Review Tuesday: The Induction of Satine by JL Peridot -- #SciFi #Erotica #ReviewTuesday

The Induction of Satine by JL Peridot

Muscoca Media, 2017

Satine Luna doesn’t believe the rumors about off-world prisons for people caught misbehaving on the main planet. Then she’s arrested for theft, hustled into a transport, swept off to a bleak installation on one of the moons and delivered into the hands of Warden Jet. The warden treats her with surprising respect, even as he strips her of autonomy and dignity. Expecting brutality and painful discipline, Satine is initially confused. As the process of her induction continues, she finds that desire is not incompatible with punishment.

I’ve been aware of J.L. Peridot’s work for many years, since we were both active during the golden age of literary erotica in the first decade of the twenty first century. I’ve always found her prose supremely arousing without being gratuitously explicit. She often focuses in on subtle sensory nuances and the corresponding emotional resonance, leaving the reader to infer the blatant physical responses.

Recent books of hers that I’ve reviewed (for example, Yet We Sleep, We Dream and Until We Met Again) have drifted more deeply into science fiction themes while retaining an undercurrent of eroticism. The Induction of Satine, in contrast, offers pure unadulterated sensuality.

We know almost nothing about Satine. Hints suggest she might have been a member of some criminal gang, planet-side, but that’s just an impression. The society in which she lives is likewise a cipher. The rumored lunar prisons might be instruments of oppression or tools to advance civilization.

The author does give us a sense of Satine’s personality: manipulative, rebellious, motivated entirely by self-interest. At the same time, she’s clearly young and rather surprisingly innocent. As Warden Jet begins the process of her “rehabilitation”, she struggles to hold on to her resistance in the face of traitorous desire and burgeoning pleasure.

This is pure erotica, luscious and compelling. There’s no real plot to get in the way. At the same time, The Induction of Satine has a depth that is often missing in ordinary smut. As I’ve often tried to emphasize in my own stories, there’s no such thing as “just sex”. JL Peridot understands and demonstrates this truth.

This is the first of a planned quintet of short tales involving Satine. I have the next one, The Manipulation of Satine, on my tablet already. I am looking forward to reading it.

Review Tuesday: Their Untameable Passion by A P von K'Ory #RomanticSuspense #ActionAdventure #ReviewTuesday

Their Untameable Passion by A P von K’Ory

AuthorMeProfessionals Press, 2023

Nicknamed “Gorgeous Ice Block” by her envious and admiring colleagues in the world of finance, Leontine “Leo” Boswell is fiercely intelligent and doggedly willful. Leo is determined to unearth the truth about her mother’s mysterious murder. In the course of her barely legal investigations, she takes risks that lead her into an ambush and she is kidnapped by the Phantom, a shadowy figure of enormous power. She finds herself half-naked, chained to the floor on a boat in the middle of the sea. Though Leo struggles to remain strong and rational, her captor knows how to wring the maximum anguish out of his stubborn but vulnerable prisoner.

Adrian Xerxes Cranford, Leo’s first and only lover, is in Europe on his own mission against the Phantom when he learns about Leo’s abduction. Crushed by the news, furious and desperate to save his “Adrian goddess”, he’ll move heaven and earth, crack skulls and slit throats, to set her free. First, though, he has to find her.

Their Untameable Passion is the third installment of A P von K’Ory’s Untameable erotic romance series. Unlike the first two books, which focused on Leo’s and Adrian’s incendiary erotic connection and their slowly developing mutual trust, this novel shifts into action/adventure mode. The story reads like a Mission Impossible episode, as Leo and Adrian individually fight to defeat a seemingly omnipotent adversary. Complicated plans, advanced intel-tech, split-second coordination... Ms. von K’Ory even has Adrian jumping out of a helicopter thousands of feet above the ocean.

The author keeps Leo and Adrian apart for nearly the entire book. Surprisingly, this amplifies the volume on their passion. Each of them suffers deeply from their separation and their worries about the other’s welfare. Their pain is visceral, mirroring the intensely physical nature of their relationship. There are no sex scenes at all in Their Untameable Passion, aside from memories and fantasies, yet the lovers’ constant focus on one another keeps the level of erotic tension high until the outrageous, thrilling conclusion.

Like much of this author’s work, this book is extreme in both plot and emotions. If someone summarized the novel for me, I’d probably giggle and shake my head at its lack of realism. As I read, however, I found myself suspending disbelief, carried along by the author’s confidence and conviction. Ms. von K’Ory clearly feels every nuance of her characters’ pain and passion. She manages to make this real and immediate for her readers. We’re passengers on Adrian’s and Leo’s roller coaster of lust and love. After the fact, we might wonder whether any of this is plausible, but while we’re on the ride, there are no doubts.

All in all, I greatly enjoyed Their Untameable Passion. When faced with adversity, Leo and Adrian come to a deeper understanding of how much they care for one another. They release their remaining resistance and mistrust of one another in the process of their life-and-death battle against the Phantom. Adrian, in particular, comes to realize that he literally cannot live without Leo – a humbling conclusion for someone so arrogant and macho. Despite its action/adventure trappings, this novel is true romance, providing a delicious HEA with a love so pure and powerful that it almost hurts – which is exactly what Leo and Adrian crave.

Review Tuesday: Gaelic Magic by Fiona McGier -- #Paranormal #EroticRomance #ReviewTuesday

Gaelic Magic by Fiona McGier

Extasy Books, 2023

Celebrated romance novelist Naomi Delu Morris has fans worldwide, but currently she’s suffering from writer’s block. She finds herself prey to debilitating anxiety attacks, with no clue as to their source. Desperate to get her career back on track – to get the characters in her head talking to her again – she undertakes an experimental dream-therapy program, journeying backward through her memories in the company of her guide (the somewhat sleazy Dr. Alan) in an attempt to discover the forgotten trauma that has been triggering her distress.

At her first appointment, Naomi meets Will Hamilton, Dr. Alan’s Scottish graduate student. Will’s glorious, kilt-wearing body, his seductive brogue, and his shy and considerate demeanor all enchant Naomi, but his ethics won’t allow him to get involved with her while the therapy is ongoing. However, Naomi’s a woman of the world who knows what she wants. It soon becomes clear that despite his reticence, the desire is mutual.

But Will is more than just handsome, charming and sweet. As the two grow closer, Naomi learns that he’s the channel for ancient powers, bent on retribution. Furthermore, it turns out that she is personally entangled in the evil web he has come to destroy, and that her own well-being as well as their relationship depend on his success.

Gaelic Magic is fun, romantic and wonderfully original. A mash-up of half-a-dozen genres, it keeps you guessing until the very end. I loved the way Naomi’s previously created characters step out of her head to become characters in this novel. (I recognized Fiona McGier’s lady spy from her other books.) I adored seeing Naomi with her mother and grandmother, three generations of strong, confident women who aren’t afraid to speak their minds or reach for what they want. Will is perhaps gentler and more restrained than Ms. McGier’s typical heroes – but he is no less passionate.

The book is short (only 95 pages in Epub on my ereader, though Amazon lists it as 166 print pages), but manages to pack in an impressive amount of action, emotion, and opinion. I’m very familiar with Ms. McGier’s work, and I recognize her personal perspective in this story. Perhaps my favorite comment comes when Naomi tells Will that men no longer have to ponder the age-old question “What do women want?” All they need to do, according to Naomi, is read a modern erotic romance – preferably one of hers!

Review Tuesday moved to Wednesday - Yet We Sleep, We Dream by JL Peridot #ScienceFiction #Fantasy #ReviewTuesday

Yet We Sleep, We Dream by J.L Peridot

Muscoca Media, 2023

Aboard the starship Athenia, orbiting the environmentally ravaged planet Thisbe, four Australian undergraduates work on their senior thesis research under the watchful eye of veteran captain Tracy Nielsen. Geologist Damian, botanist Helena, artist Olek and media and communications major Mia have intertwined histories, in some cases going back to high school. Only the ship’s engineer Nick is an outsider – though given the tortured relationships among the quartet of friends, this might be considered a blessing. Even the captain has her emotional cross to bear, in the form of her ex-husband Aaron Lee who has been assigned to supervise the students.

Things are complicated enough with all the human emotions in play. When the ship is contaminated with alien dust from one of Damian’s experiments, the universe tilts, shifts and morphs in strange ways none of the crew can understand. The residue from Thisbe’s surface carries the spirits of Oberon and Titania, gods once worshiped by inhabitants of the long-dead planet below. Like many gods, Titania and Oberon are willful and self-absorbed, mischievous and seductive. Taking human forms, they tease, torment and take their pleasure with the mortals among whom they find themselves. Indeed, even the AI-enabled maintenance robot Charlie is not immune to their influence.

Inexplicable crises assail the Athenia. It seems that the crew might not survive – and those experiences on the edge elicit new reactions and realizations. As one might expect after encounters with gods, the young people are changed. At the same time, Titania and Oberon find their own passions rekindled by their encounters with the frail, foolish, but somehow transcendent mortals with whom they’ve been playing.

Anyone who reads my reviews will know how much weight I give to originality. Yet We Sleep, We Dream is one of the most creative novels I’ve read in a while. The premise is outrageous – undergraduates millions of light years from home (Australia!) – even before the gods show up. The implausibility hardly matters, though, because we’re immediately sucked into the emotional storms that batter the characters. With a mastery that makes it look easy, JL Peridot delves into each of their hearts, showing us their beliefs, their insecurities and their desires. This close-up view is a reminder of how different our perceptions can be from those of the people around us. Even Charlie gets its (his?) turn as the point of view character. It takes skill and imagination to portray the mind of a machine.

