Note: Title was free on Amazon/Goodreads at time of posting Title: Where Willows Won’t Grow Author: Lia Black Genre: Science Fiction/Futuristic Length: Novel (157pages) Publisher: M/M Romance Group (July 12th, 2014) Heat Level: Explicit Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥ 5 Hearts (because I can’t give any higher) Reviewer: Kid Blurb: Undercover agent Alex Kley is a long way from home. Six months of investigation have brought him to Willow House, a high-class brothel on Omanai Station, as beautiful on the outside, as it is corrupt on the inside. Sold into sexual slavery to infiltrate an illegal prostitution ring, Alex must find the evidence he needs to bring down the leader of a powerful criminal cartel—a man who may not even be human.
Illythe, the manager of Willow House, is a long way from freedom. The jet-skinned beauty with the face of an angel walks the halls of Willow House with serenity and authority, but underneath his cold and beautiful facade, Illythe is as much a slave as any of the young men working in the brothel.
In an undercover operation, falling in love is the worst thing an agent can do, but Illythe is a mystery that Alex can’t resist.
It doesn’t take long for Alex to realize that Illythe is not in his role by choice. Yet Illythe holds the holds the information Alex needs. The more Alex learns, the clearer it becomes that when the cartel falls, Illythe will be buried in the rubble.
In the end, Alex must make a choice: save Illythe and forfeit the mission, or leave him behind in a place where willows won’t grow. Purchase Link: http://www.amazon.com/Where-Willows-Wont-Grow-Black-ebook/dp/B00LR78V6U/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_3
http://www.mmromancegroup.com/where-willows-wont-grow-by-lia-black/ Review: There are, in my opinion, three kinds of books. Those that you read and forget or dislike the ones that leave no real impact on you. Then there’s the comfort category, the ones you read and love, that feel like coming home. But there are a few, a very few, that are higher than that. They challenge you, evoke emotions, and leave you marked. For me, Where Willows Won’t Grow is one of the third.
This was not an easy book to read, it was not pleasant at times, and there were moments I was certain that happy would be the furthest thing from possible for the characters. I was not reading, I was experiencing. Emoting. Swept away in an unblinking, no-holds-barred exploration of darkness and, by contrast, the faintest glimmer of light.
Alex Kley is not a good man. Working undercover in the Sex Crimes division of the Office of Federation Security, he did whatever he had to do for the case. A rich kid who’d found a practical application for a penchant for partying, casual sex, and the occasional exotic drug, his years with the department had started to wear on his soul. When an extremely dangerous mission comes up, one which another officer hadn’t come back from, Alex is sent far from the reach of backup to find the elusive head of a prostitution ring.
From the first paragraph, we are thrown into the spiraling sense of hopelessness and desperation. This is not a fluffy novel, nor is it the sweet kind of BDSM where there are safe words and fantasy. It has graphic rape scenes, strong allusions to childhood abuse, and more than a little violence. But there is a deftness to the way Lia Black handles every moment. Everything has a purpose. Nothing feels gratuitous even in the midst of the horror.
When Alex first sees Illythe, he thinks of him as a dark angel. And truly, that’s what he becomes. Illythe is a captured warrior prince, broken and molded into an obedient slave by truly one of the most grotesque and horrifying villains I’ve ever read. His backstory alone had my gut clenching; it makes you love the character more the more you realize the terror of his life.
Honestly, I don’t want to tell you about the plot. I want you to unpeel it, layer by layer, as I did. This was a story that I consumed in huge gulps, completely unable to look away from the page. I will tell you that it ends, as it should have, in a way that, looking back, is the only way it could have. I shed tears at a perfect moment at the end, realizing that the author had given me, and the character, resolution I hadn’t even known I craved.
I’ve never read Lia Black before. Trust me, I will again. This is a story that, in lesser hands, would have been wretched. There is no way anyone but a master could have pulled this kind of horror and darkness and twisted terror out and yet balanced it so gracefully with hope and light.
