Review: First Comes Marriage by Shira Anthony

First Comes Marriage (Dreamspun Desires #2) by Shira Anthony
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 262pgs

3.5 Pants Off

Blurb: Their marriage was supposed to be all business....

When struggling novelist Chris Valentine meets Jesse Donovan, he’s interested in a book contract, or possibly a date. The last thing Chris expects is a marriage proposal from New York City’s most eligible bachelor!

Jesse’s in a pinch: to keep control of his company, he has to marry. So he has valid reasons for offering Chris this business deal. In exchange for living in a gorgeous mansion for a year, playing the doting husband, Chris gets all the writing time he wants and walks away with a million dollar payoff. Surely Chris can handle that. He can handle living with the most handsome and endearing man he’s ever met, a man he immediately knows he wants in the worst way and can’t have. Or can he?

Review

Then Comes Love 

I love the marriage out of desperation trope or arranged, anything along those lines so First Comes Marriage is already a win on that part. So I’m surprised I don’t love it, I really liked it but it lacked a certain amount of angst that would have made it sensational. I think it would have been glorious if they hated each other in the beginning… 

Chris Valentine, struggling author, living on his best friends couch, and working in a coffee shop. He’s running out of options in both life and with his writing. When a handsome stranger makes him an offer that will literally change his life. He balks at the idea, but a man has got to eat and what’s so bad in marrying a good looking guy with lots of money. At the end of it he’ll walk away a million dollars richer, and maybe his manuscript will finally be done. 

Jesse Donovan, rich ass dude. His company is on the line and he can’t have that. His dead grandfather left a clause in his will that guarantees him the company if he marries. He formulates a plan an in order for it to succeed, he’ll need Chris. The natural order is, first comes love, then comes marriage but for Jesse and Chris marriage is most definitely first. 

What can I say about this book? Things don’t go as planned, what was once a business deal becomes something more. The lines become blurred and feelings take root, and you know you can’t stop the feelings. 

Honestly, I liked the book. I liked Jesse and Chris, they worked together on a nerdy level. With that being said, everything felt formulated. 

• • The business/marriage proposal 
  • The marriage  
  • The questioning if this is the right thing to do 
  • The feelings 
  • The sex 
  • The blow out that causes separation  
  • The reunion 

Overall, I liked this offering from the series. I believe it could have been better if only it was a little shorter and had a tad bit more angst. I understand the idea behind painting a picture but after awhile everything felt like dry wilted lettuce. I believe this was my first ever read by Shira Anthony which surprises me because I own a few of her books. I’m actually interested in seeing what else she has to offer.  

First Comes Marriage was a nice harlequin-y type of book.  

Seriously though, where the hell is my secret baby 😁 

Review: Encore by Shira Anthony

Reviewed by Fehu
Encore (Blue Notes #5) by Shira Anthony
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 296pgs
4.5 Pants Off

Blurb:
Cool kid violinist Roger Nelson doesn’t give a damn about anything. Wannabe conductor John Fuchs is awkward, effeminate, and just figuring out he’s gay. Despite their differences, they become friends—then lovers—and after college, they try to make it work. But it’s the 1970s, and Roger can’t bring himself to admit he’s gay. Worse, after his brother is killed in Vietnam, Roger tries to live up to his memory and be the perfect son. Then after suffering one tragedy too many, he makes the biggest mistake of his life: Roger pushes John away.

Through the years, they dance around the truth and in and out of each other’s lives, never quite able to let go. Twenty years later, Roger still carries the pain of losing his dream of a brilliant career with him, while John is a superstar conductor with a wild reputation. John’s off-stage antics get him plenty of attention, good and bad, though deep down, he wants only Roger. Finally determined to hold on to what really matters, Roger asks John for another chance, and when John panics and runs, Roger has to convince him to listen to his heart.

Review
A very good book that ties up some loose open ends of the Aria book and tells of some new beginnings. I felt a bit like a goodbye and a new beginning. John is a young man who has to transfer to another school just before the end of his high school career, after his parents’ divorce. There he meets Roger, a fellow music geek who is also part of the orchestra, where John plays. Early on John realises his attraction to Roger, who becomes his best friend and is always supportive of him.

