K.C. Burn – Erotic Romance Author

I don’t know if these have all been posted over the last week, or whether I’ve just noticed them, but I have gotten a TON of great reviews.  It’s like Christmas all over again!  Most of them are for Cop Out, but there was a new one for Blood Relations, too.  Which was also nice because I just submitted the manuscript for the third MIA book (finally!) so here’s hoping Loose Id likes it

Interview first… I’ve been interviewed over at House Millar, so please stop by and check it out… all you’ve ever wanted to know about me and probably a hell of a lot more

Cop Out

5 Fairies at JPB Reviews: “I highly recommend this book if you like stories about finding love in the most unexpected places.”

4.5 Stars at Between the Covers: “This story had the potentially to be mediocre, but was handled in such a way that even the cliche moments feel right in what is a heart-wrenching, feel-good love story.”

4 Ladybugs at Musings of a Bookworm: “As a love story I would say it is first class and if you have not read any gay fiction before this is a good place to start because it is and emotionally charged story that will have you smiling, crying and doing a snoopy dance at the end, what more could you want!”

4.5 Nymphs at Literary Nymphs: ““Gay for you” books can be tough to write but this author did a good job, starting Kurt and Davy off as friends and allowing their relationship to build, slowing changing it to something deeper and stronger. It’s truly a case of love born out of tragedy and instead of appearing tacky, Ms. Burn handled it with creativity and taste.”

4.5 Delightful Divas at Dark Divas Reviews: “With tight writing, an interesting plot and solid characterizations, Cop Out was a noteworthy novel and I could foresee sequels. In fact this book was so good that if Ms. Burn wrote another in this universe, I would certainly buy it. Recommended.”

5 Stars from Redheads Review it Better: “Extremely well written book that has me wanting to buy up the rest of K.C. Burn’s books!”

4 Stars from House Millar: “I found the characters to be believable and the story line to be emotionally powerful as well. The writing is excellent – not a word I use a lot for writing styles – and am very glad that I took a chance on a new author (new to me at least).”

MIA Case Files: Blood Relations

3.5 Delightful Divas at Dark Divas Reviews: “As a fan of any type of vampire novels, Blood Relations was a treat.”

 

 

I did an interview with Mrs. Condit, and commenting on the interview with who you consider to be an influential writer today, and why, will give you a chance to win Cop Out. I’ll totally understand if you don’t put my name down

Mrs. Condit also wrote an awesome review of Cop Out, so if you’re at the site, please take a look.

For the final DIK Reading Challenge of the year, I’m reviewing Josh Lanyon’s I Spy Something Bloody.  Mark is a special agent looking to get out of the game after a failed mission.  Injured, the first person he calls for help is Stephen Thorpe, the man he loves, the man he left behind several years previously.  Tired of waiting for Mark to return, and after a string of broken promises, Stephen has moved on, not interested in letting Mark back into his life.  Mark’s desperation breaks through to Stephen, who reluctantly allows Mark to return for temporary sanctuary, neither of them realizing that Mark’s job has followed him  from Afghanistan to Virginia, putting both of them in danger.

Despite all the trappings of secret agents and contract killers, this is a story of an emotionally broken man at the point of  either trying to fix himself and the wrongs he’s done or giving up on life entirely.  We feel every second on Mark’s painful journey of self-discovery and the dawning realization that his decision to act might have come to late to salvage the only relationship that ever meant anything to him — that still means the world to him.  The story didn’t have the mystery elements I had come to associate with Josh Lanyon stories, but it certainly didn’t disappoint.  There was action, suspense and lot of emotional tension followed by an eminently satisfying conclusion.  Definitely worth reading.

Again, my month has disappeared!  For this month’s DIK reading challenge, I’m reviewing Caught Running by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux.  This is the story of Jake Campbell and Brandon Bartlett, who attended high school together as polar opposites — jock and nerd — and who have returned to teach at the same high school, with the same divisions drawn, Jake as a Phys. Ed. teacher and Brandon as a Biology teacher.

They never interacted with each other in high school, nor do they as colleagues.  But when a shortage of teachers mandates Brandon must assist Jake in coaching the boys baseball team, they need to overcome the stigma the labels have created for each other, not only to get along and cooperate for the sake of the team, but also if they want to shape their attraction to each other into a lasting relationship.

This is a very sweet story.  Both Jake and Brandon suffer under the weight of their assumptions — that others perceive them as the stupid athlete and the inept smart guy.  But Jake has a brain he’s afraid to show, and Brandon has an athletic side.  They have more common ground with each other than they initially believe, and their friendship and growing attraction bloom from it.

Brandon and Jake are both lovable in their own way, and it’s easy to see how they can fall in love with each other.  There are a few black moments where it appears that their preconceptions and fears will rip them apart, but it all works out in the end with a satisfying conclusion.

