Posts Tagged With: Contemporary

Book Review: Double or Nothing by Cari Z and L.A. Witt

Reviewed by Susan65 

Title: Double or Nothing
Authors: Cari Z and L.A. Witt
Series: N/A
Heroes: Rich Cody/Leotrim Nicolosi
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 282 Pages
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: August 7, 2018
Available at:  Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Rich Cody joined the U.S. Marshals to hunt down bad guys, not babysit witnesses. Orders are orders, though, and now he’s protecting a hacker with ties to the Albanian and Sicilian mobs. It’s just another exciting day in WITSEC.

Leotrim Nicolosi was born into a world of crime and bloodshed. When that bloodshed hits too close to home, taking down Leo’s boyfriend—the son of a notorious mob boss—Leo is determined to destroy the Grimaldi family. He’s got evidence that will send every last Grimaldi to prison, he’s got the family’s wealth in an electronic chokehold, and he’s got a vendetta that can only be settled with the blood of the man who killed his lover.

When a routine transfer to a safehouse goes horribly wrong, Rich and Leo narrowly escape with their lives. With the Marshals compromised and Leo being framed for murder, he and Rich are on the run from criminals and law enforcement alike. They have no one to trust except each other, and nowhere to go that their enemies can’t reach.

And the only way out might mean making a deal with the Devil.
Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2018, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Audio Review: Sanctuary Found by Sloane Kennedy

Reviewed by Susan65 

Title: Sanctuary Found
Author: Sloane Kennedy
Narrator: Michael Pauley
Series: Pelican Bay #2
Heroes: Maddox/Isaac
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 9 Hours, 13 Minutes
Publisher: Sloane Kennedy
Release Date: April 20, 2018
Available at: Amazon and Audible
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Coming home should be the easiest thing in the world, but I’ve never felt more lost….

When his stellar military career comes to an abrupt and terrible end, 32-year-old Maddox Kent returns to the town he never planned to step foot into again, hoping to mend the rift he himself caused with the brother he left behind. But coming home means facing some hard truths about himself and his actions. When he has the chance to start making amends by helping his brother with the wildlife sanctuary he runs, Maddox is thrown another curveball when a stranger appears….

As long as we keep moving, everything will be okay. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway….

For 21-year-old Isaac, Pelican Bay is only supposed to be a stopping point on the trek from San Francisco to New York. With his little brother, Newt, in tow, Isaac is just looking to make things right by returning something of value to a person he wronged. But “getting lost” in the next big city proves to be a problem when the brutal Minnesota winter claims Isaac’s car and strands him and Newt at the animal sanctuary. When the owners of the place offer him a job, a desperate Isaac agrees, despite the presence of a man Isaac instinctively knows could be his downfall….

It should be so easy to let him go, but I can’t. And not just because I want to protect him….

Nothing about Isaac makes sense to Maddox. Not his piercings or makeup or flashy clothes. And most certainly not the snarky mouth that doesn’t match the vulnerability Maddox sees in the younger man’s eyes. But one thing does make sense to the hardened former soldier. Isaac is running from something, and Maddox’s gut is telling him not to let Isaac and little Newt go until he can ferret out the truth.
Continue reading

Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Audio Review, LGBT, Published in 2018, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Fair Isn’t Life by Kaje Harper

Reviewed by Ami 

Title: Fair Isn’t Life
Author: Kaje Harper
Series: States of Love #45
Heroes: Luke/Mason
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 148 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: November 16, 2018
Available at:  Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Luke Lafontaine survived the past year by not thinking about the father he lost, the dairy farm he couldn’t save from bankruptcy, or his way of life that vanished with the rap of an auctioneer’s hammer. Cleaning up city folks’ trash at the Minnesota State Fair is just another dead-end job. But at the Fair, surrounded by a celebration of farm life, ambitions he’d given up on and buried deep start to revive. And seeing Mason Bell in the parade—gorgeous, gay, out-of-his-league Mason—stirs other buried dreams.

Mason left his hometown for college in Minneapolis without looking back. Student life is fun, classes are great, gay guys are easy to find, but it’s all a bit superficial. He’s at the State Fair parade route with his band when he realizes a scruffy maintenance worker is Luke, his secret high school crush. Luke should be safely home working on his dad’s farm, not picking up litter. Mason wishes he hadn’t fallen out of touch. He’s an optimist, though, and it’s never too late for second chances. Now he just has to convince Luke.
Continue reading

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

Book Review: Beauty, Inc. by Tara Lain

Reviewed by Susan65 

Title: Beauty, Inc.
Author: Tara Lain
Series: The Pennymaker Tales #3
Heroes: Belle/Magnus
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 121 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: June 8, 2016
Available at:  Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb:  Is beauty only skin deep?

Chemist Dr. Robert “Belle” Belleterre loves flowers, green trees, his best friend Judy, and “his baby”: the new face cream he developed to help put his father’s small cosmetics company on the map. Sadly he gets no help from his alcoholic, gambling-addicted father who loses Belle in a poker game to Magnus Strong, the CEO of Beauty, Inc. the largest American cosmetics company—a man infamous for his scarred ugliness.

Belle finds himself uprooted from his home, living in a wildly crazy apartment in New York owned by Mr. Pennymaker, and completely unprepared for his mad attraction to the charismatic Strong. Feeling like a traitor, Belle fights his passion only to see more and more of the goodness and humility hidden by Strong’s ugly face. But when Belle’s family starts manipulating his life again, the odds turn against happiness for beautiful Belle and his beloved beast.
Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2016, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Cops and Comix by Rhys Ford

Reviewed by Nikyta

Title: Cops and Comix
Author: Rhys Ford
Series: Murder and Mayhem 0.5
Heroes: Alex & James
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 38 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: November 16, 2018
Available at: Dreamspinner Press & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: It’s all fun and games until someone leaves a dead body on the floor.