JL Peridot’s prose is gorgeous and lyrical. She excels at chronicling the experience of desire – not just the visceral sensations but the mysterious way they trigger deep-seated emotional responses. There’s an early chapter that particularly struck me, in which Helena relives her intensely passionate encounters with Damian, whom she still loves despite his rejection. It is beautiful, heart-wrenching and absolutely true.

There’s quite a bit of sex in Yet We Sleep, We Dream, much of it initiated by the invading gods, including some delightfully sensual same-gender interactions. The descriptions are more poetic than graphic, firmly rooted in the truth that eroticism begins in the mind and usually touches the heart.

The author also succeeds in her lush descriptions of altered states of consciousness and the way they can open your eyes. Between their own drugs and the intoxicants offered by the gods, the crew of the Athenia step outside into new dimensions and come to see themselves and their companions in new ways.

Though definitely not hard science fiction (indeed, one might label it as surreal), the novel does a good job portraying the dangers of space. When you’re enclosed in a thin-walled bubble of air floating in the void, there’s painfully fine line between life and death. Still, one might be forgiven for thinking that the science fiction aspects of Yet We Sleep, We Dream are largely metaphor. We are all on a voyage of discovery, as insulated from one another as if we were wearing space suits. Our visions are limited, unless we break down the barriers and open ourselves to a more expansive reality – one that is grounded in the power of love.

Review Tuesday moved to Thursday: Her Untameable Lust by A P von K'Ory #EroticRomance #Suspense #ReviewTuesday

Her Untameable Lust by A P von K’Ory

Self-Published, 2022

Leontine “Leo” Boswell deserves the somewhat nasty sobriquet bestowed by admiring, envious New York society: Gorgeous Ice Block. Exquisitely beautiful, ferociously intelligent, rigorously self-disciplined, a calculating predator who wields tremendous power at the top of the finance world food chain, Leo is formidable and untouchable. A secret history of violence and abuse has fueled her ambition while eroding her ability to trust, especially to trust men.

Then she meets Adrian Xerxes Cranford, a gorgeous, brilliant and insufferably arrogant Brit with secrets of his own. Like calls to like, darkness to darkness: Adrian turns out to be the one man with the ability to kindle Leo’s desire and melt her heart. Smugly certain of his own irresistible power over women in general and Leo in particular, he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that he’s irrevocably bound to the passionate, stubborn woman he has claimed as his.

Her Untameable Lust continues Leo’s and Adrian’s story, begun in His Untameable Wickedness. Leo and Adrian have mostly stopped fighting their intense emotional and physical connection. Adrian is pursuing complex, covert operations to punish the forces responsible for murdering Leo’s mother. He insists that Leo stand back and stay well out of harm’s way. When she violates his instructions, he punishes her with brutal sex that neither seems to be able to resist.

I found the first half of Her Untameable Lust both compelling and disturbing. With their overwhelming passion and mutual darkness, Leo’s and Adrian’s relationship strains credulity. Nevertheless, the author managed to suck me in. Both characters are damaged and of questionable morality. Yet underneath their fierce, competitive interactions, I sense a strange innocence, an unbreakable love that neither of them wanted or expected but which they can’t deny. Somehow this calls to the romantic in me.

Although I’m partial to erotic scenes and write BDSM content myself, I’m really not comfortable with characters who engage in dangerously rough sex to the point of damaging one another. Adrian can be cruel and scary. Women have died in the hands of men like him. It’s consensual – though just barely. Leo eggs him on; her abused background has made her a genuine masochist. Nevertheless, I can’t really enjoy a sex scene in which a woman is fucked so hard that she bleeds and cannot walk. To me, that’s the opposite of arousing.

For some reason, though, I didn’t give up on the book. I was too invested, despite myself, in Leo’s and Adrian’s connection, and too curious to see what would happen next.

The latter half of the book swings away from sex toward other types of action, as Adrian and Leo, independently, pursue her mother’s murderers. To be honest, I couldn’t follow (or recall) a lot of the plot details from Book 1, but it didn’t really matter. It’s a guilty pleasure to watch both Leo and Adrian at work – bold, brilliant, and ready to take risks. As Leo races off on her motorcycle, I was reminded of Emma Peel from The Avengers. Leo is younger and more twisted, but has some of the same style.

A warning: Her Untameable Lust ends with a cliff-hanger. I know that some readers dislike this. As for me, I’m looking forwarded to reading Book 3. Despite myself, I’m hooked.

Review Tuesday moved to Thursday: Passion in the Cards by Sadira Stone – #OppositesAttract #ComingSoon #ReviewTuesday

 

 

Passion in the Cards by Sadira Stone

Coming May 15, 2023

Gemma is the quintessential Aquarian: freedom-loving, unconventional, mystical. She loves travel, novel environments and new experiences. When she shows up in the seaside Oregon town of Trapper’s Cover to visit her Aunt Zora, to some extent she’s lost her way. Though she’s in her thirties, she doesn’t feel ready to settle down the way her last boyfriend wanted, but she’s honestly not sure what path she should be following.

Jesse matches his Taurus sun sign equally well. Solid, reliable, emotionally connected to the land he farms and to his hometown, he’s seeking peace and contentment, not stimulation. Still, he can’t shake off his fascination with the scintillating beauty working at Zora’s metaphysical emporium. Indeed, Gemma has held a special place in his heart and his memory since they were teens. However, it appears that she doesn’t recognize him from that period at all.

Given their very different personalities, it seems unlikely Gemma and Jesse could develop a stable relationship, but their intense mutual attraction complicates matters. Physically, they’re perfectly compatible. Psychologically, their relationship is a mine field. As they grow closer, the risk of their hurting one another increases in proportion.

Passion in the Cards is a short, satisfying romance with appealing characters and a beautifully detailed setting. The core conflict, Gemma’s and Jesse’s supposedly incompatible natures, feels slightly strained since they obviously do have a lot in common (besides their mutual lust). However, I was ready to believe that Gemma could deeply wound her lover, without foreseeing the effects of her impulsiveness.

Like all of the Sadira Stone stories I’ve read, Passion in the Cards celebrates the fusion of love and physical desire, demonstrating the delightful way that emotion magnifies eroticism. I found Jesse to be devastatingly sexy. The author plays with his Taurean identity by giving him a powerful, bull-like physique and a libido to match. At the same time, he’s incredibly sweet and vulnerable.

Gemma seemed somewhat less well-developed as a character, but I did get a sense of both her indecision and her strong intuition. Meanwhile, even in this short piece the author manages to create strong secondary characters such as Zora and her wife Marquetta. This book is, I gather, the first of a series set in Trapper’s Cove. I could definitely see opportunities to explore other people’s stories.

I’ve spent very little time in Oregon but I remember one amazing drive along the coast, many decades ago. The beauty left me breathless. It’s not hard for me to imagine Trapper’s Cove, even in the winter when this story takes place.

Passion in the Cards is an enjoyable read by an author whose work always leaves me feeling happy. And that, after all, is the point of romance.

Review Tuesday: The Waikiki Hummer by Shannon Stiles – #Erotica #Humor #ReviewTuesday

 

 

The Waikiki Hummer (Volume 1) by Shannon Stiles

Self-published, 2021

Terry Jean Rollins is a twenty-three year old, “cute rather than beautiful” resident of Waikiki Beach who has rather unorthodox sexual preferences. Her hobby – nay, her passion – involves riding the buses that ply her town, picking up strange men, and going back to their places for energetic and thorough oral sex. Terry prefers her men on the dorky, unstylish side – they tend to be more grateful, for one thing – but occasionally she’ll make an exception and go off to blow someone who’s actually attractive. That almost always turns out to be a mistake, though – in the case of handsome gangster Tony, a big mistake. When he gets rough with her and uses her without her consent, Terry Jean is determined to get even. The first volume of the Waikiki Hummer series alternates between Terry’s truly awe-inspiring blow jobs and her clever plans for revenge.

Intrigued by the blurb, I picked up a copy of this book for free during a special offer. I must say, it was every bit as entertaining as I’d hoped. Terry Jean is thoroughly outrageous, yet at the same time her life has a strange, internally consistent logic. Furthermore, I share her attraction to nerds.

As warned by the author, the book is indeed jubilantly filthy. I didn’t really find it arousing, but other readers might react differently. Certainly Terry’s antics had me chuckling throughout the story. And it really feels good to see a woman being unapologetically wanton, without being punished by society or by karma.

I’m sure there are a lot of men out there who’d enjoy meeting a woman like Terry Jean. I can only hope they get lucky!

Two damaged souls -- #LiteraryFiction #Depression #ReviewTuesday

Blurb

On the night of a blue moon, while walking his dog, middle-aged widower Jim sees Gladys on the roof of a neighboring apartment building and is inspired to speak with her. There’s just one problem: she can’t hear him.

Indeed, Jim isn’t even sure that Gladys truly exists—that she isn’t just a rooftop patio umbrella silhouetted against the moon. Hampered by debilitating social anxiety, he cannot work up the courage to even wave.

Yet Jim returns to the same spot night after night, and Gladys—who is indeed real—sees him and becomes equally interested. She even contributes to their “conversation,” though he cannot hear her either. And while Gladys struggles with her own demons—self-loathing and depression—she is lifted by Jim’s attention, even as she describes how difficult her life has been.

Two characters, driven by sadness and a longing to connect. Will they?

Excerpt

Women aren’t jumpers. Did you know that? We don’t use guns either—at least not on ourselves. We’d shoot a prick on a moment’s notice, though. Ha ha. Anyway, John—although I’d love to throw myself off this planet, it ain’t going to happen. But you never know, do you? Sorry. Not trying to fake you out. Are you lonely, John? God, it’s getting cold and miserable out here. Walk Bowser, John, so I can leave my post and get warm. I’m going to stay very still until you leave. Maybe you’ll forget that I’m a real person. We can continue our chat some other night. I’m going to stay very still, so you can drift away.

Review by Lisabet Sarai

Meet Jim. A real estate lawyer who lost his wife to cancer, he lives a quiet, lonely life: going to work, cooking for himself, walking his dog Gus. Nobody would suspect he was a keen observer of his fellow humans. Aside from his clients, nobody cares what he thinks or feels. Only Gus knows what’s going on in his mind and heart.

Meet Gladys. An LPN on stress-related leave after a work-related breakdown, she’s trying to drum up the courage to kill herself. Night after night she stands motionless on the roof of her apartment building, contemplating the possibility of jumping. For days at a time she doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t sleep, barely eats, just sits at home drowning in a slough of self-disgust.

Walking Gus after dark, Jim happens to look up and see Gladys, silhouetted against the moon. He’d noticed her before, but thought she was a deck umbrella, but that night, he feels sure he’s detected some movement. Now there’s a purpose to his nightly strolls with his dog; he sits on the low wall opposite Gladys’ building, carrying on long conversations that she, of course, cannot hear.

Meanwhile, Gladys has noticed him as well. Mentally, she taunts him, berates him, implores him to notice her. She desperately wants him to wave, but as time goes on, she comes to believe she’s just as invisible to him as she is to everyone else.

Paul Swingle’s novel Silhouette captures the disconnected conversations between these two isolated people. As the book progresses, we learn more about both Jim and Gladys – their family histories, largely responsible for their lack of self-esteem, their past joys, their dreams. We come to see that both are good, caring people, apparently cast aside by society. The reader is desperate for the two of them to connect. But is it realistic to believe that two such damaged souls could complete one another?

You’ll need to read the book to find out.

Silhouette is both painful and uplifting. The author is a therapist. I’m sure he’s known people like Jim and Gladys. Through their voices, he brings the desperation of depression and the quieter agony of loneliness to vivid life. I suspect that some readers will identify with one or both of the characters. I hope that this short, insightful novel will offer them some peace.

About the Author

Dr. Paul G. Swingle can be considered one of the founding fathers of Clinical Psychoneurophysiology, one of a select few, directly responsible for bringing Neurotherapy out of university labs and clinics to the general populace in the 1980’s.

His academic positions include, Professor of Psychology at the University of Ottawa from 1972 to 1997, Lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School from 1991 to 1998, Associate Attending Psychologist at McLean Hospital (Boston), Head of the Clinical Psychophysiology Service McLean Hospital (Boston). Professor Swingle was also Clinical Supervisor at the University of Ottawa from 1987 to 1997 and Chairman of the Faculty of Child Psychology from 1972 to 1977. Dr. Swingle is a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia and is Board Certified in Biofeedback and Neurotherapy. He is actively involved in research and practice. His numerous publications include nine books and numerous peer reviewed journal publications.

https://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-Paul-G-Swingle/dp/B09C3D527K

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61878792

Paul G. Swingle will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review Tuesday: The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill -- #Laos #Mystery #ReviewTuesday

The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill

Soho Crime, 2015

A seventy-something veteran of Laos' guerilla war for independence is more or less forced to take the position of National Coroner in newly liberated Communist Laos. Dr. Siri meets the trials and tribulations of his position, the political subtleties and the real-world threats, with intelligence and a very Buddhist acceptance. It helps that he has had glimpses of the world beyond death; the individuals who are brought into his morgue frequently appear to him in dreams, often to offer cryptic clues about their demise.

I adored this first volume of what has to be one of the most original mystery series I've ever encountered. Having visited Laos several times (though well after the period covered in this novel), I could appreciate the cultural and geographic details. The book offers snappy dialogue, distinctive and appealing characters and frequent self-deprecating humor, with hints of more serious themes involving life, death and compassion.

Highly recommended!

Review Tuesday: The Pirate Duchess by Rue Allyn -- #RegencyRomance #EnemiesToLovers #ReviewTuesday

 

The Pirate Duchess by Rue Allyn

Prowl Publishing, 2023

Enemies-to-lovers is a popular romance trope. It’s unusual, though, to encounter a hero and heroine fighting on different sides in an actual war.

Brandon Gilroy is a British naval officer, opposing United States’ interests in the War of 1812. Esmeralda Crobbin is a privateer on the American side. Captain of the Erie Mist, a swift and well-armed ship she has inherited from her foster father, she works to break the British blockade.

In their first encounter, they cooperate to fight off a group of thugs who have attacked Esme’s first mate. Unlike a typical Regency-era male, the gallant Brandon is deeply impressed by Esme’s fighting skill as well as by her distinctive beauty. Only later does he learn that she is essentially a pirate, preying on British ships on behalf of the US – a role that qualifies her for hanging, should the British catch her.

When the Erie Mist defeats his ship in battle, and Esme maroons Gilroy and his crew on a deserted (though well-provisioned) island, he swears he’ll see her dangling from the gallows.

As you might gather, there’s a good deal more than romance at stake in this enjoyable historical romance. Political intrigue and social conflicts entangle both Brandon and Esme. On land, Brandon is the son of a duke and must juggle his responsibilities to his family with his reluctant attraction to the daring lady pirate. Meanwhile, Esme keeps her own secrets, as she works to discover the truth about her origins.

The Pirate Duchess is original and surprising, with a heroine that I could not help but love. Not only is Esme intelligent and courageous, she also has a no-nonsense practicality that really appealed to me. Her disregard for her appearance, for instance, was deeply refreshing. The contrast between her priorities and those of the bevy of ladies assembled as candidates for Brandon’s duchess could hardly have been more stark.

My main criticism of the novel involves its lack of plausibility. The plot depends upon coincidental meetings that become less and less believable the more often they occur. What are the chances, for instance, that out of all the British ships patrolling the seas, the Erie Mist should encounter Brandon’s boat?

Of course, if you believe in soul mates and happily ever afters, you can simply shrug and call it fate. It’s clear from their earliest encounters that Esme and Brandon are both in some sense outlaws, and that they belong together. If the universe cooperates a bit too much with this, most readers probably will not complain.

Review Tuesday: Knight Errant by Rue Allyn – #HistoricalRomance #MedievalRomance #ReviewTuesday

 

Knight Errant by Rue Allyn

Prowl Books, 2015

The year is 1294. Lady Juliana Verault is a noblewoman, cousin to the King of England, but she has fled her privileged existence to join a community of lay religious women called Beguines, headquartered in Belgium. Intelligent, courageous, compassionate and stubborn, she wants to follow her faith, heal the sick and remain single. Her personal history has taught her that men are vicious beasts and that women who wed them are little better than slaves.

Sir Robert Clarwyn has been sent by King Edward to retrieve the Lady Juliana and bring her back to England, where she’s to be the pawn in a political marriage. He catches up with her in Italy, but finds his mission far more difficult than he’d expected. Not only is Juliana unwilling to accompany him, but she and her sister Beguines have attracted the attention of a cruel but influential priest who views the lay sisters as heretics, and delights in torturing them. Sir Robert must rescue her, then keep her safe during the long journey back to her home country. Meanwhile, he finds himself falling in love with her. He has undertaken the King’s commission in order to free himself from dishonor, but his passion for the forbidden Juliana could easily be viewed as treason.

I really enjoyed this historical romance, especially the background on the Beguines. I wasn’t previously aware of this movement, but it provided a realistic and compelling context for the love story in Knight Errant. Ms. Allyn begins the book with a disclaimer about the characters and historical accuracy, but my researches after I’d finished indicate that the basic situation with the lay religious movements was as she describes. The women wanted to be left alone to live in peace and offer charity. The men in charge of the Church saw them as threats. (Indeed, there are still echoes of this dynamic in modern Catholicism.)

Juliana is a delightful heroine, truly admirable while still having some flaws. She saves a number of lives over the course of the novel, while risking her own. Her efforts to sidestep Sir Robert and stymie his commission are just this side of humorous. Though he has many excellent qualities, he’s no match for her. Ultimately, of course, she succumbs to her attraction for the brave and austere knight. The circumstances of her deflowering are surprising, and I won’t spoil the pleasure by sharing them here, but suffice to say that their coming together only ratchets up the conflict.

In fact, I don’t read that much romance because I often find it overly predictable. Of course I knew that this novel would have a happy ending, but I could not guess exactly how the author was going to resolve what seemed like a near-impossible situation. And when Robert and Juliana finally are together, with the King’s blessing, I felt the satisfaction that keeps romance readers coming back for another HEA.

I bought a copy of Knight Errant after reading in the author’s newsletter that it was on sale for ninety nine cents. Just an indication that author newsletters and special deals do work! I’d never read any of Ms. Allyn’s work before. If Knight Errant is representative of her romances, I’ll definitely be seeking out other titles.

Review Tuesday: For the Long Run by Cheyenne Blue -- #LesbianRomance #SportsRomance #ReviewTuesday

For the Long Run by Cheyenne Blue

Ylva Publishing, 2022

Shan’s entire life revolves around her running. Her ambition: first the Commonwealth Games, then the Olympics. Everything else takes second place. Totally focused, she’s determined not to let anything, or anyone, get in the way of her goal.

Except someone does – an amateur runner in a koala suit who blunders into Shan at a race and precipitates a serious knee injury. Faced with the prospect of orthopedic surgery and a long, painful recovery, Shan is angry and bitter, and she blames Lizzie Carras, the koala in question. Meanwhile, Shan’s trying to figure out how she’ll manage to climb the four flights to her apartment on crutches, how she’ll get to doctor’s and physiotherapist’s appointments, how she’ll survive entirely on her own.

