Sleepless Nights by Winter Lynx

Sleepless Nights
by Winter Lynx
Pages: 19
Date: June 28 2013
Publisher: Self
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3
Read: September 2 2016

Vaguely distracting that I couldn't figure out age level of the participants. Context seemed to make everything appear to be happening to high school students. Then there is a mention of a ‘roommate’ which seems more college level (or boarding school). Not really important but it was a distraction.

Okay, story – Brianna has her wrist wrapped up in bandages. Injured it playing tennis, she says. Though in reality she injured it because she can’t stop masturbating. And now she is having trouble having her nightly orgasm because her less dominate hand is just not good enough.

She explains this, well the tennis part, to Tiffany. Another woman. In the story.

Bah, everything is kind of foggy detail wise. Are they in a high school? Tennis camp? College? Acting camp? Band camp? Do women just bluntly ask other women, while in a locker room changing into swimsuits ‘can I touch your breasts?’ And then proceed to have both grope the others breasts? Yes? No? Have I been in the wrong locker rooms? I have haven’t I?

And what’s this about some play? And why the fuck does it make any difference if her wrist is in a bandage? Hide the fucking bandage and act in the play – what the fuck logic is going on in this story? Can’t act in the play because of a bum wrist, so she gets tasked with . . . using her wrist to make scenery? So there’s a scene of her painfully drawing, with I imagine, crayons. WTF?

Stupid story. I gave it 3 stars because it was kinda hot. Even if stupid.

September 2 2016

Driven by Shei Darksbane

Driven
by Shei Darksbane
Pages: 74
Date: September 22 2015
Publisher: Darksbane Books
Series: Auralight Codex: Dakota Shepherd (2.5nd in series)

Review
Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
Read: September 2 2016

So decided to read this here short story that fits between books 2 and 3 in the Shepherd series when book three appeared like magic.

Dakota never learned to drive so one of her girlfriends (she has several, okay two), decides to teach her. So they are bouncing around an abandoned parking lot one night when they run over a man. With Dakota behind the wheel. They frantically look at what they've done but . . . no body. They look everywhere. Then, a man appears standing near them. The same man they drove over. He smiles at Dakota. Looks over at Raelya (the name of the girlfriend, I should use names). Man becomes instantly enraged when he sees Raelya and attacks her. Flings her around.

Dakota tries to help but she can't seem able to reach him. For he is incorporeal. He flings Raelya around some more, eventually positioning her directly in front of the truck they were driving - her head aligned with one of the tires, then takes over control of the truck. Raelya's head is about to be squashed. Dakota reacts, gets injured. Ghost poofs. Oops, sorry, was being vague and I let things out early. Yeah, man be ghost.

For 'reasons' they investigate the haunting. Have another enounter with ghost man. They learn of a betrayal. They deal with it. Story over.

Interesting enough story, I guess. Not really enough here to keep my attention. Maybe if I’d read it immediately after book 2 I’d have enjoyed it more. Possibly.

It was there. I read it. Yay me.

September 2 2016

The Butch and the Beautiful by Kris Ripper

The Butch and the Beautiful
by Kris Ripper
Pages: 257
Date: August 22 2016
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Series: Queers of La Vista (2nd in series)

Review
Rating: 4.73 to 4.83 out of 5.0
Read: August 31 to September 1 2016

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

This is the second book in a series, and I haven’t read the first book. My understanding is that the books in the series can be read on their own. Though they are related as in taking place in the same city, with some similar characters, but each book involves their own characters to follow. Like, I know that the first MC’s, Emerson and Obie, have a cameo in the second book, but they do not even have any speaking lines. So you can read these, again if my understanding is correct, as you wish – straight through, or piece by piece (though I also understand that some of the story elements are in each book – like the fact that this is all taking place in La Vista, plus there’s some kind of killer running around killing people, but other than that appearing as a topic of discussion in this book, it does not actually impact the book much).

