Review: The Epic Love Story of Doug and Stephen

I loved this book.  The protagonist, Doug, is like Bill and Ted's dumber, hotter friend, and he falls in love with an almost murderously antisocial, uptight, artsy queer guy, Stephen.  The narrative is laugh-out-loud funny and teeters on the edge of farce, but is saved by having a really charming emotional core.

It breaks conventions that I wasn't aware could be broken. For example, Doug is not slow-by-common-measures-but wise-in-other-ways.  He really is just dumb as a rock.  He's also a lazy, cowardly, amoral, slutty slob. From that description, I should hate him (I'm judgemental like that).  Yet he ended up being a really sympathetic character for me.  Stephen is intellectual, anally neat, and interested is almost a caricature of a east coast liberal, wishing that there was just more injustice in his life to rail against and more angsty than a goth teen.  He's also not someone I would normally find attractive, but I eventually appreciated him though Doug's eyes.

And Stephen really doesn't like Doug at first and is pretty mean to him.  If it were a girl, I'd feel uncomfortable with having her be hot but so much dumber than the guy she loves, or having her be such a doormat that she take his abuse and never defends herself.  But somehow since they're both guys, it doesn't feel misogynistic and just becomes a story about unconditional love.

For a while, I didn't know if I really wanted them to be together.  I kept reading just to get to more funny bits, but I didn't at first see how it would work.  I mean, if I met them in real life, I would be totally on Stephen's side in trying to dissuade Doug from pursuing/bothering him.  They seem a horrible match.  Completely different in every possible way, and not in the "he completes me" sense.

Also Doug starts out heterosexual. The "queer for you" trope has a bad reputation for a reason, but here it worked for me, because I could actually believe that Doug could go his whole went his whole life without questioning the default sexuality and then switch his assumptions without it bothering him all that much.  He's as deep as a puddle.

The only thing I didn't love about the book was the climax.  Although entertaining, there was just too much coincidence for me.  YMMV.

Overall though, I'd recommend it.  Plus, it's free on Kindle Unlimited, so there's that.

Review: Serial Hottie by Kelly Oram

Serial Hottie is a YA romance about a tomboy and the mysterious new guy who moves in across the street.  She finds him attractive, but their first few interactions don't go well.  When a serial killer starts killing red headed teen aged girls in her home town soon after he moves in, she suspects he's the serial killer.
The relationship is a little creepy. She's a bit violent, including punching him at one point.  He is over-the-top jealous and stalker-y, and a couple of times physically restrains her to get her to listen to him when she doesn't want to.  On the other hand, we eventually understand why he acts the way he does, and when she calls him out on the creepy psycho stuff, he realizes that it's a problem and tries to change it.
Other than that, I think it's a good story.  I have a soft spot for stories about beautiful bad boys who are head-over-heels over a girl (Beautiful Disaster, et al).  The author does a decent job of showing the problems with dating a violent boy with stalker-ish tendencies and socialization issues, and how their relationship evolves as they learn he starts to learn how to act right.  She also has some issues with defensiveness and not really feeling comfortable with her feminine side, and with his help, she starts to feel more comfortable in her skin.
The story also has a fair amount going on.  There's the serial killer sub-plot, that is mostly about them learning to understand and trust one another for most of the story, but involves some suspense and action here and there.   There's also a solid arc about the relationship between Ellie and her sister, as well as a strong dose of tomboy-gets-a-makeover story line. For all that there's a lot of potentially heavy things going on, the general tone of the book is actually pretty light-hearted.  It's a fun YA read.

Review: Do Over by Emily Evans

Pez, the heroine and POV, really makes this story. She's a born leader - smart, organized, decisive, and understands people. She mostly channels that into her prom committee, although she's really like that all the time. She's also determined to be a fashion designer, and the contrast between her interest in fashion and art and her practical, level-headed approach to everything is great.
The main blemish in her life is that her parents are divorced. Not one to take things lying down, she's determined to make prom into a perfectly romantic event so her parents get back together, bonding over pre-prom rituals (I found this reasoning a little weak, but not a deal breaker - it's clear that she's having trouble accepting that they're not getting back together and is being a little irrational about it). In the meantime, her father is engaged to a professional cheerleader, who Pez gets to know over the course of the book. Their relationship was a surprisingly strong point of the story.
Mostly though, the story is a romance. Pez is forced to interact with the jocks her father coaches. She finds one of them attractive, but she recognizes that he's promiscuous and isn't generally into jocks, so doesn't act on it. Over the course of the story, they get to know each other better and develop a relationship (although not a romantic one for at first). The romance is understated. There is some tension before they act on their attraction, and there are difficulties they overcome when they start having a relationship, but the author doesn't unnecessarily draw out the problems, and Pez doesn't spend all her time wallowing in thoughts about the relationship - she's got things to do! For all that, when they do come together, it's intense and passionate considering that they only kiss (it is YA, after all).
I love that the author avoids the standard YA tropes and tendencies. There's no love triangle, insta-love, or angst. The girl doesn't feel unworthy of attention and she doesn't need - or get - a makeover. She's popular and good at school without being a genius or a goddess. The boy has no impulse control issues and wasn't her best friend from when they were kids. Nobody is abused or bullied. Mind you, I've loved stories that had all of these things, but it's refreshing to see YA romance that doesn't use any of them.

The only thing keeping me from rating it a five star instead of a four is that the climax isn't so climatic for me. When they run into relationship problems, there's some time when I'm sure Pez is hurting, but it really takes place off stage. So we go from conflict to resolution without tearing my heart out too much in between. Perversely, I would have liked my heart torn out just a tiny bit more. Other than that, though, I thought it was great. Highly recommended if you like YA romances.

Review: Twist, by Dannika Dark

Dark's sophomore effort is a great urban fantasy with more of a focus on relationships and romance than the first in the series.  It's teh hot. I enjoyed it so much, I read it twice.  :)

Twist, by Danika Dark, is the sequel to Sterling (Mageri Series: Book 1), a book about a woman who is brutally attacked and turned into a mage and finds herself part of a dangerous, magical side of the world she never knew existed.

This one starts off with Silver chafing a bit under Justus' tight restrictions. She clearly respects him and understands that's he's trying to protect her, but she has her own ideas of how her life needs to be. Throughout the book, she disobeys him to either do things that she thinks is right or that she has a right to do. This dynamic could have come off like a self-centered teenage rebellion against a father figure/love interest, but I think the author succeeded in crafting an arc for the relationship between Justus and Silver that makes sense for two adult characters. She is a grown woman with very understandable issues about control and independence, and he is a controlling, honorable, very old (very hot) man who is uncomfortable with affection and not really human. They don't see eye-to-eye, but they both want their learner-ghuardian relationship to work. I don't know if it worked evenly throughout the book, but overall I liked it. I also liked what the author did with Silver's other relationships in general. More on that in a minute.

Review: Coexist by Julia Crane

I really wanted to like this YA paranormal romance.  The heroine is an elf that blends into human society, and the story looks like it has yummy romantic tension with less emo angst than the typical vampire YA PR.   But in the end, I couldn't suspend enough disbelief to enjoy it.  It may work better for younger teens.

Coexist, by Julia Crane, is the first book in a YA contemporary paranormal trilogy.  It's a story told mainly through the POV of sixteen-year-old Keegan, the light elf heroine, although the story does show scenes from her brother  Thaddeus, friends, and her Chosen (soul mate) Rourke.

The way Chosens work is that each elf has someone that's chosen for them when they're born (in a mysterious way that isn't explained), but they are not allowed to meet until they turn eighteen (it's also not explained who makes that rule).  Once they're both eighteen, the Chosen bond flares to life, and they instantly fall in love and can sense each other from far away et cetera.  At the beginning of the book, Keegan's learned Rourke's name, so every time she thinks about him, he feels it and can see of what she's doing.  Of course, being a teenage girl that knows she has a perfect soul mate out there somewhere, she thinks about him a lot, so he's constantly being distracted by her and desperately wants to meet her, but knows he should wait until she turns eighteen.

Review: Telesa - The Covenant Keeper by Lani Wendt Young

Great world-building and three-dimensional characters help this YA paranormal romance stand out in this crowded sub-genre.  And I have to give the author extra kudos for basing the paranormal part of her story on Samoan mythology instead of just having the typical vampires and werewolves (not to say I don't love werewolves...).  Recommended, and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Telesa, by Lani Wendt Young, is the story of Leila, teenager who travels to Samoa to get to know her long-deceased mother's family and heritage.  She also is trying to escape her very rich, very white grandmother, who is her guardian now that her beloved father passed away. She starts to get settled into her new environment, but strange things start happening to her and pretty soon she falls down the rabbit hole of the exotic paranormal.

It's a good set up.  By having the main character come recently from the States, Young introduces us to Samoa very smoothly.  And she does a great job of immersing the reader in the locale - sounds, smells, speech patterns, attitudes, etc. - without it feeling like a flowery travelogue.  The book is rooted in a sense of place that I found almost as appealing as the characters and plot. And I found the characters and plot pretty darn appealing. 7CQ28RUGKYQ6

Review: Time Mends by Tammy Blackwell

Time Mends takes up where Destiny Binds left off, both chronologically and emotionally, so read that first, then come back for this riveting and rewarding read.  

Time Mends, by Tammy Blackwell, is the second book in the The Timber Wolves series, it reminds me a little bit of the Empire Strikes Back in that it's an emotionally darker story that is clearly serving a different purpose than the first one.  This is Act II, not more of the same as we saw in the first book.

At first blush, the Timer Wolves series looks like it would be just another Twilight-wannabe, with its beautiful-yet-unpopular girl, slow introduction into a paranormal world, and a love triangle between the the girl, a longtime friend, and a mysterious new comer. It gets beyond that quickly though, by having a strong heroine with both agency and integrity and a plot that gets away from the manipulative "team this" vs "team that" and into a riveting star-crossed lovers story.

Satisfaction Guaranteed and Perfectly Satisfied

I liked the characters and was in the mood for a friends-to-lovers contemporary romance, but they felt sketched in to me rather than fully fleshed out.  Meh.

Satisfaction Guaranteed and Perfectly Satisfied, by Tori Scott, are the first two of a planned trilogy.

They weren't horribly written, but the first one squicked me out at first when it seemed like the love interest was going to try to force or manipulate the female lead into having sex with him.  It got less squicky later, but I felt it still went too fast to be emotionally believable.  When they started, they had fallen out of touch and she had never really thought of him as a love interest.  A few hours later, they were passionate lovers.  A couple more hours and they were engaged and the book was over.

I liked the secondary characters better and they got together in the second book, which was a still too short for the story, but better than the first.

Review: Darkness Dawns by Diane Duvall

I had some issues with this vampire-type paranormal romance, but I've definitely read worse.

First the good.

I liked the characters.

I liked the heroine and how she's introduced.  She's strong in a regular human way, not in the sense of having special powers.

I also liked the hero.  He's dark and brooding in a humanizing "don't always know the right thing to say" kind of way rather than in the overly melodramatic kind of way.  There are also a bunch of secondary characters and the author seems to be trying to breathe some life into them.

I also liked the arc with the head good vampire and the mystery woman.  It isn't resolved by the end of the book, which bugs me a little, but I think overall the author does a good job of juggling different arcs in the book.

Hidden

This is a nice urban fantasy novella that blends family with pack dynamics and investigative action.  It's surprisingly approachable for readers new to the Otherworld series.  Series fans will really enjoy seeing the next milestones for Elena - getting to know her twins and seeing part of her transition to alpha.  

Hidden, by Kelly Armstrong, was a nice read.  I've read most of the Otherworld series, and they're really uneven for me.  Elena POV books (of which this is one) are my favorites so factor that into your evaluation.

The Otherworld is our contemporary world with a modest amount of paranormal-acy.  There's only one werewolf pack of about a dozen members in North America.  Other than that, there are scattered non-pack werewolves, called mutts, that aren't allowed to settle down in one place.  There are other paranormal races, but they don't factor into this story and aren't really powerful in this world.  Elena Michaels is the only female werewolf, and she's been chosen to replace the current alpha.

True Colors

Summary: Good stand-alone novella set in the Elder Races universe.  Recommended for fans of  paranormal romance.

True Colors, by Thea Harrison, has likable characters and a sexy-yet-believable relationship at its core, with a little bit of a thriller thrown in.  I liked it, and, if you're looking for a quick read of the werewolf-meets-soul-mate variety, then this fits the bill.

