Back to the Salt Mines

Last week was a short week for me. A stressful week as well with lots of work stuff happening at the last minute. I did get to see the Mexican President Calderon speak at our Parliament Thursday which was cool but otherwise it was long days and early morning. I know today is a holiday in the US so hope everyone there is enjoying the day off. Not sure what will happen at work this week but it's bound to be less frenzied, and probably bordering on boring.

Vamp Camp by Wynn Wagner (135 pages)

This has a much cuter goth boy on the cover of the paper version. Mårten is an American naval officer who is captured by the Germans in WWI. He is raped and turned into a vampire by one of the guards who dumps him in the with only the most basic of information. He manages to get by and meets Menz, another vampire who takes him to his estate where he learns about being a vampire from Menz and manages to fall in love with Oberon, one of the multitude of twink donors he keeps. The guard who turned him against his will manages to elude execution and is out to get Mårten and Menz as well. This is book one and is told as if Mårten knows he's telling you the story, he's got a wry voice, and there is lots of random hot smexin' amongst the donors and vamps and you get to know about the vamp council and how their culture works. I enjoyed it as it doesn't take itself too seriously and is just fun and sexy. However I had a very difficult time purchasing a pdf version, perhaps in part due to the site and I found a fair number of spelling errors through the book, but not enough to really detract from the overall story. I'll definitely be checking out the next one.

Only in his Heart by Shawn Lane (78 pages)

This is book 3 in the series which brings us to Barnaby's older doctor brother Calvin and Nathan's step-brother Matt a nurse. Matt is pretty new to the city and sees a hot guy in the cafeteria but gets the cold shoulder. Seems Calvin has a reputation of being an ice-princess. When Matt expresses interest in Calvin, his colleagues bet him $400 he can't get him into bed. Despite Matt being everything Calvin finds repugnant (earrings, rides a motorcycle) he is strangely attracted and gives into Matt's pressure without much fight. Then of course the bet comes back to bite Matt in the ass. I could see the bet problem coming a mile away and they move REALLY fast with Matt becoming totally enamoured almost immediately, however he admits it's fast and I can deal with that kind of thing when one or both of the characters are a bit baffled by their speed instead of just thinking it's normal. It was a hot sexy read and I liked Calvin much better in this one, I guess because you get to see behind his facade which came off as total asshole in Barnaby's book. I'm looking forward to the next one.