LGBT Romance

Review of Pisces Hooks Taurus by Anyta Sunday

December 3, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This is at the fourth book in the Signs of Love series by Anyta Sunday. I actually started with book two in this series, Scorpio hates Virgo and I loved it so much a went out and got the rest of my series. I’m really a fan of this author and have now read several books by her. She writes gay romance book and many people refer to her as the “Queen of Slow Burn” because she specializes in the slow burn romance. I think that’s why I enjoy her books so much because I love this trope. She also does the enemies to lover trope in some of her novels which I also really enjoy.

So onto Pisces Hooks Taurus. The story follows Zane, a Kiwi who has a month left on his Visa before he’s shipped back from the US to New Zealand. But he wants to stay in the US more than anything especially because he wants to stay close to his brother and his brother’s wife who is also his best friend and the two of them have just become parents. So Zane has a plan: he will find the perfect girl of his dreams on one of his dating apps, fall in love, marry her and get to stay in the states. That’s the plan, anyway. Oh, and all this is to take place within 30 days.

But first off, he needs to find another place to stay and asks a friend of his brother’s wife, a professor named Beckett, if he can crash with him temporarily. So what follows is a delightful slow burn romance between the two of them. But it’s not an easy road. Zane is clueless that his so-called “Bromance” with Beckett may be something more profound and we learn that Beckett is still broken-hearted and deeply scarred from a past relationship and is determined not to get his heart broken again.

I really loved both of their characters. Zane, our Pisces is young, naïve, romantic, and somewhat of a dreamer, so in this way, he comes across as quite innocent. He is also charming and super-sweet. Beckett, our Taurus, is mature, more serious, intellectual and studious though somewhat insecure and mistrusting of others following that horrible breakup.

So it was a delight watching the slow-burn between the two of them as Beckett would continuously erect borders with our clueless Zane unknowingly tearing them down. What I liked is the balance in the story. We have two very different personalities; a totally innocent and naïve character and one who’s jaded and mistrusting. As the tension builds, we see our bull lowering his guard and our fish growing in maturity and wisdom. I also loved how much both of these characters grew by the end of the story.

All in all, I felt that this slow-burn romance was realistic and heartfelt. It was a story full of banter, humor, affection, the building of tension as these two men realized their attraction to the other, and the blossoming of love, without too much angst.

I found it interesting that though Zane was initially searching for the perfect woman, his falling in love with Zane didn’t strike me as a gay-for-you trope, one that I typically don’t like. Rather, it felt like Zane’s bisexuality naturally unfolded as true affection developed between him and Beckett. Actually, I got the impression that Zane didn’t really experience sexual attraction to someone unless he has a strong emotional connection with them. So in this way, he struck me as possibly being more demisexual rather than bisexual.

Pisces Hooks Taurus was another lovely and sweet story by Anyta Sunday that made me a little misty-eyed at the end (as do most of her books). It’s the kind of story that makes you laugh and cry, and really ends up tugging at your heartstrings. Excellent plot, with lovable characters, endearing meddling family and neighbors, plenty of humor and snark and a sweet romance with a couple of steamy scenes thrown in at the end. It’s a story in which both of our characters knew what they wanted — it just took them some time to get there.

I’m loving this series and can’t wait to read the next book.

Purchase Pisces Hooks Taurus at Amazon

Purchase Pisces Hooks Taurus at The Book Depository

Review of Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

November 30, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Blue is the Warmest Color is a wonderful graphic novel that follows our main character Clementine, a French junior in high school. One day while walking down the street she notices a girl with blue hair. What Clementine isn’t prepared for, is an unexpected tinge of desire, so much so that the girl begins to enter her dreams….in an erotic manner causing all kind of confusion for our heroine as she begins to question her sexuality for the first time.

Later, she wanders into a lesbian bar with her best friend where she reencounters the blue-haired girl and learns that her name is Emma. Their attraction is instant and electric, and it doesn’t take long before Clementine realizes that she has fallen in love with Emma.

But acceptance of her newly-emerged sexuality doesn’t come easy for Clementine, and we experience the battle she faces not only internally but also amongst her peers at school surrounding her forbidden attraction. It’s about finding and accepting yourself even though everyone around you tells you that you are wrong, that the love that you feel is wrong.

What follows is a heartfelt coming-of-age story of first love, self-discovery, and ultimately tragedy. Yes, there’s tragedy, something we learn in the opening pages of the novel. So though it’s a beautiful love story, it’s also a heartbreaking one, one that was difficult to read in parts. This is as much a coming of age story about a girl’s awakened desires, as it is a story of hardship and loss.

