Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 5
March 25, 2023
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, by K.J. Charles
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The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K.J. Charles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Big K.J. Charles fan.
I loved this book--one of my favorites of hers. The growing and complicated love between Sir Gareth and Joss Doomsday, a free trader, a.k.a smuggler, in the early 19th century, is well-told and engaging. I wanted them to win, despite the time and the circumstances, the class differences--will love triumph! Add in a mystery, some murder and mayhem, and a well of rich detail of the marsh country, and you have a winner that kept me reading.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K.J. CharlesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Big K.J. Charles fan.
I loved this book--one of my favorites of hers. The growing and complicated love between Sir Gareth and Joss Doomsday, a free trader, a.k.a smuggler, in the early 19th century, is well-told and engaging. I wanted them to win, despite the time and the circumstances, the class differences--will love triumph! Add in a mystery, some murder and mayhem, and a well of rich detail of the marsh country, and you have a winner that kept me reading.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
March 5, 2023
Life After Joe, by Harper Fox
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Life After Joe by Harper Fox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Big Harper Fox fan here.
I wanted this novel to be longer, but I am thinking the intensity and compression is also what this story of love lost and found, redemption, and grief, is about. Matt has lost Joe, the love of his life. Joe gave him to have a wife and a child, a "normal life." Matt spirals down and, on the way down, meets Aaron, who seems to be a gift from the gods.
But, Aaron is quite human, and grieves his own lost love. The story is how these two find a way to love again with each other.
As with every Harper Fox novel, I am struck by the wonder of her details, here especially I was taken with the Kittiwake, the off-shore oil drilling platform where Aaron works, and the contrasting details of the personal spaces of each man. So very well done.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Life After Joe by Harper FoxMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Big Harper Fox fan here.
I wanted this novel to be longer, but I am thinking the intensity and compression is also what this story of love lost and found, redemption, and grief, is about. Matt has lost Joe, the love of his life. Joe gave him to have a wife and a child, a "normal life." Matt spirals down and, on the way down, meets Aaron, who seems to be a gift from the gods.
But, Aaron is quite human, and grieves his own lost love. The story is how these two find a way to love again with each other.
As with every Harper Fox novel, I am struck by the wonder of her details, here especially I was taken with the Kittiwake, the off-shore oil drilling platform where Aaron works, and the contrasting details of the personal spaces of each man. So very well done.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
March 2, 2023
Wolf Hall, by Harper Fox
Wolf Hall by Harper FoxMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this short Halloween special. I mean, werewolves, David, a good guy trying to stay good and out of trouble, an old bad boy lover back to lure him to the dark side, running and finding the werewolves and the man who will change his life.
What's not to love?
Recommended.
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February 10, 2023
Wild Rose, Silent Snow, by Angel Martinez
Wild Rose, Silent Snow by Angel MartinezMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love retellings of fairy tales and I really love gay-themed retellings. I loved Wild Rose, Silent Snow is "based on the old tale Snow White and Rose Red, but Snow is Snowden and Rose Red, Rowan, twin brothers. Both suffered encephalitis when they were children. Both had brain damage as a result. Snowden has aphasia; Rowan, agraphia. They live alone on a Minnesota island. It's the dead of winter.
Enter, a huge bear, who takes a liking to them, especially Rowan. Then, a huge naked man shows up. They rescue another Griffin, a fellow from being beaten by his nasty employer, Titan Langbart. The rescued man likes Snowden, but he is bound to the nasty employer. It turns out Cade, the naked man and the bear are the same creature, who has run afoul of a nasty wizard--yes, the nasty employer.
Complications indeed have ensued. Can the curse be broken? Can Griffin be saved? Will love triumph?
Recommended,
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February 4, 2023
Murmuration, by T.J. Klune
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Murmuration by T.J. Klune
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mike Frazier lives in the small town of Amorea, where he owns a bookstore, Bookworm. It is a good place. Set in a beautiful valley with endless blue skies, the people are friendly and kind and look after one another. Everybody knows everybody and like many small towns, there's a fine line between being nosy and caring. Nobody ever gets really sick. Doors are never locked, as there is no crime. Mike is in love with Sean, who works at the diner. Their relationship has been slowly growing for the past three years. It's about time, Mike thinks, to go a little further.
Utopia, yes? Maybe, maybe not. Mike's having strange dreams and seeing and hearing people who aren't there. He's seen a man disappear, only to find out the next day, it's as if nobody every knew the man existed. . Why are there no children? No cars? Why can't anybody remember their past? Where do all the starlings come from? Reality itself is shaky--at least for Mike. Something's wrong.
Something's going on. Is Mike having a breakdown? Will this threaten his relationship with Sean, which has become so important?
This is a love story and tale of identity and the nature of reality. I love this novel. I loved Sean and Mike. I loved how Klune weaves into the story the necessary research to build this too-perfect town, this island reality. The answer to Mike's questions are startling and unexpected.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
Murmuration by T.J. KluneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mike Frazier lives in the small town of Amorea, where he owns a bookstore, Bookworm. It is a good place. Set in a beautiful valley with endless blue skies, the people are friendly and kind and look after one another. Everybody knows everybody and like many small towns, there's a fine line between being nosy and caring. Nobody ever gets really sick. Doors are never locked, as there is no crime. Mike is in love with Sean, who works at the diner. Their relationship has been slowly growing for the past three years. It's about time, Mike thinks, to go a little further.
Utopia, yes? Maybe, maybe not. Mike's having strange dreams and seeing and hearing people who aren't there. He's seen a man disappear, only to find out the next day, it's as if nobody every knew the man existed. . Why are there no children? No cars? Why can't anybody remember their past? Where do all the starlings come from? Reality itself is shaky--at least for Mike. Something's wrong.
Something's going on. Is Mike having a breakdown? Will this threaten his relationship with Sean, which has become so important?
This is a love story and tale of identity and the nature of reality. I love this novel. I loved Sean and Mike. I loved how Klune weaves into the story the necessary research to build this too-perfect town, this island reality. The answer to Mike's questions are startling and unexpected.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
January 29, 2023
The Long and Winding Road, by T.J. Klune
The Long and Winding Road by T.J. KluneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm so going to miss Bear, Otter, and the Kid, and Dom. Creed and Anna, and their kids. Anna's parents, and Creed and Otter's, Mrs, Paquinn, and the rest of these wonderfully flawed, idiosyncratic, and funny humans.
I was crying at the end, but good tears, over a love story told over four novels, and told well.
So recommended.
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January 23, 2023
Sandbox Buddha, by Mo Owen
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Sandbox Buddha by Mo Owen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A Voice Crying in the Suburban Wilderness
Things aren’t going quite as expected for Howard Powell, father, husband, and faithful church-goer. It all starts off on Halloween and he is doing what any good father would do: he is taking his children trick or treating. He’s gotten into the spirit of things: he’s wearing a vampire costume, and he’s gone all out, fangs and a “black cape and lips, white shirt and face, trickle of crimson from the corner of [his] mouth” (3). Matthew, his six-year-old, is a witch; Madison, his nine-year-old, is a Harem Girl. They’ve got the routine down: ring, the ritual greeting, collect the goods, onto the next house.
Then Howard knocks on the door of Sarah Tile, a woman who, as he puts it, “ignites in [him] an intense sexual desire and has since sixth grade” (3). She and her daughter go along trick-or-treating, and when at the end he goes back to her house, alone, things get really confusing. Howard thinks he is protecting her from what seems to be spousal abuse and Howard winds up getting belt-whipped by Sarah’s over-protective and possibly abusive brother.
Things are now set in motion. As Howard explains in a Preface to the Reader, “This is the personal testimony of how, I, Howard Powell, [was] transformed in my 43rd year from humble husband, father, and community college professor to modern-day John the Baptist… “(vii). But, don’t expect this transformation, fueled somehow by physical violence, to be a familiar trajectory to a conventional holy man. A few days later Howard is at a city park with Maggie, his three-year-old youngest daughter. Swings, slide sandbox, mothers with their children. And Howard winds up in bed with one of those mothers while the kids “watch Snow White on the TV downstairs” (15).
This assignation turns out to not be a one-time aberration. And Debra, his wife, has no idea what is going on with her husband.
These are not the actions of your typical holy man, a would-be John the Baptist seeking his messiah. Okay, maybe, maybe that Howard is a student of the martial arts, of karate, a discipline of mind and body. But somehow, the sex is part of it all. There is a disturbing Blood Dream, and a “monstrous priapismic episode at the nondenominational colossus” Howard and his family attend, and he has a vision of the head of John the Baptist in the offering plate. If that isn’t enough, a long lost cousin, Mitch, appears literally out of nowhere, to give his mission, complete with his holy uniform, a karate gi.
Howard is called to the city parks, to the sand boxes, to the suburban mothers and their SUVs. He is called to testify to his hapless English 101 students that “editing and proofreading hold the secret of life” (83). He is called to speak the truth.
His wife is not amused.
But the reader will be as Howard stumbles along, rescuing dogs, sleeping in the suburban wilderness. He discovers along the way that he is to baptize Adam, “an Amish teenager,” with “blue eyes, impossible to fathom blue … a tall lad, somewhere between boy and young man,” who is the new messiah. Howard, like his predecessor, is called to baptize this Amish messiah, and thus set even greater things in motion.
That Howard winds up setting free the dogs in the pound and getting arrested, is grist for the mill and more of Owen’s dark and light satiric humor and both a biting and a gentle commentary on the place of faith and belief in the life of the ordinary guy with a family and a job. This is the guy who wants to do the right thing, but, as Howard says in the Preface, “the trajectory of [his] call wasn’t exactly hallowed…” (vii). This novel may disturb some readers, but that's the point, we should be disturbed. Doing good isn't always easy or comfortable.
I came to the end and wanted to know what happened to next. When this Adam is baptized, what then? And is Howard right, could there be a call waiting for all of us, if we could just hear it, recognize it in the voice of a gi-wearing eccentric in a sand box?
Just re-read this novel after 8 years and it still holds up: a funny and thoughtful, sometimes provocative story, about a very human prophet.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
Sandbox Buddha by Mo OwenMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A Voice Crying in the Suburban Wilderness
Things aren’t going quite as expected for Howard Powell, father, husband, and faithful church-goer. It all starts off on Halloween and he is doing what any good father would do: he is taking his children trick or treating. He’s gotten into the spirit of things: he’s wearing a vampire costume, and he’s gone all out, fangs and a “black cape and lips, white shirt and face, trickle of crimson from the corner of [his] mouth” (3). Matthew, his six-year-old, is a witch; Madison, his nine-year-old, is a Harem Girl. They’ve got the routine down: ring, the ritual greeting, collect the goods, onto the next house.
Then Howard knocks on the door of Sarah Tile, a woman who, as he puts it, “ignites in [him] an intense sexual desire and has since sixth grade” (3). She and her daughter go along trick-or-treating, and when at the end he goes back to her house, alone, things get really confusing. Howard thinks he is protecting her from what seems to be spousal abuse and Howard winds up getting belt-whipped by Sarah’s over-protective and possibly abusive brother.
Things are now set in motion. As Howard explains in a Preface to the Reader, “This is the personal testimony of how, I, Howard Powell, [was] transformed in my 43rd year from humble husband, father, and community college professor to modern-day John the Baptist… “(vii). But, don’t expect this transformation, fueled somehow by physical violence, to be a familiar trajectory to a conventional holy man. A few days later Howard is at a city park with Maggie, his three-year-old youngest daughter. Swings, slide sandbox, mothers with their children. And Howard winds up in bed with one of those mothers while the kids “watch Snow White on the TV downstairs” (15).
This assignation turns out to not be a one-time aberration. And Debra, his wife, has no idea what is going on with her husband.
These are not the actions of your typical holy man, a would-be John the Baptist seeking his messiah. Okay, maybe, maybe that Howard is a student of the martial arts, of karate, a discipline of mind and body. But somehow, the sex is part of it all. There is a disturbing Blood Dream, and a “monstrous priapismic episode at the nondenominational colossus” Howard and his family attend, and he has a vision of the head of John the Baptist in the offering plate. If that isn’t enough, a long lost cousin, Mitch, appears literally out of nowhere, to give his mission, complete with his holy uniform, a karate gi.
Howard is called to the city parks, to the sand boxes, to the suburban mothers and their SUVs. He is called to testify to his hapless English 101 students that “editing and proofreading hold the secret of life” (83). He is called to speak the truth.
His wife is not amused.
But the reader will be as Howard stumbles along, rescuing dogs, sleeping in the suburban wilderness. He discovers along the way that he is to baptize Adam, “an Amish teenager,” with “blue eyes, impossible to fathom blue … a tall lad, somewhere between boy and young man,” who is the new messiah. Howard, like his predecessor, is called to baptize this Amish messiah, and thus set even greater things in motion.
That Howard winds up setting free the dogs in the pound and getting arrested, is grist for the mill and more of Owen’s dark and light satiric humor and both a biting and a gentle commentary on the place of faith and belief in the life of the ordinary guy with a family and a job. This is the guy who wants to do the right thing, but, as Howard says in the Preface, “the trajectory of [his] call wasn’t exactly hallowed…” (vii). This novel may disturb some readers, but that's the point, we should be disturbed. Doing good isn't always easy or comfortable.
I came to the end and wanted to know what happened to next. When this Adam is baptized, what then? And is Howard right, could there be a call waiting for all of us, if we could just hear it, recognize it in the voice of a gi-wearing eccentric in a sand box?
Just re-read this novel after 8 years and it still holds up: a funny and thoughtful, sometimes provocative story, about a very human prophet.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
December 18, 2022
Abdroids and Aliens: Collected Stories, by J. Scott Coatsworth
Androids and Aliens by J. Scott CoatsworthMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Scott Coatsworth's latest collection of "eight sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from cyborgs to (comedic) alien invasions" (back cover). I laughed and I cried, for broken and missing hearts, for hearts recovered, and love found and lost. I loved the golden threat of hope here, even if bad things happen. Thanks to climate change, hurricanes devastate the Bay area, and EF6 tornadoes completely an Idaho town. The US implodes.
In "Firedrake," Kerry, one of the Changed, has to deal his powers of fire-making. Then he receives violet roses--from who and why? And he begins a journey of self-discovery. "What the Rain Brings," Miriam is doing her best to survive, and help those who need it, in "post-climate change Vancouver' (backcover). But her friend, Catalina, is caught in a nightmare in Arizona. Can she help her? These are love stories, queer love stories, that celebrate the human spirit, and offer hope.
These stories are a tonic for the soul. Recommended.
View all my reviews
December 4, 2022
From the Noblest Motives, by Angel Martinez
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From the Noblest Motives by Angel Martinez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Blaze is back working with Damien, and they have a lead on the three kids still missing from the Fredamine Project (in Rarely Pure and Never Simple). but their relationship seems to have "several steps back. Blaze no longer has any idea where he stands." Shudder is "back to his old haunts and old tricks," and winds up framed for murder and in jail after the passage of the Horace Act "that strips due process" from Variants on trial. He 's been framed.
How to get him out? Can Damien and Blaze pull it off? And Cyril, Damien's father who has been MIA for years? What he is up to? Strange things are happening in the Guild. An explosion in the prison inadvertently frees Shudder and with Damien exercising his locator talent, they find and take care of him. At least Damien and Blaze and Shudder finally recognize they love each other. But Dr. Parma, their ally and Damien's surrogate mother, is on the run.
But the other mysteries, " the layers of deceit and half-truths," are not resolved. The bad guys are still out there, but they seem to be on both sides. They are still in danger.
Now I have to wait for the third book!
Recommended.
View all my reviews
From the Noblest Motives by Angel MartinezMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Blaze is back working with Damien, and they have a lead on the three kids still missing from the Fredamine Project (in Rarely Pure and Never Simple). but their relationship seems to have "several steps back. Blaze no longer has any idea where he stands." Shudder is "back to his old haunts and old tricks," and winds up framed for murder and in jail after the passage of the Horace Act "that strips due process" from Variants on trial. He 's been framed.
How to get him out? Can Damien and Blaze pull it off? And Cyril, Damien's father who has been MIA for years? What he is up to? Strange things are happening in the Guild. An explosion in the prison inadvertently frees Shudder and with Damien exercising his locator talent, they find and take care of him. At least Damien and Blaze and Shudder finally recognize they love each other. But Dr. Parma, their ally and Damien's surrogate mother, is on the run.
But the other mysteries, " the layers of deceit and half-truths," are not resolved. The bad guys are still out there, but they seem to be on both sides. They are still in danger.
Now I have to wait for the third book!
Recommended.
View all my reviews
December 2, 2022
Double Exposure, by Anne Barwell
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Double Exposure by Anne Barwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I wanted this book to be longer! I found myself engaged with Ben and Simon and their relationship, the friends, and their troubles when they travel to New Zealand to celebrate their wedding a second time with Ben's family.
I enjoyed the complications of Kiwi supernatural society as it dealt with a rash of disappearances and deaths of local werewolves and vampires. Are there other supernaturals, I wonder ....
A good mystery, a charming love story, a good read indeed.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
Double Exposure by Anne BarwellMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I wanted this book to be longer! I found myself engaged with Ben and Simon and their relationship, the friends, and their troubles when they travel to New Zealand to celebrate their wedding a second time with Ben's family.
I enjoyed the complications of Kiwi supernatural society as it dealt with a rash of disappearances and deaths of local werewolves and vampires. Are there other supernaturals, I wonder ....
A good mystery, a charming love story, a good read indeed.
Recommended.
View all my reviews
