Monique S.'s Blog

Thrilling

Payback by Charlotte Mills

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is an exciting mix of police procedural mystery, romance and thriller the plot is great and the twist at the end I did not really exspect. There is a happy end, but I won't give anything else away an yeah, the love scenes are HOT!



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Well worth reading

On the Road-Again, Part Four by Karin Bishop

My rating:
my rating:4.5 of 5 stars

This is by far the best and most realistic of the four books in every respect, so here’s my reason for withholding half a star:

I was born a boy and started transitioning in 1983, so I’ve been on female Hormones for more or less forty years and guess what, I’m still sexually into females, which isn’t all that astonishing according to a recent worldwide Survey. Of all the people who said they identify as in the trans section of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, only 19% say they turned out heterosexual in the physical gender they aspired to achieve. That’s hardly a fifth and puts very much into doubt all those stories, in which a male to female trans person always turns out being into men. The question is WHY?

That’s half the reason. Here’s the other half:

In this volume Suzie Fairchild acquires an astonishing amount of business sense as well as quite some maturity as an assertive, yet sensitive and loving woman. She is going far beyond best female friends with Halla and so does she. Having received and accepted the apartment from her – if I had been the editor - I’d suggested to Karin, since there is already the warning from Monica, that Suzie tells Halla about Destiny Suzanne Weston, the jazz singer and her alter egoand her plans, offers her to start a production company together with her and to move in together, to see where that might lead As neither Suzie nor Destiny are well and truly sure of their sexual orientation, because of the missing teenage puberty as a girl.

Another point of discontent is the fact, that Destiny is so intensely decided to erase Suzie completely from her past. That certainly is not a healthy obsession. Suzie Fairchild is a very important part of her development into a woman. As the clever business woman she has become the solution I suggest would be to sell all Suzie’s rights and intellectual property to Destiny and Halla’s production company. That way it would be no problem to go to book signings or publishing Suzie’s photo’s and/or books and not really establish anything but a completely professional acquisition and in no way indicate any physical identity between Suzie Fairchild (who could vanish as a person nevertheless) and Destiny Suzanne Weston, whose new Stepfather has already pretty much erased any traces of Stuart from all records. That then would have still left two developments open to exploration:

1) Destiny and Halla develop their relationship further than just a professional partnership, which could also free Halla from her families’ clutches, or

2) a deep friendship between a lesbian Halla and a heterosexual Destiny, who goes on to explore her sexuality and finds out, why she always falls for men, who give her reasons to think the relationship cannot go anywhere anyway, what might point in the direction of counselling. Then she might be able to own her past as Stuart and still play around with her sexual orientation. In my opinion trying to erase an important part of your development in real life can only lead to regret, unhappiness and psychological problems, depression, even.

Other than that I think volume four is by far the best book of this series and well worth reading.





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Now Availble on my website

The digital version is now available through my website as either EPUB or MOBI file.

Uploading to KDP has turned into a nightmare since som meddling with the software. Highly unprofessional, Amazon!

A lovely break.

Magnolias and Murder by Tegan Maher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Tegan really is my go to author if I need a break to take my mind off my own writing and lesbian romances. Noëlle and her family have been my friends since the first volume of the witches of Keyhole Lake and if you like witchy tales with a taste of murder mystery and a lot of humour thrown in this series is for you.



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Mindblowingly good!

Always Emilie: A Second Chance Love Story FF by Alyson Root

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Five stars are nowhere near enough for this incredible book! Quite honestly this might be the best mix of WLW romance, mystery, action and crime I have ever read. It has it all, romance incredibly amazing characters whose personal development and responsible adult behaviour speaks of integrity and awareness rarely found in novels and also tells one hell of a lot about the author.

Having read the Kindle edition I just have to by a non digital one now for my real Top Favourite Shelf.



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highly recommended

Shadows of the Heart by Patty G. Henderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I am glad his was only available as a paperback, that way it found its way straight to my top favourite shelf. This is the story of Annalee Steward, an impoverished upper class woman, who is forced to work as a ladies companion. When her current position becomes obsolete, her employer recommends her to the Earl of Blackstone and Blackstone castle, where she finds her heart torn apart between the lady Lenore and the earl's sister Lady Victoria Blackstone.

If you like romance mixed with danger and mystery you get both in spades, here, although tragedy looms all the way. The writing is good and gripping, the language not too modern and fitting the setting. I highly recommend this book.



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3.5 stars, really.

Open Tab by J.A. Armstrong

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I quite loved the book, it's just the ending that was so abrupt, it spoiled some of it for me, as it kind of wasted all the effort, that had gone into the main characters and their emotional development. That's reinforced one of the reasons, I don't like books that start a series from authors I don't know from stand alone novels, they pretty much always feel like unfinished works at the end.



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An incredibly good read!

The Business of Love by Charley Clarke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An amazing book. OK, the most fitting term for this story is definitely slow burn. Yes, there is also WLW romance, but more important is the underlying suspense about the relationship bewteen Taylor and Mack and its purpose.

Who would have thought there to be a truly Machiavellian villain, and a female one to boot, who would pop out of the woodwork and turn the book into a gripping slow burn thriller?

Add to that two very credible main characters, who do their best to make the fake marriage achieve its purpose, not knowing that both their friends knew from the beginning, that they'd been made for each other, who have to fight their own demons each to finally fall in love, having got to know the safety and comfort they were giving each other.

What an incredible read!



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An unexspected experience.

Not Only One Bed: A Transatlantic WLW Romance by Sienna Waters

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the weirdest reading experience I've ever had. It started with me having reached a point in writing my latest novel, at which I thought I'd let it rest until tomorrow, then finish and end it the way I had planned. So I gave myself licence for some funny and hopefully sexy entertainment. Well, imagine my surprise to read an author gleefully making fun of the tropes of our genre and it was heartwarming to read with how much humour she was also making fun even of what she'd written herself in the novel. Then the real weirdness hit.

Somewhere in the pages running up to the 58% mark something triggered an idea in the back of my mind. Now I have to say I'm writing a crime thriller and could not just put my mental finger on what it was, that inspired me, but just had to stop reading and get back to my book. When I had the two hair raising last chapters finished it was late and dark outside, but I was hyped up and wanting to know how Sienna was going to end the tale.

I admit to my shame, that I jumped about 10% of her book in my impatience and dropped back in when Trix went about her grand gesture and it was still a fantastic read and the ending was brilliant and very satisfying. So somehow I managed to get two very satisfying experiences out of just one book.

Thank you Sienna.



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Not what I exspected

Brainjacked: Some experiments are meant to fail by Melanie Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I got this as I knew of Melanie's writing but up to now never read one of her books. To my surprise it was a well written, gripping thriller, I could not stop reading. There is really only one error in the story, Melanie. Today it is thirty years since my transition. Thirty years on estraddiol, 2mg daily and 10mg progesterone a day for the first ten days of my cycle, that I time with the moon. I have never taken any anti-androgen as I react allergically to any and all of them. So, i spent thirty years on female hormones with a male brain and never changed my sexual orientation towards boys so it's fair to assume I was born a lesbian, isn't it? So why does allmost everyone assume a male to female trans becomes a straight heterosexual girl? Of those i've met personally quite a large percentage turned out sapphic or bisexual, but those of us who do, are rarely represented in so called TG-fiction. A lot of it is much more fetish stuff in my opinion, even worse in the list of women, who write forced femme stories.

Unfortunately clueless people with a political agenda that is anything but truly LGBTQ+ friendly and the whole WOKE thing is a fraud in my eyes, trying to abuse people, who have fought through often painful experinces, for their nefarious purposes. Someone had to say these things and I chose to do it here, Melanie, I hope my truly felt fifve star rating is enough of an excuse.

Monique S



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