Susan65’s Reviews

Sleuth Week Review: Don’t Look Back by Josh Lanyon

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Don’t Look Back
Author: Josh Lanyon
Heroes: Michael Griffin and Peter Killian
Genre: M/M Mystery
Length: 98 Pages
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: June 29, 2009
Available at: Amazon & All Romance eBooks
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: He was chuckling, a deep, sexy sound as he pushed Peter back on the satiny cushions. Was this for real? Was he going to go through with it? Peter blinked up as his tie was unfastened, tossed aside, his shirt unbuttoned, laid wide. The evening breeze — scented of smog and jasmine — felt cool against his overheated skin, like the lightest breath…

Peter Killian, curator at Constantine House in Los Angeles, wakes in the hospital to find himself accused of stealing a tenth century Chinese sculpture. Peter knows he’s not a thief — but that’s all he knows. Why is hot and handsome Detective Mike Griffin so sure he’s guilty — and so hell-bent on seeing Peter arrested?

And why is Peter having these weird dreams about an unseen lover who somehow reminds him uncomfortably of Michael Griffin? Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published Before 2010, Susan65's Reviews, Theme Week | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Book Review: Abel – Hearts in Chaos by CJ Bishop

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Abel – Hearts in Chaos
Author: CJ Bishop
Series: Phoenix Club#2
Heroes: Abel Sims and Devlin Grant
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 108 Pages
Publisher: Rascal Hearts
Release Date: February 6, 2014
Available at: Smashwords
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Devastated after learning his abuser (and the man he killed in self-defense) was Dr. Devlin Grant’s much beloved brother, Abel feels he can no longer have anything to do with the man because of his secret.

Now locked into his agreement with Horatio Kaplan – and suffering heart break over Devlin – Abel finds no purpose in his life except taking care of Savannah. When Devlin refuses to be put off and insists Abel tell him the truth of why he is suddenly pushing him away, Abel must make the hard decision of whether or not to expose the hideous acts of Devlin’s brother – and shatter the man’s heart. Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: One Night Ride by Jennah Scott

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: One Night Ride
Author: Jennah Scott
Heroes: Jace Peterson and Brett Colson
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 28 Pages
Publisher: Decadent Publishing
Release Date: February 11, 2014
Available at: Decadent Publishing & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Brett Colson’s ready to get back into the dating game. Competing in rodeos across the country kept him out of the game, so when he hears about the 1Night Stand service from a friend, he takes a chance.

Bull rider Jace Peterson lost his first love over a year before to another man. Hitting his thirtieth birthday, Jace listens to his friends’ concerns; he needs to end his self-imposed dry spell and enlist the help of Madame Eve.

Brett and Jace expect nothing more than a satisfying one-night ride. But they’re wrong. Continue reading

Categories: 3.5 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book Review: Last First Kiss by Diane Adams

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Last First Kiss
Author: Diane Adams
Series: Southern Comfort #1
Heroes: Trent Foster and Gage Harris
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 275 Pages
Publisher: Love Lane Books
Release Date: January 18, 2014
Available at: Love Lane Books, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Eighteen-year-old Gage Harris is not a part of twenty-five year old Trent Foster’s plans. He likes Gage but the intense attraction between them makes remaining just friends unlikely, and the young farmer with two small children is a complication Trent doesn’t need.

Despite all the reasons to stay away, Trent is pulled into the small family. Gage’s boys are delightful and the young man’s honesty and genuine affection impossible to resist. Trent is intrigued by a life so different from everything he’s known. As he struggles to reconcile his plans with his feelings Trent begins to suspect that his random offer of a ride in the rain might lead straight to his last first kiss. Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Shaking the Sugar Tree by Nick Wilgus

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Shaking the Sugar Tree
Author: Nick Wilgus
Heroes: Wiley Cantrell and Jackson Ledbetter
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 304 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: January 31, 2014
Available at: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous—and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving.

Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire.

Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making.

When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good. Continue reading

Categories: 5 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Book Review: Dumped in Oz by Andrew Grey

Reviewed by Susan65

Title:  Dumped in Oz
Author: Andrew Grey
Series: Tales from Kansas #1
Heroes: Lyle Powers and Roger Kypers
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 164 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: January 15, 2014
Available at: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Because of an opportunity he’d be a fool to turn down; Lyle Powers transfers to his company’s warehouse in central Kansas. The last thing he expects is to meet another gay man in the small town, let alone one who captures his interest.

