Posts labeled Book Reviews
Review - Fugue in Ursa Major
My rating: 
Whenever young Jake breaks up with his latest girlfriend, which seems to be fairly regularly, he packs up his Jeep and heads off into the mountains for a little backpacking, stargazing and contemplation. On one such trip he meets Phaedrus, a much older man who lives a bit like a hermit, yet seems strangely connected to what’s going on in the world. He opens Jake’s eyes to the idea that the world is headed for some sort of cataclysm.
Tags: Speculative Fiction
Review - Hard at Work
My rating:
Jake and his partner Danny both work at the same company, where Jake is having a hard day, literally as well as figuratively. It seems that his generally shy submissive Danny is sending him increasingly pornographic pictures of himself. When Jake manages to corner Danny and pull him into a storeroom to demand an explanation, he gets that and a whole lot more. “Hard at Work” is a well-crafted erotic short story.
Tags: D/s
Review - Finlater
My rating:
Cliffy is a thirteen year old African American boy growing up in a low income housing project called Finlater, or Findlater, outside of Cincinnati. It’s a tumultuous year for Cliffy, as his wayward father returns home and he makes friends with a Jewish classmate, Noah. The two boys become more than best friends, as each awakens in the other new desires and feelings, but with all the things pulling them apart, how long can their relationship last?
Review - Three Ex Presidents and James Franco
My rating:
John is in the closet. Literally rather than figuratively. The story of how this Irishman spending a year at an American college came to be locked in the closet takes up most of this book. It all starts at a party, where he meets several other young men who will weave in and out of his life over the course of the next several months. And along the way the story does indeed involve three ex-presidents and James Franco.
Review - Bump in the Night
My rating:
This review originally appeared in slightly different form at BDSM Book Reviews. This collection of four previously published short stories features an entire panoply of things that go “bump in the night”, from ghosts to vampires to shape-shifting creatures. The stories are varied, but there is something of a common theme of finding love in unexpected places. In “Haunted” a ghost returns to a costume shop near where he died each year on the anniversary of his demise, on Halloween, to make love to the shop’s owner.
Review - Consent
My rating:
You could be forgiven for thinking we had seen the end of the stories featuring detective Gavin DeGrassi. At the conclusion of the last book, Safeword, he was retired from the police force after yet another harrowing case that nearly cost him his life, his home, and his Dom Ben. But when Gavin’s sister-in-law and former partner Myah is snatched from a supermarket parking lot, he can’t just sit on the sidelines.
Review - The Dreyfus Affair
My rating:
Major league shortstop Randy Dreyfus has a problem. The blond haired blue eyed all American hero with a hot wife and two kids realizes he has an obsession with his team-mate, second-baseman D.J. Picket. Actually doing something about his infatuation is unthinkable. His team is in the running for the pennant, and even a whiff of scandal would put an end to his career. Yet Randy can’t get D.J. out of his mind and refuses to ignore the pull of the other man.
Tags: Sports
Review - Bruised
My rating:
This review originally appeared in slightly different form at BDSM Book Reviews. Johnson is just closing up the garage where he works when Texas transplant Billy drives in to get his truck serviced. There’s an almost instant attraction between the two, and after a flirtatious dinner, Billy invites the big mechanic home, where the sparks really begin to fly. “Bruised” is, more than anything, pure grade A smut. Once Billy and Johnson get together, which happens within the first few pages, we’re treated to an almost continuous sequence of scenes as the two explore a rather specific kink they discover on their first night together: Johnson loves Billy’s pale skin and can’t keep his lips and teeth off of it.
Tags: Slightly Kinky BDSM
Review - Lost in the Outcome
My rating:
Tech wizard Nate wakes up in a strange hotel room, next to a cute stranger who turns out to be named Tim. With no recollection of how he got there, or what the two got up to in bed, Nate is a bit confused to say the least. He and Tim part company assuming they will never see each other. For Tim, who remembers every detail of their night together vividly, the realization that Nate remembers none of it, and doesn’t want to see him again, is crushing.
Tags: Contemporary
Review - Brimstone: Demon Owned and Operated
My rating:
Shax, the demon Prince of Thieves, had a bit of a falling out with Lucifer, so now he, along with his best friend and partner in crime Verrin, Lord of Impatience, have left earth to seek their fortunes among the stars. They’ve acquired a cargo ship, appropriately named Brimstone, which Shax captains and Verrin pilots. They’ll take almost any job, even, or perhaps especially, legally questionable ones. This omnibus edition of three stories recounts several of the pair’s escapades.
Tags: Fantasy Science Fiction
Page 80 of 96