Tag Archives: lgbtq

Book Review of Wolf’s-Own Bundle, by Carole Cummings

I purchased a copy of Carole CummingsWolf’s-Own bundle, containing Ghost, Weregild, Koan, Incendiary.

Description from Goodreads:
Read Wolf’s-own: the four-book fantasy epic featuring Fen Jacin-rei—Incendiary, Catalyst, Once-Untouchable—and Kamen Malick, who is determined to decode the intrigue that surrounds him. Fen’s mind is host to the spirits of long-dead magicians, and Fen’s fate should be one of madness and ignoble death. So how is it Fen lives, carrying out shadowy vengeance for his subjugated people and protecting the family he loves? With a threat all too close and a secret he needs to explain, Malick is at odds with those who should be his allies, and no matter how much he wants to protect Fen, it may be more than he can manage when he’s trying to keep them alive

Review:
I’m not going to write individual reviews for each of these books, because though I understand they are split up to avoid a 900 page epic and each does come to a relatively natural stopping point, it is undeniably one single story and any individual book would be most unsatisfactory on its own. So, they are not stand-alones! But since I read them as a bundle I’ll rate/review them as one. Even as I acknowledge that if I’d only had the first, I likely wouldn’t rate it so high, considering its lack of conclusion.

But as a single story I really enjoyed it. It’s tragic and complex and redemptive all at the same time. I loved Fen and Kamen, as well as Kamen’s whole team and Fen’s family. The world is complex and multi-demential and the peoples are varied.

I did occasionally, especially in climactic scenes, wonder how things that happened happened. I often knew what was happening, but felt I missed the explanation of how it was happening. How someone suddenly had control of another or caused a certain something to occur, etc. Similarly, sometimes things that were meant to be cryptic to the characters were also a little too cryptic to the reader. But all in all I loved it.

Wolfsong

Book Review of Wolfsong, by T. J. Klune

I borrowed a copy of T. J. Klune’s Wolfsong through Hoopla.

Description from Goodreads:
Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.

Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road. The little boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the little boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the little boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane.

Ox was seventeen when he found out the little boy’s secret and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces.

It’s been three years since that fateful day—and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

Review:
Oh, I really loved that. Yes, it was a tad repetitive and the writing was occasionally more stylistic than easily readable, but overall I truly enjoyed it. It was tragi-sweet, as in most of it felt like a tragedy, but it was quite sweet too.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that those looking for a standard, straight-forward romance won’t be thrilled with this. I mean, the couple meets when one is 10 and the other is 16, so a large portion of the book happens when one is a child, no one is thinking romance. Then, just when the younger finally reached the age of maturity, he leaves. Plus, I wasn’t lit on fire by the few sex scenes there were or felt I really got to know the non-POV half of the pairing. But I loved just about everything else about the book.

This was my first Klune book and I’ll be coming back for more.

How to Bang a Billionaire

Book Review of How to Bang a Billionaire (Arden St. Ives #1), by Alexis Hall

I received a copy of Alexis Hall‘s How to Bang a Billionaire through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
If England had yearbooks, I’d probably be “Arden St. Ives: Man Least Likely to Set the World on Fire.” So far, I haven’t. I’ve no idea what I’m doing at Oxford, no idea what I’m going to do next and, until a week ago, I had no idea who Caspian Hart was. Turns out, he’s brilliant, beautiful . . . oh yeah, and a billionaire.

It’s impossible not to be captivated by someone like that. But Caspian Hart makes his own rules. And he has a lot of them. About when I can be with him. What I can do with him. And when he’ll be through with me.

I’m good at doing what I’m told in the bedroom. The rest of the time, not so much. And now that Caspian’s shown me glimpses of the man behind the billionaire I know it’s him I want. Not his wealth, not his status. Him. Except that might be the one thing he doesn’t have the power to give me. 

Review:
I’m not really sure how to review this book, because I think my biggest problem with it is that it is what it is, and that’s hardly fair. It is my understanding that this is the first in a trilogy following the same couple, which makes this book roughly a 1/3 of the story. And while it did end at a natural place and it is long enough that I didn’t go all ragey about “why is it broken up,” like I do with some novella/serials, I still FEEL like I read a third of a story and didn’t get the payout I wanted in the end. But that’s what the book is, so should I really fault it for being what it is? In the end, I really just wish I had waited until they were all out to read any of it. Then I could look at the complete arc instead of trying to judge just part of it.

Based on what I’ve read so far, I like Arden and Caspian. But so much of the book is so painfully awkward. Which makes sense, since it’s two men being awkward with one another and failing to make a ‘relationship’ work. They pull it together in the end, but most of the book is them failing.

One of the things Hall seems to really like to do is take familiar tropes and subvert them, turn them on their head. And that’s what he’s done here. It’s a pastiche of the broody, emotionally stunted alpha billionaire. He’s recognizable, but far from what you’re used to and I appreciate that. (We even have Caspian and Arden, C & A, like Christian and Anna, maybe? A purposeful head nod?)

As always, the writing is lovely and lush and, in this case, funny too. I liked it. I’ll be looking for the rest of them. But I think I’ll wait until the series is complete.