Life for comic book store owner Alex Martin usually runs to the mundane. Sure, he has a regular influx of geeks and freaks, but for the most part, it’s a familiar weird. That all changes when he opens up Planet X Comics one morning and finds a corpse in the middle of his shop.

When Detective James Castillo is called in to investigate, Alex is torn between wanting to climb the man like a tree and giving him a wide berth. Luckily for Alex, the handsome detective is just as interested in him—as a suspect in the murder. Continue reading

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

Book Review: Lights and Sirens by Lisa Henry

Reviewed by Susan65

41459129Title: Lights and Sirens
Author: Lisa Henry
Series: Emergency Services #2
Heroes: Hayden Kinsella/Matt Deakin
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 231 Pages
Publisher: Lisa Henry
Release Date: September 13, 2018
Available at:  Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Paramedic Hayden Kinsella is single and the life of the party. He likes driving fast and saving lives, and he doesn’t do relationships—he does hookups. Except he wouldn’t hook up with copper Matt Deakin if he were the last guy on the planet. Hayden thinks the feeling is mutual . . . until clearing the air leads to a drunken one-night stand, which leads to something neither of them was expecting: a genuine connection.

Police officer Matt Deakin moved to Townsville to take care of his elderly grandfather. In between keeping an eye on Grandad, renovating his house, and the demands of his job, he somehow finds himself in a tentative relationship with Hayden and very slowly gets to know the damaged guy beneath the happy-go-lucky persona.

But the stressors of shift work, fatigue, and constant exposure to trauma threaten to tear Hayden and Matt apart before they’ve even found their footing together. In the high-pressure lives of emergency services workers, it turns out it’s not the getting together part that’s hard, it’s the staying together.
Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Published in 2018, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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: Renewing Forever by Kelly Jensen

Reviewed by Ami

Title: Renewing Forever
Author: Kelly Jensen
Series: This Time Forever #2
Heroes: Frankie & Tommy
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 302 pages
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: August 26, 2018
Available at: Riptide Publishing & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: A neglected resort, a lost chance at love, and one last chance to renew forever.

Frankie and Tommy once dreamed of traveling the world together. But when seventeen-year-old Frank kissed Tom, their plans ended with a punch to the jaw and Frank leaving town without looking back. Thirty years later, Frank’s successful career as a journalist is interrupted by his uncle’s death and the question of his inheritance—the family resort where his childhood dreams were built. When he returns to the Pocono Mountains, however, he finds a dilapidated lodge and Tommy, the boy he never forgot.

Tom’s been keeping the resort together with spit and glue while caring for Frank’s uncle, Robert—a man he considered father, mentor, and friend—and his aged mother, who he refuses to leave behind. Now Robert is gone, taking Tom’s job with him. And Frank is on the doorstep, wanting to know why Tom is still there and why the old lodge is falling apart.

But before they can rebuild the resort, they’ll have to rebuild their friendship. Only then can they renew the forever they planned all those years ago. Continue reading

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

Book Review: Seeking Solace by Ari McKay

Reviewed by Ami

Title: Seeking Solace
Author: Ari McKay
Series: The Walker Boys #3;  Dreamspun Desires #69
Heroes: Devin & Paul
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 206 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: November 6, 2018
Available at: Dreamspinner Press & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: All hands on deck for a shipboard romance—with a secret.

Like his cousins, Devin Walker aspires to be a chef, but he wants to indulge his wanderlust while feeding his customers, and working a cruise ship seems like the solution. Since he can’t find an opening in the kitchen, he’s happy to start out in a position behind the bar.

While onboard Poseidon’s Pearl, Devin is assigned to shepherd a visiting executive. Paul Bailey is quiet and unassuming, and a car accident that cost him his leg also shattered his confidence. He doesn’t think he’s attractive to other men anymore, and Devin is eager to show him just how wrong he is. Paul has a surprising secret that might sink their passionate affair before it even leaves port.   Continue reading

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

Dual Book Review: Bad Habit by K.A. Mitchell

Reviewed by Nikyta and Susan65

Title: Bad Habit
Author: K.A. Mitchell
Series: Bad in Baltimore #6
Heroes: Scott & Liam
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 230 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: November 6, 2018
Available at: Dreamspinner Press & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Life is always looking for ways to screw you over. Scott McDermott survived the foster care system and knows better than to let anyone close, but Liam Walsh is his one vulnerability.

Twice Scott let down his guard, and twice Liam vanished from Scott’s life.

So when Scott comes face-to-face with Liam for the first time in six years, he punches Liam in the nose. Only after Scott’s friend—and Baltimore County police officer—Jamie reads him the riot act does Scott discover that in the intervening years Liam has been to war and lost his leg.

Liam hasn’t had the easiest life either. He took care of his drug-addicted mom when she was unable to take care of herself. He’s fallen in love with Scott twice, but when Liam saw Scott going down the same path as his mother, he left. The lesson that he can’t save everyone has been a painful one for Liam to learn. Maybe what he and Scott had can’t ever be fixed.

Scott and Liam have never fallen out of love—which becomes obvious when they start working together—but what will make this time any different from all the others? Will the third time really be a charm? Continue reading

Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Nikyta's Reviews, Published in 2018, Susan65's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment