Stealing the Dragon by Mell Eight

Title: Stealing the Dragon
Author: Mell Eight
Cover Artist: London Burden
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Publisher Buy Link Stealing the Dragon
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Length: 27k words

Stealing from a dragon's hoard is never a bright idea, but stealing from a baby dragon's hoard can lead to tears, sniffles, and smoke in the middle of a busy marketplace.

Jerney, a witch who does work for a well-known thieves' guild, knows exactly who's to blame for the brazen theft. With no other choice in the matter, he quickly becomes entangled in trying to help the baby dragon. What he doesn't expect is that his own heart might get stolen in the process.

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The promised baby dragon really is a baby—he might look like he’s a seventeen year old human (probably the author’s signal that “yes, I know he’s too young for a sexy story”) but in dragon years that makes him more like a bright four year old. Tori’s adorable, and part of his problem is that even people who know better treat him the way his human form looks, not in an age-appropriate manner.


Uncle Bast, for instance, (that’s Prince Bast to everyone else) thinks Tori’s mature enough to handle an investigation, but if it’s anything more complicated than “who ate the cookies?” he’s really, really wrong. Sending him to the market alone is a lot like sending him to play in traffic.

The traffic in this world is horse-drawn, with a medieval feeling level of technology and a developed magic system. Practitioners absolutely have to be literate and attain levels of skill as they can master them. That’s where we get Jerney, who has to teach himself as he can from others’ magic books. He’s valuable to his wicked uncle/stepfather because he can be sold, and once his mother is out of the way, he will be. Jerney’s an enterprising child and becomes an enterprising young man---he finds a way out of the horrid fate wicked uncle plans for him, his younger brother, and infant half-sister, and comes to prosper. We see enough of his childhood and youth to know his world and circumstances, and he’s in his mid-twenties before he meets the baby dragon. Jerney’s a likeable character, he’s moves in the reality of his world without being hardened by it, and his family feeling is very strong.

When an impetuous thief steals one of Tori’s treasures, we’re set off on a rollicking adventure where the theft must be sorted and wider plots revealed and solved. Both characters’ strengths and weakness contribute to the plot, and the resolution is very satisfactory. Good fun!

Both characters have POV scenes, and the voices are dramatically different, which I thought was good characterization and also part of my unease with this story. Jerney’s voice matures as he goes from a bright six year old to a competent young man, and Tori sounds like the kid he is. So far so good. Then mix the sexual element in here, and it gets a little squicky.

Let me emphasize that there is absolutely no contact between the characters aside from an over-exuberant kiss that Jerney shuts down immediately because it is inappropriate, the action of a child who is learning how to behave and has skipped ahead in his own timeline. Everybody’s clear on this, even Tori, eventually. But the issue has been raised, and the inescapable conclusion is that Jerney’s going to be celibate for the next thirty years, and I don’t even want these ideas floating around in a story where one of the characters comes across as four years old.

There are a couple of secondary relationships in the background. Tori’s much older brother Nyle has a male lover, and their story appears in another book in this series which I plan to read. Jerney’s younger brother is now a young man, and there’s a hint of someone’s interest in him. That was probably meant to be reassuring that the other party wouldn’t do something inappropriate with a child, but it’s actually sort of creepy in an “I’ve been waiting for you to grow up” way.

So where my problems lie with this story is that it’s trying to be everything to everyone. It doesn’t work as a romance, because Tori isn’t a romantic candidate—he’s a child, and not even saying there’s enough lag time to let him grow up will make this work for me. It does work on the adventure/fantasy level, which I enjoyed very much. A version of this story that had all sexual/romantic elements excised (except please leave Nyle and Leon as an established couple) I would put into any eleven year old’s hand. But Tori is just too child-like to make his actual age a consideration. YMMV. 3 marbles

A picture is worth...

Time for another aww.... inducing picture. We haven't had a shifter in a while, so what might these two kings of the jungle be up to? Look here for directions. 100-1000 words is great.

Slam! by JL Merrow

Title: Slam!
Author: JL Merrow
Cover Artist: Kanaxa
Publisher: Samhain
Buy Links: Publisher, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 275 pdf pages


Limericks, lies, and puppy-dog eyes…

Jude Biggerstaff is all the way out and loving it—mostly. The Anglo-Japanese university graduate is a carnivore working in a vegan café, an amateur poet with only one man in his life. His dog, Bubbles.
Then there’s “Karate Crumpet”, a man who regularly runs past the café with a martial arts class. Jude can only yearn from afar, until the object of his affection rescues him from muggers. And he learns that not only does this calm, competent hunk of muscle have a name—David—but that he’s gay.

Jude should have known the universe wouldn’t simply let love fall into place. First, David has only one foot out of the closet. Then there’s Jude’s mother, who lies about her age to the point Jude could be mistaken for jailbait.

With a maze of stories to keep straight, a potential stepfather in the picture, ex-boyfriends who keep spoiling his dates with David, and a friend with a dangerous secret, Jude is beginning to wonder if his and David’s lives will ever start to rhyme.

Warnings: Contains a tangled web of little white lies, a smorgasbord of cheesy limericks, a violin called Vanessa, some boots that mean business, and the most adorable little dog ever. Poetry, it’s not...

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After that blurb, the question isn’t what happens, it’s how. And it’s fun.

Stream of consciousness barely contained, that’s Jude. He’s flamboyant, funny, and when he bleeds internally, he bandages it with another joke. He’s head over heels for David, but what doesn’t go strange in one way goes strange in another. JL Merrow has “frequently been accused of humor” and this story earns her the shaky finger again, in the best way.


Opposites—Jude looks like Gok Wan, only prettier and gayer, and David’s so butch Jude’s not sure he’s gay—the man hasn’t seen a musical in years, and likes watching football. David’s got reason—he works construction in the management end of the business, but he’s not out at work and doesn’t plan to be any time soon. We don’t have any scenes from his POV, but that’s okay, Jude can rattle along for three.

Emitting limericks at irregular intervals to express his anxiety or frustration, Jude keeps us smiling, even when we’d like to whap him for withholding pertinent information from David. Granted, it seems rational at the time, but it does create a sequence of Big Misunderstandings. I can’t summarize better than this brief sequence, where Jude and David have gone on their first real date. Rescuing Jude from some gay-bashers isn’t exactly social life after all.

He shrugged. “I’ve never really been into gay bars. I’d rather go to a normal pub. Uh, does that come off as a bit homophobic?”

I swallowed my last mouthful of saltimbocca. “Yeah, but I’ll let you off because (a) you’re gorgeous and (b) I think my mouth just had an orgasm.” Dreamily, I put down my fork. “Although on second thoughts, that’s not a great mental picture when you’ve just eaten. We have got to come here again.”

“If you like. I’m still hoping to persuade you to try the raw fish at TTY.”

Oops. That again. I bit my lip. Should I come clean and tell him it was all to do with Stinky Cheese Guy?

He’d understand, and then we could have a laugh about it…

I grimaced. Yeah, right. Because it’s always so attractive, finding the guy you’re out with is still hung up on his Evil Ex.

David laughed. “Why do I get the impression I just missed a whole conversation taking place in your head?”

That last sentence—really important.

The supporting characters shore everything up nicely: best gal pal Keisha keeps Jude grounded and provides a sharp foil for his wit, and Mom is a hoot. Mom has a younger boyfriend and a couple of secrets, which slop onto Jude and incidentally demonstrate that he comes by his talent for complications honestly.

In fact, everyone seems to have some way to affect everyone else, and it’s to the author’s credit that this crazy quilt of plot points winds up so neatly. Secrets and confessions fall out of the closet like improperly stored skeletons, and it all winds up as a big AW! in several directions, in spite of the epidemic of foot-in-mouth disease.

The title applies to Jude’s participation in slam poetry fests, where poets recite their work as performance art and are graded by how they affect their audiences. It’s not a huge plot aspect unless it’s needed—this story is more character driven than plot driven, aside from the eventual boy-gets-boy. The limericks are spice rather than meal. I’m very partial to external plot, of which this is rather short: the external elements are subservient to the relationship, and the title theme is nearly invisible for most of the book.

All in all, this is a sweet feel-good-eventually of a story. The Brit flavor is undiluted, not impenetrable to American readers, and is a wonderful antidote to stories where the English charm has been genericized away. If you’re in the mood for flamboyant, funny, British characters and situations, this is the story for you.4.25 marbles

Lighting the Way Home by EM Lynley and Shira Anthony

Title: Lighting the Way Home
Author: E.M. Lynley and Shira Anthony
Cover Artist: L.C. Chase
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Publisher Buy Link: Lighting the Way Home

Genre: Contemporary
Length: 206 pages


World-class chef Joshua Golden is homesick for Paris before he even arrives in New York, but he’ll endure it—his parents need him to help run the family restaurant while his mother recovers from surgery. Running a place so far beneath his talents is bad enough, but bad turns to worse when Josh discovers his former best friend and lover, Micah Solomon, is living at his parents’ house with his ten-year-old son, Ethan.

For ten years, Josh has done his best to forget how Micah shattered his heart into tiny pieces. Now Micah’s back, fresh out of prison, and helping out at the restaurant. Micah may not be the kind of sous chef Josh is used to, but he is more helpful and supportive than any of the other employees. But Josh finds it hard to keep his distance when, time after time, Micah proves himself a better man than Josh thought. Reluctantly, Josh realizes there is more to Micah than his lousy life choices… but that doesn’t mean Josh is ready to forgive him.

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This was a peek into a fully realized society for me—part of our American life but unique and with deep flavor. It’s not my background, but I wasn’t lost, and I was definitely intrigued. This is life in a New York Jewish community that’s accessible for those of us who aren’t of that background. The community was palpable but not overwhelming; Josh and Micah fit in but not in any predictable pattern.


There’s pain and longing that go way back, mixed with huge dollops of family expectation and broken hopes. And out of this potent mix, the authors bring the two protagonists through the mess into a place where they might be happy at last. Micah  couldn't possibly have hurt Josh so badly had Josh not loved Micah so deeply, and the authors make us watch how tattered love can become whole again.

Individually, each author has written books that I have sunk into and enjoyed, and together EM Lynley and Shira Anthony have created something seamless and vivid. However these two manage their collaboration, it works. The style is smooth and readable, and carries the story forward.

Josh grew up in the restaurant business, but has left kosher food and all it implies far, far behind. French food, luscious enough to tempt chefs with Michelin stars, is worlds away from the homey Eastern European kosher cooking he grew up on, and it’s his life now. An ocean between him and Micah, who broke his heart a hundred times over, is just barely enough. Now Josh is home to mind the store a while for his ailing parents. And Micah seems to have taken his place as dutiful son.

Watching Josh go from curled up in an emotional fetal position to open and loving is the great character arc of this book—he’s arranged his life to avoid dealing with pain that’s entirely in his face now. From his parents to his former lover, to the life he has and the life that he could have, Josh has to reevaluate everything. His mother and father have gone frail, Micah has a ten year old son, an ex-wife, and a prison record, and Josh is frothing at the mouth to get back to a kitchen that serves not-kosher food. It’s all as far from what he once had and hoped for as he can get. All driven by pain.

Micah doesn’t get any POV scenes, but that’s fine because he is unrolled in small doses as Josh can cope with him. Josh sees details as he can, and Micah is who he is, but slowly unveiled in all his complexity. Micah’s hurt everyone he loves, and is working through his amends. He’s a wonderful character, and in ways he’s deeper than Josh is, because he’s had to come to an ultimate understanding of who he is and what drives him. Fatherhood and the responsibility for another person adds to that. Ethan, his son, doesn’t steal any scenes or spout pages of adorable regurgitated wisdom; he’s just a ten year old who loves his father, wants to play basketball with his buddies, and accepts that his home is where his father is, not a house or apartment. He’s so normal I wanted to feed him pizza and check his homework.

There are a few plot issues that one can see coming, mostly because it has to work out that way else one character or another would be a selfish sub-human (It’s a roller coaster ride, sometimes I wondered—and that’s a good thing!), but the “how it works out” doesn’t disappoint in any way. Other issues make perfect sense after you read the passages and think a little, which adds a delightful complexity to the story. One or two instances I definitely didn’t see coming but given one of the authors’ legal background, I am prepared to believe entirely once it’s explained.

