The Politics Of Dancing
January 23, 2008
I was trying to put my thoughts together on a review I am doing of Amber Green’s Bareback. Then it occurred to me that I would probably spend the entire review simply relating an issue I have with some Gay Romances in general when it comes to using the old Straight To Gay Male Character Story Arc. Read more
Ménage à Trois In Review
January 13, 2008
Ah the Ménage à Trois. What a great reason to start off with Samantha Kane. Don’t you think? Read more
Jo Carlisle: Raina’s Fantasy
August 26, 2007
Raina’s Fantasy by Jo Carlisle
From: Ellora’s Cave
First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
You know who I was rooting for in Silence of The Lambs? You might think it was Clarice Starling but you would be wrong. Sure it was Jodie Foster’s best movie role but she did not sell me her character. You know who made her shine? Dr. Hannibal Lecter made her shine, and that is who I was left rooting for at the end of the movie, not Clarice. It’s all about liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
The way it worked so well for me was that Dr. Hannibal Lecter was not an idiot, he was not some raging monster, he functioned incredibly well and interacted very intelligently far more so than any other character in that movie and even Clarice noted he had honor. He just did not share our sense of right and wrong, our social taboos. He ate people. Yet you and I wanted him to have an HEA at the end of that film. Oh, come on admit it.
Jo Carlisle, creator of Drakkon, come on down!
What shall I say about this story? OK here is what Jo initially sets up for us.
Johan Stone, Alpha Supreme, and his faithful yet sick side kick Zane Ramsey, are discredited Warriors (fantasy world cops) and Zane is starting to succumb to pneumonia while still looking good in a g-string. So Johan has a bright idea to sell their asses into slavery.
Vampire Queen Raina Zharov out bids the evil demon Drakkon and makes our boys her slaves.
Zane is totally into the slave thing they have fallen into and even the homo sex with his best buddy turns him on big time. With both feet he jumps right in. Johann on the other hand is ALPHA, so no go on the slave show. That is until he figures out that him and missy Vampire Queen got a thing going on. So basically the first half of this book you get this…
He’d do anything for Raina. For Zane.
Anything at all, no matter the cost to himself.
Was this…love?
Yes, he’d always loved Zane. Raina had him pegged on that score. If not for the extraordinary circumstances they’d found themselves in, would he ever have expressed those feelings toward Zane physically? Probably not.
But what about Raina? Truth be told, she’d done nothing but try to protect her men since she’d rescued them from Lash and whisked them from Drakkon’s clutches. She’d tried to comfort him, to convince him she wasn’t the enemy. Had worried over their safety as they’d gone into the night poorly armed to search for a killer. With Zane’s and Alexi’s help, she’d healed him from the demon attack, then saved his sanity when the ardin merged with his DNA.
Being the Vampire Queen, she must conduct herself in accordance with the law, but she wasn’t at all selfish and cold as she’d have others believe. Raina was sexually free, compassionate, beautiful—
Two truths hit Johan between the eyes like twin hammers.
Hadn’t he already guessed? The thread glowed brighter between him and Raina, illuminating his heart and soul, every fiber of his being, because she was…his mate. My mate! He couldn’t explain how he knew, but he did. The other truth?
Johan, former warrior-turned-slave, was falling hard for Raina Zharov.
Gods, how is this possible? My Queen, my mistress, my mate.
And he didn’t have a fucking clue how to avoid becoming entangled in her silken web. A bitter laugh escaped his lips. Too late. Damn it to Hades, he should leave. Take his chances and just go, as soon as possible.
At once, the bond screamed in protest and terror, a white-hot lance skewering his brain. The beast added to the cacophony, roaring in displeasure, coiling his muscles into a knot at the very idea of abandoning his mate. Mine!
Gritting his teeth, Johan gripped the chains and rode the agony, muttering a foul oath. Didn’t Raina know the shackles at his wrists and ankles were no longer necessary?
His own traitorous heart had performed the task just fine.
Trapped like the animal he’d become, with no way out.
