Grace R. DuncanCritiques

Secrets was written for the M/M Romance Group's 2015 Love is an Open Road event. The MCs are Baxter and Logan and this is told in alternating third person povs.

Baxter and Logan are an established couple but they are going through some difficult times. Logan has kept secrets from Baxter so that Baxter's imagination is running wild. But Logan's secret is much wilder than Baxter could ever imagine.

They end up with more difficulties once the secret is out.

What I would have liked was to have had the author explain this: How does turning into wolf actually happen? Of course they are bitten, but then the person gets a wolf energy inside them. Does the bite give them a virus? Or does the bite allow wolf spirits to join with humans? Or is it one collective wolf consciousness that all wolf shifters tap into? Inquiring minds need to know. Anyway, that's the issue I wish was explained in the story but wasn't. Maybe the author will feel like writing a second story at some point.

This was a fast, east read. Very low angst and hit the spot for a light read. I give it 4 Stars

A short, but lovely, and loving, romance. I would love to know about Baxter and Logan.

This was a sweet Christmas story about Nick, who was celebrating his first Christmas without his mom, and his best friend Liam who was there for him through it all.

This was almost perfect!

Plot and sex did not overpower each other. Loved the characters, the two policemen, an established couple, who are partners at work and in life (not sure how realistic it is, tho, a married couple working together).

Very hot read! The only minus - this story begs a prequel. and a sequel. preferably two :D

4.5 stars, rounding up to 5.

Take two somewhat socially awkward “geeks”, make them best friends and sometime f*ck buddies, add a touch of D/s to their preferences, and you end up with one fascinating story. Part character study and part intriguing personal drama, ‘Turning His Life Around’ had me spellbound from the very start. Kane and Ia are wonderful, complex characters who do nothing the easy way.

Kane pulled me right into the story. He is intelligent, knows his stuff, but doesn’t like people very much. The fact he had an awful boss and got treated very badly may have something to do with my sympathies, but the way he stood up to the idiot boss made all the difference. Kane is anything but weak. The complicated relationship with his best friend / roommate / fuck buddy / occasional Dom, Ian, was the next thing that got to me, and as Kane's awful past starts unfolding, his behavior, hesitancy, and belief he cannot love anyone began to make sense. Kane has a long, hard road to travel and I was with him every step of the way.

Ian is a great guy and a good friend. He used to be a bit blind to certain aspects of Kane's personality, but is waking up fast as the novel progresses. He is deeply in love with Kane, but can't say it outside their D/s scenes for fear of being rejected. And he is sure Kane will reject him, because he knows Kane inside out. Can you spell I-S-S-U-E-S?
This could have easily been a “standard” friends-to-lover story. Nothing could be further from the truth, since there isn’t much “standard anything” in this story at all. The motivations and reasoning for who Kane and Ian are, and why they behave the way they do are pretty unique. The subplot of the two of them starting a business together on top of everything else that is going on made things even more interesting. A total delight!

If you like complex characters with real issues, if you want to find out how two “geeks” handle life when they figure out a “normal” job just isn’t going to work for them, and if you’re looking for a read with depth, revelations, and lots of character growth, then you will probably enjoy this novel as much as I did. And yes, to top it all off, the sex is pretty hot too!


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

A post-apocalyptic Christmas story is not exactly a common occurrence, but once I was reading it I realized there is no better situation to demonstrate the importance of hope. If most of humankind has been killed by some disease and the survivors' only worry is how to make it to the next day, a new beginning, finding love, or beginning to enjoy the little fun events in life is truly essential. This story, in a sweet, quiet way, gave the main characters (and me) exactly that: hope that love would still find a way.

Daniel has lost his previous life as an English teacher, and his husband died of the disease that destroyed everything. He doesn't dare hope for much more than a quiet Christmas on the small farm he has made his, but he has decided this year he will celebrate it again. When he ventures into the countryside to find a Christmas tree, he meets Jake. And suddenly he has a lot more t be grateful for than mere survival.

Jake has also lost a partner, but he has chosen to travel. He hasn't thought of settling down, but meeting Daniel and seeing the comparatively comfortable life he has eked out for himself, Jake wonders. Going through the Christmas preparations, including his first hot meal in a very long time, he begins to think there may be other, better ways of spending his life.

Both men have lost the man they loved, but both know they should go on and try to be happy. Neither of them has found that possible until they meet each other. Deprived of human companionship due to the struggle for survival, they find in each other what neither of them had dared hope for. If you're looking for a story about Christmas spirit in its truest form, give this one a try.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dremspinner Press for the purpose of a review.

Short and hot, this free story about Gylam and Jackson is definitely kinky, but also full of love. The two detectives are work partners, husbands, and both in the lifestyle. I thought it was interesting to see the effect Gylam's submission had on him, how pleasing his Dom made him relax and deal with stress better. Of course, he gets a lot of pleasure out of what they do together as well, but he additional focus even during work hours was an interesting side effect.

If you like your BDSM safe, sane, and consensual, if two men who enjoy the sweet and loving as much as the kinky and painful, and if you're looking for a read that showcases a lot of different BDSM techniques and their effects on the sub, then you will probably like this one.

I have so many issues with this book, I took notes on multiple post-it notes for this review (as I was reading it at work - guilty!).

This book is 200+ pages of EPIC FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE WITH ONE ANOTHER. I mean, I don't know anyone in real life who just lets miscommunication and crossed signals pile up to this point - and if someone does, they probably shouldn't be in a relationship anyway, because they need to work on their self-confidence. If someone is doing something to piss me off, that person will become quite aware of it quite quickly.

But not Tanner and Finley! No sir! They're both content to be on totally different tracks when it comes to their relationship, and sometimes those tracks aren't even parallel to one another. Having met when Finley was sixteen and Tanner was...22? (sorry, don't care enough to look that one up), these two knew almost instantly that they were destined to be mates. And in this world, that exists, so I'm not going to throw this into "instalove" territory just yet, because Tanner and Finley are werewolves, and that's one of the things that float around in this "world" (also knotting, which I surprisingly haven't seen in a published m/m book until this one, hmm).

But Tanner doesn't want to mate Finley too early. Finley's only sixteen, and Tanner is terrified that if they officially mate too early, Finley will feel like he didn't get a chance to live his life and will leave him.

Finley, on the other hand, just wants Tanner to claim him already - which, to be fair, he does say multiple times. Then, to prove his maturity and readiness to be mated, Finley acts like a petulant child and storms off to a gay club to make Tanner jealous. Regularly. As in, Tanner knew that would be where he would run to because he had done it many times before.

Don't worry, though - Tanner is even a BIGGER moron that Finley! Tanner is SO WORRIED about his mate leaving him, which led me to think that it must be a semi-common thing to happen. Nope. It's not. It just happened once, to Tanner's best friend, Eric. And it wasn't because the wolf he mated was too young - she was just a fickle slut (GOD DAMN IT NO MORE MISOGYNY IN MY M/M THANKS). And she was a "chosen" mate anyway, which meant she and Eric chose to mate (Tanner and Finley are destined mates, which is like more intense than chosen). And Tanner's parents LITERALLY cannot think of another wolf couple that has happened to in ever. So Tanner's fear that Finley will leave him seemed pretty unfounded.

Oh, and for all of Tanner's "we can't mate yet because you're not legal" bullshit, that isn't true either. Turns out that most wolves mate right around eighteen, which coincidentally, is Finley's age.

And Tanner is even MORE stupid, because even though he and Finley have been dating for over two years, not ONCE have they had sex (which can totally happen between mates before the official claiming - just no biting allowed) and not ONCE has Tanner ever told Finley that he loves him! WHAT THE FUCK. That is stupid and Tanner is stupid. It's okay if they want to be celibate, but it becomes pretty obvious fast that neither of them really WANT to be, and besides, what's the deal about not telling your destined one true love that you love him? Finley isn't even sure that Tanner wants to mate with him because he's never heard Tanner really say much of anything to him. Suddenly, Finley doesn't seem as stupid when compared to his bonehead mate.

Oh wait, except that I forget that Finley gets worse. He wants Tanner to mate him so badly that he runs across the country to Oregon (they are in Pennsylvania at the beginning of the book) and immediately starts dating this other guy, Jamie, and starts thinking about what it would be like to mate with him. What the fuck dude, you were practically begging Tanner to mate with you one day and two days later you're with some other guy and potentially planning a future? Don't wolves even DATE? How about mingling a bit before hopping into a serious relationship again? And Finley sort-of cheats on Tanner (I say sort-of because I am uncertain how Finley viewed their relationship at that point, although Tanner still saw them as in a relationship). But it's okay, because he TOLD Tanner if he didn't fuck him, he'd fuck someone else, so it's fine! That's...not how most relationships work, and Finley's rampant immaturity is just ridiculously over the top.

Jamie, the new dude, is kind of a jerk. He lies to Tanner about the nature of his relationship with Finley IN FINLEY'S PRESENCE and Finley does nothing to set the record straight, which is never really addressed AT ALL because they're destined mates so it's ~*~okay~*~. Also, he totally instaloves Finley. And they become "best friends" since they can't be mates, without knowing anything about one another. What.

Also, SUPER CREEPED OUT by the fact that for the claiming ceremony, Tanner and Finley have to fuck in front of members of his wolf pack. Seriously. And the wolves just have sex with their mates in broad view of children (six-year-old Tanner stumbled upon two of his pack members having sex in the woods, for example) and this is seen as totally normal. Tanner's parents, almost whenever they are on the page, have to talk about sex to their son, who is clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable with the situation. This almost feels like a cult that grooms children for sexual abuse, if you ask me. Not good.

If you didn't click on the spoiler cut, you missed out on a shit ton of ranting. Just saying.

Finally, for the love of all that is holy, I do not want to read another scene in which only spit is used as lube EVER AGAIN. Have anal sex with just spit as lube and see how it feels - I am venturing not very good. Having sex with a dildo covered in sandpaper sounds about as appealing to me, personally (which is to say, NOT APPEALING AT ALL THANK YOU).½