would change his life forever.

Charlie, a troubled young man on the cusp of a horrendous decision, is knocked sideways by the sheer presence of Whim. The chance meeting redefines Charlie's understanding of the world and sets the two men on a path that will span more than a decade, molding their lives year by year. It will define them. Remake them. And all of it will happen in one-night-a-year increments, when the magic of Litha allows them to come together in ways that both inflame their senses and alter their souls.

But when an immortal sidhe falls in love with an all-too-mortal human, the journey their relationship takes has one inevitable conclusion. The damnable irony of it all is that unless Whim can work magic far, far beyond his capabilities, he will lose Charlie for the very reason he first won his heart all those years ago.


While I think this Lane series debut might be slightly more entertaining for fans of Lane's Little Goddess series, with its concurrent timeline and character crossover, I enjoyed the characters so much, and felt so much for their relationship, that I still liked the read quite a lot despite having never read that series. It's a long novella-length romance; there isn't a lot of world definition for readers new to the world, nor any significant external plot conflicts, but there didn't really need to be.

Whim and Charlie really were enough for me. Their relationship was a sexy, angsty, wildly emotional quagmire that sucked me in and kept me locked in place. I loved Whim's character evolution throughout the book. He was the primary focus of the narrative, so I felt closer to him by default, but Charlie's growth from nearly-man to fully-man, seen in snippets and yearly summaries, was just as profound in its own way.

I wish there had been a bit more substance and detail in the read. Another fifty pages that further fleshed out Green's Hill and Whim's life there, or filled in more of the secondary and ancillary characters, would have been appreciated. What Lane does exceptionally well in this story, though, is offer readers a sweeping romantic epic in a tight, fresh, original package that's just a bit smaller than my greedy little heart wanted.

It would have been nice having the Little Goddess series as a background, but I didn't feel like the story suffered overly because of it. I just think it dimmed a bit of the emotional impact for me. Maybe that's not a bad thing, actually, as this little gem packed plenty of powerful emotion on its own. Enough to satisfy the romantic in me, for sure...and, okay, make me tear up more than once, too.

That's a testament to Lane's ability to make readers care about her characters.

Genre: LGBT - M/M Paranormal Romance
Series: Gray Zone, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 230 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Dreamspinner Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Dark Fiction Too Grim For Me

When there's nothing left in your life and nowhere to go before you become something other than human, you return to the Gray Zone, a broken, hopeless place that forms an uneasy boundary between the humanity in Atlanta and the Dens of the Kin. Adam has returned to the Gray Zone after five years away, his needs such that he has little choice but to face the memories and ghosts of his complicated and traumatic childhood.

As he approaches the change that will transform him into a Kin/human hybrid known as Lesser-Bred, his hungers for sex and blood have sharpened beyond the point of him being safe among humans. Though he's been away a long time, he can't help but hope that the one source of comfort he had as a child is still around, a young boy who had been both his best friend and his first love. The young human raised by Kin to be food was a nearly feral child who didn't know what love was, but he'd claimed Adam as his own so very long ago. Like Adam, that boy would now be on the cusp of manhood. That boy named Ean.

Ean had grieved for his Adam, the Kin Batu having told him that his boy had died five years ago. Now there is a new man in the house Adam had once lived in, and he smells like memories and yearning and a need Ean doesn't understand. Coming face to face with the interloper kindled the sort of joy that Ean hadn't known existed. His Adam hadn't died as he'd been told. His Adam had come home. And Adam needed Ean in ways that Ean was more than familiar with and more than willing to satisfy. There's nothing Ean wouldn't give, wouldn't be, to ease Adam's transformation. Even if the cost is his life.

Ean may not know love, but more than anyone, he understands sacrifice, and for his Adam, no price is too steep.


