Evangeline Anderson ~ Picture Perfect
From: Loose Id

Evangeline Anderson ~ Str8te Boys
From: Samhain Publishing

“Not as happy as you, ’pparently.” Duke was still slurring, obviously drunk. But his hand on Mav’s cock still caught Mav by surprise.

“What the hell, man?” he asked when he felt Duke’s big hand grip him through the loose sweatpants material.

“Extreme gay chicken.” Duke’s brown eyes gleamed in the light from the flat screen. “Ever heard of it, Mav? ’S like, both guys grab each other’s cocks and the first one to move their hand loses. Wanna pl ay?”

Mav knew he should say no. His best friend was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. Then again, knowing Duke, he would have done the same thing when he was dead-cold sober if the notion took him. He was fearless—which was what explained the fact that he wasn’t afraid to grab his best friend’s cock. A cock that was currently throbbing for release.

God! Shouldn’t do this… “Fine.” Knowing he would regret it later, Mav reached over and cupped the bulge in his friend’s jean shorts. Duke was hard too.

“Is this too gay for you?” The slur was gone from Duke’s deep voice, replaced by a low, sensual note Mav had only heard when his roommate was seducing some coed on the couch.

“Nah,” he said, playing along. “Not too gay.” The porn on the flat screen went on but he was blind to it now. All he could feel was the large, masculine hand cupping his erection. All he could see was his own hand returning the favor. His best friend’s cock felt strange under his hand—strange, but not bad. Just different.

“How about this?” Duke’s hand moved, stroking slowly from root to tip and back again through the gray sweatpants Mav was wearing.

Mav bit back a groan. He could feel everything through the thin material and God, did it ever feel good! What the hell is going on here? But whatever it was, it felt too incredible to stop.

“Nope,” he managed to say and matched his roommate’s hand action with a slow stroke of his own. He could feel Duke’s cock throbbing under his palm but for some reason instead of repulsing him, the feeling intrigued him.

“How about this, then?” Without hesitation, Duke slid his hand up and his fingers were suddenly inside the waistband of the sweatpants. Deliberately, he brushed over the slippery head of Mav’s shaft. “Is that too gay for you, roomie?” he asked softly, stroking over the broad, wet tip of Mav’s cock.

“That’s…that’s a little gay, man,” Mav managed to gasp. But at the same time he was working his hips, just a tiny bit, trying to get more of his best friend’s hand in contact with his aching cock. Part of him wondered what had gotten into Duke. They’d been roommates for almost four years and he’d seen the other man smashed out of his head before, but Duke had never done anything this blatant, this sexual. Did this have something to do with the fact that they were graduating and parting ways soon? But another part of him didn’t give a damn about the whys of what was happening. That part just wanted the delicious contact to go on and on and never end.

“But is it too gay is what I’m asking,” Duke murmured, reaching further into Mav’s sweats and wrapping his fingers around his thick, aching shaft. “Do you give?”

“I…I…no. I don’t give,” Mav gasped. By now he was actively thrusting into his friend’s warm palm, almost unable to think because of the slow, hot pleasure that was starting in the base of his balls and working its way up.

“What would make you give, Mav? You know I always win.” Duke’s hand traveled even lower, cupping Mav’s balls briefly with ticklish fingertips before grasping his cock again.

“I…I don’t know,” Mav groaned. The hand on his shaft felt so good he could barely string together a coherent sentence but inside his thoughts were going crazy.

God, what the hell? Is he actually going to jerk me off? Should I let him? Why does he want to?

The hot, forbidden feelings and his confused thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a knock on the

They sprang apart as though they’d been burned and Mav fumbled desperately for the remote while Duke went for the door.

“Coming! Who is it?” he bellowed as he grabbed the knob. That wasn’t all he was grabbing just a minute ago.

The thought got Mav moving. Within a matter of moments, he was up on his feet and flying up the
stairs to seek sanctuary in his room. Page ~ 15

I buy every Evangeline Anderson eBook so you don’t have to and I mostly try to tell you about the ones that kinda sorta work.