I loved this story. The fact that it is sitting free on Amazon rather than gracing bestseller shelves astounds me. This book will be staying with me for a very long time.
Title: If Two of Them Are Dead Author: Jana Denardo Genre: Steampunk/Suspense Length: Novella (166 pages) Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (May 21st, 2014) Heat Level: Moderate Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥ 4 Hearts Reviewer: Kid Blurb: Called to Hyde Park, New York, ex-Air Corpsman turned detective Victor Van Voorhis comes to only three conclusions about his newest case: the gulf between his status and the wealthy Westbrook family is no trifling matter; someone brutally killed a young mother; and the victim’s brother-in-law is one of the most intriguing men Victor has ever met.
Inventor Abraham Westbrook lost his wife five years ago and is worried about the effect another death in the family will have on his children. He spends most of his time tinkering with steamships, but even his inventions can’t distract him from wishing Victor was in his life for any reason other than a murder investigation—one where Abraham himself is a suspect. He’s hidden his desires all his life, but no longer. Somehow, he’ll catch the detective’s eye.
With murder standing between them and a killer stalking the Westbrooks, Abraham, and Victor’s chance at happiness could go up in steam. Purchase Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4990 Review: Charming.
If there were one word that fully encapsulated If Two of Them Are Dead, it would have to be charming. Which was not what I was expecting, based on the title. But this Steampunk murder mystery is less about the dark, foggy streets and more about the interaction of its enticing main characters.
Victor Van Voorhis is an ex-airman turned police detective who is sent to the posh and opulent Hyde Park to investigate a gruesome murder. From the first page, Jana Denardo does two things extraordinarily well. The first is to underscore the massive difference between the wealthy and everyone else. Victor’s continual amazement at both the luxury and the tightly closed ranks is neatly woven throughout the story. It’s not an easy thing, to give backstory and a point of view without taking on the role of a lecturer or going into dull over-explanation. Denardo handles it, for the most part, with a deft hand.
I also must point out Denardo’s ability to create two likeable, interesting characters that did not fall into the usual tropes. Neither is described as perfect, both have their own personalities and quirks, and both were easy to root for. I wanted them to be happy; I wanted them to discover one another. And the way that the author was willing to wait should be applauded. I love it when a writer has enough confidence in the chemistry of their characters and their own skill to allow a relationship to develop over several chapters. It makes that moment of connection so much better.
While Victor investigates the crime and discovers that the wealthy of Hyde Park are, by and large, truly terrible people, he also becomes much closer to Abraham. Eschewing the expected path of running his family fur and textile trade, Abraham is a quirky inventor who creates steam-powered robot butlers, metal dogs, and personal airships. His reserved outward behavior hides a certain mischievous, commanding presence that I found a great foil for Victor’s more by-the-book attitude.
Steampunk is a difficult genre. Abraham’s inventions can only be part of the atmosphere that transports a reader to a place part historical and part fanciful. In most ways, Denardo is successful. There’s a slight stiffness to the prose that, in some ways, works favorably considering the period. However, there were several times I wished someone had gone through to loosen things up. There were moments when, instead of attributing it to the formality of the time period, I simply felt as if the author was uncomfortable with the scene or the emotions.
This is especially apparent in the sex scenes. While, as a couple, Abraham and Victor are wonderful, when they get together there’s a certain standoffishness about the entire thing. I like my intimate moments to be messier, to have that immediate want and need, to feel like I’m caught up in that passion. This is purely a personal preference; there is nothing wrong with any of the scenes. But, after so long of dancing around each other, building up tension, when that first kiss does finally happen, I actually missed it and had to go back to find the exact moment. I would have liked it if the book breathed during those scenes, allowing the reader to revel in the connection along with the character rather than being rushed through. I like to linger and there were times when the story did not linger with me.
