The Boy on the Bridge

Pairing: M/F

Orientation: straight

Identity: Cisgender

Warning: dubious consent, bullying, child abuse

The Boy on the Bridge is Sam Mariano’s newest young adult contemporary bully romance and at just around 700 pages it’s also her longest. I’m not a huge fan of long books; I tend to think that somewhere along the halfway mark they start to feel stale and lag. This book, however, didn’t feel long. I was invested in the story and the characters no matter how often I thought the main heroine was an idiot, but more on that in a bit. Sam Mariano has written one of my favorite antiheroes in Mateo Morelli so the characters have to be exceptional for me to even like them. The main hero, Hunter Maxwell, was extremely likeable and came off as less assholey than Carter Mahoney from Untouchable. Riley Bishop, the heroine, was just a tad too self-righteous and hypocritical, but I didn’t hate her, and for this story she was the person that Hunter needed.

Many, many years ago when I was taking a creative writing course the phrase “show don’t tell” became engraved in my psyche, and that’s exactly what Mariano did in Part One of this book. Too often we get half-assed explanations as to why the hero holds a grudge and must destroy the heroine’s life, but in this book we get to see why Hunter is hell bent on making Riley’s life miserable. Are his reasons just and make sense? Not to an adult reader, but a 14 year old kid whose whole life was upended and drastically changed seemingly overnight because of Riley. Yes. And this is one of the main things that does differentiate this story from every other bully romance out there. We weren’t just thrown into the present and given a lame excuse as to the hero’s behavior. We were shown exactly why Hunter acts the way that he does, why he was angry when he was 14 and why 4 years later he still hasn’t been able to fully let go of his anger.

I liked most of the characters in this book. I liked Riley and Hunter together as a couple, except when Riley whined about not being able to be with him because of certain actions right before she tumbled into bed with him. I liked Riley’s mom, Michelle and her boyfriend Ray. Not gonna lie, I kinda want to read more about Ray. An older man with tattoos sign me up for that one. Hunter’s mom can go eat a bag of dicks though. My favorite character hands down is Ryden? Sherlock. I need his story or a whole series, a la Morelli, about him. But, like not him in high school, but an older more devious Sherlock. Yeah that would be great.

For as long as the book was, the story flowed really well. I didn’t read it all in one sitting, but I never felt that it dragged. There wasn’t a whole lot of plot. It was the epitome of a relationship drama. There was very little going on outside of Hunter and Riley building their relationship, and all the drama revolved around that. I ain’t mad at it because if I wanted to read a complicated book that I needed to take notes on I would read high fantasy or sci-fi not a high school bully romance. It’s not a story we haven’t read before, but few of them are, however, it was more well written than most in this genre which I truly appreciate. I only wish that Riley had more of a backbone and actually showed it instead of just telling us about it.

But, please right older, more devious, evil, possibly bisexual Sherock’s story. (In my head Sherlock is most definitely bisexual who becomes an evil, crimal mastermind, and falls in love with the cop that is investigating his case. I’d name him Brandon Moriarty.)

The book was requested and I was provided a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Roommate

Pairing: M/M

Orientation: gay

Identity: Cisgender

Warning: homophobic slurs

Published: January 12, 2021

306 pages

Wanted: One roommate to share a 3-bedroom house, split the rent, and ideally not be the guy I can’t stop thinking about.

Seeking: a room to rent in town. I’m tidy, have no pets, and I will feed you homemade bread. I should probably add: Gay AF, and has no filter. It’s no wonder my new landlord is so wary of me.

Roommate by Sarina Bowen is a gay romance novel about an out and down on his luck baker and a closeted farmboy who is not only questioning his sexuality but also his identity within his family structure. Roderick Waites left the small Vermont town when I was eighteen because his parents couldn’t accept the fact that he was gay. Eight years later, after a bad break-up, he is back to try to put his life together in the last place he called home. He is a baker by trade and finds employment at a local coffee shop called the Busy Bean and it is here that he encounters Kiernan Shipley. Kiernan remembers Roderick from high school although they weren’t friends or even in the same grade, but Roderick knows one of the secrets that Kiernan is keeping from his family and friends.

For me, Sarina Bowen is one of those authors who I wanna like more than I actually do. Most of her books, or at least the ones I read, are pretty standard as far as contemporary romance goes. They are light and fluffy with little to no angst and all issues and problems are resolved within a few pages, and those that cannot be resolved are stuffed underneath the floorboards never to be heard of again. Most if not all the Sarina Bowen books I’ve read have been male male romances. And although I do believe that a straight cisfemale can write a gay romance novel and do justice to not only the genre but to the community, I don’t ever feel like Bowen does so.

The main characters in Roommate were really rather boring. Individually, there really wasn’t anything about them that caught my attention. Sure, Kiernan is from a big family and blah, blah, blah, but been there done that, and Roderick comes back home after a bad breakup and is temporarily homeless, but again yawn. Roderick’s former relationship was barely touched upon, just like his relationship with his parents. These things would have helped round out his character more, but instead were just side notes, and don’t even get me started on that third act that was resolved in a paragraph. And then when they were together, again just boring. That might have to do with the fact that we saw very little interaction with them as a couple when other people were around.

I’m pretty sure Bowen was going for a sweet and charming love story, but instead this read as trite and overused. And the fact that Bowen just ignored all of Kiernan’s reasons for not coming out to his family was infuriating. There are very legitimate reasons why someone who isn’t straight doesn’t broadcast their sexuality far and wide, and the fact that Roderick goes from one breath saying I’m not going to make you come out to the next going but if you wanna be with me you have to is fucking ridiculous and made me despise his character.

January Wrap-up

January 2021, which felt an awful lot like December 2020 part two, is finally over, and it’s time to look at what I was actually able to read throughout the month. I had a very ambitious 24 titles in my January TBR and I didn’t read 24 books in January; I watched more television than I usually do. So out of those 24 books I read 12 and then 5 books that were not on the list. That makes a total of 17 books read for the month. Not bad. So what exactly did I read?

I completed the Morelli Family series by Sam Mariano:
Resisting Mateo book 5
Coming Home book 6
Last Words book 7
Entrapment book 8
Old Flame book 9
I enjoyed the series as a whole; there were some books that were way better than others but as a whole it was extremely entertaining. I’ll be posting a full review of the series in the next couple of weeks.

I also caught up to Giana Darling’s The Fallen Series:
Good Gone Bad book 3
After the Fall book 4
Inked in Lies book 5
Dead Man Walking book 6
So far this series is keeping my interest; there were some character decisions that pissed me off but overall it was a solid series and entertaining read.

From my initial January TBR I also read Land of Big Numbers a collection of short stories about the Chinese experience written by Te-Ping Chen; Roommate the new Sarina Bowen M/M romance which as expected was luke-warm, I’m in the middle of trying to organize my thoughts for a full review of this title; and Bad Habits by Neve Wilder and Onley James another M/M romance which was my favorite read of the month more because of the premise of the book rather than the romance.

Aside from those books on my initial TBR I also read five additional titles:

Bully King by Andi Jaxon part of Kindle Unlimited (KU) a M/M bully romance which veered way too much into religion and guilt associated with being gay and religious for my tastes.
Behind Closed Doors (KU) by Anna Stone a lesbian romance novel which started off strong but then lost steam and kinda fell apart toward the end.
Wicked Saint (KU) by Veronica Eden which wasn’t anything special and could be confused for any number of the hundred of bully straight romances that seem to multiply overnight. This is the first book of the Sinners and Saints series and I was so unimpressed that I’m not gonna be reading the rest.
A Notorious Vow (KU) by Joanna Shupe a historical romance novel set in New York with a deaf hero. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from Ms. Shupe.
Stripped Love (KU) by Baylin Crow an M/M romance between a stripper and a college student. I prefer Baylin Crow’s sports romances. This was just an okay book. This is book one of Guys Next Door series I haven’t decided whether or not all read more from this series; I’m gonna take it on an individual basis.

I did DNF two books in January which were Not my Romeo by Ilsa Madden-Mills, I didn’t like either main character I stopped reading about halfway through when neither character became likeable to me, and The Chase by Elle Kennedy. I’m not sure if I should even call this a DNF since I only read one chapter and wanted to stab my eyes at how annoying I found the main female lead’s voice in my head.

Ten Things I Hate About the Duke

Pairing: M/F
Orientation: straight
Identity: cisgender
Genre: historical romance

Loretta Chase was one of the first historical romance authors that I ever read. The first time I picked up one of her books I was in high school, and at the time I found it scandalous and so very sexy. Of course, my reading before this consisted mostly of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Dean Koontz, so even a hint of romance was enough to make my sixteen year old heart swoon. Soon, I was devouring all the historical romance I could find from Julie Garwood to Johanna Lindsey from Jude Deveraux to Brenda Joyce and Judith McNaught. But it was Chase that opened the door to reading about Dukes and their Duchesses, Highlanders and their fair maidens, and the Lords and Ladies of the Ton.

