More Than This: Menage and Polyamory Reviews

Review of The Hot Floor by Josephine Myles

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:11:00 +0000

Title of Book: The Hot Floor
Author: Josephine Myles
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Length: Novel, about 170 pages.
Primary Relationship(s): Evan/Rai, Josh/Evan/Rai
Category or Genre: “contemporary menage erotic romance”
Does this Review contain spoilers?: Yes.
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? How was it provided, if so? Copy provided by author for review.

Dumped by his boyfriend and reduced to living in a grotty bedsit, Josh Carpenter has gotten used to expecting the worst. Now he lives only for his job as a glassblower…and occasional glimpses of his sexy downstairs neighbors, Rai Nakamura and Evan Truman.

The Hot Floor stars lonely Josh, glassblower, who’s never had much luck in love, or so it seems. He’s a bit of a wallflower, having been told by his ex (via text no less!) that he blows in bed, and not in the good way.

Insecure, unsure, and desperate, he gets his rocks off listening to his hot neighbours get it on, and painting the toenails of his BFF Denise until one day....

Rai Nakamura is small and devious. He’s working on his thesis project (economics, Tobin tax! Saving the world via good banking!), and that right there could have been an awful stereotype. Fortunately, Jo saves it by making him an absolute car boot-sale fiend and careful cultivator of spider-plants.

Rai’s boyfriend, Evan Truman is a 6’ something hunk of plumbing wizard, moved down from the north, likes to wear leather and drives a van. Every relationship needs a keel - to borrow a phrase - and Evan is the keel in this relationship it seems. Exterior aside, Evan’s a big softie on the inside. As Josh is soon to find out (Insert droll laughing here).

Somewhere in the middle, Josh Carpenter fits quite well.

I quite enjoyed this book. Jo is a bit of a master at coming up with quirky and fun characters. Aside from shy and blushing (but tall and built!) Josh, she’s come up with a whole menagerie of neighbours to surround her main man with. Aside from the main three, Josh, Rai and Evan - all very different, all very much their own people - and Denise, there’s also Josh’s bosses Liam and Shannon, a failed-attempted one night stand Dylan, and Josh’s other neighbours stoner Vern, and elderly (and devious) Stella. And rarely seen or heard Cliff. *phew* So, quite a few characters!

And of course the building itself! I like the setup of all these people living in the same decrepit place. Not only does it save a lot of exposition-time having to get from one place to another, but the building itself serves as a less than reluctant matchmaker and getting our main trio together is done in a snap!

Or with a bang? Readers can decide for themselves!

Jo Myles writes with a quick and witty style. She describes places and things easily - if you’re anything like me you’ll end up quaking in your slippers at the horror of too many macrame plant hangers and possibly checking the stove once or twice to make sure it’s off (!) - and quiet evenings in playing good old board games.

From prior novels of hers, I know she isn’t afraid to give her characters accents and dialects without it being overbearing or incomprehensible. Always a good thing! Dialogue is snappy, problems get resolved and clues are left throughout the story to be picked up later, enough that I wasn’t frustrated by a constant stop and go.

Jo also lets things take their time. By the time our intrepid trio gets together I was fairly ready for something, anything to happen. At just the right time, it was pretty sweet when it did. The sex is slow, three guys trying to work out the mechanics can be both hot and funny as Jo proves, and as the blurb states there were some uh new methods of rubbing off. Or in. Armpits? Indeed!

Throughout the rest of the novel we follow Josh trying to settle into this new relationship while battling with the insecurities left by his ex, insecurities of being the new kid in an already settled duo, and a fairly chronic case of shyness. It doesn’t help that Rai is incredibly outspoken and everyone else seems to delight in poor Josh’s blushes. However, Rai and Evan both set out to change that, slowly and carefully, and with a bit of kinky sex and self-discovery!

In spite of Josh’s insecurities, there isn’t a lot of tension in this story. Most of it comes from Josh himself. The HotFloor is a romance, and stays a romance throughout. And once Josh gets a good smack with the proverbial, we’re right back on course!

If I have to mention any cons it’s that sometimes the dialogue between our main trio can get a bit expositional, discussing and asking if they’re okay with this or that. And while all the characters are lovely, they border on too many. One character in particular I could have done without, but then again he endeared himself in the end.

However, none of these things spoiled the book and I enjoyed this lighthearted tale of will-they-won’t-they? My favourite scenes were of course the bathroom incident, and the sex. I also loved Josh spending time with Denise and Stella, and was a bit sad Stella didn’t get more time, but then again it’s not her book. Even though she did steal quite a few scenes.

If you enjoy your romance without too much tension, quirky and varied characters, board-games and car-boot sales, this is probably the romance novel for you. Or if you just need some cheering up on a lonely autumn day or wonder where on earth the title itself came from...!

You can read an excerpt of the novel at Jo’s webpage: http://josephinemyles.com/published-stories/the-hot-floor/

Reviewed by Madison Reese, M/M writer and reader, non-fiction nut. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of Imprinted by Darcy Sweet

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:55:00 +0000

Title of Book: Imprinted
Author: Darcy Sweet
Publisher: Excessica
Length: 28k
Rating: 5 stars
Primary Relationship(s): Jacob/Mrs. D/Mr. D
Other Relationship(s): Jacob/Mara, Jacob /Mary Jane.
Category or Genre: Coming of age, erotica, mfm, mmf
Does this Review contain spoilers?: Yes, description of intro.

I think this is one of my favourite menage stories ever. It’s quite short, only 83 pages long, but Darcy Sweet is a very talented writer who fills those 83 pages to the max. And she fills quite a few other things as well(!). Expect a fair bit of gushing.

For once, this is a story where the 1st person POV really, truly, serves its purpose.

Imprinted, a layered story with multiple relationships, begins with our main character, Jacob, finding his wife after mowing the lawn - she’s waiting for him in the bathroom, knowing he wants her right then, but now why. Why is the very nice segue, taking Jacob and the reader back into the past, to a summer break from college.

Jacob is stuck in Georgia, working for his stepfather Harry, mowing lawns and trimming hedges - thus, Jacob thinks, he’s missing out on parties, alcohol and possibly lots of sex. Young, not completely inexperienced, but mostly hoping for a blowjob from former high-school beauty, Mary-Jane, Jacob is completely caught up in the events that follow and forever reshape his sexuality.

What happens is this: Young Jacob, mowing and trimming in the Dean’s garden, and wanting to leave early to get his rocks off with hot Mary-Jane, stumbles upon the married, and very naked, Mrs. Dean as she’s pleasuring herself. During daylight hours! Poor Jacob, not wanting to peep, but unable to move away, stares, as Mrs. Dean - affectionately called Mrs. D - pleasures herself.

The scene is described vividly, in glorious glistening detail.

Too soon - or not soon enough, depending on your feelings! - Mr. Dean arrives, and takes command of Mrs. D, her body and her pleasure, and, as luck would have it, also Jacob’s pleasure.

Through clever plotting by Mrs. D, Jacob is invited to go for a swim, to have some lemonade (or was it iced tea, by the time I got to the description of Mrs. D’s full breasts, my brain was rather fried!) and also to be part of the Dean’s sexual activities that summer. Jacob, after brief hemming and hawwing, agrees, and learns a few new tricks, to say the least, and when summer is over, he goes out into the great big world, a new man.

It’s a fun, smutty, hot, lovely read. Did I mention the sex? It bears repeating. This book is FILTHY. It starts out with self-gratification and goes all the way to a full on threesome, m/f, m/f/m, m/m, you name it. But it’s all well written! Woohoo!

On a more serious note:

Imprinted manages to be incredibly layered, both in relationships - there are at least four relationships, Jacob and his wife, Jacob and Mary-Jane, Jacob and the Deans, and the Dean’s relationship itself through Jacob’s point of view, all intertwined and shaped by Jacob’s experience with the Deans - and in detail and echoes. Nothing is forgotten. The robe Mrs. D wears echoes back to the robe Mara wears in the very first scene. And then round again.

It’s also a sort of coming of age story, both for Jacob, and for one of the side-characters. While Jacob is learning and discovering new appetites with the Deans, he also takes his newly found knowledge and experiments with Mary-Jane, thus showing her something she had not previously been aware of, and awakening a thirst for more within her. I loved this little sub-plot. Mary-Jane is incredibly sweet. While I giggled a bit at her name, and imagined her large yearning eyes constantly following Jacob, author Sweet really made Mary-Jane a personality. I won’t say more than that, for fear of ruining things, but the way things develop between Jacob and Mary-Jane was really well done.

Speaking of nice things:

There’s a fair balance between Dominance and submission, play and vanilla, and your average cute, young adult fumblings in parked cars in Imprinted. There’s not a single stagnant character in this book! Amazing! Mr. and Mrs. D are quite experienced in Dominance and submission games, but they’re not locked within their roles. They switch, back and forth, playing, giving, taking. Mr. D starts out being the dominant partner but Mrs. D soon takes control as well, and I loved that no one was locked in a particular “role”, that this book showed a budding sexuality, as well as an old, familiar relationship where the partners really trusted and knew each other.

It doesn’t hurt that the sex is hot as hell, or that the descriptions of character’s bodies are good too!

As for the basics:

Imprinted has no huge plot, no mystery to solve and no angst to ease or relationships to parse out. It’s a story about a young man stumbling upon a couple, being invited in, and discovering sex and a lot of things about himself. That’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

It’s well-written. I found no typos and the writing was clear and precise. No unnecessary dialogue or descriptions of “he said, she did, we all went to....”. Very little exposition. Jacob gives us the bare bones but also emotions without being overbearing.

The characters all develop and change. Always a good thing! They were all individuals, with different wants and needs. Not a single character remains “as is” in the end.

There’s no dodgy BDSM, or any fantastic BDSM. No St. Andrew’s Cross, no ball-gags, no mummification. Most of the D/s happens with psychology, and yeah that might not sound too hot, but in this case it is. It’s all yes or no, and anyone who consents gets hours of pleasure. Someone referred to it as BDSM-Light, but I'm hesitant to call it that. True to the writing, this is all about new experiences and for once, the more experienced partners take it slow with their new pupil - wading in rather than jumping in at the deep end perhaps? Or, positive reinforcement rather than choke-collars (maybe in the sequel??!)!

The only negative thing is that the story is short. I wanted more, but in the end we are left with Jacob, and all the things he can have, and knows he can have. Endless possibilities! So I guess that’s not really a negative at all. Hee-haww...

I wish there were more books like this one. Even short ones!

I give Imprinted 5 stars of 5 possible and will gladly read whatever else Darcy Sweet has written.

Reviewed by Madison Reese. M/M writer and reader, non-fiction nut. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Interview: Lauren Gallagher, Author of Who's Your Daddy?

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:54:00 +0000

Lauren Gallagher (who also writes m/m under the name of L.A. Witt) is an innovative writer whose prolific output maintains a consistently high quality. I reviewed Light Switch here, and I'm very much looking forward to her newest ménage book, Who's Your Daddy?, which came out this Tuesday from Samhain.

- What attracts you to writing ménage on an emotional level and/or intellectual level?

A ménage is more complex than a couple, and the possibilities are endless. For me, it’s interesting to take the tension and conflict of a relationship, and then add a third person and see how things finally settle. It’s fascinating to see how two people handle a relationship, even more so with three. That fascination is what attracts me to writing romance in the first place, so it’s just a natural progression to ménage.

- How do you perceive the market for ménage? From my perspective, it's a bit frustrating. I feel that a lot of the books work from a menu of very limited tropes, like the woman who escapes an abusive husband by running off to a ranch where she strikes up an instant soul mate relationship with 2+ cowboy brothers who may or may not have the magical ability to transform into various large mammals. There's nothing wrong with liking these or writing these, and they're obviously popular because they appeal to fun and imagination, but I wish there was more variety in the genre. I'm sorry this is more of a rant than a question!

LOL. Yeah, I’ve seen that trope quite a few times. Nothing wrong with it, it’s just not my cup of tea. As far as the market goes, I think its only limitations are what we the authors produce. I’ve noticed readers are tremendously receptive to all kinds of ménage, regardless of what trope it does or doesn’t follow. There are countless creative approaches to a ménage story, and as a reader, I definitely like the ones that take a new spin on the idea. As a writer, I like coming up with new and innovative ways to throw three people into a situation and see if they can work it out. Mostly because I’m cruel to my characters. Suffice it to say, I do agree that it’s frustrating to find the same tropes out there. Of course they’re out there in large numbers because they work and because readers enjoy them, but there are so many other uncharted waters to explore!

- I loved how Light Switch had so much about friendship and how it overlapped with love and sex and romance. Can you talk about that in your new title as well, because it sounds like friendship also plays an important role?

Much like the characters in Light Switch, everyone involved is deeply concerned about how this could ultimately affect their friendships, and even when emotions start getting involved, the primary concern is losing each other as friends if things go south. Because really, falling in love with your best friend is great… except when you split up and lose not only your lover but your friend. Make it a ménage, and suddenly you’re at risk of losing two lovers and close friends. Carmen in Who’s Your Daddy? and Kristen in Light Switch both find this out the hard way when things get complicated with their respective guys, and they can’t go to their best friends for advice because their best friends are the ones they need advice about.

And of course, for the characters of Who’s Your Daddy?, while they try to sort out feelings and preserve their friendship, they have the added complication of a baby on the way, which means there’s no “let’s just pretend we never did this.” Because I’m mean.

- How do you see the role of bisexuality in ménage romance as compared to m/m and m/f romance?

It really depends on the group of characters. I mean, I’ve written a M/M/M ménage that involved a bisexual character. Even though he wasn’t involved with a woman at that time, he had been in the past, and his bisexuality was still part of his identity. And a lot of my characters in my M/M stories are also bisexual, and though they may not be actively involved with a woman or interested in pursuing a woman, they are still bi. One thing that makes my teeth grind is erasure of bisexuality: the assumption that when a person is monogamous, they cease to be bisexual. A man who’s with a man is gay. A woman who’s with a man is straight. Etc. As a woman who is monogamously with a man, but remains attracted to women, this irks me. So, bisexuality does show up in a lot of my stories even when the characters are only involved with one gender within the context of the story. Ménage gives me a chance to really explore a character’s bisexuality, and let that person actively engage in both facets of their sexuality.
Who’s Your Daddy? was a lot of fun in that respect. Donovan didn’t figure out he was attracted to men until he was in his mid-twenties, and Isaac didn’t figure out he was attracted to women until his late thirties (in the story they’re 34 and looking-down-the-barrel-of-40, respectively). Donovan has a teen son, so obviously he’s been with a woman before, whereas Isaac has never been with a woman until the night they play with Carmen. So you have Donovan who’s completely at ease with his sexuality, and Isaac who’s pushing forty and just now sort of getting a handle on it. He deals with it pretty easily – the background as a marriage counselor helps him sort through emotions and such – but it’s still something he has to get used to. Especially since he has a little performance anxiety with a woman, and it’s kind of unnerving for the poor guy to have another person there – even if it’s his own lover of five years – when he’s with a woman for the first time. Donovan, of course, is more than accommodating, though. ;) So for me, part of the fun of writing Who’s Your Daddy? was having two bisexual characters who were involved with both men and women rather than being, I guess, “inactively” bisexual (i.e., attracted to both but only actively involved with one). And it made for some fun sex scenes.
Of course not every character in a ménage is bisexual. Matt in Light Switch is definitely straight. Kristen is, I think, a little bi-curious, but hasn’t had the opportunity to explore that. Little known fact? Scott is bisexual. There was a conversation between him and Kristen where he was open about that, but the conversation ended up on the cutting room floor. There’s always a possibility of a third book in that series, and who knows? Scott might finally get to play with another guy.
- You've written nearly the entire spectrum of sexualities and combinations. Have you ever considered doing an MFF, and if so, how do you think you'd approach it?
It’s a possibility, yes. I’m absolutely not closed off to any sexuality or combination thereof, I just haven’t necessarily come up with a story for all of them. How would I approach an MFF? Honestly, I have no idea…yet. It just depends on the characters I come up with and how their backgrounds and personalities mesh and clash. What I usually do when coming up with a story – ménage or otherwise – is figure out who my characters are, and then let them tell me the story. With The Distance Between Us, I started with three guys, and eventually figured out that Rhett and Ethan were breaking up after a decade, and Kieran was going to be their roommate while they tried to pay down the mortgage that’s tying them together. With Out of Focus, same thing: started with three guys, and the details sort of worked themselves out. In that case, Angel and Dante had been together for a long time, but were both Doms and wanted a sub…so here comes Jordan. Light Switch? I immediately knew I had a Dom, a voyeur, and a curious switch, and the rest quickly followed.
I have come up with a few character combinations for an MFF, but none of them have really crystallized into a story. Sometimes it takes a few false starts, but sooner or later, something will stick. And most likely, it will NOT be a straight guy with his bi-curious or bisexual wife/girlfriend/partner who want to bring in a bisexual girl for threesomes.
- What would you tell someone who was interested in reading Who's Your Daddy? but skeptical about whether a ménage relationship could work?
Keep an open mind. I think a lot of people are skeptical of ménage relationships, and it’s understandable. We’re conditioned to accept couples, and polyamoury is a very alien and taboo subject in our culture. It’s difficult to understand if the only examples we’re exposed to are oppressive forms of polygamy (because let’s face it, that’s the only kind of poly situation our media demonstrates or acknowledges). I used to have plenty of reservations and hang ups about the idea, but with time and exposure to functional, healthy poly groups and ménage relationships (yes, I’ve known a few in real life), it becomes a lot easier to see that they can, in fact, function. Are they more complicated? By nature, yes. But can they be healthy and functional? Absolutely.
- In your opinion, what's the hottest sex position with two guys and one girl? And does it happen in Who's Your Daddy?
I believe they call it “Lucky Pierre”: Woman on her back, man on top penetrating her, other man penetrating him from behind. And you’d better believe it happens in that story!
Links:
Website: http://www.loriawitt.com Blog: http://gallagherwitt.blogspot.com Twitter: @GallagherWitt
Who’s Your Daddy? is available August 7th at Samhain, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes.

Review of The Delaneys and Me by Anne Brooke

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Title: The Delaneys and Me

Author: Anne Brooke
Publisher: Amber Allure
Length: Short story, 8k
Primary Relationship(s): M/M/M
Category or Genre: comedy, romance, contemporary, erotica
Does this Review contain spoilers?: yes

Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Provided by Author for Guest Reviewer (Heidi Belleau)

Anne Brooke’s The Delaneys and Me is an erotic short that reads shamelessly like the plot for a gay porno. Narrator Liam has just broken up with his boyfriend in a spectacular public display at a local restaurant and is sweating bullets because his boyfriend just happens to be a member of the local crime family, who’ll surely be seeking retribution. Enter the Delaney twins, local bruisers (bosses? IDK, the actual politics of organized crime here are seriously fuzzy), who follow Liam home from work, pull a gun on him, and give him a choice: have sex with them both after a public apology, or have his balls shot off.

I’m sure you can predict which option he picks.

The story was hit and miss for me, although I don’t regret reading it. It was a light, enjoyable read that carried me through this morning’s workout and gave me a few good tingles, so for what it is, it works. Liam’s voice as the first-person narrator is pitch perfect for a dark comedy, veering between comic distress and absurd-but-somehow-you-buy-it-anyway arousal. This story and this plot could have easily veered very dark indeed, but Brooke keeps it madcap enough that the constant sense of danger titillates you versus filling you with sick-making dread.

Which brings me to my first criticism. I’m a fan of non-con and rape fantasy, the darker the better, but I also enjoy stories like this where violation of consent is treated more lightly, as it is here, the ole porno “I can’t afford my rent this month so I’ll sleep with my landlord” conceit that in the real world is horrifying but in erotica can be quite fun and sexy. What I don’t like is when the two are mingled. I have no problem with a story like this not being dark and horrifying with heaps of humiliation and abuse, especially when a talented author makes it so easy for me to suspend my disbelief and take the fantasy for what it is: a fantasy. But at least twice in this story, Liam uses the word “rape”, which made that suspension of disbelief difficult. I’m up on my politics of consent, so I know what’s being described here is rape, but within the text, it’s not being treated as such. Sure, Liam is scared for his manhood, but that sense of danger is as artificial as riding a roller coaster. He’s also enthusiastic and turned on and clearly enjoys the sex. If something is explicitly named as rape, I kind of expect it to be treated like one. This is My Issue, of course, but I do genuinely feel like I’d have enjoyed the fantasy more if I hadn’t been slapped with the brutal real-world implications of what I was getting my jollies to. So you know, there’s that.

Other complaints were pretty niggling: the story’s opening, while brilliant and compelling in the voice department, sags with unnecessary info and backfill of backstory. I’m a fan, especially in a short like this, of starting the story with the story, and the story is the Delaneys’ blackmail, not the main character’s job or his relationship with his parents or even how things went down with his ex. I think the scene in the restaurant that really acts as a precipitator for this whole scenario should have been fully fleshed out as a fully realized scene, or only come out through Liam’s interactions with the twins. Starting with a summary just doesn’t work for me, although it’s to Brooke’s credit that the opening still does work thanks to Liam’s voice and the great biting humour that soaks every line, even the info-dumping ones.

For me, the buildup to the sex was hotter than the sex itself. The way Liam teased the brothers is searing hot, as was his public humiliation in Luigi’s restaurant. The sense of danger hit me right in the id, a perfect blend of anxiety and arousal that made every scene give me butterflies. Once they got into bed, though, it was pretty straight forward blowjob-fingers-anal-both ends, with nothing really distinct about any act and somewhat unrealistic recovery times (okay, I know this is a porno, but it did seem kind of silly for a guy who’s just blown his wad in an awesome blowjob be ready and raring to go for another one immediately after. At least have him watch awhile or something). Really, though, my dissatisfaction with the actual sex was just testament to how good the buildup was. I don’t know what, if anything, could have lived up to this story’s “foreplay”. It’s really something else. I will say the sexy-factor recovers nicely by the sloppy final kiss, which is hot even for someone who doesn’t have a twins fetish. I just wish the rest of the sex could have been more like that.

If you’re looking for a crime story, though, you’d better look somewhere else. For all that the Delaneys are scary to Liam and visibly throw their power around in the restaurant scene, you never get the sense that these men actually have blood on their hands, and as such all their shows of power feel artificially constructed. They’re crime bosses who do their own dirty work? Do they do any dirty work at all? Why are they so scary? Dark Soul this ain’t, although for what it is, it’s very good indeed. I know there’s a sequel coming out, so I sincerely hope that Brooke takes the opportunity to give this a bit of edge. With her voice and the set-up, she could easily make this into a gay-porn Lock Stock or Layer Cake, which I would find immensely satisfying, but until this story grows some teeth, it’s the literary equivalent of the twink who’s unable to pay for his pizza.

Which is to say, it’s really, really sexy.

- by Guest Reviewer Heidi Belleau

Review of More by Sloan Parker

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:06:00 +0000

Title: More

Author: Sloan Parker
Publisher: Loose ID
Length: Novel, 245 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Primary Relationship(s): M/M/M
Category or Genre: Drama, romance, contemporary
Does this Review contain spoilers?: It contains some quotes
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Bought with intent to review from the publisher’s webpage.

I'm in trouble. This is the second book I've read with intent to review that is written from a first person point of view. Usually I hate this, but it works quite well here.

The voice of the main-character Luke, and by extension the novel itself, is a bit of prime time soap opera mingled with a touch of Noir-dialogue. Sloan Parker wastes no time introducing us to Luke's life as it currently stands, always on the lookout for people after him, and for easy hook-ups, and what might happen soon.

Parts of the novel threatens to spill into clichés and tropes: Our hero, Luke Moore, only has one night stands, never relationships. His father is a US senator who spends his working hours “stripping away the rights” his son has to fight for. The dialogue is awkward at times with lines like: “You sure can kiss, kid. Those lips and that tongue should come with a warning.” They’d be perfect in a Raymond Chandler book, but it took me awhile to get into the swing of things here.

And the swing of things is a 245 page novel about a trio of men with different pasts, tragedy hinted throughout the novel until the reveal, and the major problem: Luke’s stalkers and the threat of his father.

And if that's what you expect, it's all good and a very nice ride. The tropes are tropes, and the clichés are clichés, but they work out and push the story forwards.

When the novel begins, we find Luke on the prowl. Luce himself lives a sort of Lisbeth Salander-esque life, in a dismal, empty apartment, and utilising the old trick of scotch-brite under his front door to see if anyone's broken in, security cameras everywhere. His only joy seems to be his frequent hook-ups at Haven, the club where our trio first gets together.

Not only is Luke Moore lonely, but he’s hiding it beneath a chip-board-stiff upper lip and a very protesting demeanor. He wants only one thing to begin with: a threesome that will let him focus on nothing but the sex and strip himself completely. He's jaded and bitter, and reading, I pictured him with the dress sense of Angelus from Buffy. His only friend seems to be Walter Simon, a former policeman, now working security and of course, helping Luke.
But, as romance stories go, Luke quickly discovers he's found something more than a one-night stand in a naughty club, and the two men, Matthew and Richard begin to chip away at his defenses, bringing with them proper couches, loud music, and dinners around the kitchen table (any sex-hungry one-night-stander's true wet dream!).

I really rather like how their relationship developed, and the differences between the three characters.

Matthew, Luke’s first conquest for his night of debauchery, is the youngest, the happy-go-lucky kid who loves sex but who’s had some hits and misses. He has "dark flashing eyes", but it’s hinted from the start that he’s also got a past that might not be so happy as it appears.

Richard is the oldest. He's the man with "a body that makes the rest of" the men in the club "look like they're at play in the schoolyard". The oldest, and strongest, with a nice apartment and good job, it's Richard who takes the leap from occasional hook-ups at the club to the offer of something more. It’s also Richard who serves as the keel of the relationship when Luke, and on occasion Matthew, freak out and want to run away. And of course, when the shit hits the fan.

For a moment as I was reading I was reminded of the tale of the three bears: Too big, too small, just perfect. In a way, there's something for everyone in this story. There's even a mentor in Walter, the wizened old patron of the club who offers Luke sage advice and makes him question his choices.

The relationship between the men is instantaneous. They don't immediately slot into their roles, but it's easy to see which way they're headed. There's never really any question if they'll get together, only how soon (after all, they've already gotten to know each other quite intimately by the end of Chapter one!) and if they’ll stick together. Threats loom, in the shape of Luke’s past, and as the three men get closer, the threat grows larger.

It’s a nice build-up and kept me reading and wondering what would happen next, what lay behind these people’s motivations, what are their pasts, all the way to the inevitable conclusion.

But what about the sex, you say?

As the name More implies there is A Lot of sex in this book. There are three very hot men, of different build and size, different tastes and wants. There's self-gratification, threesomes, two-somes, flashbacks to a lover no longer in the picture, kisses - many, many kisses - between lovers and plenty of orgasms. The sex varies. If you like wham-bam-thank you ma'am kind of style writing, the sex is probably something you'll enjoy. Mixed in are quieter and more tender moments and this is when the writing shines.

Needless to say, the sex does not disappoint.

The minor quibble I had with the book was the lack of showing. There’s a lot of telling, Richard did this, I felt that, we went there, I saw this, instead of Luke’s feelings. There is plenty of clichéd dialogue and a lot of descriptions of "the smaller man", "the younger man", as well as the constant use of Kid, instead of Matthew.

Even so, More offers up gems like: "Your mouth is a fantastic way to start the day,” and that’s all I really need.

More gets 3 out of 5 stars.

Review by Madison Reese, M/M writer and reader, non-fiction nut. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of Spice and Smoke by Suleikha Snyder

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:29:00 +0000

Title of Book: Spice and Smoke
Author: Suleikha Snyder
Publisher: Samhain
Length: 37k
Primary Relationship(s): M/F, M/M
Category or Genre: contemporary, Bollywood
Does this Review contain spoilers?: No
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Owned already.

Spice and Smoke is unlike anything I've ever read. It's ambitious, sprawling, brawling, bitchy (in the very best way), flashy, poly and queer. I loved it, and I don't even watch Bollywood movies.

If you don't like genres mixed, this is not the book for you. It's absolutely not an [insert genre] book plus Bollywood. It's its own thing. While the story has certain flaws that I'm going to discuss in some detail, even those flaws are interesting, and when it fails, it doesn't fail in a boring way.

I read pretty widely, and I've always had a soft spot for what I call "trashy classics", or epics packed full of sex and shenanigans: Jacqueline Susann, Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins. Sadly, genres today seem to have no room for the crazy shit that went on back in the heyday of these bestsellers. Now romances are way too moralistic, and thrillers aren't as sexual. The closest I've come to the fun, gossipy breathlessness of those books is E. Lynn Harris, who also writes bisexuals! Spice and Smoke squeezes into this category of seductive epic, although it's much more towards the romantic end of the scale than the cynical. The relationships in this story do get happy endings, although I won't give away exactly how.

In a nutshell (I was going to make a pun about betel nuts but it turns out they're actually called areca nuts and at that point I gave up) Spice and Smoke is about a group of people who are the stars of an epic Bollywood movie. They have histories with each other that stretch back for decades. There's Avi and Trishna, who are in an open marriage. Michael, gay and single and looking for monogamy. Harsh, who is straight and pining for Trishna. And then there are these two other dudes who… well, I'll get to them in the "flaws" section. As they shoot their epic movie together—it's all about the history of India, and their roles comment on the love roles they play off screen—they mope and pine and fight and fuck and declare eternal love and so on, all in big sweeping ways using big sweeping metaphors.

The language is over the top, as it should be. The sex is pretty hot and super emotional. The dialogue is chatty, witty, and lots of fun. "Relax, yaar. It’s cool. In queer years you are nearly ready to get a dog and move in together." There's a lot of meta stuff going on about performance and movies, but the book takes itself seriously enough too: it's not so self-reflexive as to be cloying. This book is heavily linked to cinematic iconography, so there's a lot of visual detail, but I also remember lovely descriptions of other sense impressions: rich smells, pounding music, the feel of warm rain...

The stylistic excellence wasn't entirely consistent. I encountered a few clichés—the dreaded "her slick folds"; someone is starving and his lover is "a buffet"—and some of the sentences I couldn't decide whether I loved or hated. Here's an example that stuck out: "At fourteen, Jaidev was better than any overpriced counselor telling him that smoking was a short walk to hash and a donkey cart ride down the rocky path back to coke." Whoah nelly!

And moving into flaws, I was unhappy with a certain translation decision about Hindi phrases. Many of them seemed translated in dialogue, or doubled, which is incredibly artificial and irritating. I don't know Hindi, and there's a chance I'm totally wrong about this, but I didn't like that decision at all. I do speak Spanish, and no one, including Spanglish speakers, talks like, "Hola hello mi amigo my friend que onda what's up". I know it's hard to reproduce speech patterns while pleasing foreign-language-phobic English readers, but I would have much preferred a) leaving Hindi phrases untranslated b) translating everything except a few interjections.

The structure is the greatest flaw. I had no idea what this book would be about. I jumped into it pleasantly free of preconceptions. It seemed like Avi would be the key character, since we start with him, and Avi and Trishna would be the key pairing. Cool. Then, halfway through the story, two other dudes parachute in: Sam, who's a druggie gone clean, he did drugs, he had a drug problem, ok ok ok, and Vikram his personality-free love interest. The characters from the initial story drop all their relationship development and serve as Sam/Vikram matchmakers, only to reappear near the end.

It's easy to structurally balance a monogamous romance arc; the hard part becomes conflict, not structure. But when you have multiple characters with multiple romance arcs, balance is crucial. Triple structures are great for balance; I remember Valley of the Dolls being structured around the storylines of three women. Spice and Smoke has a lopsided dual structure: it feels like a great story that was sawed off most of the way through to have a second story glued onto it. This book would have been MIND-BLOWING as a truly sprawling epic of 100-200k words that has ten major characters and more external conflict… and more sex of course! Currently, it left unanswered some major questions I had about the first story, like what exactly the psychological appeal of the arrangement was for Harsh.

However, the second story—which is more of a straight-up m/m romance—wasn't unenjoyable. In fact, it might appeal to some readers more than the first one. And wanting to get back to the first story so badly is very telling of how compelling these characters and relationships are.

As a menage book, this is not what I call a happy sandwich book. And that's a good thing. Despite the focus on glamor and the presence of so many larger-than-life characters, the relationship issues are surprisingly down to earth. The relationships are not about conforming to a social ideal. The future of these romances is not free of danger. But they are based on love and worked out by people who love each other deeply even when they're not having sex with each other. That was the biggest surprise for me: that so much of this book was about love without sex, not sex without love.

I want to read more bisexual Bollywood books now! More more more. I highly recommend this, and I wish more authors had the passion and daring to write this sort of genre-bending romance. Hint: buy their books! Including this one!

Review by Violetta Vane, blog owner. I write M/M. I'm also absolutely passionate about tricky psychological MMF. (Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | G+ | Goodreads)

Guest Post: Examining 'Friends with Benefits' with Amy Gaertner

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Sadly, it's very difficult for bisexual titles to get promoted and find their readership in today's environment. I am all about crossing lines in fiction, so I'm happy to promote these titles here whenever they have any menage or polyamory content. That's why we have this guest post from Amy Gaertner today. I haven't read her story yet, but since it comes from Storm Moon Press I'm sure it has high quality and immaculate editing. Check it out!

~~~

As hard to classify in life as it is on the theoretical spectrum of polyamory, the "friend with benefits" is a tricky situation to manage. They cross the line that often divides friend from lover for many and force a new line to be drawn. After all, if you like someone, enjoy their company, and you’re sexually compatible with them, well: what else do you need in a romantic partner?

It’s a very good question, and one I wish I’d answered in my new short story Honor Among Thieves, which just came out from Storm Moon Press. While I had a great time solving the problem of how you demonstrate a character’s bisexuality in a short narrative while still pairing them up with a single love interest at the end, I’m afraid I’ve only scratched the surface of the complex situation that is "friends with benefits".

You see, Danielle is a career criminal: an international art thief and con artist extraordinaire. A modern day Robin Hood (or so she sees herself), she’s spent most of her adult life stealing from wealthy collectors and tithing a portion of her proceeds to those in need. Her partner in this scheme is Jay: the man behind the scenes who runs the equipment while Danielle is out in the field. As one can easily imagine, a life of crime does not lend itself too easily to stable, long-term, committed relationships. As well as being there for her, Jay is in the unique position of always being there: the one constant she can count on, and the only person in her daily life who knows her for who she truly is.

The relationship between Jay and Danielle might seem complicated: they are business partners, lovers, friends, and pretty much the only family either of them has. In practice, though, their relationship is easy. One minute, they banter and tease like brother and sister, the next they slide into bed as easily as Danielle slides into a new persona. They’re most definitely comfortable together, but the question is: are they too comfortable?

There’s no question that Danielle finds Liz exciting. She’s the reporter who has been assigned to write a feature on the very collection of art that Jay and Danielle are planning to steal. She’s witty, intelligent, and pretty damn cute on top of everything else. It’s practically love at first sight, no matter how many times Danielle reminds herself not to get too close; the chemistry is too electric.

The story ends, as you might imagine, with a beautiful ride off into the sunset. Danielle doesn’t have to manage the sticky issue of living with Liz while still working with Jay. She doesn’t tackle Jay’s jealousy at possibly being replaced. But being asked to think about the polyamorous implications of my story, I find myself thinking: I hope she makes it work. She clearly loves Jay, and is falling in love with Liz, and a life filled with the love of both those wonderful people is one I’d like to step into myself.

I guess what I’m wondering is: is a friend with benefits simply that? Is it just a temporary condition, a sort of placeholder for a "real" relationship, to be cast aside when the right kind of love comes along? Or can it be more? When friends are as important as family, and love is more flexible than "one-size-fits-all", I certainly think that it can.

Amy Gaertner is a debut author. Her short story, Honor Among Thieves is now available in e-book formats through Storm Moon Press. You can follow Amy on Twitter @AmyGaertner or on her blog at http://amygaertner.wordpress.com/

Movie Review: Savages

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:24:00 +0000

Title: Savages
Made by: Oliver Stone, based on the book by Don Winslow
Menage Content: MFM
Category/Genre: Crime Thriller
Does this Review Contain Spoilers?: No, or very mild. It does contain racist slurs (quoted).

This is Violetta Vane reporting in with our first ever movie review. Hopefully we'll have some more in the coming months! Savages is a major Hollywood big-screen depiction of a menage relationship, and as such I had to go see it and report on it.

Savages is a lot like Natural Born Killers except it has less rape, less killing, more torture and more racism. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone unless you already like ultraviolent crime thrillers (which I kind of do). And if you are a Buddhist (which I am) this movie is like noticing your shoe is wet and looking down and seeing a dog is peeing on you and then it bites you and runs away. All in all, this was not a pleasant viewing experience for me.

The stupid plot is that there are these two dope growers, Ben and Chon. The trailer tells you everything you need to know about every character in the movie so I'll just quote a few lines. "Ben went to Berkeley and double-majored in business and botany. He takes 99% of the violence out of the business. The other 1%? Well, that's where Chon comes in." So Ben is the hippie dude scientist humanitarian dope grower whose hobby is going to Africa and Asia and digging wells for poor brown and black kids. I'm not being snarky: this is exactly what he does. They actually show clips of him hugging little hungry ragged brown kids. And he's a Buddhist. Chon, on the other hand, is the BAD-ist. I'm not making that up either. Their girlfriend Ophelia, who narrates the whole movie in voiceover, says "he is a BAD-ist". Get it? Get it? Just kill me now. Anyway, he used to be in Iraq and Afghanistan where he learned how to kill brown people (Iraqis and Afghanis, referred to at one point as sand n***as) so he is also very good at killing brown people who are Mexicans (AKA beaners). Does anyone really use the word beaner anymore? Jesus. I mean Buddha!

I was always confusing Ben and Chon because they're white dudes who look kind of the same and have one syllable names that sound the same. But Ben has longer hair, a goatee, and when forced (by cruel cruel Mexicans) to kill, he has a sad look in his eyes like he's just been hit on the head with a newspaper. Chon scowls more and has lots of scars. I forget which one is Taylor Kitsch.

Ophelia, their girlfriend, is played by Blake Lively. I don't know anything about the actress, but she did a good job in an utterly thankless role. Her character's narrative role consists mainly of providing a voiceover, or getting humiliated or raped. There is not a single thing she does that would change the outcome of the movie in any way. She's entirely symbolic and passive.

Salma Hayek is the Mexican cartel queen. She smokes up the screen like whoah. I would have enjoyed this movie soooo much more if she was the leading antiheroine with a Scarface-type story. Benicio del Toro plays her henchman, who is as cartoonishly evil as Salma Hayek but less physically appealing—he's a hot guy, but the way he acts the role is purposefully repulsive. John Travolta as a corrupt FBI agent is the last main character, and he does a pretty decent job too.

Getting to the reason I saw this movie in the first place: the menage elements were good at first. I like how Ophelia voiceovers, "you might think I'm a slut, but whatever, I don't care." The relationship was visually appealing and sensual. There was a refreshing absence of angst. The two guys obviously don't care if people assume they're doing each other, either. This is MFM and no swords were crossed onscreen (no Y Tu Mamá También moment) but there wasn't any sense that the guys had a no-touch rule, either.

Menage is not a large element of the movie, ultimately. All the bad stuff that happens isn't because of the menage in the beginning. I don't get the sense that the trio are being punished for having a nonstandard relationship. Or maybe I was supposed to get that message, but the messages are delivered in such a stupid and fucked-up way that it sailed right past me.

A lot of stuff happens in Savages, and as usual in Stone movies, the suspense is well done. But nobody changes. There's no relationship development, no stakes anywhere. The only person who has a character arc is Ben, and his stupid arc is that he starts off a peace-loving Buddhist and because his girlfriend is kidnapped turns into a killer just like Chon. The part that really pissed me off was in the beginning of the movie, where Ben is counseling peaceful negotiation with the Mexican cartel and says something like "that's what Buddha would do." And Chon says, "who cares what some fat Jap thinks." And then Ben corrects him by saying, "some fat Indian."

Jap is a straight-up racist slur, but most people don't give a fuck and drop it casually anyway. When I was a kid, I used to get called it all the time, so I'm rather sensitive about it, but I'm reconciled to the fact that in pretty much any corner of media I'll get slapped with it completely at random. Plus, I can't complain about going to see a movie I fully expected to be racist against Mexicans and then being directly insulted myself. What pisses me off most here is the stupidity. The Buddha wasn't fat. Not that being fat is an insult, it's simply factually inaccurate. Gautama Buddha used to be a wandering ascetic in India and starved himself to almost nothing before he mellowed out and found the Middle Way. The traditional portrayal of Gautama Buddha is consistent from one corner of Asia to the other and is not fat. The fat laughing Buddha statues are more of an East Asian thing, and are not Gautama Buddha, they are a representation of a deity called Hotei in Japan. See here for details. This is a mistake I expect non-Buddhists to make. However, it is NOT a mistake a Buddhist would make. Even the typical white person who converted three months ago because they took a BeliefNet quiz and decided Buddhism sounded cool except they don't call themselves a convert because they claim Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion? EVEN THOSE BUDDHISTS US OTHER BUDDHISTS GENTLY LAUGH AT WOULD KNOW GAUTAMA BUDDHA IS NOT FAT, and would attempt to correct the typical Hotei-confusion. But apparently the people involved in this movie didn't even bother to spend ten minutes looking up Buddhism on Beliefnet or Wikipedia or anything. I may be a Buddhist but I'm not a very good Buddhist so my response to that is RRRRAGE. Fuck all of y'all you fucking suck!!!

So that, plus all the other racism, rather ruined my investment in the romance. You can kind of pick up the rest of it from the trailer, which includes flashes of the scene where Ben and Chon kidnap Salma Hayek's daughter while wearing Calavera masks. The masking is a traditional racist trope: the white man would prefer to stay above savagery, but when forced to descend into savagery by the dark races, they will rise to the task and prove to be even more savage than the dark savages. Don't mess with whitey! The mask represents their appropriation of the power of the darker race. I was wondering if that would be subverted in any way before I went to see the movie. It wasn't.

There were a couple half-assed attempts to make the thrust of the movie more complicated—to make it seem like the word SAVAGES wasn't just synonymous with SCARY MEXICANS—but the amorality and cynicism were half-hearted, not piercing, not perceptive. Oliver Stone was too chicken to fix it in the ending, which is stupid just like the ending to Natural Born Killers.

I won't even get into how women in this movie are either totally passive or evil.

The Good: Salma Hayek, some parts of the menage in the beginning, beautiful cinematography and good action pacing. The BAD-ism (get it? Get it?): racism, misogyny, endless stream of stupidity while pretending to be clever.

Review of Sandpiper's Secrets by Jade Archer

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:30:00 +0000

Title of Book: Sandpiper’s Secrets
Author: Jade Archer
Publisher: Total-E-Bound
Length: 205 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Primary Relationship: M/M & M/M/M
Category/Genre: M/M Romance, Contemporary
Does this Review Contain Spoilers?: No
Book owned already? Yes

Review:

This the the first time I’d read anything by this author, and it is an interesting story. I picked it up because I was looking for something (anything) that wasn’t the typical mmf polyamory story. I think I succeeded in finding something great. I really enjoyed how easy all the characters were to connect to. One of my favorite things always is flawed “heroes”. Nothing turns me off more when the characters are all perfect. That is definitely not a problem in this book.

The story begins with down on his luck and desperate Brody looking for a job so that he can support himself and his brother. He ends up applying at the Sandpiper which is owned by longtime partners Zac and Lark. There is some pretty heavy lust going on, but Zac and Brody are relatively resistant to add/become a third. Lark, on the other hand, is content to try and push everyone together. I really enjoyed the build up. This isn’t a threesome that decides to jump into bed right after meeting each other. it takes many weeks of dancing around each other before they ever cross that line. I also liked the physical differences between the characters, Zac being larger and more muscular, Brody being of average body type, and Lark, being slender and dimunitive at 5’4”.

Each of the characters is hiding his own secrets, and it definitely puts a strain on the budding relationship. Resolving some of them are easy, and others, not so much. All the sex scenes, however are incredibly hot. I really liked the chemistry between all three characters, and totally felt like they each brought something important to the relationship besides sexual chemistry. Zac is the fixer, he wants to fix his lovers' problems, Lark is a fierce protector despite his small stature, and Brody is the glue that holds them all together. As the story progresses, all the secrets (as secrets are wont to do) start to unravel. As the secrets unravel, each man must decide what is worth holding on to, and whether their newfound relationship is worth it all. Each character is amazingly written, and you feel like you get to know them throughout this book. There was never really a point where I felt disconnected from them.

All in all this is a really enjoyable read despite a few questionable things concerning the relationship between Zac and Lark, however that was resolved throughout the course of the book. I don’t want to put it here in the review because it is a definite spoiler. There were also a few relatively minor proofreading errors throughout the novel. They were mostly minor though and not overly glaring to the average reader.

I must say that I was interested enough in this novel and the outcome to pick up the sequel, Raven’s Mark, which is just m/m not a menage story. I look forward to seeing more by this author, and I hope she writes more polyamory stories because this was hot as hell.

So if you are looking for a book that has sexy encounters, but a real story too, then I’d pick this one up.

Reviewed by Carrie Ann, obsessive reader of everything. I also review LGBTQ romance at Smoocher's Voice. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:47:00 +0000

Title of Book: The Garden of Eden
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Scribner
Length: Novel
Primary Relationship(s): M/F, F/F, M/F/F
Category or Genre: ???
Does this Review contain spoilers?: Yes
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Owned already.

Review moved and published/reposted as guest submission at DearAuthor.com.

Review of The Forester by Blaine D. Arden

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 23:59:00 +0000

Title of Book: The Forester
Author: Blaine D. Arden
Publisher: Storm Moon Press
Length: 50 page novella
Primary Relationship(s): m/m/m
Category or Genre: Fantasy
Does this Review contain spoilers?: Yes (mild)
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Provided by author for review.

Review:

The blurb on Storm Moon Press indicates The Forester to be what I would describe as a ‘murder mystery fantasy short story’. Colour me intrigued. On the other hand, The Forester is written in the first person point of view. It stars elves. There are sentences like “Will you join me, Master”, and descriptions of moss, wings, and everything but the fairy dust I fully expect the elves carry in their leather pouches.

All of these things usually repel me. Fantasy is riddled with tropes, and on first glance it seems that so is The Forester. Had I been in my local Sci-Fi bookshop I’d have gone straight past the shelf, and headed right for the Android vs. Aliens shelves.

Fortunately the copy that was kindly provided to me by the author, Blaine D. Arden, proved me wrong.

The Forester is fifty pages long. The problem with short stories is that they’re usually quite short. Brevity can force an author to stuff the story full of facts or leave out huge chunks of detail that are necessary for the reader to feel familiar with the setting, cast and story itself.

But Blaine D. Arden has managed to keep the story self-contained, as well as offer the reader thorough world building and a rich cast of characters. There is very little exposition, though some where it is necessary as told through our main character, Kelnaht’s point of view. The reader isn’t given endless explanations of why, but rather, how. And all of this is done through action, showing rather than telling. It’s a short story that makes use of its limited page count.

The story even offers us a small insight into a larger social structure, but where the writing really shines is in the introduction and description of the cast. The characters have varying backgrounds, and each is comfortable with their place in this society. The three main characters are also nicely connected even before the story begins, and their connection develops throughout the story alongside the mystery of whodunit.

Because, surprisingly, this is not just a love triangle. It’s got a nice little murder mystery. Think of it as CSI, but with elves, if you will, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Also, well done, the victim is discovered in the second paragraph, the fact of the murder is established not too much further down, and following this is the unraveling of the mystery as well as the introduction of the love triangle.

Our protagonist and our narrator, Kelnaht, is a Truth Seeker amongst the cloud elves. He’s charged with finding the murderer, but he’s also got his own problems of a lost love and a budding attraction to another man.

Kelnaht’s former lover, Ianys, serves as the catalyst for this novel’s menage romance. In a very true and heartfelt way his reasons for leaving Kelnaht are revealed, and he serves as more than the middle man. And, speaking of, there is sex. Not just sex for the sake of getting off (though certainly, that is a valid a reason as any!) but the sex is used as a barometer for the mood of the story.
There is angry sex, hurt sex, tender sex, loving sex, and all very well written. Just like Kelnaht, I also found myself wanting more.

Unfortunately, it had to end. The Forester is 50 pages long. The one complaint I might have is that it seems too big a story for just 50 pages, but to be quite honest... it’s not even a valid complaint. The story is exactly as long as it needs to be. This story is full of tropes from voyeurism to the murder mystery, to the scorned lovers and the shunned member of the tribe, but it’s all done to a high standard.

The Forester benefits from the first person point of view, in that it limits the information to the bare necessities. The story gives us a murder mystery where you wouldn’t necessarily expect one, as well as a complex and ultimately satisfying love triangle.

I’m still not sold on Fantasy as a genre, but I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up anything by Blaine D. Arden again.

By Madison Reese. M/M writer and reader, non-fiction nut. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of Beyond Eden by Kele Moon

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:06:00 +0000

Title of Book: Beyond Eden 
Author: Kele Moon 
Publisher: Ellora's Cave 
Length: 404 pages 
Primary relationships: MMF
 Category or genre: Erotic BDSM Romance
 Does this review contain spoilers?: mild spoilers for a specific sex scene
 Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you?: Purchased with intent to review.  

Beyond Eden begins with Eve Everton's less-than-triumphant return home to Tampa Bay from New York after the life she'd built for herself there falls apart. She's at the grocery store picking up ice cream for her mother when she runs into sexy Danny Carlow, her ex-boyfriend's best friend. Danny had always been secretly attracted to Eve, and her to him. Danny'd repressed his feelings for Eve in high school out of respect for his best friend, Paul. In school Evie Girl, Paul Guy, and Danny Boy had been like the Three Musketeers, and I really hope that you like those nicknames, because you will be hearing them a lot. Danny is independently wealthy, and he and Paul are currently living together.

What Eve doesn't know is that Paul is deeply masochistic, and has been for as long as she's known him. After she left for New York, Paul enters the BDSM scene in order to seek out dangerous pain games. Danny eventually follows him into the scene in order to learn how to provide Paul what he needed with a higher degree of safety – Paul loves pain so much that he would literally let someone beat him unconscious, and possibly to death. Danny eventually discovers that he has a talent for domination and begins charging others for his services. By the time he reconnects with Eve, he's gained a reputation as a talented Dom, and retired from the scene. Meanwhile Paul is attempting to please his unpleasable family, and possibly trying to assuage his own deeply-seated homophobia and self-hatred, by becoming engaged to the most boring and sexually repressed woman he could possibly find.

Honestly, I had a hard time with this book. The characters are hard to like. Danny is prone to sulking, deeply manipulative, and doesn't listen (which an awful quality for someone who expects his partners to submit to him.) Eve is way cooler than most because she's a tomboy who likes to fish and drink beer and knows which end of a baseball bat to hold, unlike all the other women in the world who giggle and wear pink spend all day digging through their pompoms in search of the handles. Even worse, the way Eve's described —she's an artist, has a tendency towards fitted v-neck shirts and colorful scarves, she loves to dance—is very traditionally feminine, despite the constant assertions that she's a tomboy. So she's girly, but sexy girly, but not bad girly. At one point Danny posits that Eve's insatiable sexual appetite stems from the fact that she's a tomboy—she "needs sex like most women need air." Also, he points out that because she was a tomboy she was never afraid of cock, and then the top of my head popped off.

And thirdly there's Paul. Paul's dad is a redneck and all his brothers are Marines. We hear quite a bit about Paul's home life, but we never see any of it. Paul loves pain to the point that he once tried to convince his doctor to let him have knee surgery without anesthetic. He would let partners beat him unconscious if he could. He refers to himself and Danny as "faggots" at a couple of points (outside of the context of dirty talk, though it's not a word I'm particularly fond of in any context), and when he gets jealous of Eve's deepening relationship with Danny, he slut-shames her and accuses Danny of "ruining" her. In an effort to please his homophobic redneck father he gets engaged to a "normal girl" who will only have sex in missionary position with the lights off, because that is totally normal. Anyway, because this woman is so vanilla and awful, Paul feels justified in cheating on her all over the place with Danny and Eve.

This book had a lot of problematic elements. Danny in particular constantly talks about "the scene" and "the game" in reference to the BDSM community and his involvement in it, and how well-respected he is there. Yeah, no. First off, there's the credo of "safe, sane, and consensual". Those first two are pretty much disregarded throughout the entire book. There's one specific scene where Danny is genuinely irritated with Paul—like he is actually mad with him when he does this — ties Paul up and flogs him until he needs stitches. None of this is done with a safe word, because to Danny safe words denote a lack of trust, and even if Paul had a safe word he wouldn't use it because he loves pain THAT much. Danny hurts Paul past the point he's comfortable with because he's afraid Paul will go somewhere else to fulfill his needs, and that person would fuck him up even worse than Danny does. There is nothing safe or sane here, and I had a really hard time finding any of it sexy. I read that particular scene with my jaw swinging open. There's backstory to set up Paul as a "genuine" masochist, but the character's self-hatred, homophobia, and desire to be punished for his “deviance” make his scenes hard to read. Not only does he dislike himself, but he occasionally dumps misery all over Danny and Eve. Long story short, if your characters are going to constantly reference the wider BDSM community, be it for credence or realism, they have to either play by the community's rules or at least acknowledge the fact that they're breaking them. Neither of those things are done here.

Stylistically this book has a tendency to overexplain and lean heavily on cliches. There's not much in the way of nuance in this book – everything the author wants you to know is stated as opposed to demonstrated. The story is pretty plot-lite, with a significant chunk of time dedicated to sex, and everything resolved kind of inexplicably with the help of some hefty deus ex machina. The characters explicitly compare the relationship they have with each other in Danny's house in Tampa to Eden, but they are constantly either moping or pissed at each other.

I picked up Beyond Eden based on reviews I'd read online – they were generally positive, and there are definitely people out there who loved this book – but I had a hard time getting past the issues described above to take any real enjoyment from it.

Reviewed by Andrea, avid LGBTQ romance reader and disgruntled desk clerk. (Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of Light Switch by Lauren Gallagher

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Title: Light Switch
Author: Lauren Gallagher (also writes as L.A. Witt)
Publisher: Carnal Passions
Length: ~110k
Primary Relationship: MFM
Other Relationships: M/F, M/F
Category or Genre: Erotic Romance, Erotica, Contemporary
Does this Review contain spoilers? very mild spoilers about sexual content.
How was the copy provided? Already owned.
Has this review been posted before? No.

There's a scene in the fifth season of Doctor Who where Amy Pond, furious at the Doctor, asks, "What is the point of you?" Well, that's kind of how I feel about MFM. I've always taken great pains to avoid it. GIVE ME MMF OR DEATH has been my slogan. I always check reviews to make sure MMFs are really MMFs, even.

