In the 23rd Century in the galaxy of Sigma Kappa, Kim Fortune was the first surviving experimental enhanced human—a regenerate. Aged fifteen, he escaped the lab and years later, his failings as a regenerate and the suspicion of regular humans, leave him lonely and lacking in self-worth. Stranded on an abandoned planet, the arrival of a stricken ship and its crew give him hope that he may finally find what he always longed for—love.
Christian Novak is a successful regenerate with all the intended attributes—including lack of human emotion. Despite their immediate attraction to each other, Kim’s failing confidence, and Christian’s inability to empathize are a recipe for disaster. But war, imprisonment, and danger throw them together, and after each saves the other’s life, their feelings begin to change.
Can a seemingly unsuitable pair ever find love, or is a future together destined to fail?
Louise Lyons comes from a family of writers. Her mother has a number of poems published in poetry anthologies, her aunt wrote poems for the church, and her grandmother sparked her inspiration with tales of fantasy.
Louise first ventured into writing short stories at the grand old age of eight, mostly about little girls and ponies. She branched into romance in her teens, and MM romance a few years later, but none of her work saw the light of day until she discovered FanFiction in her late twenties. Posting stories based on some of her favourite movies, provoked a surprisingly positive response from readers. This gave Louise the confidence to submit some of her work to publishers, and made her take her writing “hobby” more seriously.
Louise lives in the UK, about an hour north of London, with a mad dog called Casper, collection of tropical fish and tarantulas. She works in the insurance industry by day, and spends every spare minute writing. She is a keen horse-rider, and loves to run long-distance. Some of her best writing inspiration comes to her, when her feet are pounding the open road. She often races home afterward, and grabs pen and paper to make notes.
Louise has always been a bit of a tomboy, and one of her other great loves is cars and motorcycles. Her car and bike are her pride and job, and she loves to exhibit the car at shows, and take off for long days out on the bike, with no one for company but herself.
Blurb
The world ends not with a bang, but with a downpour. Tornadoes spin through the heart of London, New York cooks in a heat wave that melts tarmac, and Russia freezes under an ever-thickening layer of permafrost. People rally at first—organizing aid drops and evacuating populations—but the weather is only getting worse.
In Durham, mild-mannered academic Danny Fennick has battened down to sit out the storm. He grew up in the Scottish Highlands, so he’s seen harsh winters before. Besides, he has an advantage. He’s a werewolf. Or, to be precise, a weredog. Less impressive, but still useful.
Except the other werewolves don’t believe this is any ordinary winter, and they’re coming down over the Wall to mark their new territory. Including Danny’s ex, Jack—the Crown Prince Pup of the Numitor’s pack—and the prince’s brother, who wants to kill him.
A wolf winter isn’t white. It’s red as blood.
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
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In my novel Dog Days, ‘the world ends not with a bang, but a downpour’. It’s the opening days of a frost-covered dystopia, and I had so much fun with it. As a writer, I love dystopias. I think there is no better way to expose the architecture of a society than how it collapses under stress. It’s not the only thing I write, but creatively I definitely veer more towards the dystopian than the utopian. Let’s be honest, I’m Northern Irish and my family’s motto is ‘we laugh at bad things’, I wouldn’t know what to DO with myself in a utopia.
Other than probably get kicked out for bad behaviour.
Dystopias have so much more scope to wallow in, so many more questions to answer. Is it survival to keep on breathing, or to hold onto the encultured morals of the world before? Can you justify morality in a world where those depending on you pay the price for your values? Flee to the hills to hermit your way through the bad days, or hunker down and go tribal in your suburbs?
Of course, part of the reason I love dystopias is that I am never going to see one. Not because I have any great faith in things turning out for the best, but because I’d be one of the first to die. Probably not in the first or second wave of deaths, but after that I’d be done for.
First wave of deaths in an apocalyptic/dystopian scenario are going to be down to trauma: zombie attacks, injuries, totalitarian soldiers, corn weevil bites. I live in a small town with no majorly attractive assets to seize, so it’s likely I’ll avoid that. I mean, I might not but I think the odds are in my favour as far as digging in and weathering the storm here.
