Mail Order Cowboy by Lor Rose

Title: Main Order Cowboy
Author: Lor Rose

Buy at All Romance eBooks
Cover Artist: Lex Valentine
Genre: Cowboy, ménage m/m/m
Length: 4900 words
Formats: epub, mobi, pdf,

Blurb:

The heart wants what it wants.

Austin and Loren have been together for sixteen years and own a small cattle ranch but something was missing. Their love was playful, youthful, and fun, but they knew there was more for them. What that more was, they didn't know. Talk of adding someone else interested the couple but no one had the spark they craved.

Hugh was a friend of Austin’s son and needed a place to go and a job. His own parents disowned him. He needed a place to stay and a job. Calling his friend’s dad was a last resort but what other choice did he have?

What Hugh found he didn't expect but maybe, just maybe, he was worth something after all.


Review:

If you’re expecting the entire story as promised by the blurb, the words in the file will feel inadequate. It’s all in there, in a line here, a line there, but not how it played out. Then back to the smexing.

Because if you’re trying to add someone to a relationship rather than enjoying an afternoon’s romp, isn’t a little more conversation than “Are you a virgin?” in order? Austin and Loren are basing everything on some eavesdropping that could be eliciting some very complicated emotions rather than straight out desire to join in. Overhearing someone getting called a man-whore isn’t the same as being happy to be on the receiving end. I turned my romance brain off and my porn brain on, and the problem disappeared.


The sex is hot, and heavy on talking dirty. Austin and Loren are goofy together, like big kids, which is cute, and Hugh has the best sense of any of them. He’s clearly done the most thinking about the dynamics of this: the older men are thinking more with their little heads. I wish them well, and they’ll do better now that they have some brains to run the outfit.

Once I reorganized my expectations, it was fun, but still contained weirdness like a few paragraphs of future setting with an outer space explanation that seemed completely irrelevant and a bit bizarre. Nothing else indicated this was anything other than a cowboy story.

Proofreading was sufficiently poor to become a hindrance to the reading experience, which provided a new experience for me as a reviewer. Enough errors to bounce me out of the story is normally a half marble deduct. The author/publisher was so willing to correct errors and is in the process of doing so, that I am revising it to -0.25 marbles because it was out there, but probably won’t stay out there.

The piece is trying to be a lot of things all at once, with just enough detailed storytelling to disrupt the erotica, but not enough to flesh out the story, and a few too many bounces out of the story. Personal communication with the author explained why this was so, but still, it’s being offered for sale. The primary relationship, the sex, and the playfulness between the men are good reading.  3 marbles

A Picture is Worth...

Uh Oh, Jethro's been fighting again. Why'd he get that shiner? Or who's gonna kiss it and make it better? Or... Tell us in 100 to 1000 words (drabbles are fine, really) and send your news along too. See How Thousand Word Thursday Works for details.

The rest of us will dream about undoing that remaining strap.

No Such Thing by A.M. Arthur

Title: No Such Thing
Author: A.M. Arthur
Buy at Carina
Buy at All Romance eBooks
Cover Artist: not listed
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 67k works
Formats: epub, mobi, pdf,


Twenty-two-year-old Alessandro Silva knows that returning to tiny Perch Creek to help his foster mother was the right thing to do. With no degree and a delinquent's reputation, he's lucky to have landed a job waiting tables. But not everyone is happy he's back, and the only thing keeping his move home from being a total bust is his boss's hot brother.

Jaime Winters spent most of his life watching the world go by, first from a series of hospitals and then from behind big stacks of textbooks. Studying is easier than facing the fact that years of heart failure means he's still a virgin at twenty-three. Until the new waiter in his sister's diner awakens desires he'd long ago given up on.

The last thing Alessandro wants is to fall for someone as fragile as Jaime. And Jaime may have a new heart, but he's scared of what giving it to another person would mean. Their no-strings-attached, instructional approach to sex keeps emotion safely at bay, until a secret from Alessandro's past forces them to confront their feelings in the present...

Review:

I had wildly different reactions to different aspects of the story. Some of them were good, some meh, and one blew my socks off.


