Review: Slide by Garrett Leigh

Reviewed by SinChan
Slide (Roads #1) by Garrett Leigh
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 274pgs
4 Pants Off

Blurb:
Don’t look back. Don’t you ever look back… 

Shy tattoo artist Ash has a troubled past. Years of neglect, drug abuse, and life on the streets have taken their toll, and sometimes it seems the deep, unspoken bond with his lover is the only balm for wounds he doesn’t quite understand. 

Chicago paramedic Pete is warmth, love, and strength—things Ash never knew he could have, and never even knew he wanted until Pete showed him. But fate is a cruel, cruel mistress, and when nightmares collide with the present, their tentatively built world comes crashing down. 

Traumatic events in Pete’s work life distance him from home, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that Ash has slipped away. Betrayal, secrets, and lies unfold, and when a devastating coincidence takes hold, Pete must fight with all he has to save the love of his life.

Review
This is a really emotional story that leaves me thinking about the MCs beyond the story ending and leaves a slow burning feeling in my heart. This book definitely has a lot of emotional impact.

Part one of the story focuses on how Pete and Ash interacts and forms a romantic relationship. Part two of the book gets into their relationship on a deeper level and shows how Pete and Ash's relationship will last in the face of Pete's unreasonable working schedule, crazy murders in the city that is somehow too connected to them, and Ash's sudden withdrawn personality and emotional depression.

By the end of the book, I really like both characters and I care about how their relationship will work out and if they'll get their happiness in life or not. The first part of the story is more lighthearted. Ash is shy, a little antisocial, and completely out of his comfort zone living in a house when he spent years living on the streets and selling art to survive. He's a total opposite of Pete, but Pete manages to worm his way into Ash's heart and form an emotional connection. They started out as roommates but eventually become lovers. Their journey is sweet but not without trials. Ash is going through the trials of becoming a tattooist and Pete has insane working hours as a paramedic. Their relationship doesn't feel forced and somehow, their personalities are perfect for each other and they just clicked.

The second part of the book is darker and disturbing because the feelings of danger and the instinctual response of flight or fight is evoked in the MCs and in the readers. I am afraid for these characters because of the odd murders in the city and all the victims look like Ash. Combined with Ash's sudden change in attitude, I think he knows more than what he reveals to Pete. However, in the end, I find out that it's all in Ash's head. The danger is real and the killing definitely happened but as the reader, I almost feel cheated on because no actual danger came to Ash or Pete despite all the anxiety and worrying about them. The negative consequences of the events impact the mind more than the physical body and that is the bigger implication that stayed with me beyond the ending of the book.

Overall, I really enjoy reading this book. This is a very emotional read, but it's also not an emotional roller coaster read. The feelings just continue to buildup until the very end with a shocking revelation that answers all the questions about Ash's sudden change in personality and the murders. I love Ash and Pete's romance but it's the emotional impact of their story that will stay with me.

4 Pants Off

Review: Island House by Bru Baker

Reviewed by Fehu
Island House by Bru Baker
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 200pgs
4 Pants Off

Blurb:
Unable to move on after the death of his lover, British expat Niall Ahern clings to Nolan's dream of living in the Caribbean by moving to Tortola. Once there, he finds that not even the beauty of the island can fill the hole in his heart. Broke and spent in nearly every way imaginable, Niall wants out of the lonely, miserable, guilt-ridden life he's carved out for himself.

When Ethan Bettencourt, a wealthy tech guru, shows up in British Virgin Islands looking to purchase a second home, he gives Niall hope that he can move on. Both men fall hard and fast, but Niall finds piloting his yacht in the midst of a hurricane is nothing compared to weathering life's simple misunderstandings. As their troubles come between them, Niall is left to wonder if he and Ethan are over before they've begun.

Review
A great story, the cover is a bit misleading, since all is not well and the sunny beach hides secrets and hurts. This is a well written story about finding ones way again after overcoming grief and second chances at love and life. Very fitting for the season if you get tired of all the fluff and sweetness!

Niall lost his partner and his best friend before their life together could really begin. Now he is living on an island in the dream house of his dead lover and tries to live the live they had planned before his lovers’ sudden death. After sinking all of his savings into this new life and buying the boat his partner always wanted. Niall found out the hard ways that the fishing business was not something he could be successful in and so he fell back on what he knew - selling houses. A tropical island is quite the popular area to buy property and sell property and if Ethan wants to stay in the business, he has to impress Ethan Bettencourt, an internet mogul, who wants to buy a house and approached Niall's firm. A storm helped bring them together and Niall thought about trying something new, but Ethan left before anything could truly happened between them and didn't return to the island. Now Niall has a choice of letting the man go or find out if the spark he felt could be more.

Even after more than 3 years after the death of his partner Niall is still not over the loss and grieves for all the dreams that they lost. It was easy to feel empathy for him and so get into the story and follow him through the book. I liked Niall and he was an easy character to like, Ethan was a bit more complicated, what with his short fuse of a temper.