A few plot points are left open ended rather than extend this timeline as far out as total resolution would need. I anticipate a follow-up story more than wish every loose end had been tied here. There’s hope, and for where it’s needed, it’s enough. The rest, we’re left happy.

I enjoyed this story from top to bottom, and I can only imagine how someone more steeped in Jewish culture will see plot points in greater nuance than I can. There are the familiar trappings of Chanukah, but the latkes and candles aren't the plot here: they are the sense of family and continuity.  Beshert, judging from dreamy looks and secret smiles from those I asked who ought to know, has to mean more than “meant to be”, but for Joshua and Micah, it’s good. It’s a foundation for a lifetime.  4.5 stars.

A picture is worth...

How about something straight from mythology? (Or not so straight?)  Anyone with a little story for these two, send it along, with links, a cover, and a blurb from one of your releases, and let us enjoy both. Look here for directions. 100-1000 words is great.

Gay as Mardi Gras by Lily Velden

Title: Gay As Mardi Gras
Author: Lily Velden
Cover Artist: Lily Velden
Publisher: Dreamspinner
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 77 pages

After the demise of his relationship with his childhood sweetheart, Janey, Jesse needs to get away. His nan has just the thing: a month-long cruise around Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. It seems perfect—until Jesse realizes what kind of cruise it is.

A gay cruise.

Since Jesse’s roommate, Daniel, is recovering from a broken heart, the two decide to buddy up. They hit it off, and with Daniel now Jesse's partner in crime, they explore the boat and participate in all the fun activities on offer—with some, ah, interesting results for straight boy Jesse.

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This story was off to a rocky start—some things do not cross multigenerational barriers well. I was aghast at the beginning, where ultra-accepting Nan not only thinks about the MC’s sex life, she tells him what it is, and meddles in it. This woman is a combination of loving grandmother and Intrusive Female Best Friend with Inappropriate Curiosity. She’d probably be fun if I could get past that shrill NONONONONO! in my mind for the opening 10% of the story where she’s front and center. But I can’t. Others might.


Leaving this chimera behind, we follow MC Jesse on board ship, where he puts two and two together about its gay-centricity, and is relieved to discover that his ship-assigned cabin mate Daniel is a nice guy with troubles of his own, who needs a friend to cover his back. What unfolds is their discovery of one another and Jesse’s reluctant acceptance that he is indeed gay.

The unfolding of this is slow—Daniel doesn’t push, and Jesse needs that whole month to reevaluate. It’s done sweetly and charmingly. Friendship develops first, then a relationship that includes sex. In places it’s a little cloying—their tastes in books, music, and careers have enormous overlap and their disagreements are so minor as to merit less than a paragraph. Daniel is a bit of a cipher, more a mirror to Jesse than a character in his own right. His main role is to reassure Jesse that what he wants is okay; at no time does he particularly assert his desires, even regarding non-sexual issues. All conflict is within Jesse’s head.

The story is told in first person, present tense, which suits Jesse’s “all about the now” mentality, though the mentality may reflect use of the present tense rather than being a deliberate choice. In moments of passion, there are long strings of single-sentence paragraphs, a conceit which could have been dialed back a bit.

Jesse’s reminiscences about his former long term girlfriend appear here and there to contrast her to Daniel, and to the author’s credit, Jesse recalls her fondly, if without passion. The cruise, a month long and an exciting adventure, one would think, is seen mostly as endless food and costume parties. It could have been anywhere on the seven seas for all the tropical anything we’re shown. The ship is scarcely more vivid: we don’t even know if they have a cabin with a porthole or not.

Daniel’s essential flatness made me question if this was converted fanfic; by the author’s admission it is, and in a fandom whose canon I don’t care for. Jesse is more completely drawn, ie I could identify the base canon character. When the author can offer two original MCs alive on the page, I will be happy to read more of her work.

The story was worth reading to follow Jesse’s self-discovery, not only regarding his gayness, but regarding his own stereotyped ideas and misconceptions, though it would be well boosted by a brighter spotlight on other elements of the story. The scenes where most development takes place involve sex. One sex scene contained a humorous oops, but morphed into an inappropriately zipless fuck.

If you don’t expect more than the turmoil inside Jesse’s head, it’s a cute read. 3.25 marbles

A picture is worth...

