Book Review: Counterpunch, by Aleks Voinov. 5 of 5 Stars

Apologies for the unexpected silence this week. I was in one of those "Snowtober" areas where the kids got an unexpected week off from school because three quarters of the state had no power. My solution to this was to pick up and fly to California to visit dear friend and fellow M/M author Cat Grant. I'll be hanging here for a couple weeks to catch up on sleep post-Riptide launch and get started on a big kinky book we're co-writing.

In the meanwhile, I wanted to post a mini-review on Aleksandr Voinov's new novel, Counterpunch, which released today. Full disclosure: I was a beta, and it's also set in my sandbox (this story is written in the same world as Anchored and Where He Belongs). That said, Aleks wrote such a beautiful novel I'm downright jealous of how well he handled my sandbox; he built a much prettier castle than I ever did!
Here's the blurb:

Fight like a man, or die like a slave.

Brooklyn Marshall used to be a policeman in London, with a wife and a promising future ahead of him. Then he accidentally killed a rioter whose father was a Member of Parliament and had him convicted of murder. To ease the burden on the overcrowded prison system, Brooklyn was sold into slavery rather than incarcerated. Now, he's the "Mean Machine", a boxer on the slave prizefighting circuit, pummelling other slaves for the entertainment of freemen and being rented out for the sexual service of his wealthier fans.

When Nathaniel Bishop purchases Brooklyn's services for a night, it seems like any other assignation. But the pair form an unexpected bond that grows into something more. Brooklyn hesitates to call it "love"—such things do not exist between freemen and slaves—but when Nathaniel reveals that he wants to help get Brooklyn's conviction overturned, he dares to hope. Then, an accident in the ring sends Brooklyn on the run, jeopardizing everything he has worked so hard to achieve and sending him into the most important fight of all—the fight for freedom.

This is classic Voinov at his finest: dark, gritty, morally ambiguous, dangerous, violent, and sexy as hell. All that plus a genuine romance! If you are a fan of any of these things, I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. When you're done with your first read, you'll want to read it again, and again, and again. Pure love.

Book Review: Duck! by Kim Dare, 4 of 5 Stars

Morning folks. My sis is in town this week for the first time since December, so I'll be cheating the blog content juuuuust a little by posting some book reviews I did on Goodreads, and maybe some picspam. (Are you tired of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy yet? Because I have a whole folder of hot naked guys who are not them; I just haven't felt compelled to open it lately ;-p)

Anyway, today I want to share a review for a delightful M/M BDSM book, Duck! by Kim Dare.

A modern day M/M, BDSM retelling of The Ugly Ducking Fairy Tale using avian shifters. 

Raised among humans, Ori Jones only discovered he was an avian shifter six months ago. Unable to complete a full shift until he reaches his avian maturity, he still can’t be sure of his exact species. 

But with species comes rank, and rank is everything to the avians. When a partial shift allows the elders to announce that they believe Ori to be a rather ugly little duckling, he drops straight to the bottom rung of their hierarchy. 

Life isn’t easy for Ori until he comes to the attention of a high ranking hawk shifter. Then the only question is, is Ori really a duck—and what will his new master think when the truth eventually comes out?

My review, beneath the jump.

Giveaway and Favorites Round-up

Happy Friday, folks! Pollage indicated--much to my surprise, I must admit--that a surprisingly large percentage of you were interested in me continuing book reviews on this blog. Being as I know so many of the authors in the genre now, and am or will be published with so many of the houses, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of posting negative reviews (though it's quite possible that sometimes I just won't be able to help myself ;-p), but I'm happy to share some positive ones. I thought I'd do something a little bit different today, though, and point you all to recent releases from two of my favorite authors. Since I've been head-down finishing Crescendo, I've only had time to read one of these, but the one I haven't read yet is at the very top of my Looking Forward To It Like Whoa pile.

First, though, a quick contest notice: The lovely Amara is doing a giveaway for Counterpoint: Book I of Song of the Fallen over at Amara's Place. All you have to do to enter is comment, so go, give her some love. She deserves it :-D

And now a short round-up of new releases I can't wait to get my grubby hands on, beneath the jump.

Book Review: Captive, by Scarlet Blackwell, 2 of 5 Stars

Alas, this blog post should probably be titled "How NOT to Write a Capture Fantasy."

Let's start with the cover (aww, pretty boy in handcuffs, although I find it a little creepy that he's supposed to be old enough to have written six books and instead looks barely legal at best) and a blurb:

On the outs with his lover, author Gabriel Black retreats to work on a new book at his Alaskan hideaway, where he expects peace and quiet... instead Gabriel gets shock and surprise when an intruder breaks in and takes him hostage. His captor, Ethan, is far too handsome for Gabriel's own good, and Gabriel decides that the best way to get free is to seduce his captor. The question is: Will he enjoy it too much to want to escape if Ethan gives in?

(89 pages, Dreamspinner Press.)


So, I should have known right from the blurb that this book was going to be a disaster. I've never been a fan of those Victorian-era porn stories where the woman is abducted and raped by some barbarian chieftan and discovers ZOMG she lurves it and wants to spend forever and ever with the man. This sounded an awful lot like that, but for $2 and the potential for a good capture fantasy, I couldn't resist.

Unfortunately, I think I spent this entire book rolling my eyes. The writing was solid on the sentence level but a train wreck everywhere else. One protagonist was TSTL (Gabriel), and the only reason he did live was because the other protagonist, Ethan--the one with the gun who Gabriel insisted on alternately antagonizing and fantasizing over despite the fact that Ethan broke into his house, cuffed him, called him a fag, threatened to kill him repeatedly, even pistol whipped and beat him--had roller-coaster sized mood swings that came out of nowhere and lacked any clear motivation.

The whole thing read like a bad porn fantasy--you know, the kind where you answer the doorbell to discover that the pizza guy isn't wearing any pants, except this time with capture and abuse. Now, as you all know, I'm as prone to fantasize over capture and abuse as the next gal, but I need organics; I want the characters to act like sane people with motivations that make sense, rather than do what the author tells them to because the author requires a certain behavior to drive the story.

Even worse than all of that, at the end [highlight to read the spoiler, or don't squint too close if you don't want to read it because I can't find the exact color as the background to make it truly invisible] ZOMG IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM!, of course, and we should have seen that coming because it was the only way that the prior 9/10ths of the novel made even the remotest smidge of sense.

I got this with a 50% off coupon code at Fictionwise.com ("probowl2011" good til the end of the month), so for $2 I don't particularly consider it time or money wasted (see above re: my love of capture fantasies), but it really was just not at all well done on a structural, plot, or character level and I don't think I could in good conscience recommend this to anyone.

Review of Fugly, by K.Z. Snow. 3 of 5 Stars.

Click the cover art to purchase Fugly at Amazon.com.

Cover Blurb

What happens to a young man's self-image, and his sex life, when he wakes up one morning to see his good looks significantly altered for the worse? Three twenty-something gay friends—an embalmer, a movement coach, and a literary agent—find out the answer when they hit on the wrong patron of a club one night.

Todd, Fallon, and Jake, aka the Hunt Club, think they're pretty damned hot. As a result, their standards for worthwhile hook-ups are appallingly superficial. The men aren't total jerks; they just need an adjustment in perspective. And they get it, in spades, from a mysterious stranger who's sick of seeing his beautiful partner pawed by dawgs.

There’s no medical explanation for the hideous rashes that erupt on the trio overnight. Doctors can’t even detect it, much less cure it. Still, the Hunt Club’s mirrors reflect ravaged faces, and the toned, handsome guys they normally pursue now shun them.

As the vulnerability that’s always lurked beneath their vanity begins to surface, Todd, Fallon, and Jake begin to see themselves and potential partners in a new light. Little did they know that in the eyes of three ordinary, overlooked men on the sidelines of their lives, it's always been the heart that’s mattered far more than the hot.

Review

No question about it, K.Z. Snow writes beautifully. At least half a dozen turns of phrase stopped me cold with their cleverness, with a new way of framing a common thought or a recasting of a metaphor. Very, very clean and well-done.

The story, however, did little for me. I liked it, but I felt no real passion for it. For me, at least, I think a big part of the problem was how far she stretched what should have been a short story rather than a novella. Essentially, she tells the exact same story three different times: the triumph of internal over external beauty, told once for each of the three affected characters. Alas, once period would have been enough. As a short following only one character, the story would have been tight and fresh to the end. Three times over, I was bored halfway through the second, and stuck with the third only because it was so beautifully written.

The other thing that particularly threw me about Fugly was the shift from 1st person POV to what seemed to waver between close and omniscient 3rd, and then back to 1st again at the end. I couldn't determine at first, after the switch from 1st to 3rd, if the narrator in the first part was the same guy being referred to in the second part (although eventually it was made clear that, yes, it is the same man).

As much as I'd have preferred this be one story told once rather than three times, I must say that the level of attention and care that went into constructing each of the characters' lives was tremendous. I've never learned so much about embalming in my life; K.Z. clearly did her research, and I think that went a long way toward painting a large number of fairly well-realized characters in a fairly short amount of space.

On a final note, I've gotta give a HOLY CRAP to the cover artist. Gorgeous work, both as a standalone and as a perfect fit to the story. I've used the full-sized image here because, really, it's just that amazing.

Overall, Fugly wasn't a bad way to pass an evening. I felt like I was being bludgeoned repeatedly over the head by the moral of the story, but at least it was a beautifully written bludgeon :-) I can't give Fugly a ringing endorsement, but nor would I put anyone off from it. And I feel comfortable saying that K.Z. is one of the best craftsmen on a sentence level that I've come across so far in the M/M genre. In fact, her talent as a wordsmith shines through so brightly here that I'll definitely be giving her another try. Or two. Or three :-)

Review of Infected: Bloodlines by Andrea Speed. 4 of 5 Stars.

Click to purchase. Highly recommended!

**WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW THE JUMP!**
(Although, if you read Infected: Prey, none of this will be a surprise to you.)

Here's the blurb:

In a world where a werecat virus has changed society, Roan McKichan, a born infected and ex-cop, works as a private detective trying to solve crimes involving other infecteds. The newly married Roan is struggling to balance his work with his home life as he grows increasingly distracted by his husband Paris's declining health. One case with strong emotions attached takes up most of his time: finding the murderer of a missing little rich girl. It's a family with secrets so toxic they'd rather no one investigate, and there's no shortage of suspects. But despite the dangers and obstructions involved, Roan won't stop... until he loses something infinitely precious as well.