Review: Dirty Laundry by Heidi Cullinan

Reviewed by Fehu
Dirty Laundry (Tucker Spring #3) by Heidi Cullinan
Riptide Publishing
Novel: 265pgs
3.75 Pants Off

Blurb:
The course of true love doesn’t always run clean. But sometimes getting dirty is half the fun.

Entomology grad student Adam Ellery meets Denver Rogers, a muscle-bound hunk of sexy, when Denver effortlessly dispatches the drunken frat boys harassing Adam at the Tucker Springs laundromat. Thanking him turns into flirting, and then, much to Adam’s delight, hot sex over the laundry table.

Though Denver’s job as a bouncer at a gay bar means he gets his pick of geek-sexy college twinks, he can’t get Adam out of his head. Adam seems to need the same rough play Denver does, and it’s damn hard to say no to such a perfect fit.

Trouble is, Adam isn’t just shy: he has obsessive compulsive disorder and clinical anxiety, conditions which have ruined past relationships. And while Denver might be able to bench-press a pile of grad students, he comes from a history of abuse and is terrified of getting his GED. Neither Denver nor Adam want to face their dirty laundry, but to stay together, they’re going to have to come clean.

This title is part of the Tucker Springs universe.

Review:
A geek and a bouncer meet in a Laundromat. It does sound like a joke...or the beginning of a porn movie, which is not far from what happened after the geeky grad-student; Adam is rescued by Denver, a gay bouncer from a nearby gay club, when Adam is harassed by some drunken frat boys.

Adam is working on his PhD in Entomology, so he gets geek points for the studying the subject and some more for choosing and being exited about hawk moth. I can honestly say I've learned more about the hawk moth from this book, than you'd imagine one could reading an m/m romance. Did you know that you could mistake the hawk moth for a humming bird in flight? No, me neither and I had to Google the moth. Well if he had to study bugs, moth isn't as bad as it gets, but studying any insects sounds very geeky, so that made it perfect for the geek week.

I liked the combo of a geek with a bouncer, not exactly innovative, but a nice contrast. What made the book quite unique was Adam's OCD and how it was handled here. OCD played a big part of this story and I liked the fact the Adam had weaknesses, had issues, it made him appear more fleshed out and real and that was also a bit of a distraction. A lot of the book deals with Adam's issues, like not being able to tolerate other people in his place or being in their place, his panic attacks, his angst and self-criticism. He appears in full colour and other characters dim in comparison, even Denver his lover, is not as fleshed out. Secondary characters like Louisa, a Trans* woman and even his bug study group or the ex-boyfriend Brad, pale in comparison to Adams characterisation, which is a shame, since I thought Louisa had a lot of potential, as did Oliver. The book wasn't short, over 200 pages so there was room for development and I think with less sex we could have a bit more geekiness and more detailed characters.

Still I enjoyed the romance and even all the issues for 3/4 of the book and it was going for more than 4 pants, but then something changed. I'm not big on BDSM and it was there from the beginning, but mostly in a lighter form. Actually this is one of the authors who writes that kink in a way that I can enjoy, it's usually not light. My problem here was the punishment and the mental health issues. Adam wanted to be punished after he had freaked out, punished for not  being able to handle his OCD and I'm sorry but that felt wrong with me. Denver has issues of his own; we find out that he has a learning disability and a lot of self-worth issues. They do make quite the pair, but they fit, just the punishments in regard with Adams OCD behaviour made me uneasy. Also the last quarter of the book feels a bit rushed, since all things happen pretty fast and they are building their own house already.

Geek Level: Well this book gets 2 geek points for study subject and choice of profession, sadly the geeky stuff was bugs and some of Adams appearance, and no other geeky trivia was mentioned!

Should You Read It? It depends, I enjoyed it, it's well written for one, some missing words aside. There is a plot and I think it deals with a common trope of geek/ muscle stud in an interesting way, adding some unique twist to the theme through the mental issues. For people who want an easy romance, the OCD might be a bit too much, since it really is a big part of the story, which made the plot more believable and added to it, at least in mine opinion, but I can see how people might find it too much for a m/m romance book. Also the BDSM part is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if one doesn't mind these two points, than this will be a good and intriguing book to discover!

What's Happening This Week: Geek Week!!!

Howdy folks! I know it’s been awhile, but life has kicked my butt these past few months. Well...the time of sucking is over and it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming, and I am back with a whole lot of awesome. It's Geek Week, and I am hitting you up with some great giveaways, guest posts, and reviews. I am so excited about this week because I am a serious lover of all things nerd/geek and I would definitely say I am one myself. I feel like geek characters don't get enough love, so this is me paying tribute to how they fill me with so much joy and prove how sexy the mind can be.

It's a jam-packed week with over 20 scheduled posts (that’s more than I've ever pulled off in a whole week). I am flailing around by the amount, but you guys are worth all the work :D Without further ado...

Here's what’s causing a pants losing this week...

Reviews:
How To Repair A Mechanical Heart by J.C Lillis
Your Biggest Fan by Missy Welsh
Dirty Laundry by Heidi Cullinan (Fehu)
Social Skills by Sara Alva
Tech Support by Jet Mykles
Venetian Masks by Kim Fielding (Fehu)
Bennie's Wish by Xara Xanakas
Taxes and TARDIS by N.R Walker (Fehu)
Astronomical by Silvia Violet
Nobody's Hero by Katey Hawthorne (Fehu)

Guest Post & Giveaways
Geek Week Giveaway
The Matrix of Geekdom by Lex Chase
Guest Post by Sara Alva
Guest Post by Salome Wilde
Kim Fielding is A Geek by Kim Fielding 
Guest Post by Silvia Violet
Roan McKichan is an Action Hero Nerd by Andrea Speed

Other Posts
A Geek Interview with Nessa Warin
Favourite Geek Books

~Have Great Week!~

Nowhere Ranch by Heidi Cullinan

Nowhere Ranch by Heidi Cullinan
Loose-Id

Novel: 153pages

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Blurb:

Roe Davis is a man who works hard, keeps to himself, and never mixes business with pleasure — until he takes a weekend away from his new job at Nowhere Ranch and runs into the owner at the only gay bar for two hundred miles. Getting involved with the boss is a bad idea, but Travis Loving is hard to say no to, especially when it turns out their kinks line up like a pair of custom-cut rails. As Loving points out, so long as this is sex on the side, no interfering with the job, they could make it work.

The truth is, there’s good reason Roe never settles down and always spends his birthdays and holidays celebrating alone. Shut out in the cold by his family years ago, Roe survived by declaring he didn’t need a home. As his affair with Loving grows into more than just sex, Roe finds out what happens when he stays put a little bit too long: the past always catches up with you. Eventually, even a loner gets lonely, and home will grow up through whatever cracks you leave open for it — even in a place called Nowhere.

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Male/male sexual practices, strong BDSM theme and elements, fetish play.

Review
For all that is sweet and holy, I was not expecting Nowhere Ranch to be so awesmazing. I imagined cowboys, hay lifting, and all that fun stuff, but it’s what our main characters did behind closed doors that make this book shine. I gotta tell you folks my pants abandoned ship 25 pages into the book and did not return. I have ceased to go looking for them. Can I get a ‘hawt, hawt’, and a ‘bloody fucking shit’ because you will be saying both those phrases when you read this book.

Roe Davis is just a man who works hard, and lives for himself. He’s been alone for quite sometime, and that’s the way he likes it. Moving from one ranch to another is his way, because he won’t settle. A quick hook-up here and there, but nothing long lasting. Working at Nowhere Ranch it seems perfect, until he goes into town to get laid and run into his boss. Well Roe doesn’t mix business and pleasure but with his boss Travis Loving, Roe might find all that he’s been looking for.

Though Travis plays an important role in the story, it’s Roe that steals the show. It’s as if he said ‘hey Darien do you wanna see what I do each day in and out of the bedroom?’. It was the most intimate thing I have ever read. Roe’s fears, sadness, and love became apart of me. It’s as if Heidi Cullinan gifted me with watching Roe grow, and grow he did. I felt like an absolute voyeur throughout the book, and that my friend is due to some awesmazing writing.

What Roe and Travis get up to is not for the faint of heart. Say what you want but it takes skill to write a BDSM novel, because with BDSM it’s more than sex. It becomes trust, and showing that one person all the things you will never share with anyone else. Roe is this complex character, sexual yet shy, confident yet without confidence, and he fascinates me. Travis is simply beautiful and just such a realistic character. Not all about the hard tone abs, and the stamina of young men, he is just a kind man that likes to play dirty (oh yeh).

