Title: Three of Swords (Precog in Peril #1)
Author: Theo Fenraven
Cover Artist: Theo Fenraven
Publisher: Voodoo Lily Press (self)
Buy at Amazon
Genre: paranormal
Length: 37k words

An old houseboat, a hot young guy, a couple of murders, and more mysterious keys than you can shake a stick at: this is what awaits Gray Vecello after his grandfather, Graham, is killed picking up high blood pressure pills.

A letter Graham left behind sends Gray and his unexpected ally, Cooper Key, on a journey downriver in an attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding an unknown treasure. On the way, they encounter both friends and enemies, one of whom will target Gray and Cooper for death. One thing working in Gray’s favor: he has the sight, just as Graham had, but will it be enough to save them both?

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First off, I loved the title. Precog in Peril? Shouldn’t he see whatever it is coming? Maybe—it’s an unpredictable gift.


Gray opens the story at his grandfather’s funeral. He never much liked the old coot, but he feels somewhat responsible—what if you saw something coming and didn’t say anything about it? Gray has the Sight, but he doesn’t entirely trust it and hasn’t always acted on what he sees.

The old man had some talent in that direction as well, and also had an old houseboat with a young tenant, both of which he left to Gray. Cooper, eighteen and missing a few basic skills for getting along in life, knows how to run and maintain the boat, so Gray, a hairdresser by profession, lets him stick around, and besides, he’s hot and gay.

The story unwinds in a series of clues, which makes me want to take a stick to the old man—he knew a lot but didn’t share it, even though Gray “was his favorite.” The reasoning seemed both plausible and flimsy, but done is done and now Gray has to sort out what’s going on, with Cooper’s help. They journey up and down the waterways of Minnesota in search of the next puzzle piece.

I liked Gray; he’s both cynical and open to new experiences, being willing to dump his entire life when something intriguing comes along. Cooper isn’t such a vivid personality—his background hasn’t left him as worldly as might be expected, and he’s everyone’s tabula rasa. Convince him he is or could be something, he’s all over it, but he doesn’t really decide values on his own. This includes his relationship with Gray, which is basically a done deal once a third party told him it would happen.

The writing style is smooth but the development is uneven to the point of not being a romance. Cooper’s a trusty sidekick, and he’s going to be essential to the larger story but the real plot is Gray’s abilities and what he can or should do with them, and how to stay alive and free while doing it. The psychic set-up has some standard elements such as being unreliable, tarot-assisted, and that it’s helpful to have a spirit guide. What’s new, or at least new to me, is the structure of the psychic plane.

This story is definitely Act One of a larger arc, since an immediate threat is more or less resolved by the end of the story, but the larger mystery has yet to be completely identified, let alone solved. Hints of a shadowy organization who’d like to exploit Gray’s talents disturb his composure, and the few allies he’s collecting may not be enough help.

The set-up and the setting are interesting enough that I’ll be on the watch for the next installment. So far the plot and relationships haven’t been totally gripping, but the author may uncork something startling in the next segment. 3.5  stars

A picture is worth...

Aw. Just aw. And if anyone wants to share 100-1000 words, send 'em along. (Directions here.)

Cartography for Beginners by Jenna Jones

Cartography for Beginners by Jenna Jones
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: GLBT, Erotic Contemporary, M/M
Length: 394 pages (105,700 words)

At the age of fifty-one, Leo Bellamy from Chiaroscuro and Something Beautiful has to do what he never expected: start over. Leo has been mourning the end of his long-time relationship for over a year. It takes the death of a close friend to convince Leo that he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life being bitter. It's time to move on and find a love that will last. Leo accepts his friend Stuart Huntsman's invitation to visit him in London, where Leo's friends hope he will find a holiday romance that will kick start that "moving on" business.

Meantime, Stuart has been tentatively rebuilding his relationship with his estranged children. For twenty years Stuart thought his children were better off with him, and it's a shock to learn they don't feel the same way. Stuart doesn't think he's good for anyone -- and certainly not for Leo, even if he and Leo call each other daily and Stuart is always a welcome guest in Leo's home.

There's no road map to true love and it's easy to get lost along the way. But with patience and understanding, Stuart and Leo may find their way to each other.


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Jenna Jones has written a big, sprawling story, filled with many characters lovingly remembered from two other sizeable books (Chiaroscuro and Something Beautiful). If you are coming fresh to Cartography for Beginners, a map may feel like a good idea. Stick with it, who loves whom, who loved whom back when, and who can’t stand whom now does come clear eventually.


Leo Bellamy, who has been part of a committed couple (apparently he was a lot more committed than Adam was) for almost his entire adult life, is still grieving the relationship, yearning for Adam to come back. Everyone around him urges him to cut loose a little, kiss someone for giggles, something he’s really not ready to do. His few attempts fizzle out, because his heart isn’t in it, or because his heart is somewhere else and he hasn’t found it again. In his early fifties, Leo is convinced he’s beyond being found desirable by someone new. His buddy Stuart, whom he speaks to morning and evening, is willing to be a friend with benefits for a while, but has his own doubts about ever being able to sustain a relationship. Stuart’s track record is dismal, true, but he’s reached the point of sending the beautiful boys home untouched because they can’t make decent conversation afterward.

If the story focused more completely on this couple, who wind their way through loss, grief, growth, and finding family and love once the bloom of youth is gone, it would be a complete and fine story, but that isn’t all that’s going on. Leo’s son Dune is finding his way again after a disaster one book ago, and is in love with the irrepressible Micah. Ben and Jamie have their own established couple troubles to work through, and “the Moms” (Frances and Ocean) are moving across the country, although Frances always has time to help Leo through his troubles. Approximately half the characters have slept with the other half at some point, which gives an unusual vibe to the story, but there don’t seem to be a lot of hard feelings, except toward Adam, the decamped lover, and toward Stuart, which seemed overblown in some cases.

While Stuart and Leo were charming, especially in the way they helped and supported each other through some life traumas without being willing to admit to themselves or each other that they’d really found a love that could last, the secondary characters were a more mixed bag, ranging from Dune with his complicated feelings to the slyly bitter Joelle and the horrendous Emily. Where their stories appeared in a complete arc, they were more understandable, otherwise, the bits and pieces took a while to sort out. Ben in particular was very hard to like—whatever points he earned for the purity of his motives get taken away for the execution, and the only sympathetic female of Leo and Stuart’s generation was also gay. Adam in particular was a mystery—he was characterized as the sort of person that doesn’t stick a twenty-eight year relationship, raise a child and coach his soccer team (which he did), but more like the guy you dump once you realize what a sleazeball he is, about a month after you meet him.

I enjoyed the novel, but found it cluttered by too many secondary characters all trying to get their stories told, without having the background to care about them. Someone who has read the first two books will know where these people have been and why they matter, but I found them to be a distraction from Leo and Stuart and their immediate issues, which goodness knows, they had plenty. Being older lovers, they have more experiences and time to collect some really spectacular baggage, and I enjoyed watching them work out a relationship. But Cartography for Beginners may not be the place to start with these characters if you like being clear on all the character arcs. 3.5 marbles

A Picture is Worth...

Sorry for missing Thursday, I wasn't feeling well and wasn't online much, but that's no reason for you guys to miss your weekly treat.

Now doesn't he look like about the most dangerous thing on two legs? And does anyone have a little ficlet or excerpt that might go with him? (Directions here.)

Man-Hunt by Angelia Sparrow and Naomi Brooks

Title: Man-Hunt
Author: Angelia Sparrow and Naomi Brooks
Cover Artist: Trace Edward Zaber
Publisher:  Amber Allure
Genre: Historical
Length: 14k words

June is too fine a month for a man to die. So when Thomas Lanton is informed that he's finally facing execution for the murder of his brother-in-law, he manages a prison break and flees.

For a while, Thomas's good luck holds out, and the attractive and lonely farmer in whose barn he hides takes a serious liking to him. But as Thomas soon discovers, not all chains are made of iron, nor all prisons built with stone. Indeed, sometimes blue eyes and soft words can be as effective as bars, and love can be too heavy a piece of baggage to take on the lam...
******

We first meet our POV character Thomas, after he’s escaped from prison, about a week ahead of his date with the electric chair. Running like a fox and using the same tricks to evade the hounds, he finally holes up in a barn, where he figures he can exchange some chores for a meal and some clothing—he left his prison stripes miles away for the hounds to bay at.


Unfortunately he can’t liberate anything that fits, so Hank finds Thomas in a horse blanket and a shirt that can’t button across him, which is fine by him. Thomas has more needs than just a pair of trousers, which would only get in the way anyhow, and the two of them are getting it on in almost no time at all. What follows is a quick exploration of sex, farm chores, and maybe even finding out about love.

The authorities of course want to find Thomas and let him “ride the lightning” for the death of his brother-in-law, harsher justice than a drunken brawl gone wrong really merits. They’re combing the county, and there’s only so many places to hide. Thomas doesn’t try to plead innocent to Hank—he doesn’t try to plead anything but being a tough man in hard circumstances, and that he can be a nice guy to have around. Hank find this pretty convincing.

I enjoyed the story, with some confusion, since it’s set in some nameless place and uncertain time. Some of the slang says ‘twenties, some says ‘sixties or ‘seventies (just because a word is older than you think doesn’t take away its associations), and there’s Model Ts and implications of Dust Bowl so this story is also lost in time. It’s a time and place where a few whittled wooden spoons can bring cash enough for a bag of flour. A few things brought sideways looks from me, such as the lightning speed of getting from death threats to the promise of sack time—less than a page. Not that Thomas couldn’t just take what he wants from his much smaller host, but he’s been in prison and knows more than he’d like about taking vs. giving.

The book has lots and lots of sex, which drives the plot, but surely there’s something around the homestead that works better for lube than spit.

Thomas and Hank are good together, settling into a rhythm occasionally disturbed by lawmen coming to hunt for the condemned killer. Bloodhounds and talkative shopkeepers fill them with fear, and there are only so many ways to elude them and stay together.

The story has what might be considered a “happy for now” ending given the alternatives, or maybe a “happier than it could have been.” Starting with the darkness of avoiding Death Row, the possibilities of “handholding in the sunset” endings aren’t there, and the authors don’t try to shove in anything that discordant. It’s perfect considering what came before.

I just wish I’d felt more grounded in time and place, and seen more development between the men. Hank became a perfect “farm wife” almost instantly, as if clean barns and the possibility of sex without condemnation overrode any trust issues he might have entertained. There was no transition from fear to willingness, and they went straight from introductions to trust, or behaving with trust.

Read this story with an eye to the language—it’s perfect for the characterization and sets the mood, and hold tight to the promises of the ending. 3.75 stars

Going for Gold Ed EM Lynley

Title:Going for Gold
Author: various, Ed. EM Lynley
Cover Artist: Deanna Jamroz
Publisher: MLR Press
Genre: contemporary, sports
Length: 117k words


It's not hard to see the outward appeal of the Olympic Games: watching the fittest and most-accomplished athletes in the world compete—generally with fairly skimpy uniforms. Voyeurism aside, there's nothing sexier than a beautiful body running, jumping, swimming, rowing, and a couple dozen other activities. Who wouldn't take the chance to enjoy the spectacle?

But the Olympics are more than just a chance to watch athletes at the peak of physical perfection. Every competitor at the Games has a story behind why they run or jump or swim, and why they compete. How they got to the Games, and what they sacrificed along the way to make the cut. To spectators, they may perform superhuman feats, but each and every one is human in the same way we all are.

In this collection of stories, you'll find there's a lot more to competing at Olympic level than being the best in one's field. Expectations and pressures from family, friends, coaches and country add up, and sometimes it's only the love of the right man who can make the effort worth it. And sometimes, love is more important than going for gold.

Including:
Hot Shots by Michael P. Thomas
Into the Deep by Nico Jaye
The Quad by Kelly Rand
Lightning in a Bottle by Sarah Madison
Swimming the Distance by Annabeth Albert
Shoot for the Gold by Whitley Gray
An Olympic Goal by K-lee Klein
Tumbling Dreams by Kaje Harper

Review
I enjoyed this collection: I love the Olympics, I love stories with depth and development, I love stories where I might learn something, and of course, I love the hot guys. Every story delivered on most of those goals, though with some different strengths. Averaging around 15k per story, these are all longer than I typically find in anthologies, and with correspondingly more meat. The early stories had me thinking “okay” but after a brief warm-up, my socks were knocked completely off.


Hot Shots tackled shooting sports, and this offering from Michael P. Thomas, a new to me author, nearly put me off the whole collection—I wouldn’t have chosen it for the lead off position, because it had the one character I found horribly annoying, compounded by not finding out his name until a third of the way through. Bo, a self-confessed athlete groupie, is only interested in sports in order to cuddle up to the other sportsmen. Even in a piece intended as humor, his assumption that he can get good enough at any sport in six months to even stand next to athletes who have been perfecting their technique since before they started shaving didn’t set well. Bo does some learning, growing, and falling in real love, and the story did grow on me by the end.

