Tuesday Tastes

Hope everyone in the US enjoyed your day off yesterday. Back to a 5 day week for me. But only 3 weeks and then I'm off for two. Looking forward to that, although another couple of thousand kilometres driven. Ah well, it will be worth it. We are melting up here. It's going to be 44C (111F) with the humidity today. I'm really hoping my daughter's outdoor riding lesson is cancelled. That can't be good for the horse or the kid. Ugh. It's supposed to stay like this all week, which means trying not to turn on the stove in my un-air-conditioned house and hope that the unit in my bedroom doesn't die or we blow the power grid around here. Stay cool.

Love Struck by K.T. Grant (150 pages)

Why are there two women on that cover you ask? Is it a generic cover? Nope, two women and I read it. :-) Jenny is a 25 year old business student who works part-time at a very upscale hotel. One day the hotel mogul shows up to interview the staff. Barbara is struck by Jenny (who she literally ran into a while ago at Starbucks) and is determined to get her into bed despite the fact that Jenny is 10 years younger and an employee. They finally hook-up and things are going along not bad until Jenny finds out the real reason for the interviews and feels that Barbara was hiding things from her. They have a falling out which of course because it's a romance, they work out. So how was my first all f/f book? Hmmm. I don't think I'll be changing genres, but it wasn't bad. I saw lots of parallels with m/m, the more aggressive alpha who is rich and gets their way, the younger innocent who makes them behave out of character. Although despite Jenny being 10 years younger she seemed to have her head screwed on straighter than Barbara who did stupid things like have sex with her in a public bathroom at work. Sheesh. But then Jenny got that "frozen deer in the headlights" thing going on, but I liked her more than Barbara who was soooo aggressive and was all just sex sex sex. Now I'm wondering if that was my innate prejudice coming through and if she'd been a man if it would have annoyed me so much. Made me think anyway. So if you'd like to give another genre a whirl I would recommend this book. It's nicely done, the sex is pretty steamy (even if words for girl parts always sound more rude than boy parts) and I liked Jenny's friends that she works with a lot. I'd love to read her male roommate's story. He needs a man. :-D

Knights of Pleasure by Simone Anderson (104 pages)

Dean is recovering from a bad injury he got in Iraq where he nearly lost his leg. He needs a cane to walk and has PTSD. He goes with his sister to the Renaissance Fair as she's been hanging out with the performers since her divorce. Dean meets Ethan, one of the knights and is instantly attracted and it's mutual. Ethan ends up taking him home that night and explains that he is a Dom and is looking for a "slave" and wants Dean to try it for a week. Dean's surprised as a marine that he likes this and is a bit confused but willing to try. Things are going pretty well but when Dean is injured during one of the shows trying to save a small boy, Ethan blames himself and they have a major falling out until Dean's Dad kicks Ethan's ass. Not literally. I enjoyed how it dealt with Dean feeling some confusion about what Ethan wanted and the fact that a strong independent marine would want to be submissive. I did find though that when he raised it with his sister, she seemed to know all about it and was throwing out terms like power exchange and that she would be a switch. It just seemed like she knew a lot for someone who wasn't in the lifestyle. But I liked that Dean was damaged physically and emotionally and he wasn't cured by the magical healing cock. I assume there will be other stories as it has the name of the restaurant Ethan owned with his two gay partners on the cover. So I presume they'll get their stories. I'd read them although as with this publisher there were a lot of errors in the first half that pulled me out of the story, but the second half was better and had far fewer (or I got used to them but I don't think so).

Chasing Butterflies by Cat Kane (68 pages)

Nolan is trying to get to Savannah where he is going to manage his friend's bar when he's on vacation after Nolan's BF suggested they "take a break". Everyone figures Nolan is a screw-up who can't do anything, so he's determined to prove them wrong and when the planes aren't running he rents a car and heads off. He ends up with car trouble in a small town just as their butterfly festival is about to start. At the guest house he meets Gray who charms his way into sharing his room because he's had a fight and can't go home. Needless to say things progress quickly despite Nolan knowing it's a bad move and that he's leaving soon. Maybe not so soon, the parts aren't there so he's stuck. He and Gray have a falling out when a BM takes place and Nolan's ex shows up to bail him out. The misunderstanding is pretty complicated and I don't really blame Nolan for thinking what he thought, but I hate when people talk around something "Oh, I can't talk about their business" kind of thing but drop just enough hints to fuck everything up. I was also happy to see Nolan grow a spine and stand up to his ex, and even Gray, doing what was right. So despite the BM which usually makes me crazy (and it was clarified within 24 hours so didn't drag on) it was an entertaining read and I really liked Gray's personality when he wasn't all defensive and stupid and Nolan was likable as well. :-)