HeartShip and HeartOn by Amy Jo Cousins

You probably know that I am madly obsessed with male/male romances.  Actually I have been since the seventh grade when I started reading Yaoi (male/male manga).  Is my nerd showing yet?  Oh god.  I have noticed, in my many reads, that gay romance tends to be a little darker, a little more dangerous—although that may be because I read mostly gay historical novels where their sexuality could mean their death.  These moderns male/male romances—HeartOn and HeartShip—by Amy Jo Cousins strike a different chord.  They’re sweet stories of boys struggling to define their sexuality and discovering that just maybe sexuality isn’t a straight line.

Now, can we talk about the names of these novels?  Absolutely hilarious.  I love me an author with a sense of humor.  The first book to read is HeartShip. Though it’s entirely possible to read the books on their own I still suggest reading them in order because there’s references to HeartShip in HeartOn.

HeartShip

Benji never meant to catflish a hot college football player in Minnesota when he met fellow anime fan online.  But when @joshfortytwo announces he’s coming to Miami for a spontaneous visit Benji is pretty sure the left tackle—whatever that is—expects to meet a cute girl in a bikini, not an aging twink hoping to finally get his life together when he finishes massage therapy school.  Josh doesn’t let himself wonder about questions like: why don’t you want to ask @princessglitter is she’s a girl?  Why don’t you tell your friends that you can’t hang on Sunday nights because you’ve got a date to watch anime with your new BFF?  Why do you call it a date?  All he knows is that he needs to escape from the stress of having been injured and just before the bowl game, and @princessglitter has somehow become his best friend.  But when Josh’s secrets and Benji’s sex appeal smash together for forty-eight scorching hours they’re going to feel the heat from Miami to Minnesota.

This novel wasn’t my favorite of Amy Jo Cousin novels, but it was still well-written, hilarious, awkward, and on and on.  I think my issue with it personally was just that I couldn’t find anything to relate to in the characters but that’s the best issue to have with a novel because it means that anyone and everyone else could feel differently.  Benji and Josh were super cute together and there is some positively adorable dialogue going on in this book.  Nerds will rejoice for sure.

HeartOn

When an injury sidelines NFL player Deion McCaskill—maybe permanently—he heads to Miami to stay with an old college teammate and his boyfriend.  He packs his tailor-made suits, anxiety about the future, and the bisexuality he’s ignored for years because it didn’t fit with his drive to succeed at football’s most elite levels.  Set designer Carlos Kelly has always known he’s bi, but datingwomen is easier than making waves with his Puerto Rico/Irish Catholic family.  His friends and coworkers from the theater community might be almost entirely on the rainbow spectrum, but Carlos keeps things simple.  Except for this heat that keeps flaring between him and the hot football player visiting his best friend.  Two weeks.  Two guys who’ve never explored their bisexuality before and don’t plan on coming out, ever.  One promise to let each other try out every fantasy they’ve ever had.  Zero feelings involved.  At least, that was the plan…

HeartOn has plenty of references to Josh and Benji, so if you enjoyed their relationship in HeartShip you’re in for a treat.  It’s funny that two books from the same author can evoke such different emotions in me as a reader.  While HeartShip was all ‘awwwwws’ and ‘soooo cutes’, HeartOn was like a punch to the romance gut (in a good way).  Deion was just such a fun character to experience; hot, charming, generous, and ridiculously silly about his feelings for Carlos.  Together the two of them were one hilarious misstep after another.  Everything about their relationship was explosively funny and adorable with a capital A.

Both these books are easy-breezy romances.  They’re not the type that are going to get your blood heated or keep you on the edge of your seat.  They’re easy reads with warm, fuzzy feelings all the way throughout.  Sometimes you don’t want something that’s going to have you constantly stressing.  These are perfect reads for after—or during—a long day at work.

Love Game by Maggie Wells

Love Game by Maggie Wells is a battle of the sexes, battle of the sports, battle of the salary hate-to-love romance novel.  Does that catch your attention?  Many sports romance novels are light on the sports, but not this novel.  Love Game is full of references and innuendos that will really have you feelings that sporty vibe.  It almost made me feel like I could pick up a basketball and shoot hoops but then I remember I’m incompetent when it comes to any sport not in the water.  Someone ought to send a swimming romance novel my way.

Even if you aren’t a sports fan you’ll find things to love about this novel.  It’s all about a kickass powerful woman throwing her weight around to save the man she loves.  It’s empowering, dramatic, and sexy and with the two main characters Kate and Danny tossing sarcastic comments and pointed insults at one there’s not a dull moment.

Kate Snyder is the coach of the national championship women’s basketball team at her alma mater.  She six feet of blond bombshell but it isn’t her looks that got her where she is now, it’s her talent.  Too bad her pay doesn’t reflect the publicity and money she brings in for the school.  And when a disgraced football coach is hired to work magic on the failing team—making way more than she does—she feels it’s a slap in the face to her success and her gender.  But Danny isn’t exactly what she thought he would be.  All he wants is to start over after his embarrassing fall from grace and work his way back to the top.  The two are constantly bickering with one another and the media is having a field day over their competition with one another.  But you know what they say… where there’s smoke there’s fire.  Soon Danny and Kate can’t keep their hands off of one another.  There’s only one problem.  One of them is going to lose their job over it.

Love Game is tale that feminists will rejoice over.  And the sex won’t disappoint either.  Kate and Danny are incredible together.  There’s nothing better than a couple who can joke around during sex.  I found myself laughing many times over at their quips and comments, even the ones that had to do with sports!  Who knew!  The sex was great, but this is another one of those novels where I was desperate to find out the ending.  I needed to know how this could possibly end the way I wanted it to end so badly.

All in all this was a really fun read that kept me interested from start to finish.  A modern read for a modern world. It's out February 6th, so don't delay & preorder today! (Rhymes are cool).

Cowboy Seal Homecoming by Nicole Helm

Looking at the title of this romance novel you may be thinking a few things:

1. Oh great, another Cowboy romance novel.

2. Oh great, another Military romance novel.

3. Oh great, another Cowboy Military romance novel.

4. YES, another Cowboy Military romance novel.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’ve got nothing against Military romance novels.  Hell, they’re one of my favorite subgenres.  Cowboy romances on the other hand are not typically the novels I seek out as a reader.  I picked up Nicole Helm’s Cowboy Seal Homecoming with some hesitation.

I ended up pleasantly surprised.

Alex Maguire never thought he’d go home again.  The perfect soldier, the perfect leader, he’s spent his whole life running away from Blue Valley, Montana—but when a tragic accident bounces him and two of his men out of the SEALs, there’s nowhere left to turn but the ranch he used to call his own… and the confusing, innocently beguiling woman who now lives there.  Becca Denton’s like nothing he could have imagined.  She’s far too tempting for her own good, but when she offers to help turn the ranch into a haven for injured veterans, he can’t exactly say no.  He’ll just need to keep his distance.  But something in her big green eyes makes Alex want to set aside the mantle of the perfect soldier and discover the man he could have been… safe and whole within the shelter of her arms.

This book had all the makings of your average, every day romance novel, but I was happy to see the idea for a rehabilitation ranch thrown in there.  It made it something different.  The effects of life after the military aren’t often explored in romance novels and it was rather refreshing to see an alpha male struggle as Alex and his friend did.  Alex was all alpha, but he was still a man in a dark place who needed to reach out for the olive branch Becca was offering him.

Becca was quite a character as well.  She brought some uniqueness to the table with her childhood illness, nervous nature, inexperience, and wacky nature.  I thought she was a great counterpart to the overbearing Alex.  She was innocent without being annoying about it and once she broke through her initial awkwardness she turned into an empowered, sexually confident woman.

I will say that if you’re not a fan of the somewhat cheesy romance novels where the main focus is the relationship (i.e. no outside drama, no suspense, no mystery, nada) then this probably isn’t your scene.  However, if you love the romantic notions of cowboys and the moody men associated with military romances then you’re going to love the first book in what’s sure to be a fun series (the other men Gabe and Jack are even more surly and complicated than our friend Alex).

Midnight Hunter by Brianna Hale

Sweet lord of all that is erotic in this world… I have been bestowed a gift.  Brianna Hale’s Midnight Hunter is the stuff of dreams.  She will awaken every deep, dark fantasy you’ve ever had—even those had late at night when it crosses your mind and you blush despite the fact that you’re alone.  She will bring forth fantasies you never knew you even had and then suddenly they’re all you can think about.  They consume you.

This is more than a book.  This is a walk into a world where you will never again be the person you were before Midnight Hunter came into your life.  This is a tale of forbidden love, of enemies and traitors, of war.

The year is 1963 and Evony wants nothing more than to finally escape East Berlin and find a new life in the West, but when her group’s plans are interrupted by the police and she witnesses her best friend being shot in the head she realizes that her dreams are futile.  She tries to flee but she’s captured by the intimidating Reinhardt Volker, East Berlin’s most dangerous man.  She’s ready to be interrogated and imprisoned, terrified of it, but ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for her dreams.  But Volker doesn’t take her to the prison.  He takes her home to his apartment.  Now she’s a prisoner in a different way, a way that she’s sure is worse and a way she doesn’t completely understand. As time goes on and she gets to know Volker, and experiences what it’s like to be the focus of his passion, she finds it harder and harder to hate the man who has ruined so many lives… and considers her a traitor to her country.

Brianna Hale’s writing style is electrifying.  She makes you not only visualize her character’s emotions, but feel them yourself.  There were so many times while reading that I felt Evony’s shame and disgust with herself for feeling anything other than total hate for her enemy.  Then there were times that I empathized with Reinhardt for making terrible, difficult decisions that many have never had to make, including myself.  I cannot stress how positively wonderful it is to read a work that makes you forget you’re actually reading because you feel like you’re there… right between the pages, experiencing the action and pain.

Reinhardt is a beautiful, troubled creature.  I despised him the first time we are introduced to him.  I wanted him to pay for the things he had done to Evony, to her friends, to her family.  I couldn’t fathom that I would continue reading this book and feel the things for him that I inevitably felt, but Evony couldn’t imagine that either and yet… it happened.  He became more than his actions, more than his past.  But they say that hate and love are actually quite similar emotions and I can see that 100% in this story.  Eventually the hate that I felt bled into a deeper, more complex emotion and by the end I was no longer confused, but positively in love with the man.

Evony is everything you would expect a woman in her position to be.  She’s terrified of what’s will become of her, mystified by what’s happening to her, and angry at the man she blames for everything terrible that has come her way.  But she’s also strong and courageous in a way that not many woman in her situation would be.  She despises the evil man who has taken her prisoner and refuses to let her leave—or even take her to prison—but is utterly confused by his pride in her inability to give in or back down.  Watching her struggle to come to terms with her feelings for her captor was moving and completely realistic (which is something I was worried about—the believability of her feelings given how much even I hated Reinhardt).

All told this book is an amazing, deeply erotic read.  It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, of course.  It’s a complicated read that will elicit emotions you might never have wanted a romance novel to unleash, but in the end you feel almost as though you’re drunk on the passion and heat that flares almost violently between Reinhardt and Evony.  This will be an absolute favorite of those who seek out one of my favorite plot types: love/hate relationships.

I reviewed another one of Brianna Hale's books a while back Soft Limits, a Daddy/Dom story with plenty of erotic adventures itself.  You can review that review here if you'd like.

Without Merit by Colleen Hoover

I have a coworker at the bookstore that has been trying to get me to read Colleen Hoover since we first discovered we were both romance fans.  She has a book recommendation under nearly every Colleen Hoover book that we stock.  I perused a book a while back but I wasn’t particularly drawn to the author’s style of writing, nor her characters.  Plus I have so many books waiting to be read that I don’t have time to settle on authors that I’m not insanely fond of.  Still, when she offered me Without Merit I decided I liked the cover enough to go for it.

As it sat on my shelf I came across a few reviews from diehard fans who despised Without Merit and a few reviews from fair-weather fans who loved it.  The contrast intrigued me—and my friend was begging for her book back—so I read it just the other day.  I was totally surprised by what I found between the covers.  Apparently I was guilty of assuming that Colleen Hoover, with her masses of fans, was one of those erotic romance writers whose books would make even the seasoned writer blush.  I’m not sure what led me to that assumption, but boy was I wrong.  I’ve actually started questioning why these books are in the adult romance section of our store and not the young adult section because the content was tamer than a Sarah Dessen book.

Without Merit, starring Merit Voss, was a quirky and depressing book filled with eclectic characters that went from annoying to hilarious and back again more times than I could count.  Merit Voss’ strange family—which includes her twin sister, older brother, younger half-brother, stepmother, father, sister’s boyfriend, stepmother’s half-brother, and her basement dwelling mother—live in an old converted church.  Merit’s juggling a lot of her secrets: a traumatic experience from her past, her sister’s boyfriend’s kiss, her father’s affair, and on and on.  As things go from bad to worse in her life she begins to wonder whether the secrets are worth keeping inside or whether she should spill everything and set herself free.

Negative reviews referred to Merit as mopey and over-the-top dramatic, a girl who was more infuriating than relatable.  I’m not sure what those other girls were like during their teenage years, but I have to say that Merit’s mood swings, general unhappiness, and melodramatic actions were definitely relatable to this once upon a teenager.  Her selfish actions and subsequent shame were a flashback to my own feelings about many of my teen years.  Some of the other characters had me rolling my eyes on occasion, but in all reality I think that made the whole book more enjoyable because it felt more realistic.  None of the characters were perfect and all of them were perfectly infuriating in the way that only family can be.

