Tag Archives: romance

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.

The Vintner's Luck

Book Review of The Vintner’s Luck, by Elizabeth Knox

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The Vintner's LuckI purchased a physical copy of The vintner’s Luck, by Elizabeth Knox.

Description from Goodreads:
One summer night in 1808, Sobran Jodeau sets out to drown his love sorrows in his family’s vineyard when he stumbles on an angel. Once he gets over his shock, Sobran decides that Xas, the male angel, is his guardian sent to counsel him on everything from marriage to wine production. But Xas turns out to be a far more mysterious character. Compelling and erotic, The Vintner’s Luck explores a decidedly unorthodox love story as Sobran eventually comes to love and be loved by both Xas and the young Countess de Valday, his friend and employer at the neighboring chateau. 

Review:
I have a confession to make. I have a secret soft spot for trashy novels. You know the sort—shallow, not particularly thought provoking, usually cheesy enough to make me snort-laugh—the literary equivalent of late night, B-grade sci-fi. The problem with such books is that they so often overlap with books I would call trash—poorly written, weakly plotted, the cheese isn’t purposeful or snort inducing. Lately, a disappointing percentage of my reading has fallen into that latter category and I decided I needed, NEEDED something with some substance. This book came highly recommended and boy did it fill the bill.

It isn’t a book you just fall into. It’s choppy, whole years sometimes covered in a page or one single event representing an entire year, as the narrative flies through Sobran’s WHOLE life. (But I have to add that the prose is stunningly beautiful.) It’s often confusing. It’s sad. It has a dubiously happy ending. But it’s also heart-felt and evocative. I teared up more than once. While I didn’t love the book until about 2/3 of the way through, by the end it had me wholly wrapped around itself.

I’ll admit that the narrative style made the characters feel distant and the large gaps in time that the characters spent apart made it difficult for me to feel their love, but I never doubted it. It just took on a form I had to think deeper to grasp. And I don’t just mean the love between Xas and Sobran. There are several types of love shown between different characters in the book, though often subtly and unremarked upon. Also, because so many chapters are presented as mere vignettes, I often was left scratching my head at the significance of certain events.

Most unusual of all, I rather enjoyed the religious aspects of the book. Xas’ relationship to/with God and Lucifer, as well as his purpose between them was intriguing. I never felt preached at, as I don’t think anyone ever preached.

All in all, I needed the ‘See, I can read smart books too’ reboot and had the added bonus of truly enjoying the read. I’m well up for more of Knox’s writing in the future.

For an alternative view, from someone who didn’t like the book but whose points I can completely take and largely agree on, check out this review. Isn’t interesting how two readers can agree on not liking certain aspects of a book, but still come away with different final verdicts.

Home Is Where You Are

Book Review of Home Is Where You Are (The Alphas’ Homestead, #1), by Alex Jane

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Home is where you areAlex Jane sent me a copy of Home is Where You Are for review.

Description from Goodreads:
By the winter of 1870, Caleb Fletcher has carved out a sheltered existence for himself in a simple cabin, outside a small town in the backwaters of Nebraska, resigned to living out his days as a solitary wolf. But his quiet life is interrupted when another werewolf lands on his doorstep on the eve of a snowstorm, brutalized almost beyond repair, with nowhere else to turn.

When Caleb reluctantly welcomes Jacob into his cabin, and eventually his bed, it forces him to face up to the traumas he’s been running from; the shame that made him leave his pack behind, and the horrors of war he endured.

As the weeks pass, it seems that Jacob’s arrival might not be the coincidence it first appeared. Jacob has an agenda. One that involves Caleb. And if Caleb agrees to it – if he can let go of his past and his prejudices – it will change Caleb’s whole world. Maybe even for the better.

Without a mate – a family, a pack – a wolf has no home. 
But what if home finds you?

Review:
I thought this was really quite cute. I quickly came to appreciate both Caleb and Jacob. I thought the narrative voice was pleasing, the story satisfying, and the writing crisp. Basically, I enjoyed it.

However, I am not without complaints. I thought the first half took a long time to finally setting into a romance. Then, past the halfway mark, the story simultaneously dragged (in the sense that every time I thought the story had come to and end something new cropped up and the book felt overly long) and rushed (in the sense that all those bullet points, happily ever after events were relayed in a hurried and perfunctory way that didn’t at all match the style of the first half of the book). I also would have liked a deeper understanding of the world.

In the end, I’d call it a success, though. I enjoyed it, and that’s what I look for in a book.

Edit: The author later sent me a copy of the follow-up story for this book. It’s not quite a sequel, more like an add-on. You can see my review here.

returning home coverDescription from Goodreads:
Three years after Jacob Carpenter landed on Caleb Fletcher’s doorstep, the Alpha mates return to the city they grew up in to be married.

Aside from the sheer exhaustion of traveling across the country with three children in tow, both men step foot back in New York filled with apprehension about what kind of reception they will receive from their families after abandoning their respective packs.

At first it seems they are welcomed home with open arms and much excitement about their wedding but it soon becomes clear that not everyone is so happy to see the prodigal sons return.

Indeed, Caleb finds himself wondering if Jacob will go through with the ceremony at all, or whether it would be better to pack up his mate and their children, and head back to Nebraska before the situation does irreparable damage to them both.

Sometimes you have to leave a place to realize it’s exactly where you ought to be.

Review:
This is a sweet little add-on to Home is Where You Are. However, I wouldn’t recommend reading it if you haven’t read book one. It would be a spoiler. But if you have read the first book, this has all the feels you finished wanting, but some seriously cute kid-speak.

Having said that, it’s a little too schmaltzy for me; the obstacle felt both artificially created and solved, and the dialogue felt a little stiff at times.

It’s still a cute read, though.