The main story line, that of Alessandro and Jaime, was actually the biggest meh—yes Jaime’s gay, yes he’s completely inexperienced, yes Alessandro can cure him of that, and of course they will both fall in love. Nothing exactly wrong with it, aside from a certain paint-by-number effect as each lesson is laid out. But still, not especially gripping. Jaime’s heart transplant serves mostly as a vehicle to get him to 23 and never been kissed. Kind of a wasted opportunity—any feelings he has about living on someone else’s heart or the more practical aspects aren’t strong on the page.

Alesandro’s past as a troubled teenager in the foster care system and how it’s affecting his life now made me sit up and take interest. He can both see himself in his youngest foster brother and try to mentor him to a better path. Unlike Jaime’s heart transplant, ten year old Tony, his actions and his attitudes matter to this story. He makes Alessandro pop as a character and as a good man who might not always have been so good. An old high-school nemesis lives in town, and while by himself he’s only 2.5 dimensional, he also prods Alessandro into examining moral choices.

Another good aspect is that there is a sense of the characters having lived before they arrive on the page, rather than coming into existence where the book opens. This is largely a function of interactions with secondary characters. Eunice, the foster mom, and Jaime’s sister Shannon were fully fledged people and added to the depth of story.

Where my socks and I parted ways: Alessandro takes Jaime to a club in Wilmington. This was the standout section of the book, and the reason I will return to this story. Both in the club and after they leave it, the actions and interactions are one of the most amazing demonstrations of caring, concern, uncertainly, blossoming, and hawt sex ever. It’s perfect within the framework of their relationship. Anyone who wants to whine about cheating here should quit clutching their pearls so tightly and go back to reading het. It isn’t cheating, it is growth, and it’s beautiful all the way around. The reviewer who never bookmarks has this section bookmarked.

The book had a feeling of unevenness that plateaued out at a higher level past the midpoint, so while the first half didn’t do a lot for me, the second half certainly did. The club scene especially, and while I want to rate high for that alone, the rest of the book isn’t really keeping up with it. This is the first book I’ve read from this author, but it certainly won’t be the last. 4.25 marbles



In a separate but related note, Carina needs a good swift kick in the ass for that cover. One of the characters is of Brazilian ancestry and is mentioned explicitly as having dark hair and caramel-toned skin. Not only is that cover whitewashed with two generic white boys, but the picture and titles are made of fail. Readers, it’s not the author’s fault a diamond has been packaged in an old Big Mac wrapper.

It actually looks like Carina is either trying to choke this book or find out how poor a presentation readers will tolerate. The publisher didn’t bother to upload an excerpt to ARe, or to proofread the product description on their own site.

The Forester by Blaine D. Arden

Title: The Forester
Author: Blaine D. Arden
Buy at Publisher: Storm Moon Press
Buy at All Romance eBooks
Cover Artist: Nathie
Genre: fantasy
Length: 18,600 words
Formats: epub, mobi, pdf,

Blurb:

Kelnaht, a cloud elf, is a truth seeker caught between love and faith. Worse, a murder committed ten days before Solstice reveals an illicit affair between two tree elves he desires more than he can admit: Kelnaht's former lover Ianys, who once betrayed him, and the shunned forester named Taruif, who is not allowed to talk to anyone but The Guide, their spiritual pathfinder. When Taruif turns out to be the only witness for the crime, Kelnaht has to keep Ianys from sacrificing himself and losing his daughter, while at the same time realising he'd gladly sacrifice himself to end Taruif's loneliness.


Review:

This short piece (novella?) packed quite a lot into the slender word count. We are introduced to the society of elves, who have a hierarchy and rules that cannot be bucked, and members of their society who cannot stay within the strictures.


Kelnaht is our POV character—he’s working with clandestine information and evidence detected by observation, magic, and deduction to find the killer of another elf. Suspicion falls first on Taruif, who has some scandalous tragedy in his background that caused him to be placed on the furthest fringes of this society. He’s an easy target—too easy, and Kelnaht refuses to be lured down the obvious path. The blend of magic and forensics was interesting: no wand waving and poof! the answers appear, but thought and legwork were also required to solve the murder mystery.