In college they both are together, but Roger's parents don't like John, they encourage Roger to date girls and let John go, which he resists. After an accident Roger cannot longer play the Violin and has to go to a different college and give up on his dream of becoming a musician, while John's career takes off and he goes to New York.

Roger has to learn to deal to weather his parent’s expectations, his own desires and his failed career as a musician, as well as society’s stigmas. He also needs to decide if he can stand to have John in his live, who will always remind him of what he had lost. The story shows John and Roger grow up, find their careers and find a way to each other, which was not straight or easy.

Here we meet John and Roger, who played an important part in the lives of the characters we knew from previous books. Alec is mentioned and Corry and a young David, it's hard not to feel a bit sad to know that it's about an end of an era. John and Roger brought some of the people together and I don't remember reading a lot about them in the following books, with Roger's illness, that made me think that they might no longer be there. On the other hand it's nice to see all the people they influenced, grow and become stronger, fail and rise, find love and make friends for life, just like John and Roger have been. John and Roger's story shows a part of American history, the rise of AIDS, death of lovers and friends, the panic of the infection. It also shows human prejudice, but most of all it shows the strength of true friendship, that weathered decades and a love that grew along.

4.5 Pants Off

Review: Stealing the Wind by Shira Anthony

Reviewed by Fehu
Stealing the Wind (Mermen of Ea #1) by Shria Anthony
Dreamspinner Press
Novel
4 Pants Off

Blurb:
Taren Laxley has never known anything but life as a slave. When a lusty pirate kidnaps him and holds him prisoner on his ship, Taren embraces the chance to realize his dream of a seagoing life. Not only does the pirate captain offer him freedom in exchange for three years of labor and sexual servitude, but the pleasures Taren finds when he joins the captain and first mate in bed far surpass his greatest fantasies.

Then, during a storm, Taren dives overboard to save another sailor and is lost at sea. He’s rescued by Ian Dunaidh, the enigmatic and seemingly ageless captain of a rival ship, the Phantom, and Taren feels an overwhelming attraction to Ian that Ian appears to share. Soon Taren learns a secret that will change his life forever: Ian and his people are Ea, shape-shifting merfolk… and Taren is one of them too. Bound to each other by a fierce passion neither can explain or deny, Taren and Ian are soon embroiled in a war and forced to fight for a future—not only for themselves but for all their kind.

Review
Refreshing new fantasy, with characters that grow on you, I picked this one foremost because it had mermen (not the usual paranormals) and because of the beautiful cover. Often a nice covers has led me astray to less than good books, fortunately Stealing the Wind delivered what the cover promised.

Taren was sold into slavery to pay for the debts of his master, the guy who raised him. In the keep where he had to work since, a pirate captain by the name of Rider, took notice of him and kidnapped him. On the ship Taren was promised his freedom if he would serve the captain sexually, together with another male, the captains lover. Taren adjusted pretty quickly to the change and actually liked his live aboard Rider’s ship, but an accident made him float in the sea and encounter another ship. This ship didn't have a human crew, as Taren was bound to find out, it would bring him closer to finding out about his parents and his heritage. Also he was prophesied, that he'd be tested and will meet someone his soul lost long time ago.

Admittedly, sceptical at the beginning, when Taren accepted his lot in live so easily, especially his sexual servitude to the captain. He grew on me, when the story stopped skipping years in his life. Still I was a bit miffed, when he seemed to fall for another guy who captured him so easily, but Taren actually showed some backbone in his other encounters with Ian, a pirate captain, that fished him out, after he saved one of his previous shipmates and got hit by the ship. Ian, well it took me some time to warm up to him, since he knew what would likely await Taren at the hands of the Council of Ea(mermen) and still he didn't warn him or let him free. Also Ian took his sweet time to explain to Taren, who or rather what he really was.

This is a plot driven story, surprisingly there wasn't all that much sex and I was glad that after the initial part, Ian and Taren's relationship took some time to develop. Actually having just finished it, I feel like they are just beginning their adventure and well I want to know the rest of the story. There is one threesome scene, as a warning, I know not all like that but it was early in the story and after Ian and Taren meet and admit their attraction, it's just them. Stealing the Wind feels like a beginning of a story, there was a lot of world building in this part and some history.

I hope for more character development in the next book and hopefully I won’t have to wait a long time to read more about Taren and Ian, now that they actual have found each other and cleared all misunderstandings.

4 Pants Off