Black Leather by Vic Winters

Two years ago, the lead singer for Axel Grind died of a drug overdose. Now, the label has brought the band back together and given them a new lead singer -- a young hot shot named Ricky. Ray, the band's lead guitarist and the man who writes most of their songs, has been given the task of being Ricky's babysitter. If anything goes wrong, it'll all be on Ray.

With a lead singer who has enough stage fright that he's puking before the show, and three original band members who resent the hell out of the new kid, what could possibly go wrong? Add in Ray's attraction for Ricky and he figures it's only a matter of time because things get messed up. In the meantime, Ray's going to ride the high performing brings him for as long as he can and maybe find a little love while he's at it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
In twenty-six pages, Vic Winters turns broken dreams, lost love, and substitute singers into some real magic. Ricky, who’se never fronted a band before, has replaced the previous lead singer, dead of all the classic rock star excesses, and he’s now Ray’s responsibility. While we’re seeing the evolution from Ray’s eyes, it’s Ricky who changes the most, starting out with a nasty bravado that’s hiding some real vulnerabilities, and becoming both a rock star and a really decent person to have around. This story is a look at dreams crushed and revived, and some dreams that work out better than the dreamer could imagine.

The language is rough, gritty, and perfect for Ray, who has a very direct way of looking at the world, and lets us share his joy in his music, his band, and Ricky. That joy is a while in coming -- Ricky's got to get to the right headspace too.



Buy here.

A Change of Tune by JM Cartwright

A Change of Tune by JM Cartwright

Johnny Rayne has had enough - enough of being at the top of the rock music industry for the last decade, enough of constant touring and recording. He wants something more -- just something very different. Moving to a farm in West Virginia, Johnny meets Sheriff Virgil Grissom on his first morning in the mountains.

The sheriff challenges Johnny in a multitude of ways - with overt machismo, disdain for Johnny's musician past, and all-around know-it-all-ness. The two men clash continually, and Johnny resists succumbing to the sheriff's brash charm until Grissom forces him to admit some very basic truths. One: Johnny's definitely attracted to men. Two: Johnny's definitely attracted to Grissom. And three: Johnny's definitely going to enjoy every moment of it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The logic-fail at the very beginning of the book should have warned me. Johnny Rayne, front man for the band, and the brains of the business operations, doesn't understand why his one-sided decision to leave doesn't go over so well. He's shocked the rest of the band resents having their artistic and financial futures thrown into doubt so he can go find himself.

So buying a house he's never seen in a place he's never been makes relative sense. Especially when he's coming to terms with his sexuality, going to an area not known for tolerance and understanding of such things is going to work out fine, because this chunk of West Virginia is really a suburb of San Francisco. The cover says so, those are "painted ladies" in the background.

Everyone thinks gay couples are cute, an openly gay sheriff has no problem with his staff or anyone else, although he allows there might be one or two grouches up in the hills. And he takes Johnny from m/m virgin to fisting in less than a month.

The part of the story that isn't directly sexual exists only in flashes through the first two hundred pages, and after that it's still thin. Johnny came to the country with adopting a family on the mind, so the sheriff thoughtfully provides him with not one but two kids. Grissom treats getting kids with roughly the same importance as getting kittens, and it's not much harder, either, when the judge thinks two months of sex equals stable relationship.

Issues are introduced and then dropped, the author makes a big deal about the Sheriff's name, Virgil Grissom, being the same as the astronaut's, but nothing further ever comes of that. An escaped prisoner plot fizzles out before page eighty, and the prisoner never does anything desperate, he gets talked about a couple times. Johnny's a good enough musician to coach a local into Julliard, but that gets a handful of paragraphs and shows mostly that he's a good guy.

The language is probably the strongest point, it's fluid enough to lull you along into not noticing what's really going on for pages and pages. Until you run into yet another use of the Lord's name that isn't capitalized. I got so mad at this that I stopped reading and started counting, and got to 40 before I gave up, and there was still a half a book. "Blondie" is apparently important enough to capitalize, but 'god' is not. The nickname vs name issue in another story by this author is here too, it's a plot point, but annoying.

In short, there's no conflict. It's all happy happy, get comfy with gay sex, laugh at grown men learning to change diapers. If you want an extremely undemanding read with lots of sex, you'll like this, it's erotica, with babies and doggies and kitties and old ladies on the side. If you're expecting an honest-to-God story, you'll be as disappointed as me.

Rainbow Awards

One of my favorite reviewers, Elisa Rolle, has been working very hard to narrow down a huge number of good reads to a small handful of really outstanding stories, distracting us along the way with the cover contest. (WOW did I love looking at some of those covers every time I went to vote.) Results are in.

The entire list of winners is here at Elisa's LJ blog but I hope she won't mind the signal boost. Because there are three categories that are really close to my heart.

Best Gay Contemporary Romance: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1188344.html
1) Sloan Parker - More
2) Marie Sexton - Strawberries for Dessert
3) Eden Winters - The Wish

And if you click on that link at Elisa's, you'll Eden's other book, The Angel of Thirteenth Street, was Honorable Mention in this same category, so two books in the top ten!

And some other serious favorites have also been honored: Ruth Sims' Counterpoint: Dylan's Story made the top ten for Best Gay Historical Romance, see the entire list here.

And if Eden hadn't already cleaned up one category, her novel Duet made the top ten for Best Gay Paranormal/Horror, which may be as close as you can come to characterizing a book this unique. The whole list is here.

Allessia Brio picked up an honor as the cover artist for Angel of Thirteenth Street, too, more reason to celebrate! You guys have to see this. Hardly ever see such a good fit with cover and story, too, so congrats, Allessia!

So why is a reviewer getting all excited about all this? First off, I'm so new to being a reviewer that I'm just happy that someone else agreed with me! I reviewed Duet not long ago and, and I've read almost all of her other work and loved it, whether or not I reviewed. Ruth Sims' short story is wonderful, too, and Counterpoint is burning a hole in my hard drive on the TBR list.

And second, Eden and Ruth both took the time to say a kind word or two to someone they don't even know, because I (and Pam) opened my mouth about what I'd read. So I'm all excited that something good happened to two sweet people.

As Eden said, "I'm jumping up and down, and that could be dangerous for a woman my age!"

Ladies, I'm jumping with you.

(And my TBB list just expanded by about 42 books.)

Unfinished Business by Angela Benedetti

After a morning of saving the world, apprentice mage Cal Toscani heads down and works a full day in his busy restaurant, because foiling the bad guy doesn't pay the bills. After midnight, bruised and aching from the aforementioned foiling, and exhausted from a long day of work, Cal goes home hoping for a hot bath, a nice massage and some sex, not necessarily in that order. His lover and master, Aubrey Fletcher, unfortunately remembers that he'd given Cal a lesson that morning before everything got exciting, and he's determined that Cal's going to finish that lesson before anything else happens -- yes, right now. Cal finds himself naked in bed, trying to figure out how to remove Aubrey's spell, while a naked Aubrey does his best to be distracting. Cal's pretty sure he's going to explode long before he figures the damn thing out!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was fun -- the author expanded on a little scene in a larger work (A Hidden Magic). Cal, the apprentice, gets a really funny, sexy lesson on paying attention under duress, and Aubrey, magical adept and Cal's master, provides plenty of hot, hot duress. If every lesson was that much fun, Cal will be an adept in no time at all!

I'd read A Hidden Magic a few months back, so I remembered the set-up for the whole asses-ears business, and that was my only quibble with this story. The beginning feels like a scene that was removed from the book for flow, and it doesn't really capture the purpose of the ears or why they even existed -- as a stand alone story they come sort of out of the blue. As a read with, it just follows right on. Following Cal around the restaurant at the beginning establishes that he's got a life outside magic, but it doesn't set up the rest of the story as well as it could. Asses ears --> creme brulee --> asses ears might have worked better than creme brulee --> asses ears.

All the same, the sex was hot, the relationship between master and apprentice was both loving and responsible, and the ending sweet.



Buy it here.

Off Trail by JB McDonald

Off Trail by J.B. McDonald

Recently widowed, with one dog now crippled and another about to give birth, Keith needs help. Problem is, he doesn't want it. When Spencer blows into his life, Keith does his best to shove Spencer back out. Spencer is everything his dead husband wasn't, and little too close to the wild side for Keith's taste.

Spencer can see that Keith is drowning in details, just as he can see how a little aid would go a long way. But Keith keeps refusing help -- for everything except the crippled dog. Spencer's way into Keith's house is through fur on wheels; finding his way into Keith's heart won't be so easy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

McDonald does a beautiful job of drawing an overwhelmed and still grieving widower, who has to get a handle on life as it must go on. I really don't know how Keith has survived the previous year without his husband -- nothing could have been one bit easier back in town, except for intact walls and ceilings to keep the elements and wildlife out. He's reached that point of exhaustion where he will keep putting on foot in front of the other because he's too tired to stop, until he drops.

Spencer is a good guy, willing to break that cycle because he sees someone really worthwhile inside Keith's closed off feelings, and he has some great attributes -- I wanted to shake Keith and say "Listen to the man!"

There was a really great turn-about sequence, involving the dogs that are such an overwhelming part of Keith's life, the author clearly understands big dogs, but honestly, while I get why Keith struggled so hard to keep Sam going, it didn't seem fair to anyone, yet, how could he stop once he'd started?

The tone of hopeless exhaustion on Keith's part does go on a while, understandably, but not pleasantly and probably has something to do with why I didn't like it more than I did, and yay for him seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. For all that it isn't pleasant, it's well done, and when the tone lifts, it's all the better.

Buy here for ebook or here for print.

Rants to the Universe

I am trying to buy some books. This is behavior you authors and publishers try to encourage, right? Then make it easy - why can't you

A) make your website easy to navigate with some tags, so I can find the rock star books or the firefighter books or something a little more specific than 'contemporary' or 'BDSM'? My wishlist at Goodreads isn't a substitute for decent navigating here.

B) authors, do your publicity under your own name? If LJ names are how you market yourself, like  longhairedcat21 publishes under SB Jones, which do you think I'm going to remember? You just lost a sale, cause I am not digging back through there. My time is valuable enough that I'm not going to spend longer hunting than it would take to read. Too many other choices.

C) Proofread before you post on your website. I do look and if there's 8 mistakes in a coming soon blurb, I won't get excited to read.

Aghhhhh back to spending money.

Apologies to any real SB Jones who markets under the right name.

Smoke:Askari by Lee Benoit

Smoke: Askari by Lee Benoit Noble is an American medical anthropologist who wants to save the world. His work in Kenya is off to a slow start until he accidentally moves into a brothel. The night guard, Harry, is more than what he seems, and soon he’s helping Noble take his research, and love life, to a whole new level.

Their work among the poorest of Nairobi’s poor is challenging, and they find great comfort in each other until an old crush calls Noble away and sinister forces mass against him and Harry. From slums and whorehouses to game parks and Indian Ocean beaches, this isn’t the tour books’ Kenya, and Harry and Noble aren’t your ordinary couple! Can simple love triumph against the complex forces of corruption, prejudice, and public health crises? Or is it just a curl of smoke, ready to be blown away?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~```

This is a cross-cultural romance, done by someone who has to have had experience in East Africa. The smoke burned the back of my throat, the smells and tastes startled me with their strangeness, and the attitudes made me think. The romance, though it was importance, was almost secondary for me in the strange culture. It wasn't a travelog, it was an immersion.

The main character, Noble, gave the impression of looking for a new culture because he didn't quite fit into his 'home' one, and he found a way in, with Harry the askari of the title, a protector that always seemed to have a little more meaning lurking than the author actually explained. I like that detail, it gave the impression of you could figure it out if you could just read a little more, if she would PLEASE just write more pages with more hints. Anyone who's reading just for  the sex would probably be irritated by that quality but I loved it.

So don't read it just for the sex, which is sweet and hot, understated for the most part and a reminder that the rest of the world sees things a little differently, but read it because it's a big step outside your culture and that's good.

A negative for me was Stuart, because while I could understand the evolution of Noble's feelings towards him, I wasn't so sure what Noble saw in him in the first place. Maybe it's another kind of win if the reader wants to hit a character with a big stick.


Buy here.