Motivated half by guilt and half by compassion, Lizzie suggests that Shan can stay temporarily in her spare bedroom. It’s a logical solution to Shan’s problem, and works out surprisingly well. Perhaps too well. Shan finds herself strongly attracted to her curvy, dusky-skinned roommate. And it’s not just physical – the feeling of comfort and connection she gets when she’s with Lizzie make her realize just how empty her emotional life was before the accident.

Re-training her body and regaining her edge will require Shan’s total dedication, though, or at least that’s what she believes. There’s no room in her life for a relationship. Meanwhile, Lizzie has made it clear that despite the way she’s drawn to Shan, she’s not going to be satisfied with casual sex.

I’m totally uninterested in most sports. Although at some level I admire the dedication of serious athletes, I tend to think their obsessions are unhealthy. Still, I’ll read anything written by Cheyenne Blue. Her previous sports romance Code of Conduct drew me in, in spite of myself, and the same thing happened with this book.

When Ms. Blue creates characters, they take on a life of their own – to the point that I found myself really disliking Shan. She seemed selfish as well as seriously lacking in self-awareness. Her running friend Celia is equally self-centered.

Lizzie, on the other hand, is so lovable that I just wanted to give her a hug. A bit insecure herself, she’s dedicated to helping others. Her devotion to the puppy she’s fostering is a touchstone of her personality. When she collides with Shan, she’s doing a pledge run for charity. As her relationship with Shan develops, one wonders whether Lizzie has enough heart for the both of them.

I won’t say any more about the plot, though since this is a romance you can probably guess the two women ultimately work out their conflicts. One of the joys of the book, though, is the way that Lizzie discovers a love for running. She approaches the sport in a totally different way than Shan. It’s a way for her to connect with her physical self as well as to gain a new sort of self-confidence.

Shan helps her with training, and in the process, becomes (for me) a more sympathetic protagonist.

One thing I love about Cheyenne’s books is the fact that everyone seems to view same-sex relationships as normal. I don’t know if this is a realistic portrayal of urban society in Australia or not. I hope so.

All in all, I enjoyed For the Long Run. In the afterward, the author talks about her own experiences with running, which have a lot in common with Lizzie’s. That personal commentary gave the ending a special glow.

Review Tuesday Moved to Thursday: A Reluctant Santa by Adriana Kraft – #HolidayRomance #MatureRomance #ReviewTuesday @AdrianaKraft

A Reluctant Santa by Adriana Kraft

Extasy Books, 2022

Despite the impression you might get from the majority of romance books available, some people are older than forty. Furthermore, the craving for love – as well as the desire for sexual pleasure – do not suddenly vanish as one ages, though the blind, hormone-driven frenzy of young lust might subside. If anything, mature romance is more nuanced and emotionally satisfying. People with some experience of life usually understand themselves and their needs better than twenty-year-olds. Most people in their fifties, sixties or beyond know something about relationships that work, versus those that do not.

And of course everyone knows that older men, and older women, make better lovers...!

I’ve written a few mature romance tales myself. As an official senior citizen, I’m always on the lookout for stories that handle love and sex between older people with realism and respect. Thus, when I read a pre-release snippet from Adriana Kraft’s holiday tale A Reluctant Santa on her blog, I was eager to get an ARC.

A Reluctant Santa chronicles the early stages in a relationship between Carol, a widow, and Cliff, a divorcé, both in their early fifties. Set up on a blind date by their friends, they’re surprised but pleased to discover the level of comfort and connection they feel in one another’s presence. There’s a spark of physical attraction, too, but both are cautious about acting on this. They’re not shy, just deliberate. Carol, in particular, is quite blunt in specifying that she wants comprehensive STD test results before she’ll indulge in intercourse, but that she’s happy to engage in oral or anal activities while they’re waiting for the test outcomes. (I found this a bit of a stretch, actually, since many STDs can be transmitted by any genital contact, but this serves as a device to slow down their sexual relationship and build erotic tension.)

Holidays, of course, and especially the Christmas season, are emotionally fraught. Carol and Cliff both worry about spending holiday time together, building their own expectations as well as those of the people around them. The author does an excellent job conveying their conflicts. They want to be together and rejoice in their apparent compatibility, but hold back from assuming anything about their future.

Twenty-somethings are quick to label their latest amour as their soul-mate. (I was certainly guilty of this when I was that age.) Older people know better.

A Reluctant Santa has a fun, romantic ending, but I found myself wishing the story were longer. Perhaps Adriana Kraft will pen a sequel to explore the next chapter in this couple’s journey.

Blurb

Is it ever too late to find happiness?

They’re in their fifties. Grief-stricken (her) and battle scarred (him) from their previous loves, they don’t want to risk more heartbreak, ever. They’ll have to take it slow, talk it through, test the waters carefully. Can they make it happen at this speed, get it done in a short story, and reap the benefits of sizzling sex at their age? Why not?

A new release from Extasy Books, available December 2^nd.

What They’re Saying

A Christmas cracker - "A short, sweet and sexy Xmas romance that will bring festive hope to all the over 50's – love and a fulfilling sex life is not just for the younger generation.”

Pre-order link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSB5DKS/

 

Review Tuesday: Alien Baggage Allowance by James Helps – #Satire #ScienceFiction #ReviewTuesday

Alien Baggage Allowance: A Collection of Micro Stories from Outta Space by James Helps

Second Edition 2022

They came from outer space...

How many science fiction books have been written about humans’ first contact with an alien species? Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, I’d guess. After all, there are so many different scenarios, so many different ways events could unfold. Imagination can scarcely encompass the huge number of possible forms the Visitors might take or what their motives might be. Perhaps even more of a question is how we, the human race, might respond.

Alien Baggage Allowance is one author’s rapid fire exploration of this huge space of possibilities. In mini-stories ranging from a few paragraphs to a few pages, James Helps presents a gallery of vignettes about what might happen “When they came”.

These bizarre tales are sometimes hilarious, sometimes satirical, often cringe-inducing. Though they’re very short, I could not read too many at one sitting, partially because some of them made me distinctly uncomfortable. This is clearly the author’s intention. As I proceeded to the end of the book, it became clear that these stories aren’t really about aliens, but rather, about us.

I’ll quote a few, to give you a taste of Mr. Helps’ off-beat humor and understated irony.

CB Radio

WHEN THEY CAME, they were so astonished with our advanced technologies — they couldn’t get enough of our hair dryers, microwaves and CD players — that it made us wonder how they had navigated across the galaxy and had located a life-sustaining planet such as our own. As they did not speak any of our languages, more of a guttural chunter, it took a while for them to comprehend our confusion. Through a series of charades and drawings they finally cottoned on. All they could do was laugh to one another, and then proceeded to answer our questions with equally crude methods.

The upshot being: a spacecraft had come from space to their planet; they thought the sun was attacking them; they killed the Visitors that emerged from the sun-god spacecraft with clubs and spears; took their clothes and in the ship there was a big button with a picture of a man on it, they pressed it, some of them hoping it would bring their Visitors back to life because they were feeling a bit guilty, yet others hoped it would reveal more of their Visitors to kill; but what it actually did was bring the ship here, to Earth.

So there was intelligent life out there but these weren’t them.

Denmark

WHEN THEY CAME, we thought they were just so damned cool. What with their winning smiles, shiny space-clothes, their special anti-gravity boots, the swaggering bouncy walks, and to top it all off they give us all rides in their spacecraft. It almost made us forget they had enslaved the whole nation of Denmark.

Breaking Bread

WHEN THEY CAME, they were appalled at the way we enslave our sister and our brother species, fattened them up and then sacrificed them for our stomach’s sakes. “How barbaric,” they chastised.

“See, there is intelligent life out there after all,” chorused the vegetarians.

“And the servitude is even worse, keeping your fellow creatures alive just to make food stuffs for your bodies is even worse. At least your so-called meat animals are well fed and receive a swift death. Your product animals are held longer and in utter degradation.”

The smug vegans were about to pipe up, but before they had a chance the Visitors pointed their fingers once again, “and you. You,” they narrowed their eyes. “You are the most terrible of all humankind. Not letting life live naturally and freely. Creating field after field of the same uniform life for your base needs. And you should know that plants have the lowest intelligence index of all sentient things, and you pick on them. Shame on you. Shame and guilt upon the heads of your children.”

“So what are we meant to do,” the vegans protested, “for our own ‘base’ needs. All living things need sustenance.”

“With all your technology have you not yet invented synthetic nutrition? You know, something that you can create artificially and then inject into your system without destroying any life? That way no one and nothing dies.”

“What? You don’t sit down and break bread with one another, share a meal?” we all asked together.

“No,” our Visitors told us, offence quivering in their voices.

At which point humanity, as one, collectively agreed that it was they, not us, that were inhuman and if they didn’t like us mouth feeders they could bloody well bugger off back to their own up-itself, holier-than-thou, self-righteous planet.

Old Oak

WHEN THEY CAME they were made of wood. They had wooden faces, and wooden arms and legs. Wooden fingers. Wooden toes. They had arrived in three wooden spacecraft. And from what I can remember, they also had wooden clothes. Wooden computers. Ate wooden food. Moved in a wooden fashion. And talked in a wooden way.

But they wouldn’t tell us where they were from. Wouldn’t listen to us, when we politely asked them to leave. But most annoying of all, when we doused them in gasoline, they wouldn’t burn.

Actually, these stories would not be inappropriate for Halloween. Some of them inspire a sense of horror. Intentionally.

If you’re looking for laughs mixed with some intellectual and moral challenges, grab a copy of this quirky and original volume.