I’m over at AudioGals with a review of The Ruin of a Rake by Cat Sebastian, narrated by Gary Furlong. Great story but I didn’t like the narration.
Tag: mm romance (Page 8 of 14)
Monthly Mini Review
When Was The Last Time by Kelly Jensen – B- This short story (it’s about 40 pages) is a relationship-in-trouble story. Paul and Evan have been together for 15 years but in the past 12 months, their sex life has gone stale. Evan raises it one morning and Paul realises he needs to reprioritise. He’s worried he might lose Evan if he doesn’t change. He plans a romantic Valentine’s Day date but interstate work runs late and he’s faced with a decision to potentially damage his career or potentially damage his relationship.
My impression was the Evan wasn’t anywhere near the stage of walking out but Paul’s wake-up is nevertheless a welcome one. It’s sweet and romantic without a ton of detail. I was curious as to why Evan chose that particular day to raise the issue with Paul – but as there was only Paul’s POV, it remained a mystery.
Why I read it: I’m a fan of KA Mitchell and I have enjoyed the previous two novellas in the series.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Life doesn’t come with a syllabus.
Ethan knows firsthand that long distance is hard on love. If Wyatt is spending his summer at an internship in Pittsburgh, that’s where Ethan will be. Even if it means inventing his own career goal just to find a reason to stay with his boyfriend. He didn’t expect they’d be living in a hot, crappy apartment, with work schedules that keep them apart more than together.
Wyatt’s past has taught him to keep his head down and focus on living through the day. Loving Ethan has him looking to the future for the first time; he’s just not in as big of a rush to get there. It’s hard to trust in happiness when life has been busy kicking you in the nuts.
Together they’re getting the hang of real life, when a new responsibility for Wyatt throws everything off balance. Ethan’s doing everything he can to prove he’s in this forever, while Wyatt is torn between a future with Ethan and a debt to the past. Too bad they didn’t cover this in college.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): Most of Relationship Status takes place over the course of a summer where Ethan and Wyatt are sharing a room in a small apartment together in Pittsburgh while working and interning. Wyatt is interning at a prestigious engineering firm and Ethan at the ACLU – because there is the vague possibility he might want to be a lawyer but mostly because he wants to be near Wyatt. Between their jobs and internships, there is not a lot of time for them to spend together and when things start off, there is some tension between the pair because of the whole “ships passing in the night” thing.
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Janine and I are over at Dear Author with a joint review of Kings Rising by CS Pacat, the brilliant end to the Captive Prince trilogy. The review is basically spoiler-free but the comments are open season.
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AMAZON KOBO BOOK DEPOSITORY
contributing to an m/m roundtable with Sunita, Sirius and Willaful. We talk about what we like and don’t like about m/m, how it’s different from (and the same as) m/f and make some recommendations (Hint: check the picture below for one of them). Please come say hi.
On Paper/eBook
Mad About the Boys by JL Merrow and Jo Myles – B This anthology is a collection of 1 new and 4 previously published short stories featuring m/m/f romance (which is my favourite kind of menage story). Dinner for Three (Merrow) is a wonderful start to the anthology, a contemporary about two happily coupled guys who are interested in expanding their relationship to include their oblivious housemate Claire – I could happily have read a full length novel about this trio. Because of the very short word count, the characterisations are necessarily very thin and the story doesn’t take us beyond one day of encounters. What there was however was so very engaging, I was sad when the story ended – I really wanted more.
In the Greenwood (Myles) is a paranormal fairy tale of a wood sprite who brings two men together and then manages to become real – again, this story suffered a bit from the short length but it’s fairy tale quality meant that a certain air of unreality was to be expected and made the story work better than it would have otherwise.The Antithesis of Magic (Merrow) is about a man with no magic in a world full of magic users, who finds he is the perfect third for a fairy and a werewolf who need him. I wasn’t clear exactly on why Gus was needed and there wasn’t really any relationship between the three so it was the least satisfying in terms of romance. If it had been expanded to a longer story so I could see a courtship/developing relationship, I would have enjoyed this much more because the set up and the tone of the story was great. Continue reading
In the Greenwood (Myles) is a paranormal fairy tale of a wood sprite who brings two men together and then manages to become real – again, this story suffered a bit from the short length but it’s fairy tale quality meant that a certain air of unreality was to be expected and made the story work better than it would have otherwise.The Antithesis of Magic (Merrow) is about a man with no magic in a world full of magic users, who finds he is the perfect third for a fairy and a werewolf who need him. I wasn’t clear exactly on why Gus was needed and there wasn’t really any relationship between the three so it was the least satisfying in terms of romance. If it had been expanded to a longer story so I could see a courtship/developing relationship, I would have enjoyed this much more because the set up and the tone of the story was great. Continue reading
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