getting started

Thanks to everyone who offered reading suggestions in my last post. Much appreciated. I now have some stuff on my PBS wish list, the library hold list and at least one book in my hot little hand. Oh and come December 1, I will have $15 in Borders Bucks to convert into more books. mmmm...books. Kristie, one of them will be that quest book, I promise. It looks like my cuppa. :)

So I am putting aside my fears of being hurt by evil Jake and have recommenced reading Death of a Pirate King. Of course it's awesome because let's face it...Josh Lanyon's writing just flows like a river and even though I see the way the current is taking me and that there are rapids ahead and omg, we just might capsize, i just can't help but let it whisk me along. le sigh. I'm almost halfway through. But I will say that I still hate Jake and want him to experience excrutiating pain. I'm vindictive that way. grrr.

In other news, I still have 2 or 3 pages of a group paper to write and submit. Actually I should have finished it last weekend but procrastination is my middle name. Tomorrow night. Yeah, that's the ticket. Only four more courses to go until I finish this MBA. I'll just keep telling myself that I can make it, regardless of how tired I am of the whole thing.

And finally, just for kicks I give you this photo that I took a few years ago in India. It never ceases to amaze me in all my travels and in all of the countries I've lived in, how ingenious and downright TALENTED people can be in transporting goods with only a bike.

MLM - The Hell You Say!

I should have known. I was warned. Everyone said that Jake Riordan would break my heart and it's true. *sniff* I may never get over this.

Oh hi there. Did you come to celebrate ManLove Monday? Yeah. I'm sorry, but I'm not in the festive mood. Let me tell you why. I fell in like (as in, plz be my BFF) with this guy named Adrien English. He's everything a BFF should be. Funny, witty. Wry and sarcastic. Good taste in books and movies and a thoughtful gift shopper. S'rsly. Every girl needs a good gay friend. And I want Adrien to be mine. But I can't stand watching him get his heart crushed by his erstwhile closeted boyfriend, Homicide Detective Jake Riordan. The rotten bastard!!!!

Lemme go back a bit. I'm clearly getting worked up. See, there is this mystery series written by the incomparable Mr. Josh Lanyon. The Adrien English Mystery Series. And this past week, I read book 3. Title: The Hell You Say. I think it's been reviewed very soundly and thoroughly by many other bloggers out there. So I'm not even going to try to do a proper review. This is my quickie review. But yeah, I'll attempt a brief summary.

Adrien finds himself in the middle of a mystery that includes young college-aged occultist wannabes, missing persons, pentagrams drawn in red blood and a university professor that may or may not be all that he seems. In the meantime, Adrien's mother is thinking of getting remarried and he has to negotiate the relationship with the new potential in-laws. And of course there is the police detective that he's been seeing secretly. Secretly because said policeman is totally in the closet and can't admit to himself let alone the world that he is teh gay! The plot moves along at a good pace. We're not sure who we can trust and the one person we ought to be able to trust (the rat bastard boyfriend) ends up pulling a whopper of a betrayal. But I'm not bitter. No. Uh uh. *ahem*

Anyways, back to the writing. It's good stuff. I've read short stories by Lanyon before and the elements I liked about his writing there stay true here. He has a deft touch with humor and takes the maxim of "show me don't tell me" to heart. The writing is tight, and we're treated to Adrien's take on events as they happen. Being inside Adrien's head is a great place to be. He's funny and sarcastic but also has an edge of vulnerability. It's the vulnerability, the ordinariness and realness of him that really gets me. Because unlike some heros in a murder mystery, Adrien acts like you might expect a normal person to react to finding things like dead bodies. Shock, fear, confusion but with a stubborn determination to feret out the truth behind the lies. It's this determination and ability to move beyond the knee-jerk reaction to horrible events that makes Adrien such a scrappy contender. He may not be a muscle-bound he-man, but he's got a brain and he's not afraid to use it.

I finished this book in a swirling mix of emotions. Happy that I had had the chance to meet Adrien. Satisfied with the denouement of the mystery. And absolutely spitting furious at Jake. Really. Angry. (just ask my buddy lisabea...I was sending her raging emails. lol) I think that it's a testament to Lanyon's writing skill that I feel so strongly about these fictional characters. I may not like what he's done with them, but I'm going to trust (fingers crossed) that it will all work out in the end...be that the next book or the one after it. I'm certainly going to be along for the ride.

Visit Josh Lanyon's official website here. Buy The Hell You Say here as an e-book or at Amazon in paperback.

Oh and be sure to visit my partner-in-crime lisabea for more MLM today.

Man Love Monday: Cops edition

Hello friends. It's Man Love Monday and for once in a long time I have more than just a Captain Jack video to share with you. (although goddamit, that Cap'n Jack is so good with the manlove). Anyways, our topic today is an m/m anthology of three short stories called Arresting Developments. In each story at least one of the heros is involved in law enforcement. I'm going to review them in order of best, pretty good, and nope that didn't work for me. Let's start with the best, shall we?

In a Dark Wood by Josh Lanyon
Thanks to my blogging buddy, lisabea, I had already been exposed to Josh Lanyon's witty persona via livejournal and blog comments. I knew the guy had a way with words, but dayum! What I didn't know was that he had such a knack for drawing realistic characters and sucking you into a narrative within one page flat! This is a taut little gem of a story. It has a creepy mystery angle mixed in with an emotional journey of self-discovery and a tender budding relationship. Travel writer and columnist Tim is set up by a friend with detective Luke. The two of them embark on a weekend camping trip to explore a spooky house in the woods where Tim had a traumatic childhood memory. Along the way, they learn more about each other and Tim faces some realities about himself that he's been avoiding. The story is told in first-person from Tim's point of view, but rather than being limiting, this device adds to the layers of how we access both characters.

I mentioned that there's a mystery, and I'm not kidding. It got truly SCARY for a few minutes there, and I was turning the pages quickly and hoping that everything would turn out ok in the end (it does). *whew* You may be saying, fine fine, that's all well and good but what about the sex? Here's the thing, I found the lovemaking between our two heros to be really organic and romantic. It's not as HAWT as you might be expecting, but I loved it. Again, Lanyon has this way with his words. It felt earthy and natural, and not just tossed in to spice things up. The sex isn't there just for sex's sake. It serves the story and expands our awareness of the characters' emotional development.

"I need so much. There's such a big gaping emptiness in me. I need him to fill it with heat and hungry demands; I want his need to overwhelm my own."

le sigh. In my inexpert opinion, this is a character study drawn in confident strokes. The guys jump off the page, and you get a sense for what makes them tick but without long passages of boring or obvious exposition. Lanyon's writing makes it look easy. Give the man an A and for goodness sake, give me more of his books.

Coyote Crossing by James Buchanan.
Now on to my second favorite story in the anthology. This one is about a border patrol officer in the Southwest. One night while stopping a group of illegal immigrants, he finds the leader of the group is none other than a childhood friend. Actually, it's the little brother of his best friend from high school but lil' brother is all grown up now. Augustin, or Augi, has fallen in with the wrong crowd since Rick knew him as a teenager. Now he's mixed up with trafficking people across the border and possibly with drugs as well. Rick is allowed to vouch for Augi so that he won't have to get tossed in jail immediately and takes him back to his apartment. (This whole bit I wasn't real sure of...is that legal? ethical? I dunno...just roll with it, it's fiction). There's some nice angst between these two guys. Rick can't believe that he's attracted to his best friend's kid brother. Back when they were in high school, Augi used to shadow him and look up to him. It's pretty obvious to the reader that Augi had a crush on Rick back in those days, but apparently this never occured to Rick. They spend some quality time together talking about family and the past. Rick gets the chance to rescue Augi from some nasty drug dealers (awww) and then Augi comes out of the closet to Rick. hooray! (oh come on, we knew it all along didn't we?) Imagine making it with that guy you always dreamed about as a teenager but who never even knew you existed as a potential romantic partner. I think anyone can relate to this, and I know that I found the consumation of Rick and Augi's attraction to be rather sweet and emotionally satisfying. We're left with a definite HFN which is fine and dandy with me for such a quick story.

Grade: B

Gamble Everything by L. Picaro

I didn't really want to review this one. Not because I am squeamish about bad reviews. But frankly, this story bored me. I'll do my best to be quick, honest, and fair.

Adam is a police officer who comes to the aid of a man who just ran off the road because someone shot at him. This man, Marc, looks vaguely familiar to Adam, but he can't place him. Marc says that he's pretty sure he was shot at because he's gay, and that he'd just received threats while leaving a local bar. Adam thinks this is a bit odd because he's also openly gay and has lived in this town for years without any issues. After taking Marc to the police station to fill out some forms, Adam drives him home. The attraction between them is immediate and intense. Then Adam realizes why he recognizes Marc. He's a famous porn star who disappeared from the industry some time ago. Porn star? alrighty then. And it goes from there. Bow-chicka-bow.

I dunno, maybe I'm being too critical. Or maybe this just wasn't the right anthology for this story after the previous two entries. But in any event, I did not connect emotionally with either Marc or Adam. It all felt just a little too, dare I say it...porny. Oh well.

Grade: D+

Two out of three ain't bad.

You can find Arresting Developments at Aspen Mountain Press.

And for more ManLove Monday fun, please surf over to lisabea's to catch her awesome interview with author Samantha Kane!!! And also, don't miss azteclady's review of JL Langley's The Broken H over at Karen's blog. Happy MLM!