Posts Tagged With: Coming-of-Age

Book Review: Ruin by Daya Daniels

Reviewed by JustJen

Title: Ruin
Author: Daya Daniels
Series: N/A
Heroes: Ryker/Griffon
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 271 Pages
Publisher: Sayad Books
Release Date: September 21, 2018
Available at: Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb:  Ryker

They all think they know me…

I’m just a kid who has no direction and a bunch of problems. I decided long ago that the world can piss off. I’m the only one I need. I keep myself safe. If you don’t rely on anyone, no one can disappoint you. Right?

Griffon

I’m not easily liked.

No, let me be honest. Most people hate me. I’m the a-hole. The boy-man who lives and breathes sarcasm. I have no friends. I barely have any family. And the new people I meet are always charmed, at first, but eventually they steer clear of me too.

Except for the guy sitting across from me.

The one who has bigger problems than you could ever imagine.

Who knew eventually he’d be a problem, for me, and…

One that I want.
Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, JustJen's Reviews, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Wulf Chronicles by Wulf Francú Godgluck

Reviewed by Nikyta

Title: The Wulf Chronicles
Author: Wulf Francú Godgluck
Series: WulfChron #1
Hero: Michael
Genre: M/M Paranormal
Length: 523 pages
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: June 11, 2018
Available at: Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: What if werewolves were real?
What if one of them was different?
What if you were a defective werewolf?

This is not the story of how one night I got bitten and my life changed. Nor is it the story of how I went on a savage killing spree that left me tormented with guilt and dread the next morning.
No.

This is the story of a boy, a boy who’s spent his life running from the shadows of monsters. A boy who never understood why the world hated him with so much odium. Why his mother would throw away her only life to protect his. Why he was never allowed to have friends. Why he never had the childhood every child should. Why he was never allowed to cherish happiness.

This is the story of a boy becoming himself, embracing his vulnerability and learning to accept and love.

This is a story about a werewolf, trying to find the answers to why he was born defective.

And maybe that’s the very reason I become the main course on the menu.
Continue reading

Categories: 3 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Nikyta's Reviews, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Book Review: In the Desert by Elliot Joyce

Reviewed by Ami

Title: In the Desert
Author: Elliot Joyce
Series: States of Love
Heroes: Wren/Felipe
Genre: Contemporary YA
Length: 106 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: May 4, 2018
Available at:  Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Can a Navajo trans teen and a nerdy Catholic find the place they belong… and maybe themselves? In the desert, anything is possible….

When Wren came out as transgender before his senior year, it cost him most of his friends. His father hopes joining a Boy Scout troop might help Wren meet other young men his age and be accepted for who he is.

Felipe Nieves wants the new guy in the troop to feel comfortable, and he reaches out to Wren. They become fast friends… with something more beneath the surface. Those feelings confuse Felipe, since his religion considers this a sin—and he’s always assumed he was straight—but he can’t help pining for Wren. Asking him out will take courage, and getting together won’t be easy… but through their friendship, both young men might find their identities… and learn to embrace them in a unique coming-of-age story set against the beauty of the American Southwest.
Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Ami's Reviews, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: When Everything is Blue by Laura Lascarso

Reviewed by Ami

Title: When Everything is Blue
Author: Laura Lascaro
Heroes:</strong Chris/Theo
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 216 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: March 6, 2017
Available at:  Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: When they were kids, Chris Mitcham rescued Theo from the neighborhood bullies and taught him how to “be cool.” Now, years later, Theo’s developed feelings for his best friend that arise at the most inopportune times. Theo hates lying to Chris, but in coming out, he might lose the one person who understands him best, a risk he’s not willing to take.

When a relationship with another young man goes south, Theo is forced to confront his own sexuality along with his growing attraction to Chris and his stunted, tenuous relationship with his father. Will Chris abandon Theo when he learns the truth, or will he stand by him in this tumultuous season of self-discovery?

In this quirky coming-of-age romance, Theo’s path to manhood is fraught with awkward firsts and a few haters, but also the unexpected comfort of a friend turned lover.
Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Ami's Reviews, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Audio Review: Survivor by T.M. Smith

Reviewed by Morgan

Title: Survivor
Author: T.M. Smith
Narrator: Nick J. Russo
Heroes: Raylor/Frank
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 5 Hours, 33 Minutes
Publisher: T.M. Smith
Release Date: January 30, 2018
Available at: Amazon and Audible
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Taylor Langford’s world is torn apart when he is only thirteen years old—his parents killed, leaving him alone and orphaned. With no living relatives, he’d certainly be another statistic if not for the intervention of the policeman who found Taylor in the crawl space where his mother hid him that fateful night. Despite the tragedy and resulting anguish in his life, Taylor knows how lucky he is.

Frank Moore is a rookie with the Dallas Police Department when he and his partner answer a call in Devonshire, one of the city’s more affluent neighborhoods. They think the young boy in various pictures throughout the home has been kidnapped until they find him, shaken but alive. Officer Moore recognizes the pain in the kid’s eyes, having lost his own mother to cancer when he was just a boy. He steps in, making sure Taylor is placed with a loving foster family. Over the years, Frank becomes a permanent fixture in Taylor’s life.

A decade later, the case remains unsolved and the once gangly, uncertain teenager is now a college graduate who knows exactly what he wants. He’s coming home to the man that helped mold and shape his life, the man he’s loved for as long as he can remember, Frank Moore. But Taylor isn’t the only person returning to Dallas, and while Frank is distracted by his own conflicting feelings and the new bond growing between the two, the past creeps up on them, determined to finish what was started ten years earlier.

A note from the author…

I hope you enjoy Frank and Taylor’s story. It’s been a long road to get them settled, but I’m happy with where this story has taken them. When I started this book, the intent was to write a stand-alone story, but that has changed. Characters continually evolve throughout the writing process, and there are several characters in the book that want to tell their story. I’ve grown especially fond of Rory and I can’t wait to write his book, which will take us back to when he first joined the Bureau, and continue on to his happy ever after.
Continue reading

Categories: 5 Star Ratings, Audio Review, LGBT, Morgan's Reviews, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Finding Home by Garrett Leigh

Reviewed by JustJen

Title: Finding Home
Author: Garrett Leigh
Heroes: Leo/Charlie
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 178 Pages
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: October 9, 2017
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: How do you find a home when your heart is in ashes?

With their mum dead and their father on remand for her murder, Leo Hendry and his little sister, Lila, have nothing in the world but each other. Broken and burned, they’re thrust into the foster care system. Leo shields Lila from the fake families and forced affection, until the Poulton household is the only place left to go.

Charlie de Sousa is used to other kids passing through the Poulton home, but there’s never been anyone like his new foster brother. Leo’s physical injuries are plain to see, but it’s the pain in his eyes that draws Charlie in the most.

Day by day, they grow closer, but the darkness inside Leo consumes him. He rejects his foster parents, and when Charlie gets into trouble, Leo’s attempt to protect him turns violent. When Leo loses control, no one can reach him—except Charlie. He desperately needs a family—a home—and only Charlie can show him the way.
Continue reading

Categories: 5 Star Ratings, Book Review, JustJen's Reviews, LGBT, Published in 2017 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Quarterback by Mackenzie Blair

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: The Quarterback
Author: Mackenzie Blair
Heroes: Matt Lancaster/Trevor Kim
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 304 Pages
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: September 9, 2017
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Matt Lancaster is the star quarterback at Bodine College, a small Southern Division II school with an ultra-conservative Dean of Athletics. Matt is also very much in the closet, and he thinks he’s kept his secret well hidden. Until his best friends take him to a happy endings massage parlor and request a male masseuse for him.

In walks Trevor Kim, a gorgeous, pierced, tattooed fellow Bodine student who does massages—without happy endings—to pay for school after his family kicked him out for being gay. Trevor takes one look at Matt and breaks all his own rules about mixing business with pleasure.