When the opportunity arose to read Loretta Chase’s latest historical, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, I was excited. And then about half way through, I remembered why I stopped reading most historical romance authors. I probably couldn’t list ten things I hated about this book, but I’d be hard pressed to list ten things that I liked.

Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, is the story of Cassandra Pomfrey, an intellectual young woman who doesn’t wish to marry and have her life dictated by a man, and Lucious Duke of Ashmont, a rake who causes scandal and mischief wherever he goes. So pretty much the same characters that appear in 89% of all historical romance novels, and usually I don’t mind these stock characters except they weren’t interesting. There was nothing about either character that was different than any number of other characters in other romance novels. These people for as different and rakish as they purported to be were in fact boring. There was a lot of telling not showing. And if there was a plot outside of just the two of them getting together, I failed to see it.

This was also a slow burn that never really got above tepid. I read a lot of romance novels, and this one just wasn’t steamy or sexy. It was at best lukewarm. When we finally did get to the one and only sex scene all i could think of was that scene in Ten Things I Hate About You and how it read like the romance novel the principal was writing. Which might be what Chase was going for since it’s pretty obvious she took inspiration from the film and you know Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

I probably won’t read another Loretta Chase book, but reading this book reminded me how much I actually enjoy historical romance novels. After twenty years of reading romance, I’ve ventured way outside of what Chase’s audience is, but she was a great gateway to one of the greatest pleasures in my life.

This book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Haunting of Beatrix Greene – Episode 1

Genre: Gothic Horror Romance

Pairing: M/F

The Haunting of Beatrix Green Episode 1 by Rachel Hawkings, Ash Parsons, and Vicky Alvear Schecter is a cooperative novel that is currently available through Serial Box where it is released in weekly installments. I received the full novel version from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The story revolves around Beatrix Green, a fake spiritualist, who makes her living providing closure to people who have lost loved ones. As per the book’s description: “In Victorian England a savvy spiritual medium must outsmart the most important client of her career: a scientist determined to expose frauds like her,” and then something about wits and fatal consequences blah blah blah. That just covers the first 10% of the book, we learn pretty early on that the scientist, James Walker, is only exposing frauds because he is in need of a real spiritualist and is under the belief that Beatrix is it.

James Walker needs someone to help exorcise spirits from his family home so he can let go of the past before he makes a new future for himself in America. And this is where the bulk of the story takes place, Ashbury Manor. An ancient residence with a tragic past and evil within. James, Beatrix, Harry, Beatrix’s friend and sidekick, Amanda Reynolds, an American photographer, and Stanhope all gather in the manor to try and communicate with the dead in order to rid the house of what haunts it.

It is during the first night in the house and the seance that is performed we learn, and Beatrix too apparently, that Ms. Green is not actually a fraud. She seems to have a connection to the otherworld that made it possible for spirits to communicate through her. It is at this point that the book becomes more of a haunted house story with a smattering of romance thrown in, for no real good reason, than anything else. It was also at this point and later toward the climax of the story that all I could think about was the movie “Monster House.” Although I love the movie, I’m not saying that as a compliment. Some descriptions of the going ons in the house were laughable at best.

It might just be my imagination but the slight shifts in tone between one chapter to the next when there was a switch in writers was kinda obvious. This probably works really well as a serial when you have a week between episodes and don’t have two competing voices in your head. It was an enjoyable read, but not one I felt the need to finish, I started this back before Halloween, so yeah, or to see what was going to happen. It was predictable and at the end of the day couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a horror or romance, so it ended not being either.

Den of Vipers by K.A. Knight

Pairing: MMMMF
Orientation: Straight
Identity: Cisgender

Warning: blood, violence, dubious consent, S&M, scenes of abuse and assault

Den of Vipers by K.A. Knight is a reverse harem dark romance revolving around four leaders of the Vipers, the most feared organization in town (no, I don’t know what town, I’m not sure it’s ever mentioned, but some town in either the U.S. or the U.K but definitely not in Asia or Russian), and the feisty, but they don’t know it yet, female that was given to them to pay off a debt. Yes, the plot does sound familiar, it’s a plot that I’ve read in any number of books since the 90’s. But I’m not mad at the premise of the book, I’m mad at the execution and the fact that the plot is virtually nonexistent seeming only to be there as a page filler between either sex scenes or one of the characters thinking about sex and/or how horny they are.

