Happy Gay Friday & The Letter A

And another week went by… My mini-break is turning out to be not so mini at all. In fact, I’m still enjoying the A-Z Reading Challenge and now that I’m not spending as much time online as I used to do, oddly enough my social calendar seems to become a bit overwhelming. Or maybe it’s not so odd…
Somehow invitations for fun dates with friends keep coming in and they’re making my calendar for the month of May look like one big busy feast of colors (since I’m using different pencils for all the dates). It must be the wonderful, sunny and warm weather that we’re having here for weeks now. It makes people want to plan parties, barbeques and other get-togethers. And also, all the national holidays during this time of year are a great cause for fun things, there are plenty of musical and cultural festivals you can go to.
Yesterday for example, we had a national holiday here in the Netherlands what’ll probably translate as ‘Liberation Day’ or something like that (we celebrate the end of WWII because by then, in 1945, most part of our country was liberated by the Canadians and Americans). And we went with a couple of friends to one of the many rock and pop festivals that are organized in the larger cities each year on May 5th.
Between the beautiful weather, all the holiday events and the upcoming deadlines at work, I’m afraid there probably won’t be much time for my online activities left. So don’t start to worry if you don’t see me around much, I’ll be back *wink*. Every now and then…


My reading groove is still not what it used to be, but the A to Z Challenge is at least helping me with picking my next book. I moved on to the B last week, no C books in sight yet, but here are a few reviewettes (not as short as Chris's ones but alas) of the A titles I’ve read:

Anything For You by Ethan Day

This is a hilarious and endearing story which shows realistically and makes very palpable how terrifying it is/can be to come out of the closet. Jason is the first person narrator of Anything For You and he is uniquely funny but extremely in the closet. Finding true love makes brave so that Jason can continue being hot and sweet together with his super hero gay rights activist Chad. Highly recommended! 4.75 stars

Alex's Appeal by Jude Mason & Jenna Byrnes

Book three in the Kindred Spirits series. Cute story about a younger cook winning the heart of an older lawyer who recently lost his lover. Although this books has its own main characters the setting is the same as in the previous books in this series: an inn where ghosts feel happy to show themselves. This time the ghost was the deceased lover of the lawyer Alex, which felt a bit farfetched: I didn’t get why he would ‘show up’ now, one year after he died, and at this place far from home. I did like the bedroom scenes between Alex and Logan but cared less for their insta-love. 3.5 stars

A to Z by Marie Sexton

Zach and Angelo's relationship starts out as an endearing friendship, which finally turns into a sweet and hot love story that comes to full bloom in the second half of the book. Their engaging and well-written story is about giving each other space, being able to be yourself, finding your own strength in the other's strength, the balance between give and take, having patience to let trust build and stimulating each other to live your life to its fullest potential. Zach and Angelo complete each other in the most beautiful way and I just loved their emotional interaction and physical chemistry. 4.5 stars

All or Nothing by James Buchanan

This final installment in this series is an explosive finale of Nicky and Brandon’s ongoing relationship which has been a rollercoaster of emotions from the start. Very raw and deeply felt feelings are threatening to destroy them when this moving couple has to deal with the mother of all nightmares. This was one of the most emotional books I’ve read within this genre so far. And yet, despite everything that’s going on in their lives, the author managed to throw in a couple of sexy scenes which involved some wicked rope work again. And these scenes even supported the plot and weren’t just inserted for hotness sake. I’m kinda sad that this was the last of the Nicky and Brandon books (and free stories) I had on my shelves. It’s hard to say goodbye to this unbelievably hot couple. *sob*. The entire series (Cheating Chance and Inland Empire are the previous books) has been an enthralling reading experience. Highly recommended: 5 stars

Happy Gay Friday everyone!

~

Happy Gay Friday - part 2

Yep, that's right. I have two posts today. This one is my weekly one with the Happy Gay couple pic (that I don't want to miss for the obvious reasons) and I just posted another one with a short review of William Cooper's debut story Broken Bones, Mended Hearts with a giveaway. So, if you want a chance to win this m/m book, be sure to check out that post too. :)

Now, for my weekly m/m reads: it’s been a nice week again. I’ve read the first two books from James Buchanan’s Taking the Odds series: Cheating Chance and Inland Empire. I absolutely loved them, especially the second one and I’ll write a review about it soon. I also read the, with this series connected, free stories about Nick and Brandon, from the author’s site: Squirrel Run (c) 2008, Spree (c) 2007 and Measure Up (c) 2008. And two others that appeared in the Toy Box anthologies Handcuffs and Rope, called Technique and A Little Trust (a reread). After that I started reading the third Nicky and Brandon book, All or Nothing, but felt I needed a little break from the guys, lol! They’re rather intense ;)

So, I read a bunch of quickies:

Give and Take by Anne Brooke
Really cute story with an HFN (Happy For Now) ending. It's about an older guy going out again after 2 years of mourning over his deceased partner and hooking up with a young man who knows what he needs. I wouldn't mind reading more about them...
3.5 stars

An Australian Christmas In New York by Sean Kennedy
Very short but lovely Christmas story (I don't mind reading seasonal stories out of season). It's a snapshot from the life of two guys, one American and one Australian, who know each other for quite some years and live together in New York. The Australian bloke gets homesick around Christmas time and his boyfriend tries to make him feel better, which is really cute. It's a fun read for a half hour or so, but it's too short to leave a deep impression if it wasn't for the author's excellent writing.
3.5 stars

Start From The Beginning by Chrissy Munder
Beautiful written story about two older men who have their scars and disabilities to learn to live with. It's not a passionate-let's-hop-in-the-bed story but more about a very careful sensing and learning to know each other kind of relationship. I think, it took more than half of the book before the two men even exchanged a word with each other. Even so, the attraction between them is tangible and believable. There's a lot of sexual tension and their feelings are told from both men's point of view. My only niggle is that the story ended too abruptly, which left us with just a HFN (Happy For Now) ending rather than a HEA, and with far less smexy scenes than could've been.
3.75 stars

And last but not least, William Cooper’s debut Broken Bones, Mended Hearts that I reviewed here.

I hope you had a great reading week too!

Happy Gay Friday everyone!

Happy Gay Friday & What I Read

Oops, it’s Friday night again! And I can’t miss another Happy Gay Friday, now can I? :) Maybe it’s just the perfect remedy for feeling sad all of a sudden (hubby’s fault, he showed me a pic of Binny and it caught me off guard). Browsing through my cookies is just what I need… and chocolate… and book shopping of course! So, you can all guess what I’m doing later tonight ;)

I have been away from home a lot the past week which meant less computer time but more reading time (the benefit of traveling with public transportation). Besides two novels for work (by José Eduardo Agualusa and Lisa Moore) I’ve read quite some romances, all of the m/m kind.

First there are two shorts: Night Shift (49p – 3.5 stars) by Jenna Byrnes and JackMagic (64p – 4 stars) by Jillian Snyder.

Both were good for quick reads but also suffered from the limited amount of pages. In the case of JackMagic this resulted in a HFN instead of a HEA, which is not my favorite. So, I really would like to read a sequel about Aaron and Jack. Those guys were hot together although it took quite some pages before they actually got together. But when they finally did it was definitely worth the wait and I got an eyeful of steamy kisses and sex mingled with some sexy bondage play.

It unintentionally turned out to become the theme for my reading week (and hence this weeks pic).

Because next I read two books and one free story from Ava March’s Bound series. In this case I knew that there would be D/s scenes involved because the backblurbs indicated so. This is a historical series with the same main characters (Oliver and Vincent) in both books and the short story.

I’ll try to review them later this month, but I can spoil that I enjoyed them a lot and that I got my first 5 stars read of May with the second book in the series! It really was an intense read and it had great emotional scenes as well as scorching love scenes. My heart ached badly at one point and the HEA scene was so darn good *sigh*. So, I highly recommend this series, especially when you like historicals or bondage themed stories. Here are the titles in this series and my ratings:

Bound by Deception (Bound, #1) by Ava March, 85p - 4.5 stars

Bound to Him (Bound, #2) by Ava March, 91p - 5 stars
Deliberately Unbound (Bound, #3) by Ava March, 12p - 3.5 stars

And last but not least, last night I finally could start the book Chris and Lily recommended to me earlier this week and that I bought a while ago after some talk about it at Tam’s blog and that I decided to read soon when I read Patti’s review last month. So, my expectations were high for Cheating Chance (177p) by James Buchanan. It’s another first in a series (Taking the Odds), like I haven’t started enough series yet, that I still haven’t finished, lol. I’ve almost finished Cheating Chance, only 30 pages to go. I don’t think it’s going to be a 5 stars read, unless the last pages will be out-of-this-world awesome, but certainly a 4 or 4.5 stars rating. That has to do with the pace of the story. The very detailed descriptions of the technical and gamble law stuff slowed the story down imo. What I really like though is the premise of this novel (a suspenseful investigation), and the unusual characters: Nick and Brandon meet each other at a Goth convention and have the accompanying looks. Nick has long, dark hair and a vamp look, Brandon looks more like a biker boy and has short, spiked, dark hair and tattoos covering his back. One wouldn’t guess that Nick is an agent for a Gaming Commission and Brandon is a cop.
Oh, and it fitted into my bondage themed week unexpectantly because in the second half Nick turned out to be a Japanese bondage specialist *nom nom nom*.
I really enjoy these guys and I’m glad I already have the second book (Inland Empire) on my ereader and I think that it won’t take me long before purchasing the, only recently released, third book (All or Nothing). Maybe tonight, to serve my feel good book shopping mood :)

Another book I want to go buy tonight is the, this week released, new m/m romance from Jambrea Jo Jones called Retribution. I’m really curious about that one! And for more info on new m/m releases I think I better check out Lily’s Wednesday post first.

After the shopping I’ll probably be beat and ready for bed so that I can finish Cheating Chance tonight (it's nearly 11pm already).

Tomorrow has some more ‘outdoor activities’ in store for me and hubby (or actually there’s a bar involved and a dart tournament), so again hardly a chance to be online, *sigh*. I even doubt if I can read much among all them dart players who’ll get louder and louder with every hour. And I don’t know if I want to risk one of them asking me to show him/her my ereader in the middle of some smexy scene, lol! It actually happened to me yesterday in the train that a business guy asked me if that was an ereader and if he could see it. Good thing I wasn’t reading a smutty book at the moment but February by Lisa Moore (very decent, no sex). Pfeww!

Okay, I’ve nearly finished the bar of chocolate so it’s time to go do some book shopping. :)

Have a Happy Gay Friday!!