The premise is that a serial killer is targeting the rainbow chameleon shape shifters, and it looks like our sweet school teacher/chameleon heroine is next on the list.  The hero is a werewolf policeman (more or less) who leads the case.  They almost immediately recognize in each other their soul mate and the rest of the story is them getting to know each other and settling into the relationship while figuring out who the killer is.  HEA, the end.

OK.  That all being the case, I'm a little torn in looking back at this story.  I think if it had been written by almost anyone else, I would be able to end this post with a happy "I liked it" type of statement and go along my merry way.

Alien Proliferation

Summary: I don't recommend it in general, but fans of the previous book in the serious, Aliens in the Family, should like this one too.

Alien Proliferation, by Gini Koch, is the fourth book in the Alien series.  I like the first one, Touched by an Alien, a lot.  It told the story of Kitty Katt, a marketing director who falls down a rabbit hole of gorgeous aliens, terrorist conspiracies, super-hero science, and witty banter.   For me, the first book was an enjoyable balancing act between the sublimely ridiculous world-building and plot twists, the cleverness of the dialog and characters, the comic-book action, and the warmth of the romance.  It's shallow and cheesy, but also sexy and fun.

Unfortunately, Koch lost the balance in the subsequent books.

Bodyguard

Summary: Bodyguard, a short story in the "Shifter's Unbound" universe, is a fun and sexy paranormal romance read at a great price.  

Bodyguard, by Jennifer Ashley, follows sometime between the second and third book in Shifter's Unbound.  I like the first two and recommend them, but if you want to use this short story to try out her writing cheaply, then you can start here without needing any of the plot from the previous books.

The setting is one where Fae (who mostly live in their own world) created canine, lupine, and bear shifters many centuries ago and enslaved them, but the shifters broke free and lived in hiding in our world since then.  Shifters are clannish, long-lived, and don't mix with humans as a rule.  About thirty years, they were discovered by the human world, which didn't react well to the news.  In the US, where this is set, that meant they were rounded up, put in government-created shifter towns, and are treated to prejudice and discrimination by most people, laws, and businesses.  They are also all required to where magic collars developed by the Fae that shock shifters when they get violent.

Dragon Bound

Summary: The first in the Elder Races series, Dragon Bound takes a supernatural type that I usually hate and makes it totally work.  It's a funny, sexy, well-paced, emotionally true romance set in a well-imagined, creative alternate reality and spiced up with great action and rich secondary characters.   Five stars *plus* a purple heart-shaped rhinestone spangle sticker.  I laughed.  I cried.  It was better than Cats! I'd read it again. 

Dragon Bound, by Thea Harrison, kept popping up in my recommended list on Amazon.  It was highly-rated, but by an author I'd never heard of, charging full-price, and had a premise (dragon finds soul mate) that seemed destined for gag-inducing cheesiness.  It didn't seem worth the risk.  But like an infestation of mold, it wouldn't go away.  So eventually I tried out the "Click to Look Inside" and started reading and got totally hooked.  Because it's just that good.

It starts with Pia (heroine) going on the run after she steals from Drago (hero), the dragon shapeshifter.  He soon catches up to her, but he finds himself intrigued and decided to keep her instead of killing her outright.  They get caught up a series of adventures while they fall in love.  HEA.

The story is has no real weakness and many strengths, but what really bowled me over was that it has a dragon shapeshifter as the main character and it was completely authentic.  OK, here's a little interlude with 


My Theory on Paranormal Romances
As a broad generalization, paranormal romances can be split into a categories based on they male lead's supernatural species and its real-life analog.

• Werewolves and other shapeshifters are muscle-bound, physical, loyal, (usually family-oriented) but with a real wild side.    Essentially, they're extreme versions of bad boys from the wrong side of town.  
• Vampire and demons are selfish, decadent, ancient, sensual, and baaaaad.  Usually the heroine is their redemption.  Basically they're a souped up version of the amoral celebrity/rich townie, which tells you why vampires and werewolves rarely get along.
• Elves and other fae are magical, powerful, and pretty.  They're either idealized metrosexuals Prince Charmings, complete with hunky sauce and rainbow sprinkles.  
• Immortal warriors are devoted to fighting for a cause.  They're mystical SEALs with swords.  Yum.
• Humans don't stay that way for long - at some point they sprout fangs or get injected with mutant virus or something.  They start off as well-trained demon-slayers and true-love-to-supernatural-woman types, but basically this fills the underdog/everyman role which is usually not what you're looking for when you read paranormals.  So a book or so in, they morph into something else or are are superceded by another character.
• Angels are definition-of-good authority figures with occasional punish-wrong-doers duties.  I'm not saying "daddy-issues", but I'm just saying.