Overall, this book is a fantastic read and fantastically sexy. There is so much to say but I don’t wanna ruin this for you. I can say that this book has the best female character I have ever read in M/M, *Haley I heart you*. This was fantastic and I just effing love it, that is all.

4 1/2 Pants Off

Double Blind

Double Blind (Special Delivery, #2) by Heidi Cullinan
Dreamspinner Press

Novel: 547 pages

5 out of 5

Blurb:

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Poker player and professional smartass Randy Jansen believes in fate but doesn't let it rule his life. Whether he's at the table or between the sheets, Randy always knows the odds, and he only plays the games he can win--until he meets Ethan Ellison. Ethan came to Las Vegas with a broken heart and shattered spirit, and when he sits down at the roulette table with his last ...morePoker player and professional smartass Randy Jansen believes in fate but doesn't let it rule his life. Whether he's at the table or between the sheets, Randy always knows the odds, and he only plays the games he can win--until he meets Ethan Ellison. Ethan came to Las Vegas with a broken heart and shattered spirit, and when he sits down at the roulette table with his last five dollars, he means this to be one of his last acts on earth. But Randy ropes him into first one bet, and then another, and then another.... Pretty soon they're playing poker on the Strip and having the time of their lives--and all this even before Randy gets Ethan into his bed. But before Ethan can plot out a new course for his life, they're drafted into the schemes of Randy's former lover, a tricky gangster who needs a fall guy. To survive, Ethan will have to stop waiting on fate and start making his own luck, and Randy will have to face the demons of his past and accept that to win this round, he's going to have to put up a big ante. It isn't money going into the pot this time, either: it's his heart, and Ethan's too--because for better or for worse, the game of love has a double blind.

Review:

Double Blind, is double the pleasure, double the fun and double the cum. It is funny, heartbreaking and a wonderful story into the lives of characters we have come to love. This book is in a category all on its own, the idea of using poker to explain life and it makes so much sense. This series is a wonderful tale of human emotions, the fear that comes with love and the healing that can only be found through friendships. This is the second book to Special Delivery and that book deserves its own feckin pedestal. We met Sam and Mitch and they play an important role in this book, but the book is all about Randy. I love him, which came as a surprise because he sort of pissed me off in the first book, but man oh man is this dude awesome or what.

The setting is Las Vegas and Randy plays poker professionally and he is very good. He has this uncanny ability to read people the same way he reads a poker game, but his skills are about to be shaken up with Ethan. When he makes a bet on Ethan, with no idea he would come to love him and save his life in the process. The relationship seems doomed from the start, but that’s what makes it so authentic. There is no love at first sight and candy and gum ball raindrops, the emotion cuts deep down to bone and there are tears.

Ethan gets himself caught up in some serious business with some of the more seedy business men of Las Vegas, here is this shy unassuming man and its was like coming to his own, when he takes over a casino. With millions of dollars at his disposal, it seems Ethan has bitten off more than he can chew, but no worries Randy is there as a constant guide, and it is there that a true love begins to blossom. They sound ordinary enough, but the life they live is so much more. Randy, Ethan, Mitch and Sam’s life is far from vanilla, you could call it napoleon because these boys are into some serious forms of pleasure, and when they play they play hard.

Sex or should I say sexuality is big part of this series, but this is not just fuckin for fuckin sakes. It is so much more, a way to tap into their emotions and express themselves through many different layers of sex. When all four men play, believe me when I say it is a good time, never has there been anything hotter or more beautiful. Even through dirty sex, the love they have for each other is very clear and everything just feels right.

Randy is a complex character, and Ethan is the right man for him, they both have past they would rather not share, but they find themselves opening up to each other and sharing a part of themselves that no one knows. This book is just one good scene after another. Its filled with humour, angst and nail biting moments. Heidi has done another smash hit with this book and it took me over two months to find the right words to express in this review, and I still haven’t done it any justice.

You got to read this series, its just GAWD fucking brilliant. Plus its never a bad thing to see Mitch and Sam again, and they made this book just right. With shady characters and a gay party that will have you cheering, READ IT!!!!