Just to round things up – book three includes Ed Masiello – he has a few speaking lines in this here book; the three people in the fourth book in the series popped up in the second book; though the person with the biggest role book 2, while still being a side character, and being a star of their own book, book 5, would be Zane Jaffe – best friend of Jaq.

Right, so, on with book 2 in this La Vista series. The book ‘stars’ Jaq Cummings and Hannah NoLastNameGiven (at least not directly adjacent to ‘Hannah’, as I just searched for it). Though it is from the sole point of view of Jaq. The two meet at the wedding of Liz and Marla – a wedding that opens the book. Jaq is Liz’s ex, and Hannah is Marla’s ex.

Ex’s, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, can remain friends, though they seem to be able to find the friend loop-hole easier in the lesbian world. At least that is my understanding. So in this world, Jaq is Liz’s ‘best man’ and Hannah is Marla’s maid of honor.

That is something of a reoccurring theme, by the way – the man part. It isn’t heavy-handed, but there is a layer of Jaq acting, thinking, and being spoken of in a male kind of way (I’m speaking more than just wearing men’s style clothing etc; but the part, as an example, where Hannah, at one point, calls Jaq ‘princess’ and Jaq responds with something along the lines of ‘call me prince charming, not princess’). Heavy-handed, by the way, would involve some things I’ve seen in other books but not here - like having the woman say things like ‘suck my dick’, ‘I’m going to shove my dick into you’ and the like – to the point that I get confused as to whether or not the woman has actually grown a dick, always had one, or is actually wearing a strap-on. That level of heavy-handedness is not present in this book.

Wow I’m all over the place with this review. Mmphs.

Okay, so – Jaq and Hannah meet at a wedding, hook-up (Jaq is interested and finds Hannah to be gorgeous in her blue dress; Hannah says something like, when they first meet and establish that both are ex’s of the marrying party, ‘we have to have sex, then’). Jaq is quite unsure of how things might work out, fling, relationship, whatever, and knows – from several sources, that Hannah is batshit insane, but is still quite interested in – at the very least a fling. One thing leads to another and it turns out that it was more than a fling. And that more than one person can be batshit insane.

Jaq, by the way, is both a high school teacher (English, creative writing, journalism, history), and the faculty representative for a school related student club (GSA – Gay/Straight/Alliance – I am uncertain if the A is Alliance). She is also either in her late 30s (her father says something along the way that indicates that Jaq is in her 30s) or in her 40s (Jaq says something at some point indicating that she’s near the same age as Hannah, and – at the same time, believes Hannah to be in her 40s). Jaq is friendly with those in the gay community, has dated a lot of them, still has a living father who she visits often – including for mass at ‘their’ catholic church, and has some living siblings. Oh, and a best friend since childhood named Zane who she sees a bunch of times a month, though more for weekly exercise sessions – as in literal exercise, not code for something like sex (they did kiss once, felt like kissing sister or cousin).

Hannah is in the middle of a messy divorce, has hair that is easy to look wild and untamed, but normally is pulled back and restrained, knows that others thing she is insane (and admits to some insanity), and is a contract lawyer (whatever that means). Oh, and doesn’t like pets or kids; and is in the process of selling her home and relocating to La Vista.

The book started off with many very hilarious moments. For better or worse, those moments of insane giggling lessened considerably as the story progressed – the story turned down right serious at times – but there were still a few giggle worthy moments here and there.

On the sex side – there were a few, well at least 1, less than detailed sexual encounters, and several, at least 2, rather detailed encounters as well. One of which was one that I found to be one of the best I’ve read. Quite thrilling to read, so to speak. (as a side note, I made a status update about there being ‘more ass play than I expected’ or something like that (what, I could look to see exact wording but meh, that boring) – it should be noted that that was a relatively brief thing – as Hannah stated at some point (the same session with ass play) – she likes everything; wow this side note says less, in many words, than I intended to say. Mmphs. Can’t figure out how to fix).

In the end, I would give this book a rating close to 4.73 to 4.83 – not quite reaching 5 star level because I kind of wanted more scenes that included both Hannah and Jaq in the same room. But otherwise loved the book, I did.

September 1 2016

Paradox Valley by Gerri Hill

Paradox Valley
by Gerri Hill
Pages: 322
Date: August 22 2016
Publisher: Bella Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.5 to 3.7
Read: September 1 2016

I'd probably rate this one somewhere around 3.5 to 3.7.

Tense. Violent. Bloody.

Something longer than this might appear in this box tomorrow.

--
This one had a lot more point of view shifts than I expected. I think the opening bunch of chapters had a new POV with each chapter. If I hadn't read the book description, I'd have been lost as to which character I was 'supposed' to be caring about (answer: all of them. But mostly Dana and Corey).

Fleeing a shocking and unexpected marriage proposal from her girlfriend of six months, 30+ year old Dana Ingram drops in on her parents and their farm in a sparsely populated area of Colorado. Tried to work the ‘works in marketing in Seattle’ in there somewhere, but couldn’t fit those words in. Her visit home pulls in her mother and a bunch of relatives; most of whom are of little importance throughout the book, though one is in it throughout (and one of the few semi-important people without their own POV – Butch, Dana’s cousin).

Meanwhile Hal and Jean, two 70+ year old people are living on their own tiny farm. Mentioned because both have POV’s that are of some importance in the story. They are, somewhat shockingly, not really, in a lesbian fiction novel, a happily married content straight couple (a thought I had more because we were still in the round robin game of musical head hoping – which one will the reader stop in last/or which of these heads being hopped in are actually important).

Turning back to Butch, he’s a local boy who never left when he reached adult age. Which I mention because he’s dating another local – a girl named Holly. The beginning kind of makes it seem she, her family, and Butch will be very important to the story-line, but only Butch is of any real importance. Though Holly, Annie Gail, and her husband Dick do have their moments on the page (I do not believe anyone actually ever calls the husband Dick by the way, I’m being self-funny).

Colonel Sutt… um. Sutter or Sutton? Dang. I can’t remember now and my Kindle is currently dead. Well, Col. S. is ‘the man in charge’ when suspicious events occur late one night and therefore has his own thoughts expressed for the reader to see. His thoughts are mainly of a raging kind.

One of Colonel S’s subordinates is a woman by the name of Corey Conaway – Captain in the . . . whichever military force she is a Captain in. Probably Army. Certainly not Air Force or Navy, or Coast Guard. Whatever. Captain Conaway, though, has been on an extended ‘special assignment’ for the past 4 or so months, which started right after her entire team was killed on a mission in Afghanistan. The special assignment consists of rolling around her cabin slowly losing weight and drowning in waves of guilt – for still being alive – also drowning in alcohol. Well, at least in the sense that she needs it to sleep.

A couple of other people are also of importance, like say Lucky the dog – super important, but I’m tired of naming people and dogs so I’ll move on.

Shortly after Dana arrived back at her parents place, they enjoy a family reunion type of BBQ. Then the scene shifts to Holly and Annie Gail’s grocery story in Paradox, the small local town. Not exactly sure why they 1) have so much ‘page time’, nor why 2) ‘stuff’ begins from their point of view. Stuff being – Holly’s whimpering about being stuck in tiny Paradox and thinks it’s finally time to move out of this tiny tiny place. She says this to her mother. As they shelf stuff. Or do inventory. Or whatever it was they were doing. The important thing is that both are near heavy cans and things in glass jars. Because – the ground is shaking! Cans are shaking! Cans and glass might shake, fall off, and brain them! Then the power goes off.

Back to Dana – ground shakes. Power goes out. Dana freaks out like she’s never in her life been involved in an earthquake like event.

Hal and Jean experience the earthquake. Stumble around trying various flashlights. Find all of them have dead batteries. Light some candles.

Dana and extended family rush around and notice their phones are dead, the cars are dead. Everything is dead! (battery powered everything). Dana continues to freak out.

Sometime later a bunch of super old dudes ride up to Hal and Jean’s house. Note that they are going to investigate the helicopter that they heard fly near and then heard crash. Hal goes along with them because . . . he didn’t’ want to look bad. Macho stuff. So the group of 70+ people bounce around on horses towards the crash site.

Dana’s freaking out.

Col. S is freaking out because his career is in trouble – since he is the one who sent the helicopter that crashed. He is getting chewed out by his boss, General Ben. I might have the General’s name wrong. No matter. The General calls in a specialist – an out of shape, PTSD suffering, probably doesn’t have the energy to crawl out of bed Captain. By the name of Conaway (they have a family connection – or I mean, the General knew Conaway’s father, and was there for her when the father died).

So – a troop is being sent in on foot to investigate the ‘meteor’ and the crash site of the helicopter. At the same time, Captain Conaway is also being sent in. By herself. In civilian clothing. With a cover story. Because. Reasons.

The first humans Conaway walks into (yes, battery powered things don’t work but you’d think they would at least give her a bicycle, or a horse/camel/donkey/ostrich, but no – foot power only) are Butch and Dana who are out investigating. Both are wary and kind of act like they’ve never meet any other human walking or riding horses before. Eventually they offer to let Conaway ride behind Dana on a really huge horse.

Butch, Dana, and Conaway ride around on horsies. Investigating stuff.

Hal and his gang of aged farmers are also bouncing around investigating.

Eventually weird stuff starts happening. Like giant arms and doorways and soulless eyes. But I do not wish to be too specific because . . . spoiler reasons.

Book had a certain spooky tenseness to it. Plus romance. And panic. And a friendly dog. To a certain extent there were a bunch of conversations that occurred that I kind of just skimmed because they were taking away from the tension. That’s to be noted – some of the tension gets deflated along the way by things like budding romance, conversations about stuff. Truth be told – I’m not sure why there needed to be so many different POV’s. But there were. So.

Right. So. Decided to give Hill another chance after the few other books I’d read. As I noted, I’d give this one a rating around 3.5 to 3.7.

September 2 2016

For Money or Love by Heather Blackmore

For Money or Love
by Heather Blackmore
Pages: 312
Date: September 13 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.50 out of 5.0
Read: August 30 to 31 2016

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

I wish to start off with two things before anything else: 1) this is one of those books I might have flirted with the idea of skipping writing a review but for the Netgalley connection; 2) my education and work experiences are both an advantage and disadvantage in regards to this book – an advantage in the reading, a disadvantage in the reviewing.

Advantage – I have a B.B.A., an undergraduate degree – bachelor of business administration (with both much finance/marketing/economics learning, and business buzz words); plus my work experience has consisted entirely with dealing with financial matters, from a legal perspective. (I also have a graduate degree, but that doesn’t matter). Nothing I read flew over my head or confused me. Though I admit that I had to read a specific part of the epilogue twice to understand what was being said.

Disadvantage – I cannot really say how hard or easy the wording is; how much ‘jargon’ gets in there – though, right I’ll get to that. So I’m at something of a disadvantage on the review side of things since I cannot actually say if something is or isn’t annoyingly difficult to understand.

Referencing back to my ‘flirted with the idea of skipping writing a review’ – I’m going to go back to the framework I sometimes use, but haven’t in a while.

People of Importance
Point of Views
There are two point of views offered up in this book – Jessica Spaulding, marketing director at Magnate (an investment firm), and TJ Blake, MBA student and intern at Magnate.

Jessica ‘Jess’ Spaulding
Marketing director at Magnate. Though she ‘pretends’ to be an air-head at work, and only goes into work something like 11 hours a week. If that. The air head thing has to do with a run-in with her parents, specifically with Lilith, the step-mother. Apparently Jessica showed great intellectual promise while in school, which Lilith didn’t like, so she told Jessica to play dumb. So Jessica did. Because she didn’t want to make waves. A reoccurring theme (like a later demand she stop seeing Dillon). So, even though she is super intelligent, very good with math, and a great marketing director (apparently ten times better than everyone else on earth), she pretends to be an air-head.

