Hunter RainesCritiques

Honestly much more of a romance story than a mystery, this story delivered. A reality show star is murdered and the main suspect is the dead man's co-star Gavin Cox. Flamboyant, hot and only into one night stands, Gavin is taken into custody and kept at a police safe house. The task of keeping an eye on Gavin is Detective Rob Turner who is a deeply closeted virgin. Gavin makes it his mission to seduce Rob but doesn't count on remembering his co-star's murder.
Wild sex, unrelenting paparazzi and a homophobic police force all combine to make this story a fun and quirky read. Great for a day at the beach or a rainy afternoon at home.

Tropes.
Flirty twink. Check.
Closeted cop. Check.
Enforced living together. Check.

Okay so the mystery was pretty flimsy but I wasn't reading for that.
All in all an enjoyable read for me.

Well. I'm glad it's over. I really am.
I had so many problems with this book. The characters were two-dimensional and inconsistent. Their reactions were not plausible or logical at times. Their whole relationship was not plausible.
Besides that, they thought of their dicks as if they are separate independent beings, with their own feelings and reactions, and I hate when that kind of writing happens.
I did like the idea of the plot, and the execution was not entirely horrible, but it wasn't especially fun or engaging either.
1.5 star rounded up.

Tropes.
Flirty twink. Check.
Closeted cop. Check.
Enforced living together. Check.

Okay so the mystery was pretty flimsy but I wasn't reading for that.
All in all an enjoyable read for me.

In the world of ‘Bound by Melody', elves have come out and humans have greeted some of them happily - the Faer elves are linked to nature and welcome - and others, the Helir elves, with fear and prejudice. Helir elves exude sexual energy due to their carnal magic, are manipulators, and full of mischief. This is the story of Gil, a Helir elf who denounced his baser nature and has spent over a century living among humans, trying to be like them and being “good” and well-behaved. But then he has an erotic dream and it all falls apart…

Gil has no idea what is behind the dark dream he is having, and when he gets evicted and has to accept a substandard apartment just for somewhere to live, his troubles have only just begun. As Gil finds out pretty quickly, another elf is behind his troubles.

Arion needs help, but is afraid to ask. He has suffered under Helir elves for two centuries, and he is not about to trust one – even if he needs him. It’s a pretty tough spot to be in, but I had trouble feeling sorry for Arion because he is pretty nasty in the beginning.

The battle is fought mostly in bed – literally – and though there are a few hints, neither elf suspects the outcome. I didn’t see the full consequences either! It was a nice little surprise and I enjoyed what happens after they figure things out a lot more than all of Arion’s attempts to subjugate and manipulate Gil. It was nice to see the two elves be just as hot together after the discovery of what is going on between them.

If you enjoy fae stories with a touch of magic, heat, and a major fight for dominance, if you like couples who start out as enemies, and if you’re looking for an entertaining story full of sexual escapades as the main characters battle it out, then you might like this novella.


NOTE: This book was provided by Changeling Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.

Wow...I don't even know what to say. This book was smokin' hot!

It was an interesting read. The ghost part (about which I was skeptical) was great - really scary and eerie. Also the description of Daniel's view (he is blind) was very good. This was all written very well. Only 3 stars because insta love and a very uninspired ending.
I will surely try other books by this author and hope for more great writing and less quick luv...

Well, I didn't expect the two men to be romantically involved. I was a bit confused before I finally realized! Once I had that worked out, it was an ok book. The rules of how/when/why of the ghosts was a bit uncertain (the author kept changing the rules slightly to fit the story as it progressed). Things got a bit overwrought and so much drama, but that seems to happen in paranormal romance in general.

Okay story about a gay couple who are looking to spark something in their relationship. They meet another guy at a resort in Anguilla. Interesting idea but it fell flat in the execution for me. Also, I thought that Phillip's father was overly villainous and icky - it just wasn't necessary. I couldn't quite understand how Cameron and Mark were able to be together without actually talking for months on end either. It had promise but in the end it was just okay for me.

