Cupid Knows Best by S.A. Garcia

Title: Cupid Knows Best
Author: S.A. Garcia
Cover Artist: Paul Richmond
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 284 pages
Rating: 3 stars out of 5

When it comes to his professional life, photographer Carl Conrad is at the top of his game. He molds impressionable minds at the university by day and jets off to Paris for gallery showings on long weekends. Unfortunately, he pays for it with his disastrous personal life: Carl kicked his boyfriend to the curb after one too many punches, so now it’s just him and his hamsters, one of which he suspects may be a space alien.

Then Cupid takes pity on Carl and hits him where it hurts. It takes Carl all of three seconds to fall head over heels in lust with set design student Marcelino Moya, despite the man’s questionable—okay, deplorable—fashion sense. Convincing Marcelino to give him a chance is the hard part, but Carl is up for the challenge, pun definitely intended.

Marcelino plays hard to get, but he isn’t immune to Carl’s charms. Carl talks him around to dinner, dating, and eventually moving in. There’s just one tiny word standing between Carl and perfect happiness. Why won’t Marcelino say it?

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It is marginally possible that I did not approach this novel with the right mind-set. I am willing to be beguiled with language and scenarios that dance from witticism to feyness, but when it comes on top of the MC, Carl, discussing how traumatized he is by hearing from his abusive ex lover, I will admit to having some trouble shifting gears. It seems that the bruises haven’t quite faded from the most recent incident, but this is left vague enough that friends are urging Carl to move on. Which he does, about seven and a half minutes after the words are out of the friend’s mouth. With a student.

Carl is the only POV character—an extremely talented artist, willing to take refuge in pot smoke and too much wine rather than treat anything seriously, and taking a while to acknowledge that he might have to learn from his mistakes. What touches his surface stays on his surface, and takes a long time to penetrate to the depths where it might do some good. Describing himself as “an old hippie” is part and parcel of his over the top persona, much more flamboyant than most m/m romance characters. At thirty-six he feels old and decrepit, whining about the aches and pains of yoga and wild sex. Perhaps in his universe he is old and decrepit—Carl and his friends trade vicious jabs about aging and creeping unattractiveness, and how disadvantaged a geezer of 36 is with a lover of 24.

Marcelino, an Argentine transplant with eye-searing fashion sense, takes Carl’s photography class and Carl is immediately smitten with everything from his facial hair to his nipple jewelry, and is quite sure that this is love. Cupid is personified, as are Carl’s other advisors Lust and Common Sense, who all take turns advising him. It swings between funny and creepy, mostly because poor Common Sense loses so often, starting with the instance early in the book where Carl hijacks Marcelino off the dance floor and begs him to move in.

This novel has to be described as character driven, and if there is growth in character, it might *possibly* be Carl’s evolution from the frenzy of infatuation to a deeper affection. Marcel (as he asks Carl to call him) is slower to warm up and while he moves in relatively early in the book, he keeps his feelings more to himself, until he explodes all over the page with his fears, past, and concerns, most of which go unhinted throughout the book. The external plot is primarily slice of life, a series of incidents that draw reactions from “That’s nice” all the way to “WTF are you thinking?” and including jealous spats, followed by make-up sex. Most everything that happens is followed by sex. Or is sex. There’s lots and lots of sex.

The abusive ex subplot is the most definite plot arc—Carl does shove him away every time he shows up, but the manipulation continues—ex pushes for forgiveness he hasn’t earned and Carl acquiesces. Marcel has a certain overlap with the ex, but a very different execution.

My lack of connection with Carl, whom I perceived as the self-absorbed creature who never shuts up, really got in the way of enjoying whatever character growth there might be. At one point he compares himself to a “Jack Russell terrier on puppy uppers,” and his incessant inner monologue and flamboyant manners made that apt. You’d think an “old hippie” might relax while stoned or drunk, but no.

Carl’s mental state can be tracked by his waterfall of words—he never uses one when a paragraph will do, and there’s a huge amount of alliteration, which either calms down as the book progresses, or I stopped noticing out of self-defense. The highly dramatic tone maintains throughout the story.

I indulged in a quick muscleman pose and laughed. Relentless sit-ups and yoga had created almost tight abdominal muscles. My insecurity reasoned that if I chased fresh cream like Marcelino, I needed to roam in the same zip code as perfection. Fine, at least I needed to occupy the same county.

My silly debate over my party outfit gave me a headache. When had a critical tween seized my senses? OMG, like, I have nothing to weeeaaaaarrr!

While I ended the story wishing the couple well, I had a hard time staying invested in them because of tone and style issues, and because the growth issues are so subtle that I ask myself if I’m imagining them. 3 marbles

A picture is worth...

Mmmm, hot bods in lycra moving fast. What's not to like? And if you have 100 to 1000 words of ficlet or excerpt to go with the pic, send it along to post here. The rest of us will lick them as they go by. (Directions here.)

The Party Boy's Guide to Dating a Geek by Piper Vaughn and Xara X. Xanakas

Title: The Party Boy’s Guide to Dating a Geek

Author: Piper Vaughn and Xara X. Xanakas

Cover Artist: Aisha Akeju

Publisher: Less Than Three Press

Genre: Contemporary

Length: 270 pages

Ashley Byrne only wants one thing in life: to finish his tattoo apprenticeship and fulfill his dream of owning his own shop. In the meantime, he spends his nights partying, flirting, and having sex. After all, what else is there for him to worry about? Aside from his hair and his clothes, not much. He’s hot, and rest assured no one knows it better than him. He’s also used to getting what he wants—until he meets Felipe Navarro.

Fee Navarro has everything he needs: a great IT job, a nice apartment, and all the high-tech toys his geeky heart could ever want. He doesn’t do casual, and he knows guys like Ash are nothing but. Ash may burn hot for Fee, but Fee isn’t willing to take a chance on a vain, little party boy with too many tats and an oversized ego. He wants someone to share his life with, and he won’t settle for anything less. Too bad Ash has never been the type to give up easily. He has a plan, and he’s not stopping until he proves he’s more than just a pretty face—he’s someone worthy of winning Fee’s heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Party Boy’s Guide is a charming story of opposites attracting, and more to the point, of one of the opposites understanding what’s attractive about the other and why the attraction is worth working for.

Ash and Fee come together while helping Ash’s brother and his girlfriend move in together, and things do not start well. If Ash isn’t putting his foot in his mouth or doing something careless that causes an injury, he’s coming across as flighty, only interested in a good time. Being seen like that stings, even if it’s true—Ash isn’t used to an attractive man not responding to him, and it makes him work triply hard to get Fee’s attention. Used to entertaining himself with any willing comer in the clubs leaves him unprepared to deal with someone more serious.

The gimmick of having a bit of dating manual heading the chapters is funny, but definitely sound as if the advice was ripped from the pages of Cosmopolitan, with some florid “geek references.” It’s cute but the tone really made me wonder about the intended target audience, even if the advice is good and pertinent to the contents of the chapter. The geek references persist in the software manual style table of contents and chapter headings. The joke sustains fairly well. The "cool guy" wandering into geek territory and coming off as the inept one was a comic, if slightly painful, turnaround of the more usual cool/not cool situations. That first book club meeting, oh ow!

Ash remains the POV character through the entire novel, which is unusual in something of this length, and it’s he who is changed most. Not because Fee is trying to change him, but because he recognizes the worth of Fee’s methods, including the go-slow-don’t-rush-into-sex-or-anything else important way Fee allows himself to engage with Ash. Any pushing from Ash makes Fee withdraw, but he will come closer if allowed to choose his pace.

As an apprentice tattoo artist, Ash has some vague plans for the future, but he’s drifting along, saying he wants something but not really working at it. It isn’t until Fee demonstrates what his own efforts have brought him and gets involved in small ways with Ash’s dreams, such as by configuring a computer for him, that Ash stops dreaming and starts making progress toward his goal.

In some ways I liked the leisurely approach the two men take, because Ash has the chance to rediscover that sex can be more important than the random assisted orgasm, but there were a few places I wanted to tap my toe and suggest they move a little faster. Now and then the slow unrolling was a little too slow. At least one side plot concerning Ty, Ash’s prospective tattoo parlor partner, seemed to wander off into nothingness after eating enough page time to seem important.

The story is as much about Ash’s maturing as it is about the relationship, and if he didn’t grow up, he would not have become a worthy partner for a man who actually has his act together aside from a bit of social ineptitude. Fee isn’t that big a geek—imagine him on The Big Bang Theory for one scene to see exactly how much being computer savvy isn’t geekhood personified. But he is the polar opposite of a frivolous party boy, and eventually, so is Ash.

We don’t see Fee’s POV in this story and he’s not terribly communicative, so Ash is left to flounder sometimes and Fee comes off as a little cold. Fee is Hispanic, but his ethnicity is an under-under-under current aside from some delectable food, and may show most strongly in a scene that is not actually on page. His level of “doesn’t get it” on relationships exceeds the believable in one or two places, but it’s very clear that he’s a worthwhile person to be involved with.

The writing is smooth and contains some excellent lines and observations on the human condition, although Ash utters them thinking of the smaller canvas of his life. It’s in keeping with the mostly light tone of the book. I enjoyed the story, even if I wished for a faster pace now and again.

4.25 marbles

Bone: Slip of the Tongue by ID Locke

Title: Bone: Slip of the Tongue
Author: ID Locke
Cover Artist: BS Clay
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: fantasy
Length: 23k words, 74 pages

Ivriah is a Battle Mage specializing in summoning demons to fight for his country, Islafar. He also uses his summoning skills to call male demons to see to his baser needs as same-sex relationships are illegal and ruthlessly punished in Islafar. Incorrect wording in a summons leads to him calling for the Bone Demon, Orajin, instead of the demon intended. While Ivriah finds Orajin very attractive, the fighting demon is far too cheeky for Ivriah’s bedroom tastes.

Orajin is thrilled to finally be called to Ivriah’s bed as he’s been secretly in love with the mage for years. Orajin does his best to show Ivriah that they are very compatible in bed and sets out to prove to the mage that they are perfect for each other. In a sneaky move, Orajin gives Ivriah a bone spur as a “token of affection” that is actually a symbol of engagement among Orajin’s people.

Their developing relationship and Ivriah’s safety and life are threatened when the authorities are alerted to it. Orajin swoops in to the rescue and offers Ivriah a chance to have his heart’s desire if he’s brave enough to take it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This story commences after a battle. Ivriah the mage is horny enough after battle to summon a demon for some sex, but tired enough to muddle his spell and then be flummoxed by the demon when he finally appears. The banter is funny and a little appalling—Ivriah could have summoned something far less well-disposed towards him, and he loses the battle of wits on every turn. It’s a loss he ends up not minding much.

This is definitely the high point of the story, because the war is told in infodumps and exists mostly as background. Who is fighting and why is irrelevant. How and why Ivriah gets emotionally attached to the demon is offscreen, somewhere in the nine months that gets mentioned as the duration of the war and their sexual relationship. Orajin’s fondness for the mage was a done deal before he was ever summoned. The relationship is basically a given, and the first half of the book is their first sexual encounter. Witty in spots, and somewhat driving the plot, but not substituting for plot.

Once we skip ahead nine months and almost all of the relationship development, we get a bit of plot. Ivriah’s country is extremely homophobic and now he’s in trouble for his proclivities. Under questioning by the authorities, Ivriah considers his prospective lifespan to be very short. Summoning the battle demon who’s deeply in love with him doesn’t seem to be a viable option for anything other than sentiment.

Moment of thought here. Battle. Demon.

There are some nice touches here, like a peek into the true meaning of “demon” and what are his home life and his most private thoughts, which are both tender and sometimes amusing. There are also some very heavy handed treatments. This story contains a lot of repetition, as if readers won’t recall a bone demon is bone colored, or that demon blood is purple as Ivriah’s hair were we not reminded periodically. Ivriah is occasionally reduced to thinking of himself in the third person, which becomes yet another instance of infodumping. Orajin, were he not a battle demon, would make a good pop psychologist: he worries about inflated egos and repressed trauma.

Ivriah certainly has on screen trauma; his inquisition by the authorities is sexually sadistic and qualifies as a rape. The scene is likely to be triggery for some readers. The aftermath invokes the trope I found distasteful: while at first the story seemed sensitive to a victim not feeling entirely sexual, it whisked past that quickly. There was a plot reason for doing so, but the execution did not maintain the sensitivity, and it became “sex heals rape.” The best that can be said here is that while anal sex is mentioned and negotiated about, it doesn’t occur.

While the story certainly had witty moments, they are overwhelmed by the infodumps and strange tone, veering from Freudian to skater punk in the same character’s voice. In moments that require action, the characters stop for long stilted speeches. The external plot presents mostly as sexual torture or extraneous issues, and the relationship development shows only the moment of mutual attraction and the explosion into HEA. There are very few plot points not mentioned in the blurb, and I was left feeling like I’d read half a story. 2.25 marbles

A Thousand Word Thursday Story from Amelia Gormley

Lessons

It began with Gavin showing off. A sweltering afternoon in the park walking Chelsea had resulted in a chance encounter with an ice cream cart. Derrick had got his usual cone, but Gavin had opted for a popsicle.

Cherry, he said with a sly smile. In honor of Derrick’s blush.

He’d done things with that popsicle. Suggestive things. Obscene things. Things that really shouldn’t have been anatomically possible. Derrick hadn’t quite believed what he was seeing until Gavin got him back to the house and onto the bed, at which point he’d wrapped his red-stained mouth around Derrick and proven that yes, he really could do that.


So now Derrick sat in his kitchen with an orange popsicle trying to figure it out. Chelsea sat on the floor, watching him with her head cocked curiously to the side, trying to understand why Derrick kept teasing her with the popsicle and not sharing, even though he clearly wasn’t eating it.

Instead, he was trying to make himself sick with it. It melted on his tongue, tangy and sweet, as he slid it toward the back of his throat. Immediately his throat closed and he began to gag.

How the hell had Gavin managed it?

He discarded the melting popsicle and consulted the internet.

Clench the thumb of your left hand in your fist and squeeze tightly, one article advised. Derrick wasn’t sure what his thumb had to do with his gag reflex, but he fetched a new popsicle from the box in the freezer and tried again. The cold, molded juice went into his throat without making him gag the first time, but when he tried to repeat the motion, it didn’t work.

Just relax. Don’t think about doing it, the anticipation will make you tense. Just do it.

Well, that was spectacularly unhelpful. Derrick turned off the computer with disgust. How the hell was he supposed to do it if he didn’t think about doing it?

More than ever, his twenties seemed like a total waste. Why the hell couldn’t he have picked someone up from time to time who would have shown him these things?

Well, the thumb trick should be good for at least one pass.

That night in bed, he came close to humiliating himself all over Gavin’s junk. He lay with his head on Gavin’s thigh, swallowing back the urge to choke and laughing helplessly at himself.

“I cannot figure this out,” he confessed, shaking his head wryly.

“You don’t need to impress me,” Gavin said, stroking his hair with a tender smile. “I like what you do just fine.”

And maybe Gavin did, but that didn’t mean Derrick intended to stop trying. It might take weeks or months, but he’d get it down. He’d learn. He wanted to learn it all.

He didn’t know how to explain to Gavin that his efforts hadn’t been so much about impressing Gavin as they’d been an attempt to take it all in, to experience everything he’d denied himself for so long. Like a starving man at a feast, he wanted to glut himself on pleasure.

Intent on that goal, he crawled up over Gavin’s recumbent body and moved on to other things.

He’d get back to that particular lesson later.
*************************************
Ooh! Thank you, Amelia!

Gavin and Derrick are from the Impulse series, and Book 2: Acceleration, will be out at the end of the month. Inertia was good (there's a review right here) so Acceleration is going on the TBR pile ASAP. And nobody lick the art!

Acceleration on GoodReads

Gaining Momentum

Gavin Hayes is everything Derrick could ask for in a lover. Gorgeous. Passionate. Great in bed. Derrick finds it very easy to just let himself go, to let Gavin guide him and teach him all the things he missed during a decade of celibacy. In the course of a single weekend, Derrick’s routine is transformed, his mornings and evenings filled with sex. Sweet, seductive, wild, or raunchy, Gavin offers Derrick all the pleasure he’s denied himself for so long.

But learning how to be a lover in bed is one thing. Learning to be one out of bed is another. For Derrick, being alone has become habit. Sharing his confidences doesn’t come nearly as readily as sharing his bed. And after so many losses, the last thing Derrick wants is to become dependent upon another person who might not always be there.

And Gavin always being there is far from certain. With an ex-lover lurking in the background, and the question of Gavin’s future health still outstanding, neither Gavin nor Derrick feel capable of asking for anything more than right now. But Gavin won’t be kept on the fringes of Derrick’s life. Can Derrick let someone in before the opportunity passes him by?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amelia C. Gormley may seem like anyone else. But the truth is she sings in the shower, dances doing laundry, and writes blisteringly hot m/m erotic romance while her five year old is napping. When she’s not writing, Amelia single-handedly juggles her husband, her son, their home, and the obstacles of life by turning into a everyday superhero. And that, she supposes, is just like anyone else. Her first novella from the Impulse Trilogy is available through Amazon, Smashwords and other retailers.

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Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Devil's Night Anthology

Title: Devil’s Night
Author: S.L. Armstrong, K. Piet, Alina Ray, Azalea Moone, Tali Spencer
Cover Artist: Dare Empire
Publisher: Storm Moon Press
Genre: paranormal
Length: 42,500 words

The infernal host is on the prowl. They want your soul, and they're not afraid to bargain for it. They'll promise you everything you could ever desire, but the price tag may be steeper than you can handle. Whether tempting and seducing mortals, defiling angels, or reveling among themselves, the fiendish creatures in these four haunting tales know that while good is okay, evil is just more fun.

Thaddeus sold his soul to save his family long ago, but the deal he struck with the demon Belial has him spending eternity managing Le Carnaval du Diable, filled to the brim with others damned into servitude. Belial wants more than Thaddeus' soul, though, and his constant advances only add to Thaddeus' stress as he faces a threat to The Devil's Midway.

Craig Peters finds himself Hell Bound and destined for an eternity of torture at the hands of the demon Karawan, despite having no memory of the sin that condemned him to this existence. Over time, though, those memories return, along with an unnatural attraction to Karawan, which leads them both down a path neither of them could have possibly imagined.

When the Hounds Come Out to Play, Ryu and Keir are released from their chains to hunt the wayward damned and drag them down to Hell. A breath of freedom is an opportunity for fun, however, and Ryu isn't about to waste it, even if it means getting caught in a case of mistaken identity with a handsome stranger.

Finally, Beltran is a man of heritage and honor, and when his cousin is brutalized, he has few qualms about consulting a local Inca shaman on her behalf. Little does he know the price of the charm he seeks will make him The Seventh Sacrifice in the amaru demon Kitara's ancient quest for revenge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another anthology with some favorite authors and new to me names, and a fine diabolical streak running through the stories. Sexual tension, in gobs. Danger and threats, lots and lots. Hellishly charming beings, definitely. Hot sex, oh yeah. But if you read expecting romance, you aren’t going to be happy.

I’ve been reading S.L. Armstrong and K. Piet for a while now, and have enjoyed their growth as a team. The Devil’s Midway is their strongest I’ve read yet. Thaddeus, the POV character, is a genuinely good man who sold his soul for the best of reasons. He’s the only one who can stand up to Belial, though it’s growing more and more difficult to turn down what the demon offers. Thaddeus’ struggle is with himself; the story is extremely tense, and manages to be both sexy and frightening at the same time.

Alina Ray’s Hell Bound was impossible for me to get involved with, since one of the characters was discovering his kink a little late. Rookie demon Karawan doesn’t know what to make of Craig’s reactions to his torture, and I was having some real issues with the torture being entwined with everything else. Pain play sends me running. YMMV.

When the Hounds Come Out to Play from Azalea Moone had an interesting twist, since one of the characters was a shape-shifting, candy-stealing hellhound. Being a bit unclear on some human conventions, Ryu’s Halloween night becomes extra interesting when he spends quite a lot of it with a human male. The dog-out-of-collar moments provided flashes of humor to leaven the anthology and were cute, with an edge. Grant was a hard character to get into, being inconsistent and with some knowledge that gave the entire encounter an air of WTF in retrospect.

The Seventh Sacrifice is the first of Tali Spencer’s works I’ve read, but it won’t be the last. This was a beautifully crafted story, combining the exotic atmosphere of La Paz, the native lore of Bolivia, and characters that are both in opposition and aligned in some ways. That the author entwines their stories and lives to bring them into something unexpected, and definitely not entirely consensual but still satisfying is a testament to skill and vision. While certainly not a standard romance, there is underlying respect between Beltran and Kitara, and a definite sense that what is necessary will become something treasured.

As with any anthology, the stories will vary, but here they are varying within a high and narrow range. Even allowing for personal squick on one story, I’m still quite pleased with the overall effect of this collection. Because of bias my rating doesn’t include Hell Bound¸ since I honestly can’t differentiate between what’s done well or not in a sub-genre that makes my skin crawl.

With the reservation of the pain play story, Devil’s Night is recommended for the reader who doesn’t require a consistently happy ending but does want tension and heat. 4.5 stars