I strongly suspected Lauren Gallagher's Light Switch wasn't an MMF, but I decided to give it a chance anyway, because I was intrigued by the BDSM set-up. I'm taking a looong break from any BDSM books with an abused sub who has to be "put back together" by the dom. I'm already iffy on hurt/comfort (see an explanation in this review), so I don't derive any visceral emotional satisfaction from the trope, and when used as the primary plot driver, it's so predictable that it can't hold my interest.

Light Switch was a lovely breath of fresh air. Kristen isn't particularly vulnerable or traumatized. She was in a bad relationship for a while, one that bordered on emotionally abusive, but she ends it on her own in the beginning of the book, and it's only noteworthy as the trigger for her sexual explorations. She's not a violet-eyed supertalented special snowflake, either, just appealingly normal, with a normal boring middle-class job she doesn't particularly like. What she does have (that most women sadly lack in real life) are two hot guy friends who live nearby and are totally down for whatever.

So Kristen starts exploring her submissive side with her old friend Scott. Since she's known for a while that he's into BDSM and polyamory, there are no major surprises, just a lot of tentative questions and dialogues. I loved this dynamic. It's not particularly romantic, but it is incredibly caring and compassionate and intelligent. And then, when they finally get down to it, it's hot. The concept of "taking your time" gets eroticized and woven into the sex scenes in terms of dominance and submission—Kristen getting taught her place sexually and that she's on his time now—and then, when the session is over, they go back to being friends. He's not controlling her in any other aspect of her life, and you can tell that he doesn't want to control her in any other aspect. That lack of need for total control makes him seem so much stronger and more attractive than most Generic Telepathic Alpha Doms populating this sort of fiction.

Meanwhile, she's conducting an intense flirtation with her other friend (and apartment building neighbor) Matt. A lot of their interaction comes from playing poker games together with their neighbors, so it's very playful and light. Matt's out of an unhappy relationship too, and he's starting watching her through the window, and she's started watching him. Eventually, he starts watching her sessions with Scott. When they finally cross the limit (of friendship, and of physical thresholds) the sex goes BANG.

From that point on, there's a lot of tension as to how Kristen's two separate relationships, both of them originating in friendships, are going to resolve. I will tell you that no, Scott and Matt don't get it on. They're both straight and that doesn't change. The voyeurism and the BDSM do get interwoven in ways that are sexually satisfying and true to the characters, and I'll leave it at that.

If you're into polyamory and romance, this is absolutely the book for you. I loved how friendship, sex and romance don't preclude each other in Light Switch. These people have strong emotional commitments to each other, care for each other, but sexual fidelity isn't the default.

This is a fairly long book, it's got a nonstandard form of tension, and I admire Lauren Gallagher for pulling that off. She could have thrown in a stalker ex or some bullshit like that, but she stays true to the internal arc. The tension we do get is complex, interwoven—there's also a strand about Kristen exploring her dominant side—and never reaches a truly desperate moment. The only negatives I can say about this structure is that the story felt awfully dialogue-ey at times, with the characters too unrealistically articulate about expressing their needs and desires. But this is a much lesser evil than misunderstanding-driven plots, so it didn't seriously bother me. Lastly, this is a book very focused on sex and sexual exploration, so we don't get a lot of the characters' lives outside of the bedroom. Again, a conscious choice that served the story, but I think if this was much longer it would have worn on me.

I'm still a bit prejudiced against MFM, but Light Switch really rocked my world. I highly recommend it.

Review of Abiogenesis by Kaitlyn O'Connor

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 29 May 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Title of Book: Abiogenesis (Cyberevolution #1)

Author: Kaitlyn O’Connor

Publisher: New Concepts @ Smashwords

Length: Novel, 192 pages.

Rating: Mature - explicit scenes, consent issues.

Primary Relationship(s): M/F(/M)

Other Relationship(s): M/F, M/F

Category or Genre: Science Fiction

Does this Review contain spoilers?: Mild spoilers.

How was the copy provided? Purchased with intent to review.

Has this review been posted before? No.

Abiogenesis, by Kaitlyn O’Connor is presented as an “erotic futuristic romance story” and I thought, yeah, I’m punching a ticket on this starlight express.

Sometime in the far future, Dalia is a bio-engineered enhanced assassin. She’s employed to hunt down renegade cyborgs, but during a routine medical check-up she discovers she’s meant for termination and has to flee. On the run, she has to turn to the very beings she used to hunt and falls in love with the Cyborg Reuel and her old acquaintance Pierce.

I have a soft spot for cyborgs, sci fi and fantastic tales set in the future, especially if they contain flying cars. And, there are plenty of flying cars, cyborgs, renegades and the like in this story. There’s Dalia herself, bioengineered, enhanced human, Reuel, a Cyborg and a renegade, Pierce, a man from Dalia’s past, as well as Reuel’s gang of rebels.

To begin with the world building seemed good, the premise of the story was interesting, there is plenty of erotica for those interested, and Abiogenesis is definitely an easy read.

However.

This book was definitely not without some problems. For one, Abiogenesis feels as if it was written the way one might describe an action scene to a friend. The dialogue is awkward. There are spelling mistakes such as “med lad” instead of “med lab”, and “sited” instead of “sighted”. Settings lack initial introductions and I felt rather lost at times, wondering where inside a building the action was taking place, or where the main character was headed. Details that could have been hinted at earlier were left as almost an afterthought. After four chapters I still wasn’t sure what Dalia looked like or what she wore, or, going by the cover, if she wore much at all. I’m still not sure what Reuel or Pierce look like.

There is also an overabundance of words like “female” and “male”, instead of woman and man, and “craft” to describe all sorts of vehicles - most of which fly. Car, ambulance, helicopter, jet plane, hot air balloon, are all perfectly good words to use even when it comes to futuristic vehicles. Think about it. We still call a telephone a telephone, even though the “voice-relaying tabs” we use today bear little or no resemblance other than basic function to Alexander Graham Bell’s invention.

Back to our plot: On the run, and having to ask for help from the beings she once killed, Dalia offers the leader of the rebels, Reuel, the use of her body in exchange for safe passage. Dalia then spends quite a bit (or rather, the rest of the novel, it seems) in some form of bondage and struggling with her attraction to Reuel. While there are many novels with this sort of set-up, and while this could have been interesting, Abiogenesis takes a sharp turn away from the intial set-up of “cyborgs on the run”, and begins to read too much like a ravishment novel, and that was not what I was expecting. (Either that, or I should have taken a closer look at the blurb on Goodreads.com.)

Following this, Dalia begins to act contrary to her initial introduction. An enhanced and bioengineered woman, she fought off a slew of guards, stole a craft (actually, a flying ambulance), and made a daring escape from the building where she was meant to die. She suffers pain, fought off sleep and refused to stop until she was safe. And then.. The moment she meets Reuel, it is as if we have left behind the old Dalia and two different women begin to inhabit her body. There is also the added complication of an unplanned (and unconsented to) pregnancy. Dalia herself questions if her logic is “faulty at present”, and blames this on the “hormonal and chemical changes that she’d never before experienced. It stood to reason those changes would affect her logical brain functions”.

Indeed.

Pregnant, Dalia is delegated to the sidelines and is accused of having no “conception of how fragile the life is that you carry”. Indeed, the novel is full of these little slights against Dalia’s motherhood and her femininity. This, as well as Dalia’s attempts to discover “what is this stirring in my nether regions”... was thoroughly disappointing, since virginal and pregnant, in this story, appears to equal weak and incapable.

I feel this was a missed opportunity to build a truly multifaceted character, and both Reuel and Pierce feel lacking in personality, but not in physical prowess.

The menage relationship, probably due to this being a series, doesn’t take form until almost at the end and this was also a mild disappointment. When it does take form, their relationship never quite gels for me. It is all very much happenstance. It's possible their relationship earns more focus in the rest of the series, but...

I felt that Abiogenesis didn’t live up to its promise and it could have benefited from another round of heavy editing. In spite of positive reviews on sites such as GoodReads (where the first few chapters are also up for a sneak peek), I won’t be buying the other books in this series.

Reviewed by Madison Reese, M/M writer and reader, non-fiction nut. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of Risk is a Four-Letter Word by Erin M. Leaf

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 22 May 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Title of Book: Risk is a Four-Letter Word
Author: Erin M. Leaf
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Length: 108 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Primary Relationship: MMF
Other Relationship(s): n/a
Category or Genre: Contemporary
Does this Review contain spoilers? No
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Owned already.

Has this review been posted before? No.

I took a chance and picked up this book by an author that I was not familiar with, just because I liked the title. Well and the fact that the main female character shared my name.

How many chance encounters with your soul mates does it take before you realize that you’ve found what you didn’t even know you were looking for? And even when you realize it, is it possible for it to put convention aside and make it work?

Interior designer Carrie, first encounters high-end furniture makers, Eric and Zeke, when she loses her bikini top, and they come to her rescue by finding it. In payment they ask for a kiss. Two very hot kisses later, they part ways without ever exchanging anything beyond the kiss and first names.

During their second encounter in the Museum of Modern Art, where another scorching hot kiss is exchanged in a family restroom of all places, Eric and Zeke reach the epiphany that they aren’t just attracted to Carrie, but also to each other. Risking a 20 year friendship they realize that love has been in front of them all along. However, they aren’t quite ready to let Carrie get away.

Their third encounter finds them all in the ER, where the Eric makes Carrie very aware that they want her in between them, however they still haven’t even exchanged contact information at this point. The 4th meeting finds Carrie at their place of business with a client in tow, where they finally get Carrie’s number, and set up a date.

Each ensuing encounter causes the heat level to rise. Real life problems interfere. Eric’s homophobic mother, Zeke’s jealous teenage sister, along with misunderstandings, major freak outs and fear of the unknown seem pretty determined for things to not work out.

I really enjoyed Erin Leaf’s writing style, and her characters, although I felt that the supporting characters really could have been developed a little bit more, because for me often it's the supporting characters that make the story. This was definely not the case here. The main characters were likable, with plenty of personality. I really liked the inner dialogue of the characters. I also really enjoyed the fact that they weren’t all in love by page 4 of the book. Each scene and location was beautifully described. I feel as though the timeline, and the situations were a lot more realistic than so many that are found within the romance genre. The relationship didn’t feel forced or rushed. The sex scenes were steamy but always progressed the story.

All in all this is a great read with a HEA ending. It was an easy read, with no major hangups for me, other than my ever present complaint that it could have been longer, and that perhaps some of the issues were resolved a little too quickly or not really at all, but I am definitely glad I took a chance on this one.

I will surely seek out other works by Erin Leaf.

Reviewed by Carrie Ann, obsessive reader of everything. I also review LGBTQ romance at Smoocher's Voice. (Blog | Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of Hurt by Varian Krylov

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Title: Hurt
Author: Varian Krylov
Publisher: Excessica
Length: ~100k
Primary Relationship: MMF
Other Relationships: M/F, M/M
Category or Genre: Erotic Romance, Erotica, Contemporary
Does this Review contain spoilers? A few spoilers about sexual content.
How was the copy provided? Already owned.
Has this review been posted before? Yes, it's a slightly modified and expanded version of this one.

This book is stone cold amazing and deserves wider recognition. I've since looked up other books by the writer, only to find that a) she hasn't written in years b) most of her other books have themes and content I can't handle. Hurt, raw as it is, might be her most accessible book. Wherever you are, Varian Krylov, come back! Write more MMF erotic romance! Sigh...

(I do know on a rational level that such commands to authors are of dubious effectiveness and, at worst, are just plain offensive. People write what moves them. I can't help feeling that way in my heart, though, as a reader.)

Another urge I have is to tell everyone to read this book. Then I calm down, take a step back, and realize no, that's wrong. In fact, there are two great big things that could put off potential readers: the breast cancer and the consent issues. I'll talk about the breast cancer now and the consent issues later.

This is not just a book about a three-way relationship (although it is, I think, the best MMF book I have ever read). It's also about the relationship of a woman to her own body, pre- and post-mastectomy, and about her relationship with death. I have a light history of breast cancer in my family, although no one has died of it, and I still found the book very hard to read at certain points. Vanka has to construct a new sexuality for herself that is not defined by her operation but still incorporates it. The descriptions of this process are raw in physical terms and even rawer in emotional terms.

I'll also admit right here in this review: I almost always hate heavy hurt/comfort narratives in romance or erotica. I understand their appeal on a logical basis in terms of exciting extremes of emotion and power play. But I just don't find them sexy. The only thing less sexy to me than caregiving or "putting someone back together" is the idea of someone taking care of me. So the why the hell did I love this book called "Hurt"? Maybe because the sex didn't really rise from comfort, but developed in an antagonistic relationship with it. Vanka handles her diagnosis with a complicated mixture of laudable stoicism and stupid denialism which ends up harming some innocent people in her life. It's a flawed but understandable reaction. And we perceive her lovers as also flawed and understandable as we gradually come to understand the issues that are messing them up and loading them down with jaw-dropping but weirdly believable angst.

There's a vibrant atmosphere to this book. The characters have distinctive voices. No, they don't talk like real people, but they talk with a compelling fluidity, so that the occasional long passages of dialogue are smooth and enchanting. Especially Khalid. I just want him to keep talking and talking. His speech is highly exoticized, but in the context of the narrative his racial/ethnic difference isn't his primary quality as a character. His appeal struck me as much more complicated and layered. The dialogue in general is beautiful. Too much erotic writing has people talking in an incredibly stilted fashion, so that whenever the characters aren't moaning, "fuck me harder" they sound like they stepped right out of a Mary Worth comic. Krylov's dialogue sounds like pure poetry, in contrast.

The descriptive language is so sensuous (there's one part where Vanka is just staring at a grapefruit that stunned me with its prose style) that it creates a kind of suspended reality or lucid dream effect upon reading.

There's real suspense. I truly did not know what was going to happen next at many points, and parts of the revealed backstories shocked the hell out of me. This is a multicultural/interracial relationship where people's cultural backgrounds are an integral part of their identity. So was their sexuality and gender identity. One of the men has awful issues with internalized homophobia, for example. And the menage relationship was incredibly complicated, more than the sum of its parts… parts which were themselves complicated.

Oh, and if you get turned on by intellectual history, this book will thrill your pretentious soul like it did mine. I've never read a more charming combination of ass-fucking and French existentialist name-dropping.

I will now go on to talk about the dubious consent. But if you're not put off already, I suggest you just buy the damn book and let it be a surprise because you will almost certainly love it. This was 100k words and I would have enjoyed it at twice the length.

So, the sex. The glorious, weird, superemotional, blazing hot sex... This book starts off with the roughest sex, and from there it really goes all over the map, including strap-on and fem-dom. The first chapters have some male-dom/fem-sub stuff that does not strike me at all as SSC (safe, sane, consensual). But it's done in a way that seems very real and appropriate to the characters. Where they are in their life, they're not good at communicating limits, and they want to be pushed over those limits. Several times in the book in both het and gay sex you have passages where one character says no and another keeps going because they could tell the other person really didn't mean it (and no, there weren't safe words established). But I don't get a sense that the narrative itself approves of this, and I never got the vibe of "if someone liked it, it wasn't rape". In fact, there are multiple times when a character freaks out because they realize that what they did could, indeed, be rape.

Personally, I love reading about rough sex and fighting sex and being pushed over limits, but there's a line I don't like to cross and this book hovered on the edge of that. There's even a flashback to gunplay between the two men (and if that's your thing, it's scary hot). Some of the things that happen in this book could cross over reader limits—not during the few instances of structured BDSM play, but in other areas.

There's not a single classic sandwich in this book that I remember. I didn't miss it, though, because the sex was so imaginative and fitting to the characters' emotional states. The ass-fucking during chemotherapy was surprisingly hot. Does that sound wrong? It was wrong. But still hot.

Lastly, the flaws. This book (I bought my version from Fictionwise) could have used better editing and formatting. There were multiple instances of dropped quote marks in the first half of the book. Chapters were demarcated terribly and seemed to cut off at almost random points. Several transitions were problematic. Some adjectives (e.g. "umber") and adjective-noun pairs suffered from unnecessary repetition. The French language portions lacked accent marks! But really, that's all that stuck out for me.

I loved the book. And I loved its emotional journey, which ultimately ran along a true romantic arc—in a delightfully winding and tortuous fashion.

I want more of Krylov's prose. I even dared her 200k post-apocalyptic forced-breeding-program erotica that all takes place in a series of small rooms. I had to give up a third of the way through that, but I tried, dammit! That's how much I love Hurt.

Review of Hour of the Lion by Cherise Sinclair

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Title: Hour of the Lion
Author: Cherise Sinclair
Publisher: VanScoy Publishing Group
Length: 115,600
Primary Relationship(s): MFM
Category or Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance
Does this Review contain spoilers?: Yes, under a spoiler block.
Did you own this already, or was a review copy provided to you? Purchased with the intent to review.
Has this review been posted before? No.

Hour of the Lion begins with Victoria Morgan, a former Marine on medical leave from her assignment in Iraq, finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kidnapped off the street, she's thrown into a cage with an emaciated teenager who, when he's provoked by their captors, turns into a mountain lion. The bad guys then torture the lion into a pained frenzy until he finally bites Vicky. She eventually manages to escape with the teenage shifter in tow. He points her in the direction of the small mountain town of Cold Creek before he expires from his injuries. Tasked with letting the boy's grandfather know how what had happened to his grandson, and fueled by the desire to make sure that this secretive population of were-people poses no threat to the American public, Vicky heads for the mountains.

Upon arriving in Cold Creek, Vicky has a run-in with hunky Sheriff Alec McGregor who checks out her ass while she shows off her black-ops skills by getting stuck in a window Pooh Bear style. There's an instant attraction between the two of them, though for Vicky it's mixed with irritation (distraction from the mission! oh noes!) and maybe a bit of embarrassment. Alec is a seriously handsome, friendly sort, with an evasiveness that could stem from being a small town sheriff, or from being a secret werecat (Spoiler: it's the latter).

As it happens, Alec's equally hunky brother is the proprietor of the local tavern, the Wild Hunt, where Vicky goes to seek a job. Despite his reluctance to hire a human, Calum owes Vicky a favor after she saves his daughter from a less-than-friendly bar patron, and hires Vicky as a part-time waitress/bouncer. Calum is more serious than his brother, possessing an air of authority as the leader of the local shifter community. As with Alec, Vicky experiences an attraction to Calum that borders on compulsory, and which grows in intensity the more time they spend together.

To make matters more complicated, while Vicky is occupied trying to make heads or tails of her attraction to two men (who are occasionally very big cats) and the town of Cold Creek in general, the evil baddies who kidnapped her in the first place are drawing ever closer to finding both Vicky, who they know has been bitten and therefore infected, and the shifter community in which she's hiding.

Vicky Morgan is a pretty great protagonist. She's tough, she's driven, and she cares deeply about other people, while simultaneously being protective of herself to the point of being prickly. The fact that she hauls herself to the middle of nowhere at the request of a dying boy gives lie to her finely-honed air of unapproachability She's an unreliable narrator when it comes to the topic of her own nature and desires. In a way this book suffers from the exact opposite problem of other heterosexual romances I've read -- where the female main character in a romance is often a cypher for the reader, Vicky feels a lot more fully realized as a character than either of her love interests.

The plot, while not particularly complex, is suspenseful and engaging. My biggest plot beef was the ease with which the central conflict is eventually resolved, and is then swapped for a Big Misunderstanding that is just mind-bogglingly stupid. The brothers furball are understandably wary of all things federal government due to the government's tendency to dissect things that they do not understand, and yet somehow both brothers completely failed to realize that Vicky was a member of the armed forces, never mind a fairly elite member, despite her ability to take down men twice her weight, and the fact that the first thing she does whenever she enters a room is take inventory of the exits. She even slips up and calls Calum "sir" when he gets bossy in bed, which was totally hot, but come on, guys, you're supposed to be smart.

Due to the fact that there tends to be more male shifters than female, it's not unusual for a female shifter to have two or more mates. Alec and Calum are comfortable with, and even prefer, sharing Vicky with each other, but it's something she takes a while to acclimate to. As far as the balance of the relationships go, even though the men insist Vicky spend equal time which each of them, and despite Alec being Vicky's first real contact in Cold Creek, and the first brother with whom she has a sexual encounter, it feels like her relationship with Calum commands more attention and holds more emotional weight. Because he's more approachable, Vicky tends to go to Alec for information, while Calum tends to end up with her when she's upset; so while Alec's time with Vicky is illuminating, her time with Calum is challenging. Control is precious to her, and the instincts she has submit to Calum distress her. The sex scenes that involve Calum all have some D/s flavoring. At one point Calum points out to Vicky that the reason her relations with Alec are so different from the times she spends with him is that she's on more equal footing with Alec. Honestly, there's a part of me weeping that this book wasn't an MMF. To me the fact that Alec and Calum are biological brothers feels a bit like narrative cockblocking; they're nothing alike, which isn't uncommon in siblings, but with Alec spending several of his formative years in Texas, and Calum being fostered in the British Isles, they don't even speak alike. Their biological relation seems arbitrary. I think that, in terms of relationship structure, if the men had been involved with each other less platonically, Alec would have felt less like an afterthought in the second half of the book.

A couple of other points:

- Could have used some further editing -- there were some typos, and nothing to delineate changes in POV, which made for occasionally choppy reading.

- I think the point of the epilogue was to drive home the HEA, but I found it to be unnecessary and not really consistent with the rest of the book's tone.

- After reading this book, I wasn't surprised to find out that Cherise Sinclair has written several BDSM novels, which I think I'm going to seek out.

Overall, Hour of the Lion is a solid paranormal romance that reflects some of the best aspects of the genre with a smart, relatable heroine and romantic relationships which are both satisfyingly complicated, and sexy as hell. If you are a fan of contemporary urban fantasy, kick-ass women, and scorchingly hot sex with D/s overtones, you would definitely enjoy this book.