Every once in awhile I come across a book that confounds me, disturbs me, or just generally makes it difficult to rate. To Adam With Love is one of those books. As much as I appreciate the occasional darker, edgier romance, especially when coupled with paranormal elements, too much of the world and mythos created here by Wilder crossed that hard-to-define line between dark and edgy and grim and hopeless for me to be able to say I liked it, and there were a few too many story-related issues for me to fully embrace it on an artistic level.

It was certainly imaginative and original. It had sultry, sexy moments and reflected a genuine, believable sense of the innocence of youth and the otherness of the Kin in well-written flashbacks of the shared childhood history of Ean and Adam. I found it almost compulsively compelling in that regard, as the ever-present sense of impending doom was too visceral to tear my gaze away for long lest I miss a crucial piece of this complex, complicated story. I can even say with all honesty that I easily understand why this book would be wildly popular among fans of darker fiction.

Yet I can't say I liked it.

As much as I appreciated the Glossary at the beginning, I felt there was a noted overuse of the italicized words from the Glossary in the narrative. Part of my problem with that is simply how my mind works and remembers things. I pick up and understand more when terminology that is created for the world and mythos for a story is explained and defined in contextual situations. Not only does that help flesh out the world and define the parameters of the story for me, but having to flip to the front to refresh my memory as the story progresses interrupts the flow of the narrative and pulls me out of the story.

I also had some problems with some of the plot threads. There were too many questions posed either directly or indirectly that went unanswered, and the romance arc that had been strong from the start ended up going a little awry for me at the end. The world and the characters were a little too dark and foreign for my personal taste, and I thought the mythos was hard to follow - in part because of the problems I had with the terminology. The sexuality included in the book and the descriptions of Kin feeding pushed at my comfort levels a little, and the romance didn't offer enough of an HEA for me to balance out the emotional trauma the characters suffered throughout the book. I also never really felt Adam or Ean had matured into adults or had advanced beyond the development levels seen in the many flashbacks.

That probably sounds like a lot of negatives, but in all fairness I can't help but admit that for all of that, something about this book was genuinely captivating. Both the story and the characters have stuck with me days after I finished reading their tale. I wish a few things had been different, or had shaken out with a less grim existence for Lesser-Born and their food. I couldn't help but feel a bit hopeless about the Gray Zone and its inhabitants, the Kin and the Dens. That's just not a comfortable feeling to have at the end of my romance reads and it definitely affected my overall impression of this dark and edgy book.

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Genre: LGBT - M/M Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 210 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Dreamspinner Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.



Fangy and Flirty Fun With Claws, Cats, and Coffins

Alexei Novik escaped the vampire Life he'd grown weary of and bought a rundown house in the mountains. All he wants is to be left alone, though he has no doubt that he hasn't heard the last of his power-hungry ex, Victor. With the help of a small pack of werewolves he considers his friends, he settles into his mountain home and starts fixing up the place, ignoring the constant pull of the coffin that regenerates him but which exacts too high a price for it's rejuvenating embrace.

Alex certainly has his solitude; his only regular companion since moving in is a feral tom cat who has taken to hanging out around his property. He's not so reclusive, however, that he's failed to notice the attractiveness of his nearest neighbor, the affable veterinarian Dr. Tate Edwards, as he passes by on his various backs and forths.

As the full moon approaches, Alex's offer to the pack to allow them to hunt in the woods beyond his home starts to sit wrong on his shoulders. He's worried about the human fragility of Tate and the threat to the cat he's taken to calling EPT (Evil Psycho Tom). He doesn't want anything to happen to either of them, though Alex doesn't want to examine those feelings too closely. Giving Tate as neutral a warning as he can while protecting his friends' secrets alleviates some of his concern, but it's not like Alex can warn EPT to watch out for rampaging werewolves when the moon rises.

Even a vampire stays out of the way of a werewolf in wolf form. Their instincts are completely animal, their strength supernatural. When he sees his friend Peter in wolf form racing into the woods after the cat he'd grown so fond of, Alex could only hope EPT would be safe. The sounds of a fight makes his stomach sink, but it's the sudden roar and the yelps of fear, then pain, that sound far too canine that sends Alex racing after them. What he finds chills him. Something in the woods sliced Peter up badly and his alpha, Nick, is ready to tear out Alex's throat because of it.

Quick thinking and Nick's unique abilities are all that stand between Alex and an untimely demise, but unless Peter gets immediate medical assistance, it will be the werewolf who dies on the mountain that night. The only help Alex can offer a werewolf in wolf form is one handsome veterinarian neighbor with a charming smile. Hopefully he'll have a spine of steel, as well, or this is going to be one very long damn night for them all.

I love when a book surprises me like this one did. I started Crying for the Moon with little information beyond it being a M/M paranormal romance, but I guess even that set up some expectations. While that does accurately describe the genre for the book, it doesn't come close to encompassing the whole of this charming and endearing story.

The lead character, Alex, is a vampire, and most of his friends are werewolves, but the book is just as much about Alex walking away from a life that had become untenable and his struggle to carve out a new life for himself, building and strengthening friendships, and risking his heart on a relationship he hadn't wanted but can't seem to help hoping for. He's a little socially awkward, a little uptight, and can even be sort of adorably clueless. I loved him.

Scenes of Alex working on fixing up his house go hand in hand with scenes of casual dinner parties with friends. Issues of race relations between vampires and werewolves are nestled in between boisterous singing, stray cats, and casual flirting. Paranormal elements butt up against family squabbles and issues of sexuality. All in all, it was a surprisingly multifaceted tale that covered a lot of bases and didn't, really, focus solely on the paranormal elements.

It struck me as a happily odd story with quirky characters; with tender moments, funny moments, and moments that positively charmed me. There were tense scenes and scenes that posed serious danger to the characters, yet the book wasn't dripping in angst, burdened by an overly dark tone, or heavily plotted with grim themes and situations. Alex is the focal point of the story, and he's certainly at a crossroads in his life, but it's not some dour sort of Gothic tale. He's...well...just a guy...a little antisocial, a little perplexed by and envious of the pack bonds his friends share, a little lonely for someone who would value him for who he is instead of what he has, yet fiercely determined not to need anyone. I couldn't help falling for him, really, any more than I could help adoring Tate's more insouciant charm.

There were a few plot threads that were fairly predictable, primarily centered around the external plot conflict, and I felt the world building and exposition were a little on the sparse side in regards to the paranormal elements. There were also a few moments in the book where I felt like I missed previously established backstory, as if there was a previous novella or book with the characters in it somewhere (which is not the case, according to what I could find on the author's website). Still, there was history referred to but never more than cursorily detailed - like Alex's singing career, or why Alex and the pack seemed close friends on one hand, but didn't really know all that much detail about each other on the other, or what motivated Nick and pack to help Alex get away from Victor. None of those were significant issues, per se, but it did make me feel like I had missed out on some interesting storytelling somewhere.

I loved the twists and turns and surprise developments, though. Sure, some of them I'd guessed, but others I hadn't and I appreciated them even more for catching me off guard. When that gets mixed in with the other high points, the entire book just flat-out worked for me. I enjoyed it tremendously and plan to follow up on more of Madison's work.

For fans of contemporary or paranormal romance who are interested in trying out M/M relationship fiction, I'd highly recommend this book. Though it's not what I consider an erotic novel, the attraction between Alex and Tate is intimately charged, and there are a handful of explicit sexual scenes featured. Still, the focus of the plot arc in the book is on the main character, his burgeoning relationships, and the subsequent action, not on sex. In fact, Crying for the Moon is exactly the sort book I would recommend to the M/M novice who would prefer a lighter-toned romance without a bookload of explicitly graphic sex scenes. It would be a well-written and entertaining introduction to the genre. I was very pleased with this book and look forward to checking out much more from Madison in the future.

Genre: LGBT - M/M Paranormal Romance
Series: Forces of Nature, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


Meet Hayden and Joshua, both Alpha wolves and both heir apparent for their packs...their rival packs. As youth they were high school teammates in sports but they were never friends. They were acquaintances, sure, but Hayden had known he was gay since he was fifteen, been out to his family and his pack since he was sixteen, and had been in love with the very straight Joshua for as long as he could remember. That doesn't make for BFF's in any world. As teens they shared a run in their wolf forms...once. That was enough to compel Hayden to go to Dartmouth, a college about as far removed from their small Wyoming hometown as he could get. A few years later and just months shy of graduation, the twenty-two year old Hayden comes home to visit his family for Christmas. During that vacation, something happens that destroys Hayden's future, puts him in a coma for six weeks and in a jail cell for two years, and steals his memories of the best night of his life...the night he and Josh came together as adults.

Five years have passed since that fateful night, and the elders of each of the young men's werewolf pack are trying desperately to deal with escalating hostilities between packs. Their solution is to mate Hayden, now a reclusive loner, to Joshua, now an officer for the local police department. Hayden is sure Josh betrayed him five years ago, and Josh has secrets he's been unable and unwilling to share. Just getting these two Alphas at the same table opens old wounds and any possibility of them being mated seems unlikely. But Joshua holds the key to Hayden's redemption, and he's determined to give this man everything...absolutely everything he deserves.

With a plot that transitions back and forth through current events and what happened five years ago, Cooper Davis takes the reader on a sympathetic journey into the lives of two men beset by tragedy and clinging to hope. It's a compelling story for the very fact that I grew so fond of both Hayden and Joshua and wanted nothing but the best for them both. I was completely invested in their lives and story, and very much enjoyed reading about them.

That's not to say the story is flawless. Anything but, actually. While Davis has a smooth writing style and strong technique that eased the rough edges off some very difficult transitions and kept me as a reader engaged in these men's lives during some pretty dark times, not everything was so rosy. Her narrative flow is good, but there are some serious story issues that can't be ignored. The bad news is that Bound By Nature has some serious plot holes, some characterization issues, a few plot threads that make no sense in the big picture, and poses a couple of questions that go unanswered. The unanswered questions are particularly vexing, unless there's going to be a follow up (I'd love a sequel). I also had a few issues with a time span that seemed random, and several character decisions made and actions taken defied logic and seemed to deny their werewolf natures. There were more than a few places that I had to struggle with my willing suspension of disbelief, and one or two in which I lost it completely. I also felt that the fact that they're werewolves had too little impact on the development and resolution of the conflict, and very little was provided to flesh out Davis' werewolf world and mythos.

Those are pretty big issues for a story, and honestly, they're all points that usually kill my enjoyment of a book. That's not the case here. In the end, what was most important to me was seeing Hayden and Joshua more than survive tragedy, but find the love that had eluded them for so very long. Stripping away all the issues and problems and I was still left with a very endearing love story and the journey of two likable men. The journey home.

Warning: This story contains a rape scene that may disturb some readers. In my opinion, that scene is neither overly explicit nor particularly graphic, and was written relatively tastefully given the nature of the assault, but it does exist and sensitive readers should be made aware.

Genre: LGBT - M/M Paranormal Romance
Series: Hellbourne, Parts 1, 2, & 3
Kindle-Only Formats: Hellbourne: Lost & Found, Hellbourne: Bound & Determined, Hellbourne: Heart & Soul

1 Star
Ouch

This Hellbourne trilogy is not what I would consider a true series of novellas. Instead, it's one novella split into three parts, so readers should be aware that starting this 'series' with Lost & Found forces you to continue with the other two parts of this story, Hellbourne: Bound & Determined and Hellbourne: Heart & Soul to complete the whole of the story arc. But to be honest, I wouldn't recommend you bother.

This is my introduction to Amber Kell and it's going to be a very brief acquaintance, for while I will give her credit for the concept and idea of the plot, the execution left more than a little to be desired. Luc, the half-fae son of Lucifer, is tossed over by his lover of 20 years, the Alpha of the werewolf pack, Bram, when Bram decided pups are more important to him and his pack than decades of love and dedication and that decision goads him into marrying a female were from a nearby pack. Heartbroken, Luc ends up drowning his sorrows in a vampire bar and comes to the attention of the master of vampires. Before Luc knows it, the vampire Nikko has collared him and is calling him his mate. But Luc can only love Bram. Throw in a couple of conflicts with demons, an attempted poisoning, a scene or two with Luc's father Lucifer, and toss in the appearance of an angel, and the plot points and ideas for the story are interesting and put together with some originality.

Now for the reality check. All those great ideas and interesting plot points were badly written and horribly executed. There was no world building, no character development, and a completely bare bones narrative lacking description, definition, or artistry. Characters act out their scenes with a minimum of description or emotion - including the sex scenes, which read more like apologetic and furtive dives into naughtiness than hungry, raw, powerful adult male sexuality. I was tragically disappointed with all three parts of Hellbourne on just about every level. It was lacking in anything resembling sophistication and maturity, and read like bad fanfiction by an author too timid and unschooled to fully capture the sensual, compelling conflagration of a story and present it to interested readers.

I don't mean to sound harsh. I don't want to over criticize. To be honest, though, means that I have to say that I don't believe, using the Hellbourne story as a measuring stick, that Amber Bell's writing ability is currently up to professional contemporary standards. There are far, far too many excellently written (even just competently written) books in the M/M paranormal romance/urban fantasy genres to enjoy without ever having to subject yourself to poor storytelling. I'm not going to rate or review the Hellbourne saga in each piece, because it's not three separate short stories or three encapsulated novellas. This is one story. This one story gets 1 star from me. I didn't hate it, but it was just bad storytelling all the way around.

Genre: LGBT - M/M Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A
Formats: Paperback, Kindle

4.5 Stars
Portrait of a Kiss Has It All

Retired police detective David Schaeffer has inherited a fine, large southern house in a small town following his aunt's death, but that's not all he's inherited. The house comes with a fifty year old murder-suicide scandal and tales of the ghost of the killer, one Brian Terhune, a young gay man ostracized by the small, ultra-conservative town that fifty years ago had even less tolerance that the rest of the world for openly gay men. The only problem is that the moment Brian sees the portrait of Brian Terhune in his room, the heart in David drops at Brian's feet and the cop in David doubts immediately that Brian killed anyone. When Brian himself agrees in all his ghostly glory, David falls hard for the young and handsome...er...dead man and his doubt becomes an unshakable quest to free Brian from his eternal limbo, even when it looks like someone is more interested in making David join Brian on HIS side of the veil.

This story unfolds with rich southern charm, thick and heavy with romance and mystery, love and loss and humor, and tragedy tempered by hope. The characters are very fully drawn and as the town around David and Brian starts to shed its prejudice and warms up to David, and as the truth starts coming out little by little, Brian too, what's revealed is a an old southern lady full up with unique secondary characters that are quintessentially "small town" - with all the quirks and harmless oddities and charms.

I thoroughly enjoyed Portrait of a Kiss. I laughed, I cried...and my heart ached for David and Brian and for the tragically murdered young couple that Brian was accused of killing. My only small complaints are that I wish it had been longer (okay, that one's selfish), and that the beginning had been fleshed out a bit more...that there had been a bit more build up before the revelation of Brian in a tangible way. Also, the physical relationship between Brian and David was very artistically and tastefully written - almost to a fault, actually, as I have a personal preference for more sizzle when the story warrants it - and it did here. Even all together those are such minor issues when faced with the fabulous and fun and loving Portrait of a Kiss that it doesn't detract much at all from the overall. 4.5 Stars and a highly recommended read.