I wouldn’t call this a romance novel and I wouldn’t want anyone else to be under the impression that they’re going to be reading about some hot, dirty sex.  Alas, the most that happens here is a few teenage kisses.  That said, though it was the romance that initially attracted me to this book it was the secondary drama that kept me reading.  Merit’s family is pretty fucked up (pardon my French) and I found myself desperate to know how they would resolve their problems.  Unbelievably I actually found myself crying while reading Without Merit.  Can you believe that?  I don’t remember the last time a book made me cry.  Movies?  Sure.  Videos of soldiers coming home and surprising family members?  Absolutely.  But a book?  Maybe never.  I was sort of chuckling under my breath because it just seemed so ridiculous to be crying, but I’m telling you:  the teenager that still lives inside me related pretty hardcore to this book.

It wasn’t a perfect book, but it was entertaining as all hell.

Promise Not To Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz

Those who know me well know this story already, but I’m going to tell it again anyways because it personifies my existence as a romance reader.  In the eighth grade I found myself having read through the collection of romance YA books that I could find among the shelves of my local library.  Desperate for something more than light kissing in my novels I ventured out into the adult fiction section and looked for a book that I thought would scream romance.  I came across Absolutely Positively by Jayne Ann Krentz—a novel that had a hot pink cover and a white sticker with a heart and the word ROMANCE in bright red lettering.  Jackpot.

Since then I’ve been an avid reader of Jayne.  She’s one of the only authors that I’ll purchase a book hardcover from (hardcovers don’t fit into my organizational system that well) and I pre-order her books the moment they hit the internet waves. I own almost every one of her novels, including those from other names including Amanda Quick, Jayne Castle, and Stephanie James.  Everyone who knows me knows Jayne Ann Krentz is my jam.

I’m not going to lie and say that every novel by Jayne Ann Krentz is unique.  At this point those books under the name Jayne Ann Krentz all seem to follow the same general theme.  Romantic suspense novel.  Vegetarian, independent female with a traumatic past.  Strong, alpha male with odd quirks who is really good at some form of martial arts.  A twist you never see coming.  That’s the funniest part, that last part, that despite my knowing that I’m going to be thrown through a loop I’m never expecting it and I never am able to guess the ending. 

Still, growing accustomed to a basic plot outline does not equate to boredom in my book.  Every one of her novels has some part of it that allows it to stand on its own.  I love, love, love her ability to make me feel empowered as a woman just by giving me something to admire in a female character.  I love that the alpha men in her stories are not threatened by strong women and encourage them to bring their strengths to the table.  The characters in her books are on equal footing and form partnerships that should be revered by readers everywhere.

Promise Not To Tell is no exception to the amazing rule.  It is, however, the second in three connecting books which is rather odd for Jayne Ann Krentz who will often write multiple books in the same world, but rarely connects one major mystery across three separate novels.  Though I despise having a mystery left unsolved at the end of a novel I am most intrigued by this sadistic cult and the leader who ruined so many lives.

This particular novel follows Victoria Troy and Cabot Sutter who, two decades ago, were nearly murdered by the leader of the cult they were members of as children.  After the suspicious death of Victoria’s friend, who was also a former cult member, Cabot and Victoria come together to determine whether the leader, who supposedly died many years ago, is still alive and kicking.  And, more importantly, whether he’s coming after the fortune their mother’s stole from him before he killed them—the fortune he thinks they have the key to finding.

I always tell people that romance novels are not always about the relationship between the two main characters.  Sometimes they are, sure.  But sometimes the romance plays second fiddle to an incredible plot.  And that’s always the case with Jayne Ann Krentz novels, much to my surprise and delight.  That’s not to say that the romance isn’t beautiful and erotic, however.  Her characters come together with as much passion and desire as any couple out there, the only difference is that there’s an extraordinary understanding between the characters that makes you feel, without doubt, that the two were meant to find one another.  That they could not survive without the other’s support.

All in all, Promise Not To Tell was a more than dramatic read with twists and turns that I never expected.  I read though it so quickly, desperate to know the ending, and now I’m left with a hole in my heart that won’t be filled under the mystery is solved in her next story.  If you want a fabulous mystery, intense characters, and fantastic writing you need to pick up a book by Jayne Ann Krentz.  It doesn’t have to be this one, but it does have to happen.