Book Reviews (None Good)
All M/M books that were either appalling, sporktacular or just bad. Or all three. (otherwise known as "how the hell do these things get published?!)
Simple Men by Eric Arvin. This one starts out cliched and offensive and goes downhill from there. My initial reaction was "So much crap in such a little package". Because, srsly? It's awful. Beyond awful. It's abysmal.
You've got the "I'm so manly, I've got to explore my virility with lots of women oh wait, there's a hot gay guy" dude and the "I'm a reverend and I'm devout and pure and innocent and lovely and I've been done wrong" dude. The cliches, the chest-beating examples of masculinity and the horrid writing all combine into a clusterfuck road accident that you cannot look away from.
Seriously, the writing is horrible. Read the following exchange and tell me it's not:
"I think," Chip said, "I think maybe this relationship thing wasn't a good idea for me and Lynn. It was an experiment, and it failed."
"I thought you said you liked it. You said it makes being here in this little town bearable, having someone to spend your Fridays with."
"I know what I said. Don't quote back to me. It's just…." He gestured around. The town usually wasn't a Mecca for pretty ladies, but school was starting soon, and a few of the more gorgeous co-eds were back.
"You're bored with her, huh?"
"Lynn's a great lady. She's predictable, safe. Exactly the kind of woman I should end up with. I like my routines, and she fits right into them." He slammed his now-empty cup on the table. "But dammit, I'm virile. I've got to explore that virility, you know."
"I know, brother. I know." Lenny's gaze was on a cute little blonde at the Megatouch machine.
"I don't know. I'm making too much of it. Maybe this is what all guys feel like when they start settling down." Chip poured more beer from the pitcher into his cup.
"Sometimes I think it would be easier to be gay," Lenny said.
"But I'd make a horrible gay guy. Look at how I dress; I'd get no tail."
"That's a cliché. I know some gay guys who dress as bad as you."
"Fuck you, Coach." Lenny grinned. "I don't like gay guys who act like me. I like my gay guys flaming."
"You're an idiot. And I can say that because I know you. And trust me; no man would ever be attracted to you."
"I could get a gay." Lenny seemed offended. His plan to have the coach assure him of some romantic prowess had not worked.
"No. You really could not."
"Isn't Lynn's friend-the new chaplain-isn't he a gay?"
"I think so. I haven't met him yet. She asked me to help him move some new pews into the chapel. I guess I'll meet him then."
Chip liked to think of himself as a forward-thinking guy. He'd grown up in a small, conservative town, but he liked gay men. He always let them help him out at the clothing stores. He would even let them feel his biceps. Gay guys appreciated how hard it was to stay in shape.
That's so nice. He'd even let then feel up his he-man manly man biceps. What a peach of a man. I'm surprised that men and women aren't lining up to marry this dumbass. But, hey, he ends up with "a gay" there at the end so he's obviously showing his open-mindedness. 1 out of 10
Gatekeeper by Rayne Auster. If you like your bottom men to weep constantly, cling to the manly top and get carried around all the place, this is the book for you. The bottom boy can't do anything without the prince saving him and keeping him safe from harm. And when the prince is unable to, there's another manly dude to do it. Thank God all those beefy dudes are there to save the little kid that's even marked with feminine markings in the accidental bonding ceremony. But, hey, they unite their worlds somehow and save both planets/lands/realities. Phew. I was worried except for the part where I wasn't. At all. I couldn't get beyond the weeping and the emo and the woe-is-me ineffectual behaviors from both the heroes. Between the whinging, the crying, the petulance, the storming off only to need a rescue, the weeping, the poor world-building, well, I'd prefer a book about the secondary characters. Or anything but this book.1 out of 10
Coming Home by Ava Rose Johnson. I would've enjoyed this book if a good editor had taken care of it. It had an interesting, if predictable, plotline. Brett's parents die and leave him his ranch. Only catch is that it's also been left to his crush, as well. Then there's Jessica, the kinky sex loving woman that totally gets Brett and Cade together through wanking, threesomes, anal sex and voyeurism. Bless Jessica for being willing to walk around topless all the time to get these two to rub plum-colored heads together.
