This was so good.I'm laughing because I kept thinking that I had read this before, uhm, yes because it started out as a freebie which I had read before and loved. This is the expanded version of that and so very worth reading the repeated bits to get to the new story because both are fantastic. Smoking hot marines, Mac and Gunny, best friends and lovers for ten years have come to a crossroads because both men are retiring from service and DADT is being repealed. This has caused them to be a bit uncertain just where their relationship is heading. Did I say smoking hot? I loved this read. I hope we see more of these men, I want to know what happens next.
3.75A novella set in an AU steampunk England. Dalton is a craftsman who makes prosthetics both standard and bespoke. The bespoke ones are specialized in a way that they begin to react with the person's biology and act as a true limb. Finn is a soldier who had his hand surgically removed after an accident and comes to see Dalton to get a bespoke piece. The men begin an affair during the time Finn needs to learn how to reuse his new hand before returning to the front lines. This was a surprising story for me. Very richly detailed in world-building and in characterization. There's a kink here that I wasn't expecting either that completely fit Dalton. Perfect. Once the connection between the MCs was made this story was tremendously romantic with a nice added twist of angst when Finn returns to the fighting. If I had a quibble it would be in regards to the beginning of the affair. I totally understood Dalton's attraction to Finn but it only wasn't until later that Finn's attraction to Dalton made sense to me. Although with Finn being a virgin the awkwardness of how their affair initiated was understandable but it didn't quite work as much as I wished.If you're looking for an AU MM story pick this one up. The steampunk angle is great spin and one I've seldom read. Wonderfully written and the amount of detail in both the characters and the world is pretty impressive given the length.
Hot Hands (College Fun and Gays, # 1)
Casper is being groped at school and he wants to know who is doing it. He's started a journal where he details the little things: "time, places, level of gropage" hoping that gathering more evidence will help him indentify the mystery man. I found this a pretty amusing read but I didn't like the level of trust he put in "Hot Hands", his groper. This is definitely an interesting set up though. I'll be checking out the direct sequel: [b:Cold Hands|18206779|Cold Hands (College Fun and Gays, #6)|Erica Pike|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1373976344s/18206779.jpg|25626183] plus the other related college books in the series.
2.5The premise is interesting. I love the whole ground hog-esque replay Peat has to do in order to fix things but how did he start Repeating? Is he like a Jumper and it's something that manifested or is it something that he's chosen to do with his life or gifted in some way? It's a bit ambiguous for me.He comes out to his mother and due to his repeating to fix a pretty horrendous accident he and his mother have the conversation again and again until he can stop the accident. I found her reactions each time were pretty much all over the spectrum, so I didn't really get a feel for her as a character other than a distance to her son.Still, the concept is fascinating and while I liked Peat this really didn't answer any of my burning questions.
4.5I was not expecting to like this as much as I did but boy did it ever work for me. When Walker hits it right, it is out of the park and I cannot get enough. There's a 22 year age difference between Tom and Cooper and I went into this with a semi-cringe because it's not really a kink that I like to read about often. Colour me surprised that it didn't bother me at all. While the men are distinctly different in their outlooks, I found those differences really worked for me and I could see how they worked for the relationship. I really loved Cooper's forthrightness. He was a bold and brave young man and I admired that tremendously. I found this pretty smoking hot as well with some nice humour to balance things out. Sign me up for book 2!
4.5This is a funny, funny book and being in Tony's head just cracked me up. He's ex-cop Private Investigator looking into the possible wrongful death of a young woman, a woman who was a patient at a sex clinic. So in order to gather more information from her therapist Tony goes undercover and meets Dr. Jack Halloran. Jack is a former combat surgeon suffering from the lingering effects of PTSD and trying to piece his life back together after he was injured overseas in Iraq.Tony's fumbling attempts to trick the doctor during their first meeting hit the brick wall that is Jack's skill as a therapist. It forces Tony to confront issues he's having (picky dick syndrome :D )and starts a rather odd fake/real, doctor/patient relationship that causes both men a bit of discomfort when they find they're fighting an incendiary attraction.The mystery here is pretty transparent but that's not what this book is about. It's about these two men who are both a little lost and lonely. I loved this read. It was funny, angsty, and oh so very hot with just the right amount of medical kink thrown in. Definitely checking out book two in the series.
2.5Great voice by the author, I love her work. I enjoyed Seth but had a harder time connecting to Dixon and we get a HFN which makes sense because of the length but not my favourite kind of read.
2.5I was happy to this story focus on Tim Madison one of the players from [b:Strength of the Pack|17258293|Strength of the Pack (The Tameness of the Wolf, #1)|Kendall McKenna|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1358531696s/17258293.jpg|23858530] but it didn't work for me as much as I wished it did. There were a couple of different story lines flowing here. Tim meeting the civilian transitioning True Alpha Jeremy, the overseas attacks on werewolves, Tim's brother Adam and unexpectedly the SOD attempts to use Noah and Lucas' bond for further military operations which is never fully explored here, I'm guessing it's a plot for the next book or further books down the line?I'm a big fan of sex but there was just too much here for me. ;) It just felt that for 3/4 of the book that's all the connection that Tim and Jeremy had. I don't think it helped that I just re-read SofP right before this where Noah and Lucas had a slow, steady build to their relationship before they slept together. I ended up having a hard time connecting to Jeremy's character maybe because with all the focus on sex we didn't really see a lot of his transition but were more told that he had achieved it near the end. He's not military so delving more into what it means to be a civilian True Alpha is something that I would have enjoyed and I was curious about this: was the fact of him being 25 transitioning instead of 19/20 supposed to go somewhere? I thought there might have been interesting reasoning behind it but there wasn't, too bad. It just seemed like there were two different books here with the relationship running parallel to the military story but never really crossing over in any meaningful way. I found parts of both stories interesting but not cohesive, sadly, and it really affected my enjoyment of the read because it felt fractured. I think I went into this expecting a military shifter story similar to book one so the introduction to the younger, not quite steady civilian Alpha Jeremy was a bit of a surprise. It's a surprise I could have worked with if the focus had been less on sex and more on the concept of what it is to become a True Alpha. Still, once the story reached the 3/4 mark I had come to enjoy Jeremy and Tim together, it just took me a while to get there. I enjoyed the cameos of the other characters and while this didn't resonate with me like the first in the series I'll be checking out book 3 when it's released.
This was such a great little story. Ben and James have been involved for 10 years but secretly because they're actors and not out. As a favor to a friend they're working on a project together and a tabloid picture of them kissing is released that could change things between them forever.Although this is short, only 33 pages, I really got a feel for the characters and their relationship was a rich one, very sweet and loving and hot, hot, hot. I loved these guys together.
2.5Too many questions left unanswered here for me to really settle in and enjoy this one. It felt more like an erotica short with little to no substance. Great concept though that might have worked for me better if the story had been longer. Also, HFN.
4.5This book just had me laughing and laughing. Jayk cracks me up endlessly in this one and I could quote the whole book, lots of zingers here that had me howling. One thing that I didn't realize was that glam camping -glamping- was a real thing. I looked it up because I had never heard of such a thing and found a lot of different websites for it. Who knew? While I loved the body swap in [b:Wacky Wednesday|13627910|Wacky Wednesday|J.A. Rock|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1335775395s/13627910.jpg|19234001] I found this was a bit less enjoyable because it involved another couple. The fact that Jayk swapped with a woman was a fun twist but the swap seemed to help Jennifer and Ron more than it did the MC's since I wasn't really interested in their story and I also didn't like what they did with Jayk and Amon's bodies especially during the bachelor parties.The fact that Ginspurr was missing for the majority of the story was also upsetting for me. I do love Jayk and Amon though and I really enjoyed seeing their relationship develop into a stronger one, they're perfect for each other this was a treat to read.
3.5Crash course in winter Olympic sports. I enjoyed the fast pace of this one as Cody rushes from one venue to the next participating and writing about Olympic hopefuls from an insider's perspective. The attraction between Shane, a curler, and Cody is fast but that works with the pacing of the story. They're cute together and I really enjoyed how Cody was trying to understand the rules of curling as the trials go on.
Dirty Pirate
4.75The Craigslist ad was hilarious. Quinton and Eric were smoking hot together and the epilogue that featured the haunted shower curtain...epic. The random prompts here were very successfully made into a fun, sexy read. Can't go wrong with a freebie! Pick this one up.