I honestly debated about whether to admit to reading this. But hey, as long as it's not "Fifty Shades of Gay", I think I'm ok. Any romance, particularly an M/M romance, is a little embarrassing to own up to in my "read" list – but here's the thing. I read for the writing. I read for character. In the average romance, gay or straight (at least based on those I've looked at), those elements seem to exist purely to string together a number of sex scenes. Bored once while working in a little used bookstore was the first time I cracked open a romance novel, and in a sort of a sampling to try to see what made the genre tick I was both amused and appalled by the writing (a range of awful) and the characters (cardboard). I considered trying to do some kind of overview to see if there really was, as there seemed to be, a pattern to the frequency and placement of sex scenes (there seemed to be a pattern of naughty bits first occurring around page 80, iirc) – and then I realized that would mean reading (or at least skimming) boatloads of tripe and spending lots of time on it that could be better used trimming my toenails or clipping split ends. And reading good books.

So much of the writing of the mass of the genre – truly a higher percentage than in other genres, in my experience – is amateurish, even coming from writers with dozens of books to their names. But now and then, a novel disdains the standards of the genre and becomes something better: something actually worth reading. (The word "transcends" came to mind just there, but I didn't want to get all carried away.)

Do I love the reliance on explicit crudity and "roosters" (no kitties here) in the sex scenes? No. I never will understand why the most adult scenes use the most childish language. (I consider nicknames or cute euphemisms for body parts pretty childish – for example, no one over the age of seven should say "tummy" or "belly". When someone on a cooking show begins talking about their tummy I change the channel. When a journalist recently said something about the baby in a pregnant woman's tummy I blacked out for a moment. But I digress.) I guess the mundane words for various body parts are too clinical? There must be a study out there somewhere about the vocabulary of sex scenes, from Tom Jones to Harlequin and beyond. Something else I am not going to contribute to the universe…

What I did enjoy about this book, though, was Daniel. Well, and Logan too, actually, but Daniel as a character impressed me a bit. The damaged love interest is nothing new, in romance or any other genre; it's hardly uncommon for there to be a high degree of vulnerability and salvage in a novel. What is new – or at least uncommon – is the fact that Daniel, a point of view character, is blind.

I can think of only a handful of books with blind POV characters (apart from the revealing young adult Light a Single Candle, which I'd forgotten all about but which impacted me in all sorts of ways, including the fact that I count steps to this day). I'm actually trying to write one, and it's a fascinating challenge. (Oh, how easy it is to be fascinated when I can stop imagining and open my eyes and get on with my day!) There is a very unique set of emotions and hindrances – and terrors – inherent to blindness, particularly with losing your sight as an adult. Daniel is – or was – a writer; encouraged by his boyfriend (his muse), he started writing a horror novel for teenagers, found he loved it, found he was good at it, found a publisher, and found fame. Then one night on the tour to promote the book and the movie being made from it, the worst happened: a terrible accident, killing the boyfriend and leaving Daniel with a traumatic brain injury (is there really a non-traumatic type of brain injury?) that has left him blind … but which also has left him with a different sort of sight: he can see ghosts.

It's kind of a classic use of spirits, but well done: the dead who have unresolved issues come to him, without, as far as he can tell, really seeing him or being able to significantly interact with him. Once he figures out what they need and helps them with it, by leading the police to a murdered body or helping find a clue to a killer's identity or something along those lines, the spirit walks into a light and vanishes. And then another appears, and the whole thing starts over again. As the plot kicks in and Logan – a ghost writer whose publisher uses him to produce salacious "autobiographies" for celebrities who have been unwarily trapped into contracts that leave them helpless – is sent to capture Daniel as his next victim (because of course the man's a fraud, or crazy – ghosts? Please!), a new ghost appears on the scene. She's different. She comes along at the same time as another, which has never happened before, and she has a tendency to glare at Daniel. Also? She really doesn't like it when Daniel and Logan become rather friendly. Doesn't like it at all.

A few scenes from her perspective give her identity and the reasons for her appearance and anger, and I found this something of a flaw in the storytelling: it might have been more suspenseful (and more fun) to have been strung along a little while, to join Logan and Daniel in not knowing what the heck was going on. It seemed to dilute the story. This route did provide the "Oh, dear, she's gonna blow a gasket any second now" factor, at least.

The preliminaries of the relationship are a bit perfunctory – the world this book is set in is apparently a world without AIDS, given the unprotected sex the two men fall to a few hours after meeting – but this is, after all, something of a fantasy. And that is, after all, the raison d'être for the book, if you want to look at it that way. Happily, though, that's not really the case for this book: there's more to Sight Unseen than that. Quite a bit more than expected, in fact. To quote a Goodreads reviewer I follow, "I don't mind a bit of sex, although I'm in the less is more camp" – and when whatever sex there is happens because of love (or at least affection) it makes a huge difference. (For that not to be the case usually means a DNF for me.) There actually was a relationship here. And a really very enjoyable story.

Ghost writer. Heh.

The idea behind this book is new and different--a blind man who can see ghosts. For the most part, the story lives up to its intrigue, building in new and unique ways that take the GLBT and horror genres, blend them, and makes it its own. Some of the threads don't seem to follow quite all the way through, but for the most part, it creates a fairly successful reality. The mix of humor and drama is good, with a fair dash of suspense thrown in, and the multitude of perspectives are fascinating. While Logan Reily's disbelief/belief, guilty/not-guilty thoughts can be tiresome and confusing at times, Daniel's never are--possibly the best part of the book is the way his disability shines so clearly and believably, so much so that one wonders if the writer has some experience as well.

This is quite a sad story and even if there is a sort of happily ever after, I still felt like the sadness was not all gone.

Jud and Derek were best friends since they were children, and not long after they also fell in love. The life seemed perfect for them; they were living together, good jobs and a new home. But something maybe was missing, maybe they were not on the same line of thinking, maybe one of them was outclassing the other… anyway they hadn’t the time to understand what it was since Derek died on Christmas day, just the day after he made Jud promise that there was never anyone else for him. Already this promise was strange, why on earth a man as young as Derek was wresting promises from his lover, like he had the feeling that he would be not there. But Jud had promise indeed, and Derek died, and so, guilt or love, or maybe a mix of the two, made Jud keep the promise for 10 years, helped maybe by the little booby prize of having Derek back for one day each year, on Christmas day.

First year it’s joy, second year it’s hope, third, fourth, …, tenth year it’s almost damnation. Yes, it’s harsh to say, but time indeed heals the wounds, and Jud is young, and Derek is died, and where a romantic sees a wonderful love story, a practical man sees an eternal doom. It’s time for Jud to move over, and if this moves will lead him near to or far from Derek, well, you have to read the book to know. What I can say you is that, in Jud’s shoes, I would have not left those silver bells, even if they represented ten years of grief, they were also the remembrance of an important part of his life.

On a side note, despite the sad feeling I already mentioned above, the story manages to be the same very sexy, to some level that, sometime, the reader has the idea that what Jud is missing is not much the love but more the lover. To the romantic reader who will not like the idea, I will suggest to consider the idea that, in a way, Jud and Derek were not made to be together, and that, if Derek had not died, there would be a good chance for both of them to outgrow their youth love; death instead, gave it a forever kind of nature.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0038QQG56/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

David is a spoiled brat; from a wealthy family, he realized soon in his life that he is gay and he never acted in a different way. He went to College and he shared a room with another gay student, even if not the same bed. But in the campus he had his share of adventures, and when he was ready for the job world, he was hired in his father's firm. True, he "asked" to begin from the low level ranks, but it's obvious that, if you are the boss's son, you would not have any problem in climbing that rank, soon and fast.

Than one year ago, David got his eyes on Seth, one of the young wonderboys of the firm, a man in list to be the younger Vice President. When they first met, David was only a new employee and they didn't have any chance to deepen their acquaintance, but now David is planning to trap Seth for a weekend in his house and have his way with the man.

As always in his life, David gets what he wants, and so it is with Seth; true, they make a bargain, David gets his wicked weekend with Seth, but on Monday all will remain inside the house and will not interfere with work. David accepts, but we all know that it will be not like this, David is not ready to let go his new toy.

I believe that you will have a very bad impression on David reading this, but it's not like that. David is only very self-conscious of what he is and what he wants; in a way he is sure and strong, a strange thing for a man so young, for me he is even stronger of Seth, who is older, 37 years old against 26, and on a career level upper than David. Of Seth we haven't many details, so I haven't a real perception of the man; he is nice but no more than this.

Probably the book is too short, 60 pages, to answer to all my question; for example I didn't understand the necessity to "turn" David from nephew of the boss to son... maybe it was worst to Seth to have a relationship with the boss's son than the nephew? I don't know.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/417496.html