Tag: London

Books

Book 850: Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures #1) – K.J. Charles

Geoff W

I legit have no clue how this one ended up on my hold’s shelf at my local library. It could’ve been the cover (love it), it could be the description – “MM Romance in the style of Pulp Fiction”, or maybe it was the setting of the bookstore, or maybe the author since I have read something by her previously. Whatever it was, after having extended the hold time twice I finally worked it into my schedule.

I didn’t plan to read it in one sitting, but I got sick and couldn’t sleep so started reading it and just kept going. Next thing I knew I was finished and grinning like a fool.

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Books

Book 846: The Lavender Menace – Tom Cardamone (Ed.)

Geoff W

UGH. I wanted to like this so much more than I did. I remember the excitement when I stumbled across it seven years ago at PAX East in the LGBT lounge. I guess I either forgot the premise or didn’t really read the full premise of the book so ended up slightly disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong there were definitely a few stories I very much enjoyed (more the redemptive ones) and there was some great writing throughout the novel, but there were some larger issues with the collection that may reflect when it was originally published (2013) and how far we’ve come as a society, and also the background of the editor (cis white gay man).

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ARC, Books

Book 844: An Unexpected Kind of Love – Hayden Stone

Geoff W

I grabbed a copy of this from NetGalley when I was looking for books to fill in between other upcoming deadlines.* It had a cute premise and reminded me a lot of Notting Hill so of course I was going to want to read it!

Aubrey has taken over his family’s bookstore and is struggling to keep it afloat after he was unceremoniously dumped by his first (and only long term) boyfriend for their mutual friend, when he meets Blake, an up-and-coming American movie star who’s filming a movie up the street and encourages the film to approach Aubrey about using his store as a set.

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Books

Book 839: Playing the Palace – Paul Rudnick

Geoff W

Two in a row that I really wanted to like more than I did. After devouring Red, White & Royal Blue last year and reading various other royal MM Romance novels here and there of course I was going to seek this one out when I heard about it.

The story wasn’t bad, it was well written and would adapt to a movie easily, but where I really struggled was the characters and their voices. I’m not surprised to see it on a list with books like Jay’s Gay Agenda and Yes, Daddy, others which I felt were written more to be adapted for screens than as books themselves. (And full disclosure this did not stop me from adding The Sky Blues to my hold list at the library which is on the same list :-D)

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ARC, Books

Book 837: Fifty Words for Rain – Asha Lemmie

Geoff W

I feel hollow after finishing this book—I’m not sure emotionally drained is the right word because I feel like I have so many emotions going on that they’ve just forced each other out and there’s just nothing.  And when you take in that this is a debut novel, damn.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it’s been on my radar since the publisher reached out last year when it was first published but I didn’t get to it until the paperback was recently released.* I really should’ve prioritized it from back then because I feel like Dutton never steers me wrong looking at the books I’ve read from them.

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