Second wave is probably going to be medical. People with long-term medical conditions that depend on machinery or drugs to maintain their lives/mobility will start to die off here. Diabetics, for example, or people dependent on dialysis. As access to treatment/hospitals gets more difficult, they’ll fall by the wayside. I’ll still be ok at that point, but I will have lost family members (we are not a healthy people).
So, barring bad luck, I’ll more likely than not to weather the first few months. After that, though? It’s not looking good. I’m short-sighted to the point of being helpless if my glasses are stolen or damaged, I have asthma so a brisk run through a field might well kill me, and I have food allergies that will make scavenging more difficult for me.
Plus, I’m just generally not hardy. I have limited survival skills — I mean, I have a huge stash of survival hints and tips in the cloud, but can I depend on internet access at this point? — and I’m not good in stressful situations. You know the way people are meant to have fight, flight, or freeze instincts? I’ve just got flight. I was once caught rearranging a neighbour’s gnomes into a ‘signalling the mothership’ shape, and — despite the fact I was a: staring right at the man, and b: my house was right behind me — I ran down the street and hid in a bush.
That’s not going to cut it when the corn weevils come, is it? Inner gerbil instinct like that are great in the first wave, but eventually you need to stand your ground.
I figure I have a few months of dystopian experience in me, just the overture of it. Once things start to really fall apart, my general lack of fitness to survive in this situation will demonstrate itself. Unless it’s a very cosy dystopia, I will mouldering in a shallow grave before people even start debating the ethics of cannibalism.
Which kind of makes me feel like a bit of an under-achiever. At least two of my friends are probably going to be warlords at that point, through a mixture of organisational skills, the willingness to field dress dead things, and sheer bloody-mindedness. So I make up for it with my own controlled dystopias, spreading lurgy and ice across the world and writing characters that are far, far better suited to deal with it than me.
Trust me, Dog Days Jack and Danny are much better at dealing with the various indignities of the end of the world than I am.
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Bio:
TA Moore genuinely believed that she was a Cabbage Patch Kid when she was a small child. This was the start of a lifelong attachment to the weird and fantastic. These days she lives in a market town on the Northern Irish coast and her friends have a rule that she can only send them three weird and disturbing links a month (although she still holds that a DIY penis bifurcation guide is interesting, not disturbing). She believes that adding ‘in space!’ to anything makes it at least 40% cooler, will try to pet pretty much any animal she meets (this includes snakes, excludes bugs), and once lied to her friend that she had climbed all the way up to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, when actually she’d only gotten to the beach, realized it was really high, and chickened out.
She aspires to being a cynical misanthrope, but is unfortunately held back by a sunny disposition and an inability to be mean to strangers. If TA Moore is mean to you, that means you’re friends now.
September 2 – The Novel Approach
September 4 – MM Good Book Reviews –
September 5 – Oh My Shelves
September 6 – Joyfully Jay
September 7 – It’s About the Book
September 8 – Molly Lolly and Kimi-Chan Experience
September 9 – Prism Book Alliance
September 11 – Love Bytes Reviews
September 13 – Boy Meets Boy
Giveaway!
For a chance to win a $20 Dreamspinner Gift Card, simply leave a comment telling us what you like most about m/m science fiction and/or urban fantasy!
Maen is a Gold Warrior, an elite defender of Aza City, respected by his fellow soldiers and favored by his imperious Mistress for services both in and out of the bedchamber. His loyalty and commitment are unwavering until he recruits Dax, a captivating and challenging Bronzeman who, despite his youth and inexperience, seduces Maen with his fierce hero worship. When they’re captured by enemies of the City, Maen risks everything to save Dax: his position, his faith, and even his life. But he loses his lover to the rebels and upon his return to the City is stripped of his rank. In Aza, where a soldier’s only lawful devotion is to the City and his Mistress’s pleasure, the disgraced Maen is placed under the watchful guard of the arrogant Gold Warrior Zander and relegated to preparing a Royal History for the new Queen. But his discoveries cast a new and shocking light on the past and threaten to stir revolution in both citizens and rebels. With the help of the lively and inquisitive scribe Kiel, Maen initiates a chain of events that will change their world forever—and offer him the chance to regain both his honor and his heart’s desire.
Kimi’s thoughts:
First off, let me state that while there is a romantic element, this is NOT a romance. It’s essentially a re-release of two of her previous works- The Gold Warrior and Twisted Brand as a single work. It takes place on a colony world, one that was settled by humans so long ago and remained cut off long enough that they have evolved a matriarchal society that is very old world in scope. So while it is sci fi, it is also very much a fantasy. There’s intrigue aplenty as factions chafe under the current regime and struggle for freedom. It should be noted that there are a lot of m/f sex scenes due to the nature of the Mistress and slave societal order, but the romance itself is m/m. Please note it is is not dub-con as Maen enjoys the sex he has with his female mistress and looks forward to it; there’s no bisexual erasure going on here. I quite enjoyed reading as the richly detailed world came to life and Maen discovered the truth of their historical past and how the freedom of the people came to be subverted.
An excellent story and one I’ll no doubt return to read again and again.
SUMMARY: Life for Dexter J. Daley has never been easy, but he’s always found a way to pick himself back up with a smile on his face. Taken from his home, and the arms of his boyfriend and THIRDS partner, Sloane Brodie, Dex finds himself in a situation as mysterious and lethal as the Therian interrogating him. Dex learns what he’s secretly believed all along: his parents’ death wasn’t an accident.
Discovering the whole truth about John and Gina Daley’s homicide sets off a series of events that will change Dex and Sloane’s lives forever. As buried secrets rise to the surface and new truths are revealed, Dex and Sloane’s love for each other is put to the test, with more than their relationship on the line. If traversing the waters of murder and secret government agencies wasn’t enough, something inexplicable has been happening to Dex—and nothing will ever be the same.
REVIEW: This is the seventh book in this wonderful, action packed series featuring Destructive Delta. Dex is taken and his kidnapping unlocks the mystery and revealed the truth surrounding his parent’s murder. This revelation not only changes Dex and Sloane’s loves forever but strangely gives Dex and Maddox a bit of closure.
We learn quite a bit more about who’s behind the kidnapping, more about the facility where Sloane, Ash and other First Gen. Therians were experimented on. As the story unfolds, even more secrets and plots are revealed. There is so much that goes on in this book, basically a lot of Dex’s questions are answered and the truth of it all hits him hard. But I think that deep down, Dex on some level knew that the story surrounding his parent’s deaths was a lie.
This book is tamer than the six previous books. Tame in the way of seeing Dex and Sloane in their home; their everyday home life. This is a side of Sloane that I truly enjoyed. Yes, these men are constantly out fighting crime, being shot at, being attacked, explosives and being the super elite team but there’s more to their lives than that. You see the more domestic side to these two. You can tell that Sloane and Dex are extremely happy together.
You also get a glimpse into the love lives of the other team members: Seb and Hudson (I am most eager to read their story) and even Sarge. I am also looking forward to Austin and Zach’s stories.
There’s not a lot of sex in the books but that is totally fine as the storyline, dialog, plot and character development more than makes up for it. This book, this series is absolutely magnificent and will keep you enthralled from the very first page to the very last. Oh, and the covers are to die for!
Enthusiastic, play-it-safe Kelly Sutton is an American intern at the Photonic Royal Society in New London. He’s been working on Project Mars for over a year, a mission kept so secret by the society even Kelly doesn’t know exactly what it is. What Kelly does know is his contribution to the task will benefit mankind, and that’s enough for him.
Kelly’s world turns upside down when concerns over his mentor’s behavior lead Kelly to investigate and stumble upon a wicked truth. What is supposed to be a project to advance human life turns out to be an endeavor capable of mass destruction. The terrifying reality forces Kelly to choose between looking the other way to keep his job, as he’s always done, or risking his career and even his life to do the right thing by saving the man who’s captured his heart.
Kimi’s thoughts:
This is a short at 73 pages but it packs a lot of story into those few pages. Kelly is living his dream, working for a multi-discipline scientific organization. The project known as Project Mars is a government project, one that is very hush hush. So much so that he nor anyone else seems to know much about it, each section being assigned only a piece of the research and the larger details left to higher ups with a need to know.
The day comes when Kelly’s curiosity leads him to stumble upon the truth and it places his life in very great danger unless he goes along with what has been requested of him. Even worse, it quickly becomes apparent that an ethical line has been crossed and he can either risk his career and life or stand by and see a very great wrong perpetuated. The fact that the wrong being committed centers on a man he has come to love makes the dilemma especially difficult.
Covering subjects such as government corruption, scientific oversight, and bio-engineering, this is a romantic tale that is out of the ordinary. It hits all the right buttons (despite my brain at first trying to figure out what photons had to do with it all, haha) and ends with a HEA that isn’t too saccharine. Definitely, a set of characters I’d love to revisit in a longer work.
The first book I ever read was the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I was seven years old and it scared me. Not the story, but come on, I was seven and my grandmother, an avid reader and a writer for a local magazine, challenged me to finish the book. I spent one week pouring over the story, most times asking help about the definition of some of the more adult words from my mother. Eventually, my father gave me this huge, black, hard-bound dictionary and told me to look up the words instead. Needless to say, it was the challenge that spurred me on but in the end, I absolutely loved Rebecca and have read it more times I care to count even to this day.
The books I write cover contemporary stories but in the course of writing them, I discovered I preferred to write paranormal and science fiction simply because I love the genre so much and am more familiar with the supernatural. My father and nannies loved to tell their experiences on nights lit only by a lamp or candles. My island suffered from blackouts almost five years and the stories told in the dark fueled my imagination.
I finally put to writing a paranormal which I sent out to some friends who absolutely hated it. When I read it again, I saw the many mistakes made and the plot didn’t make sense. In fact, there were so many mysterious leaps into the unknown and supernatural, I could not make sense of it. Of course that was kind of disappointing so placed it in a box and forgot about it. Moving to this new house I found that box and took out the journal where I had written that paranormal. Six or seven years had passed since I’d put that story to paper and I had learned quite a few things in that time as a blogger and reviewer. It took time but I and a good friend managed to shred the piece and make sense out of it. In the process, I would cry and get so frustrated because it was so darned hard. In the end, it was not perfect and I took a chance to submit it. Imagine my surprise when they sent me a contract for publishing. Long story short, that book is slated for release this coming May 19th with the title: Hidden: Evils. It is a paranormal, supernatural based on local legends.
Today, I have three books out, Compelled for eXtasy Books, The Way You Look Tonight with Wayward Ink Publishing and a self-published short, What A Difference A Day Makes. A short story, Royal: Guardian was published as part of an anthology from Wayward Ink Publishing. I am working on other projects which focus on the science fiction and paranormal genres simply because I am more comfortable writing them.
About the Author:
I am a wife, mother and blogger by day, a writer by night. It can be difficult to say the least but it is a challenge that keeps me on my toes.
I grew up listening to folk tales my father and nannies told either to entertain us children or to send home a message. These narratives I kept with me and finally I wrote them down in a journal way back when I kept one. Going through junk led to a long forgotten box and in it was the journal. Reading over the stories of romance, science fiction and horror I had taken time to put to paper, brought to light that these were tales I never met in my readings.
The tales I write are fictional but all of them are based on what I grew up with and still dream about. That they have an M/M twist is simply for my pleasure. And I hope, yours as well.
What he would give to be lost in love’s embrace.
Do you believe in dreams? That’s how I found Ryan. Unfortunately, I could not be with him then, not until he took that final leap of faith. You see, I come from a distant star and coming from another planet is problematic. Coming from a planet where the atmosphere is different from Earth makes it even more complicated.
Despite my father’s caution, I went to Earth. I was compelled because of my love for Ryan. I wanted him to come home with me but he would have to suffer through the change to survive. I wanted to be with him on Earth but its atmosphere is toxic to my kind.
I was caught between two different worlds and longed for at least one more hour on that planet so I could be with Ryan. What I wouldn’t give, just to feel his skin against mine, to taste his lips on my mouth. What I wouldn’t give, just to get lost in his embrace once more.
I am Q’lan. This is our story. It is not long but it was difficult. I am glad that I can tell it now with Ryan in my arms.
In my embrace.