The murder mystery here is secondary to Victor and Abraham becoming first friends and then more. While it is the driving force of the plot – Abraham’s sister-in-law was found murdered in her home and he is first a suspect and then Victor’s gateway into the closed off ranks of the rich – it is not an Encyclopedia Brown-esque tale that encourages the reader to pay attention and pick up clues along the way. We see Victor working. Observe many of his interviews, but the elusive pieces he is putting together are not something we would have discovered on our own. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. While I prefer to feel a part of a mystery, there is also the very real danger of making it too obvious and spoiling the ending. In the end, I enjoyed the story, and that has to be the mark of an effective approach.
To me, the most interesting part of the story was not the murder investigation, nor the fanciful steam-powered inventions that littered the pages. I was drawn in by the way Denardo handled a love story that was considered at best unconventional, at worst illegal during the time period. These two men knew, from the very beginning, that the very best outcome would be a life lived in secret; never being able to connect with each other in public as anything more than friends.
There’s a phenomenon that I like to call ‘looking for the roommate’. I couldn’t exactly bring my girlfriend home to my parents or be open with relationships, especially not five, ten years ago. And in books or movies, we were never allowed to be open. It’s something that’s easy to forget now, in the flush of gay marriage victories and shows like Modern Family. But I grew up looking for glimpses of relationships that weren’t permitted to be displayed. We were the ‘good friend’. The ‘roommate’. Decades of commitment, of love and passion and grace, would be reduced to some generic term, swept under the rug. And the generations before mine understood that unique pain, that particular hurt, better than we ever can. The ache of having who you love made insignificant.
I’m always interested when an author chooses to acknowledge this reality. It’s a depressing fact but it was the truth for countless love stories over the ages. And it’s a truth that needs to be told sometimes. Victor and Abraham are one of those, and the fact there will never be a happy marriage or children of their own only makes the moments they do have sweeter. More poignant.
But all of that leads to my one big problem with the book: the ending. The conclusion of the mystery ends with an awesome reveal, a spine-tingling chase, and a Nikola Tesla reference. Everything you could hope for. However, since the main thrust of the story is not the murder but the growing relationship, and since the author spent so much time letting us know how difficult their future would be, I expected at least a chapter winding things down and letting us get a glimpse at what Victor and Abraham look like as a couple. I was very much looking forward to seeing if Victor grew closer to Abraham’s children or how they managed to see one another regularly. If they did. Instead, we get less than a full page of platitudes and both men assuring one another they did, indeed, want to try to stay together. And then the book was done.
I honestly thought that perhaps I was missing a chapter. It is such an abrupt and clumsy hand-wave of a sendoff from an author I’d come to think of as thoughtful and methodical that it seemed wildly out of place. I would encourage the author to spend time with the characters after the main plot is done. Allow the whole story to wind down rather than chopping it off.
In any case, despite my disappointment with the end, as a whole I highly recommend the book. If you enjoy the slow burn of a relationship, fantastical inventions, and characters that make you want to keep reading, pick up this book immediately. I, for one, am hoping for more in this world. Seeing Victor and Abraham figuring out a life together, perhaps solving mysteries like some kind of madcap Sherlock, would be absolutely charming.
Series: Demonspawn Academy, #1 Author: D.J. Liamson Genre: Urban Fantasy/Supernatural Length: Novella (59 pages) Publisher: Dark Hollows Press (July 9th, 2014) Heat Level: Moderate Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 2.5 Hearts Reviewer: Kid Blurb: Chance Bane wakes up with no memories of who he is and soon finds out he’s been engineered to become a demon hunter.
On his first mission with Demonspawn Academy, he’s tasked with charting topography of Hell, assuming he can find an entrance to Hell first. He’s assigned to fellow demon hunter Riley Than, and when his emotions are super charged from demon hunting on their first mis-sion, Chance experiences feelings he didn’t know he had.
How will Chance deal with his burgeoning sexuality, while dealing with his memory loss, while trying to figure out how to become the best demon hunter he can be?
