Orbiting Bodies by Diana Jean

Orbiting Bodies by Diana Jean

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I received an ARC of this book from Less Than Three Press and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Well this is a somewhat strange position I find myself in. In 2016 I read and loved a book by this author. In 2018 I reread that book and loved it again. I’ve now read two more works – both of which I read today. Didn’t love the short story, but it was a good enough way to pass the time. This brings us to this novel here – which I somewhat unexpectedly find that I also loved.

Unexpectedly? Well . . . there’s like 80 (no, there’s just 4) point of view main characters in this book. All of them young adult college students. It is somewhat harder for me to love a multiple cast point of view book. Not impossible, just harder. Plus – I had been eyeballing this book for a while now, and kept not getting it because of the sample – Caleb, the star of the beginning chapter, seems a pain to be around – a super hyper super-selfish extrovert type who has great trouble sitting still for longer than three minutes, and brings unrelated books to tutor sessions in case he gets bored. He seemed . . . annoying when I first glimpsed him in the sample. Then he made me laugh a few times in that sample, so I got the book.

So that’s Caleb – super hyper short slim dude who is an extreme extrovert, wants to be friends with everyone, and is quite pushy in getting people to do his thing – oh and he can be quite . . . dramatic. He is also 18 and a college freshman and the roommate of another main point of view character, Andrew.

Andrew, also a freshman, is also probably 18, though the one and only time his age was given, it was 15 – but that was also an unexpected flashback.

That happens a lot in this book, by the way, flashbacks. Also – merged . . . um sessions. There were times when a character, in the present, would be doing something and have thoughts of the past – detailed thoughts. There were also times when a flashback would occur – and then there would be italicized text – thoughts from the present. That was . . . different.

But I was on Andrew and got distracted.
Andrew, when he first appeared, was dressed all depressing like and .. . well, I forget the exact words Caleb used. Emo? Goth punk? Something in that range. Andrew’s life is art, and that’s why he’s at college – to get an art degree and do art. He is also, unlike Caleb, gay. And a little bit (or more) lusting after Caleb, who reminds him, personality wise, of his great lust-person of high school years (Daniel, the name was Daniel, right?). Andrew kind of became the fifth well in this book, even though there were only four points of view. But, eh, whatever.

As I mentioned, Caleb is quite pushy and gets his way a lot. I mention this because, the first day Caleb and Andrew move in on campus – Caleb drags Andrew to a club mixer thingie. Which I mention less to mention Caleb being pushy, but so I could mention that that is where the two meet Jun. Sitting at one of the club tables (Astronomy).

Jun, unlike freshman Caleb and Andrew, is a junior – studying for a bio-chem degree (degrees?, I forget if that was described as ‘bio chem pre med degree’, or bio chem degree and pre med degree or . . something). Jun is the third point of view character in the book. He is very studious to the point he rarely does anything else. When he was 7 his family moved from Japan to the USA, which I mention because the transition was such that he lost the ability to make friends, or something like that, and so went a different direction – taking on a persona of hiding, and being studious and not pursing friendships and social interactions.

Jun is roommates with the final point of view character, Piper. Who pulls in Lizzy, though Lizzy, oddly, doesn’t get a point of view in this book. Lizzy and Pipper are seniors and girlfriends. Jun was a last minute addition to their apartment, as they figured that having another person in the application would increase their chances of getting the apartment. Piper is into Computer Science, while Lizzy is into dance. Piper’s the one who pulls in the family (though Caleb’s mother is mentioned and very briefly seen in the opening chapter) – for the mother, Piper’s that is, keeps opening stating things like how Piper’s going through a phase and stuff, by dating women (though . . . eh, let’s not give everything away).

There’s a slight disconnect between me and the characters involved. Possibly due to there being so many to follow, possibly for other reasons. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel them at times – like, again unexpectedly, there were moments when Piper and Lizzy’s story-line made me vaguely teary eyed.

Right.

So, young adult book. Many characters. Three men, two women. Mix of LGBT characters. Multiple LGBT couples in the same book. Mix of MM and FF in same book. Lastly: the only thing graphic was kissing.

Enjoyable book.

Rating: 4.78

June 25 2018




View all my reviews

From This Window by Diana Jean

From This Window by Diana Jean

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I received an ARC of this book from Less Than Three Press and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Why did I decide to try this story here? Because it is by an author I’ve read and loved a book by. So much so that I’ve read that book twice (5 star reads both times). That was a female-female book, though, and this is a male-male short story. But I knew/know that going in.

This is a difficult story to review for one specific reason: I could summarize the story in a few words. It is a brief story of something around 26 to 31 pages and it would be easy accidentally say too much in a review, to spoil things.

So, what can I say? This story was originally published in 2013 at about 31 pages in length and, judging from the reviews, is similar to but not exactly the same as the story I read. There are medical conditions mentioned in those reviews not mentioned in the story I read (though I’m not sure those conditions were ever in the story, considering how they are referred to in the reviews I saw).

And the story? Two men meet, one is happy hard working type, the other is depressing and while he has his hobbies, is not the hard working type. They feel a certain attraction to each other. Oh, and this story occurs in the days before and on Christmas day.

Jeremy is the happy hard working one. Lucas the who stares at people, depressed, and jots down notes in a notebook. Both are roughly 23 to 25 years of age. I do not recall if physical characteristics were mentioned (beyond height, weight, and how strong they look). I pictured both in a way that probably doesn’t correspond to the situation at hand, at least if I look at the covers. *shrugs* eh, my imagination makes weird leaps at times.

An interesting slice of life story with a thread of romance, and a touch of family stuff. An okay story.

Rating: 3.44

June 25 2018



View all my reviews

Puss in Prada by Marie Jacquelyn

Puss in Prada by Marie Jacquelyn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*I received this book from Less Than Three Press and Netgalley in return for a fair review.*

I wanted to read this short story ever since I saw it listed among the 'coming soon' stories over on Less Than Three Press' website. I wan't really sure what it was about beyond the 'Puss in Boots'/'Puss in Prada' angle and I think I knew it involved a guy who got transformed into a cat.

And so I excitedly read the story when I saw I could. And I was very happy to have been able to do so. Not sure how everyone else might feel about the story (though I saw while going to the review box that the story currently has a 5 star average rating (though that might be based on 1, or 3 ratings)), but I really liked it. Loved it.

There is one point of view and two main characters - both of whom live in the same apartment (not actually sure it's an apartment, but I'll go with that). Ethan and Alex dated at some point, as humans. But at some point before the start of this story, six months?, they broke up. Ethan runs the family pastry store and is quite good at it, at baking and stuff. Alex? Alex is a very successful writer and . . . very much a dick who didn't take care of himself and seemed destined for an early grave.

Despite breaking up about six months ago, the two currently live together. There's a reason for that, of course. And that reason is . . . . Alex got turned into a cat by a witch. No, really, a cat. Luckily for him, he can still talk and was able to get Ethan to help him. And so Alex spends his days being a cat, occasionally texting Ethan, occasionally attempting to continue be a writer (on the internet, no one knows you are a cat . . . or on the computer typing a book one letter at a time).

Alex, who at some point I should mention is the POV, and Ethan have a neat little situation going on. They are quite fun to watch together. Great characterization/dynamic.

Loved the story. Want to read more cat based stories. Would write more but this is a short story we are talking about so it's hard not to accidentally reveal everything while bumbling along in a review, so I'll cut that part of the review short.

Rating: 5.5

April 15 2017




View all my reviews

Death Goes Overboard by David S. Pederson

Death Goes Overboard
by David S. Pederson
Pages: ?
Date: April 1 2017
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: Detective Heath Barrington Mystery (2nd in series)

Review
Rating: 3.65 to 3.85
Read: March 3-4 2017

*I received this book from NetGalley, and Bold Strokes Books in return for a fair review.*

Like the prior book in this series, and as expected, this book here stars Detective Heath Barrington of the Milwaukee Police Department. Unlike the prior book in this series, some part of the police work in this book actually occurs in Milwaukee. Though, despite jurisdiction issues, some of it also occurs outside Milwaukee’s city borders – like on a boat on one of the Great Lakes (Lake Michigan).

There are several plot lines but two main ones of importance: 1) Everyone, including literally an aunt, let Heath know that being a single man of his age is super risky and leads to talk of a certain nature (like, say, ‘it’s obvious that he is gay’; there’s an additional ‘especially the way he is so neat and how he dresses’ but I’ll let that pass) – as in: being a gay man in post WWII America is difficult and certain things are needed to be done to cover that up which can lead to a bunch of lying, deception, and the like (to be fair – without some level of lying, a gay man will find themselves out of work (at least with the police, and possibly in a mental institution somewhere getting electric shocks to their balls); 2) police work occurs.

Heath continues to date Officer Alan Keyes, though is having two issues in regards to that – 1) both are men and it is 1947; 2) does he actually want a steady relationship with anyone? That plot-line is followed throughout the book. Of major importance in the book. Regarding that ‘gay issue’, I have two things that came to mind while reading this book – 1) Heath seemed a lot more naïve than I would have expected for a man of his ‘advanced’ age (his exact age might have been given at some point, though he is somewhere in his 30s, and some comments would lead one to suspect him to be in the latter half of his thirties; the concept of a beard, of marrying a woman and having fun with men – with or without the wives knowledge, was something Heath never realized could happen; also something he had never heard of was a lavender marriage – gay man, lesbian woman, marry as each other’s ‘cover’ – granted, the first time I saw reference to that type of arrangement was in Ann Bannon’s book of the 1950s/60s – and I doubt she came up with the idea completely on her own (Bannon had both types of marriages in her series) and yes, I know 1959 is not 1947, and Heath seemed so naïve regarding gay issues, that I doubt he read gay fiction, much less lesbian pulp); 2) he and another gay man in the book seem to fall into a particular gay stereotype I didn’t expect to see – both him and Riker (another police officer in the book, more on him later), seem to be rather ‘causal’ about sex – more so Riker (Heath is more tempted by the idea and keeps being inches from falling into that type of lifestyle) – as in, all the sex they can get, with men, as much as they can get, regardless of the man or the circumstances (it was so much of a gay stereotype that I actually began to believe that Riker was actually bait – either from some higher ups in the police force trying to trick/trap Heath; or someone Alan Keyes got to ‘check on’ Heath since Heath was acting a little ‘pulling-away-ish’). So that story line flows through the book as well – that ‘should Heath, while eyeballing every man around him as a sexual object, decide that Alan is really ‘his’? Should Heath get a ‘beard’, get himself into a marriage? *proceeds to eyeball every woman around him as a means to an end – marriage cover*.

The other major plot being followed is a different type of mystery (what, there’s a kind of mystery involved in ‘will Heath chose some woman to marry? Stay with Alan? Stray?’). Gregor Slavinsky is taking a great lake cruise – and he is being followed by a man named Ballentine and his lackey George. Slavinsky has been in and out of prison – and has just recently gotten out. And has secured $25,000 of Ballentine’s money as a loan. And Slavinsky is beginning to miss payments. Not something criminals like to hear.

The police have wanted to ‘get’ Ballentine for a while now and believe that this is a perfect opportunity to catch him doing something illegal. So Heath is sent undercover on the Great Lake voyage as an insurance man. A new-to-the-series officer also is undercover as a steward – that would be the previously mentioned Riker.

There is a mystery, and plot A does lead to b, c, d, and the police are shown to use their brains to follow along. With the introduction of certain elements, I immediately knew ‘something’ was occurring, though it took a body going over the side of the boat for me to ‘know’ what was going on. And, while it took the rest of the book for the characters to catch up, I was correct. Mind you, despite that last sentence, the cops weren’t made to look too inexperienced/naïve/stupid – they followed logically along, including a few wrong guesses (real life isn’t ‘Cop: x occurred, didn’t it? Criminal: how did you know!!!’). I did have a problem with one element, maybe minor, maybe not important, but . . . well. As can occur in mystery novels – there comes the time when the brilliant detective reveals the plot points, or I mean, how he figured it out. One slight issue I had here is that the author went one step too far. He had his detective ‘know’ and ‘reveal’ why that whiskey bottle was in the cabin. But, while there is a logical explanation, and while he can logically come to the conclusion that ‘this’ is the reason for the whiskey bottle, he can’t ‘know’ that this is the reason – for everyone who could confirm the matter is dead – died before he put the facts together. Hence my ‘one step too far’ – one step too far in trying to make the police detective look brilliant. Now, all that needs to happen is a few word changes. Something like ‘it is likely that’ instead of ‘it was there because’. Semantics. Logically the steps, pieces, were laid for that specific clue to be found – except for the part where it had to remain speculation (’I also thought the bottle of whiskey in Gregor’s cabin was strange, as he drank martinis. [X] was the one who liked whiskey, but of course [x] didn’t’ want to risk [y] finding [x]’s bottle and getting smashed, so [x] kept it in Gregor’s cabin and used the connecting door . . . .’ - lot of speculation going on in that ‘reveal everything’ being treated as fact .

The time on the ship was quite interesting, the mystery, despite several things I’ve stated, was also well enough crafted (a little heavy handed, but well enough crafted). The wandering eye is a character issue, not exactly one I wished to read, but feasible. As is those several talks about marriage (lavender or not). Overall a good book. I liked the first book more than the second, but second was good enough.

Rating: 3.65 to 3.85

March 6 2017

Backwoods Asylum by Megan Derr

Backwoods Asylum by Megan Derr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So . . . decided to try more audio. Wandered to Audible.com and put in the various publishers I've read stuff by, including: Bella Books (2 books), Bold Strokes (60), Riptide (43), Ylva (1), and Less than Three.

Well, this one is released by Less than Three and involved weresnakes, wolves, baby wolves (puppies), etc.

The weresnake (cottonmouth), the main character (Skylar), is awakened near 3 am by something. Rather quickly the guy realizes that he heard wolves - baby wolves. Finds puppies that apparently had been abandoned. Investigates.

It should be noted that it is very cold out. And the little baby puppies were huddled, whimpering, trying to keep warm - when the weresnake - in snake form - appeared. One puppy darted backwards, other darted forward. Snakeman quickly turns back into human form. Puppies tentatively crawl forward and into his lap . . . awwww

- I did not particularly like Brady (the other main character), nor how he kept winking for no known reason. Though that might be because he sounded like the grim gruff version of Batman when he was attempting to speak with the darkest grimest voice possible.

- This is a short story - took me a lot longer to devour than if I just read instead of listened.

Rating:
---- Narrator: 3.9
---- Story: 3.70
----= 3.80

January 8 2017




View all my reviews

Less Than Dead by Samantha M. Derr

Less Than Dead
by Samantha M. Derr (editor)
Pages: 256
Date: October 26 2016
Publisher: Less than Three
Series: None

Review
Rating: See overall section at end of review
Read: October 7 to 10 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Less than Three in return for a fair review.*

Eight LGBT short stories perfect for Halloween (I assume) - as the teaser puts it "There's nothing quite so terrifying as a corpse that moves, a creature that even death can't stop. It's all the worse when the living dead is someone you love..."

Dove in the Window by Kara Race-Moore
1930s, Kentucky. FF. Inability to sleep.

This first story almost threw me off-track there, but it was the first story, and I was excited to read this book, so I continued. And I’m glad I did, for – despite starting off slowly and kind of annoyingly, I kind of fell into a nice content like hypnotic trance there once the story really got going. Well, to a certain extent, once the northerner appeared.

Okay then – Pearl and the main character, “I’ (Cissy McGurk – it’s not always easy to remember the names of characters if most of the story has them be ‘I’) loved each other. Unfortunately for them they are both women, this is the 1930s, and Kentucky. That kind of thing isn’t exactly welcome in those parts.

Well Pearl up and died on day, you see, but there’s another problem beyond the dying part – she keeps sleep walking (so to speak, though the word used is ‘nightwalking’). No, I mean after she’s died. She keeps pulling herself out of her grave, wandering over to Cissy, and noting that she can’t sleep.

Cissy, naturally, doesn’t particularly like this turn of events, more because it’d be awkward for anyone to find Pearl in her bed. Less because she’s walking after death. Because, apparently, things like that happen in Cissy’s neck of the woods.

Well, Cissy attempts to figure out how to stop this – visits Pearl, asks some questions, learns that a lot of people are walking at night, calls upon Death - - - etc. etc. Somewhere along the line a quite attractive northerner named Marie enters the picture, and the two of them work together on the problem.

Okay then. Hmm. A rating. 3.65.

October 7 2016

Only Human by Meredith Katz
MM (bisexual), dead receptionist

A man, Saul, feels ill, and goes through a series of slightly more disturbing specialists. First place visited was a university clinic, then a hospital, then a magical illness specialist, then a necromancer.

The referral to the magical illness specialist upset the man, but not because of oddness of the referral, but because he was referred to a magic specialist. Since magic is harder to deal with. So second story in this book and second time people are okay with the concept of fantasy land stuff.

Hehe – ‘most of his time was spent . . . browsing cat blogs, and sleeping.’

Hehe – ‘He tried to look up more about magical curses online – but as usual, the internet wasn’t a huge help, and mostly just its best to convince him he was about to die.’

Beyond a guy, Saul, having this ‘issue’ he has to deal with – health related, the story is mostly about him dating the last health specialist’s receptionist. Who happens to be a zombie. A Frankenstein’s monster kind of zombie (made up of parts from various bodies).

I was kind of leery of trying this specific story, based on the short snippet, but there’s humor, and the budding relationship described in the story was actually fun to watch. Then lots of sex, which was less fun to watch. But still, good story.

Rating: 4.421

October 7 2016

Lavish are the Undead by B.A. Huntley
FF, Doll-monsters

A self-described gym rat is on a treadmill listening to her girlfriend, a DJ, on the radio until she starts to play an hour long David Bowie album. Switches to a book. Switches back to the radio. Runs. Lights flicker. Mick, the gym rat, powers down the treadmill - worried she'd end up planted in a wall if she didn't and the power cut out suddenly. Screams erupt (okay, I don't recall if there are screams, let's try that again). People start fleeing from the area near the windows. Mick looks over. Sees . . . things. She in turn flees.

Gets outside. Sees . . . doll people? Well, human shaped creatures bouncing around looking like porcelain versions of humans. They are breaking everything reflective - windows, glass, mirrors. They charge towards Mick. Mick leaps into her car and flees.

Somewhere along the way she spots a woman being attacked, and older woman. She saves her. Takes her back to the older woman's place. As they clean themselves up, they listen to the radio. Apparently some kind of 'bone-disease' is sweeping the area. People are told to stay indoors and board up their windows. Mick gets Sally (the older woman) to change the station so she can check on her girlfriend. Girlfriend still alive but . . . sits inside a giant tower of glass - 100 floors up. In a wheelchair. Mick must save her.

Quite thrilling short story. Fun, exciting. I'd rate it . . . hmms . . . 4.85.

The Eighth Tree by Alex Stitt
MM, German minefield and yellow mist

Two soldiers meet on the way to the Western Front during, I assume unless I'm very mistaken, WWI. They become friendly with each other. Somewhere along the line one 'accidentally' shoots the other in the leg. Their boss (heh), the sergeant major sees this as them being cowards and strips them of their dog tags and shoves them into no mans land. It's been three days. One has a bullet wound in their leg.

Germans start launching mortar at the trenches their old unit is in - the one they were kicked out of. Gas erupts. People die. Time passes. The two men out in no mans land look back and . . . what's this? The dead are rising again somehow. And they appear to be charging either the two men, or the German lines. Even as they run, their bodies are dissolving from within.

Gross story. Told non-linearly (which was annoying - that). I do not really want to rate it but . . . um . . 2?

October 7 2016

Orion Shone Right Through by Dmitri Dene
Zombies, MM?

For better or worse the 'zombies are monsters' version of zombie stories are not working for me. That would be the WWI story, and this one here. I'd no real clue what was going on - scenes were disjointed and the 'stuff' happening in each individual scene seemed designed for me to be utterly confused.

So - story opens with a guy in, I think, a convenience store (maybe?). He's depressed. And contemplating what he'd have to do to get himself dead - all the way dead. Then he notices that there might be others and starts tossing cat food around and stuff. Turns out there were six (or was it 7?) others in a fridge. And they are human not zombies. One is named Daisy. The rest aren't even there beyond the basic idea that Daisy wasn't there by herself.

Then, apparently, they all live to get to someone going to fly them somewhere. Next thing I know Daisy and Marcus (I think lead guy is Marcus) are climbing stairs. Where? Strong vibe they aren't in the convenience store now but no idea where they are. Also - it's just the two of them now because the others . . . um . . . for all I know spontaneously combusted or peed themselves to death. No explanation is given.

They get to the roof - where they were going to get picked up by a helicopter, then hear live humans below them. Screaming for help. So . . . they go help. And Marcus ends up with his hated ex. *shrugs* And I really don't give a fuck. It's not even that we keep bouncing from one thing to another, it's that there are no actual scenes. Like the first one - Marcus is . . somewhere? Contemplating moldy hot dogs? Starring at bullet hole filled cans. Realizes someone else is there. Tosses a can of cat food. Meets Daisy. Reader told that there are others there and that Marcus meet them as well but . . . the info on them is about what I just said here in this sentence.

I rate this one no stars.

October 8 2016

A Witch in Arkham by Cora Walker
FF, witches, zombies, bisexuals, lesbians, Old Ones

Strange one - this. Alternate earth. One with Innsmouth and other such places. Well, action takes place in Arkham. Witch girl is in cemetery on a job - she's going to raise a really dead person to ask them a question about a century long inheritance dispute. Gets distracted when a ghost wandered into her line of sight. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus - dead three years now (and no, not the same Marcus as prior Marcus, and one of the reasons I'm not certain both were actually named Marcus). He has warnings. Involving a 'Michael', 'Phoebe' and 'Templars'.

Then witch girl spots a Templar and bolts (the magic users and the Templars/Vatican are not exactly best friends).

Quite an interesting entertaining story - once I got deeper into it. I'd rate this one something around 4.66.

October 8 2016

Zoey Loves Zombies by Adele Gardner
FF, Fatal argument

Gross, quite gross. A woman gets into an argument with her lover. Agrees to leave their safe place and head to NY during this zombie thingie. Lover gets scratched by an owl. Begins to decompose - see my mention of 'gross' earlier.

Right, so, not necessarily a bad story anything. Just . . . gross. I'll rate this one something like 2.8 stars.

October 9 2016

Noble Pursuit by Helena Maeve
MM? Historical Fiction, England.

Not sure when this specific story takes place. Has the 'feel' of 17th-18th or even 19th century (depending on circumstances) England. Whatever the date, zombies have 'come ashore' and are moving northward in England. Guy by the name of Delaney (Lord Delaney I believe), is defending his estate while hundreds of thousands of zombies march around. He fights them with saber, musket, flintlock revolver (released around 1814), and machete while he has his servant play various classical recordings (ah, so it's at least late enough for phonographs to be around - which popped onto the scene in 1877 - so actually this might even be the 21st century, just seems somewhat more primitive with the use of muskets and the like - but you use the weapons at hand).

Of note: very rarely, like once or twice before, I've read something with music in the background - mostly when specific music is mentioned. Well, Lord Delaney is hopping around killing zombies while listening to Tchaikovsky, so I decided to play 'The Best of Tchaikovsky'). Listening to classical music while reading about a guy thrusting his sword into rotting corpses and the like. hmms. Though I only lasted 9 minutes listening to music and reading before turning the music off.

Charging forward, Delaney is set to dispatch the one commanding the undead - apparently some boy. The boy acts afraid and passes out so Delaney stays his hand - temporarily.

Whereupon the awakening Ephram West takes over POV control of the story. Then it switched back again, I think, and then . . .. Right.

Slight twist when a brother named Arthur appeared. Should I mention the twist? Not mention? Bah, I'll not mention - keep it hidden. Though will mention that Ephram, it would appear, worked as a pornographer before the rising (that is unrelated to the 'slight twist', no the 'slight twist' relates to Lord Delaney's first name).

Shesh. The two main characters sure do take offense easily. mmphs.

--
Quite good story, this one. I enjoyed it. I'd rate it something around 4.65.

October 10 2016

Overall
Dove in the Window by Kara Race-Moore - 3.65
Only Human by Meredith Katz - 4.421
Lavish are the Undead by B.A. Huntley - 4.85
The Eighth Tree by Alex Stitt - 2
Orion Shone Right Through by Dmitri Dene - 0
A Witch in Arkham by Cora Walker - 4.66
Zoey Loves Zombies by Adele Gardner - 2.8
Noble Pursuit by Helena Maeve - 4.65

Overall rating: 3.378875

October 10 2016

The Rock Cocks by Brad Brown and Leslie Brown

The Rock Cocks
by Brad Brown and Leslie Brown
Pages: 215
Date: 2016
Publisher: Hivemill
Series: The Rock Cocks (1)

Review
Rating: 4.5
Read: September 30 2016


Note: The spoilers are pictures from the comic. Since they contain nudity, I've hidden them behind spoiler tags.

Review lifted from the individual parts:

Track 1:
Randomly ran across this just now. Not much to say - it's about two people who I hope are not related (since they kind of fuck a lot) who are attempting to make it in the music business as 'Rock Cocks'. This specific 'track' here involves the couple 1) losing (female) or not acquiring (male) a job; 2) having their phone contract expire; 3) get evicted from their apartment.

So they decide to hit the road in their van. And basically become homeless while still trying to get their band up an running. Mostly by busking (performances on the street with a hat near them while they look dirty and starving).

Much nudity and sex. It was never actually stated, but I believe the 'track' (the first part of this 'thingie') started with them performing in a strip club. Though, considering people seem to like to spontaneously pull their clothing off, masturbate and or fuck when the 'Rock Cocks' perform . . . I'm not 100% certain if that first performance was at a strip club or not.

I'm probably mixing the story line of track 1 and 2 because I didn't realize I was reading 'separate thingies' or I'd have paid more attention. One just goes into another. As is what happens, you know, with a webcomic.

http://www.therockcocks.com/comic/page-1-nsfw-track-1-start

You can tell what you are getting yourself into just by seeing the first page.

Track 2:

Right, so this is 'track two'. Not sure of exact split between track one and two as I read both at same time without realizing I should pay attention to breaks.

Okay then - wherever the break occurs, I know this one finds the music duo on the road in their van, busking for money, dirty, showering in public, and accidentally exposing themselves because they forget to wash their clothing before washing themselves (though there still would have been the issue of one or the other being dirty - their body after washing the clothing if they had washed clothing first, or the clothing if they washed their body first).

Right, so, this one finds them on the street playing - well the woman at least. The man sees a sign for a $1000 music prize and so they are going to try for it (which is also the inspiration or cleaning themselves up - as in literally cleaning - with water and stuff; though not cleaning up as in 'cleaning up their act' since both perform showing lots of skin. Man topless. Woman almost topless in her barely there top which does not actually cover her breasts all the time.)

Apparently their music is so good that it causes people to strip and play with themselves or with others nearby.

Track two begins on page 36. http://rockcocks.slipshine.net/comic/page-36

- busking

- performing almost nakedly.

Track 3:
So. Track three. That certainly was a lot quicker to read than I expected. 25 pages just flew by (it felt a lot less than 25 pages, I'm not sure I can trust the page count listed here).

So - Carol Hopkins and Stephen Guerrero (they signed a contract and their names were visible, otherwise I'm not sure I'd ever have picked up on what their names might be) get signed by an agent. Confused because I thought he was a album owner in a prior 'track'. Now he's an agent? No matter. They've got a year contract.

Not much happened this time. Most of the nudity was that Sterling guy standing around pantsless with a bulging erect cock while having a meeting with the Rock Cocks (though there were at least two 'strips' wherein he apparently had pants on again, then they fell off again *shrugs).

Track 4:
Let's see - the duo is all signed up and off to 'Redd's place in a limo. Going to record an album. And that's basically it.

Track 5:
It's a month later, they've made an album, released it, had a celebratory orgy, and the 'blonde bitch' mentioned earlier in the book makes an appearance.

She, it turns out, is with a rival music album. No idea what her story is, or why Roxanne Richards and Seth Sterling are in some kind of rivalry (Seth's gay - and I'll take a moment to note that gay sex occurs in this book (there's also a bunch of straight sex, and lesbian sex - though, obviously (or not), Seth isn't involved with that other sex); while Roxie's apparently at least bisexual, or, potentially, straight - so it isn't a lover's tiff kind of thing.)

Roxanne, by the way, is quite . . . hmms . . well look for yourself:

Right. So, book over. Lots of nudity, sex, and stuff occurred. When the duo are last left before the end, they were heading off to some nudist place in Arizona to have someone there record a video. But, if that occurs, it'll have to be something occurring in the next book.

September 30 2016

Counterbalance by Aidan Wayne

Counterbalance
by Aidan Wayne
Pages: 79
Date: September 12 2016
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.55 out of 5.0
Read: August 12 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Riptide Publishing in return for a fair review.*

After reading Aidan Wayne’s Loud and Clear, I was quite excited to see a new story pop up. I was quite eager to read it and was happy when my request was granted to read. I had to hold off, though, since I read fast, this is a short story, and I got the story a lot more than 30 days before publication. But the time had come . . .

So, John, a Texan, works as the guy who works out how to set up the rigging/matting/etc. for the Cirque Brilliance show (he is head rigger). Heh, that’s actually the first time that I noticed that it, was Cirque Brilliance. I just saw Cirque and assumed it was Cirque du Soleil.

Bao, John’s interest, is a new performer with the show. He’s quite talented, has been training since he was a kid, and is from China. Bao, though, unlike Wayne’s first story, does not have his thoughts and feelings expressed through his own point of view, but instead interpreted by John.

This brings me back to John. John, you see, expects nothing can happen with Bao, because John is horribly scarred and can’t believe anyone would see past the scarring to actually want anything to do with him. He is quite taken with the idea. That no one could possibly want him, well, other than those who have a freak fetish. That’s a really annoying reoccurring theme in the story. ‘Bao hugged me; Boa is just a happy kind of guy, and the Chinese are very huggy types of people, it doesn’t mean he likes me; Bao brought me lunch . . .it doesn’t mean . . ; Bao has pulled my pants down and is sucking on my penis. That doesn’t mean anything, he is Chinese, and it’s what they do.’ Okay, all but the last one happened in the story. John is/was scarred mentally and physically, both from the incident where he got the injuries, and from his experiences with others through his life when he attempted to get close to him. So there’s a solid backing for his reactions. It just got frustrating to see it over and over again. To the point that I’m sure that Bao could have done that last thing I mentioned and John would still likely have reacted the same way – disbelieving (except for the part wherein John would have stopped him, but whatever).

Other than believing that his English isn’t the best, there doesn’t seem to be anything ‘wrong’ with Bao. There probably is something, if we could get into his head. But we aren’t in there so, the evidence says: he’s an excitable kitten with no issues or problems other than a vague feeling that his English isn’t the best.

I mention this because we really are on unequal footing here – the reader and the participants. Because all we have are what John sees and feels. It’s hard to know, from this angle, what exactly Bao sees in him. You can only have a guy berate himself, internally, before you just accept that he’s an ugly freak and anyone who is interested is interested because they have a fetish. And no, that isn’t how I came to see Bao; no I came to conclusion that I had no idea why he was interested in John.

I’m missing half the story here. Bao’s half. That frustrates me. Especially since I really really loved the first story I had read by Wayne.

This story is interesting enough, don’t get me wrong. I just wanted to spend more time with the excitable kitten, and less with the super depressing self-loathing John.

I have a feeling that I might have ended up feeling the same way, if ‘Loud and Clear’ had been from, say, Caleb’s point of view only. Instead it was from both Caleb and Jaxon. And while neither was an excitable kitten, Jaxon seemed like a great guy to know, smoothing out any issues I might have had with Caleb (which I only really recall him being something of a stuffed shirt; but this vague recollection is probably wrong).

Caleb and Jaxon had flaws, and positives. John is a self-loathing scarred and scared man, while Bao is an excitable happy kitten – a perfect specimen of manhood (yeah, I can see why John kept asking himself why Bao would be interested in him).

Well. Hmms. Let me see. I believe I would rate this story somewhere around 3.65 to 3.885. As for GoodReads sakes, that would equate to a rating of 4 stars, since we do not have half stars on Goodreads. I reserve the right to switch the rating to 3 stars and keeping the story on my 3.5 shelf.

August 12 2016

Station of Shards by Aimee Villarine

Station of Shards
by Aimee Villarine
Pages: unknown
Date: September 28 2016
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
Read: August 7 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Less than Three Press in return for a fair review.*

This is the first story I’ve read by this author.

When I saw the description, well part of it, I knew I wanted to read this story. I mean, private eye in space! Okay, I’ve read that before, but it still is a genre I both like and also somewhat rarely see. I’ve read children’s books just to be able to read a series in that mixed genre (okay, they were young adult novels, I think; actually, I do not know what they were since none of the characters were young adult – I’m referring to a Timothy Zahn series, and there the guy was more of a spy than a PI).

Considering the cover, I kind of expected a Sam Spade type on a space station working cases. Instead I got a guy who didn’t exactly vibrate noir vibes (there’s a private eye in shadows on the cover, in the background there is a science fiction-y scene – hence my belief I’d get noir in space).

A lot of time passes in this story. Too much time. And a lot of it with nothing really is happening (traveling mostly). And when action finally arrived, Kelley, the space PI, was asked for help more because he was being asked by his friend. It was less a case than a favor to see what the strange noise in the dark was (specifically to see why people were acting strange down in a lower level of the space station). And Kelley didn’t investigate so much as stumble along following, then running away.

Despite saying the above, it was an interesting enough story, and I do see that there’s an interesting universe here. I see myself reading something more in this universe. Hopefully if such a thing occurs, more stories, something more of a mystery and or case to solve would be nice. Something to show that there might be some reason to believe that this guy has something going on within his brain. At the moment he kind of gives off a vaguely dim vibe.

August 8 2016

Enchanted Soles, edited by Sasha L. Miller

Enchanted Soles
by Sasha L. Miller (Editor), A.D. Truax (Contributor), Archer Kay Leah (Contributor), Katey Hawthorne(Contributor), A.M. Valenza (Contributor), Corinna Finley (Contributor)
Pages: 304
Date: July 6 2016
Publisher: Less Than Three Ress
Series: N/A

Review
Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0
Read: June 3 to July 10 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Less Than Three Press in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of five short stories connected to the concept of 'enchanted soles', or magical shoes.

Three Nights by A.D. Truax
'Three Nights' magical shoes involve sandals. Specifically new sandals acquired by a man named Synder to replace his old fallen apart sandals.

There's a vague underlying current of humor in this story. Though maybe that's just me. I mean, i found this here to be vaguely tinged with humor:

"Synder, what's happened?" called his mother, who always seemed to know when he'd broken or ruined something. Perhaps a talent that came with her gift of spellweaving, or a natural intuition about her son.

And then other bits here and there were quite humorous. I might have even giggled once or twice (like a mother telling her son that he works to hard - well that scene, not specifically that comment; I just can't be more elaborate without spoiler-y stuff).

The village area was nicely described. There's apparently some Indian (as in Indian subcontinent) connection to this story, judging by the inclusion of Indian words (and names - specifically the words appear to have a connection to Hindi). Which my Kindle, oddly, had no trouble translating (well, the first two or nine, the rest refused to be translated; I still don't know why a woman was described as wearing bile, since the word before it was untranslatable (well, it said choli meant bile; and ghagra, the word before it, was untranslatable (hmm, okay, kindle said choli meant bile and couldn't translate ghagra, Google says that ghagra means skirt, and choli means brasserie - mistranslating brasserie as bile is odd). Though I knew what most meant before double checking.

Right so - story starts with Synder noticing that one of his shoes is broken. He kicks off the 'good' shoe and gets ready to wander into the fields that need . . . whatever he was going to do in the fields, without anything on his feet. His mother noticed and tossed money at him to buy some shoes. Synder was reluctant but left.

As would be expected in a book with the title of 'Enchanted Soles', shoes in this world can and a lot of times do have enchantments embedded into them. Mostly of the kind to help keep them lasting longer - a kind of 'anti-wear and tear' enchantment. There are still shoes without enchantments, though, which is good because that's what Synder wants. Since those with enchantments tend to just cost too much money.

But then he bumps into some shoes going for a really good price for their quality. The reason for the discount? They are enchanted. And no one knows what the enchantment might be. So . . . never worn shoes made from the materials they were made from? Synder buys them.

What will the shoes do? Cause him to take a step and his next would be ten thousand leagues away? Burst into flames? Hold up really well? Synder doesn't know before putting them on.

Hmm. I was going to leave it as a bit of a tease, what may or may not have happened. But then that means it's basically impossible to comment on the rest of the story. Like parties at mahals, and dancing, and parties, and meeting three different people, one of whom was apparently a woman wearing just a skirt and bra (or bile; though I'm fairly certain that there's a mistake in the translation somewhere; especially since my Kindle translated paan as if the word was actually pain). Or the bit of unexpected and unplanned romance that broke out.

I suppose there are a few things I can note even if I was intentionally attempting to stop with the questions. Snyder is, at the very least, not overly alarmed to find himself in the arms of another man; though that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have minded being in the arms of a woman (as in, he might be bisexual). And the man in Snyder’s arms appears to be, at the very least, bisexual – based on the information given.

The story is/was an interesting neat little glimpse into a tale involving a magical fantasy like setting involving Indian words, clothing, and food. And, likely, people. I liked it well enough. And, to a certain extent, I probably especially like the part about the shortness of the story (not that it was that short, 23% of a 304 page book is roughly 70 pages). Specifically because of how stubborn one of the two main characters turned out to be. Full length novel involving this character would probably have frustrated me beyond endurance. Perhaps.

So, hmms, I tentatively state that I’d rate this story somewhere around . . . hmms. 4.3463 stars.

Dame Fortune by Corinna Finley
A three part poly story. Um, no, that isn't the right way to word that. A poly story that involves three people.

Saidah meets a witch named Betry. The witch gives her a gift, a coupon, to Dame Fortune's store. Saidah's shoes break and she's in need of new shoes. One thing leads to another and she finds herself inside Dame Fortune's shop, whereupon she uses the coupon for new shoes.

Magical shoes. Saidah puts the shoes on. They are comfortable. They are nice. She whispers to herself something about taking her to love and . . . . she winds up in some closed off street. She drools over the man she finds there. One thing again leads to another and Saidah and Gavriel - the man she found in that closed off street, find themselves at Betry's place. The three hatch a plan to save Gavriel, and warn the Queen that the Mayor is corrupt.

I'm not really sure what to say about this one. This story.

This is not the first poly story that I've read. Though I believe it is the first that involved all parties loving each other (the other great poly story that I read and loved involved a women and two men - the woman was forced to chose between them and couldn't; the men had been great friends before this situation developed, though not in love - romantic love, with each other). So this one involves a woman (S) in love with a woman (B) and in love with a man (C); B is in love with S and C; C is in love with S and B. Mutal love all around! Yay! heh, sorry.