It's actually not that bad of a book, rather silly and forgettable until you realize that every time a dick is whipped out, it's described as "plum-colored". IDK about you but if a dick is a bulging purple color, I'd probably worry that circulation was cut off. It can't be healthy to be that purple, can it? I don't have a dick so I can't tell you for certain but, really, isn't there another way to describe a dick? 2 out of 10
Hero by Heidi Cullinan. I don't even know where to start the review of this book. There's just too much gold (and by gold, I mean sporkable gold) in it. I highly suggest, if you like sporking fic, this is your sort of book.
It starts out with an author's acknowledgement that goes on for a couple of pages. Then, it continues with the main character, Gerry, looking up and spotting a mysterious woman who later turns out to be a kitsune shapeshifter. This shapeshifter is the mother of the other "hero" who is also a shapeshifter of sorts. Rather than being a fox shapeshifter, though, he's a house.
I'll give you a minute to re-read that and confirm that you read it right.
That's right. The love interest is a were-house. A WERE HOUSE. A WERE HOUSE. A WERE HOUSE. IDEK, people. His shape is the embodiment of sanctuary and he's a FUCKING INVISIBLE HOUSE.
He's also a rentboy within, err, himself. See, he made a deal with an evil jerk who holds him hostage inside, err, himself, and makes him turn tricks for all these evil fey. So he's been a rentboy inside himself. Turns out that his sanctuary is this teeny little room (his "heart") that's locked up inside of the house and no one can get to it except the people that he loves. NO JOKE HE TAKES GERRY INTO HIS HEART LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY AND CREEPY LITERALLY.
So, the poor guy is now a rundown bar until he gets a judicious application of the healing cock. Then he starts turning back into a house. Except the evil fey feed off his misery so they make him dress in drag and turn tricks and rape him more and so he's stuck battling for his very soul but all because he made one little deal with the devil on his first time.
I laughed. I cried. I laughed so hard I cried. I cried so hard I choked. This book is brilliantly awful.
I cannot possibly discuss all the wtf-ery that happens in this book. I seriously urge you to go out and purchase it yourself for the lulz, alone.1 out of 10 for "good" but 10 out of 10 for "lulz".
Cursed by Rhianne Aile. Yanno, I like Rhianne Aile when she's writing with Madeleine Urban but now I have to wonder how equal that partnership is because this was painful. It was poorly written, poorly plotted and poorly formed. The characters were insipid and emo, lacking in common sense or rational behaviors. I really couldn't buy the premise so I just spent the whole book facepalming at the way that the one twin would just keep banging his head against the wall to save this guy from a curse hundreds and hundreds of years old.
I could buy the territorial thing with the werewolves (basically, cause the main werewolf is cursed instead of born, he's not allowed on pack lands even though he, err, owns part of the pack lands). What I couldn't buy was the "everyone's gay, including all the alphas all over the place and no propagation of the species by the alphas" thing. Like, the main characters are, obviously, gay. The other twin brother is gay. The alpha and his lover are gay. The alpha's lover's brother is gay. There are gay mystical werewolves. There are so many gay werewolves that I no longer buy the territorial thing cause I'm not getting how werewolves are born if they're all gay.
This, too, was sporkable material. The resolution was particularly funny in a completely unintentional way.1 out of 10
Betrayed by Rhianne Aile. Again, the books that Rhianne Aile has written with Madeleine Urban remain some of my favorite books. IDK what happens in that partnership to make the books so fucking awesome but I really wish that Ms. Aile would remember that. This one, at least, was free of SPAG errors but that's the only thing that went right with it. The plot dragged. This plot featured an evil woman who interferes with the gay buttsexxing going on with the alpha's lover and the alpha and the alpha's lover's brother and the cursed werewolf's brother. (err, that doesn't make sense, does it? No matter, most of the book doesn't make sense)
The problems I mention above for Cursed? Multiply them. Basically, it's horrible, squicky girlparts interfering with the gay love and we can't have that. Ew, het. The other twin and the brother immediately start fucking because the werewolf bonding urge kicks in (even though the twin is a witch, not a werewolf). They fuck fuck fuck fuck and then get discovered by the alpha's lover. Then they fuck some more. Then they solve the problems with the squicky girlparts only to fuck more. Then they tunnel after the squicky girlparts and then end the book by fucking some more. 1 out of 10
Hayashi's Heroes by Marie Harte. I really wanted to like this book. It sounded fucking awesome. You've got this Japanese-American soldier guy that went through experiments that turned him and his fellow Navy Seal "brothers" into these supernatural predators. Ok, so my summation sounds bad but it really did sound awesome.