The elves’ society is extremely conservative and has tied itself in knots regarding the practitioners of certain specialties: the elders want to punish and ostracize, but they can’t do without the skills, and make proviso for getting the outcasts to keep serving the community. I found this very vexing, and the Guide, who knows all, sees all, talks to everyone, and says nothing about those conversations, seemed to be a good guy but definitely is helping the society have things both ways.

The coming together of Kelnaht, Ianys, and Taruif is complicated by personal history and by convention. Kelnaht has reason not to trust Ianys, and no particular reason to trust Taruif, and lusts after him more than actually knows him. It’s tough when one partner isn’t actually supposed to speak to anyone. The relationship is at its earliest stages here and will be developed further in the second volume of the series, which I plan to read soon. The three of them together are lovely, and the author isn’t reaching for too much, too soon, or too easily for them.

If I have issues with the book, one is the same problem the characters have with the way their society is structured: perhaps I am meant to chafe as they do. I’m still scratching my head over Taruif’s explanation of the crime for which he’s shunned. Where was the truth seeker then? This felt like a real gap in an otherwise well-knit plot. Kelnaht seemed a little absent in his own work—almost all the actual work got done by his apprentice.

I applaud the author for giving us a lot of worldbuilding in a tight space, and for showing us three lovers-to-be without pulling an HEA out of thin air. I’m looking forward to the next book. 3.75 marbles

A picture is worth...

I"m going to be very distressed if no one can explain why this lion's mane is in curlers. A hundred to a thousand words pretty please?

See How Thousand Word Thursday Works for details, and the rest of us are going to go O_O.

Thorns by Feliz Faber

Title: Thorns
Author: Feliz Faber
Purchase at Dreamspinner
Purchase at All Romance eBooks
Cover Artist: Reese Dante
Genre: contemporary, sports, interracial
Length: 240 pages
Formats: epub, mobi, pdf, print

How can love between two men possibly be responsible for a horse’s death during the Kentucky Derby? Reporter Will Yeats wants to know the truth.

Seventeen years ago, a love affair between a jockey and a horse trainer and a tragic accident on the racetrack scandalized the horseracing world. But Nic Pithiviers and Louis Meerow seem to have no desire to set the record straight: they refuse the interview and send attorney Francis LeBon to question Will’s motives.

Francis has a special place in his heart for Nic and Louis, who taught him to take pride in himself as a gay man, and he’ll stop at nothing to protect them from a gossipmongering reporter. However, Francis doesn’t expect the reporter’s honesty and genuine determination to exonerate two men falsely accused… or the growing attraction to Will he feels.

While visiting with Nic and Louis at their horse training center in France, Will uncovers a web of intrigue, secrets, and old lies, and he unwittingly sets a series of perilous events into motion that not only threaten to destroy his budding relationship with Francis, but Nic and Louis’s decades-long commitment as well.

Review:

Fans of Dick Francis will delight in a racing based novel, and fans of mm romance will appreciate that instead of 12 pages of the hero getting beaten up, we have the MC getting smexed up by a hot lawyer.


Will, the reporter, is put off balance by Francis, the lawyer sent to warn him off investigating the decades old accident and the two men who took the brunt of the scandal. Falling hard where he’s never given his heart, Will reminds himself that it might not be mutual. Francis is a hard one to read—while he’s there, he seems very into Will, and when he’s on the other side of the ocean, he’s very, very absent.

Nic the trainer and Louis the jockey have old secrets, some of which they share, some they hide from one another. They’re delightful, complex, and both loving and strangely fragile. Given they had more screen time than Will has with Francis, they nearly stole the show. Their stables, La Thillaye, is financially shaky, and they are justifiably worried by the string of incidents that peck away at their resources.

Will’s POV lasts from beginning to end, and Francis is absent physically and emotionally for much of the story, which made the external plot of the old disaster and the current training and racing schedule seem much more important than the romance. Will is both a guest and a nuisance at the stables, but finds ways to make himself useful. I particularly liked his intervention with a track official.