I’ve read a few other books by this writing duo, and I haven’t  been disappointed yet.

For this month’s DIK reading challenge review, I read L.B. Gregg’s Happy Ending, the second in the Men of Smithfield series. It features two very different men, Seth and David, who get to know each other under rather difficult circumstances. Happy Ending started with a humorous scene, very typical of L.B.’s quirky, fun writing style. We’re immersed immediately into Seth’s arrogance, but it’s the arrogance of a self-confident, self-assured man, and his attitude is almost endearing. David, on the other hand, doesn’t find him endearing at all.

Quickly though, we discover Seth’s arrogance is often a façade to help him deal with his emotional upheaval and the almost bewildering lifestyle change imposed on him by his sister’s death, resulting in guardianship of his six year old niece. David, in Seth’s eyes, is mercurial and irresponsible, but dealing with a blackmailer, a kidnapper and a persistent ex makes Seth realize there’s no one else he can rely on like David, even after discovering the truth about David’s closely guarded secrets. Although Seth can hardly believe how much he wants David, he doesn’t deny that he does.

This story kept me guessing with unexpected twists and turns, and made for a pretty decent suspense story. But the main driving force was the developing relationship between Seth and David on the backdrop of Seth discovering new depths about himself. I’d hesitate to say he became a different person over the course of the book, but he definitely became more accepting, and his hard edges softened. Both characters were extremely appealing, but so vastly different it was hard to believe, even near the end of the book, that they could possibly make a relationship work. Somehow they do. Seth and David find their own improbable and yet entirely believable and satisfying happy ending. I was very pleased with this follow up to the entertaining Gobsmacked.

For this month’s DIK reading challenge, I reviewed Suzanne Brockmann’s All Through the Night.

While Jules and Robin plan their wedding, Adam, a man with whom both Jules and Robin have had a relationship of sorts, returns to their lives.  Adam is hoping that Jules, super FBI agent that he is, can help him with a frightening stalker.  When Jules tries to help, jealousy creates a strain on his relationship with Robin, as well as putting people he cares about in danger as the stalker transfers his attention to people Adam interacts with.  It doesn’t help that a nosy reporter is also trying to discredit Robin’s recovery from alcoholism in the hopes of getting a scoop.

So, that’s the short and sweet description.  Most of Jules & Robin’s romantic conflict occurred in the previous book, Force of Nature, when the two men finally got together.  All Through the Night is our cookie for being good and waiting so long and patiently for Jules to get the love he deserves.  Yes, Robin’s assistant Dolphina gets a romance of her own.  It’s a very nice, if a little abbreviated, story.  But then, this is Jules’s story, and Dolphina’s story is secondary.

Jules was an appealing and engaging character from the instant he first appeared (which, if I recall was Gone Too Far).  We’ve seen his heartbreak with Adam, we’ve seen his heartbreak with Robin, and with Ben.  I was rooting for him from the very beginning, and when he didn’t get his happy ever after in Hot Target, I was devastated.

Finally getting a beautiful and loving relationship was a long time coming, and I’m glad Ms. Brockmann gave Jules and his romance the attention it deserved.  Yes, there was action and suspense, too.  The Troubleshooters series consistently delivers fast paced, action filled stories and this was no exception.  But for me, the romance was the thing, because I think Jules had to wait WAY longer than any of the other couples did.  I wanted my cookie!

One of the things I especially liked about this story, though, was that the groundwork was laid for Adam to have his own redemption arc.  His previous appearances made us dislike Adam, but in this book, we see that Adam maybe isn’t as villainous as he seemed.  (Dark of Night and Hot Pursuit are still on my TBR, though, so if Adam gets any time in those books – no spoilers, please!)

I found this book awesome, but if you haven’t read the previous Troubleshooters books, you’d need to at least read Hot Target and Force of Nature (and preferably Breaking Point between them) to get full satisfaction from this story.

Here’s my April review for the Desert Island Keepers reading challenge – The Assignment by Evangeline Anderson.

Sean O’Brian and Nick Valenti are cops, long time partners. They’re close friends and spend a lot of time together. Neither of them are gay, but after O’Brian gets stabbed, Nick begins to realize his feelings for O’Brian are deeper and more sexual than he’d ever expected. When they’re assigned to go undercover as lovers in a gay resort to break up a drug trafficking ring, Valenti is concerned he’s not going to be able to hide his true feelings. When the two men are required to get physical with each other to keep their cover intact, Valenti becomes more and more enamoured, as well as more convinced he will never be able to work with O’Brian again – as it will be too painful.

The story is told entirely in Valenti’s point of view. Maybe we wouldn’t have felt Valenti’s emotional anguish so exquisitely if we, as readers, had known O’Brian’s precise thoughts and feelings, but I still wanted to know! Maybe it’s my need for instant gratification. The lack of O’Brian’s point of view did not in any way detract from the story, and as objective readers, we can see his signals aren’t quite as mixed as Valenti thinks they are. The story was sweet and full of emotion, the guys were hot, the sex was beautiful and erotic. I did wonder at setting it in the 1980’s… the story was pretty timeless and I didn’t notice anything that would have seemed out of place in today’s world. But once again, it didn’t detract at all. In fact, I enjoyed this story so much, I had to own it in paperback as well as ebook. The Assignment is hands down one of my favourites.

So, this has nothing to do with my month long celebration of vocabulary (at least not directly), but MIA Case Files: Wolfsbane has received some really nice reviews, and I wanted to highlight them.  They’re my first reviews & I’m giddy about them.  Check them out if you’re so inclined…

Received 4 Cups review from Coffee Time Romance!
Received 5 Nymphs rating at Literary Nymphs Reviews!
Reviewed at Ebook Addict!

Although my reviews may make it seem like I’m a bit of a one-trick pony (in the completely non-sexual, non-fetish sense), I’ve got other interests! With that in mind, I’m going to review Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

This is one of my favourite books of all time – I might… ahem… be a geeky fan girl. Despite having first read this around twenty years ago (and several times since), many of the lines are still in my lexicon today such as the answer to the meaning of life, “Beware of the Leopard”, the bits about penguins and Marvin the Paranoid Android. Several parts of this book made me laugh out loud – over and over.

Even if you haven’t read the book, I bet you’ve heard of translators called Babel Fish. Guess where that came from? There’s a fish in HHGTTG called the Babel fish that, upon insertion into one’s ear, would translate ALL languages. And please note, this book was written 10 years before the invention of the web!

I love this book so much that I own the original BBC televised version on VHS and DVD. I went to see the remake in the theatre… but I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy it. The actors did a great job, but the script missed all the best lines! I’ve also been to a bar that served a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster shot. It didn’t have the same effect it was supposed to in the book – “like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick” – but I was amused.

Anyway, HHGTTG is the first of five books in, and I quote from the cover of the fifth, Mostly Harmless, “the increasingly inaccurately named Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy”. One reason I’m reviewing this book is that I just picked up the sixth part of the trilogy, And Another Thing. Now, Douglas Adams died several years ago (I was quite upset) and part six is not written by him. I’m curious to see what Eoin Colfer does with it, but I need to read the whole series again before I do!

Right, this is supposed to be a review, not an homage to the brilliance of Douglas Adams. What can I say? Douglas Adams created absurd, hilarious situations and quirky characters all the while poking fun at and spoofing the human condition. The blurb (on the back of one of my copies, anyway) says:

On Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just began, and the Galaxy is a very strange and startling place.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s little out there that’s funnier, and because the book deals primarily with aliens and is set in outer space, very little of it seems dated. As much as I like to read, there’s very few books that will make me laugh out loud, let alone while I’m surrounded by strangers on public transit. Yep, that happened. I shut the book. Got myself under control. Opened the book. And laughed out loud again. So, yeah, I love it and think everyone should read it!

Oops! Forgot to link back to the challenge!

So, here I am, writing another review for the Desert Island Keepers (DIK) Reading Challenge, my second one. Does this get easier? I hope so, or I’m going to dread the last week of every month for the rest of the year! I think I agonize over this more than I do my own writing. Oh, well. Onward… Even though I now live in Florida, I’m still hard-wired into needing a pick-me-up for the February blahs. J.L. Langley’s The Tin Star makes an awesome antidote.

Jamie Killian has just come out to his family, and although his siblings are supportive, his father is not. In one fell swoop, Jamie loses his home and his job on his family’s ranch. Ethan Whitehall, friend of the family and Jamie’s long-time crush, rides to the rescue.

Ethan’s lived in the closet most of his life – he’s got a livelihood in a small town, which he’s never seen fit to jeopardize until Jamie enters his life. With Jamie out, Ethan knows a relationship with Jamie will automatically mean outing himself. He has to decide if being with Jamie is worth more than hiding his who he is. Loving each other has serious, life-threatening consequences for both Jamie and Ethan, and the question remains whether they are stubborn enough to see this relationship through anything.

The love story is sweet and hot, between two sexy heroes: one who needs to come to terms with who he is when his father destroys what he though he always knew about himself and the other who needs to figure out that being true to himself is the only path to happiness.

It’s a great book, a great romance, and I couldn’t get enough of Jamie and Ethan. J.L. Langley never disappoints, and The Tin Star is one of my all-time favorites.