Posts Tagged With: The Blogger Girls

Book Review: Christmas Grace by C.L. Miles

Reviewed by Nikyta

Title: Christmas Grace
Author: C.L. Miles
Series: 2017 Advent Calendar | Stocking Stuffers
Heroes: Craig & Aaron
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 53 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: December 1, 2017
Available at: Dreamspinner Press & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Christmas has been a lonely time of year for Aaron since losing his family fifteen years ago. But now he’s seeing Craig, and though Aaron is sure they belong together, both have been hurt in the past, so they’re taking things slowly. So far, Craig has been supportive of Aaron’s struggles with anxiety—struggles that cost Aaron relationships in the past.

On Christmas Eve, Aaron is closing his bookshop when Craig surprises him with a specially planned evening. Will this be the night they take that final step and deepen their physical relationship? Aaron hopes so, but things aren’t that simple. Craig has been keeping a secret…. Can Aaron take his place as part of a family again and accept the love he’s missed for so long—or will he find that some deceptions are too big to be forgiven, even with the help of some Christmas grace? Continue reading

Categories: 3 Star Ratings, Book Review, LGBT, Nikyta's Reviews, Published in 2017 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Honorary Blogger Nicholas Bella: A Note From Théoden + Excerpt & Giveaway!

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A Note From Théoden

by Nicholas Bella

I told Nicholas to take a break because I wanted to do this blog post. It’s my book after all, I should be the center of attention. It was only a matter of time before the fans would want to know more about me. I started getting the fan mail, asking for my history. So many questions, they had. How did I become a vampire? What kind of person was I before it happened? How did I choose my sons? How did I learn about my powers?

Humans are such nosey beings, and normally, I wouldn’t have paid these letters and emails any attention. But, I couldn’t help but be a little bit flattered that I was on their minds. So, I sat down with Nicholas and we decided to give the fans what they’ve been desiring for years. My story.

Within the pages of this book, you will learn everything you need to know about me. All of your questions are answered and then some. Just make sure when you read my book, to give me your undivided attention, because I don’t like to share.

Now, as you know you want to do… give yourself to me. – Théoden. Continue reading

Categories: Book Promo, Excerpts, Giveaways, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book Review: The Devilish Duke by Maddison Michaels

Reviewed by Heather C

Title: The Devilish Duke
Author: Maddison Michaels
Hero/Heroine: Devlin Markham/Sophie Wolcott
Genre: MF Historical Romance
Length: 450 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Release Date: February 26, 2018
Available at: Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Devlin Markham, the notorious “Devil Duke” of Huntington, needs a woman. And not just any woman. If he can’t woo one of the most eccentric bluestockings of the Ton within the month, he can kiss his hard-earned fortune goodbye. But he’s always thought love a wasted emotion and marriage an inconvenience at best. And oddly enough, Lady Sophie Wolcott seems unmoved by his charm…

When Sophie learns her beloved orphanage is in imminent danger, she will do anything to save it. Even marry a ruthless rake who takes what he wants in business and pleasure. A man who’s everything she’s always feared most—but whom she reluctantly begins yearning for.

Then Sophie becomes the target of a killer lurking from the dark shadows of Devlin’s past. And they find not only their lives in jeopardy but their very hearts.

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Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, Debut Authors, Heather C's Reviews, M/F, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Life is a Stevie Wonder Song by V.L. Locey: Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway!

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Exclusive Excerpt from Life is a Stevie Wonder Song

by V.L. Locey

A sharp rap on the door a week later jolted me out of my zone. My eyes were dry. I looked over my shoulder at the door, my mind still lingering on the rambling oration I had been writing. No, it was not the next Mick Dell. What I had been writing for the past two days was literary vomit, if I were being honest. It was stream-of- consciousness crap for sure, a fifteen page run-on sentence hidden under the regurgitation of masticated wordage. By God, it felt good to put words on virtual paper, even if it was just journaling.

“Come in,” I called loudly over Hall & Oates on the record player. Declan peeked around the door. A slight arrhythmia occurred in my chest. I hurried to save and close the Word document. A lot of what I had been spewing out revolved around the young man entering my space. For as slight as he was, he certainly filled the bungalow. “Would you like a beer?”

He smiled in that weird whimsical way of his then rushed over to stand in front of the old portable record player I toted everywhere.

“Wow, you have vinyl.”

I closed my laptop and placed it on the round table in front of the loveseat.

“A whole box,” I offered as I pushed to my bare feet.

I noticed that Declan had no shoes once more. He had nice feet. Small and well formed. My feet belonged on an orangutan, according to my daughter. “Do I have to card you?”

He laughed softly and shook his head. His hair flowed around his head with the movement. The lamp highlighted small streaks of summer gold amid the dark brown.

“I’m twenty-two. Man, these are awesome.” He dropped to his knees to flip through the box of albums. I went to the fridge as he whispered to himself. “I don’t know any of these bands,” he told me after I tapped his shoulder with a cold one. He was clad in brown cargo shorts and a white tank top that showed his toned arms. The shirt hung off him. Declan took the beer, sipped it gingerly, set it beside him on the floor, and continued examining my music.

I sat down on the loveseat, wildly curious about what had brought this photographer of fey creatures to my door this evening. For a long while, I contented myself with simply enjoying his reactions to some of the more obscure groups he found. His face and eyes were expressive, amazingly so at times. He barely touched his beer. After about ten minutes passed, the record needed turning over. I rose and walked over to the desk the player rested on.

“So, what brings you here tonight?” I asked casually as I lifted the needle from the record and flipped it over. When he didn’t reply, I looked down at him. His gaze rested on me. A surge of raw lust raced through me to see him kneeling there. The album nearly slid from my fingers. What was going on with me? I was straight. I had been married three times and had a child two years younger than this capricious young man.

“It’s a full moon. Do you want to come capture the fey on film with me?”

God yes. “Really?” I asked as I lined up the hole in the album with the spindle. “Sure.”

Declan smiled. His teeth were white and straight. I wanted to kiss him. No, it was more than a mere want. It was a crazy, irrational, wild need to kiss him, taste him, and feel him pressed tightly to me. My cock began to lengthen. I turned from him sitting there on his calves so enticingly.

“I’ll be back at midnight,” he announced as he sprang to his feet. “Wear as little as possible.”

“Okay.”

Out he went. A June bug flew in as Declan exited.

The massive beetle bounced around the lampshade. The crickets outside quieted as my captivating guest bounced through the grass. I let the album slide down the spindle, then bent over to pick up the bottle of beer my neighbor had left behind. Would it be too weird to drink after him hoping to taste him on the glass?

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Categories: Book Promo, Excerpts, Giveaways, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Book Review: The Chosen by Aurora Grace

Guest Reviewed by ReadsLate

Title: The Chosen
Author: Aurora Grace
Series: The Descendants, #1
Hero/Heroine: Elizabeth Summers and Ian Knight
Genre: M/F Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy
Length: 260 pages
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: October 7, 2017
Available at: Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: The stage is set for the ultimate battle between good and evil.

When Elizabeth Summers jams on the brakes to avoid knocking into a man standing in the middle of the road, she is thrown into a world of angels, demons, and gods. A world where a shadow organization, the Elect, will stop at nothing to get her.

There’s no one she can turn to but Ian Knight. He has saved her once, and he promises to protect her.

But Ian is part of the Elect, one of their very best.

Will he give up all he has ever known and all that he’s been taught for Elizabeth? And with enemies in two separate realms, will Elizabeth and Ian ever be safe?
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Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, Guest Reviewer, M/F, Published in 2017 | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sweet Thing by Isobel Starling: Exclusive Excerpt

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Exclusive Excerpt from Sweet Thing

by Isobel Starling

Simeon Duchamp stared out of his bedroom window at the Phoenix Clinic, a private rehabilitation clinic overlooking Lake Zurich and the snow-capped Swiss Alps, where he was receiving treatment for alcohol, drug, and internet addictions. Sim was addicted to sex too, but he would rather die than admit to that and spend his life trying to abstain from cock!

It was a glorious spring morning; the sky was a sharp arctic blue. Thickets of trees on the perimeter of the vast wooded lakeside grounds swayed in the gentle breeze. A group of six patients were completing their early morning yoga class on the main lawn, bending and bowing with their final leonine stretches.

Simeon watched the group do their sun salutations, downward dogs and child poses, secretly wishing he were with them, and that he could stay cocooned and pampered at the clinic forever.