In my life.
The Joys of Crack and Dust
Or,
Why I went Apocalyptic
I did something no one else has ever done.
I wrote a book set in a post-apocalyptic future.
I know, I know.
You’re in awe.
Tj! you’re thinking. How did you come up with such a novel idea?
And therein lies the problem.
Post-apocalyptic, dystopian futures, all of this has been done before. It’s like that saying goes, that there’s nothing new under the sun. Tropes are tropes for a reason. Look at The Hunger Games. Look at the video game series Fallout. Look at Mad Max. Or I Am Legend. Or The 100. Or Book of Eli. Dawn of the Dead. Battle Royale. The Road (which, if you haven’t read this book by Cormac McCarthy, do it. It’s one of the best things ever). 28 Days Later. The Stand (Stephen King’s best work, in my opinion). Resident Evil. The Last of Us.
Whether it be nuclear bombs, or disease, or zombies, or humanity’s rage, the world falls, civilization crumbles, and we are left with little pockets of humanity across a scarred landscape who are usually embroiled in a battle against Forces of Evil (i.e. new government, old government, crazy motherfuckers, zombies, crazy motherfucking zombies).
So it’s all be done before. It really, really has.
And here I was, a writer of cracky man love who sometimes who could write angst, comedy, drama, and who occasionally dabbled into something darker. Here I was, thinking, okay, but if it’s all been done before, could I actually do something that was any different?
I knew, going into writing Withered + Sere, that it was going to be a massive undertaking. This world I created would be large, and would be populated by good people and evil people, and people whose moral compasses were firmly planted in the gray. I also knew going into it, that the only way I’d actually be able to do this post-apocalyptic story would be if I could put my own unique spin on it.
Let’s be real. There are people out there who’ve written stories about the end of the world that are far better writers than I could ever hope to be. I know this. I understand this. I don’t know if I could ever even be even remotely close to their level. But it didn’t stop me from trying.
I wanted to see what happened if I ended the world. If civilization did crumble, if billions of people did die, what would I do with what remained? Would I have anything new to add?
I think I did. I hoped I did. I don’t mean that to sound conceited or self-involved, either. Honestly. Given that this was so far from anything I’d ever done before, I knew that I needed to end the world in a way that was distinctly Klune but not devolving into the crack that I’m known to write. The dialogue here is sparse because the main character, Cavalo, doesn’t like to talk much. He doesn’t want to talk much. The other main character, Lucas, can’t talk, given some mysterious injury he’d sustained sometime in the past.
I love dialogue. I love writing people talking and snarking back and forth.
I love it so much, that to make this story different than anything I’d done before, I didn’t allow myself to fall back into the slinging of words. By taking away one character’s ability to speak at all, it forced me to find other ways to communicate, to relay the story without the crutch of vocalizing my point. And I did, though it was in ways I wasn’t expecting when I first started, and I like to think it adds another layer to the story, that it leaves it up to the reader to decide if Cavalo is actually having the conversations he thinks he’s having, or if it’s just a product of his imagination, that he’s getting response he’s thinking he should get.
And, of course, there’s the end of the world. The landscape, the remains of what once was. When you have a post-apocalyptic story, one of the most important characters you can have is the landscape. Is there the futuristic sheen of a dystopian society? Or is there the grunge and grime of a ravaged society?
I wanted to go with the grunge and the grime. I wanted to get motherfucking dirty in this book. By the time the W+S and its sequel, Crisped + Sere, are finished, I wanted the reader to feel the dirt under their fingernails, the dust in their throat. The setting is as important as the main characters, because if the setting isn’t believable, then it runs the risk of ruining the story as a whole.
I had fun with this, creating this dirty, dirty world. The landscape is dotted with hints of the past, from burn out husks of cars and billboards for personal injury attorneys, to the way the people who remain live their lives.
