Rating: 9/10 
Title: Tigers and Devils
Author: Sean Kennedy
Genre: Romance
URL: Dreamspinner Press
Price: [US $16.99]
Summary [from the publisher]:
Football, friends, and film are the most important parts of Simon Murray’s life, likely in that order. Despite being lonely, Simon is cautious about looking for more, and his best friends despair of him ever finding that special someone to share his life. Against his will, they drag him to a party, where Simon barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler — unaware that the athlete is present and listening.
Like his entire family, Simon revels in living in Melbourne, Victoria, the home of Australian Rules football and mecca for serious fans. There, players are deemed gods and treated as such – until they do something to cause them to fall out of public favour. Declan is suffering a horrendous year of injuries, and the public is taking him to task for it, so Simon’s support is a bright spot in his struggles. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other’s lives forever.
As Simon and Declan fumble toward building a relationship together, there is yet another obstacle in their way: keeping Declan’s homosexuality a secret amidst the intrusion of well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media. They realise that nothing remains hidden forever… and they know the situation will only become more complicated when Declan’s private life is revealed. Declan will be forced to make some tough choices that may result in losing either the career he loves or the man he wants. And Simon has never been known to make things easy – for himself or for others.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 8.5/10 
Title: Life, Over Easy
Author: K. A. Mitchell
Genre: Modern/paranormal
URL: Samhain Publishing
Price: US $5.50
Other Information/warnings: explicit sexual content, reference to past serious accidental injuries, some supernatural content
Summary [from the publisher]:
Until a fall ended his Olympic diving career, John Andrews lived for the seconds he spent in the air. Now he’s adrift on a college campus, grounded by paralyzing vertigo and double vision. Worse, he sees shimmering colors over everyone’s heads.
The last is hardest to ignore, and impossible when it comes to Mason. While sex with the hot, moody computer major gives John a rush as heady as diving, Mason’s the only person John’s ever seen surrounded by two distinct colors.
Mason feels like a stranger in his own life. His lover is dead, and he drowns his guilt in bourbon and sex—until John’s innocence reawakens the man he used to be. After Mason gives the young virgin a proper introduction to sex, he plans to send him on his way. But John sees too much to make things that easy.
For John, their connection is more than just sizzling sex, it’s something worth fighting for. The more he learns about the colors, though, the more he realizes the free-spirited Mason isn’t free at all. John doesn’t take second place to anyone—even the dead.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 9/10
Title: Down to the Bone
Author: Mayra Lazara Dole
Genre: Young Adult
URL: Harper Teen
Price: US$16.99
Summary [from the publisher]:
Here’s what it means to be a tortillera.
It means you’re a girl who loves girls.
Which means you get kicked out of Catholic school faster than Mother Superior Sicko can say “immoral.”
Which means your wacko Mami finds out.
Which means you’re kicked to the curb with nowhere to go, and the love of your life is shipped off to Puerto Rico to marry a guy.
But this is Miami, and if you have a bighearted best friend and a loyal puppy at your side, and if your broken heart is still full of love, you just might land on your feet.
In a first novel as crazy, joyful, hilarious, and painful as your first love, Mayra Lazara Dole goes beyond the many meanings of tortillera to paint a vivid picture of a girl who gets kicked out of home only to find a new kind of family.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 6/10
Title: Wings of Equity
Author: Sean Kennedy
Genre: Steampunk
URL: Dreamspinner Press
Price: US$6.99
Other Information/warnings: Violence, explicit m/m
Summary [from the publisher]:
Ezra Kneebone is most at home in the skies, piloting his airship with his best friend Jazz, even if it doesn’t quite pay the bills or warm Ezra’s empty bed. Those same skies are also the territory of a man known as Icarus, who uses his metal wings to steal from the rich and feed the poor. Icarus and Ezra could be soul mates but for one thing: Icarus has a bounty on his head, and Ezra is desperate for money.
Against the wishes of Jazz and her partner, the formidable Lady Bart, Ezra is determined to get his man… in more ways than one. But when Icarus saves Ezra’s life, Ezra realizes he would be betraying a hero—and his heart—if he turned Icarus in. Unfortunately, the bounty is tempting more than one hunter, and Ezra will find that loving a fugitive may mean becoming one too.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 9/10
Title: The Cadaver Client
Author: Frank Tuttle
Genre: Fantasy, horror
URL: Samhain Publishing
Price: US 3.50
Other Information/warnings: violence, gore
Summary [from the publisher]:
The Markhat Files, Book 4
Humans, Trolls and even the halfdead have all passed through Markhat’s door—more than once—seeking his services as a finder of missing persons and lost loves. This is a first, though. This time, his client is a dead man. At least that’s what Granny Knot claims. But as long as the coin is real, Markhat has no trouble working for a guilt-ridden ghost.
Trouble is exactly what he finds, and soon he suspects his client, ghost or not, has darker motives for finding his estranged wife than the reconciliation he claims. Left with a cadaver for a client, a spook doctor for a partner, and Mama Hog as advisor on all things spiritual, Markhat must unravel a dark mystery ten years old, and do it before another grave is filled. Maybe his own.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 8/10
Title: The Banshee’s Walk
Author: Frank Tuttle
Genre: fantasy, paranormal
URL: Samhain Publishing
Price: US $5.50
Other Information/warnings: violence, horror
Summary [from the publisher]:
When patron of the arts Lady Erlorne Werewilk hires Markhat to identify the parties who are stealthily mapping out the Lady’s estate by moonlight, Markhat anticipates the usual—greedy relatives or rapacious neighbors plotting a land grab. After all, muses Rannit’s most feckless Finder, the Lady runs a colony filled with young artists. Aside from snits over color and perspective, how dangerous could a squabble over a backwoods house possibly be?
With new partner Gertriss in tow, Markhat takes the Lady’s case. Before the first night is done, the house is visited by murder, mayhem, and the haunting wail of what may be a genuine banshee, come to herald not just one death, but the deaths of all within. Trapped in a house under siege, Markhat must make a desperate gamble with an old enemy to win the race to unlock the secret that lies beneath the Lady’s lands. And find a way to turn that secret against the powerful forces converging on House Werewilk.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 9/10
Title: Tatterdemalion – Foundations of Magic, Book 1
Authors: Anah Crow and Dianne Fox
Genre: Urban fantasy, paranormal/horror
URL: Samhain Publishing
Price: US $5.50
Other Information/warnings: explicit m/m sexual content, gore, violence and torture
Summary [from the publisher]:
Lindsay Carrington is a prisoner of his life—first in the mundane world, then in the military testing facility where his parents sent him to have his magic dissected, studied and “fixed”. When he finally escapes, freedom comes at great cost. The man who rescues him from near death in a dark alley is far from a savior. He’s a feral mage nearly as broken as Lindsay himself.
Dane knows better than to argue with the wind that summoned him to Lindsay’s rescue, but playing nursemaid isn’t the role he envisioned for himself in the battle to end the human campaign to control his people. In spite of his resistance, he is bound to the delicate, skittish mage who unwittingly harbors one of the greatest magical powers ever known.
Lindsay desperately hides his growing desire, sure that Dane could never reciprocate. Yet Dane lays his life on the line to protect him, restoring the one thing Lindsay thought was gone forever: hope.
But true freedom to live—and to love—will elude Lindsay until he can regain his magic and win Dane’s complete devotion. And survive long enough to do both.
My review: Continue reading →
Rating: 7/10
Title: Rot
Author: Michele Lee
Genre: Horror, GLBT Interest
URL: Horror Mall
Price: Trade Softcover: US$14.95 – Mobi/Epub/PDF: US$3.95
Warnings: Gore, Violence
Summary (from the publisher): Zombies Can Be Such a Burden. So you’ve raised your loved ones from the dead, but had no idea how difficult it would be to care for them. No problem! Silver Springs is a warm, peaceful facility equipped to handle all your zombie needs. Their friendly staff will ensure they have a safe environment with daily exercise and raw meat. Rest easy knowing they’re in good hands… as they rot. In Michele Lee’s Rot, you won’t find an apocalypse or Romero-style flesh-eaters. This is far more disturbing. In a world where certain people can will others back from death, Silver Springs Specialty Care Community caters to the undead for those who aren’t quite ready to let go (zombie milk available by special arrangement at the home office). Dean, retired from the military and looking for an easier life, runs security at this zombie-herding farm, but he learns that dark injustice is not unique to war. There’s a rotten core to Silver Springs. Now, Dean and a quickly decaying corpse named Patrick are on the hunt for a woman they both love and lost to a lucrative business that specializes in greed, zombies and never having to say goodbye.
Disclaimer: This is a novella length work. I purchased the PDF version of the book and it should be noted that the PDF version is not formatted correctly for Sony e-reader’s enlarged text feature and the normal view text size is so small it was not readable for me. Be aware that if you use a Sony e-reader and want to enlarge the text, nearly all formatting will be lost and paragraphs and dialog will run together. I have not examined the other available e-formats to determine if the same problems exist. I’d also recommend ignoring the tongue-in-cheek tone of the publisher’s blurb. While there is some dark humor in the novella, the blurb doesn’t really do justice to the work.
My Review: Continue reading →
Rating: 10/10 