I have no idea of Jess’s age. It might have been given, but if so I overlooked it. Sexual Orientation: Straight. Until TJ came into the picture. Other than TJ, Jess only gets sexually aroused by men.

TJ ‘Teej’ Blake
TJ is a 27 year old M.B.A. student who, by the grace of a program (specifically the Derrick Spaulding program), has the ability to get an MBA with the cost of a few years working in a non-profit organization. She is sent as an intern to Magnate to develop a case study – to find out how and why Magnate constantly remains at the top of investment firms (including during periods of economic downturn). She is super protective of her sister Kara. Is both anti-wealth and anti-… doing something other than getting the best education possible.

She has a massive problem accepting gifts, offers of rides, lunches in nice restaurants, etc. Because money is evil. Super super evil. Money is the devil and must be eliminated! Okay, not that extreme, but she has a chip on her shoulder regarding money and people with money directly related to her own life history (father did stupid things with money and was apparently ‘gotten rid of’ by mafia ). At the same time . . . there is a kind of vibe, which is probably wrong, that she looks down on those without an education – which comes into direct conflict with her sister since the sister wants to go into auto-repair (actually finding old rusted out blocks of metal, and restoring them, then selling them), while the sister is forcing her to apply herself to her education and then ‘go to a good college’ (because ‘she made a promise’ ETA - TJ made the promise - to the father; Kara made no promises).

Kara Blake
TJ’s sister, was . . . 9? When their mother died. Blames herself. Is currently 16 and under the supervision of TJ. Grunts at her sister. Is super into playing video games, repairing cars (and joyriding in cars, not necessarily the same cars she repairs), and less interested in school than her sister wants her to be.

Dillon
Jessica’s childhood lover and current best friend. Owns an auto body shop. With lots of rare and expensive old cars sitting around on display.

Family of Jessica
Lilith is Jessica’s shrew of a step-mother – very controlling, always gets her way while her husband just sits there as she berates and dominates his children; one of those children, though, is Lilith’s – Gary is the COO of Magnate (which normally means ‘Chief Operating Officer’, not sure if that was actually stated in the book – a COO, and this depends somewhat on the arrangements made in the company, ‘is the senior manager responsible for managing the company’s day-to-day operations and reporting to the chief executive officer (CEO)’) – he is kind of dimwitted (okay, not really certain if he is or isn’t, but he is described in a way to make the reader question his intelligence, since Jess was forced to hide her intelligence because Lilith didn’t want Gary to be sad ; Derrick is founder and CEO of Magnate, husband of Lilith, father of Jessica and Brooke; Brooke is . . . . um. I think she is the head of sales at Magnate.

Muriel Manchester
Super rich lesbian CEO of something or other that the Magnate people have been courting for a long time to invest in the Magnate fund. To have Magnate handle Muriel’s finances.

Plot
TJ goes to work at Magnate, an investment firm, as part of her M.B.A. program. She gets assigned to be supervised by a woman by the name of Jessica Spaulding, daughter of the CEO and founder of the company.

Conflict rears its head early. Both because Jessica is the marketing director, and TJ isn’t there to do a marketing study; and in the part wherein Jessica doesn’t really want to supervise anyone, and gives TJ busy work.

They butt heads. Also a certain amount of lust is in the air involving the two. Some form of relationship develops.

Meanwhile Kara shows her displeasure with life by stealing cars, ‘borrowing them’, and then getting beaten up. Naturally TJ is quite unhappy by these events.

TJ’s work study isn’t really going anywhere, re: she isn’t doing a marketing study, and so demands more access. To which she is given. And can’t make heads or tails of what she is shown. She can’t understand how Magnate is able to do what it does. Evilness is afoot.

Buzz words
Something of a joke among, well late-night comedians, people in the industry, people in general – people who fall back onto buzz words are not really saying anything/are attempting to sound intelligent/are kind of moronic in nature. There is both a certain amount of ‘right’ in that, and ‘wrong’.