And that, to me, is the crux of these two books. The reader is told at the beginning that a hundred years have passed since the world ended. The idea that I couldn’t shake while writing this would be how would those people live their lives? Would they act completely different than we do today? Or would they still cling to what they’d been taught by those who came before them? We are ingrained with years on how a human being should act. I find it fascinating to think about how people would attempt to go on with business as usual, even if they don’t necessarily understand why they think that. It’s what they were taught by those who came before them. Those people were taught by those who came before them, and those are the ones that lived and loved in a bright and shiny world, and they passed down their traditions and mannerisms, and I think that those things would continue, even after the world ended. We act as we were taught. Yes, we learn from new experiences, but we are still human, and there are centuries of life before us that we draw from. We do the things we do because we were taught how to do them, even if we don’t realize it.
So. I hope you’re ready to get down and dirty with me. Because we’re about to crawl through the mud.
Withered + Sere Blurb:
Once upon a time, humanity could no longer contain the rage that swelled within, and the world ended in a wave of fire.
One hundred years later, in the wasteland formerly known as America, a broken man who goes only by the name of Cavalo survives. Purposefully cutting himself off from what remains of civilization, Cavalo resides in the crumbling ruins of the North Idaho Correctional Institution. A mutt called Bad Dog and a robot on the verge of insanity comprise his only companions. Cavalo himself is deteriorating, his memories rising like ghosts and haunting the prison cells.
It’s not until he makes the dangerous choice of crossing into the irradiated Deadlands that Cavalo comes into contact with a mute psychopath, one who belongs to the murderous group of people known as the Dead Rabbits. Taking the man prisoner, Cavalo is forced not only to face the horrors of his past, but the ramifications of the choices made for his stark present. And it is in the prisoner that he will find a possible future where redemption is but a glimmer that darkly shines.
Withered + Sere Blog Tour:
April 12 – MM Good Book Reviews
April 13- My Fiction Nook
April 18 – Just Love Romance
April 19 – Divine Magazine
April 19 – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
April 19 – The Novel Approach
April 20 – Kimi-chan Experience
April 21 – It’s About the Book
April 21 – Love Bytes
April 22 – Prism Book Alliance
When TJ Klune was eight, he picked up a pen and paper and began to write his first story (which turned out to be his own sweeping epic version of the video game Super Metroid—he didn’t think the game ended very well and wanted to offer his own take on it. He never heard back from the video game company, much to his chagrin). Now, over two decades later, the cast of characters in his head have only gotten louder. But that’s okay, because he’s recently become a full-time writer, and can give them the time they deserve.
Since being published, TJ has won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance, fought off three lions that threatened to attack him and his village, and was chosen by Amazon as having written one of the best GLBT books of 2011.
And one of those things isn’t true.
(It’s the lion thing. The lion thing isn’t true.)
Facebook: TJ Klune
Blog: tjklunebooks.blogspot.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Guest Post:
I have been an amateur writer for a long time—so long that I made a YouTube channel dedicated entirely to talking about the trials of being an amateur writer. It was a nice niche I’d settle in, and I was happy there.
Even so, I’m thrilled beyond words to have my first novella published by Harmony Ink this month. It’s a story that’s near and dear to my heart, and it hits a ton of my favorite tropes: secret identities, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, teen geniuses, secret societies, and overly complicated doomsday mechanisms.
It may be just another heartwarming tale of teenagers discovering corrupt power structures and themselves, but I hope you come to love it as much as I do.
–Hayden Scott
Excerpt:
“Dynaman, to the bell tower!” Max’s mother bellowed at him, swinging wildly from Mr. Magnificent’s shoulders as he heaved, trying to unseat her.
“You won’t get away with this, Catalyst,” Mr. Magnificent declared. “Your days are numbered!”
“You couldn’t even count high enough for that!” sneered Max’s mom, and she toppled them both over the railing onto a large conveyor belt.
Max sighed.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t committed to the mission or didn’t understand how important their work was. It was just that his mom and Mr. Magnificent had the same exchange every other week. And the worst part was that Mr. Magnificent was always right—he never let Max and Catalyst detonate their doomsday device, even though it would make a totally impressive battle finale. A lever always broke at the wrong time, or the sharks escaped the shark tank, or one time his mom’s monologue ran long enough for the SWAT team to arrive.
It was enough to give a guy a complex.
But Max flew up to the bell tower anyway, because one time he had gone home in the middle of a fight, and he was pretty sure he was technically still grounded.
