Loosen Up by J.M. Snyder
20 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in J.M. Snyder, JMS Books Tags: J.M. Snyder, JMS Books LLC
Title: Loosen Up
Author: J.M. Snyder
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 29
Characters: Liam Martin, Cooper Dawson
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Contemporary
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
Between course work, an internship, clinicals, and a part-time job, med student Liam Martin is worn out. When his lab is cancelled, freeing up his Friday night, all he wants to do is crash.
Liam’s roommates have other plans. They think Liam is too stressed and needs to loosen up … as in going out to party, not staying home to rest. Adam scores coveted tickets to a concert by local alt band Ebola Rain and uses his connections to get backstage.
But Liam doesn’t want to go, and manages to lose his roommates backstage by hiding out in one of the dressing rooms, where he promptly falls asleep. Little does Liam know the room belongs to Cooper Dawson, sexy frontman for the band, who also thinks Liam needs to loosen up.
Then Cooper asks Liam to hang out with him, and suddenly Liam isn’t so tired anymore.
Review:
Liam Cooper spends his days dissecting cadavers in med school. He’s burning the proverbial candle at both ends and has just about come to the point where he will be snuffed out by the sheer burden of his schedule if he doesn’t find a way to unwind.
His roommates seem to be the only two who can see this, though, as Liam draws further into his need for sleep and downtime by burrowing into his bed and hoping the world—or at least his roommates—will just go away and leave him alone for a while. They can see better than Liam that he needs to get out and do something that doesn’t include working or studying or sleeping, so they invite him out for a night of mindless fun, anything that will get him out of bed.
Liam can think of a million reasons why he should say no but just one, albeit a very compelling reason, to say yes—to remind himself that he’s still alive. But that doesn’t mean he acquiesces without a fight, both with himself and with his roomies, when they take him to a concert by a band he’s never heard of, and decides pretty quickly he doesn’t care to hear of. He only wants to ditch his friends, the venue, and catch up on some much needed sleep—and he does, just not at home in his own bed.
Cooper Dawson is the sexy front man of the band Ebola Rain, who finds Liam in the one place Liam shouldn’t be. Cooper doesn’t know whether to be mad at Liam or to be curious about him; maybe he’s a little of both, but eventually the curiosity wins out and he becomes as determined as the others to make sure Liam loosens up and lets go for just a bit.
This was a quick and sexy read from J.M. Snyder, delivered in a way that made me wish we’d learned a lot more about Cooper and a little bit more about Liam. This is one of those short stories that felt like it could’ve been a novella, at the very least, because what is there is so darn tasty and it only whetted my appetite for more.
Reviewed By: Lisa
You Think We Don’t by J.M. Snyder
19 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in J.M. Snyder, JMS Books Tags: J.M. Snyder, JMS Books LLC
Title: You Think We Don’t
Author: J.M. Snyder
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 10 (.pdf)
Characters: Thad, Joachim
POV: 2nd Person
Sub-Genre: Contemporary
Kisses: 4.5
Blurb:
Two college basketball players on a team bound for the championships carry on an affair after hours. Neither talks about the time they spend in each other’s arms. They kid themselves and pretend it’s just sex. They think no one else knows.
They’re wrong on both accounts. But it isn’t until a fellow teammate interferes that they’re willing to admit how much they care for each other.
Note: This story appears in my anthology, Flashed, available in both e-book and print format.
Review:
I first had the pleasure of reading You Think We Don’t in J.M. Snyder’s flash fiction anthology Flashed. There were quite a few memorable stories included in the collection, but this one was definitely of the notable variety; first because of the narrative style, and second because it was such a touching exposition on what it means to live life up to others’ expectations rather than living on your own terms.
Joachim and Thad are the worst kept secret on their college basketball team. Even their coach knows that the two boys feel more for each other than they’ve been willing to admit to anyone, including themselves.
Sneaking into Thad’s room in the night, lights out, no words between them other than a name that escapes in the passion of the moment, the boys let their actions speak for them in the way they touch and kiss; though in the light of day, they resume the act of being nothing more than teammates. Or they think they do.
Narrated by an outsider, by a friend who is on the outside looking beneath the façade the two boys think they are portraying, the opportunity to say the things that need to be said is the turning point in Thad and Joachim’s relationship.
This is flash fiction, so the depth isn’t in the exposition but in the atmosphere and the emotion that J.M. Snyder skillfully constructs that drew me in and left me feeling satisfied in the happy-for-now ending.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Tricked Out by J.M. Snyder
17 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in J.M. Snyder, JMS Books Tags: J.M. Snyder, JMS Books LLC
Title: Tricked Out
Author: J.M. Snyder
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 82
Characters: Willis Moore, Corey Thomason
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Contemporary Romance/Mystery/Crime Drama
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
Willis Moore is a detective with the Richmond City police department. A case he was involved with went down badly and he was given a month’s sabbatical to pull himself together after the death of his informant, a young man named Teabag, with whom Will had let himself become sexually involved.
Back on the force now, Will finds himself drawn to another street punk, a hustler named Corey, who seeks police assistance to protect his “boys” from a violent attacker. He and Corey work well together, and Will dares to hope their relationship might be heading toward something more. But he still can’t seem to shake the feeling he will eventually fail to protect the hustler … the same way he failed to save Tea.
Review:
Tricked Out is the story of a man who is given a second chance, not to repair past wrongs, but to atone for them. This is a story of forgiveness, about being able to forgive oneself and to heal.
Willis Moore committed the near cardinal sin of police work: he allowed himself to become intimately involved with his informant in a case that, in the end, went horribly wrong, leaving Tea dead and Willis irrevocably scarred, not physically but emotionally. After a month long sabbatical, Willis is back on the job and quickly becomes embroiled in a relationship with a hustler that smacks a bit of history repeating itself, especially when Corey Thomason’s boys start showing up battered and abused and unwilling to talk to the police.
For Willis, it’s an opportunity to redeem himself; it’s a race against time to find the perpetrator before a murder is committed, and, perhaps most important of all, it’s a chance to keep Corey safe in the way he couldn’t with Tea. The only question is how will he keep Corey from using himself as bait to catch the criminal?
Willis and Corey’s relationship was sweet and sexy, and there was plenty of action and suspense in the plot to keep me turning pages, even though J.M. Snyder allows the reader to know who the attacker is from the outset. The thrill in this story is in the cat and mouse contest to see how quickly Willis will discover and neutralize the threat before Corey becomes the victim.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Gimmie Pride by J. Tomas
13 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in J. Tomas Tags: J. Tomas, JMS Books LLC
Title: Gimme Pride
Author: J. Tomas
Publisher: JMS Books
Pages: 26
Characters: Chip Reid, Bobby Jarrett
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: YA/Contemporary
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
At 15, Chip is out and proud. It doesn’t hurt that his best friend Jennifer is only the most popular girl in their high school. With her at his side, he feels invincible.
When Chip’s older sister invites him and Jen to help her man a vendor booth at Richmond Pride, the two teenagers jump at the chance. Decked out in a provocative bathing suit and feather boa, Chip is completely in his element. Then Jen spots Bobby, who plays soccer for their school and who Chip’s had a crush on forever. If he’s at Pride, does that mean what Chip hopes it means?
But when Chip tries to talk to Bobby, he discovers not all gay teens are as comfortable flaunting their sexuality as he is.
Review:
Chip Reid’s sister has hired him and his best friend, Jen, to work in her vendor booth during Gay Pride Day in Richmond. Chip is fifteen, out and proud, and excited about the prospect of spending the day with his BFF and absorbing the experience, something he doesn’t get the chance to do being the only gay guy at his high school. Or so he thinks.
Chip understands that the only reason he’s been immune from the bullying is because of Jen, who is the consummately popular girl. His friendship with her has given him a pass because, really, all the other guys just want to stay on her good side, which means they leave Chip alone, but it doesn’t stop the whispers and hateful things they call him when they think he can’t hear.
While mixing a little work with a lot of play, Jen and Chip get a bit of a surprise when they spy one of the most popular boys from their school at the Pride event, a boy that Chip has had a huge crush on since his freshman year. But Bobby Jarrett, the star of the soccer team, gay? It doesn’t seem possible, though the idea thrills Chip, which, in his excitement, causes him to make a move he comes to regret.
Gimme Pride is a great little story that contrasts two boys’ lives and what it means for them to be both proud and afraid of who they are and of what it means to feel the pressure of being “different” in high school. This is a story about being comfortable in your own skin versus the very real pressure of keeping things on the down-low to maintain the status quo, a message that was delivered with just the right mix of humor and heart.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Graffiti by Terry O’Reilly
29 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in JMS Books, Terry O'Reilly Tags: JMS Books LLC, Terry O'Reilly
Title: Graffiti
Author: Terry O’Reilly
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 134 (paperback)
Characters: Tom Clarkson, Alan Daniels
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Historical
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
Before the advent of the Internet, men looking to make sexual contact with other men would cruise rest stops, shopping malls, and parks. There they often left messages on the walls of restrooms hoping to meet someone of like interest.
Alan Daniels, a young Vietnam veteran, has recently been questioning his sexuality. He takes a chance and writes a note in the john of his local municipal park.
Handsome, sensual Tom Clarkson, a college student going to school mainly to avoid the draft, is intrigued by a new message he finds in the park bathroom.
Is Tom destined to spend another night indulging in meaningless sex, or could the note lead to something more? Only one way to find out…
Review:
In July, Terry O’Reilly offered the first chapter of Graffiti as a free read called Parks and Recreation. It was just thirteen pages long, but after reading it, I was entirely hooked. I couldn’t wait for the rest of Tom Clarkson’s story, and now, here it is. I think it was worth the wait.
This is a story that takes place during the Vietnam era, a time in which a young man like Tom was either drafted into the military, or found ways to get around it. Tom’s means of dodging the draft was to become a college student, much to the disdain of his ex-Marine father. Living in a crappy little apartment, working in a bakery, going to school, and meeting random men in the park near his home pretty well encompasses the whole of Tom’s existence.
In the days before the internet and Grindr, there weren’t so many ways for men to hook up. For Tom, meeting a man who’ll take the edge off his physical needs means cruising the park and perusing the messages on the bathroom wall to find the next random guy to scratch his itch. Tom does have standards and rules he follows, though, and the order of his encounters has always been fairly simple. Until he meets Alan Daniels, the man who comes along and, with a single kiss, blurs all the lines Tom has drawn in the sand when it comes to his physical relationships.
Alan is twenty-seven and has only just accepted the fact that he’s gay. He’s absolutely lost when it comes to the nuances of meeting men and it’s only by a random occurrence that he and Tom meet the first time, though things don’t quite turn out the way either man would have expected. It ends with what seems like a missed opportunity, but not for long, as Alan takes the first step to find Tom again, a move that ultimately complicates Tom’s life in ways he didn’t want but that he’s powerless to resist. But Tom doesn’t give in without a fight.
As one would expect, there’s a lot of sex going on in Graffiti; that’s what Tom’s life is about, after all: sex without emotional attachment is his prime directive. Tom doesn’t do love. He tried it once and got screwed over big time, so a long line of random men is his way of getting off without getting hurt. The one thing he never counted on, however, was meeting someone who would make him want to throw away all those rules that keep things uncomplicated. But rather than compromise the order of his life, he ditches the man, which gives the story a major boost in the emotional quotient and gives purpose to all those random encounters.
This might be one of those stories that the reader either really likes or really doesn’t. It might depend upon how much romance one demands in a book. Graffiti isn’t all sweetness and light, though there is an undeniable sense of romance to the plot—the concept that there’s someone out there for everyone, someone who is worth turning your life upside down for, for the sake of risking a connection with the one who could make you believe it’s all worth it in the end.
Personally, I’m in the “really likes” category with this one.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Santa Vic by J.M. Snyder
25 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in J.M. Snyder, JMS Books Tags: J.M. Snyder, JMS Books LLC
Title: Santa Vic
Author: J.M. Snyder
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 42 (.pdf)
Characters: Matt di Lorenzo, Vic Braunson
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Holiday/Contemporary
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
Vic’s boss asks him to don the Santa suit for the company’s employee family Christmas dinner — again. Vic doesn’t want to do it, but the added incentive of double his usual yearly bonus changes his mind. He knows Matt’s begun looking to buy a house, and the money would go far toward a down payment.
At the dinner, the kids love Vic. One little boy in particular, Brucey Carlson, wants to make sure Vic — or rather, Santa Vic — doesn’t forget his sister, who’s in the hospital for the holiday.
Now Vic has one more stop to make before he can return the Santa suit.
Review:
Beneath Vic Braunson’s tattooed, pierced, and buff exterior lies a gooey marshmallowy middle. Vic might look tough, but the man has a heart of gold, and it beats only for Matt di Lorenzo.
It’s Christmastime in Richmond and Vic has been asked by his boss to play Santa again at the company party. Saying no isn’t exactly an option, and the deal is sweetened just a bit by the offer of a little extra bonus, which Vic knows will go a long way toward helping achieve Matt’s dream of owning a home of their own. So, Santa Vic it is, even if it’s not the most comfortable of options.
This is the story of a man who comes to realize some truths about himself; that he has been heroic for far longer than he has had superpowers. That the gift of love is something he’s given for many Christmases but hadn’t defined it until he had the opportunity to make the holiday special for a complete stranger, a little girl who would be spending the day in the hospital.
Whether you know Vic and Matt or not, this is a sweet and heartwarming holiday story that can be read as a standalone. J.M. Snyder added just the right amount of spice, as well, to make it a sexy, sexy treat. I have to say this one made me love Vic even more than I already did, and it made me even more anxious for the next installment in the Matt & Vic series.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Danny’s Dad by Drew Hunt
13 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Drew Hunt, JMS Books Tags: Drew Hunt, JMS Books LLC
Title: Danny’s Dad
Author: Drew Hunt
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 44
Characters: Gary Levinson, Neil “Raw” Rawlings
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Contemporary/Erotica
Kisses: 3
Blurb:
Gary Levinson is in love with his best friend’s dad. It’s as simple as that.
Danny doesn’t think it’s simple. He’s okay with his best friend being gay. He can cope with the idea — in theory — that his dad is gay. But Gary and his dad being gay together …?
Neil “Raw” Rawlings doesn’t think it’s simple at all. He’s a well-known rugby league player and Gary is too young, too immature, and too star-struck. Besides, he could do better than an aging sportsman close to retirement.
Finally giving in to Gary’s pleas, Raw agrees to sleep with Gary on his eighteenth birthday. But what happens next? Is this a once-only birthday present, or a gift that keeps on giving?
Review:
Imagine the dramatic potential of a coming-of-age story in which an eighteen year old boy has been in love with his best friend’s father for years. Imagine the intensity of the conflict that might occur between the boys as the son witnesses his best friend’s sexual excitement when he comes to collect the birthday present he’d negotiated for some months before—to spend a single, intimate moment with the larger-than-life man whom he has worshipped and idolized since he was old enough to know he was gay. All Gary Levinson wants for his eighteenth birthday is for Neil “Raw” Rawlings to make love to him, to give him the gift of a physical connection, if only just that once. Yes, Gary’s got it bad for his best friend Danny’s dad; apparently, nothing, not even friendship, will stand in the way of Gary getting exactly what he wants—to lose his virginity to the older man.
Now, imagine the conflict that occurs for the reader when Gary and Neil consummate their relationship, profess their love for each other, and—Danny seems to accept it with little sense of resistance to the idea. That is where the essence of the problem with this book may lay for some readers, as it did for me.
Drew Hunt does a very fine job of telling the story; the characters are engaging and I was drawn into the mood and tone of the attraction between Gary and Neil. The mechanics of the storytelling are not at all in question. My issue, which I fully own as being a personal preference, is that it was all too easy. The author chose to forego an opportunity to explore a deeper, weightier, and likely more believable storyline by tidying things up too handily in the end.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Danny’s Dad to anyone who enjoys a book that is light on angst and conflict. For readers who prefer a mellower romance with a good dose of erotica, then this is a perfect read.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Renfred’s Masquerade by Hayden Thorne
07 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Hayden Thorne, JMS Books Tags: Hayden Thorne, JMS Books LLC
Title: Renfred’s Masquerade
Author: Hayden Thorne
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 216
Characters: Nicola Gregori, Gustav Renfred, Constanza Renfred, Davide Renfred
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Historical/Fantasy/YA
Kisses: 5+
Blurb:
Young Nicola Gregori has always wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, a brilliant clock-maker who’s famous for his wild, fantastical designs. But his father instead sends him to school to learn more practical matters. Nicola, stricken with infantile paralysis that left him with a deformed right leg, becomes an object of mockery and cruel jokes in school. He learns that in order to survive his daily ordeals, he needs to vanish in the crowd, to stop aspiring, to stop dreaming, and above all, to believe himself unworthy of respect and love.
Tragedy strikes when Nicola turns sixteen. Gustav Renfred, an old friend of his father, takes on Nicola as his charge and whisks him away to an isolated islet filled with empty mansions and bordered by a bluebell forest. There Nicola slowly learns about the tragic story that tightly weaves together the fates of Jacopo Gregori, Gustav Renfred, and Gustav’s twin sister, Constanza.
Magic, impossible dreams, and unrequited love come together in Ambrosi, the Renfreds’ mansion, where Nicola is caught up in a world of haunting portraits, a ghostly housekeeper, and the mysterious disappearance of Davide, Constanza’s adopted son. When Nicola’s invited to one of Renfred’s magical masquerades, he discovers the answers to riddles as well as the mounting danger that the Renfred family faces with every passing hour.
With the masquerades’ existence depending on the physical and mental strength of an ailing Renfred, the task of solving the mystery of Davide’s disappearance before time runs out falls on Nicola’s shoulders, and he has no choice but to depend on things that he’s long learned to suppress: courage, self-respect, and the desire to aim for impossible goals.
Review:
A boy’s journey into a world of magic, clockwork devices, and self-discovery has never been done more beautifully than in Hayden Thorne’s Renfred’s Masquerade, a novel that immerses the reader in an allegorical tale which tells the story of Nicola Gregori, a young man who discovers the courage to step out from behind a physical affliction and accept that love is worth fighting for, that honesty is worth the risk, and that, regardless of the many illusions surrounding him, the boy he’s fallen in love with is all too real.
Nicola has learned to disappear into the scenery, to become entirely inconspicuous to avoid the teasing and bullying that accompanies the lame right leg which impairs him physically and disfigures him emotionally. Feeling shameful of his appearance, Nicola has learned the cruelest result of his deformity may be his father’s emotional distance. He is a boy who wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a master clockmaker, to weave his imagination into the faces and bodies of the keepers of time, but Jacopo Gregori has a far better life planned for his son than the one he himself has lived.
Orphaned by the deaths of both his father and his beloved Pietra, the housekeeper who’d become surrogate mother to Nicola after his own mother died when he was yet an infant, Nicola becomes the ward of magician and alchemist, Gustav Renfred, the man whose secrets and gifts will become the catalyst by which young Nicola will discover a hidden strength, empowered by his compassion for a family that had been broken by a past deception which returned to cause immeasurable damage in the present.