A few of the conflicts were the sort that could have been solved with one sentence of clarification before they became traumatic, which bothered me, but with those as immutable events, how both Will and Francis coped was understandable, even if one or both of them should have been smacked upside the head. Neither one is entirely clear on what is business, what is personal, and if those two spheres intersect, or if that should matter.

The secondary characters were vivid and interesting, each with a part of the story to advance. The setting was lovely—the stables redolent of horses and lads calling to each other in French, the town of Deauville with its beach umbrellas and sassy denizens, and the track, where so much rides on the fragile cannon bones of the thoroughbreds.

I was disturbed by the flirtation between Louis and Will—while some attraction was understandable, the degree seemed to go beyond appropriate. Nothing came of it, fortunately. Another diversion in another direction was only the product of a lonely man who's been offered no commitment. One culprit was a little too easy or Dick Francis has me too well trained, but when asking cui bono? it helps if there’s more than one cui to bono. The long ago mystery had more threads to unravel.

The book was smooth and enjoyable, in a setting that went beyond the mundane. I was left with hope for Will and Francis, who did finally get his head out of his butt with a resounding pop, and for Nic and Louis, who have a new phase of their life together to explore. I wish them all happiness, fast horses, and well groomed tracks. 4 marbles

Slushy slogs and diamonds on the ground

Just so you know, I’ve been getting corrupted at Chuck Wendig’s blog. After I read him, I cuss a lot more, and let slip weird and personal bits of information that may not be strictly true. While I don’t really believe his story about the garter snake and the serving spoon, my little ditty about the socket set and the VCR might possibly be true. Or not. Well.

Lately he’s been going off on the self-pubbed volcano of crap. I can sort of see it. His plea for self-pubbers to take some pride, get some edits, make a nice cover, write a blurb that entices, really is in a lot of people’s best interests to listen to. Of course the comments that followed were kind of harsh. Like, I won’t read indie ‘cause it’s all kinds of crap.

I’m not too worried about it on our end of the genre spectrum here. I read indie books. Jordan Castillo Price self-pubs. Josh Lanyon does too now. Never heard anyone complain about their quality. They’re pros, they work their publishing like a business, they do the right things to create a lovely chunk of entertainment. And a lot of other folks I read do it too. Because there are some great pieces out there that didn’t go through an imprint, from authors who take pride.

Of course, I see some of the volcano spew too. Some from authors who should know better. From writers I really did think knew the difference between its and it’s, or that sentences need punctuation on the ends. Be glad I don’t name those names, they make me talk like Chuck Wendig and then I say things like fucking fuckbasket.

Some indie writers have asked me to read their work, and I have. Some I plan to read again. Some I probably shouldn’t have said yes to. Some I’ve declined. Some indies I’ve bought. I buy a lot of books from a lot of authors.

Some I’ve opened the file on and thought oh no, there went my remaining sanity, and closed it again. If you don’t believe that a good cover and a good blurb matter, yes, they do. If, against my better judgment, I look past an eyesearing cover (which in mm is relative, I know) and a blurb of stones and errors, the story tends to match. I try to weed these out early. They aren’t all indie, either, which is another fucking fuckbasket.

One problem I do see as being more of an mm indie issue is that a complete story arc may or may not be in there. If the book is clearly One Big Book divided for manageability, and does have some completed plot arc as part of the bigger situation, that’s cool. But if the books are short and really should be all three together for a plot arc, that sets me off. I stopped reading fanfiction because I got so tired of a neat set up that got abandoned before the plot really started, and a lot of “Book 1”s seem like more of the same, only with money.

Chuck Wendig didn’t really address that volcanoes make diamonds too. There are some spectacular indie things out there. And they aren’t too hard to find. Here’s three of my favorites, some I’ve reviewed, some coming soon.
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What's right about this? All three books are clearly marked as going together, they have a great story, lovely covers, pretty formatting, and just in general show how it's done right.

