Strays And Lovers by John Inman
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Short story (152 pages)
Other: M/M, Anal Play
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

Forty-six-year-old Eddie Hightower has a problem. He’s all alone. The only thing that saves him from facing that stark reality is the fact that he isn’t really alone at all. He has a house full of pets and a refuge full of stray unwanted animals he spends every waking hour trying to place in homes. While he loves what he does with all the joy in his heart, that same poor aging heart is still missing something. And Eddie knows exactly what it is. Romance.
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But wait. Cue the music. Suddenly, beyond all hope, it happens. In the small desert town of Spangle, California, where Eddie lives, comes a sad young stranger with piercing gray eyes. They are the palest, most stunningly beautiful eyes Eddie has ever seen. Poor Eddie Hightower is swallowed up in their silver depths and disappears without a gurgle. The stranger’s name is Gray Grissom. Gray, like his eyes. Without hesitation Eddie opens his doors—and his heart—to the lost young man. After all, that’s what Eddie does. He finds homes for strays. But this is one stray Eddie intends to keep for himself.

Eddie opens his home and heart to all manner of strays – the animals helping to keep his ever-growing loneliness at bay. While Eddie could feel himself getting older and this solitude was not how he’d have chosen to live, he loves his home, loves his pets and makes do. Until one day a stranger comes into their tiny town. Gray is certainly a stray – albeit a human one – and Eddie simply can’t turn the lost soul away. Eddie knows this is completely different to his other companions, but something about Gray hits him hard and he wants to build something with the very private man.

I enjoyed this emotional and interesting story. Gray and Eddie were both layered characters and there was plenty of mystery surrounding Gray in particular. I initially found it a little difficult to get a read on Gray – he seemed to blow hot and cold a little and while this was fully explained throughout the course of the story it still meant I took a while to really warm up to his character. Eddie, in comparison, was a lot easier for me to become fond of. With an enormous heart and a house full of stray pets I almost immediately wanted Eddie to find his happily ever after. I also really loved how there didn’t need to be a whole swag of secondary characters to help round out the stories – Eddie’s closest pet cats and dogs filled this area out nicely and I loved how the author gave each of the main pets their own characteristics and they helped both highlight the isolation Eddie felt but also stopped the book from feeling as if it lacked the supporting cast it needed.

The slower pace of the romance really appealed to me. Gray has a complicated past and instead of info-dumping or having it all come out in a rush to help move along the romance between Gray and Eddie I enjoyed the fact there was quite a bit of to-and-fro between the two men first. While readers looking for an intensely erotic and heavily-sexed up story might feel the pace a little too slow for their tastes I preferred letting the plot and characters unwind a little more sedately. It seemed to suit the story to my mind and keep the feel of the story real. Gray didn’t at all strike me as the sort of character to just open up immediately, so this extra time felt real and I liked how both men needed to work their way together over the course of a number of exchanges.

The sex, when it occurred, was deliciously hot and intense. There was so much emotion between the two men – so much hurt and loneliness that they bridged together. It felt to me like it just rolled from the pages. While hot and sexy, I really feel the depth of emotion and connection between Eddie and Gray is what makes this book stand out so much from others like it. Readers who enjoy intensely emotional, hurt/comfort style of stories should really enjoy this story and find it as satisfying as I did.

Cops And Comix by Rhys Ford
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Short story (38 pages)
Other: M/M, Anal Play
Rating: 3.5 stars
Reviewed by Fern

A Murder and Mayhem Short

It’s all fun and games until someone leaves a dead body on the floor.
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Life for comic book store owner Alex Martin usually runs to the mundane. Sure, he has a regular influx of geeks and freaks, but for the most part, it’s a familiar weird. That all changes when he opens up Planet X Comics one morning and finds a corpse in the middle of his shop.

When Detective James Castillo is called in to investigate, Alex is torn between wanting to climb the man like a tree and giving him a wide berth. Luckily for Alex, the handsome detective is just as interested in him—as a suspect in the murder.

Alex was understandably upset when he returned to his comic book store only to find a dead body lying in the middle of the floor. Detective James Castillo might be a police officer, but he’s also the sort of deliciously off-limits type of man Alex usually lusts after from afar and never approaches. Can the two men figure out their attraction to each other – and what happened to the dead man in the comic book store?

I found this to be a fun and lighthearted short story. Alex and James are interesting and good characters that I liked. The plotline is a little crazy (in a good sense) and my only real complaint is that the vast majority of the police work and solving the crime was conducted completely off-screen. I understand that the author had a limited amount of space in the short length of this story and I sympathise with the fact the relationship building between Alex and James needed to take higher priority than solving the crime. But I have to be honest, I felt rather short-changed that we jumped from one scene where James and Alex are taking witness statements and discussing the dead body and the next scene is James explaining to Alex how he’s solved the crime and everything is all laid out. There was no chance for me as a reader to discover who the dead person was, to think or listen about motives etc – we literally jumped from discovering the body to being told how and why he was murdered. It made most of that aspect of the plot feel very much like a red herring or afterthought.

The romance between Alex and James, thankfully, was not given short shrift though. I enjoyed watching the two men learn about each other and hunger for each other (their first official date was funny and I actually laughed aloud reading it). The sex was hot and while it was a brief scene this is a very short story and I could totally forgive the quickness of it when so many other things were happening at the same time.

Fun and light this is a great short story. While it’s part of a series I personally feel that it stands completely alone – the characters are all independent and there’s no reference of previous stories. I enjoyed the small hints of geekiness and comic-book fandoms and felt both Alex and James’ characters were vibrant and interesting. With a bit of sex, a dash of laughter and the plot of a dead body to brighten things up this was a lovely story I thoroughly enjoyed.