Ethan and Niall had an instant attraction, but I loved how the author didn't let them give in to it! No, this did not turned out to be a story about a stormy and hot romance on an island, which made me very happy. I love a story that has layers and this one had them, the character had secrets, their past was shown in a different light and it felt a bit like unwrapping candy, with a delicious offering at the end.

4 Pants Off

Guest Post & Giveaway: Inch by Inch by Heidi Belleau & Amelia Gormely

~Howdy folks! I have two of my fave ladies on the blog today and they brought an awesome giveaway be sure to comment to win.~

3 FACTS ABOUT SATISH MALHOTRA 

Hi, and welcome to the Inch by Inch blog tour! Inch by Inch is the third in Riptide’s BDSM erotica series The Professor’s Rule, written by Heidi Belleau and Amelia C. Gormley. Today, Darien has asked us to share a little trivia about Satish, our down-to-earth menswear salesman from The Professor's Rule. All week we’ll be touring the web giving you a behind-the-scenes look at The Professor’s Rule, including new character profiles and some very steamy excerpts. We’re also giving away not one but TWO ebooks, so stay tuned! 

Thanks so much to our host, Darien, and to you readers, of course, for coming along! 

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1. During the planning stages, Satish was originally supposed to be a one-off character who appeared in James and Carson’s relationship and then disappeared again just as quickly . . . but we (and James!) ended up liking him so much that he stuck around! 

2. Satish’s name was originally Akanksha, which according to baby name websites means “dream” or “wish”. But Heidi, rightfully worried about the accuracy of baby name websites, decided to check with fellow author Suleikha Snyder (of Indian origin herself). . . who informed her, yeah, that was a girl’s name. And so, after a lengthy Twitter conversation on Indian naming conventions, he became Satish! (Which sounds so much better, don’t you think?) 

3. Although working as a salesman is “just a job” for Satish, he’s genuinely interested in fashion. He attributes his care for his personal appearance to the fact that with six siblings, he was denied grooming time in the bathroom growing up, and now he’s making up for that fact. 

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Contest Info: 

If you haven’t fallen in lust with the Professor, yet, now’s your chance! We’ve got two ebooks to give away to two lucky commenters: one copy of Giving an Inch, and one of An Inch at a Time. That’s two chances to win! Let us know your thoughts and questions about Satish! Be sure to include your contact info (email, Twitter, or Facebook!) on this or any of the other of the posts on this tour for a chance to win. More comments=more entries, so to increase your odds of winning, be sure to follow the entire tour! We’ll pick a winner New Year’s Eve, so you can start 2014 right! 

Inch by Inch (The Professor's Rule #3) 

After two long, kink-free years apart, James Sheridan has reunited with his Professor: the sexy, dominant Evander Carson. But this time, things will be different. James is older, more sure of himself, and confident that he can draw the line between Carson’s demands and his own principles. 

One of those lines is gorgeous menswear salesman Satish Malhotra. After their steamy dressing room encounter, James feels an unexpected connection to Satish, and he wants to explore it further. But Carson’s involvement—in James’s life, and in James and Satish’s budding relationship—complicates things. 

Carson’s penchant for using other men in their sex games has always troubled James, and he’s adamant that Satish not be just another notch in their whipping post. But when Satish learns what prompted James to pursue him in the first place, will James’s new ability to draw the line even matter? 

Click here to read an excerpt or purchase Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3.) 

About Amelia:  Amelia C. Gormley may seem like anyone else. But the truth is she sings in the shower, dances doing laundry, and writes blisteringly hot m/m erotic romance while her son is at school. When she’s not writing in her Pacific Northwest home, Amelia single-handedly juggles her husband, her son, their home, and the obstacles of life by turning into an everyday superhero. And that, she supposes, is just like anyone else 

Her self-published novel-in-three-parts, Impulse (Inertia, Book One; Acceleration, Book Two; and Velocity, Book Three) can be found at most major online book retailers, and be sure to check Riptide for her latest releases, including her Highland historical, The Laird’s Forbidden Lover, the The Professor’s Rule series of erotic novelettes (co-written with Heidi Belleau), and her upcoming post-apocalyptic romance, Strain 

You can contact Amelia on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, BookLikes, Tumblr, or contact her by email using the form at http://ameliacgormley.com/ 

About Heidi:  Heidi Belleau was born and raised in small town New Brunswick, Canada. She now lives in the rugged oil-patch frontier of Northern BC with her husband, an Irish ex-pat whose long work hours in the trades leave her plenty of quiet time to write. She has a degree in history from Simon Fraser University with a concentration in British and Irish studies; much of her work centered on popular culture, oral folklore, and sexuality, but she was known to perplex her professors with papers on the historical roots of modern romance novel tropes. (Ask her about Highlanders!) Her writing reflects everything she loves: diverse casts of characters, a sense of history and place, equal parts witty and filthy dialogue, the occasional mythological twist, and most of all, love—in all its weird and wonderful forms. She also writes queer-flavoured M/F as Heloise Belleau. 