The doomsday device sat proud and tall like a throne on the stone floor at the base of the bell. Max crouched in the windowsill for a moment, observing its majesty, then indulged himself in a midair backflip as he landed in front of it.
He could still be badass even if no one was around to see it. Blurb:
Max Jackson spends his days worrying about the same things most teenagers do—homework, college admission, and how to detonate the doomsday device his mom built in their basement. As a member of the “Injustice League,” Max has devoted his life to destroying his city’s corrupt power structure. Everything is going according to plan until all-American superhero Crush Goodman steals the device right out from under him. Max’s life gets even more complicated when Crush starts stalking him at school and acting friendlier than he ever should to his archnemesis. Caught between his evolving feelings for Crush and wanting to protect his secret identity, Max has to steal his device back and show Crush the true meaning of supervillainy.
Hayden likes magic, adventure, romance, and puns. She has no idea where she is going but hopes that writing stories will make the journey more interesting.
Max Jackson is your typical teenage boy, concentrating on his classes at school and being accepted into a good university after graduation. There’s just the small matter of the bomb in his basement, one Max and his fellow members of the “Injustice League” plan to use to level their city’s unethical government. Too bad superhero Crush Goodman puts a stop to their plans. Max understands why Crush would steal the League’s doomsday device, but why is Crush following him around and acting like they’re friends? When the reprehensible Doctor Decay butts his head into Max’s business, Max has to figure out how to save the city he’s always worked to destroy—with or without Crush’s help.
Kimi’s thoughts:
This was a short and sweet story but it didn’t quite gel for me. The issues with being short is that you often have a lot of information to cram in and this managed to get just enough background story to it to make me feel as if I’d tuned into a TV episode halfway through the second season without having watched the previous episodes.
The pacing felt a bit off as well and the comedic spin would have been funnier had the characters not been quite so two dimensional. The superhero types were rendered to mere props who were caricatures of cartoons, making the more serious social message Max shares about what the “good guys” and “media spin” less effective than it could have been. Overall, it was a great concept but the execution wasn’t quite there. It left me feeling rushed and vaguely lost.
BLURB: Calvin Summers and Ethan Hobbs have been best friends since childhood, but somewhere along the line, their friendship evolved into something more. With the Therian Youth Center bombing, Calvin realizes just how short life can be and no longer keeps his feelings for his best friend a secret. Unfortunately, change is difficult for Ethan; most days he does well to deal with his Selective Mutism and Social Anxiety. Calvin’s confession adds a new struggle for Ethan, one he fears might cost him the friendship that’s been his whole world for as long as he can remember.
As partners and Defense Agents at the THIRDS, being on Destructive Delta is tough at the best of times, but between call-outs and life-threatening situations, Calvin and Ethan not only face traversing the challenges of their job, but also working toward a future as more than friends.
REVIEW: This is book six in the THIRDS series and it’s two hundred sixteen pages of full of action, shenanigans, action, crime and mystery and gummy filled goodness. The crew is back in the long awaited installment of Destructive Delta and the rest of the THIRDS units. While the story is focused on Calvin and Hobbs, the storylines of all members of the THIRDS is expertly maintained throughout the book.
This series in one word: Amazing. There is nothing about this book or this series that is boring. There’s humor, secrets, intrigues, crime and drama, super secret crime fighting unit stuff mixed in with love and romance with just a touch of steamy sexy tossed in. Everything about this book, this series is spot on perfect. Each character is individually crafted and they are divine; the dialogues and personalities of each of these characters will keep you entertained. There are a lot of twists and turns in the plot that will keep you on your toes. These books are addicting reads. This book captured and held my attention from the very first word of the first paragraph on page one to the very last word, of the last paragraph of the last page.
In this book you can expect to see just how Calvin and Hobb’s relationship has developed through the years. How their families are close knit and the love they have for one other. You will see things revealed with the Hobb’s brothers that will warm your heart and bring them closer together. I can’t wait to read about Sebastian and Hudson, Zachary and Austen and even Nina and Rafe.
The book ended with a delicious cliffhanger and it will drive you crazy wondering what happens next. This book has so much going on that you will not get bored for one second reading this. I highly recommend this series.