- Reviewed by Andrea, avid LGBTQ romance reader and disgruntled desk clerk. (Twitter | Goodreads)

Review of The Slipstream Con by S. Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Title: The Slipstream Con
Author: S. Reesa Herberth & Michelle Moore
Rating: 5 Stars
Publisher: Samhain
Length: ~85k

Primary Relationship(s): MMF
Other Relationship(s): M/F, M/M, F/F
Category or Genre: Science Fiction
Does this Review contain spoilers? A very mild spoiler.
How was the copy provided? Already owned.

Has this review been posted before? Yes, in a much shorter form.

When Violetta Vane invited me to contribute a review, I decided it was a good excuse to read The Slipstream Con, by S. Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore. I'd heard good things about it from some other folks, and I like romances that revolve around interesting and unusual relationships.

A couple of outer space bounty hunters falling in love with the thief they're chasing sounded pretty unusual to me.

Vanya and Tal spend three years chasing Kellen Frey before he turns himself in out of the blue. All three of them know something is wrong with this picture, but no one wants to look a gift horse in the mouth—especially not when Kellen has been drawing pictures of the three of them having sex and Vanya and Tal have learned him so well in the course of chasing him that they've begun to fall in love with him. Of course, not looking at what you don't want to see has its drawbacks, and before they know it, The Plot has bitten them on the ass.

I kind of love the plot. Because it's more than just characters falling in love, and no matter how much I like that part, I really like a book that gives me a little something more. What's more, there is nothing predictable about the plot here. Every time you think you've got it figured out, there's a new wrinkle.

Those wrinkles come with fantastic characters, whether they are our protagonists, allies, or villains. I'm pleased to be able to say that that strong characterization goes hand-in-hand with great world building. I grew up on the kinds of adventures in space that some people call space opera, and having a vivid universe to travel through is part of what makes them work. From the grey-market nanotechnology to the Empress's palace, the universe here is just as vivid as the people.

The Slipstream Con is well-written, which is a welcome change from so many ménage or poly titles I've tried. There's a lot of great craft going into the writing, and the story is more than an excuse to get from one sex scene to another.

As a matter of fact, there are no sex scenes in this book—it's a sweet romance. And while I'm a big fan of sex scenes in general and would have loved to see a few, I think the most important thing about sex scenes is that you write them in whatever level of detail suits the book. In their choice to omit them entirely, I think the authors have done that. It just wouldn't be in character for the three of them to be having sex any earlier than they presumably are, and extending the timeframe of the book just for the sake of getting a sex scene in there would not have served the story. In romance, that can be a hard choice to make, but in this case, I think it was the right one.

Overall, I give it five stars. There are a couple of places where I thought the writing was a little rough and the editing could have been better, but only a couple. They didn't interfere with this being a fun read full of characters I really cared about beating the odds and finding a way to live happily ever after. If you're looking for sexy bits, you've come to the wrong place, but if you want a fun adventure full of people falling in love even when it's a pain in the ass, give it a read.

Guest reviewer Ruth Diaz writes genre romances about non-mainstream relationships. She hides a number of science fiction and fantasy publications under another name, and her first romance publication, The Superheroes Union: Dynama, is due out on August 20 from Carina Press. For more information, you can subscribe to her blog, like her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter (where she is most active and, well, opinionated).

Review of Haevyn by Darcy Abriel

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:14:00 +0000

Title: Haevyn: Humanotica, Book 2
Author: Darcy Abriel
Publisher: Samhain
Length: ~80k

Primary Relationship(s): MMF
Other Relationship(s): M/F, M/M, F/F/F, M/O(+>, ??, !!
Category or Genre: Erotic Romance, Science Fiction
Does this Review contain spoilers? No.
How was the copy provided? Already owned.

Has this review been posted before? No.

Behold, a rare pertinent Samhain warning!

Watch out for oiled-up, naked trinespined warriors battling for top position, feisty tracer females that fit oh-so-snugly in between, and sexy nights that segue into complex relationships. Beware of tebitcheckers wielding those nasty little contulators at illegal, testosterone-drenched cage confrontations.

The endlessly imaginative, polymorphously perverse universe of Haevyn is the primary reading pleasure. The story, characters and relationship have serious flaws (though also draws), but the world is near-perfect in its aesthetic cohesion. It threatens to suck you in and insert little exotic handcrafted sex toys into your mind.

Let's back up a step and establish what this book is not. First of all, it's not a show-not-tell book. Large portions of the story are quite shamelessly told. I'm fine with that approach as long as the telling is stylish and exciting in and of itself, capturing something of the allure of storytelling. Judge for yourself.

Haevyn was a creature filled with unquenched wanderlust. For a female in Quentopolis, that meant she languished in a state of everlasting unfulfillment. And yet she could not bring herself to abandon her secret dreams. Star clusters glittered brightly in the black sky, too far away to touch, and the night was too temptingly clear. There were other cities—other civilizations where strange and amazing ships traveled to the stars. Sailors brought back mesmerizing tales of such wonders.

The universe of Haevyn (and its preceding Humanotica book, Silver) is a trippy science fantasy. There are uniformed sex cadets, sex cyborgs and sex demons. Take pretty much any science fiction or fantasy trope, throw "sex" in front of it, and you'll find it. For example, sex gladiator games known as "Cockrage". Cockrage. Cockrage? COCKRAGE! Oh, the clever portmanteaus and compounds!

However, there's enough moral weight to the development of this universe that it doesn't come off as an extended porny joke. True, everyone's bisexual and into BDSM and there's sex [insert noun]s, but Quentopolis, the city-state where the story takes place, is also a gritty dystopia ruled by a corrupt elite that fetishes military masculinity. Women are second-class citizens. Slavery is quasi-legal. It's undergoing a slow process of change to a more democratic and egalitarian society, and our heroes are definitely fighting (and fucking) on the side of justice.

Haevyn herself is an almost fully human woman. She struck me as a richly realized and sympathetic character, from her aesthetics and coloration (those jewels at her temple are rendered beautifully in the cover art) to her family history. She has what passes for a middle-class background in Quentopolis—rich enough to understand the workings of privilege but poor enough to not claim them in any consistent fashion. She has a complicated past with humanotics, the cyborg quasi-slave class of Quentopolis, which we find out pretty early on in the book. One of them raped her; she had to acquiesce to sex with him in order to save her family. She falls in love with another humanotic, the freedom fighter Entreus, a relationship which is facilitated by her close friend and sometime lover, Grisha. Also, her little brother is addicted to sex cyborg modification and total sexual submission, and is slowly turning himself into a human doll for the benefit of his masters.

Transactional sex is a huge theme in these books, and there are a lot of really disturbing consent issues involved. Usually, some of this stuff would go beyond my comfort level, but the tone of Heavyn is so surreal and dreamlike that the rape elements didn't disturb me nearly as much as they would have in a more realistic narrative. Haevyn works as a Compsociate, which is a sort of sexual aide-de-camp, with a job description that might read something like 50% courier, 40% sexual transcription, 10% sexual services. In the course of her job, she's embroiled in the highest level of intrigue and forced into a dangerous game of spying...

I won't go into the plot, partly to avoid spoilers and partly because it's ridiculous, as it relies on massive coincidences. I'll just say things are tough for most characters and they end up in a lot of sexual situations. There are numerous triangles involved. Entreus tries to discourage his sex demon lover from his unhealthy interest in Haevyn, who is being forced to sexually transcribe their sex. And at one point, when Haevyn gets really depressed and exhausted by this understandably confusing situation, her Compsociate superior and her boss's dominatrix friend have an awesome threeway lesbian sex session involving a giant vibrator, a warm bath and an aphrodisiac. She feels a lot better afterwards!

But the central relationship of the book, the one that is fated to be, the one that gets all the emotional weight… well, the third member is practically MIA.

Entreus—I loved him from the Cockrage match at the beginning all the way to the end. Even when he did some TSTL stuff. That's just his nature. Haevyn, I also loved, and the heat they had together was pretty hot. Lots of rough sex and tender bonding! But Grisha was terribly, woefully undercharacterized. All I know about him is that he's a nice human guy and he owns a boat. This is the one area where the high telling quotient really hurt the story. He means a lot to Haevyn as a lover and friend, he means a lot to Entreus as a lover and friend, he believes that Haevyn and Entreus are destined to be together. We know this because we are told this. Over and over again, but almost never shown. It was a bit maddening.

I rarely like giving quantified reviews. This kind of breakdown might be as close as I'm going to get on this review blog:

Menage Romance: D. Inadequate. I did not get a feel for how the relationship would stabilize as a trio. Hot, but that's not enough. I was sold on Entreus/Haevyn, but not Entreus/Haevyn/Grisha.

Style: B. Loved it. It's sort of weird fiction lite, and as close as erotic romance probably gets to dense prose. I wish it had gone a step further and been more stylistically experimental. The weird names are fantastic. For example, we are informed that Haevyn is diagnosed with manic risqexcerinia. Does the diagnosis have any bearing on her personality or the plot? Nope. But it sounds really cool. Oh, and she's in whore command. WHORE COMMAND.

Gender/Sexuality: B. Nobody is writing books like this, not that I know of. I wouldn't call the gender stuff here transgender, exactly, although it does fall under a wider trans* umbrella. I also had the revelation that Silver, and to a much lesser extent Haevyn, is the rare erotic narrative that explores the fetish of forced masculinization. The forced feminization fetish is all over porn, of course, and seems to appeal to a variety of perspectives (including straight cis men) but forced masculinization is quite rare, and it's carried off in a very... intense way. The whole concept of the trinex—half man, half woman, half machine—is fascinating. It also reminds me of this song on the Dr. Octagonecologyst album called halfsharkalligatorhalfman. Plus I love reading about futures where everyone's bisexual.

Plot: C. Huge holes, massive coincidences, lots of people frantically racing around to little apparent purpose, but not too bad when compared to the standard fare for external conflict in the genre: Evil ex! Stalker! Someone is killing strippers/BDSM enthusiasts/young hot gay men/[insert blank] and OMG that means [insert person(s) protagonist is fucking] might be next!

Setting: A. Gorgeous. The world is softly gleaming and sickly and dirty all at the same time, like Star Trek and Blade Runner getting high on Ecstasy and fucking in a porno theater. And there's the old-timey pulp feel of an art deco science fiction future dreamed up from the 1930s then crammed down into an 18th century corset. I'm sold. I love this world.

If the brass ass spreaders don't give you serious pause, buy Haevyn.

~~~

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Welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (VV) — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:05:00 +0000

Welcome to our brand new review blog, More Than This. We do menage... with or without the accent aigu, from the pretentious and precious to the down-and-dirty porny and everything in between. Or on top, or on the bottom! We're not picky. We'll do polyamory romances if we can find them, as well.

I (Violetta Vane) am administering this blog, but all the reviewers are independent and bring very different tastes to the table.

Please check out our About page to discover the scope of our reviews. And here's a sneak peak at some of our upcoming Tuesday original reviews:

Haevyn - Darcy Abriel - MMF
Hour of the Lion - Cherise Sinclair - MFM
Risk is a Four-Letter Word - Erin M. Leaf - MMF
Abiogenesis - Kaitlyn O'Connor - MMF
The Garden of Eden - Ernest Hemingway - MFF (yes, that Hemingway)
Beyond Eden - Kele Moon - MMF
Cardinal's Rule - Tymber Dalton - MMF
Light Switch - Lauren Gallagher - MFM

We'll also be re-posting older reviews from our Goodreads or blogs on Thursdays.

Our perspective is eclectic, fun, and honest. Please stick around and subscribe to our feed or follow us if you love (or think you have it in your heart to love) this wonderful sort of stuff.