A rather magical story it was. So magical it took me exactly a month to read it. But, meh. heh. I kind of got confused a month ago when I was reading the LGBT short story collection book and found a woman who had been dating a man named Ethan, and asked her shoes to take her to true love and found herself . . . next to another man. I hadn't been looking for a MF romance. So . . . I paused my reading. And finally got around to resuming just now.

Sad, I know. I should have finished both the story and this book a month ago. mmphs. Well, I've finished this story now, at least. So, what did I think? What would I rate this specific story here? This roughly 57.76 page story? (it took, about, 19% of the book's length, book is 304 pages, so 57.76 page story). Well, I'd give it a rating of 4.44.

Hopefully it will not take me three more months to finish the last three short stories in this book

Heart, Lace, and Soul by Archer Kay Leah
Despite the placement of this story in the book, I accidentally read it fourth. No idea how it came about that I ended up skipping it. Especially since I seem to have gone from the ending of one story to the beginning of another without hitting this story here.

They, whoever they are, say good things about stories that make you 'feel'. Well, this one made me feel like I wanted to beat my book reader to death and then tear it into tiny pieces. So . . . there's that. No idea really, but 'once upon a time' and 'princess' kept repeating in this story. And . . . it drove me batty. Made me rage, weirdly.

Story is about a maladjusted mental health worker (gee, how original) who uses special magical shoes to help 'read' other people. Reading them activates the microchips in the characters brain which allows them to read them even further, in that they now can read their digital files and know all about them.

She meets a guy she can't read. She's both flustered that she can't read him, and realizing that she's finding out things like little gifts of surprise that she would have learned immediately otherwise. And stuff.

I'd rate this one 2 out of 5 stars.

Aelfwear by Katey Hawthorne
I may or may not have accidentally skipped a story somewhere along the way. No matter, I'll get to it. So, read another story, and without it taking me a month to do it this time.

So this one is kind of a mix of modern technology and fantasy. Elves that make shoes. Using computers to display their wears. Etc. This specific story stars one of those elves, Frida, who works for Aelfwear - they make shoes (which I think I've already conveyed).

A man she and her sister dated (at the same time) has become engaged, and the sister is sad. The woman set to marry that man came in for some shoes. One thing leads to another and it turns out that she doesn't want to marry Morgan (the man). But is being forced into it by her parents. If she doesn't do it, she'll be disinherited. But if she can get the man to break things off, then she'll be, somewhat, off the hook. She starts on a plan with Frida to bring about this break in the engagement. Meanwhile the two become closer and flirt.

Interesting enough story. Passed the time well enough. I'd probably rate it somewhere around 3.9 to 4.15.

Into the Hollowed Veil by A.M. Valenza
Another triad romance. This one involving two of the three who actually are or are close to being asexual. If I understand terms correctly, the woman in the story is or possibly is demisexual. While the main character, the one whose point of view we follow, appears to be more asexual. Dare, the other man in the triad, appears to be open to being bisexual.

Interesting story. Wasn't sure how the last story would go and went in with an open mind. Thereupon I almost immediately thought that I'd end up giving a super low rating, maybe even 1 star. Then things grew on me. Long and short, this is a super weird story that takes a little time to get anywhere, but is quite interesting. In the end I'd rate it 4.31 stars.

Overall
An interesting collection of short stories. In the end I think everything I have shelves for in terms of LGBT got hit. Except for the coming out one and the nonfiction one. Since this is fiction, checking that one off would have bene hard to do, eh? Well, so. We had homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians, asexuals, some version of polyamourous people (both of which ended up in triad romances - romances involving three people; technically since one involves asexuals . . . . well, let's not think too hard about word choices).

Let me see, I rated the first them: 1) 4.3463, 2) 4.44, 3) 2, 4) 4.025, 5) 4.31. For a combined average of rating of 3.82426.

July 10 2016

Triad Blood by Nathan Burgoine

Triad Blood
by Nathan Burgoine
Pages: 240
Date: May 1 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: Triad Blood (1st novel in series)

Review
Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
Read: June 16 to 19 2016

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

My first book by this author.

I’ll start off by noting that I went into the book somewhat reluctantly and with the wrong information. I’m not sure where I got the idea, which was clearly wrong, but I had the idea that this book was not erotic – something like how ‘the sex’ was in the pre prequel short story. That idea was wrong. Where-ever it is I got that idea (probably from reading reviews/description of some unrelated book that I accidentally confused for this one). I was reluctant because up to a certain point, I believe it was this year, I have not had much luck with MM books. And I do not believe I’ve ever ‘loved’ an MM fantasy book.

Hmm, no, my first 4 star MM book was read July 2014, not this year. That one was a private investigator graphic novel. Then I liked the first two Tom Mason and Scott Carpenter prose mystery books in early 2015 (4.5 for 1st book, 4.0 for second). Love for the Cold-Blooded, or the Part-Time Evil Minion’s Guide to Accidentally Dating a Superhero is my first 5.5 star (out of 5) MM book that included lots of sex – that one was read in October 2015. Loud and Clear would mark my second 5.5 MM book, though there is no graphic stuff in that book. So I’ve come a long way from 1 starring that overly erotic MM fantasy book way back when.

I say all of the above to note that I’ve read 31 MM books now, some I’ve not liked, some I’ve loved, and some were meh. So I can fairly well note that it is not actually the line of eroticism in the book and the graphic sexual encounters which lead me to a 3 star rating, though they did not necessarily help. No, it was the relatively simple part wherein I just simply did not like any of the characters that much.

There are three main characters, and all three have their own little stories that get followed separately, in addition to the overall three-person main story. Luc Lanteigne is a vain, arrogant, snobby vampire who doesn’t really like one of the three people in their triad – Anders. Luc doesn’t particularly like Anders for several reasons, though his rough personality, and shabby appearance probably doesn’t help. Anders is the kind of guy who literally feeds off of sex, what with being an Incubus, while at the same time the kind of guy who gets super jealous if Curtis Baird, the third member of their triad, ever hints at dating. Anyone. (Not that Luc is better in that regard - though somewhat less highlighted in this book, Luc sometimes gives off those same possessive vibes towards Curtis; plus he is super patronizing towards Curtis). So, Luc’s a snob, Anders is a dick, what about this third member, Curtis the human wizard? For the most part he was likable, in his own way, though there were parts that I didn’t particularly like. Like his going with the idea that he isn’t really allowed to date (even if that is not overtly mentioned), while the other two in the triad seem to go out nightly to fuck. Others, not each other. Then the time he outright laughed at a guy who indicated that he was not gay . . . well, that was annoying.

So, how did I end up here at a 3 star rating, then, if I say all that above *waves upwards*. Well, the story itself was interesting enough. Luc, Anders, and Curtis have come together as three separate ‘things’ to create a power triad – every other ‘group’ out there are of one thing (vampire, demon, wizard). Though their coming together is told in a previous short story (yes, this is in fact yet another book I picked up in the same month that turned out to be a series book that is not in fact the first in the story-line, though here the novel is the first novel length work in the series (if there is a series, I notice just now that this book is not listed as being part of any series on GoodReads). Still, the reader who hasn’t read any of the previous short stories (and there were others than just that ‘getting together’ story) should be able to pick up enough of the back-story through reading the book. I know I did, and hadn’t read any of the previous stories.

So, as I was saying, the story itself was interesting. The other ‘power groups’ in Ottawa are not particularly happy about this mixed group and are ‘doing things’ (letter bombs, car explosions, coat explosions, etc) to try to take out this mixed triad. Though ‘doing things’ while at the same time saying that they are not. The triad stands up to the vampire power structure in this specific book.

A good enough book for what it set out to do and be. Even if I didn’t particularly like the main characters that much.

June 20 2016

Paladins of the Storm Lord by Barbara Ann Wright

Paladins of the Storm Lord
by Barbara Ann Wright
Pages: 314
Date: May 17 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series:

Review
Rating: 3.30
Read: May 5 to 9 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books in exchange for an honest review.

This is my sixth book by this author. First science fantasy. I’ve previously read a four book a fantasy series and a 1 book, stand-a-lone, historical fantasy book. I realize that this book here falls into the science fiction category, but I think of it as science fantasy. What with the mysterious powers that are not science based, and the dryad like aliens.

I mentioned in either one of my updates or in a thread that this book has a similarity, in a loose way, with David Weber’s Safehold series. I do not wish to go too far down this path, but in short Safehold is about: a colony ship arrives at a planet. Something different than planned occurs and the colonist, who had been frozen, are awoken on the planet without any knowledge of their past and thrust upon them is this ‘religion’ that both puts the ships crew as gods, and includes things like ‘technology cannot go above a certain level’ in the rules. Then hundreds of years later an android is awoken – she has the memories of her time as a human female crewmember. She’s going to go out amongst the ‘peoples’ and stuff. Not exactly the same as the story here. Not by a long shot, not really, but that series and this book reminded me of each other.

Here, this book, – a colony ship arrives at a planet – it isn’t the planet they had been aiming for, and something mysterious happened to both put them off course and to give the crewmembers ‘god-like’ abilities. The colonists, who had been frozen, are sent down to the planet. They’ve either been given, or made up themselves (though I think it was given), that the crew members were gods. Though they were allowed to retain memory of their prior existence, and knowledge that the ‘gods’ had been humans at some point. To be fair, the crew members do have god-like abilities. Petty gods, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Tech base is kept at a relatively lowish level, but not due to any religious rules (or need to hide from vicious aliens (the real reason to keep the tech base low in Safehold). No, the tech base is limited to the situation – the planet isn’t the one the colony ship was aiming for, and most of their supplies are already on the planet – that other planet. And the planet they did land on apparently is low on metals. So they know about technology, they just don’t have the means to enable a higher level of technology.

So. That’s the foundation. A colony ship was heading to a new colony world. Something mysterious happened and the ship arrived at the wrong planet. No word is mentioned as to whether or not the ship was stuck there. Or had communication issues. Or anything. Heck, there’s even mention that the colonists had hoped for rescue, so the lack of a word or two mentioning that the ship didn’t have more power, or the communication gear was fried, or something, was vaguely annoying.

Distracted myself there. Sorry. Ship arrived. Crew awake as if from sleep, but look around – they were supposed to have been on duty. They are on the bridge. Many are dead. One, named Dillon, has a raging headache. Duo, is missing an eye. Lazlo is wandering around trying to help – he isn’t the doctor, just someone called upon in an emergency. The doctor is dead. Lessan – the navigator, another person who had woken up, is horrified, jerking around, looking for live people. Marlowe and Christian are also wandering around, and speaking oddly. Lessan decides to go wake up the captain, Dillon – for unclear reasons, wants her to stop. Grabs at her, she tries to pull free, he increases his desire to keep her from leaving, and she’s electrocuted. The crew, as mentioned, has these mystery powers now. Unexpectedly. And, as seen, from the first moment the reader meets him, Dillon is a massive asshole.

So, next chapter – two hundred years later, colonists are wandering around doing stuff colonist like.

This is where I’d say something like ‘the main character is’ or ‘the main characters are’ but . . . there are none. I know that the book description specifically mentions two – Lieutenant Cordelia ‘Delia’ Ross and the Storm Lord (that being Dillon), but neither has the main point of view. Both have point of views, and are important to the story-line, but neither are the main point of view. As mentioned, there is none.

Here’s also where I’d put down the point of views, except, there’s like 20 of them (not really, but a ton of them). There’s Cordelia, Captain Carmichael, Liam Carmichael, Dillon, Lazlo, Lydia (I think that’s the prophet one’s name), Horace, Nettle, Usk (the old drushka point of view (drushka being what I’ve been calling the dryad aliens), B46 (the ‘boggins’ queen), etc (I can’t recall now if Paul Ross, Shiv, Flood, and others also have point of views or not).

So, I can’t really give a list of main characters, because there isn’t really a main character. Nor can I do a list of POV’s, as there are just so many of them. So, let me just boil things down. The colonists live near a swamp in a place called Gale (the main humans in this story, not all humans on this planet). They share the few remaining armor they have left (suits of armor), while others wear ‘leathers’. They patrol around the town, and in the nearby swamp. The ‘paladins’ are the local security/town guards. The town and paladins ‘worship’ the god known as ‘Storm Lord’ – he who helps control the weather – moving rain, clouds, etc. Which Dillon, as Storm Lord, does in fact do.

In the swamp are two intelligent or proto-intelligent species. One of which is actually broken apart into two factions – one that wishes to wipe out the humans (old drushka), and one that does not (drushka). The proto-intelligent species, boggins, is at a level wherein they can use sticks they find on the ground as spears, and have a certain low cunning – they’ve been ‘augmented’ though to a level of true intelligence (a level they might have reached on their own if they had had the opportunity and lots of time). The old drushka still have a ‘wipe out the humans’ mentality, though they haven’t done anything to advance that mentality in a good long while; at the same time they don’t like how the whole drushka has been split and wish to join everyone back up again. The boggins are running around trying to figure out what to do with this new intelligence, though they know that one of the things they wish to do is wipe out the humans and the drushka.

There is a solid story here. It’s readable, it’s interesting, and it intrigues me enough to pull me along. There’s a slight problem, though. With minor exceptions, like a few of the yangui’s (sp?) – the augmented humans, Nettles and Shiv, I kind of despise everyone.

Of the original crew: Dillon’s insane with lots of power. A real asshole. The other ‘god like’ crew members, except for Duo and Lazlo, are mostly unknown to the reader – might even be some great people in there, or more assholes, not given enough to know. Duo’s another insane one with lots of power, but doesn’t get a lot of ‘screen’ time (or pages). Lazlo’s a weak-ass coward who has spent the last 250 years lusting after Dillon and doing his bidding, which includes some seriously evil shit, despite the fact that Dillon is just friendly to Lazlo because Lazlo has this ability to heal.

Of those on the planet: Captain Carmichael is described in a way that lends one to believe she’s super competent and really good at her job. Though when she actually tries to do anything, she is shown to be kind of incompetent and lacking in abilities – no idea what that’s about. Long and short, she’s an incompetent dick with a veneer of competence and respect. Liam Carmichael, son of Captain Carmichael, is a drunk and a skirt-chaser who is largely incompetent. Lieutenant Cordelia Ross is friends with Liam, and shows a lot more competence than many others in this story. She’s also, though, a drunk and a skirt-chaser with a lot of bigotry (see: her reaction to seeing ‘Sun and Moon’ people in the town) and arrogance mixed in.

Of those who are drushka (and why is that always lower case in the book?): Nettles is competent and good at what she does. Shiv acts impulsive and immature, but she’s likable despite these handicaps. None of the drushka, though, has enough pages to get a firm handle on their characters.

Of those with point of views who I haven’t mentioned above: some I do not know why they are in the book. They have no real presence, beyond a couple scenes here and there. No, not why they are in the book, why they have point of views. Lydia, the prophet, appears to be there to . . . um . . show what a prophet is like. And have yet another person be sorry for in regards to close ones deaths.

Romance
Almost forgot this one here. There's a bit of romance going on in this book. It drives several of the characters actions so I can't say that it is not of importance. But this isn't a capital R romance. It just is a book that includes romance. drushka and humans. Gods and humans. Humans and humans. Straight, lesbian, and gay relationships. More straight than any other kind. Not counting one-night-stand type deals, there is 2 lesbian, '2' gay (I might not otherwise count Dillon and Lazlo, but Dillon has controlled Lazlo for 250 years because of Lazlo's lust for him, even if there isn't anything more than a manipulative relationship here), and 2 straight. I'm being purposely vague. Though I'm not sure why. Story opens with three relationships in place (well, once the prologue is over) - Lazlo and Dillon (gay), Paul Ross and Reach (straight), and Lydia and Freddie (lesbian). Three more 'develop' over the course of the book.

Overall
Bah. Enough of that. Let's do the overall thingie. There is a good solid story here. There are just too many people telling it. And most of them are not people I want to have anything to do with. Even so, I was planning on giving this book a rating near 3.5 to 3.8 stars – closer to 3.8. Since that is ‘close enough’ to 4 stars, I was going to mark the book as 4 stars. Since there’s no way to mark the book as being 3.5 stars. I was hovering on the edge, though and . . . . something that occurred very near the end pushed me in the opposite direction. In the end, I cannot give a rating higher than 3.3 stars – still a good solid rating. And without half stars, that gets marked down as a 3 everywhere that lacks half stars (GoodReads, Netgalley) and 3.5 everywhere that has half stars (LibraryThing, if I still posted there, Leafmarks – similarly if I still posted there), and 3.3 on my blog.

May 9 2016

Loud and Clear by Aidan Wayne

Loud and Clear
by Aidan Wayne
Pages: 85
Date: May 23 2016
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Series: None

Review
Rating: 5.5 out of 5.0
Read: May 3 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Riptide Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Dang, this was one damn good story. I do not believe I’ve read a MM Romance that I’ve liked better. Which, to be fair, isn’t really saying much since I do not make a habit of reading MM Romance. So let me not limit myself – I love everything about this story, forget about the fact that it involves two men (or put that to the side?).

Not sure I specifically loved Caleb, but he was likeable. Loved Jaxon though.

Right, so, this book involves two points of view – that of Caleb and Jaxon. Jaxon is a cab driver and keeps running into the very well dressed Caleb outside a high class bar seemingly every Tuesday night. As his cab driver I mean. Caleb’s anywhere from tipsy to falling down drunk when he meets Jaxon, but even in such a state he notices Jaxon.

So, we have two men who like the looks of the other.

Except, Caleb has trouble speaking without stuttering – and he tries very hard to not stutter, so he tries handing hand-written notes when he can get away with that. Not talking, or reverting to sign language (I’m wording this badly since his first preference is sign language).

Caleb’s matched up with Jaxon. Who ‘can’t read’. Well, he can, but he has a reading problem that causes him to have trouble figuring out words (dyslexia), the kind of problem that caused him to flunk out of high school and go through life thinking he’s stupid. Though he has a great mind for memorization and the like.

The two issues obviously enough cause certain issues. It’s not as bad as someone who cannot see bumping into someone who can’t talk, but any and all communication between the two comes only at a certain effort. Like having both the patience and desire to communicate. To take the time to understand what is written, to understand what is stuttered/said.

Still, despite their communication issues, the two get to know each other over several weeks of cab rides, and eventually dates.

Jaxon is a rugged, blue-collar type. If the story had been set back when he was in high school, or shortly thereafter, he would have been a completely different person. Drunk, angry all the time. And with his build, you don’t want to meet him angry. But Caleb and Jaxon didn’t meet back then. No, now Jaxon’s sober and really very much of a gentle giant type. Though quite down on himself intellectually. Which makes a certain amount of sense, I mean, growing up everyone – school, teachers, everyone said he was stupid. Because he couldn’t read.

Caleb’s character isn’t as defined, though enough of the building blocks are there to picture him. Grew up in a well-to-do situation. He also was called stupid, because of his speaking issues, but because he came from a well-to-do situation, he had opportunities not given to Jaxon. And Caleb had the type of character wherein he wanted to prove everyone wrong. So he strove hard to do well educationally and now in his professional life.

Both Jaxon and Caleb are happy with their current life situation, but neither has anyone to share their lives with – in a romantic relationship kind of way. I stress that part since I hadn’t mentioned Jaxon’s sister yet. Another great character – I kind of love Tati as well, and she’s only ever seen in brief snippets over the phone.

An overall great story. Hmms. I just glanced at some of the other reviews since I know two things – currently this story has a sub-4 rating on GoodReads, and it also has something I’m sure many would not like – the lack of graphic sex (there’s stuff, but not actual explicit sex). But Most of the lower rated ones mention the shortness of the story, or the lack of ‘seeing’ more of the ‘troubles’ both face with their issues (I do not exactly agree – since I got a good sense of both of their issues, but fair enough). There’s more than likely at least some that rated lower for lack of sex, but I do not currently see any with my brief glimpse.

Well, no matter. As I noted, I loved the story. I wouldn’t change a thing. Sure, reading another story or three involving these characters would be great, but I liked what I found here length-wise.

May 3 2016

To Terminator, with Love
by Wes Kennedy
Pages: 152
Date: April 26 2016
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.88 out of 5.0
Read: May 1 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Less Than Three Press in exchange for an honest review.

This is both my first book by this author, and my first book by this publisher longer than a 100 pages. Though this work here is only 152 pages.

“I’m pretty sure you just tried to sell me a bad Terminator meets Minority Report fanfic here.” – so says Dexter Wu, to Andre, when Andre Jackson tries to explain the situation.

And yes, there are elements of both in this book. Andre even says to Dexter – ‘If you want to live, come with me’ while saving Dexter from people firing guns at him. And the people are there because Dexter built a robot that supposedly will destroy the world. Though the people are not from the future (ala Terminator movies), but from the current present time – but have an ‘Oracle’ that lets them know of dangers before they happen (ala Minority Report movie (and short story by Philip Dick). Enough differences to keep it from being fanfic though. I mean, for one, Wu’s a complete wimpy whinny smelly self-centered guy. Not at all like macho take charge Sarah Connor. And, in many ways, Jackson comes across more as someone trying to be that Agent Smith from the Matrix instead of Kyle Reese. Personality wise (with some breaks of humanity).

Characters
Dexter Wu is a genus like guy with some gaping common sense holes in his personality make-up. He’s a graduate student and building a robot – to help kids read, though he can’t seem to get the robot to talk. As the story progresses, Dexter moves from the age of 20 to the age of 21.
Of importance: Sandhya, Griffin, Hal.

Hal is a robot set to destroy the world in the future. Or something. At the moment he appears to be ‘fighting’ Sandhya for place as best friend forever in Dexter’s heart. A line that appears in the book a few times – ‘just an inanimate object’ – though I’m probably paraphrasing.

Agent Andre ‘Junebug’ Jackson is an agent from The Agency. He attempts to help Dexter when his fellow agents seem to be going beyond normal orders.
Of importance: Meemaw (his grandmother), mother, father.

Kai ‘Sandhya Das’ Mondol is a woman from India who had graduated the year before the story opened and had been an intern for the last year. Is about to return to India when the story opens. She is Dexter’s best friend.
Of importance: Dexter.

Agent ‘Charles Griffin’ O’Connor is a minor character in the events of the story, but is included as a friend of Dexters. He gives off the appearance of being always stoned.
Of importance: None.

Plot
The book opens shortly before finals week and shortly before Dexter, the main character, turns 21. The book opens up normally with Dexter and his college friend joking with each other, going to a party, working long hours in the lab, etc.

Then things turn to the weird when Dexter happens to poke his head in his lab to ‘check on’ Hal, his robot, only to see people attempting to take the robot and Dexter’s notes. Probably for the first time in his life, Dexter charges forward angrily. The charging forward part, instead of cowering. The charge is brief before a return to the norm occurs, though by this point he is too far away from places to hide to cower. Suddenly guns appear. They go off. Dexter runs.

Somewhere along the way he runs into a friend. Who pulls and points a gun at his face. He is, naturally, very confused. Then that person is taken out, ‘you are going beyond our orders!’, and suddenly Dexter is on the run for his life. With his new pal, Agent Andre Jackson.

Lots of running. Lots of bickering. Agent Jackson seems a lot less mature than I’d expect (though the reason for that became apparent before the book ended). Dexter Wu appeared wimpier and a lot less interesting than I expected. Though he was bearable.

Eventually Jackson finds a safe place for Dexter to hide. And then things turn weirder, in a way. In the ‘our lives are in danger, the world! The world is in danger! . . . so let’s rest here in a place no one knows about despite family connections for some time playing video games and eating junk food’ way.

Overall
There’s a particular cliché that pops up that didn’t go over that well this time around, in my humble opinion.

Cliché: one of the two people keeps dropping lines from movies and pop culture. The other reacts and calls them on it. The first person acts confused at the mere idea that they said anything odd. Etc.

This Book: that seemed to happen several times in this book. Seemed because several occasions several of the reactions and calling the other on it took place in Dexter’s head, instead of out loud. Also, the whole idea of having Jackson say something like ‘my precious’, or ‘if you want to live, come with me’, and having Dexter react very very shocked is . . . confusing. Why is Dexter shocked? Nothing said is exactly from some obscure film. Quoting films isn’t something people just don’t do. So, why is Dexter shocked? Also, almost never does the cliché follow through. Jackson would say something, Dexter would react shocked, think, or even mutter ‘did he really say that?’ (why so confused that he would say that?), but only rarely call him on it. And instead of Jackson shrugging in confusion when called upon it . . . he wasn’t called upon it. Bah, I’m confusing myself. Not a huge deal.

Let’s just move on. This book hovered around 3.5 to 4 something for most of the book. Mostly because I didn’t particularly care about any of the characters. I didn’t dislike any of them, per se, but I also didn’t love any of them. But that’s livable. With a good other stuff.

Somewhere along the way I noticed certain moments that I assume were put in there for laughs, for humor. There’s only one occasion when I even cracked a smile. And it was an occasion that caused me to kind of roll around laughing loudly, so I can say there is humor in the book. And I found it funny. Once. Good enough, though, to bump the rating up to 4.

I suppose, at some point, I should comment on the LGBT nature of this book. So I’ll take a moment to do so. Andre Jackson is gay. Dexter Wu is asexual, though really likes kissing. From the facts dropped, Dexter is likely to have been happy enough to call himself bisexual (or some form of that, polysexual, pansexual, what have you), but for that asexual nature – I say that because he had a girlfriend long long ago, who he liked kissing, and he kind of fancied his BFF Sandhya. And kind of felt the need, at times, to hover near her like a puppy, just being in her presence. So Dexter is a needy asexual who love kissing. Andre is gay. The LGBT status of everyone else in the book is a data point unfilled.

May 2 2016

Love vs the Limelight by Manda Olie

Love vs the Limelight
by Manda Olie
Pages: 45
Date: April 27 2016
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Series: N/A

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: April 4 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Less Than Three Press in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first story by this author.

I went into this story knowing that I’ve read several variations of it over the years. From J.A. Armstrong’s Off Screen series, to Jae’s The Hollywood Series, to Gun Brooke’s Course of Action, to Selina Rosen’s Vanishing Fame, even to the chick-lit Blame it on the Fame by Tracie Banister (‘even to’ because that’s an ensemble piece with many people involved, it just so happened that it included, among the characters, a closeted lesbian actress). They all have something in common with each other and this story here – people in the acting profession who have to deal with the issue of ‘coming out’. The difference between all of the ones I mentioned, and this specific story here, is that all but this specific story here involved women. This story here involves men. It intrigued me to see how this issue might be different or the same with men instead of women.

Mind you this isn’t actually the first story I’ve read that involve people who act who happen to be dealing with the concept of ‘coming out’ and who happen to be men. Alex Gabriel’s Learning How to Lose is different enough, though, to put it into a slightly similar though adjacent category – since the characters are (1) Japanese working in Japan; (2) musicians (as is one of the characters in Rosen’s book, but I had included it because of the other person in that coupling – who is an actress; plus there never had been any question about the musicians sexual orientation in that book, though there was about the supposedly straight actress).

Right, let’s get to the actual short story I’d read. Love vs the Limelight by Manda Olie. The title in and of itself tells you the thinking of one of the characters in this story. Does he want love, or does he want the limelight – the acting career.

I knew what I was getting into, and wanted to get into, when I received this story to read. I just didn’t expect to find that the majority of the book would trip me over a specific issue. Especially because of the way the story is described on GoodReads. From the description: “His silence when it comes to the truth may cost him Christian, the love of his life, who's grown tired of being a dirty little secret and has issued Rick with an ultimatum: tell the truth or lose Christian.” – naturally I assumed that I’d be entering a story involving Christian and Rick dealing with this issue of coming out, or having the relationship implode. Instead I’m greeted with the relationship already broken apart because Rick had refused to come out; and Christian left, not being able to take it any longer. None of this is the specific issue that tripped me up that is referenced in the beginning of this paragraph though. No, that would be the reasoning given. Partly Rick didn’t want to come out because of the potential consequences to his career. The career he had fought hard to achieve. Partly because, at least one of the reasons given, is because he wanted to ‘protect’ Christian from the harm that comes from being in the news, in the press, hassled by the paparazzi. That’s the issue that tripped me up – that self serving ‘I’m doing this for you!’ bullshit that I’ve seen pop up before.

Luckily, for my own piece of mind, while that comes up a lot, it always came up tinged with the idea that Rick actually knew that he was being selfish – it was more about his career, though there was just a tiny itty bitty part that is true, that he wished to protect Christian from the vultures of the press.

So, let’s try to boil this down a little more:
Characters
Rick Campbell is an actor with, as the description puts it ‘a great career’ who has spent a really large amount of time attempting to hide his gayness, by being shown being on the arm of numerous women. He has, also as the description puts it, a reputation ‘as a lady-killer’.

Christian is a lawyer from Iowa who is a long time best friend of Rick’s who started dating him two years before the start of this story. Tired of having to hide, he had issued an ultimatum to Rick ‘tell the truth’ or Christian would leave. Well, Rick didn’t tell the truth, so Christian left. Oh, and Christian is also, to complicate things, Rick’s lawyer.

Bella Carson is Rick’s agent. Or, at least, I think she is, though she seems to spend more time working as Rick’s publicist – the person who deals with Rick’s image. Ah. No, it actually says that Bella is Rick’s publicist. Hmms. The description mentions several things, like an excellent agent, but does not mention an ‘excellent publicist’. I’d assumed Bella was the agent because no one else fitting that description appeared in the story.

Andrew is Rick’s friend who is a director. He has a lot more . . . issues in his closet than would be advisable to be seen in print.

Jake is another of Rick’s friends and is an action star.

Keith is the tabloid guy trying to catch Rick doing something publishable.

Plot
The description is misleading in one way, and not misleading in another. The story is about the ultimatum, but the plot-line is further along than expected. We are at the point of attempting to keep the break up from cementing into permanence, and attempting to ‘fix’ the issue territory, not ‘ultimatum issued’ part of the story.

The story follows Rick as he attempts to deal with being separated from his love, Christian, separated by his own refusal to come out. He is attempting to figure out some way to keep the relationship going, or restarted, without actually having to give in.

Overall
The story was interesting – it’s neat to see this ‘issue’ from the male perspective. Long and short – I didn’t actually see any difference, at least not within this story, and all the other ones I read. Any difference, I mean, between the impact of being a gay man, or a lesbian woman attempting to work in Hollywood.

There seems to be a solid story here. It’s kind of short, but gives the details needed to be given to be a full story. For those interested in such – there was mention of sexual passion, of certain acts performed in the past, but other than some passionate kissing, there is no actual graphic detail in this story. That detail isn’t in the description over on GoodReads, but it is in the NetGalley description. So I knew that issue going in. I know that there will be people disappointed by the lack, and others who might not read the story because of fear of the inclusion, but so far the lack does not seem to be having an adverse impact on the ratings.

Overall, I’d give this short story a rating of around 3.80 to 4.20.

April 4 2016

Death Comes Darkly by David S. Pederson

Death Comes Darkly
by David S. Pederson
Pages: 240
Date: April 1 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series:

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: March 6 to 8 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books in exchange for a honest review.

My first book by this author and first MM book I’ve read through Bold Strokes Books.

I was going to add a comment about how I normally read lesbian romance fiction through Bold Strokes Books, both in relation to the MM nature of the book, and to the mystery. But then I looked it up. I’ve read at least 14 mysteries through Bold Strokes Books – granted the vast majority of those books are in one series, the Micky Knight series.

The Characters
The book is from the point of view of one Heath Barrington. If this was a romance I’d probably include a large amount of information about each character. Though, I’d probably just be talking about two characters, not all of them of importance. But since this is a mystery, and each little fact might be an important clue, my character descriptions will have to be relatively bare bones.

Heath Barrington - a police detective from Milwaukee. The reader learns relatively early on that Heath: (1) missed WWII because a) flat foot; b) was in the police force during the war; (2) is a gay man who is a) not out to his family or others; but b) has had homosexual relationships; and c) really, and I mean really, enjoys gazing lustfully upon the features of other men. The book opens with Heath in the last stages of getting ready to head off to Lake Geneva – he had been invited to go there by a rich stranger who indicated that he wanted to meet Heath – implication being that it’s related to Heath’s one police investigation, which he had just completed.
Significant other connections: Talks with his mother on the phone; father alive as well, though he is only mentioned; there’s an aunt – sister of his mother, who the reader is given to understand is more sophisticated than her sister; and there’s a boyfriend named Alan Keyes. But he’ll have his own little paragraph.

Alan Keyes - police officer in Milwaukee. Is, apparently, dating Heath Barrington, though the relationship is new-ish (they seemed to have a longer term relationship at the start of the book, but then things started popping up indicating that their relationship was actually of a much more recent occurrence). He gets his own little paragraph because he makes an appearance in Lake Geneva – he’s Heath’s plus one.

Dexter Darkly - a rich old man who has invited a bunch of people to his lake house for a weekend. He is, in his way, this books Mr. Boddy – the host in the film Clue who invited a bunch of people to his house, though all his visitors, it would appear, hate their host. In this case, Dexter’s invitations went to family members, and to a police detective. Everyone, though, but for the police, the butler, and the cook know each other. Unlike in Clue.
Significant other connections: Basically everyone he invited, plus Nigel Darkly – his favorite offspring; Constance Darkly – his first wife.

Harwood ‘Woody’ Acres - a young man who had been a ‘special’ friend of Nigel Darkly – Dexter’s son. Dexter drove off Woody as he didn’t think he was a good influence on his son. He received an invitation, like some of the others, and decided to attend the weekend festivities.
Significant other connections: Nigel Darkly – his dead gay lover (well, they were lovers when Nigel was alive; I didn’t mean to imply that Nigel was a vampire or anything like that, because he isn’t).

Lorraine Darkly - Dexter’s second wife. They divorced about 2 or so years ago. Received an invitation to attend the weekend events.

Violet Darkly Atwater - Dexter’s bitter daughter who had spent ten years on earth before her brother Nigel appeared. She was never in her father’s ‘good graces’, since she’s a girl, but she definitely got displaced completely when Nigel came along. She has kids and is married to Dr. Acres. Dexter didn’t attend the wedding, and it isn’t super clear, but I think Dexter has never met his daughter’s children.

Dr. Preston Atwater - Violet’s husband, a medical doctor, and not formally invited by Dexter to visit during the weekend (the invitation was to Violet Darkly, not Violet Atwater).

Mr. Donovan Doubleday - Dexter Darkly’s brother-in-law, brother of Dexter’s first wife Constance. Was not formally invited to the weekend events by Dexter, but by his niece Violet.

Henry and Nora Bishop - somewhat elderly butler and cook, who had just joined Darkly’s employee shortly before winterizing the house. In which they also lived during the winter, by themselves, to ‘watch over it’.

The Setting
The year is 1947. The place is Lake Geneva. I’m not exactly sure where that is located, though it appears to be within shortish train rides from Milwaukee and Chicago (possibly Lake Geneva Wisconsin). The ‘summer people’ normally turn up in the summer, specifically on or after Memorial Day.

Dexter Darkly, though, has invited a group of people for a weekend visit before the official start of the season. So things are, as would be expected, colder than normal. And the house wasn’t built to be a year round house. Most of the action in the book takes place in that house (or surrounding it).

The Mystery
With the set-up being the way it is, the murder victim should be clear as day, eh? There is a gathering of people at a lake house. Everyone, except supposedly the butler, cook, and the two police officers, has a motive – and a hatred of the owner of that house. Naturally, that means that the owner is the one who died. And everyone had opportunity and means.

There’s a storm that hit around the time the murder occurred, and outside communication, as it tends to do in these types of books, has been cut off for a short period of time (a night? Longer?).

So there is a murder. Due to the circumstances of the events, there are a limited number of possible suspects. All but four have stated motives (the husband of Violet, Dr. Acres, has a less visible motive but is the husband of Dexter’s daughter (implication being that whatever motive that Violet might have could conceivably be stretched to include the husband; or, you know, being the husband of the rich Dexter Darkly’s only living offspring could be a motive in and of itself). Those four without obvious motives being Heath Barrington, Alan Keyes, Nora & Henry Bishop. Those with obvious motives include Woody Acres, Violet Atwater, and Lorraine Darkly. Those with slightly less obvious motives would include Dr. Atwater, and Mr. Donovan Doubleday.

Just like I mentioned the film Clue in another section, there’s a vaguely strong vibe coming off the book for various reasons. Gathering of people who hate the host. Storm outside. Certain identity questions. Etc. But then again, there was also a vague vibe of Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie, at least there was before I started. A gathering of people to a remote location. Cut off for a certain amount of time. Death descends . . . except there’s less death here than I’d expect so that wipes that connection, eh?

The Police Work
Fiction of a certain era, the 1920s Golden Age, had a tendency to include a scene wherein the police talk in front of a crowd of suspects. Various ways that can come about, but they tended to do that when they wished to ‘reveal’ what happened, or – more often, wished to get a suspect to do or say something revealing. The point is that they already have the facts. There is a purpose to their madness, so to speak.

The idea of interviewing witnesses/suspects separate from one another was a concept known by 1947. At least in fiction. I know, because I’ve read books from before then (written before then; not referring to books set before then) that made a point of having separate interviews.

I mention because the very first interview, if I recall the sequence right, was a joint one. Involving both Nora and Henry Bishop (butler and cook – married to each other). Then some separate interviews, then an interview conducted before all parties during dinner – including in said interview those who had not yet had a discussion with the out-of-jurisdiction police (Heath Barrington and Alan Keyes are police in Milwaukee not Lake Geneva). And the thing you would expect to happen, happened – well, one of the things, a conflict broke out with people pointing fingers and the like. What do you expect if you start a discussion like that at dinner? (note: I mentioned that dramatic ‘reveal’ in the drawing room type of thing that occurred in 1920s books, well I didn’t mean to imply, by mentioning the dinner group interview, that the dramatic reveal did or didn’t occur. I think I’m being pointlessly cryptic there.)

Poor police work there. *shrugs* I don’t know, there’s a point of mentioning that Barrington has had only one case as a detective. Maybe he’s just really green?

That group interview thing gets repeated more than once. Annoying that. More police work appears much more in line with what I expect. That group interview thing, though, reads like something someone saw in a film or read in an old book (‘I strode about the room amongst them as I spoke. I’d seen a detective do that in a movie once.’ – location 2753 of 3140). Mmphs.

Overall
The book didn’t immediately pull me in, but there were definitely moments when I felt drawn into the action/events. Vaguely confusing about the number of gay men bouncing around in the book. Heath’s there because he’s the star of the show; Alan gets pulled in because he’s Heath’s ‘plus one’ for the weekend vacation at Lake Geneva. But then there’s also the dead son Nigel, and Nigel’s ‘special friend’ Woody Acres. I believe that’s four more than I usually encounter in mysteries set in the early part of the 20th century.

Moving on to the mystery – it’s well written for what it is. Intriguing even. It’s relatively thin, but still, you don’t need a whole lot to create a mystery novel. Some odd choices by the guy unofficially playing detective, sure he is a police detective, but not in that jurisdiction.

Overall . . . . you know how I keep mentioning the film Clue? Well, I have good reason for doing so. Complicated book, it was. Interesting. Enjoyable. Readable and entertaining. And if this actually is a start to a series, I’d read the next.

March 8 2016