The medium of a graphic novel is surprisingly effective in telling this raw and very intimate tale. Blue is the Warmest Color is an emotionally expressive and exquisitely drawn book about love, loss, depression, trauma, bullying, acceptance, homophobia and so much more.

It’s a dark book in places, filled with angst and fear, but it’s also a beautiful, swirling romantic sweep of a book chock full of gorgeous, evocative images which render this graphic novel a beautiful work of art. Maroh’s drawing skill is exceptional and smart, the rich and bold drawings expertly capturing the nervous and exciting awe of first love as well as uncertainty, guilt, shame and tragedy, panel after panel.

All in all, I adored the characters, the story and the illustrations and I’m so glad I came across this. It was not only a well-told, deeply moving tale but also a heart-tugger of a story that sticks with you and gives you plenty to think about afterward — or at least it did for me. Recommended!

Purchase Blue is the Warmest Color from Amazon

Purchase Blue is the Warmest Color from the Book Depository

Review of Liam Davis and The Raven by Anyta Sunday

September 7, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Anyta Sunday is one of those authors that I get all gushy over. In fact, in the M/M genre, she’s an insta-buy author for me.

Liam Davis and The Raven is a New Adult M/M Romance that follows Liam Davis, a serious student journalist writing a political column for the campus magazine called The Scribe. His goal is to eventually to gain apprenticeship at his father’s firm, so his life is almost totally focused on his career in journalism. Much to his horror, the editor of The Scribe forces him to relinquish his politics page and reassigns him to The Party Page. Now, this is problematic because not only does it jeopardize his chance of getting into his father’s prestigious newspaper company, but being an extremely serious non-nonsense and no drama type of guy with no friends to speak of, he basically has no idea how to party much less write about it.

But one night when leaving the party, a person dressed as Freddy Krueger comes stalking out of the shadows and attacks him. Luckily the Raven, who is the campus vigilante comes to save the day. Now what’s interesting, is that this vigilante has been getting hate mail sent to Scribe’s opinions page and now Liam takes it upon himself to find out who the Raven is so that he can warn him of the potential danger.

Along the way, due to his Raven research and his new party-going agenda, he ends up making some friends – and someone who may turn into much more than a mere friend. So in this way, this book is a sexual self-discovery tale in which Liam begins to question his own sexuality though he hasn’t given it too much thought.

What I find interesting about Liam, is that he is blunt, honest to a fault, insensitive, standoffish, a tad detached and clinical even – with absolutely no social skills whatsoever but with a keen, critical eye for observation. Though it took me a bit to warm up to Liam — and I really did — he ended up being quite an endearing characters, and I loved his deadpan humor. It was also lovely to watch his sexual awakening as he began to have deep feelings for a someone — in this case a boy — for the first time ever. The entire book is told from Liam’s POV which made the story all the more fun.

Along the way, he amasses several delightful and lovable characters as friends: there’s the dreamy Quinn who takes Liam under his wing and even agrees to become his roommate, the sexy and hysterically funny Hunter who is disabled and in a wheelchair following a brutal gay bashing though that certainly doesn’t stop him from actively pursuing his latest crush, and then there’s Shannon, Hunter’s overprotective sister.

So in this book, Liam not only discovers love for the first time but also true friendship and devotion within friendship.

True to Ms. Sunday’s form, there is a romance in this story, but of course, it is an extremely slow burn one, my favorite trope, to be truthful. I loved watching Liam’s evolution from a clinical social misfit to a passionate lover though he before declaring that he was gay felt that he needed to “gather data before drawing a conclusion.”.

But the romance isn’t the only theme to the story: there is a mystery to be solved. Who is the Raven and why is someone out to get him? And who is the hideous being behind all of the recent attacks on campus?

All in all, I loved this humorous, uplifting and entertaining book with its quirky, adorable characters and a compelling plot. And the romance was super-sweet. So in my opinion, Anyta Sunday hit another home run for me. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You can purchase/check out Liam Davis and the Raven HERE

Review of Spokes by P.D. Singer

August 30, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Spokes by P.D. Singer cover image Spokes follows Christopher Nye, a part-time writer for Cyclo World who works in a bike shop and in his spare time loves to ride his bike throughout the hills of Colorado with his best friend, Stu.

His pro cycling idol is Luca Biondi who has, along with his team, recently started training in Colorado. Meeting briefly at the bike shop and later riding out on the road, Luca and Chris form a friendship that quickly grows into a relationship but one that must be kept secret. Luca can’t afford for anyone either on his team or in the cycling world to know he is gay, mainly due to concerns about negative reactions from the cycling world as well as his sponsors. He is also still in the closet from his parents. I liked the fact that Christopher knew all of this going into the relationship and never made demands. I also found it interested how Christopher’s writing became one of the major plot points throughout the novel.

This was quite an emotionally hard-hitting book as, given that cycling is a dangerous sport, there are a couple of tragedies in the story that wrench at your heart.

I was definitely on the edge of my seat during several scenes, especially when watching the two of them navigate some challenging and intense events without being able to be emotionally open with each other in public.

Now given that this is a gay romance book, there was this aspect to it as well, which I felt was really well done. Luca and Chris were sweet together, and the romance between them developed at a nice pace and in an entirely plausible way. And though there were a couple of rather steamy scenes, they did not overpower the plot or distract from the story.

There are a lot of biking details throughout the book that I appreciated as I used to be quite an avid cyclist in my younger days and used to follow the Tour de France quite closely.

Now, this wasn’t a story about two fellows who happened to be cyclists; rather, they both lived and breathed cycling, and the story was as much about cycling as it was about the love life of these two individuals.

I swear every scene in the book had something to do with cycling. That being said, I found the well-researched depth of details in regards to the cycling world details refreshing and people who aren’t familiar with the sport will no doubt learn quite a bit from this story.

All in all, a compelling story from the world of professional cycling with compelling, complicated characters, vivid scenes of Colorado and Italy all peppered with a super sweet romance. It was quite a journey that Chris and Luca took, and I’m glad I went on it with them. I give this book 4 stars.

Click here to check out Spokes at Amazon.

The Sumage Solution by G.L. Carriger

August 15, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

I won this book in a Goodreads Drawing so first off, a big thank you to Ms. Carriger for providing me a copy of this book. Of course, the reason I entered into the drawing was that the blurb intrigued me and I’m glad I got a chance to read it.

Introducing Max

The Sumage Solution is an urban fantasy/LGBT romance that follows two characters: Max and Bryan AKA Biff and takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area. Max is a gay and hysterically snarky, foul-mouthed, somewhat grumpy sumage, which is a mage who can’t actually do any magic and is stuck in a crappy government job as a bureaucrat – basically doing paper-pushing drudge work pushing papers.

Max works at DURPS which is the supernatural equivalent of the DMV. I can’t remember what the acronym stands for but any supernatural being who comes into town has to register at and be approved by the DURPS. One of Max’s paper-pushing duties there is to process incoming supernaturals.

Enter the Werewolf

So enter Bryan — called Biff by his pack – who is an extraordinarily well-muscled and gruff beta werewolf with a heart of gold. But he’s also in the closet and is not even out to his pack.

So it’s worth mentioning that typically, werewolves can’t stand being around mages because mages smell horrible to them – they have kind of a chemical stench to them. What’s interesting is that Max actually smells good to Bryan. Bryan also finds the mage to be exceptionally good-looking and there’s a good chance that the hunky werewolf might be willing to leave the closet if he can only get the mage to go on a date.

Bryan/Biff is really a sweetheart of a character, and you can’t help but love him as the story progresses, especially once we figure out that he has somewhat of a White Knight complex – extremely protective of everyone in his life and willing to swoop into the rescue at a moment’s notice.

He basically fits as the caretaker archetype. Max, on the other hand, takes snark to a whole new level but he is laugh out loud funny. He becomes all the more endearing when we learn that a lot of his grumpy and snarky exteriors is basically a façade to hide the fact that he’s been very hurt in the past and as such, has deep relationship issues. Oh, and Daddy issues as well.

But There’s Trouble

Needless to say, Max and Bryan end up getting together, but it’s not smooth sailing for them. Max has many hangups that he has to get past and then there’s the whole reaction of Max’s pack who didn’t even know he was gay, much less dating a mage.

There’s also a mystery to solve surrounding Max’s dead father, his childhood homestead which is protected by strong magic and a powerful and dangerous codex — and ancient manuscript in book form that resides is Max’s father’s house.

Which is probably why there’s a steady stream of mages trying to get past the house’s magical barriers.

Impressive World-building

I really loved the world that the author has created here, giving us a modern day San Francisco but populated by all manner of shifters, magicians, and the enigmatic Kitsune, which are foxes who appear in Japanese folklore. There’s also the riveting history of the mages and magicians and the one event that lead to a whole new world and the death of thousands.

Heat Warning!

Now this being a gay romance, there is sex in this book — a lot of it actually. But the majority of the sex scenes were relevant to the plot, and we learned a lot more about the characters from these scenes.

But it is quite steamy. So if you prefer your novels squeaky clean, then you might want to pass on this one.

My Verdict

Overall, the Sumage Solution was a fun, humorous madcap romp that was charming and intriguing, with lovable, quirky characters. This light-hearted character-driven story was a joy to read, especially with all of the witty banter between our two main characters. The author does snark and sass exceptionally well, and this book had me laughing out loud on several occasions.

This book also has quite a diverse, entertaining and lovable cast of secondary characters, many of them leaning towards the “sassy” side as well. I adored Bryan’s pack and loved how protective and loyal they are to each other. They were definitely a huge, messy and complicated family.

I do believe this is going to be a series and if so I’ll for sure be reading the next one. I loved this little gem of a novel, and I give it: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

You can check out The Sumage Solution here at Amazon or at The Book Depository

Review of The Ghost of Buxton Manor by Jonathan Ferrara

August 8, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

100 Years of Boredom

The Ghost of Buxton Manor follows the ghost of 17-year-old Rupert Buxton who, for close to a century, has been tethered to his childhood home and living more or less a perpetual fog. He pretty much lingers in limbo, passing his time reading and desperately — and unsuccessfully — trying to remember his former life. You see, he has no idea how he died or why he’s stuck at Buxton Manor. Hell, he doesn’t even remember his family. At the beginning of the novel, you really got a feeling for the specter’s crippling loneliness.

Strange Visitors Arrive

But Rupert’s life — or should I say afterlife — is drastically about to change.

First, there is the unexpected visit by Dr. Wyman, a ghostly therapist who offers his services to Rupert, promising to help Rupert to remember his past. But Wyman isn’t Rupert’s only visitor. There is also the strange ghostly trio of Bloody Mary, the Weeping Bride, and the Headless Horseboy who show up on Rupert’s doorstep also claiming to want to help Rupert.

Buxton Manor Gets Sold…and There’s a Boy

The most significant change and challenge facing Rupert, however, is that Buxton Manor has been sold, marking the arrival of a new family moving into Rupert’s home: Caroline, George and their son, Aaron who I believe is around the same age as Rupert. Now Rupert feels an immediate and unexplainable connection to Aaron, and it seems that on some level, Aaron can sense Rupert as well.

Despite Dr. Wyman’s warnings to stay away, he’s unable to resist. Of course, Rupert eventually is able to reveal himself to Aaron, and the door to both of their worlds is blown wide open. Lots of angst, intrigue, and drama follow as Rupert begins to put together the pieces of his past and once they both discover Aaron’s essential role in that process. There’s a lot of talk of Rupert’s unfinished business, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that Aaron may be the key to that unfinished business

An Interesting Peter Pan Tie-In

What I found especially interesting about this story is that the characters are loosely based on actual historical figures, Rupert Buxton and Michael Davies (who is also a character in the book), and they were lovers, and both drowned together in 1921. Michael Davies, along with his brothers, he was the inspiration for J. M. Barrie’s characters Peter Pan, the Darling brothers, and the Lost Boys and the story of Peter Pan, in fact, plays a huge role in this book.

Verdict

This was a beautiful book that I absolutely loved, and I say this in all seriousness — I hated for it to end, I got so invested in these characters and cared about what happened to them. This book had ghosts, a necromancer, mystery, intrigue, lots of twists and turns, big surprises, murder and most of all, love.

You know, I read quite a few LGBT romances, but this was the best one that I’ve read in a long time. Though I found this a tender love story, it was a lot more, and it dealt with some very loaded issues such as grief, betrayal, regret and loss and the paralyzing emotional suffering that follows.

But without giving anything away, it’s also a story of hope and second chances. So though this novel does have a romantic lean to it, that is not the main point of the story. There was so much more to it than that. It was a fantastic story with endearing, carefully crafted characters and I loved Rupert and Aaron. They are both lovable, wholesome characters with strong, unique personalities and wonderful, tender chemistry between them.

It’s funny – I read this a couple of weeks ago, and it is still on my mind. I was totally mesmerized by The Ghost of Buxton Manor and continued to ruminate over the characters and story long after completing the story. Truly unforgettable. This book is just so, so, so….magical and it’s just the kind of story I adore — funny, heartfelt, ghostly and seriously freaking romantic. Plus there’s that whole soulmate thing going on.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe the author has written any other books. I do hope he does because he has a lovely talent from bringing a story and a story’s characters to life. Yeah, I gave this one 5 stars.

You can check out the book here on Amazon or at The Book Depository.