This Digital Box Set contains all three volumes of the Impulse trilogy: Inertia, Acceleration and Velocity.

DRAWN TOGETHER BY IRRESISTIBLE FORCES

Quiet, grounded Detroit handyman Derrick Chance isn’t looking for a relationship. After spending his twenties recovering from a series of tragic losses, he’s content with his insular existence and not interested in risking the possibility of another.

Stylish accountant Gavin Hayes has every reason to avoid entanglements, too. Fresh out of an abusive relationship with a world-class manipulator, he questions whether he’s ever going to be fit for another partner. At the very least, it will be months before he knows just how big an issue his future health will be if he tries again.

But when a series of home repairs unexpectedly turns into an extravagant game of flirtation, they discover that the last thing they thought they wanted is the one thing they can’t live without. As the autumn months pass and they wait for the final verdict on Gavin’s health, the two wounded men learn to open up, to let someone into their lives, and to trust again. But when Gavin’s dangerous ex re-enters the picture, will their new and fragile bond withstand the final test? 

Find at Amazon. I reviewed each book separately. Might as well get the set, you'll start and want to finish right away.

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What's done right?  A complete plot arc, it stands alone, even if it's better in order, the tale is fast paced and gripping, we CARE about these two guys and besides, Lucky's the  funniest pain in the ass ever. Also I want to lick the cover. Review to follow.

 Renegade biker. Drug runner. Recovering addict. Wanted by the Southeastern Narcotics Bureau. But he isn’t a crook, he’s the law.

SNB Agent Bo Schollenberger’s solved his cases using his brains and not a gun, and with his partner, not alone. Now he’s handed a tough new case involving designer drugs that turn users violent. One false move could end his life as he immerses himself into a motorcycle gang to locate the source. His fate depends on how well he can impersonate someone else. Someone named Cyrus Cooper.

Cyrus is everything Bo Schollenberger isn’t, including the badass enforcer for a smuggling ring. He establishes pecking order with his fists and doesn’t take shit from anybody, not even the undercover agent who comes to help his case.

Simon “Lucky” Harrison’s always been the best, whichever side of the law he was on. Former trafficker turned SNB agent, he damned well ought to be undercover in this motorcycle gang, instead of hanging around the office going crazy with new policies, new people, and “inter-departmental cooperation” that sticks him in a classroom. Yet he’s passed over for the SNB’s biggest case in decades in favor of the rookie who shares his bed. A man Lucky thought he knew.

When survival depends on a web of tangled lies, lines blur, worlds collide, and a high stakes game turns friend to foe. Lucky knows the difference between Bo the agent and Cyrus the outlaw, but does Bo?
 Find at Amazon
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What's done right: a hotdamn of a standalone story, where the stakes are higher than just getting shoved out of the closet, a great setting, and a paperback copy that looks as good as anything on my shelf. Review to follow.

Pro cyclist Luca Biondi lives for the race. For the star of Team Antano-Clark, victory lies within his grasp—if he can outdistance 200 other hopefuls, avoid suspicion from race officials, and keep his lieutenant more friend than foe. Luca also has secrets, and eyes for amateur cyclist and journalist Christopher Nye.

Christopher understands Luca’s need to keep their relationship under wraps, but chafes at hiding in the shadows of his lover’s career. He’s ready to cheer Luca’s victories, but he knows too well how triumph can turn to tears. While Christopher’s heart sees Luca the man, his inner journalist—and his editor—sees the cycling world’s biggest scoop.

From the jagged curves of the Colorado Rockies to the viciously steep Belgian hills, Luca can ride out any bumps—except rumors about his loyalty.

A few words in the wrong ear could crash everything. With miles between them, hints of scandal, and Luca’s fierce need to guard his reputation, a journalist might have to let go of the biggest story of his career or risk forcing his lover to abandon the race. Christopher and Luca face a path more treacherous than any road to the summit in the Italian Alps.  Find at Amazon
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Notice I didn't say anything about the editing. That's because nothing sticks out, these three (5?) books are all coherent and proofread to a fare thee well.  So there, Chuck Wendig.

If this is indie, I like it.