Review Tuesday: Raincheck by Sarah Madison (#reviewtuesday #mm #pnr @SarahMadisonFic)

Raincheck by Sarah Madison

Dreamspinner Press, 2011

Rodney has lived in Manhattan for decades, but he has never visited the Metropolitan Museum. He’s never browsed in one of the city’s famed bookstores, or enjoyed an espresso in a Greenwich Village café, or strolled through Central Park on a spring afternoon. He exists on the fringes of society, observing people and events, collecting odds and ends that attract him, making sardonic comments that no one hears.

Although Rodney yearns for a richer life, he accepts his limits. After all, there’s not much he can do about them. Rodney is a gargoyle, destined to spend each day on his base atop a nineteen twenties building as a hunk of inanimate stone. The setting sun sets him free to swoop between the skyscrapers on powerful wings and grab whatever scraps he can salvage of the city’s complexity and beauty. At dawn he hurries back to his perch, before he turns to dust.

Then one night a beautiful, sad young man climbs to the rooftop that is Rodney’s domain. Unlike other humans, David can hear Rodney’s voice. The two strike up an odd friendship, bonding in their mutual love of books and their frustration with the greed that is destroying New York’s past. Rodney hides in the shadows, afraid that a glimpse of his hulking body, leathery wings and vicious claws will drive his companion away. When David’s life is threatened, however, Rodney has no choice but to reveal his true nature.

I enjoyed this novella, the first gargoyle paranormal erotic romance I’ve encountered. If there are conventions to this sub-genre, I’m not aware of them. Hence I didn’t know what to expect (though of course I knew Rodney and David would eventually become lovers). The ending (which I’ll keep under my hat!) took me by surprise, an experience that I welcome.

Ms. Madison successfully brings Rodney to life (no pun intended), showing the reader his pain and his resignation. He’s such a sweet guy, you can’t help but love him. David is less fully fleshed out, but that is perhaps to be expected in a relatively short tale (65 pages) told from a single point of view.

Although the book does include a bit of explicit sex, it’s pretty mild compared to many of the MM books I read—not to mention the ones I write! There’s no coyness, however. I particularly liked the way the author describes Rodney’s physical reactions and the damage they do to David’s apartment. After all, human dwellings weren’t designed for seven foot tall creatures with wings!

A bit more local color would have enriched the texture of the story. I don’t think Ms. Madison is all that familiar with New York City. Aside from a mention of the Metropolitan Museum, there’s nothing specific to Manhattan in the tale, and that, in my opinion, weakens the book’s effect. New York is one of the few places in the US where it would be plausible to find a gargoyle, but to be honest, Raincheck could have been set anywhere.

This is a relatively minor criticism, from a reader who perhaps cares more than most about setting. Overall, Raincheck is a quick, satisfying, romantic read with a distinctly different premise and an appealing hero.

Unspeakable Words

By Sarah Madison (Guest Blogger)

M/M erotic romance from Dreampspinner Press

Buy Now!

I write M/M romance because I enjoy the power dynamics between two male characters. There is so much potential for built-in angst and drama—will the relationship threaten their careers? Will it be accepted by their families or even, ultimately, themselves? There’s a saying, “Once you’ve read M/M romance, you won’t look back.” I have to admit, I was one of those readers whose head was turned by the innate hotness of two good-looking guys getting it on. The writer in me, however, loved the potential complexity available to me as a story-teller. Many times, for the sake of dramatic storytelling, a writer has to come up with contrived reasons why two characters can’t be together right from the start. Not so with most M/M romance. I also love that it allows me to explore different aspects of my own personality without overtly inserting myself into the story that I want to tell.

Blurb

Special Agent John Flynn is everything Jerry Parker is not: dangerously handsome, coolly charismatic, and respected by his peers. Special Agent Parker is dedicated and meticulous, but his abrasive personality has given him a reputation for being difficult. When new information on a cold case appears, Parker is assigned to work with Flynn, and the sparks fly as their investigative styles clash. Contact with a strange artifact changes everything when it bestows unusual and unpredictable powers on Flynn... and the two men must learn to trust each other before a killer strikes again.

Excerpt

He sensed Flynn’s presence behind him before he heard him speak.

“Something smells good in here.”

Jerry turned to say something offhand but then completely lost track of what he’d intended to say. Flynn was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing a towel slung low around his hips so that the bones of his pelvis showed. The hair on his chest was not too much, just right in fact, tapering down his long torso until it disappeared beneath the towel. He was drying out one ear with another towel, his hair standing up in startled spikes. On the chain around his neck, he wore a simple, tiny silver cross, the kind that a pre-teen girl might wear. His left shoulder bore the ugly, puckered mark of a bullet wound, the shiny scarring of skin suggesting that the wound wasn’t all that old. Jerry knew from his record that Flynn had been shot in the line of duty about six months ago but the record didn’t say much more than that.

Flynn had shaved but his jaws still held the suggestion of a beard. It was probably as close as he ever got to being smooth-cheeked. A hint of soap and the smell of clean, damp skin and aftershave wafted in Jerry’s direction before being lost to the smell of coffee and bacon. The combination of odors struck Jerry viscerally with a little bolt of lust that surprised him.

“Breakfast will be ready in a minute,” Jerry said tersely, turning away to get a second mug down from the cabinet.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Flynn said, slinging the towel in his hand around his neck.

Jerry shot him a look. He wondered what kind of game Flynn was playing here. He obviously was aware that Jerry had checked him out; it was evident in the little smile that played around his lips. Was this his way of saying he was so secure in his sexuality that it didn’t bother him? Jerry suspected that was the case.

“Oh. Right. Never mind. This is how you always start the day. What’s in the oven?” Flynn looked amused, something subtle in his eyes that suggested it was at Jerry’s expense. He also looked completely comfortable there in his stupid towel with his hairy legs and his bare feet.

“Frittatas,” Jerry said crisply. He blamed the heat of the oven for the flushing of his face.

“That’s some egg-thingy, right?”

Jerry found his eye drawn to a single bead of water dripping from one of Flynn’s sideburns, making its way in a crooked line over his collarbone. He swallowed before speaking. “Philistine. Yes, some egg-thingy. Best eaten hot. You’d better get dressed.” He cleared his throat.

Flynn gave him a little half-smile and left the room. Jerry watched the way the damp, soft terrycloth of the towel clung to his ass as he walked away. He took a sip of coffee and made a face as he realized he’d forgotten to add cream. Yep. It was going to be a long day.

Bio: Sarah Madison is a veterinarian with a busy practice, a great boyfriend, a large dog, and an even bigger horse. She enjoys hiking along the Appalachian Trail with her German Shepherd and competing her horse in the sport of combined training and eventing. She recently rediscovered her love of writing when she began writing fan fiction several years ago and has won several awards for her fan fiction stories. This gave her the impetus to pursue a lifelong dream of writing original fiction for publication. Writing has become a passion that sometimes takes precedence over everything else. In fact, when she is in the middle of a chapter, she usually relies on the smoke detector to tell her when dinner is ready.

You can contact Sarah at akasarahmadison [at] gmail.com. Website: http://www.sarahmadisonfiction.com

o Cover image as a separate JPG, resized to 300 wide if possible. Alternatively, you can send me the URL to an image of about this size. (attached) Thanks! Sarah Madison http://www.sarahmadisonfiction.com/ http://akasarahmadison.livejournal.com/ http://twitter.com/akasarahmadison