Saturday Reviews

Well, I've done a fair bit of reading even getting to bed at 10:00 last night. Of course that meant my cat thought 7:30 would be a good time to wake up. Grrr. These Olympics are kicking my butt on the sleep front. We won the gold medal in men's skeleton. Everyone expected the Canadian woman to medal but she didn't make it and she was just crying after during the interview. Break your heart. I think there can be so much pressure on them to perform. Congrats to the Brits who did win women's skeleton (yay Jen) and to the Australian woman who got the gold in women's half-pipe (yay Kris). Today is ariels and ski jumping. On with the books. I will say I'm not going to do very in-depth reviews (not that I ever do LOL) of the Petit Morts books because Jen did an amazing job of it but I'll give you my impressions, what I liked, etc.

Petit Morts 1: Hue, Tint and Shade by Jordan Castillo Price (43 pages)

This is the story of socially inept Tommy who is trying to fix it through a variety of means. While in a psychiatrists office he sees a window washer and gets his number. They hook up and Nathan is everything Tommy is not. Brave, flamboyant, a risk-taker. He brings out Tommy's confidence and they have a pretty unusual first date. I really enjoyed this little story and it was nice to see how Tommy could be confident when the situation was right.

Petit Morts 2: Slings and Arrows by Josh Lanyon (59 pages)

Carey gets a heart shaped box of chocolates from a "secret admirer". His friends tell him about a murderer on campus who would send girls chocolate then kill her on V-day which is quickly approaching. Carey has a crush on his teaching assistant Walter who is kind of weird. His friends think he's nuts to pursue the guy and even he starts to wonder if Walter is a weird stalker or just an odd guy. I have to say until nearly the end I wasn't sure either. I kept thinking "nah, he's just odd" then something would come up and I'd think "Ohhh, maybe he'll be a stalker after all" so the uncertainty certainly worked for me, although Walter would make me crazy.

Soothe the Burn by T.A. Chase (186 pages)

Alvix (and I do like that name) is trying to get his ship fixed when a man of metal offers to help him in exchange for transporting him and his men to rescue their team. Cooper and his team are part of a military experiment where their skin as it is damaged turns to flexible titanium metal. They get captured on the rescue mission by a fire people but Alvix offers to be the king's play thing in exchange for letting the others go as he is a fire eater and can't be killed by fire. Cooper doesn't want to leave but they then come back for Alvix who grew up a street kid and no one ever came back for him. Cooper and Alvix hook-up but once word gets out what Alvix is, the military wants him for experiments, the high ranking general who's son Alvix helped rescued sends him to earth with his son and another damaged soldier for protection. After being set up one too many times and nearly killed Cooper and his guys quit the military and go to find Alvix and the other two who have dropped off the grid. They then have to face down the military who have found them. I thought the whole idea of metal skin was kind of weird but was well done. I really liked Alvix, he was spunky and street smart and only wanted to live his life. The story took place over a period of time and Alvix was not expecting a relationship, Cooper was more the one chasing after him so I liked that it wasn't insta-love. It was a very complex story that I quite enjoyed and the metal skinned guy wasn't as "weird" as I thought it would be.

Love means ... No Boundaries by Andrew Grey (200 pages)

This is a continuation of Love Means ... No Shame and takes place about 5 or 6 years later. Joey who was in the other books went to college and is now living and working with Levi and Geoff. He was in a motorcycle accident and his face is very scarred which bothers him. At the last minute they are asked to host a youth orchestra member. Joey is sent to pick up Robbie who turns out to be blind. He's also lived a very sheltered life and has never been allowed to do anything. He loves it at the farm as they let him plant the garden, ride a horse and make bread and be "normal". Joey is attracted to him and obviously Robbie doesn't care about his scars. The start a relationship but Robbie has to go back to Louisiana to his family after two weeks. After a month of moping Joey takes a chance and goes to visit and has to deal with Robbie's family who didn't know he was gay and an over-protective mother. He asks Robbie to come back to the farm with him but he's afraid to leave what he knows. Can they figure out a solution? Well, you know they do because it's a romance. LOL I loved watching Robbie get to do stuff he never had been allowed and I was glad when he stood up to his friend who treated him like his mother. I thought it was well done to show how when Robbie when home he changed from a confident capable guy to someone who couldn't even go from his room to the dining room on his own. No big conflict, just them working out their differences and finding a way to make it work. I quite enjoyed this one. I still have the one which is a prequel with Geoff's dads' story to read.