Roger Kypers is a recovering alcoholic with a twelve-year-old daughter he only gets to see for part of the summer. Neither Lyle nor Roger is looking for a relationship, and they fumble at the start, yet emotions build as Roger shows Lyle the landmarks of Oz.

But when Roger’s wicked witch of an ex-wife threatens to take his daughter away for good if he doesn’t act “normally,” he’s faced with the challenge of letting her get away with it, or fighting to accept himself and standing up for what he knows is right. Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Abel by CJ Bishop

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Abel
Author: CJ Bishop
Heroes: Devlin Grant and Abel Sims
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 134 pages
Publisher: Rascal Hearts
Release Date: January 23, 2014
Available Free at: Smashwords
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: 19-year-old Abel Sims – hot, sexy stripper – is a favorite at the gay strip club The Phoenix. Having no family but his 16-year-old sister, Savannah, and coming from the streets – The Phoenix club has become his home, the other boys his close-knit family.

Abel doesn’t trust the outside world and is content to remain within his safe haven. But when an overzealous customer sends Abel to the ER, he meets young, handsome Dr. Devlin Grant – and the instant attraction he feels for the man stirs up the nightmares of his past, causing him to resist his new feelings. Yet it becomes impossible to avoid the doctor when Savannah gets sick and ends up in his care.

And just when his heart is ready to trust this new found love – Abel is confronted with a disturbing fact about the doctor that reaches deep into his past and his nightmares. An emotionally charged, sexy, heart-wrenching love story that will break your heart, then put it back together again. Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Legally Wed by Rick R. Reed

Reviewed by Susan65

Title:  Legally Wed
Author: Rick R. Reed
Heroes: Duncan Taylor and Peter Dalrymple
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 216 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: January 3, 2014
Available at: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Love comes along when you least expect it. That’s what Duncan Taylor’s sister, Scout, tells him. Scout has everything Duncan wants—a happy life with a wonderful husband. Now that Seattle has made gay marriage legal, Duncan knows he can have the same thing. But when he proposes to his boyfriend Tucker, he doesn’t get the answer he hoped for. Tucker’s refusal is another misstep in a long line of failed romances. Despairing, Duncan thinks of all the loving unions in his life—and how every one of them is straight. Maybe he could be happy, if not sexually compatible, with a woman. When zany, gay-man-loving Marilyn Samples waltzes into his life, he thinks he may have found his answer.

Determined to settle, Duncan forgets his sister’s wisdom about love and begins planning a wedding with Marilyn. But life throws Duncan a curveball. When he meets wedding planner Peter Dalrymple, unexpected sparks ignite. Neither man knows how long he can resist his powerful attraction to the other. For sure, there’s a wedding in the future. But whose? Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book Review: Rare by Garrett Leigh

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Rare
Author: Garrett Leigh
Series: Roads #2
Heroes: Ash Fagin and Pete Adams
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 240 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: January 17, 2014
Available at: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Paramedic Pete Adams lived through the year from hell watching his lover, Ash, fall apart, and the precarious balance between work and home is becoming more strained. His heart is always home, with Ash, but the dark side to his job is weighing him down.

Tattoo artist Ash Fagin is recovering from a nervous breakdown triggered by revelations about his traumatic childhood. His battle with mental illness is far from over, but with Pete by his side, he’s feeling good again, so good he doesn’t notice something missing until it walks right into his living room.

Ash believes he’s had enough coincidence in his life, but when a voice from the past comes looking for him, it takes the devastating injuries of the one he loves most to convince him to let a ghost become the family he never knew he wanted. Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2014, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mary Calmes Week Review: Again

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Again
Author: Mary Calmes
Heroes: Dante Cerreto and Noah Wheeler
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 96 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date:  July 13, 2011
Available at: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Six years ago, Noah Wheeler went to meet his boyfriend, Dante Cerreto, at the airport, and his world ended. Dante was kissing someone else and claimed to be in love. So Noah took his heartbreak-and the sonogram pictures of their surrogate child-and closed the door on the big picture of what he thought his life would be, focusing instead on the piece of the dream he got to keep, being a father.
Now on vacation in Las Vegas, Noah accidentally runs into the Cerreto family, and then the man himself, and learns that not only was he deceived, but Dante was as well. Now Dante wants to make up for lost time, six years’ worth, and to do that he needs Noah, the only man he’s ever loved, and Grace, the daughter he didn’t know he had, to give him a chance at happiness. Dante’s going to have to take a crash course in communication and seduction, though. Noah’s not going to fall in love just to be broken again Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Author Week, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2011, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments