Day and Knight-Dirk Greyson

Dreamspinner Press

BLURB: As former NSA, Dayton (Day) Ingram has national security chops and now works as a technical analyst for Scorpion. He longs for fieldwork, and scuttling an attack gives him his chance. He’s smart, multilingual, and a technological wizard. But his opportunity comes with a hitch—a partner, Knighton (Knight), who is a real mystery. Despite countless hours of research, Day can find nothing on the agent, including his first name! 

Former Marine Knight crawled into a bottle after losing his family. After drying out, he’s offered one last chance: along with Day, stop a terrorist threat from the Yucatan. To get there without drawing suspicion, Day and Knight board a gay cruise, where the deeply closeted Day and equally closeted Knight must pose as a couple. Tensions run high as Knight communicates very little and Day bristles at Knight’s heavy-handed need for control. 

But after drinking too much, Day and Knight wake up in bed. Together. As they near their destination, they must learn to trust and rely on each other to infiltrate the terrorist camp and neutralize the plot aimed at the US’s technological infrastructure, if they hope to have a life after the mission. One that might include each other.

  
REVIEW: I went into this book expecting to love it. Reading the blurb, I was really excited to get started on it.  This is why I was so heartbroken at being disappointed by it. The actual writing wasn’t bad at all, the editing was fantastic. It was the technical aspect and tone of the book in certain parts that I just didn’t ‘gel’ with. The first think that I found odd was the story’s et up. You ah e s guy who’s under attack by these thugs. Day moves in to help the poor fellow out but reaches into his pocket for his phone to dial 911 only to realize it’s dead. Okay, now here is where it gets a bit odd. He’s standing there contemplating the why and how that is. In the meantime, what’s going on with the thugs attacking the kid? Did they stop what they were doing while he was pondering his phone’s battery life? i found that very odd and it threw the rest of the story off for me. Then there’s the technical aspect. Costa Maya, Quintana Roo, was made to sound like it was this isolated or remote area when that is not the case. Curious at to where it is, I ended up Googling the region and was surprised when I found a small, but touristy region. So in looking at this, I asked myself if it was the type of place where the locals or any government entity would not notice a building or base, if you will, set up and run by a group of individuals not native to the area, and no one is going to question it?  That, more than anything, confused me. Also, I felt that their characters were a bit cold; I couldn’t  seem to connect with any of them.  Like I’ve stated earlier, the writing itself wasn’t bad, it was just the poor research and lack of character depth that did the book in for me. 
RATING: ❤️❤️❤️

A Vampire Christmas (Vampire in Waikiki book 2) by AJ Llewellyn

Amberquill presents http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/1823-A-Vampire-Christmas.aspx

vamp christmasBlurb

Waikiki vampires Tem and Jimmy Thunder are happily undead and married, about to celebrate Christmas when their cat Moontime brings an unusual treasure to the door…a baby in a box. But this is no cute, cuddly kid. It’s a demon baby with red eyes and razor sharp teeth. Jimmy, hopelessly besotted with his hot and sexy husband, sees his new life of man-on-man fun being wrecked by this snarling, spitting, forked-tongued little incubus that has apparently won Tem’s heart.

With half of Waikiki’s wacky residents coming to Christmas dinner, what’s a devoted husband to do? Jimmy calls in all kinds of favors to figure out the identity of the kid, how he got to them, and how to ensure this will be a merry—not marred—Vampire Christmas.

Review

This is the short, funny, kinda bizarre and very steamy next installment in the Vampire in Waikiki series.

Tem finds a cursed baby and wants to keep it and name it George… ok not George but Beezlebub. Div is worried about raising a baby and losing some of Tem’s attention. But it becomes clear that the baby needs their help so they enlist the help of some more of their strange acquaintances and… hilarity ensues.

Interspersed with the hilarity is all the way-hot-vampire-porn-star-sex and it’s both sweet and raucous.

If you enjoyed book one in the series you will want to keep going. This is better (in my opinion) than book one as it seems to have found more focus and since the characters are already developed we get to simply enjoy them.

3.5 of 5 hearts

3.5

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Cookies for Courting by Amber Kell

Dreamspinner Presents http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=6299

CookiesForCourtingBlurb

After his sister’s death, businessman Marshall Hunter gains custody of his niece. Unused to children, Marshall struggles to connect with her. In an effort to make her more comfortable in her new home, he hires professional muralist Pace Barlow to personalize her room.

Pace is intrigued by his tiny client, and even more interested in her handsome uncle, but Pace isn’t certain he’s ready for the commitment of an instant family.

When Marshall decides to move for the sake of his niece, will he be able to keep his relationship with his young artist, or will he have to give up love to become a good father for a lonely little girl?

The love baked into an old-fashioned recipe might bring the two men together, but some things take more than magical cookies to fix.

Review

This is another installment from the magical cook book that helps people in need. In this case Marshall is a lonely, suddenly single father who needs someone in his life and help with his niece whom he is now guardian to.

Pace is the carefree artist he meets to help paint her room but finds he’s ridiculously attracted to.

Together they rapidly move through “getting to know you” to hitting the sheets to moving in together. It’s a short story and we have to just accept that between the magic in the cookies and suspending our disbelief, these men can find a deep and abiding love in a very short time.

Their chemistry is excellent and the story is short and sweet.

Overall I thought it was a nice, “light” story and if you don’t take it too seriously, a lot of fun.

4 of 5 hearts

4

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