5 Pants Off

Go Ahead Take Those Pants Off

Special Delivey

Special Delivery (Special Delivery #1) by Heidi Cullinan
Dreamspinner Press
Novel

5 out of 5

5/5 PL Scale

Blurb:
Sam Keller knows he’ll never find the excitement he craves in Middleton, Iowa—not while he’s busting his ass in nursing school and paying rent by slaving away in a pharmacy stockroom. But before his mother died, he promised her he’d grow up to be a good man, so he needs a stable career and a good husband, not a dead-end job and empty sex.

Then Sam meets Mitch Tedsoe, an independent trucker who makes a delivery to a shop across the alley. Innocent flirting quickly leads to an affair, and when Mitch offers to take Sam on a road trip west, Sam jumps at the chance for adventure with his fantasy man... but Mitch also comes with a past. A threesome with the other man in Mitch’s life would have been just another kinky ride, but somewhere between the Mississippi River and the Colorado Rockies, Sam falls in love.

But can a relationship born out of escape and indulgence become something that lasts? Will a fantasy man be willing to settle down into reality, or is the adventure and excitement Sam finds with Mitch just another stop on a delivery man’s journey? For better or for worse, eventually Sam is going to discover the answer, because no matter how far away he travels, eventually all roads lead home.

Review:
This one was an emotional rollercoaster for me, in the beginning I didn’t like it much but by the end I was cheering, crying and laughing. I had my hang ups that this was going to be a road trip about kinky sex, it became so much more than that. A deeply rooted love story as tall and strong as any tree seen on this journey through the winding roads of the USA. I was in a perpetual state of reading once I got into it, and I am saddened that it had to end.

Sam Keller is how can I describe him, just Sam. He lost his mom and lives with his aunt and uncle and home is not a place he enjoys. He’s twenty one with no way to make it on his own he just wishes for the day he can be free. The feelings Sam carry inside of him cannot be looked at lightly. Emotionally he is unhappy, sexually he likes to punished or should I say controlled or meant to be felt worthless. He has been expressing these desires the wrong way; giving blowjobs to assholes in the college bathroom, and getting used on pizza boxes. Until he meets Mitch and he gets educated in all things sexual, but what Sam will learn even more is about himself. Who knew that shaking his ass to his music while he thinks no one was looking would land him the love of his life.

Mitch has seen it all and pretty much done it all. Until instant attraction to a dancing beauty, which leads to mind blowing sex in his truck. He knows that this would be one time thing, knowing what his job entails but faith had other things in store and that quick fling becomes something more. Now Mitch and Sam head out on the road, Mitch not knowing whether Sam is completely certain of the path he is about to take, but one thing he knows no job on the roads will ever compare to this one. A winding road of sexual discovery begins, between truck stops, sight seeing and emotional blow ups. Mitch and Sam fall into rhythm as smooth and sometimes rocky as the road.

With all that comes Mitch’s shady past, a past he is afraid of letting Sam know about. That past is also his future and all that worrying should have been thought about before he let Sam in is truck. The sex between them becomes kinky and sometimes they weren’t alone. Never though did you lose the connection between them, it was like two halves of a whole. My take was that even though Mitch had done that and been there, while he was teaching Sam he was also teaching himself. Their final stop takes them to Las Vegas the home of Mitch’s skeletons but this is where I fell in love with them. You also get to meet Randy one of the skeletons, the ultimate asshole that you can’t help but love.

I hated Sam in the beginning he was like the ultimate whiner. With all “I am stupid” blah blah, he does grow up and in the end I loved him. I was happy when he embraced who he was and threw out all the self hatred bullshit. Mitch I thought he was sketchy, but then I just realized he was lonely and living in denial heaven. You can have the things you want, just have to go about it the right way. The introduction to Randy left me peeved, if I had a dick I wanted to aim it at his face and pee in it ( but he would probably like it), but then I changed my mind. Without him in that last part we would have never gotten what we did of Mitch and Sam, and I appreciated him for that. The sex was hot and plentiful became more emotional and less taboo for me at the end there. So I loved it. A great read that will forever be a tattoo on my heart. Its like one of those coming of age stories, and a brilliant love story. Makes you think why this stuff isn’t mainstream when its so bloody good. This was one amazing journey.

I can’t wait to read my adorable bastard Randy’s book. Now I know why Mitch calls him *Skeet*.