Showing posts with label Clare London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clare London. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Review Chase the Ace by Clare London

Clare London
Chase the Ace
Amber Allure, December 16, 2012 | 90 pages

Author’s website | Goodreads | Buy book here

Backblurb:
Newly single in his late twenties, and looking for more fun than he gets from his boring job, Daniel Cross soon discovers the lure of social media. After a few hiccups, he's excited at the chance of tracking down his old mates from the Scorching Summer Sports Club of 1990. He lost touch with his "Gang of Four" after that summer, but now he launches a personal quest to find out what kind of man each boy has become.
It starts well with a link to the first boy's current address, through a mutual friend on Facebook, until Dan realises he's been chatting online to the wrong man–Nick Carson isn't an old school friend at all. It's a genuine mistake, and Nick isn't offended. He offers to accompany Dan on the trip to find the others. It's the first step to friendship and something more for both of them.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Joint Review: Lashings of Sauce Anthology


UK MAT
Lashings of Sauce
JMS Books, July 22, 2012

Goodreads | Buy book here

Backblurb:
We Brits love our sauce, whether it's what we lash on our food, read on our seaside postcards, or write in our stories. Come and enjoy a buffet of tasty LGBTQ treats!
From marriages to reunions, via practical jokes and football matches, to weresloths and possibly the oddest Tarts and Vicars party in the world, join us as we celebrate the UK Meet in the best way we know: telling the story.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

GayRomLit in pictures & getting ready for the After Party

There are already many GayRomLit posts out there. Yet, I like to add my little contribution, a bunch of pics of the wonderful time I had.

And on top of that, I invited a few friends and authors (all Riptide published) to write a guest post for me with their reflections on GayRomLit. Rachel Haimowitz will kick off the GayRomLit After Party & Riptide Party tomorrow. The other authors that will visit my place are: Cat Grant, Bryl Tyne, Brita Addams, Damon Suede and Aleksandr Voinov.

And the friends that have agreed on doing a blog post for me are the fab girls I shared a house with in New Orleans: Kris, Leontine, Tam, Kassa and Tracy. The seventh friend who was there, Chris, didn’t accept the invitation… Here we are:

Standing (from left to right): Tam, Kassa, Tracy, Chris
Sitting: me, Leontine, Kris

It’s impossible for me to describe everything that happened during the 4 days of GayRomLit. The schedule was packed, with parties, author readings, a book signing boat cruise, a vampire & ghost tour, a lunch with an author (mine was Simone Anderson), a cemetery tour and a pub crawl, among other things.

The most amazing thing for me was meeting the people behind all those names that I only knew from the internet or the books I read. I had so many fan girl moments, it's ridiculous, really. A good second place on the list of awesome things is reserved for the time we spent in gay bars, and not only because of the nekkid guys. ;) The girls and I had so much fun. I miss them and the rest very much!

Patti, me, Leontine

Ethan Day

me, Clare London, Marie Sexton, Kate McMurray

Chris, Tam, Clare London (unsuccessfully hiding behind the pole), Kassa

M.L. Rhodes, me, Stephani Hecht

me & Cole

Tracy, me, Heidi Cullinan, Leontine

Z.A. Maxfield (in blue, reading)

me, Damon Suede (in kilt *swoon*), Leontine

Kris, Tracy, Kassa, me, Tam, Leontine

me & Devon Rhodes

me & John

me, Leontine, Tracy

Rowan Speedwell, me, J.P. Barnaby

 me & Ellis Carrington

Disclaimer: If you want me to remove your picture shoot me an email and I'll remove it asap
~

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Just Popping In… and Out Again

~
When waking up, do you ever wish for it to be 10 or 11 pm again? Or that you could fast forward an entire week, like in fictional works? Fictional characters seldom seem to have to deal with boring every day crap and obligations, now do they? Mind you, this is not a request for authors to start writing about this stuff. No please, keep fast forwarding excessively. I just wish I could do so myself every once in a while. I would’ve fast forwarded the past week and a half, approximately, and skipped right to Friday.
Ah well, we normal people just have to deal with some normal stuff sometimes, I get that. ;) What I don’t understand is that I allow it to pile up so freely. Why can’t I spread the work related peaks, the social obligations, the assignments and the deadlines better? Maybe it’s because I have difficulty with saying no. But I’m learning to do so. This morning for example I got a request from one of our organization’s branches; if I could replace someone who got sick and do some lecture on ‘books or something’. It was not only on short notice but this talk should also take place on a Wednesday night, which is not a working night for me. So, I said no. Yay! Of course I made up an excuse, even recommended this professional, and didn’t simply say no, but whatever. :)

Reading books is what keeps me going in times like these. Every day, when I’d finally put my head on my pillow around midnight, I switched on my ereader and picked a novella or short story to keep me company for a couple of hours. Heaven.

A few reads that kept me up because they were great reads, are:

High Flow (St. Michael's, #7)








High Flow by Stephani Hecht


Between a Rock and a Hard Place








Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Clare London


The Bouncer









The Bouncer by A.J. Llewellyn


Beyond Reckless








Beyond Reckless by Ava March


Pieces








Pieces by Shawn Lane


precious_boy








precious_boy by K.Z. Snow

View all my reviews

I hope to write some reviews about these books some day when I have more time on my hand again. Even if it’s just a few short lines on Goodreads. Now I didn’t even give them rates yet. But I will eventually. They will all get 4 stars or more and Beyond Reckless will definitely be close to 5 stars. That was the highlight of my week for sure!

Now I’m sneaking out again. Tonight there’s this baby shower hubs and I have to go to and tomorrow after work I have this work related social event that I’ll have to attend for networking purposes. Can somebody fast forward me to Friday please? :)

~

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Review of Blinded By Our Eyes by Clare London



Clare London
Blinded By Our Eyes
Carina Press, 2010

Backblurb:
London art dealer Charles Garrett has devoted his life to appreciating and acquiring beauty, both in art and in his companions. His fashionable life is rocked to the core when he discovers the body of a young artist, Paolo Valero, in a pool of blood in his gallery. As Paolo-s mentor, Charles is haunted by the horror of his violent death. Seeking closure, he investigates Paolo-s past and soon discovers a tangled web of motives and potential suspects, some closer to home than he ever imagined. He’s drawn to Antony Walker, an aggressive, handsome sculptor with unsavory ties to Paolo. Charles is unsettled by Antony’s forceful nature but irresistibly attracted to his passion and his art. When the evidence points toward Antony-s guilt, Charles is thrown into emotional turmoil. Has he lost his heart to a killer?

Genre & Keywords:
M/M, Contemporary, Murder mystery, Art

~~~~~
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Heat level: 2 out of 3 flames
~~~~~

Why I read it:
I received a review copy from the publisher through Netgalley

I’ve read Blinded By Our Eyes before I went on vacation and almost forgot to write a review about it. That would be a shame because this excellent short novel deserves to get some attention. So, let me try to make some sense of the notes that I took a long while ago.

The first thing that I remember is how I enjoyed the writing style. It wasn’t the first book I’ve read by Ms London, and I had the same experience then (with the short story Upwardly Mobile). Her writing is evocative and beautiful; the cadence of the first sentences sucked me in effortlessly. This is how the book opens:

The sound of a man crying was the first shock. Deep, racking sobs echoing off the smooth walls of my showroom. The whole gallery was usually deserted and cool at this late hour, despite the urban truth that London never slept. Yet tonight something in the air resonated with tension. And huddled in the far corner was a slender, pale young man. Arms clenched around his drawn-up knees, his eyes hot and wet, staring at me through a fringe of bedraggled dark curls. He looked angry and scared, and for the first few seconds it was all directed at me.

And this first paragraph not only grabbed my attention because of the wonderful language, in addition it already foreshadows the suspense that was going to keep me invested in this story as well. Because Blinded By Our Eyes is foremost a murder mystery, and the romance takes place in the backseat, so to speak. Gallery owner Charles is trying to figure out who killed one of his most promising artists in his gallery and because the story is told in first person from his point of view solely, we don’t know who to trust or not, along with him. This adds to the suspense, especially when he meets Anthony to whom he feels attracted. Because as far as he knows Anthony could be the killer.

This rather intriguing but simple premise worked very well for me. Although despite of the presence of the murder mystery Blinded By Our Eyes is not really a plot driven but more a character driven story and everything takes place in just a few settings (mainly the art gallery and Anthony’s atelier). The backdrop of the mystery is revealed by bits and pieces of conversation and a nice cast of secondary characters keeps you guessing about the murderer until nearly the end. The only small complaint I have is that the romance between Charles and Anthony played second fiddle because I loved Charles' and Anthony's explosive chemistry. Their HEA came a bit unexpected and too quick.

But overall I loved this well-paced, character driven and beautifully written mystery, that had some hot romance added to the mix.

Favorite quote:
He stepped back but swayed toward me at the same time, as if his body were confused between what it should and what it wanted to do. His eyes kept flickering over my mouth; his tongue darted out and licked at his own, like he was still tasting me.
“I had to do that. I had to…” He grunted. “What is this? I want to touch you so fucking badly. So much. Can you believe it?”

Linking:
Clare London’s website | weblog | Twitter | Goodreads
Buy Blinded By Our Eyes here
Read an excerpt here

~~~~~

Monday, February 8, 2010

Mondays Hot Couple & Sexy, Smutty Scene

I don’t know about you but I can use something to make me forget about the horrible weekend I had. I had to deal with a virus on my laptop, it hijacked one of my ftp passwords (according to my provider) but it was untraceable. It presented itself twice on the website of Goodreads as an antivirus window (I didn’t click on it though). Just to be sure my laptop had to be reinstalled and you all know what a hassle that can be… So here’s to some smuttiness to make this a brighter day!

[image]

This week’s sexy smutty scene is from a M/M novella I finished last weekend, Upwardly Mobile by Clare London. It was a pretty good read with great character insight for such a short story. I won’t write a review for this one, but I rated it with 3.5 stars. It's about a couple having phone sex (while on public transportation!).
It contained lots of sexiness, like the next smuttalicious scene from page 27:

“
Caleb marveled at how his lover could tell how close he was, just from a gasp. He supposed he’d given too many gasps, too many times, for it to be a mystery any more. Surprising, delicious thought. He smiled, then grimaced as the excitement tugged again at his groin. “Not going to last long. You know? It’s too, too good…”
“You will,” Owen snapped.
“Are you joining me?”
Owen grunted with frustration. “How can I?”
Caleb grinned in the darkness of the car interior. He could imagine the flickering lights inside the train and his lover sitting with legs spread, his hand down inside his smart pants. The vision made his desire spike painfully in his balls. Owen with his head thrown back, lips dry, panting as he stroked himself. The whimpers he’d probably make, the sobs underlying the rattling of the train. The initial disinterest of fellow travelers that might suddenly switch to curiosity…and shock. Exposure! “Use your newspaper.”
“Huh?” Owen sounded startled, then cautious. “Maybe I didn’t buy one tonight.”
Caleb grunted this time, also with frustration. He hadn’t been joking when he said talking wasn’t uppermost in his mind any longer. His fingers paused at the base of his cock, squeezing as hard as he could bear. He could feel his skin prickle, begging for the stroking to continue. “And maybe the sky has finally fallen in, Chicken Little. You always buy one. Open it up and cover your lap.”
Owen laughed loudly, then smothered it with a snort of outrage. “No way that’ll work.”
“Yes way. Make it.” Caleb squeezed more gently at his arousal. “I told you I’m not a patient kinda guy. How many more times?” He reached his other hand down between his legs, pushing aside the crinkled sac holding his rock-hard balls. His index finger snagged in the curls around the base of his dick. Impatiently, he stretched farther back with it, stroking the smooth skin behind. His ass clenched, the muscles teasing him with their need, and he gritted his teeth with the effort of holding back. “How many stations left?”
Owen’s voice drifted away and back, as if he’d turned to look out of the train window. “Four.”
Caleb sighed. “Thank God.” Maybe. “You know I’m not normally the type to eke out the torture. But I’d like to think I could last for four.” He started the lazy stroke again and a moan slid unprompted from his mouth. “Fuck, no, maybe not tonight. I am particularly horny.”
“And you sound particularly lost,” came Owen’s admonition. There was a firmness to his voice that lifted the hairs on the back of Caleb’s neck.
“Lost?”
“That’s how it sounds to me. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes.” Whatever makes it work for you. He really wanted Owen to be with him. To share this. To enjoy it. It was the best of all feelings with Owen, the sweetest, the sharpest, the deepest, darkest, dirtiest…oh, yes, oh fuck…
“But not yet!” Owen repeated, even more sharply than before. “Caleb! Do you hear me?”
Caleb imagined Owen’s eyes, and that dark whirlpool illusion. Imagined the taste of his guy’s moist lips and salty skin. The grip of Owen’s fist on his cock, the fingers of his other hand running down Caleb’s spine, easing between his buttocks. Caleb moaned again. His legs were cramping slightly from the tension and one of his feet was awkwardly twisted under the gas pedal. With what he considered a superhuman effort, he dragged his attention back from the brink again, the very delicious, well-deserved brink. “Sounds like you want control of this. Of my fun. How the hell do you think you’re going to do that?”
Owen sucked in his breath. “You want to know?”
The tone of his lover’s voice was fierce and as demanding as Caleb could ever wish for. His heart started beating even more quickly. He looked out of the car window and imagined he could see the lights from the distant railway line, refracted through the drizzling rain. The sound of an emergency vehicle siren wailed in and out of his hearing as it darted across the other side of town.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Owen’s chuckle was quieter but infinitely more devilish—a sound that trailed more goose bumps down Caleb’s spine.
“I’ll direct you.”
”

Clare London’s website


Backblurb:
Since the day they met, Owen's restraint has been an exciting foil to Caleb's unruly lack of discipline. Now established lovers, they can't deny how welcome that balance is in their lives. Two very different men, both strong-willed - it shouldn't work between them, but it does! Owen's steady world is rocked by Caleb's boldness, and Caleb finds a haven in return. Now they share their lives, a strong need for each other and a highly developed love of play.
On this weary night at the end of a working week, they're caught in traffic on opposite sides of town. They'll have to wait to meet up until the journey's over, to enjoy the evening together.
Or will they?
Caleb decides he won't wait to play, and he'll play as dirty as he dares, or as much as they can handle over the phone...
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