Simeon’s world had shattered two years ago when he fell in love with his fellow model and best friend, Pieter Bayer. Pieter never returned the same level of affection and had, in fact, fallen for someone else. On discovering that Pieter was in a relationship with painter Emily Raven, Simeon couldn’t cope with what he saw as rejection. In spite and jealousy, while under the influence of a mixture of substances, Sim decided it would be fitting revenge to leak false information about Pieter to a fashion gossip website. The information was shared and commented on by millions of followers.

The fall-out from that sorry exercise was nearly disastrous for Pieter’s career—Clients falsely believed he was walking away from his contractual obligations, and he was deemed unreliable and unprofessional.

However, after Simeon’s exposure as the source of fake information, his career began to falter. Clients refused to work with him, friends dropped him like he was on fire, and the backlash became intolerable. Simeon disappeared, and when his father’s investigators eventually found him at a hotel in

Geneva, he was trying to kill himself with a cocktail of vodka and pills. The intervention by his father, Patrice, and subsequent treatment at the Phoenix Clinic saved Simeon’s life.

After three months as a patient at the clinic, Simeon’s hedonistic, outrageous model façade dissolved, along with the drugs and alcohol that were purged from his system. Beneath his camp, party boy mask there was a quieter, more introspective, sensitive young man—a man who felt everything too keenly, loved too deeply, and could not cope with the pain of loss and rejection.

Sober for the first time since his late teens, Simeon was as fragile as a fledgling and bewildered by the colors, scents, and sounds of the big wide world. Who was Simeon Duchamp without his mask, without the crutches of alcohol and drugs giving him the confidence to get through each day?

A gentle knock on the bedroom door startled Simeon from his introspection. He looked away from the window toward the door to see his favorite young male nurse Karl, poke his head inside.

“Your last session with Dr. Schroeder is in twenty minutes,” he informed.

“One for the road?” Karl’s brows waggled provocatively.

©Isobel Starling 2018

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Categories: Book Promo, Excerpts, LGBT, Published in 2017 | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Once Burned by L.A. Witt

Reviewed by JustJen

Title: Once Burned
Author: L.A. Witt
Series: Anchor Point #6
Heroes: Mark/Diego
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 289 Pages
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: April 9, 2018
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Captain Mark Thomas’s world has been tossed on its head: A long overdue but still unexpected divorce. A promotion out of left field. Last-second orders to a ship where careers go to die. As the dust settles in his new home, he barely recognizes his life, but he sure recognizes the loneliness creeping in.

Diego Ramírez wants nothing to do with the military or its men. Not after the Navy burned him both literally and figuratively, costing him his career, his health, and ultimately his green card. Now working illegally in an Anchor Point bar, he keeps the military and its personnel at arm’s length.

But after a single moment of eye contact across the bar, Mark and Diego can’t resist each other. As a one-night stand quickly turns into more, Diego knows he’s playing with fire. Now he can stick around and let things with Mark inevitably fall apart, or he can run like hell and wonder what might have been. One way or another, Diego knows he’s about to get burned. Again.

50% of the author’s royalties from this book will be donated to charities supporting US military veterans who have been deported or are at risk of deportation.
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Categories: 4 Star Ratings, Book Review, JustJen's Reviews, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: A Full Plate by Kim Fielding

Reviewed by Ami

Title: A Full Plate
Author: Kim Fielding
Series: Dreamspun Desires, #56
Heroes: Tully * Sage
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 206 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: April 17, 2018
Available at: Dreamspinner Press & Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Opposites come together for a spicy surprise.

Bradford “Tully” Tolliver has everything—money, a great car, a beautiful condo, and a promising career as one of Portland’s hottest young lawyers. Sure, he puts in long hours and has no social life to speak of, but who needs romance when corporations pay top dollar for his expertise? He hesitates when a colleague asks if her cousin can live with him, but the arrangement will last less than a year, and then the cousin—Sage Filling—will return to his tiny hometown.

But Sage is handsome and intriguing, and his cooking makes Tully swoon. Sage has obligations back home, though, and Tully has offers he might not refuse from a persistent—and very wealthy—ex. Since Tully and Sage each have a full plate, can they make room for a side of love? Continue reading

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

Honorary Blogger Lynn Kelling: Writing a Deaf Main Character + Giveaway!