Nico Jaye is another new to me author: Into the Deep pairs an American diver with a London local during the Olympics, and while the story was pleasant, it had a flavor of “The Virgin Gazillionaire’s Private Pool” about it. Heavy doses of coincidences and overly extreme characterizations detracted from bartender Blake’s very real doubts about getting involved with a foreigner, and the whole was sweet but trite.

I have met Kelly Rand’s evocative prose before and enjoyed it here again in The Quad, the only story set in the Winter Olympics. Her skater needs the confidence to land the quad jump in competition, and finds support from the most unlikely quarter. This story unrolled beautifully, playing with Kevin’s confidence in his skating and in his personal life, and the man who steps in to help him doesn’t promise more than he can deliver. As she has done before, Kelly Rand leaves the characters standing on the edge of dazzling possibilities. Very well done.

Sarah Madison’s thorough understanding of horses and equestrian competition shines brightly in Lighting in a Bottle, where she focuses more on the lead up to getting into the Olympics than on the big event. Her protagonists have a complex and not entirely happy history when they are thrown together again to prepare Jake and his horses for competition. I absolutely felt like I was in the barn and in the jumping ring with the competitors, and rooted hard for Jake and Rich to make a go of both their relationship and the competitions, and to untangle the complexities that plague them. I still have no idea what the name of their particular event is, involving both dressage and jumping, but the story is so good I almost don’t care.

Distance swimming and the perils of being out publicly are the focus of Annabeth Arden’s Swimming the Distance. Bohdan Petrov is torn between love for his partner, Kyle, and being open about it as Kyle would like. Bohdan’s performance in his 1500 meter race is at stake as he repeatedly denies being gay and/or in a relationship. The ups and downs of his performance and his relationship provided some satisfying reading, although I was a little distracted by formulating my own replies to nosy interviewers.

Back to shooting sports again with Whitley Gray’s Shoot for the Gold, where marksman Matt Justice beans himself on some scaffolding at the Olympic Village and has to deal with the residual effects of the injury. He’s severely limited in treatment options unless he cares to disqualify himself from competition, but sports doctor Levi Wolf, who’s carrying baggage of his own, has some non-pharmacologic treatments (not that, get your minds out of the gutter!!!) that can keep Matt competing honestly. Professional ethics, past history, and personal attraction conflict here, adding a nice dimension to the story. This is another new to me author, and I’ll be checking out the back list.

In An Olympic Goal, K-Lee Klein examines the conflicts between playing for a professional team in one country and a national team in another, and adds the complication of one’s lover playing for the other country. This sounds like a lose/lose proposition on a couple levels, but the Swiss and Spanish football (soccer) players turn it into a win for everyone somehow. Soccer is one of those “wake me up when it’s time to cheer” sports for me (yes, I am aware this is blasphemy in some quarters) but I remained interested in the conflicts and the lovers, if not the sport.

Tumbling Dreams was the story that had me sniffling and rereading immediately, and is an amazing finish to a great collection. Kaje Harper’s gymnast Tyler has a berth on the Olympic gymnastics team, a threatening injury, and a roommate whose heart breaks silently and repeatedly with every backflip and vault. Eli’s living in quiet desperation, both wanting Tyler to achieve his dreams and to back away from the sport, and for Tyler to want him as more than a friend but not if every morning brings a fresh chance to destroy himself while Eli has to watch. Densely layered and slightly tragic, this story doesn’t wrap everyone and everything in gold.

The book did have a couple of formatting issues that cut severely into the reading experience. While certainly not the authors’ fault, the construction of the MOBI file did not permit jumping to the table of contents. Come on, MLR, this is pretty basic. Also not the authors’ fault, and maybe not even the editor’s choice, it’s hard to say, but the trademark acknowledgements at the beginning of each story felt like a great big slap in the face. Yes, it’s legal jargon and has to be there, but no, I did not appreciate the big jolt out of the reading mood between stories. Stick it at the front where I can get it over with or at the end where I can admire the legal thoroughness instead of after each title where I get knocked out of the story before I even start.

Between a couple of just okay stories and some irritating publisher’s choices, I can’t say this is a gold medal read across the board, but there are certainly a lot of winning stories in this volume. Warmly recommended. 4.25 marbles

A Picture is Worth...

Are these guys dancing? Or fighting? Or...? Tell us in 100 to 1000 words and I'll post it here with your info, and in the meantime, lets drool!  (See How Thousand Word Thursday Works, upper left).