Frank Tuttle ~ The Broken Bell
From: Samhain Publishing

Frank Tuttle is just one of those quiet authors from Samhain on my auto-buy list and if you are not reading The Markhat Files you ought to be. Frank is also one of the few really good writers out there I never see over exposing themselves on the internet with promotion. What ever is done is always top notch and well thought out much like Frank’s covers.

REFRESHING!

Otherwise Frank seems to be all about keeping the pen to the grindstone and putting out good book after good book.

I wish more authors did that.

Susan Cooper ~ The Dark Is Rising
(The Dark is Rising Sequence ~ Book 2)
All Available Now On Kindle!

• Midwinter’s Eve •

“Too many!” James shouted, and slammed the door behind him.
“What?” said Will.
“Too many kids in this family, that’s what. Just too many.” James stood fuming on the landing like a small angry locomotive, then stumped across to the window-seat and stared out at the garden. Will put aside his book and pulled up his legs to make room. “I could hear all the yelling,” he said, chin on knees.
“Wasn’t anything,” James said. “Just stupid Barbara again. Bossing. Pick up this, don’t touch that. And Mary joining in, twitter twitter twitter. You’d think this house was big enough, but there’s always people.”
They both looked out of the window. The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawsons’ Farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.
“Four days to Christmas,” Will said. “I wish it would snow properly.”
“And your birthday tomorrow.”
“Mmm.” He had been going to say that too, but it would have been too much like a remind-er. And the gift he most wished for on his birthday was something nobody could give him: it was snow, beautiful, deep, blanketing snow, and it never came. At least this year there was the grey sprinkle, better than nothing.

He said, remembering a duty: “I haven’t fed the rabbits yet. Want to come?”
Booted and muffled, they clumped out through the sprawling kitchen. A full symphony or- chestra was swelling out of the radio; their eldest sister Gwen was slicing onions and singing; their mother was bent broad-beamed and red-faced over an oven. “Rabbits!” she shouted, when she caught sight of them. “And some more hay from the farm!”
“We’re going!” Will shouted back. The radio let out a sudden hideous crackle of static as he passed the table. He jumped. Mrs Stanton shrieked, “Turn that thing DOWN.”

Outdoors, it was suddenly very quiet. Will dipped out a pail of pellets from the bin in the farm-smelling barn, which was not really a barn at all, but a long, low building with a tiled roof, once a stable. They tramped through the thin snow to the row of heavy wooden hutches, leav-ing dark footmarks on the hard frozen ground.
Opening doors to fill the feed-boxes, Will paused, frowning. Normally the rabbits would be huddled sleepily in corners, only the greedy ones coming twitch-nosed forward to eat. Today they seemed restless and uneasy, rustling to and fro, banging against their wooden walls; one or two even leapt back in alarm when he opened their doors. He came to his favourite rabbit, named Chelsea, and reached in as usual to rub him affectionately behind the ears, but the animal scuffled back away from him and cringed into a corner, the pink-rimmed eyes staring up blank and terrified.
“Hey!” Will said, disturbed. “Hey James, look at that. What’s the matter with him? And all of them?”
“They seem all right to me.”
“Well, they don’t to me. They’re all jumpy. Even Chelsea. Hey, come on, boy —” But it was no good.
“Funny,” James said with mild interest, watching. “I dare say your hands smell wrong. You must have touched something they don’t like. Same as dogs and aniseed, but the other way round.”
“I haven’t touched anything. Matter of fact, I’d just washed my hands when I saw you.”
“There you are then,” James said promptly. “That’s the trouble. They’ve never smelt you clean before. Probably all die of shock.”
“Ha very ha.” Will attacked him, and they scuffled together, grinning, while the empty pail toppled rattling on the hard ground. But when he glanced back as they left, the animals were still moving distractedly, not eating yet, staring after him with those strange frightened wide eyes.
“There might be a fox about again, I suppose,” James said. “Remind me to tell Mum.” No fox could get at the rabbits, in their sturdy row, but the chickens were more vulnerable; a fam-ily of foxes had broken into one of the henhouses the previous winter and carried off six nicely-fattened birds just before marketing time. Mrs Stanton, who relied on the chick- en-money each year to help pay for eleven Christmas presents, had been so furious she had kept watch afterwards in the cold barn two nights running, but the villains had not come back. Will thought that if he were a fox he would have kept clear too; his mother might be married to a jeweller, but with generations of Buckinghamshire farmers behind her, she was no joke when the old instincts were roused.

