#BookReview: Island Affair by Priscilla Oliveras

Very Vivid And Vibrant. This is one of those hyper-descriptive books that wants you to know the exact color of the dresser in the room where the lead couple first “gets together”. That wants you to be able to smell the exact scents around them as they first open up to each other. That wants you to be able to hear the various island sounds all around them as they go from secluded beach to downtown party. That wants you to be able to taste the Cuban inspired flavors of Key West. In other words, this is one of the most sensual – as in, the literal dictionary definition meaning “devoted to or preoccupied with the senses or appetites” – books I’ve ever read. Oh, and there is a solid romance in here too. Yes, one that perhaps wraps up a bit too tidily a bit too quickly, but eh, that is a common feature of many RWA-strict romance books. As the introduction to a new series, it introduces at least two characters what are obvious targets of subsequent books – without being overly obvious as to which is in the *next* book. And it seems to indicate that it will be a series with call it “medium” ties between the books – characters from each book will show up in other books, but you’ll still be able to read any book in any order (provided you’re not averse to hearing that a lead couple in one romance book actually wound up together – shocker, I know ๐Ÿ˜‰ ). So there really was a lot to like here overall, and only minor quibbles ultimately as far as anything at all to nitpick on. Very much recommended.

This review of Island Affair by Priscilla Oliveras was originally written on March 1, 2021.

#BlogTour: Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish

For this blog tour, we’re looking at another Book 2 of a series that again can be read as a standalone and again features a pair of brothers. This week we’re looking at Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish.

Here’s what I had to say about it on Goodreads:

Solid Romance, Animals Again Nearly Steal The Show. This was a solid romance featuring one guy that never really had a chance to find himself, and another that perhaps had too much time to find himself. The connection to the prior book is fairly loose, in the way that many romance series are these days, with Charlie of our primary couple here being introduced in Book 1 (Better Than People) as the brother of one half of that book’s couple. We get a touch of his back ground in that book, mostly as it relates to the brother, but here we get even more. And yes, the brother and his boyfriend from Book 1 show up a few times, even to the point of the new guy in this book befriending the boyfriend of Book 1 – which apparently is common when dating siblings. (At least according to what I’ve observed of my wife and sisters-in-law.) But in addition to the new guy, we are also introduced to a new *cat* in Chapter 1… and this cat damn near steals every scene it is in. Even moreso than the cats and dogs (including Charlie’s own cat) of the first book. For me, this book completely worked. There were far less issues reading it than the first book, as while I identified with different elements here, it wasn’t to the point of knowing all too well what certain … sometimes “debilitating”… issues are like. But, yeah, blog tour – I also knew I had to finish this thing soon no matter what, anyway. ๐Ÿ˜€ Still, truly at least as strong as Book 1 (I could see a strong debate on which tale is “stronger”, and I could probably argue either side of it), and at least for this cat-lover, with its emphasis on cats over dogs, I’ll give this one a *slight* edge on the first one. ๐Ÿ˜€ Very much recommended.

After the jump, about a page or so from Chapter 2 (IIRC), courtesy of the publisher, Carina Adores. And then the book information from the publisher.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish”

Featured Release Of The Week: Guide My Heart by Caroline Swart

Solid, Fun, and Quick Read. At just 76 pages long, this tale doesn’t have much length to work with in setting up a world and executing a story within it – and yet it manages to do exactly this remarkably well, proving literary “size queens” wrong in the process. Here, you get a fun tale of a South African safari Christmas trip complete with baby rhinos and big cats… and a dose of paranormal more of the “Loki transitioning to Asgardian Armor in Germany” from the first Avengers movie than swords and sorcery “what the hell is happening, this was supposed to be set in the real world” type. Indeed, arguably its only weakness – that based on the other reviews, might actually be a feature – is its leaning perhaps too hard on the lead male – Chris, no less – being described as Chris Hemsworth / Thor in virtually every scene he is even mentioned in. Still, for what it is and what it is able to do, this is truly a solid work, one that is fairly easily and comfortably set up as a series introduction and one whose series sounds promising. Very much recommended.

