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Archive for the ‘Paranormal’ Category

Theron’s Boys by Kiernan Kelly

Posted in Authors: J-L, B-, Menage, Paranormal, Romance, tagged , on April 18, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Therons_BoysTitle: Theron’s Boys
Author: Kiernan Kelly
Length: 14,000 words
Publisher: MLR Press
Genre: m/m/m, m/m paranormal romance
Grade: B-

Blurb:
When an irresistable man offers Christian a job that sounds too good to be true, he finds out the proposal comes with sharp teeth and the loss of his immortal soul.

Christian thought he had a handle on life. He wasn’t rich, but he had a decent job bartending at a local gay bar. That is until one night when Theron walked into the bar and turned his world upside down. Theron, a mesmerizing stranger with the ability to turn Christian on with a single look, makes Christian an offer he can’t refuse, but in hindsight, probably should have – a job at Theron’s ultra trendy club. The problem? The position is for life, and in the underworld of vampire sex slaves, that can be a very, very long time, indeed.

Review:
I often like this author’s short stories and this one had an interesting take on life as a vampire. Christian was lured into being a vamp by sexy and domineering vampire Theron. Horny and intrigued, Christian agrees to be turned, but doesn’t realise he’s handing himself over as an eternal go-go dancer and prostitute in Theron’s club. Given barely enough money to live on, and barely enough free time, the other vamps in the club are pissed off but frightened of Theron and his goons, until Theron ups the stakes and Christian knows he has to do something, or die trying.

Like many of this author’s stories this had a lightness of touch to the narrative. I liked Christian, but it’s obvious that he’s rather led my his dick and that landed him into trouble. With hindsight, he’s very aware of what an idiot he’s been and I couldn’t help but warm to him. His slightly sarcastic turn of phrase means that instead of coming across as whining, his reflections on the mess he’s got himself into are wry, another reason to like him.

Christian is the narrator and as a result the other vampires, including the love interest, are barely there. This meant that the romance didn’t work quite so well, especially as the on page sex takes place between Christian and other vampires, not the love interest, and although that menage sex scene was hot, it was a little lacking in emotion other than lust. We don’t get many scenes with the two main characters together so that aspect was a little forced at the end. However, since the main plot is centred around the plan to get away from the clutches of Theron, I didn’t mind that so much.

The sending was rather satisfying and overall I found this to be an enjoyable, quirky story with an amusing narrator. If you like vamp stories then this one may appeal.

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Love is Blindness by Sean Michael

Posted in Authors: M-O, B, Contemporary, Paranormal, Romance, tagged , on April 15, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

blindTitle: Love is Blindness
Author: Sean Michael
Length: 16,000 words (60 pdf pages)
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m paranormal
Rating: B

Blurb:

Love at first sight…

Young, cool, laid back professor Kieran is totally captivated by the blind and beautiful Lucien.

Lucien has been around a long time, but he is equally caught by Kieran’s sensuality. He believes Kieran might be the man he wishes to spend the rest of eternity with.

Lucien’s blindness doesn’t turn Kieran off, but will his secret?

Originally published in Eternal Darkness and as a part of All Romance Ebook’s 28 Days of Heart Campaign.

Review:

I’m not exactly when this was published originally, but this is the Sean Michael that I became addicted to. Essentially the book is 85% sex scenes, but they are extremely sensual and erotic. Perhaps it is the blindness of Lucien that leads to more descriptive words, or the fact that Kieran is a poetry teacher, so thinks in more sumptuous ways than the average person.

While out listening to some of his students perform poetry, Lucien comes in and sits with him. Before long they are heading back to Kieran’s place. Lucien is sure there is something about Kieran and when he bites him during sex, he knows this is the one man he could spend the rest of eternity with. He’s had issues in the past when his last convert decided a blind vampire was not a great idea and tried to kill him. Ooops.

After a wild night, a few days later Kieran is back at the club, and Lucien arrives and it starts over again, only this time, Lucien reveals the truth and asks Kieran to join him. Yes, it’s unrealistic, but it had very much that fantasy paranormal feel. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “what about his job, his family, would he just decide to be a vampire on the spur of the moment?” But you just have to kind of go with the flow and enjoy the language and sensuality of this one. It’s not reality, one of them is a vampire for heaven’s sake. :-)

So you know little beyond what is told you about both men, and they spend most of their time in bed, but if you are in the mood for some classic Sean Michael, this is a good choice and didn’t suffer from the oft-found “mine” “yours” to excess that some find annoying. It is what it is, some hot vamp erotica with a blind vampire, a bit unusual, but it was a nice escapist read for a short while.

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Claimed by Jambrea Jo Jones

Posted in Authors: J-L, D-, Paranormal, tagged , on April 12, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

J3_ClaimedTitle: Claimed
Author: Jambrea Jo Jones
Length: 49 pdf pages, 12,000 words.
Publisher: MLR Press
Genre: m/m paranormal
Rating: D-

Blurb:

One taste isn’t enough…

Luke Shelton was down on his luck. He’d gambled away the family money and he needed to get it back–fast. Being a vampire meal couldn’t be all that bad.

Bussoe needed something to keep him tied to the world or he was going to walk into his final death. Something about Luke sparked his interest. Will the two be able to come to terms or will one of them die before the night is over?

Review:

A potentially interesting idea that suffered from poor editing, typos and utterly wooden characterisation.

I thought I would be safe with this unfamiliar author as I’ve come to rely on MLR authors telling good stories (even if their publisher can’t be bothered to hire decent  proofreaders). However, either this is an anomaly rushed through to fill a gap in the schedule, or I just haven’t been reading widely enough to realise that not all authors in the MLR stable are up to the same standard.

The premise of the story is interesting enough. Luke has signed a contract without reading it, promising himself to a vampire. He’s not just a bumbling moron, though—he’s done it to cover a debt incurred trying to raise money for a lifesaving operation for his mother. Now Luke is being paraded in front of the vampire in a darkened club, naked apart from fishnets, heels, and leash around his neck.

The rather sexy set-up made me hope for a steamy read. There is sex later, but first we have to get through the meat of the plot. Again, the ideas here were interesting and there’s some nice double-crossing and twists, but the characters were so wooden and the writing so pedestrian I found it hard to care.

Luke is a real problem. We’re meant to believe he’s a mall cop, but he shows absolutely no sense of how to handle himself in a dangerous situation. He’s vain, stupid and naive, and has managed to get himself into a dangerous predicament by gambling away his family’s money. We’re meant to forgive his stupidity, though, because he’s done it for the right reasons. For me, though, he never managed to raise himself above vapid, “too stupid to live” status.

Bussoe could have been an interesting character what with the hints we’re given of his back story, but it just doesn’t come together. He acts like a vampire cliché, and then there’s the whole “fated mates” trope which I hate with a passion. Here it seems to be being used as a shortcut so the author doesn’t need to show us any real chemistry between the characters. We just have to accept that they’re meant to be together so the plot can move on. Not good enough.

Now, can we have a word about typos? This book probably doesn’t have more than your average MLR offering, but they annoyed me far more because I wasn’t carried away by the story. How can a professional publisher let so many through? Do they pay their proofreaders with nothing more than a copy of the book they’re meant to be checking? I’ve heard this is the standard practice with certain epublishers. That’s not payment. That’s merely giving them the materials they need to work.

Not only were there grammatical issues (for example, a misuse of the word “whom”), but the punctuation left a lot to be desired: missing apostrophes, and persistent misuse of the m-dash. When using pairs of m-dashes to section off part of a sentence—like this, for example—they are being used as a substitute for parentheses and the sentence should still make sense if that section is removed. In this book that was never the case. The author uses them when commas or ellipses are called for, resulting in sentences that had me scrambling to try to make sense of what was being said.

I expect there are readers out there who aren’t as fussy as I am and who will enjoy this story for what it is. I think you’d have to be a real fan of the fated mates trope to do so, though. For me, it felt like an interesting idea that had been rushed, with not enough care and attention spared to the prose and characterisation, let alone the basics of sentence construction.

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Silver Pearl by M. Raiya

Posted in Authors: P-R, C+, Contemporary, Paranormal, Romance, tagged , on April 9, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

silverpearl400Title: Silver Pearl
Author: M. Raiya
Length: 11,500 words
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genre: m/m contemporary paranormal (shifters)
Rating: C+

Blurb:

Standing in a meadow late at night, not really certain why, Joel is shocked when he encounters a unicorn—one that turns into a beautiful young man. Joel aches to be closer to the unicorn, but everyone knows unicorns only approach virgins. After a brutal attack that left him broken and afraid, Joel is no longer that.

Then hunters appear, determined to take down the unicorn, and Joel will have to overcome the horrors of his past in order to save his chance at a future.

Review:

It took me a bit to realize this was a contemporary story as it starts out rather more like a fantasy story, with Joel waiting in a meadow after having being mysteriously told by a teacher in his youth that he is meant for bigger things. Some pull brings him to the meadow and when he sees the unicorn he panics. In some ways he knows that he’s meant for the unicorn, but he is also aware that unicorns must be with someone pure, and after suffering a traumatic rape, Joel no longer considers himself pure and suffers PTSD following the attack, with the idea of anyone touching him terrifying.

However when someone attacks him with an arrow, the unicorn who goes to his defence also gets injured and he ends up bonding to the unicorn before they both pass out, only to be rescued by the unicorn’s mother. This was an interesting story and I love unusual shifters, having only read one unicorn shifter before, but I was at times a bit lost in the logic of the mythology. Apparently Joel had been chosen as a unicorn’s mate, even before the unicorn, Laburne, was born. Yet when his parents died and he had to live in foster care, which while not awful was not pleasant, they didn’t do anything but watch and did not act in time to stop the rape, although prevented it from being possibly worse.

There was a whole subplot of the hunters who harvested unicorn blood and tears of unicorns to sell for magic potions, eventually their horn as well, however if the unicorn is bonded to a mate, they could no longer pursue him because they could not seduce him any longer. It came across as a bit convenient, however Joel starts to feel guilty because Laburne is now bound to a man who can’t stand to be touched. The fact that Laburne can read Joel’s mind and emotions makes him extra-sensitive to Joel’s fears, which endears him to Joel. There is a another bit of convenience, with Joel getting past his fears a bit easily, but in the context of a paranormal and magic I can overlook that which in a straight contemporary would have me rolling my eyes.

The relationship with Laburne’s little sister and some of the hinted fact that those who control a unicorn often use it to their own advantage, but Joel is very aware of not being demanding and letting Laburne have his own opinions and choices in life. So it was a sweet story, with some interesting imagery of the unicorns and the life they led including the fear of the hunters. If you are looking for a shifter that is not a wolf or a cat, it’s worth a read and I do like this author’s voice who has written several dragon stories.

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Masks Off Too: Perfection by Anna Hedley

Posted in Authors: G-I, Paranormal, Romance, Fantasy, B, tagged , on April 8, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

masksofftoo-perfection185Title: Masks Off Too: Perfection
Author: Anna Hedley
Length: 5,000 words
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m paranormal romance
Grade: B

Blurb:
he world of the fey is one that cares about appearances to an almost pathological degree. Imperfection is rarely tolerated and those who are less than perfect are stigmatized and excluded. As an energy vampire who bears the scars of a life long-persecuted, August feels like an intruder in their world. That is, until he meets another outcast, a fairy named Daniel with broken wings and a most un-fairy-like attitude to both the world he lives in and August.

This story is also available in the Masks Off Too! anthology.

Review:
I’ve been rather enjoying the varied settings and genres of these Masks Off Too stories, given the constraints of the vampire/masked ball theme. In this story the setting is fantasy and the court of the fairies.  August attends a ball at the fae court to celebrate the birth of the princess. His scarred face and body disgust the other fae and he’s about to leave when he’s approached by Daniel, a fae with damaged wings who knows how August feels.

Like nearly all of these stories, this one is short and just a snapshot of a meeting between characters, plus the obligatory sex scene. However, I liked the setting of the fae court and the way that the author had manipulated the vampire myth slightly. There’s enough in terms of setting to get a flavour of the shallow nature of the fae, and to give some background as to the connection that August has with the King and Queen to be satisfying which meant that once the story finished it felt complete.