Can someone build a little explanation for these two? Look here for directions. 100-1000 words is great.

Title: Monster Town
Author: Dakota Chase
Cover Artist: BS Clay
Publisher: PRIZM/Torquere
Buy Link:[amazon_link id="B00BTK4L9G" target="_blank" ]Monster Town[/amazon_link]
Publisher Buy Link Monster Town
Genre: YA paranormal
Length: 67 pages/18500


James Dire has a problem. He doesn't breathe fire, suck blood, or sprout fur and a tail during full moons. He doesn't eat babies, or trample cities, or carry screaming women off to his underwater lair. In short, he's about as dangerous and exotic as a boxful of sand.

While this may not be an issue elsewhere, it is in Eden, James' hometown. Here, everyone, from his parents and siblings, to his classmates, to the mayor, are fire-breathing, bloodsucking, fur-sprouting monsters, and James doesn't fit in anywhere.

James always feels excluded and knows he's always suspect because of his difference. He's very shy, has few friends, and his only sense of purpose comes from his job as reporter for the school paper.
When a girl is kidnapped, James's secret crush, gorgeous werewolf, Theo, pulls him into a hunt for clues to find her before it's too late. What they discover is a plot that's much more involved than a simple kidnapping, and may get them both killed.

In Monster Town, there's nothing more dangerous than being ordinary.

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Young adult is tricky territory: the age range intended is 12 to 18, and the styles cover the gamut from simplistic to quite literary. Monster Town feels like it should appeal to the younger edge of the range. The sex is nonexistent aside from an embarrassing erection and an almost but didn’t happen kiss. It’s skewed to a high amount of heart-goes-pitty-pat-he-likes-me! And it’s cute. While the story probably doesn’t have enough complexity to interest the older teens, I wouldn’t hesitate to put this story in the hands of 11-14 year olds, for style, the handling of the love interest, and the level of plot. Adults might find it a refreshing quick read.


James feels terribly, terribly ordinary, being a plain vanilla human in a town of idiosyncratic beings. His neighbors range from Bob the big blue blob to zombies and ghosts. A vampire-run grocery store is business as usual, and even his family sports some unusual skills. He doesn’t fit, life is dull, and nothing ever happens. And he can’t say a thing to handsome werewolf Theo, because he’s so danged boring and Theo is so cool. In this, he is a very normal teen.

We get the story from James' first person POV. He's sweet, and rather rollicking in his observations of those around him. He does harp a little too much on his own dullness, which could have been presented a little more enticingly than multiple statements of "I'm so ordinary."

One beauty of this story is that angst over being gay isn’t there. While James feels like an outcast, it’s not for his sexuality, which is just a given. He doesn’t have fur or scales, can’t transform or evaporate or anything interesting like that, though he is considered weird and potentially dangerous because he’s so much like the Outsiders, aka everyone outside their small, vigorously-defended enclave.

Theo and James come together over the mystery of a class-mate’s disappearance, and have to solve it without the adults, who don’t consider young people worth listening to. Adults as buffoons, villains, but not allies, is a thriving trope here. As they work through the clues and the aftermath, James and Theo lean on each others’ strengths and find friendship. There’s a small promise of more, and they’re happy.

There are some inconsistencies with James’ characterization of himself juxtaposed with his small enclave. If regular humans are so vigorously avoided, how does he or anyone know he’s like them? Besides, what’s so ordinary about a guy who can go into the sunlight and not fry, or who has five fingers to a hand and they don’t fall off? Two of them are opposable thumbs, and he’s solid enough to open a door and small enough to go through it, unlike so many of his neighbors. Those are actually not negligible advantages, and if one doesn’t question this, the story works better. The intended audience may not pick up on the oddity of this presentation.

Neither are they likely to have sufficient concept of how a mystery works. Most of the clues are there to be seen, but there are a couple of gaps, making the central conflict somewhat less than fair. The gaps are filled with infodumps later. This might be forgiven as a teenager’s imperfect knowledge of adult business.

The story works on the level it’s meant to resonate on, which is the normality of being gay, peer acceptance, finding strengths, and the young triumphing over their blinkered elders. Perhaps some of the other issues will be addressed in future volumes, because the ending is structured to encourage sequels. I’d read them. 3.75 marbles