Dr. Åke Jörgensson is a scientist from Sweden whose invention of almost instant travel to any part of the universe will revolutionize space flight.
Khitain is a N’tari, a panther-like alien serving aboard a human space ship, and Åke’s boyfriend of three months.
On Christmas, they visit Åke’s parents for the first time. As if meeting his in-laws weren’t stressful enough, feelings of inadequacy and fear haunt Khitain. His N’tari descent makes him a killing machine, and one wrong move could wipe out what is dearest to him. Åke, however, has to deal with his family’s ignorance and Khitain’s reluctance to let go of his restraint.
When something terrible happens during their Christmas Morning walk, the situation gets out of hands.
On the Coastal Bend of Texas, a hidden kingdom called Darkmore lies in ruins, and King Sevon Maraté is trapped. Using Sevon as a mouthpiece and a scapegoat, Lord Dominic rules from the shadows. Sevon copes with the unrelenting abuse by dressing in women’s finery and casting an image of graceful nobility. Born of royal verkolai blood and as beautiful as he is lethal, he possesses the ability to part the Veil separating his world from hundreds of others. His gift is his chance to escape, but Dominic refuses to relinquish his tool for power. Dominic forges an ambitious plan to invade the prosperous land of Priagust. Only a select few know the mythic kingdom of shifters exists. Sevon is out of options for his people’s survival, and cooperating with Dominic is his only chance.
On their foray into Priagust, Dominic’s men kidnap and interrogate a shifter named Jack. Even under torture, Jack’s loyalty to his kind never wavers. But as Jack’s knowledge about Darkmore’s king and its history unsettles Sevon, a curious bond begins to form. Despite Sevon’s mistrust, Jack is determined to tame Sevon’s wild heart and perhaps earn his freedom. As invasion looms, Sevon wonders if trusting Jack will lead him into another trap or if he should forget about chasing the sunrise and remain Dominic’s compliant prisoner.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I’ve read Lex Chase before and this sounded much darker than her previous work. This indeed turned out to be the case, with betrayal evident at every turn until at last, everything becomes right again. The world building is excellent, with the different species wonderfully realised. Sevon himself was a wonderful puzzle. His struggle with abuse masquerading as love and his confusion was heart wrenching. The bad guys were all very, very bad, though in a few places where their deeds feature it felt a trifle thin, with a bit more telling than showing. Still, it was an excellent read and a great start to what promises to be a wonderful new series that I look forward to reading.
Sparks fly when Chance meets tall, sexy Xav at a Wilmington bar and they have the hottest one-nighter of their lives. But Chance doesn’t do repeats, Xav seems detached, and they go their separate ways without a word. Later, when closeted Assistant District Attorney C. Evan “Chance” Fairchild meets Dare’s Landing’s newest deputy sheriff, Xavier “Xav” Constantine, Evan isn’t only wary. He’s irritated as hell.
Xavier is a former FBI agent turned deputy sheriff who is hot on the trail of a South American child prostitution ring. Evan is fighting to put an end to rampant cocaine trafficking and chafing under the thumb of an election-hungry boss. When someone tries to kill the eleven-year-old witness who holds the key to both their investigations, they’re forced to work together as they put their lives on the line to protect him. As Chance and Xav collide in the heat of a sweltering North Carolina summer, dodging bullets and chasing bad guys isn’t the only action going on.
Kimi’s thoughts:
This collaboration came out swinging and kept landing hits. The self absorption of elected officials and their spin doctors, good officers getting sidelined, communities kept in the dark, and all that comes with these is brought front and centre. Mix in the locale with all it’s ingrained local flavour including prejudices and you have a powder keg. If this wasn’t enough, we get a romance between two men who are caught up in their jobs and circumstance, making for a great romantic thriller. Sadly, it’s a thriller woven with fact, with the child (and drug) trafficking based on several actual events which just tore my heart out.
The writing was gritty, the plot tightly woven, and the pace brisk. It’s definitely not for the faint hearted, but if you love a good thriller with a side of romance, this is probably one you won’t want to miss.
Dom and sub couples Peter and Devon, and Max and Swan, are joining their lives together. After a week at The Briar Rose, they know there’s a lot of work to do, and they’re all committed to making sure what they have together succeeds.
Peter is the easygoing sub, while Max needs discipline and rules to keep from falling back into bad habits, so both Masters worry about making sure that each boy gets what he needs without making either sub feel neglected. It’s a balancing act that winds up taking some fancy footwork and the stress takes its toll.
As they learn to live and bond together, they discover things about each other that makes them fall more deeply in love, helping to cement their relationships.
Then an unexpected attack on Peter and Max threatens to upset the balance they’ve created, and Swan and Devon must join forces to give their subs what they need to push through and thrive. Will this stumbling block break apart their hard-won new family, or will it forge a stronger foursome?
Author Names: Avery Duran, Shira Glassman, Emjay Haze, Kassandra Lea, Dale Cameron Lowry, G.O. Noce, Marie Piper, Rob Rosen, Angora Shade, Robin Watergrove. Edited by Deelylah Mullin
Book Name: Holiday Want Ads
Release Date: December 9, 2015
Blurb:
Whether reading Facebook ads, Craigslist, or the classified section of the local newspaper, there’s always something interesting available in the want ads… if you’re looking. In our Holiday Want Ads Anthology, Torquere Press offers ten beautiful stories of found love from ten talented authors.
In Compatible Gardens, Angora Shade weaves a tale about strangers on a city bus. Emjay Haze reveals a little Elfin Magic in her workplace romance. Little White Lights, Marie Piper’s feature, highlights illumination as a gift. In Wrapped Up, Kassandra Lea brings readers a holiday storm full of anxiety for both the storm and a question’s response. Avery Duran brings us a winter ball, complete with a Prince Charming in Matzo Ball. Eitan’s Chord, Shira Glassman’s offering, brings readers a visit from three Chanukah fairies creating magic from their passion. Thank You, Craig highlights fireworks and the versatility of a fire escape. G.O. Noce tells about a Boyfriend for Rent, and both parties in the agreement get a lot more than they bargained for. Looking for a Soft Center, by Robin Watergrove, shows how articulating one’s wants is much harder than simply writing an ad. And Dale Cameron Lowry gives readers an ex-Mormon hiring a bartender who helps with a party and builds a friendship—possibly more—with his employer in Mi Alma.
Enjoy Holiday Want Ads!
Pages or Words: 59,000 words
Categories: (Please keep in mind that as an anthology, not all stories will necessarily contain all categories.)
Sweet mercy, I hate the bus. The university is a busy place, and no matter what hour of the day I find myself in need of transportation, the bus is packed. And it’s not just students. Teachers, local residents, and even businessmen from the surrounding area are regulars, not to mention the crazies who ride all day long and do nothing but stare. The bus smells the way intimate spaces usually do too—musty, stale air, mixed with a collage of too many personal scents—and the seats are stained, worn, and uncomfortable. I tell myself it’s time to invest in a bicycle as I watch the 60 West pull up to the curb. I grasp my sweater tightly around my chest, and force myself to believe Fate has opened a door for me today, and I have to walk through it.
The bus door closes behind me, and something squeaks loudly as the driver peels off the curb before I’ve sat down. My balance shifts, and I lurch toward a startled elderly man. He frowns at me despite my mumbled apology, and I stumble my way down the aisle over bags and shoes headed for the first available seat. I’m lucky there’s one up front where I’ve walked in. The seats here face inward like a bench rather than in pairs toward the back, and the extra space makes the ride more bearable. I pray today will be less crowded. I pray Fate will continue to behave.
Fate is why I’m here. This may be my last chance for finding a new apartment with a decent roommate, and the bus is the fastest way to my goal. The fall semester is coming to a close and the holidays are approaching, which has made my task much harder. Housing should be established by now, but I’m not happy. Remaining in loud dorms with inconsiderate, obnoxious jerks for a day longer than I have to would be torture. There’s no privacy, no calm, and hearing the sex noises my current roommate and her boyfriend make in our shared room makes me nuts, not to mention trying to share a bathroom with eight other girls. The food is terrible, nothing’s ever clean, and illness spreads like wildfire. It’s a joke. I’m a junior now anyway. I figure I’m past due to get out. I need space where I can breathe with a room of my own away from the garden of weeds.
High school senior Lanny Keating has it all. A three-sport athlete at Lauserville High School looking at a college football scholarship, with a supportive family, stellar grades, boy band good looks… until the fateful day when it all falls apart.
Seventeen-year-old Trevor Ladd has always been a publicly declared zero and the high school bad-boy. Abandoned by his mother and sexually abused by his legal guardian, Trevor sets his sights on mere survival.
Lanny seeks out Trevor’s companionship to avoid his shattered home life. Unwilling to share their personal experiences of pain, the boys explore ways to escape, leading them into sexual experimentation, and the abuse of illegal drugs and alcohol. Their mutual suffering creates a lasting bond of friendship and love.