Yeah, I know. Me ALPHA, you mate! Let’s fuck! *yawn*
But then, Jo gets us to chapter 16 and Missy Mate the Vampire Queen has a little public confrontation with Drakkon the Demon King…
“You consume human flesh, Drakkon. That’s wrong on so many levels, I can’t even begin.”
“Why?” He sounded genuinely baffled. “If a group of middle-class humans pickets a meat-packing plant with signs declaring ‘save the cows’, they’re dismissed as weirdoes. I, on the other hand, perform a service to humans and shifters by cleansing the earth of their lesser brethren. Through the slave system, I dispose of career criminals and other foul wretches no one wants littering the streets. They are my cows, if you will. The choice slaves I use for sex, same as any upper-class member. And I do all of this legally. Why is that wrong, yet your consumption of human blood and ownership of that lovely thrall isn’t?”
Zane glanced down at his mistress from under his lashes. The demon hit a nerve. Her lips were drawn into a grim line, her face taut with anger. The scary thing was, every word he’d said was true. A prime example of what made Drakkon such a dangerous enemy, of how he kept the Council in his corner. Smooth talker with a forked tongue. Typical politician.
“Touché. Be that as it may, I’m not here to debate with you. I’ve come to propose a trade, one of mutual benefit to us both.”
My bored mind suddenly came awake and my pop culture sensibilities came alive and I was… Oh Jo! You are not going there, are you girl?!
Oh and she did, oh she did! She has Zane, the happy thrall, get corrupted by Hannibal Drakkon!
Oh Clarice NO!
“Mercy,” he croaked.
“No, because you do not want me to stop. Tell me what you really desire. Say it!”
“H-h-hurt me…please…”
The strikes redoubled, falling with ruthless precision. Each one sent shocks to his dick. The fog thickened until he reached and found the prize. Rapture.
“Yes, yesss,” he sobbed.
As if sensing he’d broken the thrall at last, Drakkon tossed aside the whip. He dragged two fingers through the blood on Zane’s skin and came to stand in front of him once more. Slashing open his own wrist, he watched as the dark liquid beaded on the surface. He rubbed the crimson fingers into his wrist, mingling their blood, then held his wrist to Zane’s lips.
“Taste.”
On instinct, Zane tried to avert his head. Restrained as he was, Drakkon dabbed his lips with little effort and out of sheer reflex, Zane’s tongue flicked out to clean off the droplets.
“Ohh!” His heart and lungs seized, his brain spinning. He’d never mainlined heroin, had avoided that deadly Venus flytrap, but this is exactly what he imagined the high to be like. An addictive rush bleeding to every fiber, carrying him toward his destiny, black and final.
When the demon’s wrist touched his lips again Zane didn’t resist. He latched on hungrily, drinking with greedy swallows, loving the heady nectar pouring down his throat. Taking the essence of his master inside him.
“Now you are mine,” the demon approved, stroking Zane’s hair with his free hand. “We will keep our secret for a while, but I am your master in truth. Only I will be able quench the dark fire burning within you. After tonight, I will stay away until your urgency to submit to my touch drives you mad, until your sanity hovers on the brink. And when I call, you’ll come to me eagerly. Beautiful thrall…mine forever.”
“Yours, my lord, to do with as you wish,” he whispered, nuzzling his face into the beloved hand. The awesome instrument of sadistic cruelty, carnality stripped to its most primal elements.
What am I saying? What have I done?
Drakkon smiled, caressing his cheek. “That’s right, sweet boy. The others will try to fill your head with lies about me, but you will not listen. If you betray me, you’ll accomplish nothing but your own destruction because your body and soul cannot survive without me. Have I given you anything except what you so desperately need?”
“No, my lord.”
“Have I done anything to your delicious body that you did not desire?”
He closed his eyes. “No.”
The hand left his face and he felt the absence of the sensual touch like a physical blow. Blinking, he sought his captor…and sucked in an appreciative breath. Drakkon stood naked in his most human form, clothing vanished. Ebony hair tumbled past his shoulders, framed his massive, gorgeous chest. He was all muscled perfection and olive skin. The enormous penis jutting between his thighs and the weighty orbs beneath testified he wasn’t anywhere near human. In true demon form, supersized all over, could Zane house all of that magnificent length?
A feral, determined expression hardened Drakkon’s face. He stepped around the rack, positioning himself behind his prey. He parted Zane’s ass, nudging his tight hole. Pushed in just the head, teasing. “My thrall.”
“Please,” he begged, reason gone. “If you don’t take me, I’ll die.”
“Never forget it.”
YES! Fucking YES!
My inner editor came out during the standing ovation and wanted Jo to go back shift as much as possible to Zane’s POV, dump a couple of characters, and let Missy Vampire Queen and Johann (I’m an ALPHA) do their thing on the back burner. *yawn* Zane was the one I needed to watch slowly be setup for the downfall.
So you see, this is not a perfect book. None of the other sex scenes besides the one in chapter 16 hit me because everybody recovered so easily from the dramatic moments. Even the straight guy, Johann (I’m an ALPHA DAMN IT!) and his side kick Zane fucking away did not register because there was no real solid angst to hang off of, no moments of OMG, before or after. I was not really sold any sense of trepidation.
But… this wonderful Demon King and Zane? Oh hell yes!
When Drakkon is impressed with Zane all hung up and ready to fuck crying for him to “do me Daddy” in his native form, he did not want a bed time story, that was true love right there baby.
I could really tell where this writer was having fun and honestly if this is her fun then honey take those old Romance rules in both hands and go *SNAP*. If I wanted safe I would not be buying eBooks, I would buy Harlequins. Jo, you had me begging for you to turn the tables on my ass and let the bad guy and his angst ridden corrupted love slave get the HEA. All Romance says is there has to be an HEA, it does not say WHO gets one.
I suddenly wanted a whole book dedicated to Zane as he betrays his (cardboard cut-out) friends at the whims of his Dark Lord and Master, Drakkon the Evil Demon King. I want that sweet sweet evil demon lovin PLEASE.
They are that good together.
I have argued with myself over this grade girl. This is may have not been in your plans Jo but you hit on some great characters in the second half and saved this dang book from an average score.
Great villains with great sex scenes deserve Grade B at the least.
Treva Harte: Home
August 16, 2007
I guess you might say I have become a fan of the eBook and the eBook writer. Up until recently my keeper shelf was a entirely made up of hard to find or very select books. Books that for their time redefined SF or helped define a genre like Gay Romance. Now through wonderful websites like Samhain and Loose-Id and even Ellora’s Cave (at least their back catalog) I am finding exciting new voices breaking the old bland Romance Rules.
These eBook writers I know will never get reviews on the pages of fearfully homophobic rags like Romantic Times or be invited to submit stories to crap mongers like Harlequin. *sob* heh
But… I will love them, I will say they are far superior than anything those fools will ever provide. In fact I think next time I make an order to Amazon I will let you guys see just the type of paperback books I am now buying.
But meanwhile let’s hit a fine example of an entire series that blew me the fuck away. Let’s all focus on the twisted styling of Treva Harte.
Walk Away ~ Alpha Series Book 1 by Treva Harte
From: Loose-Id
Grey already had his pants down to his boots, and Lowell audibly swallowed at the sight of Grey’s erection. The noise made Leila shift her feet. Should she do … something? Grey shoved his cock into Lowell’s mouth, and the younger man’s lips closed over him without any more words.
“Let’s see if we can fuck the sass out of you, pup.” Dek’s voice was almost gentle, yet the words held just enough threat to make Leila wonder.
But Lowell didn’t seem worried. The moan he gave as Dek thrust from behind wasn’t from pain or fear. Leila knew just what that sound was because she’d made it often enough when Dek fucked her. Lowell writhed again, but this time both men over him grunted with satisfaction.
Dear heavenly wonder from above. Leila had seen things in bars and outside them, but she’d never … she’d never …
It was beautiful. Frightening and strange, but beautiful. The three of them rocked together in as intimate an embrace as any trio could have, a mix of force and anger and pure sex. And tenderness. As they moved together, she could see all of that in how Lowell tilted his head back for Grey. How Grey clutched the omega’s hair. How Lowell sighed when Dek moved inside him. How, in turn, that sigh against Grey’s cock made Grey cry out with pleasure. She stared as they paused. The tableau shifted from moonlight to shadow, skin gleaming bright and then hidden again, teasing her with a glimpse of the male mating dance.
Leila realized her hand was still over her mouth and she was biting it to keep from shouting out with them. Her other arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, the way she wished she was being held.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Grey was moving again, rapidly, pumping in and out of Lowell’s mouth.
“Swallow the whole fucking thing, pup,” Grey rasped out. “Take my come like it was candy.”
She could feel a wet trickle run down her leg when Grey moaned his delight with Lowell’s response. His fists dug into Lowell’s back for a moment, then slowly relaxed. Lowell dropped his head down once Grey was done and hid his face in his hands, working his ass harder, grinding it against Dek.
“Got the spot, didn’t I?” Dek sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth. “Not so unhappy about me pounding into your ass now, are you?”
“God, no.”
“You don’t want me to stop, then?”
“Jesus, don’t stop now, Boss. I’m so … fucking … close …”
A half-second later, Lowell’s howl rose up, uncertainly at first, then stronger. He bucked, almost as if to dislodge Dek, and then stiffened in place. Dek stepped back, and Lowell dropped to the ground, panting.
“Who is top dog, pup?”
“You are.”
“Fucking right. Don’t forget that.”
Wow! Devlin Kinkaid and Leila have a sorta messed up romantic history with each other. She was raised in an abusive household and he, being the Big Bad Wolf he is, not only got her out of it but he also got her pregnant in doing so. They meet up a few years later and much to his surprise Dek meets his little girl Lin that he fathered right before running off to form his own pack. Leila is not especially happy meeting up with Dek again, but after a bit of huffing and puffing with the Big Bad Wolf she lets him blow her house down so to speak and winds up back at the pack house. She then meets the members of his pack Grey and Lowell who will become stars in their own books later on here.
As you can tell from the excerpt above this book not only has some twisted sexual content, the main hero of the book spreads it around so to speak and Leila finds out she likes to watch him do it. I do not think Harlequin would have gone for this story line. But damn, it is hot and despite the feeling I get that most of the characters could use several years of professional therapy. I figure they have this uneasy truce between their werewolf side and their human side and it does not lend itself to a nice mellow lifestyle or sex life.
Stay ~ Alpha Series Book 2 by Treva Harte
From: Loose-Id
“Weres and non-weres can’t breed. I don’t know what Leila is. I thought she was some kind of latent were when I found out about Lin. Maybe Leila is. But our children aren’t. If they don’t change to were, true were, I don’t think they can mate. Not a one has become were, and they’re long past the age I was when I first had the change.”
“Lin fucking well can mate — err, sorry.” Lowell blushed at Dek’s glacial stare. “That wasn’t what you meant anyhow. You mean you think we won’t have children?”
“I’m almost positive.”
No children. The reason one struggled to become alpha was to mate and breed. The whole purpose of the pack was to protect each other and the future.
“I see.” Lowell stared down at his hands, avoiding Dek’s gaze as the older man had avoided his earlier.
“You know … we both know … what that means. We love her dearly but if you want to void your — arrangement — with Lin, we’d understand. I’d understand if you want to walk from all of us. There’d be no bad blood between our packs. I’d explain to her.”
Black loss roiled up in Lowell. He was alpha. He owed the future to his pack. Fuck owing. Fuck the future. He wasn’t going to face it without Lin.
“No! You could never explain that to Lin because it’s not an arrangement. It was a mating. She’s mine.” And I’m hers. “We can work out something. Packs have lost litters before and managed. Hell, packs have killed pack heirs before and thrived. When other alphas took over, your parents’ pack gave killing you a damn good try. You survived. You created another, stronger, better pack.”
“Rogue weres, blood coups, and badly managed packs exist. But what would your pack want from you? What would Lin want?” Dek tapped his fingers on the porch railing.
His pack had always been ready to eat him for breakfast. He’d never been fully accepted since he first took over. Maybe he’d made a few wrong choices at first, but that had come from inexperience. This — this — was different. It was a deliberate choice to flout what the pack needed.
Dek’s pack would have to decide, too. If they put the choice off for the next generation, it would only be more desperate for Dek’s children.
Old habits died hard. Somewhere deep down, Lowell still believed Dek was the smartest were. The worthy alpha. Dek’s ex-omega fought asking the question and lost. If he admitted he needed advice, so be it.
“What do you want to do about your own pack, Dek?”
“After Rome, there will be no one.” Dek swallowed. “We haven’t taken in anyone else since I realized what the future meant.”
Oblivion. That’s what no children meant for a pack.
“The hell with that. We still don’t know if what you think is true. But if it is, my pack will make a different future if we have to.” Lowell gripped his old mentor’s shoulder, wondering if he’d have it bitten off. He’d questioned Dek. Defied him. “Damn it, Dek. I intend to find that new future with Lin next to me.”
When he first saw Lin, he hadn’t chosen her because she’d be a mother to his children. Maybe he’d figured that would all happen later. But it was Lin who had call to him above all.
Something eased in Dek’s stance. “The future will come when it does and how it wants. Not even an alpha can change that.”
“I’ll take care of my pack. And I’ll do whatever I have to for Lin.”
So, at the end of the first book Lowell, after a short but sweet BDSM scene between him and Leila, decides to head out and find a pack of his own. Lin Kinkaid, Dek and Leila’s daughter, grows up and on her eighteenth birthday she grabs Rossi and heads out bar hopping. She then dumps drunken Rossi and runs right into, big Alpha about town, Lowell fresh from getting his ass fucked in the back alley by a male patron of the sleazy bar they meet in. Ah yes, young love!
Anyway, Lin Kinkaid reignites Lowell’s interest in having an Alpha Bitch at home to share his Alphaness with and off they go to mate happily ever after. Well, maybe not “happily” seems from the excerpt above that there are some skeletons in the old Kinkaid family closet that have to be dealt with and Lowell has a few of his own sexual proclivities that will come to light.
As the series progresses the story arc just gets more and more fucking twisted and the characters more and more fucked up. This is not your grandmas idea of romance, but who wants that anyway? I read that and bought the t-shirt already, show me something new. The characters are not messed up in any seriously horrible way though because Treva Harte obviously cares deeply about each and every one of them. Even the background characters here are interesting and have depth and hidden, not always understandable, motivations. I love it!
Home ~ Alpha Series Book 3 by Treva Harte
From: Loose-Id
“I’ve heard some packs let betas have mates. Have children.” His eyes were holding steady on her but she wouldn’t look. “It’s just that out here, there are so few of us. So few women. I’ve only heard it was possible, never actually seen such a pack.”
“What are you getting at, Grey?” Mia traced the rim of the mug. “I never heard of you wanting a woman. Or children.”
“I haven’t. I don’t. Exactly.” When his hand touched her side, she jumped. “I’m sorry.”
Ridiculous. After all the things they’d done to each other in some were lust-induced madness, it was stupid to be so nervous because his fingers skimmed her hip. Mia forced herself to smile. Relax her muscles.
“No, I am. I’m being stupid.”
“Maybe.” He almost smiled. She could see it in his eyes as they warmed. “I just started wondering, probably the same as you, about what happens now. If you are pregnant.”
“I might be.” Mia looked down at her stomach. “Rome and his family figure he can’t get any were pregnant. So if I was — ”
He knew that. They all knew it. That was why he was here, wasn’t he? Why she was letting him do all those incredible things to her. At least that had been the reason.
His hand, huge and brown and callused, slipped over her stomach. Rested there.
“I do want children. I never thought it was possible, so I never let myself imagine it. But — ” he stopped.
They stared at the hand against her jeans.
“You’ve got big hands.” Mia laughed, no longer nervous. “I didn’t mean that as a comment about your other…parts…though they’re big too. But your hand is almost as long as a new baby.”
“God.” He breathed the word out, staring hard at his hand.
“I’m scared about having a baby, Grey. About everything that’s happening.” Mia let herself admit it. This Grey, the Grey she was discovering, would understand.
“Me, too.” He moved his hand away, the faint warmth still lingering. “Guess we’ll be scared together.”
Last but not least we have the final story of Grey who we met in the first book, Mia whom we met in the second book and Dek and Lin’s son Romulous Kinkaid. Romulous what a name, HEH!, those crazy Werewolves!
Seems that a new pack nearby is causing issues for both our fine wolfen families and they decide they need to start farming out a new generation of Werewolves, now with more fertile females. They grab Mia and have Grey go find Rom and they get them together to make babies. Jerry Springer is gonna have a field day with all of this I tell you. So basically, this is a menage romance between our throughly gay Grey and sweet innocent Mia and Rom, the bisexual Alpha. I told you, more and more twisted with every book.
I liked all the characters quite frankly. I loved how the men in this series were not totally straight and not totally gay, they were Werewolves and did what came naturally to them in regards to wolf pack dynamics. What happens here makes sense if you think along the lines that they have this intense animal nature just below the surface. The love stories between the hero and the heroine in each book are emotionally charged but the sex is not traditional in any sense and the series handled it as naturally as every other quirky Werewolf thing they did. The world here is not a nice, safe place with built in safety features and these characters are not nice, safe people with built in safety features either. They have serious issues, emotional scars and tons of problems but under it all they are decent people trying to survive some crazy ass shit.
Grade A for a top notch series. Thank you Treva Harte for a fine example of what exciting stories eBooks are capable of telling.
Tags: Bisexual, Grade A, Loose-Id, Treva Harte, Werewolf RomanceSmantha Kane: Brothers In Arms
March 25, 2007
Samantha Kane totally blew me away with this series. I had read Regency Romance before. I had read Ménage à Trois erotica before, but damn, just damn. Samantha did a mix and match in the Brothers In Arms series that rocks hard. Basically the setup is that these men of the Ton go off to war and get nasty reputations as cruel dudes, they said they was ruthless, they said they was crude, they had one thing in common, they were good in bed…
Oops sorry
Anyway, they get these sorta Gay leanings but only when there is a woman involved because they had not discovered Playboy magazines yet so um well, if you are gonna read Regency, well why not go for the twisted underbelly?
The Courage To Love starts us right on off with Katherine Collier, a woman fallen from grace and her trusty niece Veronica Thomas. Kate runs into her old buddies Lord Jason Randall and his bunk buddy Anthony Richards. Well one Regency moment leads to another and before long they are getting rug burns in the front foyer.
I gotta say that I was really pleased in that in not only this story but in the other one Samantha does not forget the fact there are two men in bed and she goes after that Gay angst with an ice pick. First one thing happens and then another and before you know both men are in a clinch confessing their love for each other. Damn straight! Regency sex has never been this hot.
Samantha’s second book in the series Love Under Siege has our to studly heroes Phillip Neville and Johnathan Overton scheming their way into the heart of Phillip’s new wife Margaret Trueheart. Seems Phillip was a bad boy and forgot to mention their dastardly perverted plan of threeway jungle lovin. Oh those Army boy’s I tell ya!
Robertson the EVIL VILLAIN shows back up in this book to do his dastardly deeds and we also get to meet our first threesome (No I am not typing out all those names) and Kate’s niece Veronica Thomas who had her first hand job in the last book and now seems intent on getting to know the owner of said hand, Lord Michael Kensington and his faithful sidekick Wolfgang Tarrant. I am so looking forward to that story since Veronica is in on the whole setup right from the beginning which shall be something different.
Run over to Ellora’s Cave and pick these books up. I mean perverted Regency is the only way to get through the Ton Season. Grade A and a shiny gold star for SK.
Tags: Bisexual, Ellora's Cave, Grade A, Ménage à Trois, Regency Romance, Samantha Kane
