Tag Archives: Saint Louis author

Life after love banner

Spotlight and review of Life After Love, by Imogen Markwell-Tweed

1 Reply

I’m trying something new, scary right? I’ve joined a blog tour. If all goes well I might do it again. So, things might look a little different on occasion. But the reviews are still written in the same manner, nothing is changing there. It’s just that now I get to include a lot of fun graphics and even a GIVEAWAY at the bottom. I’m super excited about that. Plus, I get to start a local-to-me author, and reading local authors is a special thrill for me. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Adam and Danny in Life After Love.

Life After Love
by Imogen Markwell-Tweed
Genre: Paranormal LGBTQ Romance

 

 

Adam and Danny are your average couple. Sure, Adam is a ghost — and then he’s not — and then he is again. And, yes, in between crafting lattes, Danny sometimes crafts spells. But other than that, they’re your typical couple — plus or minus a few grimoires. From ghostly best friends to husbands, Adam and Danny find a way to work through all of their troubles … even death.
Danny loves his new apartment, its stainless steel appliances, low crime rating, and proximity to his job that keeps him from having to take the bus. The only downside? The ghost that haunts it. When Danny reluctantly offers to share the space with Adam the Ghost, he thinks he’s signing up for an awkward roommate situation. Instead, Danny is faced with the very real possibility that Adam might be the love of his life — and that, at any moment, he might lose him forever.
**Only .99 cents!! **

Life After Love puts paid to the dictum of the “show, don’t tell.” The book is written in almost 100% tell, but it works. I mean really works. If you like Alexis Hall‘s use of feels or TJ Klune’s chanty-repetitiveness you will like Imogen Markwell-Tweed’s writing. 

Granted, it covers a lifetime in just over a hundred pages. So, it’s on the spare side. And I wasn’t surprised to learn, after reading it, that it was written in parts (maybe as a serial) before being compiled into this book. You feel it a little in the way some things are needlessly recapped. But the whole this is just so sweet (without being artificially saccharine) that it’s all forgivable. Well worth picking up.

Imogen Markwell-Tweed is a queer romance writer and editor based in St. Louis. When she’s not writing or hanging out with her dog, IMT can be found putting her media degrees to use by binge-watching trashy television. All of her stories promise queer protagonists, healthy relationships, and happily ever afters.

 

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
 
IMT Goodie Bag including: 
personalized note, Life After Love limited edition button,
 bonus short story, $10 Amazon gift card, and more!

 

Review of Crone’s Moon (A Rowan Gant Investigation #5), by M.R. Sellars

Leave a reply

I purchased a signed copy of M.R. Sellars‘ Crone’s Moon at a local used bookstore.

Description from Goodreads:

My name is Rowan Gant, and it has been far too many days since I have heard the voices inside my head… No, I’m not insane—at least I hope I’m not. Actually, what I am is a Witch with a rare talent, even for Witches. I can hear the voices of the dead—murder victims, to be specific. Personally, I consider it less a talent and more a curse, especially given all the grief it brings me. But the cops think otherwise, which is why I find myself consulting for them on a regular basis. In fact, the running joke is that they should just go ahead and give me a badge. I sometimes fear they might make good on that threat.

However, like I said, it has been a while since any dead people have so much as given me the time of day. I’ll be honest, even though I never really wanted them to talk to me in the first place, now that they have stopped it seems almost like a piece of me is missing—a big piece.

As fate would have it, at the same time I’ve become persona non grata with the dead, it looks as if a serial killer is at work in the St. Louis area. The murders are pretty heinous, too, and that’s just the sort of thing that usually turns the rumbling chatter of the victims into a deafening roar and a blinding migraine for yours truly…but not this time, and I have no Earthly—or even unearthly—idea why.

What I do know is the Major Case Squad could benefit from my help on this, but I’ve got nothing to give them. Nothing at all… Unfortunately, it seems that there is now someone else with my rare affliction instead of me.

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I want my curse back… 

Review:

The Black Garden

Book Review of The Black Garden, by John S. McFarland

Leave a reply

I bought a paperback copy of John S. McFarland’s The Black Garden. He’s a Saint Louis author and I try to support them whenever I can, with a review if nothing else.

Description from Goodreads:

The year is 1882, and Perdita Badon-Reed, a sheltered Boston esthete, has just made the most momentous decision of her life. Having spurned a respectable suitor, she finds herself on a riverboat on the Mississippi River, steaming toward the strange French Colonial village of Ste. Odile to accept a teaching position at a girls’ academy and pursue her dream of becoming a stone sculptor. Of the many hardships that await her, the one she least expects looms in the form of Orien Bastide, an incubus who has conducted his seductive and parasitic existence for two millennia. Perdita soon realizes the full horror of Bastide’s intentions, and that she alone has the will to stop him. In order to defeat the treacherous Bastide and save future generations from his advances, Perdita must abandon her personal ambitions and, perhaps, her life.

Review:

Sooo, this is a book I’ve now read. I’ve finished it and that’s kind of the only feeling I have about it. It’s 470 pages long. The protagonist doesn’t meet the antagonist until ~page 300, doesn’t understand his nature until about page 400 and ALL of the action happens in the last few pages (and ends in tragedy) The writing is actually lovely, but there really needs to be a lot less of it. The book is too long by half. 

Beyond that, my only real complaint is how well-spoken EVERYONE is and how absurdly perfect Perdita is. At one point the antagonist says of/to her, “Hardly a new month arrives without some report of your exploits, of your compassion, heroism, even.” And it’s true. She’s far too perfect, even performing a rudimentary tracheostomy with a spinning bobbin at one point!

I won’t call this a bad book, and I’m glad to have read a local author’s book, but I’m kind of glad to be done with it. On a side note: despite the cover, this is gothic horror, not romance of any sort.