So, Roxanne, who goes by Roxy cuz she’s so feisty, is given to the Vipers by her father to pay off his gambling debt. Her father is a grade A douchebag. There’s four Vipers and they are a walking cliche. All four of them. Ryder, the face of the organization whose cold because he was forced to grow up too fast. Kenzo, Ryder’s brother, a consummate gambler and lover of the group. Garrett the fighter with trust and anger issues who doesn’t trust women. And Diesel, the crazy, funny one. The four of them kidnap Roxy and they all fall in love in the middle of trying to keep the Triad from taking over the city.

And that took 646 pages.

There was a lot of sex in this book. Violent sex. Bloody sex. Rough sex. Sex on tables. Sex in the shower. Sex against windows. It was basically 500 pages of sex. The other 146 is where the plot and character development was supposed to be. Because contrary to popular belief sex, does not develop your character.

Here’s the thing: I love romance novels; I love dark romance novels; I love smut and violence and blood, but it needs to be held together by a plot and characters that make sense and are not just caricatures of what bad mobster are supposed to be all the way down to tattooed bodies and pierced dicks.

And as much as I love smutty dark romances, I could forgive this book for all those things except when it asks me to suspend my disbelief completely and be okay without any sort of character growth.

SPOILER ALERT

About 500 pages into the book, Roxy is kidnapped. While she is trying to get away, she’s in a car accident where her car rolls and then is either stun or drugged or somehow knocked out, honestly I don’t remember. She is then beat up, strapped to a chair with barb wire, tortured for an undisclosed number of hours but many many, her ribs are broken, shoulder dislocated, nails pulled out and you know TORTURED. She then manages to break her chair, free herself, and make her escape. They men are there to save her, but because she’s so feisty and cool, she manages to mostly save herself. She then fights her way through the building, killing anyone that crosses her path. But she’s not done yet, she also, still wearing the bloody clothes from being tortured, goes to save Garrett who was captured and kills Garrett’s ex with her bare hands. She’s not fucking Batman. She did not train in Ninja Mountain or with the fucking military to be able to survive hours of torture without passing out as soon as the immediate danger to her life was gone. Adrenaline only gets you so far.

And the other thing that really made me have a very keen dislike of this book, is the absolutely nonexistent character development and growth. The five people who meet in the first chapter of this book are exactly the same as the five people in the epilogue. They didn’t learn anything, but how could they with the lack of any substantial plot.

Bane’s Choice by Alyssa Day

Pairing: M/F Orientation: Straight Identity: Cisgender

Bane’s Choice is not the first Alyssa Day book I’ve read. I read the first couple of installments of her Warriors of Poseidon series back when they were first released starting in 2007; I stopped reading them not because I did not like them, I remember enjoying them as I read them, but because I had caught up and honestly just forgot to go back and pick up the rest of the series when it was finished. Having now read Bane’s Choice, I don’t find myself in much of a hurray to read her other books.

When I first saw the cover of the book I was excited, a vampire motorcycle club sign me up. I was hoping for exactly what that cover promised a vampire motorcycle club, but I didn’t really get that in this book. The motorcycle club was pretty much nonexistent. They made an appearance in the first chapter and then are not heard of again until the end. What I wanted, what I was led to believe I would get, was a novel about the love lives of a motorcycle club that just happened to have vampire members, but what this book really was … wasn’t that.

About 80% of this book happens in one location, the house where Bane lives with his sister Meara and two other vampires, Luke and Edge. I’m sure we will get their stories in upcoming books so I wasn’t really mad that we learned very little of any of them. Except we learn very little of any of the characters including our two main’s, Bane and Ryan. We don’t really learn much about Bane’s past, and what we learned is basically just told to us. We don’t even know why they migrated to Savannah. And we learn even less about Ryan. Basically, Ryan is a doctor, her father was an asshole, although we don’t really know why or in which way, she lived with her grandmother, but we don’t know when or why, and she whines a whole lot about not being as pretty as or as thin as or as glamorous as Meara or her friend or some random person walking down the street.

The book itself was about Bane and Ryan falling in love after one day, and the vampires battling an evil organization called the Chamber and the evil necromancer they sent to take over Savannah. I know this because we are told this. There’s very little action in this book and what there is seems rushed and honestly boring. I really didn’t care about the action; not even a werewolf motorcycle club made me care about how they were battling against the evil, scary necromancer.

I think the biggest issue is that in my head this was supposed to be a different book than what it ended up being. It wasn’t a bad book, Ms. Day’s writing made sure of that, but it wasn’t the book the cover promised. I’m going to read the next one because I really liked the secondary characters more than I liked the mains, and hopefully the next will be more motorcycle club and less angsty vampire.

An eARC of this book was provided free of charge by NetGalley and the publishers for an honest review.