Vroom, the sound of my eyeballs reading quickly

A couple of these I missed the other day and some I've read since then. Whee, I'm on a roll.

The Strongest Shape by Tessa Cardenas (232 pages)



Fashion photographer Caleb moves to LA with his actor boyfriend who promptly dumps him. He meets Jason who introduces him to Scott and Chris who are together but for some weird reason hide it. Anyway, eventually the invite Caleb to join their relationship which he does. There is skepticism on the part of some of their friends as to whether it will work and dealing with parents understanding and accepting the relationship, dealing with jealousy (external not internally) and two guys who are total guys who don't like to talk about feelings and one who drags it out of them. The writing style is kind of first person present tense or something like that. It's weird and took me a while to get used to, not totally off-putting but definitely different. On the whole I enjoyed the story although it strayed perilously close to PwP after they got together but there was enough other stuff going on to save it. I liked the characters, you wanted it to work for them but I think the realities were pretty well done. So I enjoyed it despite the narrative style.

Masquerade by Clare London (74 pages)



Okay, I'm really not into fantasy especially when it's medieval type. This is 4 shorts (or one medium and 3 shorty shorts) each set in a different fantasy time from medieval to industrial revolution and each one has a paranormal twist to it. From kind of an empath, to a wizard, to a vampire to ... silkworm thing? I have no clue. LOL None of them have a typical HEA. The writing is well done and the imagination is certainly there to come up with these worlds and ideas but it's really not my thing. So I didn't dislike the book(s), it just didn't catch my interest all that much.

Horsfall 3: As the Crow Flies by Jade Buchanan (76 pages)



Book 3 in the series of Simon and his shire horse shifter twin lovers Bay and Marshall. Simon's on a business trip in the mountains where he meets some weird crows who turn out to be shifters as well. Then he finds out Bay has disappeared along with their old nemesis Tim Y. He races back to the ranch to help Marshall find Bay with the help of the crows. He also finally admits to his friend that he's with both guys. It was okay, more plot about the bad guy and the crows explaining things and less about the relationship which really has me curious as this does not appear to be twincest but they share together sometimes, but he also seems to indicate that they don't always sleep together so I'm more curious about they make a relationship like that work without more jealousy which was never really touched on. So it was okay and I like all the characters but I'd like to see more about how they are making the relationship function on a day-to-day basis.

Diamond in the Shade by DJ Manley (109 pages)



I've had this sitting in my file forever and for some reason didn't read it. No real reason it just didn't appeal. I finally settled down and read it. This is my first book by this author. Diamond is a Hungarian orphan who was raised by some kind of religious order with one goal, kill vampires, no emotion, no feeling. He is sent to NYC when the slayer there dies and he runs into Sebastien Shade, a vampire who also hunts bad vamps and had a relationship with a slayer years ago. Diamond is stuck in the old black and white world of vamps = bad, end of story. He's forced to rethink things when Shade captures him and forces him to work with them against a greater evil and he falls in love with Shade as well. It was a good story about Diamond being forced to finally face his feelings and break away from good/bad world and see some shades of gray. I liked Shade's coworkers although I thought Diamond went from no emotions to falling in love pretty fast and my one niggle was the ending was just kind of wrapped up in a cople of paragraphs that I would have liked to know more about. It was like "That's it? The bad guy is dead and it's over? Why?" So some more explanation would have worked or me. But I liked it on the whole.

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys by Lynn Lorenz (100 pages)



This is a book about role playing and while I'm not into boys in skirts and had concerns when I bought it, it didn't turn out to be what I feared. That makes no freaking sense. Anyway, Simon's hotel owner boss is having a costume party where guests have to come in drag or as a man depending on their invite. Simon gets stuck in drag and is trying to find a costume when a guy helps him buy an Indian princess outfit. Seems it wasn't a salesman but another party guest who's attracted to Simon and is going as a cowboy. Cowboys and Indians, get it? Oh and Simon is Korean. So they meet at the party and hit it off right away and within minutes get a room. And then do the whole role play thing about him being and Indian Prince in disguise captured by the cowboy and forced to submit. It's very well done with lots of playful banter between the two guys. The first half of the book is them meeting then the last half them in the hotel room. The gist of the story? Two guys develop a love of guyliner. :-) It was a cute story, I liked Simon a lot, I thought his interactions with his sister were very funny. A nice little read but I like this author's work as a general rule so I wasn't too worried.