Welcome to the Donna and Vicki Show! We are happy to announce we have each done 100 reviews here at Love Bytes and we want to chat about ourselves a bit! We live on opposite sides of the world, so we are interested in getting to know each other better and decided to share it with you. So here we go! A long distance interview between Vicki on the west coast of the United States, and Donna in Western Australia!

Let’s sit down with a cup of tea and have a chat.

So Donna, tell me how long have you been reading gay romance and how did you discover it?

Donna: Oh, well thank you for asking Vicki because as you’re aware I always enjoy the chance to talk about myself!

I’ve always been a romance addict because I enjoy having my happy ending guaranteed. Bittersweet romances are an oxymoron in my opinion, but to each his own. I’d been going through a bit of a funk, I was tired of all the genres I’d spent years reading my way through. Historical, paranormal, contemporary, fantasy, but always m/f. One day I was perusing Amazon trying to find something to interest me when a book by Avril Ashton caught my eye. I’d read one of her m/f books previously but the blurb on this one confused me. The main characters were both men but it was still a romance? What on earth was with that? Now I wasn’t in any way homophobic but I guess I’d just never really thought about it before. Of course there would be romances featuring same sex couples. I was surprised and absolutely intrigued. So on the 5th of October 2012 I purchased Love The Sinner and started reading what I assumed would simply be the first book of a new genre for me. Instead I discovered the wonderful readers, authors and books that make up this world of m/m romance and I can’t imagine ever leaving!

Now I guess it’s only polite to allow you some page time too, Vicki. I’m trying to come up with a witty, original question but I guess it would probably be best to start with the same thing. So, how long have you been reading gay romance and how did you discover it?

Vicki: (Slurps her tea) Let’s see…. I’ve always read a lot, working my way through fantasy, Sci-fi, historical, then on to paranormal romance. I had read books with gay main characters before, Mercedes Lackey’s Vanyel, and Diana Gabaldon’s Lord John, and liked them quite well, but those weren’t romance novels. I think I wish they were, there was on page gay sex with Lord John and Percy and I was very intrigued by that, but never followed up on it. Then in June 2009 I finished the latest JR Ward vampire book (speaking of gay undertones! Hello V and Butch?), and I was ready for something new. I was looking around on JR Ward’s message boards in the recommendations section and there was a listing for something called m/m romance. I clicked, and what to my wondrous eyes should appear, a whole list of gay romance novels! I had no idea these even existed. I looked and settled on Ariel Tachna’s Partnership series, since I was in a paranormal phase, and my life has never been the same. I now read 99% gay romance novels, still popping over to het romance now and then for a few favorites.

Next question for you! How did you come to review books for Love Bytes? What do you like best about reviewing?

Donna: Oh, good question. I’ve been reviewing for the blog since the beginning of this year, so back when it was still The Blog of Sid Love. Some may consider it rather embarrassing to admit, but I was so freakin’ excited when Sid sent me a message asking if I’d be interested in reviewing for the blog that I took a screenshot of it and sent it to a ton of people who sadly didn’t know or really care who Sid Love was. So, it was a party of one at my house but I broke out my happy dance and was twerking all over the living room. But at the same time I was seriously freaking out because by some major coincidence Sid had seen the only real review I had ever written and I shit you not, I spent so many hours trying to get it done that it was ridiculous. I checked out a few reviews by other people on the blog and thought – there is no way in hell I can do this. But I wasn’t going to say no. I’m a big believer in Google. Google can teach you anything you need to know, so I Googled – How do I Write a Book Review? – and the rest is history.

The best part about reviewing is being able to draw attention to books and authors that I think should get some extra attention or that I get really excited over. The best thing about reviewing for this blog? I genuinely like the girls and guys that I review with, past, present and hopefully future. They make this fun and some have become actual friends. I swear Dani is like a twin who was somehow born in a different country, we are such similar people.