The romance aspect is handled well too with a certain amount of pathos and tenderness in their shared situations. This added to the sex and meant that it felt like more than just a hot scene.  The characters are as fleshed out as possible, given the constraints of the word count, and this is a story i would recommend if you have a short time gap to fill and like fae fantasy stories.

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Masks Off Too: Passion Unmasked by Jade Astor

Posted in Authors: A-C, C, Paranormal, Romance, tagged , on April 5, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

masksofftoo-passionunmasked185Title: Masks Off Too: Passion Unmasked
Author: Jade Astor
Length: 5,000 words
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m paranormal romance
Grade: C

Blurb:
While attending an academic conference in New Orleans, graduate student James Caldwell stumbles upon a party unlike any other he’s ever attended. He’s relieved when one of the guests, Malcolm, takes him under his wing and seems to take a romantic interest in him as well. Then he realizes that the vampire costumes the partygoers are wearing aren’t really costumes at all — and neither is Malcolm’s.

This story is also available in the Masks Off Too! anthology.

Review:
This story started with graduate student James who manages to get himself invited along to a party where he is instructed to strip naked and sent around as a waiter. This might sound a little preposterous, but actually the way it was written made it seem believable. James discovers that he’s at a vampire party and is then seduced by a vamp in the garden.

There were some good things about the story such as a nice bit of background to the vampires and the way the characters talk to eat other as well as just have sex. I liked James and his ‘go with it’ attitude and his growing unease as he realises that he’s now in a tricky situation. In fact, it would have been a pretty decent piece of erotica except for a few niggles.

Firstly the sex scenes had some odd phrases such as “wringing his boner dry”, “his balls boiling” and “James felt his nuts start to churn” which kept jarring me out of the story. Secondly the romantic ending felt forced when the men had known each other only a few hours. Finally there were odd scenes such as the one with a vampire called Elihu which didn’t fit into the story easily and I wondered why they had been included.

However, the story wasn’t all bad and, apart from the sex scenes, the writing was good. James makes an interesting narrator and I would certainly be interested in reading further stories by this author. If you like vamp stories then you may enjoy this one.

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Demonic Interlude by Talon Rihai & Salome Wilde

Posted in Authors: P-R, Authors: V-Z, BDSM, C, Paranormal, Romance, tagged , , on March 20, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

1053358Title: Demonic Interlude
Authors: Talon Rihai & Salome Wilde
Length: 4,000 words (16 pdf pages)
Publisher: Storm Moon Press (free at ARe)
Genre: m/m paranormal
Rating: C

Blurb:

The demon Mael has grown increasingly weary of the mortal who has bound him. And though he knows he will soon be able to complete his contract and devour the mortal’s soul, that time has not yet come. Finally, frustrated with the mortal’s limited imagination and pedestrian orders, he strikes the man unconscious and uses the small respite of freedom to summon his own demonic slave, Feng, to service his long unsated needs.

Review:

This is a very short free story which left me feeling a bit like I was dropped into a world where I should have known the characters. Mael is forced by an agreement to do/be whatever his human master wants, in exchange, Mael will get his soul. However Mael finds him repulsive and most of the things he wants are so boring to Mael who could take over the world. After a particularly distasteful evening which involves murdering a woman after sex, he knocks out his master and meets up with his submissive lover Feng in the garden.

The vast majority of the book is a sex scene between the two. Feng seems to be more wolf-like than humanoid, or perhaps one of those hybrids similar to kitsune. Mael takes note that Feng is a high-level demon in his own right who could own his own servants, but chooses instead to remain loyal to Mael. The sex is rough and demonic I suppose. Mael regrets that he’s forced to remain in his human body and unable to really let loose the way he’d like.

When his master wakes, he knows he’ll be punished for knocking the man out, but the stolen moment with Feng were worth it and Feng assures him he’ll wait for him. The ending made me snort, and it was an interesting premise, however being so short I was left a bit wondering how Mael came to hook up with the human. Yes, he needs to do it in order to consume souls to survive, but how did he come to be with that man, and what was the story between him and Feng, how did they come to be lovers.

However if you’re looking for a little demonic D/s action, it’s got a little bit of a darker edge to it and it was well written, I just wanted a bit more to flesh out the story for me.

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Masks Off Too: Fool Me Twice by Missouri Dalton

Posted in Authors: D-F, C+, Paranormal, tagged , on March 19, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

masksofftoo-foolmetwice185Title: Masks Off Too: Fool Me Twice
Author: Missouri Dalton
Length: 19 pdf pages, 5200 words.
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m paranormal
Rating: C+

Blurb:

The Everglades have secrets, Professor Edmund Toussaint, the swamp’s lone vampire, knows this all too well. He’s lived there all of his life and hasn’t run into another of his kind since the fateful night he fed his maker to a crocodile. But things are changing, and another vampire might just be the only thing that will bring Edmund out of the swamp.
This story is also available in the Masks Off Too! anthology.

Review:

A well-written story with an intriguing setting that just tried to do too much within the limited word count.

Fool Me Twice opens with vampire Edmund in a typically mournful mood, hanging around in an area of Florida swamp that has special meaning to him. Not only is it where he died, it’s also where he killed his maker (the odious Lucas) and where his 300 year old gravestone is located. There was a strong evocation of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire here, from the swampy setting to the morose, French colonial vampire, and I was intrigued. Edmund has made a virtue of his affliction by becoming an expert in night-blooming swamp flowers, and manages a life of sorts as an academic who teaches at night. I wasn’t entirely sure how he dealt with the practicalities of this (along with having to assume a new identity every few years while staying in the same area), but detailing that would have been beyond the scope of this story.

The first half of the story shows us Edmund’s daily life and illustrates just what a grumpy, isolated hermit he’s become. He’s terrified of other vampires, especially as the only one he’s ever met was such a nasty piece of work. However, when he agrees to attend a masquerade ball in order to help his university department obtain funding for future projects, he discovers that the potential benefactor he’s meant to be charming is another vamp. James Argent isn’t quite so quick to sniff out Edmund’s identity, but when he eventually does, Edmund discovers that he has a lot still to learn about his true nature.

I feel like this story has suffered from having to be short enough to fit in an anthology word-count limit, which is a shame as there’s the potential for a really interesting novella here. Instead of a fully developed romance we just have a frustrating tease, skating over lots of Edmund’s back story but not really satisfying in the here and now. Not only is there a fade to black on the sex scene, but we don’t get to find out much about the mysterious James either. From the little we did see of him I found him to be rather arrogant and patronising with his “little bat” endearments, so the way Edmund falls for him felt like too much, too soon. However, I’ve given the story a C+ because I thought the prose was flawless, the world-building intriguing, and it had the seed of a fascinating story here. I particularly loved Edmund’s crocodile!

In short, I feel this probably works well enough as an anthology story, but as a standalone it lacks both the erotic and romantic content to really satisfy an m/m romance reader. I do want to track down more of Missouri Dalton’s writing, though, because she certainly knows how to write beautifully.

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First Reflection by Stevie Woods

Posted in Authors: V-Z, B-, Paranormal, Romance, tagged , on March 14, 2013 | 2 Comments »

First_ReflectionTitle: First Reflection
Author: Stevie Woods
Length: 16,000 words
Publisher: MLR Press
Genre: m/m paranormal romance
Rating: B-

Blurb:
Now all Andreas wants is revenge on the vampire who turned him.

Andreas is a wealthy young man, scion of a noble family, but frustrated by his father’s demands for more acceptable behavior. Out with his friends for a night on the town he is shocked when they are attacked by a nightwalker – a vampire. His friends are killed, but he is taken by the vampire to become his new plaything. After being changed and left for dead, Andreas is forced to kill to survive, and all he wants is revenge on the creature who turned him. Meeting up with another vampire, Valente, Andreas finds salvation of a kind, but is still haunted by his desire for revenge.

Review:
This paranormal vampire story is set, I think, in a fantasy setting similar to Russia. Andreas is a spoiled nobleman’s son who loves to spend his evenings on wild living with his friends. They are walking home through a dimly lit pathway when they are attacked and Andreas is carried away by the wicked nightwalker. He wakes up finding that he has been changed and struggles to make his way in his new existence until he meets Valente.

The story begins well with a nice touch of horror during the vampire attack on Andreas and his friends. I liked that enough page space had been given to establishing Andreas’ friendship with them and the antagonistic relationship with his father. This makes the start to the story a little slow, but it’s necessary for the reader to see that close friendship in order to understand his need for revenge later. After the attack, things move at a much swifter pace. Andreas is bewildered and horrified about what he has become and I thought this part was shown well. Andreas’ actions are not nice but we can see how meeting Valente changes Andreas and that his earlier actions were a result of ignorance.

The last part of the book felt a little rushed and I wished that more time had been spent with the main couple and their romance, rather in the plot to discover Andreas’ maker and revenge his friends. The story ends on a HFN for the romance but the rest is left hanging. This didn’t bother me because it left scope for a further story, to maybe see Andreas further on in his life as a vampire. The ending was also more realistic and so I didn’t mind that everything wasn’t tied up in a neat bow.

For those readers who like vampire novels this will be a good one to pick up. The setting may be a bit vague but Andreas is a strongly drawn and interesting character and I would recommend the story.

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The Lone Wolf by K.C. Grimm

Posted in Authors: G-I, Paranormal, Romance, Erotica, D-, tagged , on March 11, 2013 | 4 Comments »

thelonewolfTitle: The Lone Wolf
Author: K.C. Grimm
Length: 6,016 words
Publisher: JMS Books
Genre: m/m paranormal erotica
Rating: D-

Blurb:
Bryson Gilroy never wanted to be a lone wolf, unmated, but coming out to his pack isn’t an option. Alpha males and homosexuals just don’t mix. Even if his father is the current pack master and his twin brother will one day succeed as leader, it’s still better to keep some things secret.

With each passing full moon, the werewolf inside Bryson becomes harder and harder to tame. If the beast gets free, it’ll be impossible to pen back in. Control is an illusion and Bryson knows once he loses it, nothing will ever be the same.

The call of the moon is powerful, but Bryson need relief. A dark, secretive bar called the Iron Side is a place where anything goes, a place for anonymous satisfaction for men by men. Bryson’s plan is simple — get in, get laid, and get out, but the plan changed once he saw the man of his dreams. He is, in a word, beautiful. Bryson never wanted someone so much.

Can Bryson have a one-night-stand with this handsome stranger and just walk away? Will he be able to to his life as a lone wolf knowing this man was still out there?

Review:
Bryson is a werewolf who lives with his brother and chooses not to take a mate. This is because he is gay and firmly in the closet. Things become hard for him as the full moon approaches when he has a strong desire to have sex. This drive leads him to a club called Iron Side where he meets an unnamed man who drives Bryson wild with the need to mate.

The fated mates storyline never works particularly well for me and here it didn’t work at all, mainly because there wasn’t enough in terms of word length to secure the happy ending. Bryson meets ‘beautiful’ in a bar, and they have hard, aggressive and wholly unromantic ouchy sex in a car park, mainly due to Bryson’s humongous cock which extends into a double length werewolf cock at the point of ejaculation. He then leaves ‘beautiful’ collapsed on the hood of a car whilst he makes his escape. Bryson’s urges means he returns to the club the following week and he has more ouchy sex with ‘beautiful’, this time in public surrounded by masturbating bar attendees, after which he claims ‘beautiful’ as his forever. The two men barely exchanged words during the first sex scene and during the second sex scene the main word used is “Mine”. From this I am supposed to believe that these two guys are together forever. I didn’t.

The story is erotica with a tacked on romantic ending. The characters are flat, with ‘beautiful’ having no character at all except for being the receptacle for Bryson’s cock, and Bryson given a little more to do with his fears of coming out to his family but not much else. Bryson’s brother pops in for a short time but serves no purpose in the narrative. If the sex had been hot and exciting, then I may have graded this higher. Unfortunately, it just made me wince.

If you like fated mates stories or stories with rough sex, then this may be one for you. It didn’t work for me at all.

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