Any industry will end up with words that get used. Sometimes the words can mean the opposite in the industry than in ‘normal’ life. Sometimes they can sound stupid to an outsider. But the words are just short hand to get things done. Also, at the same time, they also can clue someone in that the person they are talking with is a moron. Depends on context. And the number of buzz words used in the same sentence. And the number of times ‘utilize’ is used.

Like, in the book TJ starts spouting some ‘buzz words’ near the beginning. She’s an MBA student. It’s kind of expected that she would be awash with funny new words and that she would spout them out.

Later Jessica explains how she would handle some marketing issues. She spouts out a bunch of gibberish buzz words. Reading that section twice let me know she actually did say something. It just sounded like a moron who didn’t know what they should say and so started spouting out buzz words.

And by buzz words I mean something like: ‘We need to utilize the deliverables to enable maximum ROI’ (we need to use our products (apples, computers, dog leashes; reports; people (yes, I’ve seen the word used for people)) in a way that creates the largest amount of money in return for our investment in the products (ROI – return on investment); or, like as is seen in the book ‘I see all these basic activity metrics floating around – clicks, followers downloads. Those are fine indicators, but you need effectiveness metrics and revenue-focused calculations. There are market-performance tracking tools that you could and should be using.’ (Jessica was asked to present some ideas on how to improve marketing. So she used a bunch of buzz words. Which actually mean something. But . . . are kind of low level ‘ideas’ to improve marketing. She basically said that, currently, the company tracks ‘clicks, followers, downloads’ (as in, the number of times someone ‘clicks’ on something (a link, an advertisement, etc., online) – etc. While tracking that is good, the company is missing out on adding another layer of ‘metrics’ (literally a method of measuring something or the results obtained from something – the ‘statistics’ and the like; like a website receives 1200 ‘hits’ or visitors, 2 actually click on an advertisement on the webpage. The advertisement is 0.00167% effective in getting someone to click on it) – that tracks effectiveness metrics (something that actually tracks the effective percentage like above) and revenue-focused calculations (the percentage of the people who click on an advertisement actually buy something, versus the cost of the advertisement itself; like the advertisement costs $10 per view; 1200 people visited the website; depending on the contract, that could mean that the advertisement cost $12,000; 2 people ‘clicked’ on the advertisement (if the cost of the ad is tied to clicks then the ad cost $20 instead of $12,000); and 1 bought something – that something cost $0.33 to make; the person paid $5 for it (so – $4.67 ‘mark-up’, or $4.67 revenue before all other expenses) meaning that the company paid either $12,000 or $20 to generate $4.67 of revenue; which would equal a loss of $11,995.33 or $15.33 for their efforts). So, what Jessica is saying is that, currently, the total number of clicks, followers, downloads are being tracked, but only that – the rest, how many viewers it took to get a click (effectiveness metrics), to get a follower, to get a download is not currently being tracked.

So basically Jessica is offering up as her brilliant ‘marketing plan’ installing basic metrics. Or – boiled down - they are spending money without knowing what the result of spending that money is. And the profit, or loss, generated. Jessica recommended putting something in to track that. She’s brilliant. (it’s been about 20 years since I actually had to think in marketing terms, yeah I got a BBA – with a concentration in Marketing - so I’m sure I’m somehow wrong with my interpretation of what occurred).

I now forgot what I was attempting to say.

Um – book solid. Characters grew. Plot – there. Some people evil. Was nice that, for a brief moment, the rich mother wasn’t the spineless one – like many Lesfic’s I read make her; and that the rich father seemed ‘nice’ unlike the majority of rich fathers in Lesfic’s – until, you know, he wasn’t. Romance occurred as well as sex. Was graphic. When sex occurred I was distracted by events and cannot say if ‘good’ or not – sex wise. Beginning to end I liked Jess more than anyone else. TJ annoyed me at times. oh, and I do not know how you get ‘TJ’ from ‘Cordelia’ – TJ’s actual real name

I would give this book a rating of exactly 3 and a half stars.

August 31 2016