Friday 21 July 2017

Fiction Friday

All For Show: A Fake Boyfriend Gay Romance by [Kane, Rachel]
Back to showing my favourite covers of the books
recommended here. It's probably the dog.
I would have picked KJ's but 

the cover model reminds me of Jason Orange.
Yes, it's really Friday this time. And this post is a catch-all of different authors.

Babyvamp by Lyssa Dering – Okay, now as a rule I don’t do vampires but I did two in the space of a week and enjoyed them both. I thought the world building was excellent with the vampire police and registration etc. Certain parts squicked me out (the bloodily fluids and use of the word ‘child’ for a lover) but the story was entertaining and the characters were fun. I’d happily read more in this world, especially about the human, Taylor.

Fake it ‘til you feel it by Ashley Oaks – This is just the cutest fake boyfriend trope story I’ve read in a long time. (There’s a short sequel, Valentine, Interupted, catching up with the lads on their first Valentine’s day, which while cute had one event that made me ragey. I'll link you to my GRs review because I can't put things under a spoiler tag here.)

Make Me a Match Vol 2 – Dreamspinner anthology. Overall a mixed bag with a couple of right clunkers in there, but I’m listing it here for ‘Fragments of a Fiery Sun’ by M Jules Aedin. A glorious historical about wharf rats and an Irish lad fresh off the boat. I could have happily read a novel about these guys. Well-crafted and a joy to read.   

All For Show by Rachel Kane – Would have benefited from less introspection and more dialogue tags, but I adored Owen and the author had a deft hand with a lot of Owen’s amusing one liners. Not quite the romantic comedy I was expecting. With issues of poor self-esteem, depression, and manipulative relationships this story had more substance than the light and fluffy tale I thought I was getting. 




And my highly recommended, 'must read' book for this post...


An Unnatural Vice (Sins of the Cities) by [Charles, KJ]
Sod it. I love the background of this cover.
Even if the cover model looks like he's going to
burst into a verse of 'Pray'.

An Unnatural Vice by KJ Charles. (Sins of the Cities # 2)
 This overlaps with An Unseen Attraction and continues the overarching story line.
 This book was damn near perfect for me.
I adored the awkwardness of the first book and how sweet Clem and Rowley were together.
This one has a completely different vibe. Enemies to lovers and flawed heroes. Perfect. 
Now I can’t wait for Mark’s story.
5 stars. 





Enjoy. They'll be at least another 3 FF posts next week, but one will be graphic novels only.

And I'll leave you with two questions to consider.

I've blogged about vampire stories two days on the trot now. How often do you read outside your comfort zone?

And how likely are you to give up on an anthology if the the first few stories aren't very good?




2 comments:

  1. Hmm I love K J Charles but stalled on one of her books...*sigh* I should get back to it...

    Why don't you do vamps? I'm curious....

    HA HA I hardly EVERY read outside my comfort zone...ok that's not ENTIRELY true - I've been on BookBub for a while now and sometimes I can't resist the free books because they're FREE - and some of those are outside my comfort zones....I Just finished a REALLY good book, Pandemic - it's the first of a trilogy but damn it was awesome. (Not a romance)

    the only thing I REALLY HATE and is an absolute DNR for me? A cliffhanger that just leads to the next book - I think that kind of ending is cheap and lazy - IMHO.

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    Replies
    1. This series might just be my favourite of KJ's. The leads in all the books are excellent. I've stalled in the Magpie series, but I'm waiting for the audios to come out for me to do a reread (re-listen) before I get back into that series.

      I don't know that it's that I don't do vamps but it's like shifters, it needs to be out of the norm for me to pick it up, or by an author I love. Otherwise I find they're all a bit samey. I love Lou Harper's vampire stories.

      Agreed, free reads are the best to get you reading outside your comfort zone.

      And that's guaranteed to put me off an author faster than anything. Cliffhangers are the worst. They're like WIP fanfic that you've actually paid for! Infuriating. And a cheap tactic to get the reader to buy the next book. GRRR!

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