December Round Up

on Paper/eBook

Gayday! Gayday! by Kim Dare - C  Cute short about a bratty submissive who gets into trouble and calls his dominant friend (who he thinks is straight) to bail him out of a sticky situation.  Turns out his friend isn't quite as straight as first though...

Rough Canvas by Joey W. Hill - B This erotic BDSM m/m romance came highly recommended by various Goodreads friends and I picked it up in a recent ARe sale.  Gallery owner Marcus and Artist Thomas were lovers but Marcus keeps secrets and Thomas has significant family responsibilities and neither had trusted the other enough for forever. There was a lot of sex which sometimes overtook the story, but it also had some moment so beauty and lyrical melancholy.  Some of the phrases were lovely but others you kind of had to look at sideways with a squint to understand them because they didn't make a lot of sense when you read them straight out.  I enjoyed the book and believed the HEA and liked that the story ended up being more about Marcus' pain than Thomas' responsibilities.  (But, what happened to Daralyn?).  In any event, I liked it.

Needing a Little Christmas by Sylvia Violet - B-  This cute Christmas short features a sexy lumberjack type hero and really, what's not to love about that.  Some of the early writing in the book seemed a little clumsy and info-dumping, but the story made me smile and I think Eli and Mac will be able to work out their locational issues and live happily ever after.

March Reads

on Paper/eBook

Woman on the Run by Lisa Marie Rice B+  *This romantic suspense by Lisa Marie Rice was written in 2004 when email and mobile phones weren’t quite so prevalent and data encryption wasn’t as good as it is now.  But, leaving those things aside, this book was a win for me.  LMR books have a kind of a crackalicious flavour to me – like those glorious B movies some people love.    Julia Devaux witnesses a mob murder and is placed on the Witness Protection Program.  Her new name is Sally Anderson and she’s relocated to the tiny town of Simpson, Idaho.  There, she meets Sam Cooper, former Navy SEAL and current millionaire horse breeder/rancher.  He’s a typical LMR hero – once he sets eyes on Julia/Sally, he’s gone for all money, has an instant and persistent hard-on and will literally do anything to keep her safe.   Julia/Sally is suitably clueless about how to be safe and, while she borders on TSTL territory from time to time, I was able to accept that most of her stupidity was actually due to her naiveté. 

How Julia/Sally didn’t have at the very least a massive and constant UTI was beyond me because once this pair start having sex, they are at it all night long.  Literally.  He’s inside her all the time!! Cooper is not big with words and isn’t much for foreplay either – he just wants to be inside her and with the power of his mighty wang of loving, he is able to give Julia/Sally instant and repeated orgasms.   They don’t use condoms so there’s a lot of... fluid about the place but after 4 or 5 orgasms, he has a really smooth ride!  The sex isn’t really terribly sexy as mostly it’s plain missionary, there’s not a lot of dirty talk (or any other kind actually) and, like I said before, not much foreplay.

But, despite Cooper’s lack of verbosity, we do get to see inside his head and WE know he’s a complete goner over this woman.  And there is something so terribly appealing (if in a slightly guilty way) of the hero who would do anything for his lady, with single-minded purpose. Jane from Dear Author said on Twitter that a LMR hero would carry his heroine around all day if he could and she wasn't wrong.