Writing likable, authentic point-of-view characters takes skill.  Doing so when the characters are supernaturals is tougher, because it shouldn't feel the same to be inside their head as it does to be inside a human's head.  Someone, for example, who has been eating people for the past 250 years is going to have unusual emotional reactions to things.  And that's why I think dragon shape-shifters are particularly prone to feeling unbelievable.

• Dragons.  They're what you get when you want someone wilder than a werewolf, more ancient than a vampire, more magical than an elf, and more alpha and a better fighter than all of them put together. 

Because they're even more everything than all the other supernatural types put together, they're that much harder to make believable.  But Thea Harrison, the genius, pulls it off.  And she doesn't cheat by calling them dragons but then ignoring the things that make dragons dragon-y.  No.  HER dragon is as old as the solar system, a secretive, solitary, carnivore who hoards treasure, flies, and breathes fire.  Shazam!  She make's Pia's race work too, but telling you what that is is a spoiler (albeit one that you'll guess before Dragos does), so you'll just have to wait to see.

More in the Series

1. Dragon Bound
2. Storm's Heart: A thunderbird shapeshifter and a 300 year old dark fae princess - she makes them work too!
3. Serpent's Kiss: An immortal gryphon shapeshifter and the 1,000 year old Vampire Sorceress Queen - and it works too!
4. Oracle's Moon: A djinn demon prince and the oracle - not out yet, but I have it on pre-order

Run Among Thorns

Summary: A decent suspense romance at a great e-book price.

Run Among Thorns, by Louise Lucia, is in the espionage thriller end of the romance spectrum.  The premise is that before the book begins, Jenny (heroine) is in a hostage situation that starts to turn ugly.  She springs into action and kills all the attackers handily.

A government agency assumes she's some sort of super spy, but can't find any info on her, so they call in a specialist interrogator Kier (hero) to break her down and find out her secrets.  His method involves whisking her away to a remote location and spending a lot of up-close-and-personal time with her,  which is where the romance part of the suspense romance kicks in.  Of course, she's not a spy, so although he starts out with his campaign of breaking her down emotionally, it doesn't go according to plan.

Fate's Edge

Summary: In their third "Edge" series book, Ilona Andrews delivers another well-crafted contemporary fantasy romance story with clever world-building and wonderful characters surrounding around sweet-and-chewy center of Happily Ever After.  *Sigh*.  If you like this genre, then read this series and this book.  They don't disappoint.

In case you haven't read Ilona Andrew's Edge series, then the premise is that there are three analogous worlds side-by-side.  The Broken is the contemporary no-magic real world we live in.  The Weird is a sophisticated, high-magic world with an alternate history resulting in countries like Old Gaul and the Democracy of California.  Connecting the two is a patchwork of lawless, lower-magic lands called the Edge.  The first two books were set mainly in the Edge in Appalachia and the Mire (Louisiana swamplands) respectively, but this one is a bit different in that the characters travel through multiple areas, mostly on the West Coast, so the setting lends a little less texture to the prose than in the other two books.

Forged in Fire

Summary: A reasonably-priced, decent read in the sexy action/romance genre.  The author doesn't so anything particularly new, but if you're in the mood for love at first site, Navy SEALs, and a dash of paranormal, this is a good choice.  Contains violence, sex, and explicit references to rape.

Forged in Fire is, I believe, Trish McCallan's first published book, and it's a solid launch.

The premise is a blend of two familiar tropes here.  One is the close knit SEAL team (honorable, deadly, and built) who are trying to stop some really bad guys.  The other is a hero with psychic powers who's been seeking his mystical soul mate.  Anyway, no new ground, but if it's your thing, then it's two great tastes that taste great together.

The world is basically the real world, and I get the idea that although the hero has some psychic traits in the family, it's not like there are monsters running around or any sort of paranormal sub-culture.