Reviewed by Vicki

 

TITLE: Lights, Camera, Cupid!

SERIES: Bluewater Bay #6

AUTHORS: S.E. Jakes, Amy Lane, Z.A. Maxfield, Anne Tenino, and L.A. Witt

PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing

LENGTH: 226 pages

BLURB:

Cupid is visiting Bluewater Bay, and he’s leaving chaos in his wake.

Nothing’s been the same in this sleepy little logging town since Hollywood came to shoot the hit TV show Wolf’s Landing—especially Valentine’s Day.

In L.A. Witt’s Just Another Day, beloved actors Levi Pritchard and Carter Samuels have an announcement for their fans, while in Z.A. Maxfield’s I’ll Be There, actor Spencer Kepler and his boyfriend Nash Holly brave a blizzard and a fan convention to spend their first February the 14th together.

Of course, it’s not just TV stars celebrating the day. In Anne Tenino’s Helping Hand, an aspiring artist eager to escape Bluewater Bay decides he just might have a reason to stay: lust-inspiring logger Gabriel Savage. In S.E. Jakes’s No Easy Way, a local teacher reconnects with an old lover working security on the film set. And in Amy Lane’s Nascha, a Bluewater Bay elder recalls how his own unconventional family used to celebrate the holiday.

Real life may be nothing like TV, but when Cupid comes to town, there’s plenty of romance and drama to go around.

REVIEW:

I love this series and I was quite happy to see a Valentine’s Day anthology being released…. Off for some fun!

Just Another Day by L.A. Witt

We are off to a good start with this story! Levi and Carter were featured in the first Bluewater Bay book, Starstruck. I liked their story quite a bit, and it’s cool to get to see them again. They had some angst and drama in their book, this little story has just a tiny bit of angst. Levi is NOT a fan of Valentine’s Day at all. He wants nothing to do with any of it, too much commercialism, too high of an expectation of perfection, it’s all just too much. He just wants to go home after working and have a nice normal evening with Carter. Carter has a different opinion on the whole Valentine’s Day issue….

So this is obviously a short story, featuring an existing couple. There’s not a lot of drama, just an argument over how to celebrate (or not!) a day dedicated to love. It’s short and sweet, just right for what it is. A Look at the ongoing story of Levi and Carter, and their kitties Link and Zelda! If you haven’t read their book, you’d probably be fine reading this story, you can pretty much pick up the personality traits of the characters, and you don’t really need to know their whole story. Lori is a fantastic writer, she can’t write a bad story if she tried, even a little glimpse like this one!

RATING: 

Nascha by Amy Lane

Ohhh… That was just a tragic, sad story. Amy Lane has a Bluewater Bay book coming out in June, called The Deep of the Sound. It’s about a man named Cal, who has a great uncle named Nascha. This is Nascha’s back story. It is heartbreaking. Nascha is part of a threesome, Raw and Kitten are married, and Nascha joins them, the three living and playing together, fleecing tourists of money at gambling tables on the local reservation. Tragedy strikes and Nascha ends up with his niece living with him and has to give up Raw and Kitten for some time. Well, it’s an Amy Lane story, so you can imagine how it goes.

This story is very different from the other stories in this book, it is dark and sad, very little happiness, and didn’t have anything to do with Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t really have an ending, it just stops, to be continued in the next book. It’s very much a prelude to Cal’s story, I liked it in its tragic way, but I’m not sure it fits in this anthology to be honest. It feels like the first few chapters of a book to come. But the writing is beautiful, the characters are deep considering how short it is, and love of these people comes through. Nascha is a very good man living a difficult life, through nothing of his own making. He really does do the best he can with what he is given. At any point he could have walked away, yet he doesn’t, even though others do.

It’s beautiful and tragic, and I look forward to reading Cal’s story and checking in with Nascha.

RATING: 

No Easy Way by S.E. Jakes

Cary and Dylan were high school sweethearts, but only for a short time…. then Dylan left. Six years later, Dylan comes home to Bluewater Bay. To a pissed off Cary, with some serious abandonment issues. Cary has moved on, he has an arrangement with one of the attorney’s working for the Wolf’s Landing cast, he’s a teacher, and writes some naughty books on the side. He does not have any interest in resuming a relationship with the man that left him. Dylan has spent some time in the Army, has seen a lot, but only wants to come home to Cary. One of the things that kept him pissed off and comforted was finding one of Cary’s romance novels, that had a whole lot about them in it. