K.F. Breene; laid bare by Sally Sparrow

In addition to writing a review on Into the Darkness, Sally Sparrow also wrote a review on me as an author. After reading it, I kind of needed a cookie.

*single tear*

And for the first time, I am posting a picture of myself. I hate cameras because they hate me. But if you're wondering, yes, I do have a face. Someday soon I'll take a 'proper' picture, and then have Dane at eBook Launch photoshop the hell out of it, but for now, you get to see me when I went to dinner with my hubby (that's his arm) and some friends at Izzy's steakhouse.

Yes, Izzy's was in a book. :)


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Subject of review: Author K.F. Breene
Review by: Sally Sparrow

I am a romance novel junkie. The best part of a romance is the pre-romance -- the flirting, the getting-to-know-you, the first dates -- and romance novels are full of these experiences, without any of the stress and uncertainty. However, after reading a few hundred novels, it is impossible not to see how most romance novels are the same. For the most part, there is a standard formula, and stereotypical heroes and heroines that almost every author uses. I have reached the point of romance novel saturation; I cannot subject myself to one more of these formulaic novels. It becomes painful, a chore even, to read about nearly identical weak-willed, sexually innocent women falling for the cookie-cutter brawny, wealthy, dominating man-whores. It is too much. I cannot read another one, I just can’t. I find it offensive to women that this is the drivel we are served, and that so many of us lap it up enthusiastically. Oh sure, there are a few that don’t align to this exact formula, but even the better novels have no depth.

Occasionally, in my book aisle perusing, I find something new and noteworthy. If I am lucky, the author has written a few books and I am happy reading for a few weeks. Such was the case when I discovered K.F. Breene last Spring.
Wary of full commitment, I downloaded a free copy of Back in the Saddle from Amazon, with half a dozen other free e-books. The first scene was so entrancing and cringe- inducing, I had to put the book aside for a few hours in order to process it. After the standard fluff, this book was a shock to the system.

The protagonist - Jessica - wakes up after a night of drinking with the girls, in a bedroom that is not her own. She looks over at her bed companion - who is still sleeping - and tries to remember how she got there, who she is with, and how this all came about. She checks him out: decent body but she can’t see his face. Then he rolls over. Fugly with a capital “F”. She starts to bolt, pulling the bedsheet around her for cover as she searches for her clothing, and is assaulted by the stench of the sheet. It smells like every body fluid imaginable, aged and moldy. While she is scrambling to get dressed, the guy wakes up. He gets out of bed, and she sees that he is short. Super-short. He insists on walking her out of his apartment building - like the gentleman he is, of course – but, as he is a nudist, he declines to get dressed for this gentleman’s walk, and they run into one of his neighbors. There is nothing better during a walk of shame with a short, ugly, naked hook-up than to have it witnessed by someone else. End scene.

I think the opening scene has been changed a few times, as many of the reviewers on Amazon and iBooks were aghast at the whole thing, but I prefer this original version. This isn’t a fairytale. This is the kind of thing that actually happens to real people, which we may or may not ever tell anyone else about. And Jessica? She tells her friends all about it. Every last horrifying, mortifying detail. They laugh at her, but you can tell there is no judgment. We all make mistakes and occasional huge errors in judgment. That is what makes us human.

K.F. Breene is a master storyteller. She gives you characters so real you may know them, and shows you the entire story -- the good, the bad, the ugly. Nothing is too bold; nothing is held back. You see the characters’ flaws and insecurities, their hopes and desires. You experience their deep passions, and mortifying embarrassments. Ms. Breene’s writing is gritty, her characters are deep, and the sex is HOT. There are no weak women here, no simpering fools bowing to the charm and brute force of a domineering man. There are also no weak men, not in favorable roles at least. Everyone is beautiful (this IS fiction), but imperfect. Intelligent, yet damaged. Just like all of us.

Best of all, Ms. Breene writes trilogies, most of which are parts of the whole. That is to say, where one book ends, the next begins. Book two of Jessica’s story, Hanging On, starts approximately three seconds after Back in the Saddle ends.

In the seven months since discovering Back in the Saddle, I have read four trilogies by K.F. Breene, each one better than the last. Her latest production, Into the Darkness, isn’t standard romance, but paranormal romance. In this story, Ms. Breene delves into a whole new realm, with magic and people that aren’t quite human, all with her signature gritty realism. She brings these elements to the world we already know and, like all good storytellers, has you wondering if it isn’t all real.

I hope she keeps writing, because I need to keep reading, and to lose her work would be a literary tragedy.