And now you Vicki! How did you come to review for this awesomesauce blog? Why do you love it? And what makes you leap at an ARC screaming MINE!!!! Because lets be honest with the good people who are reading this. Sometimes a title can drop on our ARC list that creates a virtual life or death race as though we’re part of the Hunger Games and that ARC is the only available weapon.

Vicki: (spitting out her tea!) Oh Donna…. Twerking? Really? Sigh.

I started at the first of the year too! Rhys Ford was the connection, apparently she had seen some of my reviews on Goodreads and recommended to Sid and Dani that I might be a potential reviewer. I got a message from Sid I think, asking about reviewing for the blog at the end of last year and I put him off until January. Thought about it, did a trial review and bam! Here we are, 100 reviews later! Why do I love it? Well! I should say something about sharing books with fellow fans, encouraging authors, spreading the love, etc. All of that is certainly true! But to be a selfish person, I LOVE getting a book before it’s released! It used to piss me right the hell off to see people talking about a book that hadn’t come out yet, drove me nuts! Now I can do that! I generally don’t, but still! I do love the different folks we have reviewing for Love Bytes, I think it’s fabulous that we have reviewers in different countries, although it can be a challenge to chat amongst ourselves! I do love sharing the books that I love though, that is a big bonus as well. As for screaming MINE!!! Yep, I do that! I have my favorites that I keep an eye out for, and grab them as soon as I can…. Then it’s hard to give an objective review, when I know I’m going to love a book before I even read it!

So Donna, what is your favorite sub-genre within our beloved gay romance category? What really gets you excited?

Donna: To be honest I’ll read pretty much anything but I find I really have to match my books to my mood. Sometimes I love BDSM, the more violent the better, and sometimes I love YA with no sex that manages to convince me that two sixteen year olds in love for the first time will actually be together forever. I love GFY as long as it’s done well and I’m not big on angsty story lines. Maybe I’m just boringly mainstream but I love stereotypes. I love bratty twinks, gruff bears, flamboyant queens and alpha tops that are so toppy their asshole has never seen the light of day. Maybe it would be a lot easier to say that I don’t like sci fi or historical.

And you Vicki? Do you have a favourite sub-genre? Or maybe a theme or certain well known story line that makes you cringe and declare – I ain’t reading that!

Vicki: I am pretty open to all of it…. I love BDSM but I’m not overly fond of non-con or humiliation as part of it. I love paranormal, give me some vampires and shifters and I am happy! Suspense, action, drama, cowboys, damaged musicians, porn stars, cops, FBI, I love it all! I tend to avoid YA, but I’ll read some NA. Plots that are too cute and fluffy get old after a while for me. I’ll give anything a try once, but that may be all you’ll get! I’m a little picky about realism and believability in a story. Yes, I know, I said I love paranormal, and no, I don’t think vampires really exist! What I mean is in the world the story is taking place in, I need to believe the plot. Whatever that world is, contemporary or paranormal, whatever, I need to believe that at that place and time, this story COULD have happened. That’s what will turn me off quick with a book.

Hey Vicki, do you think anyone is still with us or have we bored them all to death? Maybe we should stop chatting about ourselves and tell the good people about what we’re gonna do to celebrate our 100^th reviews.

We’ve both had a good hard look at the backlist of titles that we’ve reviewed for the blog and have each purchased two of our favourite ebooks that we’d like to share with you. Our fans. (I’m calling them fans Vicki; if they’ve read this far then they definitely qualify as our fans). So that means that there are four books up for grabs for four separate winners. The titles we chose are:

Donna’s pick #1 – The Red Sheet by Mia Kerrick  REVIEW

Donna’s pick #2 – Objects in the Rearview Mirror by F.E. Feeley Jr   REVIEW

Vicki’s pick #1 – Gravitational Attraction by Angel Martinez  REVIEW

Vicki’s pick #2 – Love Lessons by Heidi Cullinan  REVIEW

To enter the competition simply leave a comment below and the winners will be notified by email next week.

Thanks for listening to us ramble folks! And THANKS for reading our reviews!