Focus is so crucial in fiction that reading a book without it can be a disorienting experience. Often authors who write from the seat of their pants with no preplanning and don’t go back to fill in the gaps produce unfocused stories that seem to jump from one important point to another, never quite melding…
In outline, Cost of Loving looks like it should be an emotionally gripping angst fest surrounding two young men’s reactions to their friend’s suicide. Unfortunately, author Kelly doesn’t quite have the writing ability to pull it off; instead he lets the story get trapped in a morass of crying jags and endless conversations which didn’t…
It’s not often a book’s title is the spoiler for the story, but that’s the case here. The Billy of the title not only isn’t mentioned in the first half of the book, but he doesn’t appear at all in the flesh. Instead, he’s the nightmare that keeps one of the characters screaming in the…
Anything can and usually does happen in a fairytale. Pumpkins turn into coaches and mice into horses. The prince falls in love with the commoner. Love has no boundaries and men can see through dirt, grime, and rags to the beauty below. When Love Takes Over, the title implies, the sky’s the limit. The hard…
Not only does serendipity happen, Cullinan says in her latest gay romance, but we have to be ready to clutch it, live it, and enjoy it, no matter how anally we’ve been trying to arrange ourselves and the world around us. College junior Walter Lucas is angry when he finds out he won’t be able…
“Sweet” is the operative word in this third installment of the Theta Alpha Gamma (TAG) fraternity series, and not in a good way. In fact, the love interest of the protagonist calls him about every possible variation of “sweet” there is, proving why at age thirty-something he’s unattached until he meets a sweet, young college…
McKenna tackles so many issues that other M/M romance authors avoid that this book almost seems like a playbook for sensitive issues handled well. The effects of PTSD and the atrocities in war are woven into a framework of gays in the military, presenting a compelling and sympathetic story of a career sergeant and his…
I want to like author Murphy’s books. I truly do. That he is well-meaning and has a good heart shines through his writing. The only problem is that his style tends to be overly journalistic, which doesn’t translate well to romance or to relationship stories. This book is a case in point. When his older…
It would be easy label Alexis Hall’s debut novel Glitterland as literary fiction masquerading as romance. The language he uses – his metaphors are often show stoppingly gorgeous – and his narrator, a bipolar depressive – beg to be read by those who dismiss genre fiction as lowly. The next time someone sniffs derisively at…
Years of mental and physical abuse leave marks that take a monumental support system to ease, but never erase. Fortunately, the protagonist of Quinn’s newest novel not only finds the support system, but also is pulled from the blackness surrounding him in a series of tiny steps that will make readers appreciate the effort it…