This review of Guide My Heart by Caroline Swart was originally written on February 16, 2021.

#BlogTour: Unforgotten by Garrett Leigh

For this blog tour, we’re looking at Book 2 of a series that can very much be read as standalone (and totally works that way) yet which together with its predecessor forms one of the more courageous romance series I’ve ever come across. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Unforgotten by Garrett Leigh.

Here’s what I had to say about the book on Goodreads:

And Now, Part 2. In the second part of this courageous series of romance books, Leigh goes from MF romance in Book 1 (Forgiven) to MM romance here, a genre she is apparently much more well known in. And given the vitriol for MF romance in so much of the MM world, I expect this book to be received better than the first book was – and at this moment, the early Goodreads reviews are at least trending slightly in that direction.

Here, we get the full-on romance of two characters first introduced in Forgiven – the brothers of both of that book’s leads. And it is again a fairly standard gay/ bi romance. Fairly high degree of angst, lots of issues for both men to work through, sex scenes later in the tale given the inexperience of one of them, etc. If you like MM romance generally, this one will be another solid one for you. If you’re just exploring the genre, this is a good one to try out – and maybe even read Forgiven first, if you’re more comfortable in the MF romance space.

While I don’t see where this series goes from here, if indeed it is to continue, I’m not opposed to coming back to this world. Leigh does a truly solid job of establishing it and allowing her characters to live mostly real lives within it, including the added tag of drama near the end of this one – which can happen to most anyone. Very much recommended.

Below the jump, we get a little over a page from – IIRC – Chapter 1 as an excerpt, followed by the book information provided by the publisher. ๐Ÿ™‚
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Unforgotten by Garrett Leigh”

#BookReview: Country Crush by Christina Benjamin

Commingled Couples. Ah. The brother who fled town and never really looked back. The middle child in this band of brothers… and myself (the oldest) in my own. As with Book 2 (Saltwater Sweethearts), there was a fair amount here that hit a little close to home, and the mother yet again proves wise indeed. But arguably the strongest point about this book is just how effectively it weaves in and out of familiar scenes from one or the other (and often both) of the prior books in the series – yet never feels shoehorned in or contradictory to those scenes. Indeed, the mind effect is more akin to a How I Met Your Mother style “ok, now let me tell you what *this* character was doing at that moment” or even, perhaps, an Avengers: Endgame “time heist” sequence where the current characters revisit scenes in “prior” books (though in this case, set in the real world, in real time rather than in the characters’ past) yet blended perfectly in with the existing scenes. Thus showing Benjamin’s skill as a storyteller (and, perhaps, her editor’s skill in keeping things intact ๐Ÿ˜‰ ). Very much recommended.

This review of Country Crush by Christina Benjamin was originally written on February 15, 2021.

#BookReview: Better Than People by Roan Parrish

Animals Really Are Better Than People. Up front: It took me a month to finish this book, and even then it was a large degree of forcing myself to finish it so that I could get to its sequel, which I have signed up to do a blog tour for. That noted, however, it actually was a strong story of two men both trying to overcome their own limitations – which are largely both in their own heads. (With a physical bone break being one of the only truly physical limitations either deal with.) The main difficulty for me was that Simon’s anxiety was portrayed so similarly to some of the more “severe” (God I hate that term) aspects of being an Autistic, with the constant mind-fight of what people are expecting vs what you feel capable of, being a bit of a misanthrope and (in Simon’s case, and perhaps not Parrish herself’s) not really realizing it. Other than this though, the romance itself seemed to work, and both Simon and Jack were solid characters that worked well together. But the dogs… the dogs damn near stole the show at times. They truly were better than people. ๐Ÿ˜‰ Very much recommended.

This review of Better Than People by Roan Parrish was originally written on February 15, 2021.

#BookReview: Take A Chance On Me by Beth Moran

Not What You Expected, But What You Need. As is often my norm when getting ready to write reviews, I had a look through the existing ones first. And so many were so critical of this book claiming it was effectively a bait and switch and had too many characters.

Now, I’m a man that can have and has had a dozen different books going, and can easily track what is happening in all of them. I’ve compared my (Autistic) mind to an AEGIS threat detection and tracking system before – able to track *far* more things than most can even readily know is happening. I also happen to be the child of two people who each have more siblings than our lead female does here, so again, I’m used to large families and tracking everything. But yes, if your mind is smaller in scale and can’t cope with a dozen ish important characters… you’re going to struggle with this tale. For me, this was actually fairly normal and I thought the dynamics were very solidly portrayed, with no characters feeling unduly flat, other than perhaps the children that were only in a scene or two. (And even then, within those scenes the children in question felt quite alive.)

As to the “bait and switch” of “claiming to be a romance” and actually presenting a “women’s fiction”… The timing for me was actually quite interesting, as in a prominent multi-author book group on Facebook, one of the founding authors asked *just yesterday* what kind of endings people preferred. Of 416 responses across 8 options, with multiple selections allowed per voter, over 2/3 of the respondents to this particular (18 hr old at the time of this writing) poll responded with some form of “surprise me (174) / give me something to think about (75) / messy endings are fine (17) / pull lots of threads together (15)”. So at least in this particular group of readers, I honestly think most of them would be along the lines of how I personally felt about this: I personally thought it was a wonderful tale of life, love, and other mysteries. (Kudos if you get that reference, you’re awesome! :D) YES, if you are an RWA purist, this book will NOT fit all of the RWA rules for “romance”. If you argue (as I do) that Nicholas Sparks writes romances that are often *far* more emotional and loving than many RWA-pure romances and thus should be considered romances themselves… you’ll be fine here. (Though note: This is NOT a tragedy ala Sparks, but that is as close as I get to revealing anything here.) Further, examining the description and even genres listed by the publisher on Amazon, I find no evidence of them claiming this is a romance novel. Instead, the marketing tagline is that you will get a “life-affirming and uplifting tale of love, family, friendship, and risking it all for happiness”.

I would argue that the tagline given is *exactly* the book we ultimately get, and thus any claims of being led to expect one thing and being given something else (aka “bait and switch”) are ultimately baseless and indeed utterly absurd.

For me, this book was a very solid, very fun tale with aspects not seen in many other places, including struggles with childlessness, fostering, different takes on what it means to be married/ have a happy marriage, and even, yes, its central premise and ultimate resolution thereof. For me, this was a book that completely worked from top to bottom, and enough that I personally will be on the look for future books from this author. Which means that, of course, this book is very much recommended.

This review of Take A Chance On Me by Beth Moran was originally written on February 4, 2021.

#BookReview: Forgiven by Garrett Leigh

Forgive the Low Star Reviewers, For They Know Not What They Do. Apparently I had a *completely* different experience with this book than most of the other ARC readers, because while this thing wasn’t mind blowing in the slightest, it was a solid romance with a crap ton of sex, characters who both despised and loved each other, and a solid concept for at least a short series. Really, it was fairly standard ish romance – which is all that I really expected here. If you’re looking for LGBT romance, this isn’t it – and never claims it is, despite the author being more well known in that space. If you’re looking for sweet or clean or tidy… this isn’t that either. There is a lot of hard core, rough, passionate, hate filled sex – because that is the space these characters are in after the way life has treated them over the last decade, and the last thing either of them wants to be dealing with is the one that got away all those years ago. And yes, there is an out and proud gay brother – and another brother whose sexuality is less clear in this text – who will be the foci of the next book in the series. Which alone merits reading this series, as *extremely* few authors have the balls to combine different sexualities into the same series – or even write books outside a set sexuality. I’ve actually already started the other book, since I’m also reading it early – for a blog tour, in fact – and so far it continues in the same tone as the others.

Ultimately, I would’ve read this one from the hate filled reviews alone – just because when a book gets *so* heavily panned, I find myself reading it for myself just to see if indeed the hatred is warranted. It wasn’t in the most personally-famous case of me doing this (reading DIVERGENT trilogy because ALLEGIANT got this same level of hatred over its ending), and it isn’t in this book either.

This book, and so far this series, is a refreshing change of pace in so many ways, and is therefore very much recommended.

This review of Forgiven by Garrett Leigh was originally written on January 22, 2021.