What I got was a bunch of angst about preferring men while Hayashi and his "brothers" fuck one another like rabbits lest they lose their sanity. When Hayashi meets his mate, he ends up tricking the poor bastard into having sex with Hayashi's alpha. The alpha declares that he'll fuck Hayashi's mate whenever he wants and the mate is all "woohoo, thanks for tricking me and I'll take it up the ass from you whenever you want to give it". There's also all this mystical mumbo-jumbo where the mate is supernaturally strong but isn't supernatural, not really, just "gifted" and a bunch of shit about chest beating and arrogant men that wouldn't be gay if it weren't for the supernatural beings that they turn into. I remember one dialog bit about how the one dude only really likes pussy except for when he's sucking some guy's dick. IDEK. The book just isn't that good.1 out of 10
Water by Astrid Amara. Take it from me, when something pops up that says "you liked [xyz book] so you might like this other author", don't just buy the damned thing that it recommends or else you'll end up with something like this.
This book was bad. Like, unsporkable bad. Like, stereotypes, poor writing and cliches bad. It's got this epic war between the elements and somehow fire is lining up against water or something and this innocent human gets wrapped up in it when his boyfriend walks into a bar. Yanno, the boyfriend that's been dead for a year. The boyfriend who only ever fucked the human guy and never let the human guy fuck him so he'd have a virgin ass for when he got his one true love back. Yanno, the one true love that's actually the human guy when he gets immolated or something and then the boyfriend totally bends over and begs for it, explaining to former human guy how he'd refused to let human guy fuck him because he wanted to be virgin for former human guy when human guy finally turned into former human guy.
Confused yet? Yeah, me too. Take it from me, there are lots of other things you could spend your time on rather than this book. I recommend laundry for a more exciting time.1 out of 10
Snared by JL Merrow. Ok, so the premise is a bit crack, I admit it. See, Martin decides to go on a walking holiday after he dumps his boyfriend that he's refused to come out of the closet for. Martin ends up staying in an encampment of were-cats. As in, feral cats that are also humans. Martin ends up rescuing a feral cat. This were- wild cat decides to fuck Martin as a thank you and to ensure that Martin didn't get turned into a were-wild cat. Poor Martin then wakes up to find the B&B proprietor there to turn Martin into a were-cat cause Martin knows about the were-cats. Martin and the love interest fight for Martin's safety only to have Martin not look behind and get Martin bitten by a barmaid and find Martin turned into a were cat.
Are you annoyed with the usage of Martin yet? Now imagine it in every line of dialog from Calum, the love interest. IDK if this was the author's way of attempting an Irish accent or just her way of annoying the living fuck out of the readers but by the end of the book, I was counting the usage of Martin and getting progressively more annoyed. "Martin" was used 477 times in 68 pages (of which, 4 are misc pages not related to the book). That's over 7 times a page. Some examples of the dialog issues:
"Mmm, you like that, do you, Martin?"
Teasingly, Calum lifted Martin's foot to his mouth and licked along the arch. Martin jerked at the intense sensation and almost fell over.
Laughing, Calum bounded to his feet, his cock bobbing.
"Come along now, Martin!" he cried, grabbing Martin's hand and pulling him through a door into a ground-floor bedroom.
or
Calum sat back on his heels, his erection seeming to fill Martin's field of vision. He could already smell the salty precome leaking from its tip. "So you want to talk now, do you, Martin? See, I've nothing against talking. I can talk with the best of them. But there's a time and a place for words, Martin, and it strikes me that right here, right now, is more of a time to fuck. So what do you say? Will you let me fuck you, Martin?"
Do people really talk like that? Hell, I have people that I have full-on conversations with and have for about 6 years and I still don't know their names. I sure as fuck don't say it 3 times in the course of 6 sentences of the same paragraph.
A good editor would've turned this from a piece of Martin-tossing around dreck into tolerable and forgettable.1 Martin out of 10
Sylvan by Jan Irving. Another book with an interesting premise that falls far short of its possibilities. Mal Harrison was an Olympic swimmer that ends up being forced to go home in shame as he got kicked off the Olympic team for being 3rd all the time. Course, no one told him that his Nan had died because I guess they didn't think of it or something. Leif is the main love interest who's forced to care for his aging father who also suffers from Alzheimer's.
Definitely a lot of potential because both characters are fairly likeable. Unfortunately, the author falls far short of the possibilities as this devolves into a bunch of needless angsting and plot-hole-filling coincidences. Plotlines are dropped and others are wrapped up with a far too tidy bow. Leif's possibly homophobic father is a cause of major angst until the author wants to wrap everything up and then Leif just doesn't care anymore that his dad might not approve. It's just a poorly constructed book that I couldn't really enjoy at all.
In addition, the entire premise isn't well-researched. The Olympic swimmer places third in a few events and is booted off all major swimteams? Really? So you don't pay attention to a lot of Olympics, huh? They're called comebacks, especially if one were to be young swimmer that already has a silver to his name. I highly doubt that he'd be kicked off the team for permanent permanency just because he placed third in a few meets. Also, are you certain that they're "meets"? I've only heard Olympic calibre events described as "events" or "competitions" whereas high school events are called "meets". 2 out of 10
Company Man by Felicitas Ivey. So the main character is a hit man and a rentboy. All at once. The dude is rented out to assassinate people and also to fuck the person he's been rented to. Turns out, though, that he was really stolen from a happy life and he discovers this when he's sent to assassinate his former lover who also happens to be the son of some crazy supernatural being that has to kill his family members to stay alive. There's also another supernatural being that saves them and teleports them to another world to live as a happy threesome forever after because the second supernatural being turns their happy love into a D/s-like relationship.
I have no idea what even happened in the book because every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. Then my brain broke and that was that.1 out of 10
Simple Men by Eric Arvin. This one starts out cliched and offensive and goes downhill from there. My initial reaction was "So much crap in such a little package". Because, srsly? It's awful. Beyond awful. It's abysmal.
You've got the "I'm so manly, I've got to explore my virility with lots of women oh wait, there's a hot gay guy" dude and the "I'm a reverend and I'm devout and pure and innocent and lovely and I've been done wrong" dude. The cliches, the chest-beating examples of masculinity and the horrid writing all combine into a clusterfuck road accident that you cannot look away from.
Seriously, the writing is horrible. Read the following exchange and tell me it's not:
"I think," Chip said, "I think maybe this relationship thing wasn't a good idea for me and Lynn. It was an experiment, and it failed."
"I thought you said you liked it. You said it makes being here in this little town bearable, having someone to spend your Fridays with."
"I know what I said. Don't quote back to me. It's just…." He gestured around. The town usually wasn't a Mecca for pretty ladies, but school was starting soon, and a few of the more gorgeous co-eds were back.
"You're bored with her, huh?"
"Lynn's a great lady. She's predictable, safe. Exactly the kind of woman I should end up with. I like my routines, and she fits right into them." He slammed his now-empty cup on the table. "But dammit, I'm virile. I've got to explore that virility, you know."
"I know, brother. I know." Lenny's gaze was on a cute little blonde at the Megatouch machine.
"I don't know. I'm making too much of it. Maybe this is what all guys feel like when they start settling down." Chip poured more beer from the pitcher into his cup.
"Sometimes I think it would be easier to be gay," Lenny said.
"But I'd make a horrible gay guy. Look at how I dress; I'd get no tail."
"That's a cliché. I know some gay guys who dress as bad as you."
"Fuck you, Coach." Lenny grinned. "I don't like gay guys who act like me. I like my gay guys flaming."
"You're an idiot. And I can say that because I know you. And trust me; no man would ever be attracted to you."
"I could get a gay." Lenny seemed offended. His plan to have the coach assure him of some romantic prowess had not worked.
"No. You really could not."
"Isn't Lynn's friend-the new chaplain-isn't he a gay?"
"I think so. I haven't met him yet. She asked me to help him move some new pews into the chapel. I guess I'll meet him then."
Chip liked to think of himself as a forward-thinking guy. He'd grown up in a small, conservative town, but he liked gay men. He always let them help him out at the clothing stores. He would even let them feel his biceps. Gay guys appreciated how hard it was to stay in shape.
That's so nice. He'd even let then feel up his he-man manly man biceps. What a peach of a man. I'm surprised that men and women aren't lining up to marry this dumbass. But, hey, he ends up with "a gay" there at the end so he's obviously showing his open-mindedness. 1 out of 10
Gatekeeper by Rayne Auster. If you like your bottom men to weep constantly, cling to the manly top and get carried around all the place, this is the book for you. The bottom boy can't do anything without the prince saving him and keeping him safe from harm. And when the prince is unable to, there's another manly dude to do it. Thank God all those beefy dudes are there to save the little kid that's even marked with feminine markings in the accidental bonding ceremony. But, hey, they unite their worlds somehow and save both planets/lands/realities. Phew. I was worried except for the part where I wasn't. At all. I couldn't get beyond the weeping and the emo and the woe-is-me ineffectual behaviors from both the heroes. Between the whinging, the crying, the petulance, the storming off only to need a rescue, the weeping, the poor world-building, well, I'd prefer a book about the secondary characters. Or anything but this book.1 out of 10
Coming Home by Ava Rose Johnson. I would've enjoyed this book if a good editor had taken care of it. It had an interesting, if predictable, plotline. Brett's parents die and leave him his ranch. Only catch is that it's also been left to his crush, as well. Then there's Jessica, the kinky sex loving woman that totally gets Brett and Cade together through wanking, threesomes, anal sex and voyeurism. Bless Jessica for being willing to walk around topless all the time to get these two to rub plum-colored heads together.
It's actually not that bad of a book, rather silly and forgettable until you realize that every time a dick is whipped out, it's described as "plum-colored". IDK about you but if a dick is a bulging purple color, I'd probably worry that circulation was cut off. It can't be healthy to be that purple, can it? I don't have a dick so I can't tell you for certain but, really, isn't there another way to describe a dick? 2 out of 10
Hero by Heidi Cullinan. I don't even know where to start the review of this book. There's just too much gold (and by gold, I mean sporkable gold) in it. I highly suggest, if you like sporking fic, this is your sort of book.
It starts out with an author's acknowledgement that goes on for a couple of pages. Then, it continues with the main character, Gerry, looking up and spotting a mysterious woman who later turns out to be a kitsune shapeshifter. This shapeshifter is the mother of the other "hero" who is also a shapeshifter of sorts. Rather than being a fox shapeshifter, though, he's a house.
I'll give you a minute to re-read that and confirm that you read it right.
That's right. The love interest is a were-house. A WERE HOUSE. A WERE HOUSE. A WERE HOUSE. IDEK, people. His shape is the embodiment of sanctuary and he's a FUCKING INVISIBLE HOUSE.
He's also a rentboy within, err, himself. See, he made a deal with an evil jerk who holds him hostage inside, err, himself, and makes him turn tricks for all these evil fey. So he's been a rentboy inside himself. Turns out that his sanctuary is this teeny little room (his "heart") that's locked up inside of the house and no one can get to it except the people that he loves. NO JOKE HE TAKES GERRY INTO HIS HEART LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY AND CREEPY LITERALLY.
So, the poor guy is now a rundown bar until he gets a judicious application of the healing cock. Then he starts turning back into a house. Except the evil fey feed off his misery so they make him dress in drag and turn tricks and rape him more and so he's stuck battling for his very soul but all because he made one little deal with the devil on his first time.
I laughed. I cried. I laughed so hard I cried. I cried so hard I choked. This book is brilliantly awful.
I cannot possibly discuss all the wtf-ery that happens in this book. I seriously urge you to go out and purchase it yourself for the lulz, alone.1 out of 10 for "good" but 10 out of 10 for "lulz".
Cursed by Rhianne Aile. Yanno, I like Rhianne Aile when she's writing with Madeleine Urban but now I have to wonder how equal that partnership is because this was painful. It was poorly written, poorly plotted and poorly formed. The characters were insipid and emo, lacking in common sense or rational behaviors. I really couldn't buy the premise so I just spent the whole book facepalming at the way that the one twin would just keep banging his head against the wall to save this guy from a curse hundreds and hundreds of years old.
I could buy the territorial thing with the werewolves (basically, cause the main werewolf is cursed instead of born, he's not allowed on pack lands even though he, err, owns part of the pack lands). What I couldn't buy was the "everyone's gay, including all the alphas all over the place and no propagation of the species by the alphas" thing. Like, the main characters are, obviously, gay. The other twin brother is gay. The alpha and his lover are gay. The alpha's lover's brother is gay. There are gay mystical werewolves. There are so many gay werewolves that I no longer buy the territorial thing cause I'm not getting how werewolves are born if they're all gay.
This, too, was sporkable material. The resolution was particularly funny in a completely unintentional way.1 out of 10
Betrayed by Rhianne Aile. Again, the books that Rhianne Aile has written with Madeleine Urban remain some of my favorite books. IDK what happens in that partnership to make the books so fucking awesome but I really wish that Ms. Aile would remember that. This one, at least, was free of SPAG errors but that's the only thing that went right with it. The plot dragged. This plot featured an evil woman who interferes with the gay buttsexxing going on with the alpha's lover and the alpha and the alpha's lover's brother and the cursed werewolf's brother. (err, that doesn't make sense, does it? No matter, most of the book doesn't make sense)
The problems I mention above for Cursed? Multiply them. Basically, it's horrible, squicky girlparts interfering with the gay love and we can't have that. Ew, het. The other twin and the brother immediately start fucking because the werewolf bonding urge kicks in (even though the twin is a witch, not a werewolf). They fuck fuck fuck fuck and then get discovered by the alpha's lover. Then they fuck some more. Then they solve the problems with the squicky girlparts only to fuck more. Then they tunnel after the squicky girlparts and then end the book by fucking some more. 1 out of 10
Hayashi's Heroes by Marie Harte. I really wanted to like this book. It sounded fucking awesome. You've got this Japanese-American soldier guy that went through experiments that turned him and his fellow Navy Seal "brothers" into these supernatural predators. Ok, so my summation sounds bad but it really did sound awesome.
What I got was a bunch of angst about preferring men while Hayashi and his "brothers" fuck one another like rabbits lest they lose their sanity. When Hayashi meets his mate, he ends up tricking the poor bastard into having sex with Hayashi's alpha. The alpha declares that he'll fuck Hayashi's mate whenever he wants and the mate is all "woohoo, thanks for tricking me and I'll take it up the ass from you whenever you want to give it". There's also all this mystical mumbo-jumbo where the mate is supernaturally strong but isn't supernatural, not really, just "gifted" and a bunch of shit about chest beating and arrogant men that wouldn't be gay if it weren't for the supernatural beings that they turn into. I remember one dialog bit about how the one dude only really likes pussy except for when he's sucking some guy's dick. IDEK. The book just isn't that good.1 out of 10
Water by Astrid Amara. Take it from me, when something pops up that says "you liked [xyz book] so you might like this other author", don't just buy the damned thing that it recommends or else you'll end up with something like this.
This book was bad. Like, unsporkable bad. Like, stereotypes, poor writing and cliches bad. It's got this epic war between the elements and somehow fire is lining up against water or something and this innocent human gets wrapped up in it when his boyfriend walks into a bar. Yanno, the boyfriend that's been dead for a year. The boyfriend who only ever fucked the human guy and never let the human guy fuck him so he'd have a virgin ass for when he got his one true love back. Yanno, the one true love that's actually the human guy when he gets immolated or something and then the boyfriend totally bends over and begs for it, explaining to former human guy how he'd refused to let human guy fuck him because he wanted to be virgin for former human guy when human guy finally turned into former human guy.
Confused yet? Yeah, me too. Take it from me, there are lots of other things you could spend your time on rather than this book. I recommend laundry for a more exciting time.1 out of 10
Snared by JL Merrow. Ok, so the premise is a bit crack, I admit it. See, Martin decides to go on a walking holiday after he dumps his boyfriend that he's refused to come out of the closet for. Martin ends up staying in an encampment of were-cats. As in, feral cats that are also humans. Martin ends up rescuing a feral cat. This were- wild cat decides to fuck Martin as a thank you and to ensure that Martin didn't get turned into a were-wild cat. Poor Martin then wakes up to find the B&B proprietor there to turn Martin into a were-cat cause Martin knows about the were-cats. Martin and the love interest fight for Martin's safety only to have Martin not look behind and get Martin bitten by a barmaid and find Martin turned into a were cat.
Are you annoyed with the usage of Martin yet? Now imagine it in every line of dialog from Calum, the love interest. IDK if this was the author's way of attempting an Irish accent or just her way of annoying the living fuck out of the readers but by the end of the book, I was counting the usage of Martin and getting progressively more annoyed. "Martin" was used 477 times in 68 pages (of which, 4 are misc pages not related to the book). That's over 7 times a page. Some examples of the dialog issues:
"Mmm, you like that, do you, Martin?"
Teasingly, Calum lifted Martin's foot to his mouth and licked along the arch. Martin jerked at the intense sensation and almost fell over.
Laughing, Calum bounded to his feet, his cock bobbing.
"Come along now, Martin!" he cried, grabbing Martin's hand and pulling him through a door into a ground-floor bedroom.
or
Calum sat back on his heels, his erection seeming to fill Martin's field of vision. He could already smell the salty precome leaking from its tip. "So you want to talk now, do you, Martin? See, I've nothing against talking. I can talk with the best of them. But there's a time and a place for words, Martin, and it strikes me that right here, right now, is more of a time to fuck. So what do you say? Will you let me fuck you, Martin?"
Do people really talk like that? Hell, I have people that I have full-on conversations with and have for about 6 years and I still don't know their names. I sure as fuck don't say it 3 times in the course of 6 sentences of the same paragraph.
A good editor would've turned this from a piece of Martin-tossing around dreck into tolerable and forgettable.1 Martin out of 10
Sylvan by Jan Irving. Another book with an interesting premise that falls far short of its possibilities. Mal Harrison was an Olympic swimmer that ends up being forced to go home in shame as he got kicked off the Olympic team for being 3rd all the time. Course, no one told him that his Nan had died because I guess they didn't think of it or something. Leif is the main love interest who's forced to care for his aging father who also suffers from Alzheimer's.
Definitely a lot of potential because both characters are fairly likeable. Unfortunately, the author falls far short of the possibilities as this devolves into a bunch of needless angsting and plot-hole-filling coincidences. Plotlines are dropped and others are wrapped up with a far too tidy bow. Leif's possibly homophobic father is a cause of major angst until the author wants to wrap everything up and then Leif just doesn't care anymore that his dad might not approve. It's just a poorly constructed book that I couldn't really enjoy at all.
In addition, the entire premise isn't well-researched. The Olympic swimmer places third in a few events and is booted off all major swimteams? Really? So you don't pay attention to a lot of Olympics, huh? They're called comebacks, especially if one were to be young swimmer that already has a silver to his name. I highly doubt that he'd be kicked off the team for permanent permanency just because he placed third in a few meets. Also, are you certain that they're "meets"? I've only heard Olympic calibre events described as "events" or "competitions" whereas high school events are called "meets". 2 out of 10
Company Man by Felicitas Ivey. So the main character is a hit man and a rentboy. All at once. The dude is rented out to assassinate people and also to fuck the person he's been rented to. Turns out, though, that he was really stolen from a happy life and he discovers this when he's sent to assassinate his former lover who also happens to be the son of some crazy supernatural being that has to kill his family members to stay alive. There's also another supernatural being that saves them and teleports them to another world to live as a happy threesome forever after because the second supernatural being turns their happy love into a D/s-like relationship.
I have no idea what even happened in the book because every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. Then my brain broke and that was that.1 out of 10