Tag Archives: lgbtq

Lyovitalis

Book Review of Lyovitalis, by Julie Kirtón Chandler

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I’m still on vacation. I’m currently sitting on the patio of Casa Escondida in Chimayo, New Mexico writing under a double rainbow.  Life is good.

Rainbows over Casa Escondida

Unfortunately, the book I’m here to review wasn’t. As this is a road trip and I’m not driving, I’ve gotten lots of reading done. But this one still took almost 3 days to finish. It just didn’t particularly hold my interest.

Lyovitalis

Author, Julie Kirtón Chandler sent me an e-copy of Lyovitalis for review.

Description from Goodreads:
Set during the early days of World War I, Lyovitalis follows the journey of the young and spirited doctor, Audrianna Foster, as she travels to Switzerland to continue the research of her recently-deceased father. Her object is to find a cure to the mysteriously fatal disease called lyovitalis, which not only killed her mother, but also a slew of young women in the idyllic town of snowy Zurich—where Audrianna comes to reside. In Zurich, Audrianna falls into the treacherously seductive company of Lorna and her regal family, the von Traugotts. Racked by incipient sexual desire for the salacious Lorna and a near-obsessive drive to uncover the seeming conspiracy around lyovitalis, Audrianna’s quest unfolds within the riveting pages of a medical mystery of the highest order. As Audrianna delves deeper into the science of lyovitalis, she is forced to dive deeper into herself—her desires, emotions, and insecurities—and what she discovers on the other side will change her life (and her universe) forever.

Review:
Nope, nope, nope, nope. When I was asked to read this book it was presented to me as F/F romance. I object to this classification. In fact, I don’t even consider it a romance, but I especially don’t consider it F/F romance. Sure, two girls kiss, but that’s not enough of a qualifier for me. Which leaves me questioning what genre it is. The answer is I don’t know. I think the author was aiming for romance, but just failed to actually accomplish it. These characters don’t even like each other.

Add to this a profound dislike on my part for every character, an irritation with the excessively formal dialogue and narrative style, an overuse of names, an odd need for everyone to scream, yell, or shout, instead of say thing and an even stranger number of things that secrete (like emotions) and you have a guaranteed failure for me.

What’s more, the book walked an awful close line to didacticism when it discussed the necessity of letting go of negative emotions. This came in the context of hinting what some of the characters were, but this really wasn’t ever explained satisfactorily for me. It was explained, but I found it offhand and incomplete.

The tragedy seemed pointless and it seemed like the ultimate villain was defeated too easily, if he was actually defeated. That’s never really cleared up. And lastly, but maybe most importantly, none of Audrianna’s emotions are believable. She never asks pertinent questions, accepts the unacceptable with ease and never reacts in a way that makes sense — swinging from defiant to weepy to angry to sad to embarrassed to gallant in an instant and without any apparent impetus for the change in her emotional landscape.

Now, maybe this is a style thing. Maybe other readers will enjoy what I didn’t. Other than feeling stiff, using names in dialogue too often, and some anachronisms the writing is pretty good and the editing is pretty clean. So, I wouldn’t discourage others from reading it. It just wasn’t a winner for me.

Broken SEAL

Book Review of Broken SEAL, by Laura Harner

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Broken SEALI picked up a copy of Broken SEAL, by Laura Harner from Amazon when it was free.

Description:
When former Navy SEAL Draco Kincaid is cut down in a hail of gunfire, he thinks he’s lost everything: his friend, his club, his legs. Strapped to a chair and unable to separate the nightmares of his past from those of his present, Draco must learn to depend on others before the crack in his iron will plays into a killer’s hand and he loses more that he ever thought possible. 

With the arrogance of youth, Noah Middlebrooks believes time can heal old wounds, until his missing brother turns up dead at a sex club in California. Now the sick bastard whose games were responsible for his brother’s untimely death needs to explain what happened—then pay for his crime. Burning his final bridge at work, Noah heads to San Diego. With no job and no more family, there isn’t anything left to lose. 

Regret and retribution put them on a collision course of self-destruction, but nothing can prepare either man for the life-altering impact of their first meeting. As a slow simmer of attraction builds in spite of their best intentions, both men must come to terms with the past or risk any chance of a future.

Review:
I did not until this moment (in reading other reviews) realize that this was a spin off from another series (that I haven’t read). That explains a few little things about it. It did stand on its own, but it still felt like there were things you should know; like the Willow Springs Ranch was referenced but not explained, for example.

All in all I enjoyed this. Draco and Noah were likable characters. They were very sweet together the book flows well, making it an easy read. But if I really stop and think on it I find problems. Draco took to his paralysis far too easily. I appreciate that Harner included a paraplegic as a romantic lead, especially a dominant romanic lead, but you honestly never felt him struggle with this devastation in his life. There were just a couple references to how much he hated depending on others or asking for help. It felt like a plot device.

So, did the BDSM aspect of the book. Draco owned a sex club, got it. But you never found out what his specific kink was and when Noah asked about his brother’s he’s sharply shut down. The BDSM played no real part in the story. Neither did the fact that the men are SEALs, other than to spout off about being SEALs. They could have been cops, or security guards, or any other military men. Again, it just felt like a plot device.

Even worse, Nick felt like a plot device. He was never developed past “the dead brother” and his lack of development made me resent his death to benefit another. Further, there were some important points missing in Noah’s acceptance of his brothers death. He never asked to see his apartment or pushed to know where he was buried. He basically never engaged with the memory of his brother at all and that made the whole scenario unbelievable as a motivating factor. Though no where near as unbelievable as what the reader was asked to believe led to Draco’s dismissal from the Navy. That was just plain too much for my suspension of disbelief. I literally rolled my eyes at it. All in all, it was amusing, but problematic.

Oh, and I have to ask about that cover. Neither person on it matches the description well, but more importantly the book isn’t set on water, no one sails, it doesn’t have a nautical theme. Literally, nothing about that cover makes any sense for the story behind it.

Edit: I’ve been reminded that Laura Harner was caught plagiarizing last year. If I’d remember this I wouldn’t have picked this book up. I don’t believe in supporting this behavior through continued patronization. 

Book Review of Strong Signal (Cyberlove #1) by Megan Erickson & Santino Hassell

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Ok, a warning first. I’m on a family road trip. I spent 7 hours in the car today, which was great for reading (as I wasn’t driving) but the trip means unpredictable access to the internet. I’m currently in Hays, Kansas and have it. So you’ll get a review post. But there is no guarantee that the same will be true tomorrow or the next day. Just know that if I go dark, just know I’ll show back up.

OK, on to Strong Signal, by Megan Erickson and Santino Hassell. I purchased a copy of the book.

Strong SignalDescription from Goodreads:
I was counting down the months until the end of my deployment. My days were spent working on military vehicles, and I spent my nights playing video games that would distract me until I could leave Staff Sergeant Garrett Reid behind.

That was when I met him: Kai Bannon, a fellow gamer with a famous stream channel. 

I never expected to become fixated on someone who’d initially been a rival. And I’d never expected someone who oozed charm to notice me—a guy known for his brutal honesty and scowl. I hadn’t planned for our online friendship to turn into something that kept me up at night—hours of chatting evolving into filthy webcam sessions.

But it did. And now I can’t stop thinking about him. In my mind, our real life meeting is perfect. We kiss, we fall into bed, and it’s love at first sight.

Except, like most things in my life, it doesn’t go as planned.

Review:
This was incredibly sweet, much sweeter than I anticipated actually. I expected a lot more angst from a grump-faced soldier and an anxiety-ridden gaymer, but I’m not complaining. I have a pretty low threshold for hearts and flowers and rainbows in my romance, but this was just the sort I could handle—hot, dirty and heartfelt without being schmaltzy. Seeing Garrett’s marshmallow center and his legitimate attempts to control his overbearing instincts was really endearing. As was Kai’s much more expressive puppy-like love.

And I have to make a confession here. Everyone has their own kink, right? Something in smexy literature that cranks their shaft just right? Well, for me it’s masturbation scenes. For real, that shit is often better than the all out sex scenes for me and here we had two people falling in love over ~9 months while half a world apart. You know my toes were curled in just the right way for much of the book.  And that’s before I even get into how inappropriately titillated I am by the idea of what men get up to when there simply are no women about. That whole brotherhood of arms thing added to getting off together is another hot button for me. Totally objectifying, I admit, but there it is.

The book also deals with a lot of the shite that LGBTQI+ individuals have to put up with on a regular basis. Every once in a while I felt the agenda in this, more in the language than anything else—when ‘proper’ terms were used instead of slangy words, for example. But it was never enough to put me off more than I was happy to see some of it addressed.

I’ve read books by both Erickson and Hassell before. I’ve enjoyed them both, will again in the future. But as a team, they are one hell of a dynamic duo.