When the time finally comes to get clean and sober, or flunk out of high school, only one of the boys will graduate, while the other spirals downward into addiction.
Will Lanny and Trevor find the strength to battle their demons of mind-altering substances as well as emotional vulnerability?
Clean takes the reader on a gritty trip into the real and raw world of teenage substance abuse.
Sometimes Joshua Stone thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. How else can he explain Michael’s love for him? And now they’re living together… in a real relationship. This is the stuff of fairy tales, a love like other people take for granted.
Sure, they have their moments, what couple doesn’t? But a small doubt lingers in Joshua’s heart. Can this really be true? Can a gorgeous man like Michael really love someone like Joshua—the guy with cerebral palsy, who’s helpless without his walker or his tricycle to get him around?
Michael senses Joshua’s worries, but there’s nothing he can do to dispel them because that would mean revealing his secret—and he’s not ready for that. Their mutual secrets hang between them like time bombs waiting to explode. They might not survive the inevitable blast.
After seeing his family betrayed and executed during the French Revolution, Marrock De Clarency, an immortal, natural-born shifter, makes his way to the New World. As he moves from place to place across the American wilderness, he finds not only the means to his revenge, but also love. He gives his heart again and again, each time hoping that this time, he’s found his mate. A chance encounter in the woods leaves him wondering, has Fate at last led him to his eternal love? Excerpt:
The man from the café stopped at the entrance to the alley. “Are you following me?” Marrok asked. The man smiled suggestively. “I thought you looked like you’d enjoy some company. Judging from the tightness of your trousers, I was right.”
Marrok studied him. Billy had been gone for over two years and they hadn’t been intimate for three years before that. Just because Marrok wasn’t ready for another relationship with a mortal didn’t mean he’d given up sex. “What’d you have in mind?”
“That’s up to you,” the man said. “We can do something here or somewhere else. I don’t care.”
“I prefer somewhere more private. I’m in room 504 at the hotel. Give me five minutes before you follow.” Marrok headed for the hotel. In his room, he removed his boots and shirt. A knock sounded on the door. Marrok opened it and the stranger stepped inside.
Marrok stepped closer and started to kiss him.
About the author:
A. T. Weaver is the pen name of a grandmother of eleven, great-grandmother of one. She lives with her cat, Cleopatra, in downtown Kansas City, MO.
When she was growing up, the word gay meant happy and carefree and homosexuals were called queer or ‘one-of-those’. However, she never heard those terms until she was married and a mother.
In 2003, through a TV show called Boy Meets Boy, A.T ‘met’ over 3,000 gay men in a Yahoo group. These men educated her as to the inequalities suffered by the LGBT community and she became a staunch ally. She visited one of the men in San Francisco who lived just up the street from the Castro. As he showed her around, they stopped in front of what was once Harvey Milk’s camera store. Her question, “Who was Harvey Milk?” started her education into Gay history.
A. T.’s aim is to move you in some way. Whether you laugh or cry, love it or hate it, she welcomes all comments, whether good or bad. [email protected]
alixtheweaver.wordpress.com
Book three can be read as a standalone, though characters from the first two do show up. Read books one and two for more information on them.
Release Date: November 28, 2015
Blurb:
Josh works hard. Between school and an internship at an investment firm, he has little time and even less funds for an adventurous lifestyle. When a friend buys him a membership to a bathhouse, he encounters his knight in shining armor. But when his regular hookup seems to be too good to be true, suspicions and lies may end the relationship before it even starts.
Kimball’s law firm sends him to New Orleans to expand their Dallas law firm into the Crescent City. Deciding to have a little pleasure while in town for business, Kimball falls for a younger guy that he wants to spend time with. But living his life with secrets may prove to be his undoing, and moving to New Orleans to live out his happily-ever-after may become a distant dream.
Special Agent Leo Gale is up a creek. A year and a half of deep cover is about to go up in flames. He needs help – something, someone to salvage the operation and save the lives of untold numbers of trafficked teenagers.
But he wasn’t expecting the partner they sent, or his own gut-punch of a response to the man.
Julian worked hard for that FBI Honors Internship. It was supposed to be a foot in the door. He’d never expected it to catapult him into the middle of a major undercover operation. Yet here he is, sleeping on a filthy mattress and using every trick in the book to avoid torture—and worse. He’s never felt so scared, or so alive, in his entire life, and he’s not sure if it’s the danger, or Leo, that’s making his heart race.
There’s no time to think about it, though. The operation is heating up, and Leo and Julian are running out of time and options. As choices become more difficult, they must find a way to take the traffickers down, or risk becoming just another set of organs for sale.
