Ollie Always is a complex, character driven novel, and John Wiltshire’s writing is crisp, accurate, and full of observational humour and ‘snark’. The setting in New Zealand is described beautifully, if not always affectionately. There is a definite sense of an Englishman abroad, maybe because our eponymous is hero is just that. Oliver is named…
Pain Slut is the second novel, in the Subs Club series by J.A. Rock. I did read the first, The Subs Club, and although it improves the reading experience in some ways, Pain Slut can be read as a stand-alone. Miles is a handsome, serious man and a masochist, in that he is part of…
OUT!is the third, and final book in the Shamwell series by J.L. Merrow. I have read all so far and nearly included Played! and Caught! in my Top 10 for 2015. Set in the imaginary and rather idealised English village of Shamwell, this novel follows the rather shambolic romance between divorcee Mark and Shamwell resident…
Harper Fox’s latest novel is a beautiful sweeping story of love, dedication and betrayal. We start on a Peace Warrior ship in the Norwegian Fiords with Keir Mallory (aka Mallory or Mal) attempting a publicity stunt that goes terribly wrong and results in the loss of two of his ship-mates. Mallory returns home to his…
My, my, Ms. Ford likes her violence. I tend to really enjoy her series (Sinners, Cole McGinnis), largely because she writes well and she writes unusual and interesting gay men to whom I am always drawn. Ford also tends to like men with a lot of baggage, which goes well with all that action…. Deacon…
Sunset Park is the second in the Five Boroughs series – the first Sutphin Boulevard introduced us to the Rodriguez family, and the relationship between ‘Nunzio and Michael. This book concerns Michael’s younger brother, Raymond. Raymond is used to ignoring responsibility, knowing his older brother and his mother will look after things. With both their…
The second book in K.J Charles’ Society of Gentlemen trilogy, A Seditious Affair contains all the ingredients I enjoyed so much in A Fashionable Indulgence, which I read in the summer. I was so impressed by Ms Charles’ writing and the wonderful way she wove the romantic relationship through a gripping story of social and…
Unnatural spans a period of about fifteen years, and charts the development of the relationship between Captain Iain Sinclair and James Hart. The cover announces it as “An Enlightenment Story”, meaning that it takes place within the same fictional universe as Ms Chambers’ excellent Enlightenment trilogy; and fans of those books will no doubt be…
Viscount’s Wager is the third book in Ava March’s Gambling on Love series, but even though characters from earlier books appear in it, I don’t think it’s essential to have read them to understand this one. It’s a well-told and engaging story and I enjoyed reading it, but the pacing around the middle of the…
Sequels are risky. If book 1 ends in a HEA (or at least HFN), do we really want to see more of these characters and their conflicts? Because a book has to have conflict of some sort to be good. And, in a sequel, now the author is messing with the HEA. I’m a big…