Chat with her on twitter using the handle @HeidiBelleau. Browse her website at HeidiBelleau.com or HeloiseBelleau.com. Check out her books on Goodreads. Follow her Facebook and Tumblr accounts. Or contact her using good ole-fashioned email: heidi.heloise.belleau @ gmail.com 

A Book A Week Giveaway: Week #5 (Fish and Ghost by Rhys Ford)

Blurb:
When his Uncle Mortimer died and left him Hoxne Grange, the family’s Gilded Age estate, Tristan Pryce knew he wasn’t going to have an easy time of it. He was to be the second generation of Pryces to serve as a caretaker for the estate, a way station for spirits on their final steps to the afterlife. The ghosts were the simple part. He’d been seeing boo-wigglies since he was a child. No, the difficult part was his own family. Determined to establish Tristan’s insanity, his loving relatives hire Dr. Wolf Kincaid and his paranormal researchers, Hellsinger Investigations, to prove the Grange is not haunted.

Skeptic Wolf Kincaid has made it his life’s work to debunk the supernatural. After years of cons and fakes, he can’t wait to reveal the Grange’s ghostly activity is just badly leveled floorboards and a drafty old house. The Grange has more than a few surprises for him, including its prickly, reclusive owner. Tristan Pryce is much less insane and much more attractive than Wolf wants to admit and when his Hellsinger team unwittingly release a ghostly serial killer on the Grange, Wolf is torn between his skepticism and protecting the man he’d been sent to discredit.


Check out my review for Fish and Ghost



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Review: Baja Honeymoon by Roland Graeme

Reviewed by Whuppsy
Baja Honeymoon by Roland Graeme
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 286pgs
3 Pants Off

Blurb:
When up-and-coming actor Rick Decareau, aka Deke Rowe, learns his fiancée cheated on him with her ex, he immediately breaks off the engagement and all wedding plans… except the honeymoon. Why waste a great road trip up and down the Baja peninsula? To make the time away even better, Rick impulsively invites his friendly neighbor, Ken Bollinger. After all, nothing sexual will happen between two buddies on a trip.

The somewhat promiscuous Ken is attracted to open-minded Rick from the start and assumes Rick is straight. So he sets out with no expectations, but on the road, they become close, and step by step, Ken succeeds in seducing Rick, even teaching him how to enjoy three-way sex along the way. Unfortunately, Ken's getting too much of a good thing: the more serious he becomes about Rick, the more he fears Rick is using him as rebound comfort from his broken engagement. Can Ken protect his heart before he falls too far? Or does Rick have other plans for the two of them?

Review
Rick Decareau is this up and coming actor and he’s moving into a new neighbourhood that is closer to his studio for work. He’s also engaged to this Bulgarian Supermodel who has had a couple of engagements under her belt to begin with. Rick doesn’t let the rumours of her past get in the way of making plans for them to enjoy a Baja Honeymoon.

While moving into the neighbourhood Rick meets Ken Bollinger. A man who owns his own business Ken is openly gay and is very attracted to Rick. They meet several times to just get to know each other and become friends. During this quick getting to know you times, the news breaks of Rick’s fiancée sleeping with her old fiancée and it was captured on video.

They decide to break the engagement and Rick decides to still go on his honeymoon with her. He asks Ken to go along with him and thus begins Rick and Ken’s wild adventure. As they travel from LA to Baja, they get to know each other better and Ken falls deeper into his feelings for Rick. Rick starts to get more curious about sleeping with men. Rick and Ken begin an intimate affair that they say is just exploring with no feelings involved. But as anyone knows, there is no such thing as a simple affair.

On their travels, they explore the intimate side of being involved in a same sex relationship. They sleep with other people, sometimes together and sometimes alone. They learn that sometimes it’s when you’re not expecting things to happen, is when everything happens.

This book had such lush detail of the scenery. I felt as if I was along for the ride. It was beautiful and lush and just amazing what Roland did with the detail. When he described the areas where they camped and the beaches, I wanted to be right there as well.

While it has a story, is very much an erotic book. Like Roland’s previous work, there is lots of sex. Heart-pounding, it’ getting hot in here sex. I always know that by reading one of Roland’s books, there will be some hot sex to go along with his story. I will never complain about that, believe me!!

I liked the story a lot, but there was something missing from it. It has all the elements of a great story and yet, something was off to me. I think it was Rick’s character. I get being angry and still not going to let something or someone ruin your life, however, the complete flip to sleeping with Ken and the other men was just too fast for me. I didn’t really understand it.

Overall, this book was pretty good. If you’re in the mood for lush, detailed scenery and hot sex, take this book into a room with a glass or 2 of wine and let yourself be carried away.

3 Pants Off