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Writing a Deaf Main Character

by Lynn Kelling

My new release, Hush, isn’t the first book in which I’ve written a deaf character, but it is the first time I’ve done so with the main character—Rune, the main character of Hush, first appeared as a secondary character in my novel Bare. I was so thrilled and energized to tell Rune’s point of view as someone with a different means of communicating, that the story flowed quickly onto the page. He doesn’t speak and is recently, completely deaf. Because of this, he is quite focused on the before and after of when he lost his hearing. He’s learning how to let go of the life he had before the motorcycle accident that caused several injuries, and actively figuring out how to adapt to brand new circumstances. The people in his life are not experts at American Sign Language, to say the least, but technology (and patience) help fill in most of the gaps.

As the writer of this story, having a point of view from a main character who rarely engages in traditional dialogue with quote marks posed some technical challenges. I needed to decide how I was going to convey exchanges in sign language, or in written form via mobile apps or old school notepads. It was crucial to me that dialogue still be recognizable as just that, even without the visual cue of quote marks, so that the narration of the story is distinguishable from the conversations. For the most part, italics are used for this purpose in Hush. In my research, I saw this approach in other novels with deaf characters who sign and don’t speak (such as Joe Hill’s The Fireman), and it seemed to work well. I also describe the way the signs look wherever it adds to the scene or story, though I didn’t want to be too heavy-handed with descriptive passages either.

Aside from the practical hurdles, I really enjoyed getting to tell a good portion of Hush from the point of view of someone who struggles to fit into a world that doesn’t make it easy to do so for people who are differently-abled. Rune doesn’t ask for much of others—just to be recognized as an equally-valid presence and given some respect. He’s seen people let their gaze slide over him, avoiding interactions that might challenge them. He’s well familiar with how things might be awkward in some cases, such as using apps like Grindr to hook up with guys, when there’s a chasm of silence standing in the way once it’s time to meet face-to-face.

But this story isn’t about his hearing loss. It’s about the choice to not live life as a victim, but as someone capable of making positive change in the world. Rune’s not interested in becoming the guy he was before the crash. He wants to be better, stronger, braver, and he wants it all to mean something in the end.

I found there’s a lot of beauty and humanity in the ways Rune communicates. He’s always mentally engaged, putting more effort than most of us do into everything he tells people, just in trying to make himself understood. So, it could be seen that the things he tells others carry more weight. He uses body language more than my characters usually do. He’s an expert at reading a room, and because he’s become used to watching people’s movements closely for signs of them trying to speak or sign to him, not much gets passed him. There’s an added intimacy to his ASL conversations, to the letters he writes, the texts he sends, because most of the time they’re intended only for the eyes of the recipient. He does feel isolated because of his deafness, so any small gesture of simple human kindness that’s extended his way is absolutely treasured.

I learned a lot by living in his world, and found it’s a really beautiful place to be. Continue reading

Categories: Book Promo, Giveaways, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

Book Review: Hush by Lynn Kelling

Reviewed by JustJen

Title: Hush
Author: Lynn Kelling
Series: The Manse #4
Heroes: Rune/Oliver/Jackson
Genre: MMM Contemporary BDSM
Length: 398 Pagees
Publisher: Enspire Publishing
Release Date: April 17, 2018
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads

Blurb: Rune Tooby is a smartass rebel and closeted gay biker with The Born Soldiers motorcycle gang. Rune’s life centered on casual sex and less-than-legal employment, until a pickup truck full of homophobic white supremacists rammed into his bike, destroying his hearing and shattering his life. Learning to live deaf and silent overwhelmed Rune, sending him to humbly beg help from the last people he trusts completely: the rich and powerful Dominants of the Manse, who trained Rune in the arts of BDSM.

Oliver Hughes, cocky day trader and sexual Dominant, lives a life of indulgent luxury. Despite this, he feels adrift and unneeded since his beloved submissive, Jackson Whitney, became absorbed into life as a family man and cardiologist, leaving him little time for his Master. When a meeting between Rune and Oliver is carefully arranged by the leaders of Manse, it starts a wild ride, sweeping up everyone who gets too close to the explosive pair. Rune and Oliver find themselves on a path filled with frustrating miscommunications, rage-filled vengeance, and painfully unearthed secrets.
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Categories: 4.5 Star Ratings, Book Review, JustJen's Reviews, LGBT, Published in 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment