And Call Me In The Morning by Willa Okati

For me, the worst thing about Willa Okati's And Call Me In the Morning is that it's not a bad book. It just wasn't a book I really found good, either. The book suffers from the same problem I have with a lot of books in the romance genre, which is extreme predictability.

(spoilers beneath the cut)

Meeting a Neighbor's Needs by Qwillia Rain

Okay, so I just finished Meeting a Neighbor's Needs, by Qwillia Rain and honestly, I just feel lied to and absolutely furious about this book. Completely enraged. What started out as a fairly lighthearted (if questionable) sexy romp between neighbors turned into horrifying, graphic rape masquerading as romance.

The entire book is largely plotless smut...which isn't, in and of itself a problem, if that's what you're in the mood for. But what the warnings describe as a BDSM relationship bears no resemblance to a safe, sane, consensual BDSM relationship and the lack of consent or even the recognition of the protagonist as a person, with the right to refuse turns my stomach.

Heavy spoilers. Talks about consent issues, and rape; may be triggery to some.

Zero at the Bone by Jane Seville

[This is a reprint of a previously posted review; it is posted here for posterity]

Zero At The Bone is (for me) a difficult book to talk about or characterize, because on the one hand, I was very involved in the story, I was engaged by the relationship and so, in very broad strokes, I would say I enjoyed it.

At the same time, there were so many small, niggling quibbles I had with the story that I found myself simultaneously frequently irritated by it, rolling my eyes at it and generally making my husband miserable as I talked back to the book. (Someday I hope he'll get used to this, but I'm not holding my breath.)

In trying to quantify my irritation with the book, my first thought about it is that it's a slash story, rather than a LGBT thriller/romance, which are two very different beasts, imo. And now, having said that, I'm going to dance away from that point and talk about some other specifics that will, hopefully, lead back into establishing what I mean by that.

(Detailed spoilers after the cut)

Flirt by Laurell K Hamilton

I have a love-hate relationship with the Anita Blake books. There's a great deal about LKH's writing that leaves me unsatisfied, irritated and otherwise exasperated. I refused to even start the Merry Gentry series because of it but my attachment to the Anita Blake series has been really difficult to sever and even harder to explain (to myself or anyone else).

Actually, a lot of my LKH problems are the same as my problems with a lot of TV shows: I dislike the main character(s), but I have deep and irrational love for some of the secondary characters and that keeps me limping onward through less than satisfying stories. *shrugs* C'est la vie.

Crossing the Line by Laney Cairo

I recently joined a m/m romance group on Goodreads to try and increase my repertoire of books. Though there's a fair number of epubs out there, the quality of work produced varies a lot from book to book and I was hoping to get some recommendations to help me find the 'good stuff'.

The group has a kind of challenge each month to read books in different genres. One of the February challenges was to read something with transgender or cross-dressing as the theme and a rec led me to Crossing the Line by Laney Cairo. At 46 e-book pages, it's really a short story, not a book, and a quick read.

Reading Comprehension: Do U Haz? (More on the Nook)

Some further thoughts on the Nook. Or…really, mostly about Barnes and Noble and a little bit about the Nook.

Barnes and Noble has one of the worst websites (for such a large company) that I've ever had to deal with. Right now, I'm trying to make decisions about what to put on my Nook. Do I put new books that I'm interested in reading but that are untried—and therefore possibly not something I'm interested in keeping permanently—or do I put beloved, already-read books—and run the risk of having nothing new and interesting to read on my fairly expensive piece of tech?

My decision was to do a little bit of both; to take a chance on some new books that had promising samples and also buy a fair number of old favorites that I haven't re-read in a while and am interested in reading again. However, there are a lot of "old favorites" that I will be interested in acquiring at some point and so I've been tagging them to my ebook wish list.

Beware the Man of One Book....er Nook

My reasons for wanting an ereader were really simple: my husband and I are nomads. His job means that we pick up and travel someplace else fairly regularly and bring all our stuff with us. We're both big readers and big media (DVD) watchers and carting around all those books and DVDs gets tiresome fast. The idea that I can carry around a thousand or more books with me in a single device is pretty ideal for our living situation. Especially when said device slips in my purse.

So. I was debating a lot between the Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook and I'd just made up my mind I was probably going to get the Kindle when my father said something that made me think he was getting me an ereader of some stripe for Christmas. So I shelved my plans until I knew for sure. And indeed, my father bought me a Nook.

Me, personally, I'm less inclined to trust the review of a tech writer or the manufacturer's assessments than I am to trust the 'man on the street' type of reviews, especially from my friends, who generally have similar needs and wants from their tech. So I thought I'd maybe start to write up my thoughts about the Nook.

(image heavy below the cut)