Isolated on an island off the coast of Traviata, magic and wonderment go hand in hand with tragedy as Nicola learns he is so much more than his disability. In a race against time, Nicola must find a way to rescue Davide Renfred, the young man whose own sense of disgrace has caused him to disappear within a masquerade where there is no shame in his sexuality.
Renfred’s Masquerade is a brilliant coming-of-age story, a masterpiece in the same vein as the author’s stunning The Twilight Gods. Hayden Thorne’s writing is a love affair with language and symbolism, her books ones that engage the mind and envelope the senses. The settings are a breath of life, as much a part of the plot as the characters, becoming characters themselves that are wholly imperative to the narrative.
This is not a story of romance as much as it is an exposition of a boy who becomes a young man and learns a valuable lesson in the transformative power of love. He learns that the value of a man is what is beneath the façade, that what lurks in the heart and mind is far more powerful than what is visible on the surface.
Hayden Thorne’s work is a celebration of storytelling, and Renfred’s Masquerade is a novel that made me realize how terribly insignificant a numerical rating can be on a book that exceeds my ability to enumerate all its merits.
Reviewed By: Lisa
The V in Vigilant (Vic & Matt V Series, Book #3) by J.M. Snyder
03 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in J.M. Snyder, JMS Books Tags: J.M. Snyder, JMS Books LLC
Title: The V in Vigilant (Vic & Matt V Series, Book #3)
Author: J.M. Snyder
Publisher: JMS Books
Pages: 52
Characters: Matt diLorenzo, Vic Braunson
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal/Contemporary
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
When Vic has a rough day at work, his lover Matt puts their telepathic connection to good use, tapping directly into Vic’s needs to provide some relaxing downtime at home. However their sensual massage turns to serious talk, and Matt finally asks Vic the question he’s been wrestling with for the past few months. The next day, Vic’s latest super power almost makes him call in sick. Then a disabled bus passenger is attacked, and Vic rushes to the rescue.
Review:
Fans of all things Matt and Vic ought to find plenty to love in The V in Vigilant, the continuing saga of the couple that gives new meaning to you light up my life.
Their relationship takes that all important step forward in this installment as Matt finally finds the courage, or, rather, is coerced into finally giving voice to the thoughts he’s been hiding from his lover for weeks. Romantic and sexy is what Matt and Vic have always done very well. Add to that the challenges of Vic’s powers that find him the reluctant hero, once again, and you’ve got the recipe for another entertaining addition to J.M. Snyder’s fantasy series.
If you’ve been following these men from the start, add this one to your reading queue. It’s well worth it.
Reviewed By: Lisa
The Wanderer by A. Scott Boddie
22 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in A. Scott Boddie, JMS Books Tags: A. Scott Boddie, JMS Books LLC
Title: The Wanderer
Author: A. Scott Boddie
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Pages: 9
Characters: Ronald, Cherie, Bradford, Willow
POV: 3rd Person
Sub-Genre: Paranormal/Contemporary
Kisses: 4
Blurb:
On Halloween night, three friends venture downtown to the New York City Halloween Parade. In the subway station Cherie, Ronald, and Bradford meet a young man named Willow, who has lost his boyfriend. In trying to help him, the friends find themselves in a surreal and supernatural night that ends with a horrific twist.
This story is being offered FREE of charge from the author & publisher.
Review:
I’ve ridden the NYC subway system, and therefore believe that anything can happen under the right circumstances.
The Wander is a story that will make you believe the same, a Halloween tale that begins uneventfully enough—a group of friends heading out to a Halloween Parade—but the tension builds quickly as a rat, a stranger, and an Asian woman all figure prominently into the macabre build up that leads to a beautifully mournful finish.
Don’t wait until next Halloween to sample this one. It’s short but a bit of a treat.
Reviewed By: Lisa