Purchase Link: http://www.darkhollowspress.com/#!demonspawnacademy/c1p80 Review: When I was a teenager, we used to spend summer evenings exploring local graveyards. I consume stories about haunted houses, I never say Bloody Mary to a bathroom mirror, and I love authors that tackle the supernatural end of the Urban Fantasy umbrella. So an m/m romance about demon hunters? Who go to Hell? And fight demons? I was so excited.
I really wish I could say this book lives up to the awesomeness of the idea. Unfortunately, there are a myriad of problems that start up small, but by halfway through they’d washed away what could have been a really interesting, great novella.
Let’s start with the good. D.J. Liamson has a really unique take on an area we’ve seen a lot of in recent years. We’re inside the main character’s head throughout the story, and Chance Bane is witty, self-deprecating, and has a definite touch of wide-eyed innocence. He’s a fun character you want to root for. Chance starts out the book on a hospital bed, in a strange, unmarked room, with his backend hanging out of a flimsy gown. Oh, and he has no idea who he is or what’s going on.
Riley Than is quickly introduced as the smirking, sarcastic White Rabbit to Chance’s Alice, leading him further into the crazy terrain of his demonic Wonderland. Through dialogue that feels painfully vague, we find out that Chance is being held in some unidentified location for reasons no one feels terribly concerned with sharing. One might think a place with the word Academy in its title would have welcome brochure or an orientation class or something.
Riley sits Chance down and has him watch a film clip of his parents being brutally murdered and possibly eaten by a demon. And that’s the way he breaks the news that not only are demons real, but that for some unspoken reason, it’s probably not possible for him to go home.
Good thing, too! Because while breaking out of his hospital room – by literally tearing apart a wall – and ripping himself out of the chair he’d been tied to by Riley, Chance noticed that his hands could actually change form, to metal and brick. That’d be pretty hard to explain at the grocery store. News number two from Riley is that while he was sleeping, they genetically modified him, presumably with no consent, into some kind of demon fighting superhero whose hands can change into anything he imagines. Surprise!
Needless to say, Chance’s view on Riley is less than warm. He thinks more than once about punching the guy in the face, which I find totally valid. And I have to admit, this is the part of the book I liked the most. The antagonism between the two of them had a lot of promise to develop into something fun to read, and the demon hunter/genetic modification angle was unique enough that I was game to overlook the plot niggles.
Marcus is introduced as the leader of the Academy. Because that’s what this is, apparently, a center for training these engineered demon hunters. Who, I guess, are all people kidnapped and operated on against their will. Not that this is ever touched on. And even though we see that there are floors and floors of dorm rooms and such we also never see anyone else who works there.
Now, even though Chance literally just woke up from a coma and discovered his unwanted abilities and even though this place is called the Demonspawn Academy, which implies some kind of teaching that Chance never receives, Marcus sends him off with Riley to go kill themselves a demon. Who is apparently robbing a bank. Why? Excellent question! One that Chance asks! One that is never actually answered at all.
This is when things started to go off the rails for me. But I hung on. Because again, cool idea! Unusual take! And maybe questions would be answered. Always give the author the benefit of the doubt, especially early on in the first novel of a series.
After the first demon kill, Chance and Riley share a kiss. The awkwardness that followed I found endearing, and I was hopeful the author would continue the antagonism, maybe a little bit of the ‘he drives me crazy’, walking the fine line between hate and attraction thing that is so wonderful.
However.
A phrase I used often when reading this book. However, that is not what happened. After Marcus agrees to send them out on another mission and gives them a night off – side note, that is what happens every time. They go out, they get a night off. They go out again for a brief mission, they get another night off. This book spans over three or four days total and not only are they the only people working (maybe it’s a holiday weekend?), they are constantly getting told to go and have some R&R time from their strenuous…few hours of work – they go and get a drink. Play some pool. Flirt. And end up in bed.
Nothing wrong with any of that, really. Not on the surface. But let’s recap. Chance had woken up in a room less than twelve hours prior, found out he’d been forcibly changed without his consent, that his old life that he cannot remember is gone, and his parents were brutally murdered. Forget the whole demons and Hell are real thing, that’s enough to warrant some serious processing time. Riley, to Chance and to us, is a representation of that other world, of the mistrust and fear any sane person would be feeling. It’s not that I am against Chance and Riley as a couple. It’s that the quickness of it that feels like cheating – both them, in not allowing the characters to grow and develop, and us as readers in how it’s assumed we could not or would not invest in a relationship that worked through issues and emotions. Nothing about it is emotionally earned, there’s no building of trust or respect or even attraction.
Not to mention that Chance, on the way to their first assignment, greets the sight of two men holding hands like he’d just watched a purple elephant skateboard past. This is a guy who has no idea who he is, doesn’t know what kind of experience he has, or even what his sexuality means, and he’s not only in bed with someone who we as readers don’t trust yet, but we’re supposed to root for it. If any of this had been addressed, I’d find that a very interesting and worthwhile event. But none of it is.
After two days, the L-word is spoken. And only one brief nod to the fact that Chance knows nothing at all about Riley, which is quickly shoved aside for more sex.
Which, by the way, involves a virgin bottoming with no preparation at all. A scene that started out well enough, but by the end was painfully not. Dry sex hurts. Dry sex is not sexy, romantic, or sweet. The author could have had Riley, knowing Chance was a virgin, make the experience into a moment where we saw their trust building and bought into the idea of the couple.
Instead: Before I can ask him what he’s doing, something wet is applied to my ass.
Then something slides inside me.
Kind of the opposite effect, especially for a guy who’d already gotten a surprise insertion into his body that day.
The main plot of the story spirals into the same kind of forced unbelievability that the Chance and Riley relationship goes to. Marcus decides that the demon hunters should use the information uncovered to launch a reconnaissance mission into Hell. Okay, awesome. However, he also decides that Riley and the guy who just woke up three days ago and has had zero actual training at this so-called-but-not-actual-Academy are just the team to send. You cannot tell me there’s not, like, the elite force who has run a thousand missions and is totally trained and ready to go to literal Hell. There’s not even a moment of explanation for this or anyone going ‘wait, really, the kids are going’? It’s an obvious shoehorn to get to the big reveal moment where a bomb is dropped and then quickly swept under the rug because of things and reasons and probably true, undying (three-day-old) love.
And that’s, really, the problem with this book. It felt like this is a 300-page story crammed into 59. Huge chunks of plot and time were left out and what we got were the outlines of a big, kick-ass plot and an epic, developing partnership and romance. All of the meat of the piece, however, was missing.
When, a few days after meeting someone, I read a character saying: The side of his mouth subtly twitches. Only someone who knows Riley as well as I do would notice.
It just completely takes me out of the moment. Chance doesn’t know Riley. At all. He knows, at most, ninety-six hours or so of the guy’s expressions.
The author isn’t a bad writer. The story isn’t a bad story. The characters aren’t bad characters. There are, throughout this frustrating novella, glimmers of something really great. But in the end, nothing was developed enough for me to enjoy it. There was an opportunity here for us to work through Chance and Riley’s relationship, to see stages and growth and emotional reality. We could have watched Chance train and grow into his abilities, deal with being forced into this life, grieve his parents and his old reality. Not blithely decide that he doesn’t want to remember because Riley is now his world. It just felt too abbreviated and forced.
If you like instant-romances, then this is going to be right up your alley. Unfortunately, though, for me, the great ideas were drowned out in too many plot holes and truncated emotions.
I sincerely hope D.J. Liamson keeps writing. I believe they have some really unique stories to tell. But for their next book, I also hope they give their characters and plot room to breathe and grow and develop naturally. I would go on that ride for sure. This time, though, I’m afraid I was left behind.
Note: Title was free on Amazon/Goodreads at time of posting
