Roger's Reads – Page 46 – Author & Book Reviewer

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 Running with Lions by Julian Winters

September 5, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

First off, the cover is gorgeous. In fact, it’s what initially attracted me to this book.

The Story

Running with Lions revolves around a soccer team called The Lions, and pretty much the entire book takes place while the players are at summer sports camp. The main character is Sebastian Hughes, the team’s star goalie who has aspirations of becoming captain. Sebastian is bisexual, and several of his other teammates are also gay or bi. They are all fortunate in having a coach who provides a welcoming and safe atmosphere where the players do not have to hide their sexuality.

So Sebastian is all set to have an epic summer at sports camp when he is blindsided by his childhood friend, Emir Shah, who shows up to camp, planning on joining the team. The problem is that something happened between the two of them years ago and Emir now hates Sebastian, and he doesn’t go out of his way to hide his dislike.

Emir is also somewhat of a loner — kind of a misanthrope — as he doesn’t get along with anyone at school, including the other team members. So he keeps everyone at a distance and makes no effort to close the gap between him and the other guys on the team, even at camp.

Sebastian decides to try to reconnect with Emir for the sake of the Lions, and he sets out to regain Emir’s trust. But in spite of Emir’s increasingly lousy attitude, Sebastian finds himself not only attracted to Emir but also developing feelings romantic feelings for him.

So as you can probably guess, a romance develops between the two of them, but it’s not easy going and there are several obstacles they’re going to have to overcome.

What I Liked

I really liked the relationship between the team members — there was a strong bond between all of them which kind of made me think of how we often choose our own families, and those bonds of friendship can sometimes be stronger than families bound by blood.

That’s the feeling I got from the team — that they were one big inclusive family. This was especially true with these guys, I think, in that they were able to express their sexuality without any judgments. All in all, I thought that a novel about an LGBTQ inclusive soccer team was brilliant, though I was thankful that the book didn’t go into too much detail about the logistics of the sport. Some books go a little too far with game play-by-plays which can be annoying for me as I’m not much of a sports person.

Sebastian’s character growth was also something that resonated with me. Initially, he lacked self-confidence and had rather a negative self-image no doubt due to the bullying he experienced at school.

There was his struggle with feeling unworthy to be team captain. He was also not happy with his body, feeling that nobody could be attracted to him. I found it refreshing that this story handled body image issues from the point of view of a boy as this isn’t something we often see in YA fiction.

I enjoyed seeing Sebastian progress and grow throughout the story to a more self-assured and confident character. His relationship with Elmir helped to boost his self-confidence, especially in regards to body acceptance.

I thought the romance between Sebastian and Elmir was sweet and well-done. I am kind of a sucker for the frenemies to lovers trope so this especially worked for me. Well, this was more of a best friends to enemies to reluctant teammates to lovers, which still worked nicely IMHO.

What I Didn’t Like

There was one female character in the book, Gray and she was treated horribly by Mason, the boy she had a crush on. He was rude and mean to her throughout the book, and there were never any consequences to the way he treated her.

Yes, his behavior was explained as “he’s mean to her because he really likes her” but this old clichéd trope doesn’t work for me; in fact, I hate this trope. Gray was also kind of a cardboard cutout of a character, and all we see is her almost desperate one-sided crush on a boy who isn’t very nice to her. This whole thing kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

Another thing I didn’t like was that the story was told in the third-person present tense: “Mason replies, “No.” Elmir takes another dip at the ball. He looks at him. Bastian beams. etc., etc.” I never like this tense in a book, and I’ve DNF’d books because of it. I personally find it jarring, and it tends to pull me out of the story, and sometimes I find it difficult to get past it.

I know many authors write in this tense and it doesn’t bother everyone; it’s just a personal preference of mine, and I tend to shy away from books that use this tense. So this might be why the writing felt stilted and disjointed to me from time to time.

There also wasn’t a whole lot that went on. There was some mild angst but no serious dramatic conflicts. I have to admit that I was waiting for some explosive event to take place but there wasn’t much to speak of. There were no surprises, no plot twists and it ended up being somewhat predictable. I hate to say it, but I did get a tad bored from time to time as the story progressed.

Verdict

This was an adorable character-driven story with a likable cast of diverse characters. Give that this was more driven by the characters than the story, there’s not a whole lot of action going on so if you like your novels to be nail-biting roller-coaster rides, you won’t find that here. Luckily, the characters were multi-layered enough to hold my interest, and I did find myself invested in what happened to them.

Running with Lions was a light, fluffy summer story about friendship and love that was a fun read. Though it was somewhat of a light-hearted romance, it also dealt with several other important issues such as bullying (both Sebastian and Elmir), homophobia and racism.

If you enjoy sweet summery romances or stories about gays sports teams or summer camp, then you’ll want to check out this book. Though it was a little light on plot, I ended up enjoying it, and I’m glad I read it. It’s a worthy effort for a debut novel, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Mr. Winters comes up with next.

You can check out Running with Lions HERE

Review of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

September 1, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This was a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time now — it’s been actually on my shelf for a while now, so I finally managed to pick it up. The story was fascinating!

The story revolves around Elantris the capital of a country named Arleon. I know — the names in high fantasy novels can be somewhat challenging. So The inhabitants of Elantris — they were all transformed by magic, which turned them into what can best be classified as demigods. In fact, many of the people in the country revered the Elantrians them as gods. They could perform all kinds of magic including teleportation and healing the residents of Arlean.

But then one day it all went to hell — it all turned sour. With no warning, the magic dried up — it simply disappeared one day. But that’s not all — all the inhabitants of Elantris — the people who had magic — were now turned into pitiful creatures that were more dead than alive. Though they still retained their personality, they have no heartbeat. Nor can their bodies heal. It’s also worth mentioning that when the Elantrian affliction fell upon the city, the King closed their gates, trapping the afflicted inside.

Now even ten years later, people in Arelon continue to get struck down by this strange illness and those that do are tossed into Elantis forever to live the life of one of the living dead.

Now the story continues in the new capital, where one day Sarene, a princess from a neighboring country arrives to marry Prince Raoden, the crown prince. This was to be a political marriage whose purpose was to unite the two nations against the religious imperialists of a neighboring hostile country. But when she arrives in Arelon, she is informed that Prince Raoden, her husband to be, is dead.

Of course, we learn in the opening pages that the crown prince Raoden is struck down with the Elantrian affliction days before his wedding, and is now banished to the city of Elantris — the city of the dead. But the king made sure that nobody discovered what really happened to his son and as far as anyone else knows, he died. But his story doesn’t end, and we are privy to what life is like in Elantris, through his eyes.

Princess Sarene stays in the court, determined to carry on the fight against the religious and very dangerous zealots who have conquered nearby countries. In so doing, she clashes with and makes an enemy of Hrathen, a scheming high priest of the repressive religions who recently arrived in the city.

What follows is political and social intrigue as there are plots and schemes to undermine the king, there are Hrathen’s plans to take over the capital and Raoden’s day-to-day trials as he adjusts to everyday life in Elantris as one who is dead yet not dead.

But as we learn, the walking dead in Elantris may still have a significant role to play in the new world because as it turns out, perhaps magic didn’t completely die after all and Prince Raoden may still have an important part to play in the kingdom.

So I found this story utterly gripping and enthralling and completely original. I can’t begin to express how much I adored this book. We have several main characters with strong moral principles and unwavering personal integrity who are willing to sacrifice and face insurmountable odds and do what it right. Even one of the villains ended up being someone that the reader could sympathize with, which I did not see coming at all and whom I found utterly fascinating.

And the plot — it was so original, so entertaining and so captivating that this story kept me turning the pages hours past my bedtime! So in this way, Elantris was, at least for me, unputdownable. The world that Sanderson gives to us in Elantris is unique, sophisticated and captivating with an imaginative magic system and I’m so glad I went on this journey.

The story was nicely wrapped up at the end with a satisfying conclusion and even though it was a rather lengthy novel, I was disappointed to see it end. I wanted more!

In summary, I loved the plot, loved the characters, loved the book — and I ended up giving this gem of a novel 5 stars. This book also turned me into an instant Brandon Sanderson fan, and I can’t wait to read the rest of his back catalog.

Click HERE to check out or to purchase Elantris

Review of Scat by Carl Hiaasen

September 1, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Scat ended up being hilarious and I’m glad I read it. It also takes place in Florida, a state where I used to live and spend a good deal of time so that attracted me as well.

So Scat follows a Florida kid named Nick, whom I guessed to be around 14 or so and whose father is on reserve in Iraq and his friend Marta. So one day Nick and his class are on a field trip when the swamp that they’re visiting catches fire. Mrs. Starch — the feared and unliked biology teacher, vanishes into the fire to retrieve an inhaler that a student had dropped. The bus leaves without Mrs. Starch as she came in her own car.

The next school day, the principal tells the students that Mrs. Starch has been called away on a “family emergency,” but Nick and Marta aren’t buying it — especially once that discover that Mrs. Starch has no family so they feel that there’s something very fishy about Bunny Starch’s disappearance.

They figure the scary, pencil-eating class delinquent, Smoke, who has a history of starting fires, has something to do with her disappearance, especially once authorities state that the fire was due to arson. But they’re not the only ones who suspect that Smoke started the fire. But there’s more to Smoke than meets the eye.

But there’s also a lot more that goes on in the book: there’s the dodgy oil exploration company run by a shady, nefarious fellow who is scamming the state by installing illegal pipelines in the Everglades, which is a nature preserve, there’s an endangered panther that’s being hunted, the strange eco-avenging wilderness man who seems to be sabotaging the oil company’s efforts, and of course, the mystery of what in the hell happened to Bunny Stark.

This madcap book was quite a wild romp – an edge-of-your-seat gripping thrill ride that had me interested — and laughing until the end, as it was hysterically funny in many places with a great cast of characters. I thought the premise of this book was fascinating, and Carl Hiaasen turns this premise into an exciting, fast-paced eco-thriller that I had a hard time putting down.

Though this was a light-hearted enjoyable romp, the book does touch on some serious issues as well such as war, crime, environment preservation, amputation and neglectful parents but does so in a smooth way so as not to make the novel unnecessarily grim or frightening, as this is a middle-grade book, after all. And as many of us like to see in our Middle-grade reads, the bad guys get it good in the end.

I do believe that is is part of a four-book middle-grade series that I definitely will be checking out. I also want to check out some of his adult fiction as well.

You can purchase Scat here at Amazon or at The Book Depository

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.

Review of The Wake Up by Catherine Ryan Hyde

August 30, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This is the second book I’ve read recently about people who empathize with animals on a telepathic level. And it wasn’t at all planned that way – it just happened.

So The Wake Up follows forty-year-old ranger Aiden Delacorte, who runs the ranch he from his deceased stepfather. Aiden’s life takes a complete 180 degree turn when one day while out hunting. He shoots a buck, and almost instantaneously, he falls to the ground, in agonizing pain and ends up blacking out. It turns out that when the bullet hit the buck, Aiden was able to feel the animal’s pain.

From that event forward, he figures out that he has some sort of “empathy” for animals and feels what they are feeling: their fear, their anxiety, their joy, their anger as well as their physical pain. Now, this is not a good thing for a cattle rancher who’s job it is to round up cattle, castrate the heifers and subsequently slaughter them. Because of this, he has no choice but to give up his career and sell off his animals. And he loses not only his farm in the process but also his girlfriend as well as the respect and friendship of his ranch-hands.

But Aiden’s life changes once again when he meets Gwen, a single mother with two children: Elizabeth and Milo.

Milo is an extremely troubled child — sensitive, shut off from everyone and can’t even bear the touch of others. We learn that Milo was abused in many ways by his father and Gwen really has her hands full with the boy. Gwen and Aiden begin dating, and even though the boy acts out in disturbing and almost unforgivable ways, Aiden vows to help the boy. As their relationship painfully progresses forward, Aiden learns that this boy may not be so different than himself.

What’s interesting about this story is that as Aiden revisits his past and his demons with a psychiatrist, he discovers hidden truths of his own life and his own childhood, which also provide answers to his own problems with Milo.

I listened to the audiobook version of this and thoroughly enjoyed it. I appreciate how the author brought up some very tough and important issues during the story: emotional abuse, physical abuse, but also the importance of family, self-acceptance, self-worth, encouragement, and hope. All in all, a beautiful, heartfelt story about emotional discoveries that I really ended up loving. I gave this book 5 stars.

Click here to check out this book on Amazon.