cyphomandra (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cyphomandra) wrote2012-02-14 08:54 pm
cyphomandra) wrote2012-02-14 08:54 pm
Entry tags:
m/m romance, assorted
Roughly arranged in descending order of fondness. All ebooks, and if anyone out there is competent with Calibre and prepared to explain it to me, let me know. I am currently using it mainly because of the fanficdownloader add-on, which is brilliant, but have yet to work out even how to get fics directly from Calibre to my phone.
Two book series (more to come, according to Orannia!) about Tony, an out high school English teacher who stumbles into the murder of another much less popular teacher, and Mac, the closeted detective who ends up on the case. These are excellent character studies with very convincing settings, and the setting and work environments are also particularly well done; Mac works as part of a team, has other cases, and actually worries about things like the chain of evidence, all of which warmed my finicky reading heart just as much as the relationship. The only slight drawback is that the crime plots themselves (book 2 features a serial killer) are weak (book one's killer goes from killing to putting drawing pins on a chair as a threat and back to killing; both this killer and the serial killer in book 2 are overly obsessed with eliminating potential witnesses, which in book 1 comes over and above dealing with someone who actually knows who is guilty). However. I really enjoyed both of these for all the other careful writing work. I am even now contemplating her backlist, which sadly involves werewolves.
In each book a character who is broken in some way ends up at St Nacho's, a small town (real name St Ignacio's) on the Californian Coast, and ends up getting put back together with a suitably hot boyfriend and either a lot of very tempting Mexican food or pie. Book 2 has the dodgy ex of the guy in book 1 being redeemed, and book 4 has the brother of the guy in book 3 finding his own happiness; I found that, possibly because of this, book 1 and book 3 worked best for me, with the most empathic characters, with book 4 the least successful (I did like that book 4 features a guy who's not at all convinced by the wonders of St Nacho's, but he's also just that bit too much of a jerk and the denouement skips out too much to work for me).
All of them feature very quick get-together sequences, with the emphasis on working out the ongoing relationship, and in book 2 – where one of the leads goes from previously very tightly closeted to deep emotional confessions and bonding in the course of what is supposed to be a professional sports massage – it felt way too fast. On the bright side, having the town be on the coast meant that my usual small town claustrophobia (see, Marie Sexton's Coda series, Amy Lane's Promises etc) did not kick in anywhere near as much, and the fact that it's California also made me a little more relaxed. Book 3 also has a Jewish lead and a Jewish love interest (for whom the whole gay thing is much more of an issue than it is for the lead), which I liked.
I then read her Secret Light, which is a historical – 1950s Los Angeles, and Rafe is an Austrian sales agent hiding a number of secrets, and Ben is the cop (again; feel free to comment on obvious tropes) who breaks through to connect with him. I liked reading this, but it hasn't left much of an impression; I liked the setting, I liked Rafe's dog, I found Ben's massively homophobic partner annoyingly cliched (see Kaje Harper for much better take on the impact of a gay cop coming out, and how his partner works through this, and yes, it's set 50 years later, but it's still much more nuanced), and I liked Rafe's neighbour; I like the idea that the end will see Rafe connecting with his community again, but I do actually find it difficult to see these characters going on together after the book ends.
Randy from Special Delivery gets his own book, after deciding to try and save a guy (Ethan) who's betting the last of his money on black on the roulette wheel, and intends to blow his brains out if it doesn't come up. This ends up being a let's-put-on-a-show! story, actually, where the show is a massive Vegas casino extravaganza and poker championship, the mafia lurk in the background, and there's a lot of explicit sex involving between two and four people. I liked Randy a lot more than I expected to after Special Delivery, where he annoyed me, I liked Ethan, I liked the Vegas stuff and I did actually pick up some useful things about poker. It did feel a bit too long, though, and I do have problems with the whole mob and illegal money aspects, despite being rather fond of Crabtree.
Four Christmas m/m shorts. My True Love Gave to Me, by Ava March, is Regency romance. I only ever enjoy Regency romance when written by Georgette Heyer (I am quite happy to be proven wrong on this, but it hasn't happened yet), and making it m/m actually makes it less tolerable, because the two main characters kept angsting while I was going, look, you're educated wealthy white males with no obvious disabilities, for god's sake stop whining. Hmm. I am not sure why this bothers me so much in Regency, but I think it's seeing all these other less fortunate characters being used as stage dressing.
Winter Knights, by Harper Fox, is probably my favourite of the collection, largely because a) it's set in Northumberland and b) it starts with a believably broken-up relationship, between an Arthurian-obsessed historian, Gavin, and the closeted Catholic he gave an ultimatum to (an ultimatum which went the way he wasn't expecting). I also liked the caving/wilderness rescue scenes. I am less convinced by the rather obvious Arthurian overlay and the magical threesome sequence, but hey. I do also like the ending, where Gavin's brother shows up during Gavin's confrontation with their grumpy bigoted father.
Josh Lanyon's Lone Star has a ballet dancer, a Texas Ranger, and a magic reindeer and, I don't know; somehow I found Mitch's relationship with his (dead) father more interesting than the one with the previous ex, although obviously there were some key differences. I enjoyed reading it, but it lacked tension. KA Mitchell's The Christmas Proposition has a nice family ensemble cast, but some odd decisions (guy running family Christmas tree farm turns down relationship offer from visiting gas company CEO, who then shows up again. And happens to be a multimillionaire, which felt so much like wish-fulfillment that I found it hard to take subsequent events seriously) that gave the narrative a bit of a jerky feel to it.
I should stop reading K.A. Mitchell, but I liked No Souvenirs so much, and her set-ups sound so attractive – it's just that then they don't follow through in the way that I want. This is a guy gets younger attractive guy to pretend to be his boyfriend to one-up ex (who has left him for newly pregnant one-night-stand in attempt to prove his rather shakey heterosexuality) story, in which obviously the fake boyfriend will become real and the ex will realise just what he's been missing, try to come back and then get cast out into the outer darkness. I like these if they play with the real/fake relationship and the development of expectations. I do not like them if I end up with a bunch of Daddy kink (arrgh), minimal character development, and the inexplicably accepting family of the ex being terribly encouraging about the whole thing, thus making me wonder what the whole ex’s deal actually was. Nearly bailed on this one.
Matt is a junior doctor in Newcastle-upon-Tyne whose long-term boyfriend and childhood friend has just turned out to have been cheating on him (with a woman, no less) for the last two years. His other childhood friend promptly hits on him and betrays him when he's turned down, and Matt responds with a continued series of bad choices by losing himself in drink, drugs and inappropriate sex. Fortunately, he also attracts the attention of Aaron, who works on an oil rig and likes the idea of a challenge.
This did not work for me. I liked the Newcastle setting – I lived there for a year, and it was great to see bits of it again (even if I did get “Walking in the Air” stuck in my head yet AGAIN when Matt wandered past the Fenwick's Christmas lights display), but Matt was deeply, deeply irritating. Having one bad friend might be misfortune, but two – and particularly the childhood friend/lover who turns out to have been leading a secret life – seems like more than carelessness – did he pay no attention to any of them? – and it made it pretty much impossible for me to see what Aaron sees in Matt. Matt is also a very bad doctor. He's supposed to be in his foundation year, so graduated but in supervised work/training, but he does shifts in a bunch of different areas rather than a regular job, and hardly ever shows up – and then somehow makes up for it all by doing a lot of homework assignments, which is not usually how you compensate for NOT SEEING ANY PATIENTS. He also reads Aaron's emails and then leaps to wildly unsupported conclusions (how much effort does it take to check the date?) and, arrgh. I did like his failed suicide attempt and his crashing of the oil rig, but everything else just wasn't for me.
Two book series (more to come, according to Orannia!) about Tony, an out high school English teacher who stumbles into the murder of another much less popular teacher, and Mac, the closeted detective who ends up on the case. These are excellent character studies with very convincing settings, and the setting and work environments are also particularly well done; Mac works as part of a team, has other cases, and actually worries about things like the chain of evidence, all of which warmed my finicky reading heart just as much as the relationship. The only slight drawback is that the crime plots themselves (book 2 features a serial killer) are weak (book one's killer goes from killing to putting drawing pins on a chair as a threat and back to killing; both this killer and the serial killer in book 2 are overly obsessed with eliminating potential witnesses, which in book 1 comes over and above dealing with someone who actually knows who is guilty). However. I really enjoyed both of these for all the other careful writing work. I am even now contemplating her backlist, which sadly involves werewolves.
In each book a character who is broken in some way ends up at St Nacho's, a small town (real name St Ignacio's) on the Californian Coast, and ends up getting put back together with a suitably hot boyfriend and either a lot of very tempting Mexican food or pie. Book 2 has the dodgy ex of the guy in book 1 being redeemed, and book 4 has the brother of the guy in book 3 finding his own happiness; I found that, possibly because of this, book 1 and book 3 worked best for me, with the most empathic characters, with book 4 the least successful (I did like that book 4 features a guy who's not at all convinced by the wonders of St Nacho's, but he's also just that bit too much of a jerk and the denouement skips out too much to work for me).
All of them feature very quick get-together sequences, with the emphasis on working out the ongoing relationship, and in book 2 – where one of the leads goes from previously very tightly closeted to deep emotional confessions and bonding in the course of what is supposed to be a professional sports massage – it felt way too fast. On the bright side, having the town be on the coast meant that my usual small town claustrophobia (see, Marie Sexton's Coda series, Amy Lane's Promises etc) did not kick in anywhere near as much, and the fact that it's California also made me a little more relaxed. Book 3 also has a Jewish lead and a Jewish love interest (for whom the whole gay thing is much more of an issue than it is for the lead), which I liked.
I then read her Secret Light, which is a historical – 1950s Los Angeles, and Rafe is an Austrian sales agent hiding a number of secrets, and Ben is the cop (again; feel free to comment on obvious tropes) who breaks through to connect with him. I liked reading this, but it hasn't left much of an impression; I liked the setting, I liked Rafe's dog, I found Ben's massively homophobic partner annoyingly cliched (see Kaje Harper for much better take on the impact of a gay cop coming out, and how his partner works through this, and yes, it's set 50 years later, but it's still much more nuanced), and I liked Rafe's neighbour; I like the idea that the end will see Rafe connecting with his community again, but I do actually find it difficult to see these characters going on together after the book ends.
Randy from Special Delivery gets his own book, after deciding to try and save a guy (Ethan) who's betting the last of his money on black on the roulette wheel, and intends to blow his brains out if it doesn't come up. This ends up being a let's-put-on-a-show! story, actually, where the show is a massive Vegas casino extravaganza and poker championship, the mafia lurk in the background, and there's a lot of explicit sex involving between two and four people. I liked Randy a lot more than I expected to after Special Delivery, where he annoyed me, I liked Ethan, I liked the Vegas stuff and I did actually pick up some useful things about poker. It did feel a bit too long, though, and I do have problems with the whole mob and illegal money aspects, despite being rather fond of Crabtree.
Four Christmas m/m shorts. My True Love Gave to Me, by Ava March, is Regency romance. I only ever enjoy Regency romance when written by Georgette Heyer (I am quite happy to be proven wrong on this, but it hasn't happened yet), and making it m/m actually makes it less tolerable, because the two main characters kept angsting while I was going, look, you're educated wealthy white males with no obvious disabilities, for god's sake stop whining. Hmm. I am not sure why this bothers me so much in Regency, but I think it's seeing all these other less fortunate characters being used as stage dressing.
Winter Knights, by Harper Fox, is probably my favourite of the collection, largely because a) it's set in Northumberland and b) it starts with a believably broken-up relationship, between an Arthurian-obsessed historian, Gavin, and the closeted Catholic he gave an ultimatum to (an ultimatum which went the way he wasn't expecting). I also liked the caving/wilderness rescue scenes. I am less convinced by the rather obvious Arthurian overlay and the magical threesome sequence, but hey. I do also like the ending, where Gavin's brother shows up during Gavin's confrontation with their grumpy bigoted father.
Josh Lanyon's Lone Star has a ballet dancer, a Texas Ranger, and a magic reindeer and, I don't know; somehow I found Mitch's relationship with his (dead) father more interesting than the one with the previous ex, although obviously there were some key differences. I enjoyed reading it, but it lacked tension. KA Mitchell's The Christmas Proposition has a nice family ensemble cast, but some odd decisions (guy running family Christmas tree farm turns down relationship offer from visiting gas company CEO, who then shows up again. And happens to be a multimillionaire, which felt so much like wish-fulfillment that I found it hard to take subsequent events seriously) that gave the narrative a bit of a jerky feel to it.
I should stop reading K.A. Mitchell, but I liked No Souvenirs so much, and her set-ups sound so attractive – it's just that then they don't follow through in the way that I want. This is a guy gets younger attractive guy to pretend to be his boyfriend to one-up ex (who has left him for newly pregnant one-night-stand in attempt to prove his rather shakey heterosexuality) story, in which obviously the fake boyfriend will become real and the ex will realise just what he's been missing, try to come back and then get cast out into the outer darkness. I like these if they play with the real/fake relationship and the development of expectations. I do not like them if I end up with a bunch of Daddy kink (arrgh), minimal character development, and the inexplicably accepting family of the ex being terribly encouraging about the whole thing, thus making me wonder what the whole ex’s deal actually was. Nearly bailed on this one.
Matt is a junior doctor in Newcastle-upon-Tyne whose long-term boyfriend and childhood friend has just turned out to have been cheating on him (with a woman, no less) for the last two years. His other childhood friend promptly hits on him and betrays him when he's turned down, and Matt responds with a continued series of bad choices by losing himself in drink, drugs and inappropriate sex. Fortunately, he also attracts the attention of Aaron, who works on an oil rig and likes the idea of a challenge.
This did not work for me. I liked the Newcastle setting – I lived there for a year, and it was great to see bits of it again (even if I did get “Walking in the Air” stuck in my head yet AGAIN when Matt wandered past the Fenwick's Christmas lights display), but Matt was deeply, deeply irritating. Having one bad friend might be misfortune, but two – and particularly the childhood friend/lover who turns out to have been leading a secret life – seems like more than carelessness – did he pay no attention to any of them? – and it made it pretty much impossible for me to see what Aaron sees in Matt. Matt is also a very bad doctor. He's supposed to be in his foundation year, so graduated but in supervised work/training, but he does shifts in a bunch of different areas rather than a regular job, and hardly ever shows up – and then somehow makes up for it all by doing a lot of homework assignments, which is not usually how you compensate for NOT SEEING ANY PATIENTS. He also reads Aaron's emails and then leaps to wildly unsupported conclusions (how much effort does it take to check the date?) and, arrgh. I did like his failed suicide attempt and his crashing of the oil rig, but everything else just wasn't for me.