Tugging the handcart, a home-made contraption with a bar joining its shafts, he and James made their way down the curve of the overgrown drive and out along the road to Dawsons’ Farm. Quickly past the churchyard, its great dark yew trees leaning out over the crumbling wall; more slowly by Rooks’ Wood, on the corner of Church Lane. The tall spinney of horse-chestnut trees, raucous with the calling of the rooks and rubbish-roofed with the clut-ter of their sprawling nests, was one of their familiar places.
“Hark at the rooks! Something’s disturbed them.” The harsh irregular chorus was deafen- ing, and when Will looked up at the treetops he saw the sky dark with wheeling birds. They flapped and drifted to and fro; there were no flurries of sudden movement, only this clamorous interweaving throng of rooks.
“An owl?” “They’re not chasing anything. Come on, Will, it’ll be getting dark soon.”
“That’s why it’s so odd for the rooks to be in a fuss. They all ought to be roosting by now.”
Will turned his head reluctantly down again, but then jumped and clutched his brother’s arm, his eye caught by a movement in the darkening lane that led away from the road where they stood. Church Lane: it ran between Rooks’ Wood and the churchyard to the tiny local church, and then on to the River Thames.

Like an old friend handing you a cozy cup of hot tea late on a cold winter’s night.

This may be the second book in the series but it is in my opinion the first book to really matter as in a Classic Paranormal YA worth reading kinda way. Susan Cooper started this series going for a more “children’s” style which is dominant in the first and third books of this series. Which may be why I find them less appealing

On the other hand I think that the books that focus on Will Stanton as he faces the changes of becoming an “Old One” are where the real magic is at. She found something with that character they made her better as a writer. Some magic connection.

That means I highly recommend this second book first… The Dark Is Rising, and then the fourth book The Grey King and finally the big finish with the fifth book Silver On The Tree. I leave the first and third, all these books are wonderfully standalone anyway, for those who come to enjoy the magic of this series and want to read a bit more but I just think they do not represent her best stuff.

So if you want Christmas Classic Paranormal YA here is the best on my shelf. Grade A+

About that tragic movie version of this timeless classic… Listen, the director David L. Cunningham is this “Holy Roller” bigoted greedy materialistic piece of trash who “had problems” with the pagan stuff described in the writing. So instead of dropping out for “personal reasons” like any honest professional person would do he decided to sabotage the entire project with his “Christianized version” of the story and totally bizarre script writer (The guy from Trainspotting? For this?) and casting choices. He did a great job of tanking the film.

DO NOT BUY THAT CRAP MOVIE! I hope no one ever hires that dishonest SOB director again.

Josh Lanyon ~ Lone Star
From: Carina Press

Review of: Josh Lanyon ~ Death Of A Pirate King

Marquesate ~ Basic Training
From: MLR Press

Review of: Marquesate ~ Her Majesty’s Men

K.A. Mitchell ~ Bad Boyfriend
From: Samhain Publishing

Sarah over at Rain On The Roof is doing her best of 2011. I am impressed because frankly I cannot even begin to do one. I think the closest I got was adding Marquesate ~ Her Majesty’s Men to my Christmas must have eBook list.

So of course I am going to have to buy that other Marquesate book that Sarah mentioned in her list along with this K.A. Mitchell number. There you go Sarah and I both like Marquesate. That’s two whole Military Gay Romance books by the same author, buy now, go!

The facts are too many Gay Romances this year even from some of the top epublishers blew the fuck up over content editing. Lots of lazy drawn out highly noticeable instances of telling the reader instead of showing. The authors in many cases had written top heavy (Too many setup chapters) or bottom heavy (Too many closing chapters to get to their idea of an HEA) stories with parts in need of trimming and/or fleshing out and the Editors were obviously absent to tell them to fix the content issues. Then in the “candy wrapper” crew you have Gay Romance epubs like Dreamspinner getting away with what seems to be absolutely no editing or direction at all. I simply refuse to buy from them anymore because they are tragic and from their lame excuses you know, they know, they are selling rough drafts.

When an epub “Editor” (I use that term loosely… Because when did pushing a button in a Spell Checker and maybe one of those new Grammar Checkers qualify you as an Editor?) has no clue what the basic “no brainer” difference is between a Gay Romance and your typical everyday Gay Fiction and that slapping on a few chapters at the end for a quick sex scene and maybe a kiss does not make up for having no focus on any developing relationship arc the rest of the book well I just have no time for pathetic excuses or people who promote themselves as selling “Gay Romance” trying to tell me their books suddenly do not have to follow “Romance rules” because they are now “Dark” or “M/M” or whatever newly made up definition they want to use mid-conversation…

Yeah, whatever you freaking prima donna. If you cannot prove you know what something is in the first place and sell it to readers properly labeled and edited how can we trust you to know how to get anything else right?

Sure it’s my opinion, and a few others mind you, but I am first and foremost a Romance reader of both traditional Straight and the newer Gay type of books for years now and I have a great deal more experience than these clowns even reading Gay Fiction growing up back in the good old days when we had Gay Fiction or as they like to call it now Gay Lit writers worth reading so get the hell out of my face with the whole “I don’t understand”. I might be a dinosaur but you are a fucking putz so fuck you!

Anyway, 2011 for me was frankly a disappointment when it came to discovering new writers to talk about because unfortunately in most cases the authors I thought had something going for them chose to be published by crappy “candy wrapper” epubs with no real Editors in sight to say the least. The few authors I talked to honestly about this issue knew they were choosing this and made some off the wall excuse for it. How do you even begin to recommend that mess? I can’t, that’s how. I won’t. If you want to stay amateur in thinly veiled fan fiction land with the pretty covers and nothing else to offer. I’ll let someone else shower charity upon you precious. Oh, she’s such a nice person even though she knows she is ripping off her readers with unedited rough drafts and bare outlines of stories. Isn’t that special?

Pretty pictures might make the sale but your unedited story was a big old fail.

Catch me I’m bustin a rhyme! Don’t worry Pookie there is always the idiot zombies on Goodreads that will tell you how great you are and slather you with endless five star reviews and make excuses for every failure. You won’t learn anything and your writing will still be packaged like so much fan fiction but hey the fanbois are there for your little “self pubbing” ego boo when in reality none of that makes up for a professional Editor that tells you “no” often and never let’s you off the hook and a couple of really honest critique groups that know where you live and will hound you till you get it right.

From what I have seen and been involved in just the few years of blogging about Gay Romance if you are trying to do this all by yourself with no professional help and without any honest interactions or confrontations to your vanity you are so fucked. Shallow back patting and social niceties are for dinner parties not books. Smart bitches expect an honest answer even if it means they might have to go back to the drawing board.

So no big 2011 lists from me. It would be too short to matter.

Samantha Kane ~ Love’s Surrender (Brothers In Arms 9)
From: Ellora’s Cave

Review of: Samantha Kane ~ The Courage To Love (Brothers In Arms 1)

Heidi Cullinan ~ Nowhere Ranch
From: Loose Id

Rainbow Awards

Full Review: Heidi Cullinan ~ Nowhere Ranch

K.Z. Snow ~ Visible Friend
From: Dreamspinner Press

From: Rainbow Awards

Go Anne Cain!

Ensan Case ~ Wingmen
1979 Avon
From: Cheyenne Publishing

Speak It’s Name Review

Early World War 2 Gay Romance
Reprint announced February 2012

MIMA ~ Wild Within (Bonded Fantasy 1)
From: Liquid Silver Books

Yet it had been two days now and she had not been able to get a coherent word out of Rylan since. She was terrified, furious, that it was too late. Now she sat in this winter cold room that was Rylan’s latest shak, a poor one as he struggled between sicknesses.Her eyes drifted over the cracked walls, the gaps and the chips, the rough clay floor. It is empty of more than the belongings I’ve sold for fresh water and food, she thought. This life of ours is dead, and this key is going to pick the lock of the Beast caves.

She wrestled Rylan into a pair of thick pants, a tunic, and a sweater she’d been using as his pillow. She was rough, glad when she shook him awake. She was panting as she finished wrapping his belt on and tying his warclub to it. She stuffed his feet into boots and stood glaring down at him.

“I’m leaving. If you want to live, get up and follow me.”

Her words fell hard and cold, but she knew he would heed them. He could not delay any longer. The final chance to decide in favor of life over death was here, and she was confident of his choice, despite how his fear for her had made him wait until his body was at its weakest.

She turned and walked out into the harsh white sun.

She waited outside, leaning against the house. The sun was bright, but not warm enough to heat the adobe. As she waited for him to summon the will to follow her, her mind raced. Free of the burden to convince him to go, she thought again of her weak plan on how she was going to get there. Her only supplies were an oilskin wrapped around her waist with a coil of rope, and sharp throwing stones currently tied around a smaller rope’s ends like a bolo. She had no food, as her stomach growled around the dry heels she’d forced down. But she wouldn’t have gotten this far in life without being able to think on an empty stomach. When Rylan staggered, wheezing, into the doorway, she ducked under his arm to drape it around her shoulders, and they were off, heading due south. South out of the City, and south to find the Beasts.

KarRa and Rylan have been friends since they were children living and thieving together in the slums of a great city. Rylan you see is not human though, he is a Trux, and when he starts getting sick KarRa in desperation decides they must journey to the caves of the beasts where he might be taken in and cured. This will mean that KarRa must go with him and face the dangers of the unknown.

I got this eBook from All Romance eBooks last April in one of their giveaways and fell in love with MIMA’s writing. Here is a fantasy world lush with detail and the deadly Trux warriors with their rituals and culture are strange and mysterious. This is mainly a Straight Romance series but there are several gay scenes that you come across and it looks like the latest book is a flat out Ménage Romance… anyway I really liked this first book so much I went and bought a few more and I just noticed this week there are like 8 books in the series now and I really need to catch up on my reading. In other words MIMA slow down please.

The great thing is that MIMA is a smart writer and has kept each of the books in the series a stand alone story and let’s face the fact that out of nine books it is pretty much a sure thing that you will run into some that will not work for you. So with this series you can start from the beginning and work your way forward or you can just pick and choose the ones that look like something you might enjoy reading and just go for it.

Thank you MIMA for being not only a talented writer but an intelligent one. I wish more writers made more of an effort to write series books as stand alone so the reader does not get bogged down having to slog through a book they would rather not read just to get to one they do.

This first book gets a Grade A for getting me hooked on the series. The whole series in fact is an auto buy for me presently and I will wait till it is through before grading it but so far things are pretty damn awesome.