A picture is worth...

Did these two guys snap together after the party? 100 to 1000 words to tell us, please. Directions here.

Turnabout is fair play, right?

I've been interviewed at Jamie Lake's blog. So have a bunch of other m/m bloggers. I need to make friends with some of these folks.

Blog hop review: Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons

Title: Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons
Author: Olivia Helling
Purchase at Amazon

Cover Artist: Lou Harper
Genre: Regency, paranormal
Length: 25k words, ~100 pages
Formats: mobi

Damon Snow thinks he has the world figured out. As an incubus and male prostitute, it’s a cruel, dark, lonely place where men only want one thing. But when his long-time patron Byrne discovers he’s dying, Byrne offers to leave his entire fortune to him. There’s just one catch. Damon has to write about the reason why another patron procures his services. Caught up in his patron’s impossible love life, Damon suddenly isn’t so sure he knows the answer.

This is pretty far removed from the world of Jane Austen: life in the less attractive parts of Regency London is a struggle to survive with any of the finer feelings intact. Damon has additional strikes against him, being of uncertain and illegitimate parentage, and with a ravening something inside that demands to be fed with lust.

Damon has no illusions about humanity, being able to feel what’s moving inside the minds of his patrons disabused him of believing in kindness and love, to the point of not recognizing it when this rare bird descends. The strange request his patron makes forces him to look outside himself for answers. It’s a strange mirror as well.

This isn’t a romance in the classical sense, though there is an arc with a happy ending. Damon’s the observer who thinks he has nothing to learn. His encounters are the joyless interactions of molly and cull. Something changes for him by the end of the book, but not enough for him to become anyone’s true partner. Further stories are hinted at, and Damon needs the lessons there.

This is Regency from the underclass, no one’s sending calling cards or being seen by the ton. I’m not a scholar of the period by any means, but what I do recognize seems in period, and characters stay consistent with the times. Frequent mention is made of Damon’s incubus but it seems almost extraneous to the story. His fellow mollies have just as much reason to drink themselves into oblivion—they don’t need to sense deeper to know how they’re being abused. However, I’m prepared to believe it will make more difference as the series progresses.

This novella made an interesting opener: the promised legacy hasn’t been signed over yet, and Damon has more to learn about his humanity. I’ll be alert for the next installment. 4 marbles

Coming this week

Thanks for hanging with us this week! While my Thursday hottie didn't appear on time (mea culpa, I hit the wrong button) he is here, and so were reviews for A.J. Truman's Out in the Open and Wild Horses from Kate Pavelle.

For this week, Olivia Helling's blog tour for Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons will take us back to Regency era molly houses. Look for 1809 vintage rent boys on Tuesday when her blog tour stops here.  We'll also see Must Loathe Norcross from Summer Devon.

I've been posting book reviews for almost 4 years, and that requires some celebration. Some of my favorite authors will be posting as guests, and we'll be doing some giveaways. Blogoversary week is coming, so stick with us. Bring your friends!

Out in the Open by A.J. Truman

Title: Out in The Open (Browerton University Book 1)
Author: A.J. Truman
Purchase at Amazon
Purchase at All Romance eBooks
Cover Artist: James of Goonwrite.com
Genre: NA, contemporary
Length: 208 pages, 61,000 words
Formats: epub, mobi, pdf

Libraries are meant for studying – not sex

College sophomore Ethan Follett never says what’s on his mind and never wants to rock the boat. After a high school social life spent anonymous and alone, things are finally falling into place for him. He’s found a group of friends just as studious as he, and is on track for a promising legal career. Out in the open, things couldn’t be better, but secretly Ethan yearns for some real excitement in his life.

He finds it in cocky fratboy Greg Sanderson, who challenges every rigid, preconceived notion Ethan lives by. Soon, their sparring relationship turns sexual, and these enemies-with-benefits get their freak on all over campus. Yet the more Ethan comes out of his shell, the more Greg retreats into his, working overtime to keep his ladies man public persona intact. As the sex gets hotter, and they get closer to getting caught, one part of their arrangement can’t stay hidden any longer: love.

OUT IN THE OPEN is a M/M new adult romance filled with humor, heart, and hot guys. The book is intended for audiences 18+ as it contains explicit sex and language.

When the hot guy in your political science class would rather talk to you than take notes, it’s hard to ignore. Studious, virginal Ethan attracts the ire of the professor but the attention of the frat boy pre-law student who’s the hottest and darn near only guy to ever grab Ethan’s naughty parts. Poor Ethan’s confused but interested, and lets Greg tease him into sexual encounters with seriously high risk of exposure, but never a kiss. Kisses are important, kisses might mean Greg wants more than to get his rocks off with the eager nerd.


Always the wallflower, Ethan has a hard time reconciling Greg’s interest against the way his friends are leaving him out of activities, and out of self defense, he has to find other outlets. Ethan’s our only POV character, and we get to listen to him flounder about divining Greg’s true intentions, sometimes with the help of a sorority girl. Lorna becomes his native guide into frat culture, with a route running through keggers and tailgate parties. Drink leads to stupid, and Ethan gets to share the evil morning afters with the reader, where barfing becomes the least of his problems.

Greg’s side of the story unfolds in bits and pieces, which the less than socially adept Ethan has to piece together. The reader’s usually 2-4 steps ahead of him, and being able to yell “No! Don’t!” at the kindle wards off nothing.

The author does a terrific job of pulling us into the college atmosphere and Ethan’s head, which is completely turned by the dazzling “straight guy’s” attentions. Completely confused by Greg’s behavior, Ethan alternately pursues, is welcomed for sex, treated like a friend, and rejected.

The college atmosphere is vivid, where the scent of beer and brats at the college games hangs heavy in the air, the screams of team spirit and the moans of passion all mix together. All of the young people, including Ethan’s gang of stick in the mud friends, are in the process of finding themselves and refining their values. This seems to be the first of several books to be set in the college, and this first book promises a highly readable series.

Greg’s motives are much clearer to us readers than to Ethan, which makes the resolution of the book feel rushed and somewhat unfinished. While the immediate problem of Greg and Ethan as a couple resolves neatly and in a very satisfactory style, Greg’s hovering problems resolve in a way that feels rushed and rather pat. He’s been on edge from day one, and the ending just doesn’t justify that level of tension.

The story feels young adult for emotional maturity, but is rated new adult due to the level of sexual content. Still, the story is cute and more than enough to make me glad I’ll never be a sophomore in college again. 4 marbles

A picture is worth...

What's on this gent's mind? Is he in costume or does he always look like his goblet should be filled with blood? 100 to 1000 words to tell us, please. Directions here.

Wild Horses by Kate Pavelle

Title: Wild Horses
Author: Kate Pavelle
Purchase at Dreamspinner
Purchase at All Romance eBooks
Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson
Genre: contemporary, horses
Length: 117k words, 350 pages
Formats: epub, mobi, pdf, print

A Steel City Story

Homeless pickpocket Kai Alwright steals a cell phone and some cash one day only to find the owner texting him, appealing to his better qualities. The request to return the phone stings Kai’s pride; he rides his rusty bicycle all the way to the stables north of the city, where Attila Keleman, the phone’s owner, offers him a new start in the form of a job and a roof over his head. Soon Kai discovers a natural talent for work with horses, and he makes every effort to separate his new existence from his promiscuous past on the streets.

Attila is a reclusive horse trainer whose dressage trophies gather dust, and whose broken heart has been walled off. His undiagnosed Asperger’s makes life around people a challenge, but though he prefers the company of horses, Attila finds Kai’s presence tolerable—even refreshing.

When a client who rides at the stable with her daughter finds out Attila is “still gay,” she tries to run Kai off—and she doesn’t stop there. Mortified, her adult daughter runs away and falls victim to a dark figure from Kai’s past. Kai joins Attila in a rescue mission that tears the civilized masks off their hidden pasts.

In my disjointed way, I’ve come at last to the first of the Steel City stories. Broken Gait (reviewed here) is the continuation of these two characters’ story, but here’s where Kai and Attila start out. Actually where they really start out is in a story of the same name in Dreamspinner’s Animal Magnetism anthology, but since we have 117k words in the novel, there’s certainly more going on.


The story of the waif and the horseman has had other treatments elsewhere, but I did gobble up this one, because of Attila Keleman’s character. He’s controlled, formal, precise in his movements and dealings, and terribly shocked with himself if he does something spontaneous. The blurb mentions undiagnosed Aspergers’, but I wish it didn’t because that wrecks the reader’s opportunity to figure it out for herself. I at least got that treat because I read everything assbackwards, the blurb last of all.

Attila trains horses and is an acclaimed dressage rider, whose pithy text to the thief who stole his iPhone is a distillation of his personality. “Remember, you are better than stooping to such acts of petty thievery.” Short, controlled, high expectations, and the force of personality that makes people and horses tend to do his will. I liked Attila a lot, in part because his expectations are that people and horses will do the right thing.

Kai’s more problematic. He’s twenty-four but reads a lot younger, as if he has very little experience on his own, though that isn’t the case. He’s been on his own more than long enough to have picked up some street smarts and practical abilities. His background is a mining town in Appalachia. Dialect colors his speech infrequently, to the point where he becomes a trifle flat. He has the kind of stiff pride in doing the right thing, and occasionally the stupid but masculine thing, that Attila can respect. Attila also respects Kai’s natural ability with the horses as well as his willingness to shovel horse shit.

Attila’s family remain (start out as) the interesting people they were in the second book, although some of the other secondary characters were not as deftly drawn. One in particular is Evil Harridan #3 and mostly unique for her cougar-to-the-point-of-foulness ways. She could have been shut down fast, but was not, and that she pushed her daughter into desperate acts made sense. Daughter seems to have grown up in a remote cave, and also reads younger than stated age, though she has a couple of good moments.

The arc is mostly the coming together of the two men, overcoming Attila’s asocial ways and Kai’s fears of rejection, to the point where the action adventure sections become less about the mission and more about the relationship. This veered the story into an unsatisfactory path, at least for me, though it mostly ended well.

In the course of stripping away Kai and Attila’s secrets from each other, there was a brief foray into BDSM which at first had me going WTF? And Why now? but the author did resolve this in a way that a non-BDSM reader like me could deal with and believe in. There was in fact a trail of breadcrumbs that was more clear in hindsight.

I like this author’s writing style, and had to remind myself that this is one of her earlier pieces with some rough characterization and plot edges. Kai in particular is uneven and his actions don’t match who he’s supposed to be. He really comes across as about 16 in places, and so I’m glad I read out of order, and encountered him in the second book first. It’s true stable chores never end, but enough with the details of horse poop. Other issues repeat in odd and noticeable ways.

The horse sections are sweet and honest, very affectionate, and I had no idea horses would play like that. The author is a rider and would know.

This book was a step back in time for the author’s writing, and while there is a great deal to like in here, there are also issues that don’t exist in her latest work. That makes Wild Horses not my favorite of her books, but leaves the author as a go-to read. And maybe Attila and Kai get a third story where they can be their mature and confident selves. 3 marbles