I have this crazy Evangeline Anderson rule of thumb that goes “100 pages or less” is Good EA, “over 100 pages or more” is Bad EA. This rule works for me whether we are talking her Straight Romance or her Gay Romance. It seems if she has to start elaborating on a story to fill in extra space she gets into trouble with relying on highly dramatic cliches like Attempted Rape or Rape or Suicide Threats or Characters Portraying Bad Stereotypes sometimes all in the same book. EA needs to just get in do her job and get out as quickly as possible while still targeting the best HEA she can with the elements she is using.

Str8te Boys for your information comes in at 67 pages a perfect EA reading comfort zone.

Two “straight” long time college roommates and fellow soccer players in their final year are getting ready to graduate and head off to separate schools and different career paths. One day they suddenly start exploring their unspoken mutual sexual attraction with an escalating game of Gay Chicken. How far will they take it? Who will be the first to back down? Who is going to wind up with his legs in the air yelling “DEEPER you hot hung hairy stud you!” at the top of his lungs?

Anywho, if you have read my review of Sharon Maria Bidwell ~ Snow Angel then you know Evangeline Anderson uses two things here that should freaking turn me right the hell off as a reader. A dueling “Straight To Gay/Gay For You” trope that is revealed to be a “gay men secretly lust after straight men” story.

You would think this would so not work for me. BUT! Evangeline Anderson chose one of three believable situations where “straight” guys are classically known to explore a little man-on-man action. Those three well known settings are college, prison, and the military. So EA it turns out is smarter than the average Gay Romance writer.

She even defuses the whole potentially politically incorrect “gay men secretly lust after straight men” by not simply using a sledge hammer to jam them into bed in the first chapter or so and then playing “kissy face confessional” for the rest of the book but by slowly building the sexual tension with the sex scenes going from “just kissing” to “a little fondling” to eventually “full on 69 shared blow jobs” but taking the whole thing very very slow and steady playing off the rising frustrations and resulting shocks of recognition.

In fact I have to say I might pick on Evangeline Anderson and I might roll my eyes and make fun of her occasional flops. In fact, my relating her to Lora Leigh is unfortunate because Lora Leigh is queen of the series book. Hell, think about it… Lora Leigh only really sells the first book of any series then the next book is never “as good” and the third book you are lucky if it is even interesting and by the fourth book man forget it you are ready for the next series.

Evangeline Anderson on the other hand has a huge back catalog of “one offs”. It’s a variety of stories ranging from Gay Romance to Straight Romance from Paranormal to Sci-Fi to Contemporaries.

There are more than a few things about EA I wish other wannabe Gay Romance authors would learn from her.

She uses the same tired tropes as everyone else does. She uses the same worn out plot lines as everyone else does. She has jumped from Top ePublisher to Top ePublisher and dealt with several different editors and yet her stories are always identifiably hers. Which leads me to believe she is not just a good author she is also an excellent self editor.

So Evangeline Anderson proves it aint the trope and it aint the plot and it aint the ePublisher that stops most writers from selling the story. What could it be?

Maybe one of these four things I love about EA…

Evangeline Anderson does not waste her time as an author or my time as a reader. Her best work is under 100 pages in length and they are done and over.

Evangeline Anderson is always passionate about her characters and her stories no matter how ludicrous they appear on paper.

Evangeline Anderson has the talent to select the right characters and the right point of view to make her stories work no matter how ludicrous they appear on paper.

Evangeline Anderson takes a gamble every time she writes without generally depending on series books or other authorial crutches and she is always willing to go “all in”. She sometimes “hits the jackpot” and sometimes she “buys the farm” but she still does it.

So despite using “Straight To Gay/Gay For You” and despite using “gay men secretly lust after straight men” and despite the fact that the trope here makes this very much an HFN instead of the HEA I usually want…

A perfect A+

Evangeline Anderson ~ The Last Bite
From: Loose Id

Cade cursed himself for not thinking to look David over for bites before now. What if David was sitting there dying of soul poisoning while he was fiddling with the hot water in the bathroom like an idiot? Quickly, he began to strip off David‟s clothes.

“What‟re you doing? I c‟n do that,” the younger man protested, but Cade only shook his head.

“Need to check you out. You might have a bite you don‟t know about. Should have looked before, but I‟m a damn fool and didn‟t think about it.”

“But…but…” David shook his head tiredly, but despite his halfhearted protests, Cade didn‟t stop until the younger man was completely nude. High on David‟s lean torso, just under his right collarbone, he found what he had feared. Multiple tiny bites were already radiating black lines across the pale, fine skin.

“Thought so,” Cade muttered to himself. Bending quickly, he began to suck out the venom, trying to be sure he got every last drop before the soul poisoning got worse. The black ichor left by the demons was bitter and made his lips go numb, but it wasn‟t dangerous to him in the least because of his lycanthropy. It wasn‟t even that hazardous to humans as long as it wasn‟t in their bloodstream. He even let David tend his own wounds sometimes, providing he was careful to spit out the venom and gargle with holy water afterward, but the kid was in no shape to tend to himself right now.

“Have I ever told you…love feeling your mouth on me?” David slurred as Cade continued to work on him. “‟S worth getting bitten just to have you take care of me afterward.”

“Oh yeah?” Cade looked up from his task. Great, he had forgotten that the venom of a dark angel affected some humans in an almost alcoholic manner. He just hoped the kid wouldn‟t say something he would regret later. Then again, he might not even remember it later.

“Mmm-hmm,” David hummed contentedly. “You take care of me, Cade. Love to feel your hands and mouth on me. Love to feel your arms around me when we sleep.”

“Well…that‟s good, kid. I, uh, kinda like it too,” Cade admitted uneasily. Although he would barely acknowledge it, even to himself, Cade enjoyed their shared sleeping arrangements every bit as much as he knew his protégé did. In fact, even back home at the cabin, David had abandoned his own narrow bed in favor of Cade‟s wide one over a year ago. The official reason was that Cade was tired of going getting woken up by his shouts and moans when a nightmare struck after a mission, but the real, unspoken reason, as both men knew, was that it simply felt better to be together at night. It felt right in a way Cade didn‟t try to analyze. He just enjoyed the feel of David‟s lithe form pressed against him and the feel of those soft lips stealing kisses against his side when his young partner thought he was sleeping.

“Love you, Cade… Master,” David murmured, breaking his concentration.

“Aw, kid…” Cade didn‟t know what to say to that. The most natural thing would be to say he loved David too, but even in this rare, unguarded moment, the words wouldn‟t leave his lips. His feelings were too complicated, too difficult to acknowledge, at least out loud. He just hoped David wouldn‟t remember what he‟d said later and be embarrassed. Page ~ 32

I buy every Evangeline Anderson eBook so you don’t have to and I mostly try to tell you about the ones that kinda sorta work.

Evangeline Anderson’s whole mission in life is to write just one more “guilty pleasure” and this fine example is no different my friend. She does not want to write books you proudly show off to all your reader pals. Oh no, that would be too easy.

She wants to write the books you hide from the public. Those dirty little books you make sure no one can see the cover of as you read it hurriedly on the bus to work. Books so filthy and nasty they make you look around every once a while to make sure no one can see how aroused you really are.

Evangeline Anderson wants to grab you by the balls and make you buy every last one of her dirty little books desperately hoping and preying it will be just as good as the last erotic bonbon from her you just read.

You bad bad nasty little reader you.

So, in this quick read Cade and David are demon hunters. Cade is a werewolf and David is pure human. Cade has angst about not wanting to turn David into a werewolf. David has angst about secretly wanting big daddy alpha Cade to turn him into a dirty little gay werewolf chew toy.

Your typical sweaty Evangeline Anderson plot line in a nutshell.

Anyway, demon bites it seems are deadly to everyone except werewolves so *knee slap* guess what happens… David gets bit. Finally! I bet you did not see that coming. Now big daddy alpha Cade must turn poor little innocent David into baby werewolf or watch him die a horrible demon bitten death so he better get cooking because there’s a full moon a coming.

Oh, did I mention turning a human into a werewolf in Evangeline’s world here means an exchange of body fluids while providing a deep, Deep, DEEP, tissue massage if you know what I mean. Wink wink nudge nudge. So Case has to bite David while doing just exactly what David wants him to do… stuffing him like a thanksgiving turkey. Oh goody!

I warned you guys this is Evangeline Anderson’s world and we just live in it.

Grade B for a relatively “squickless” story from Evangeline Anderson making this one of her “better” eBooks to grab. I suggest if you want to try her Gay Romance start here before launching into the more advanced notions of some of her back catalog where you are more likely to find such romantic fodder as Rape, Suicide Threats and badly stereotyped characters… you know “squick”.

Evangeline Anderson ~ Forever Broken
From: Ellora’s Cave

This train wreck is brought to you by LBea who had to bring up our past reviews.
Yes LBea, there is a new one. *sigh*

Kel ~ “It’s like I’m one of her beta characters, pulled in without my consent.”

Evangeline Anderson ~ Broken Boundaries
From: Ellora’s Cave

Huge fully documented review with my opinion with LBea at Nose In A Book.

Short Summary: A solid and well deserved Grade F.

Dear Ellora’s Cave,
Don’t sell me a “Gay Romance” and throw in bullying, threats of suicide and acts of rape as part of the story. It’s not a Romance in my opinion.

What do you guys out there think?

Evangeline Anderson ~ Eyes Like A Wolf
From: Loose Id

Can I tell you a secret? I secretly buy every Evangeline Anderson eBook but I only tell you about the ones that work. I have got to give it to her, Anderson takes risk after risk after risk and sometimes it works and most of the times I am like hmmmmm.

OK OK, How hot is this book? To quote the remarkable Robin Williams from Good Morning Vietnam. “It’s hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest thing is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking.”

Rachel Kemet and Richard Kemet are Amon-kai. Raised as brother and sister. Rachel was kidnapped by her mother in an act of betrayal and kept away from her father and adopted brother and taught to deny her heritage as Amon-kai (Egyptian Werewolves).

Seventeen years, three months, and five days later her brother Richard comes to Tampa and promptly gets into trouble thus running into Rachel, an Assistant District Attorney, at the police station while under questioning. Rachel who is getting married in a month, immediately invites her brother to stay at her place despite the protests of her fiance.

From Page 44
“Oh, Richard…” I disengaged from the hug, feeling like I was going to cry. I’d had enough drama in my life for one night; I needed to get control of myself. “How’s Dad?” I asked to change the subject. “Are you two still close?”

“He’s…Rachel, I’m sorry but he’s dead.” Richard sank onto the couch, and I sat beside him, feeling like I’d been punched in the gut.

“When…when did he die?” I managed to ask. So much for no more drama.

“A few years after Mom took you away.” Richard’s voice was low and troubled. “He, uh…he committed suicide.”

“No.” I put a hand over my mouth, my eyes wide.
He nodded. “I’m afraid so. He just, well…he couldn’t live without her.”

“Couldn’t he have found someone else? Someone new?” I still couldn’t believe it. My father, the strong, black-haired man with the deep voice and the warm scent of aftershave and cigars…my father was dead. Dead so many years and I had never known it until now.

“There was no one else for him but her. Just like there’s no one else –” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll spare you the trauma and let you know that I know Mom’s gone, too.”

“She passed away almost three years ago,” I said dully. “Some kind of fast-acting cancer. It was all through her almost before we knew anything was wrong. She got the diagnosis and a month later…” I shook my head.
Richard looked troubled. “That’s fast, all right. I’m sorry, Rache.”

Charles Rivera, her fiance, has every right to be worried. Rachel by getting back in touch with her brother will also be getting back in touch with her heritage and the fact that she is Richard’s Lana-zeel and he is her Lanor-zur. (Are carved in Lapis Lazuli… oops Yeats moment there. Man, that was close.) Charles is getting cock blocked but good. Soon Richard will be in her bed and luring his mate into breeding with him.

Oh man, I swear people use the paranormal category to get away with stuff that would never pass muster otherwise. Please keep in mind at all times while reading this book that Richard is her “adopted brother” and your tray in an upright locked position… What did you just say? You are just plain sick, hear me, shame on you! The sex scenes in this book are “hot hot hot” which is also a really good remixed Cure song. Evangeline Anderson is working that Werewolf sex thang for all it is worth here.

So, the sex is hot and the guy is hot but did I have problems with the rest of the story? I mean it is violent, and you will find out why Richard has hunted his dear sister down and it is not just for the great sex. It might also be because he turns into a mindless homicidal werewolf during full moons and the only thing that can stop him is a little sisterly lovin. Egyptian Werewolves are freaks like that.

One of the noticeable problems I had is with the “no means yes”. Seems every sex scene between Rachel and her humpalicious brother Richard included the word NO and the word STOP and the letter OOOOH, again and again. Even as a gay man who has said “No, a thousand times no!” to a big bruiser in bed only to later allow him to ravish my delicate behind (HAH!), it really started to irk me out. I guess she did not want to come across as a major slut yelling “Do me now Moondoggy, I’ll be your Gidget forevers!”. Rachel just overplays this stuff and seems to feel being Amon-kai makes her queen of denial. She denies just about everything…

From Page 68
“That’s enough!” I pulled away from him suddenly, sitting up in bed, heedless of the fact that he could see my bare breasts. “Don’t, Richard,” I told him, holding up a hand when he would have gathered me into his arms. “Don’t. We can’t — it’s wrong.”

“Sorry…I’m sorry.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, his eyes glowing green in the darkness of the room. “It’s just that I…I missed you so much, Rache.”

I knew it was more than that — more than missing — more than longing for whatever it was that we had had as children that was now perhaps lost to us forever. But I didn’t want to admit it to myself or to Richard.

“Let’s just…just go to sleep.” I fumbled for my nightshirt, suddenly aware of my state of undress.

“Wait…” He put out a hand to stop me. “Let me just…let me look at you for a minute. You’re so beautiful, Rachel, so absolutely gorgeous. I just want to look, I swear.”

“All — all right,” I said at last. Lowering my crumpled nightshirt to my lap, I let him see me, let him drink in the sight of me bare-breasted in the dim light of my room.

“Goin’ on a spider hunt,” he said softly, trailing one long finger over my full breasts and down to the shivering cup of my navel. “X marks the spot.”

But instead of marking an X on my trembling flesh, he cupped my naked breasts in his hands, rubbing gently over my tight nipples with his thumbs until I had to bite back a moan.

“You said…you said you just wanted to look,” I accused him in a breathless whisper. I wanted to pull away from him, but somehow I didn’t feel able.

“I can’t help myself,” he murmured, still stroking the tight nubs of my sensitive nipples. “I need to touch you, Rachel. Even if it’s just to play a child’s game.”

I don’t think it was lost on either of us that what we were doing was much more serious than any game we’d played as children. From somewhere deep inside of me, I found the strength to pull away from him and slip my nightshirt back over my head.

“No more ‘spider hunt’ tonight,” I said. “Okay?”

“All right.” He made as though to leave the bed, but I pulled him back, unable to let him go no matter what forbidden thing had just happened or almost happened between us.
“Just hold me,” I told him. “Hold me and let’s go to sleep.”

Richard lay with me cupped in the curve of his body in the old familiar way. But when his hands traveled under my nightshirt and cupped the bottom curves of my breasts, I somehow couldn’t stop him. Even when he stroked my nipples with gentle fingers, I didn’t say a word, although I told myself I would if he tried anything else. To my mingled relief and disappointment, he didn’t try to go any further. But I felt a hot hardness pressing against the back of my thighs, reminding me that the innocence of our childhood was gone forever even as he stroked me to sleep.

Uh yeah…

After more than a few moments like this and even up to the very last pages of the book Rachel’s denial makes her character seem fucking weak for a lawyer. A District mother fucking Attorney? Then Richard saves her sorry ass several times and god damn it, instead of moral outrage, I wanted her to show the stud some sort of obligation to try and overcome her inner (The man is my brother, I shall not want. Oooooh look at his shiny hard magically delicious cock.) turmoil and at least throw him a dang bone.

I am not even so sure on the HEA here. Rachel, like her mother, might take off on poor old brother Richard eventually. The ongoing protests and the constant denial well, it undercut my trust in her judgment and frankly it undermined her change of heart at the very end of the book as believable and long lasting. No matter how many paragraphs were used to justify the switch.

But! STOP, NO, WAIT, OOOOOOOH! This book is still well worth picking up. Richard is magically delicious (Yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers!) and the sex is hotter than any of the current batch of eBooks I have bought lately and damn it all, if I can overlook HER, you can overlook HER. Just like you can overlook everything bad I just said because the “no means yes” and the sisterly lovin is fun, and the attempted fiance rape scene… well hey, Charles was in the way. Richard’s knotty dick of death made for a great diversion I’m sure.

Grade B as in buy it!