Matt needs to keep his scholarship, win the National Championship, and survive his asshole father. Instead, he falls in love. Trevor needs to accept that the football god is meant to end up with him rather than a perky cheerleader. It’s time for a happy ever after for both of them.
Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2017, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Audio Review: Deep of the Sound by Amy Lane

Reviewed by Morgan

Title: Deep of the Sound
Author: Amy Lane
Narrator: Nick J. Russo
Series: Bluewater Bey #8
Heroes: Cal McCorkle/Avery Kennedy
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 8 Hours, 12 Minutes
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: May 3, 2017
Available at: Amazon, Audible and iTunes
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Cal McCorkle has lived in Bluewater Bay his whole life. He works two jobs to support a brother with a laundry list of psychiatric diagnoses and a great uncle with Alzheimer’s, and his personal life amounts to impersonal hookups with his boss. He’s got no time, no ambition, and no hope. All he has is family, and they’re killing him one responsibility at a time.

Avery Kennedy left Los Angeles, his family, and his sleazy boyfriend to attend a Wolf’s Landing convention, and he has no plans to return. But when he finds himself broke and car-less in Bluewater Bay, he’s worried he’ll have to slink home with his tail between his legs. Then Cal McCorkle rides to his rescue, and his urge to run away dies a quick death.

Avery may seem helpless at first, but he can charm Cal’s fractious brother, so Cal can pretty much forgive him anything. Even being adorkable. And giving him hope. But Cal can only promise Avery “until we can’t”—and the cost of changing that to “until forever” might be too high, however much they both want it.
Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Audio Review, LGBT, Morgan's Reviews, Published in 2017 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Pieces of Me by Melanie Hansen

Reviewed by JustJen

33519010Title: Pieces of Me
Author: Melanie Hansen
Series: Spectrum Nights #1
Heroes: Scott Ashworth/Rylan Mahoney
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 154 Pages
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: January 16, 2017
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb:  Scott Ashworth is a beautiful man and the hottest club host on the Phoenix gay scene. He takes what he wants, does what he wants, and does whom he wants. It’s a good life, but the journey to local popularity and fame wasn’t an easy one. For all that Scott’s looks are a blessing, at the same time they’re a curse—the source of his alcoholic mother’s inexplicable hatred.

Rylan Mahoney dreams of photojournalistic glory. He’s in Phoenix looking for the story of a lifetime, but the project isn’t coming to fruition. Needing rent money, he accepts a gig at Phoenix Pride hawking lewd lollipops and edible condoms…all while wearing gold lamé hot pants and a matching bow tie. When Rylan’s house keys and street clothes go missing after his shift, he’s desperate, until a stranger in a convertible stops to help.

The man is absolute sex on legs, and Rylan is jolted when he recognizes him—his stepbrother Scott Ashworth, long missing but suddenly larger than life. Scott is affluent and successful now, light years away from his hardscrabble days living with Rylan in a double-wide trailer deep in the heart of the Florida Panhandle.

Reunited after six years apart, Scott and Rylan are determined to put their past behind them, but fate may have other ideas and leave their future in jeopardy yet again.
Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Book Review, JustJen's Reviews, LGBT, Published in 2017 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book Review: Bare by Lynn Kelling

Reviewed by JustJen

32129904Title: Bare
Author: Lynn Kelling
Heroes: Ev Myers/Adam Buchanan
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 363 Pages
Publisher: Fantastic Fiction
Release Date: November 15, 2016
Available at: Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb:  Ev Myers is a former high school football star and Republican State Senator’s son, raised in a strict Southern Baptist household where his only option was to be silent, behave and, no matter how he might be feeling, to put on a happy smile. Desperate to escape the pressure to be the man his family insists he become, Ev has fled Kansas to attend college and is working to find out who he really is beneath the lies and carefully composed public image. But when he applies for a job as a nude model for a life drawing class out of a desire to be seen in a way that shatters all of his family’s taboos, it’s just the first step on a path that leads him away from everything he’s ever known. Handsome and headstrong adjunct arts professor, Adam Buchanan, is the first person to recognize Ev’s potential, and his determination to have Ev realize the importance of truth and stark honesty, as well as the beauty of flawed vulnerability provides the hope Ev needs to escape a world rife with kidnapping, brainwashing and deadly determination cure homosexuality, using whatever means necessary.
Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, JustJen's Reviews, LGBT, Published in 2016 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments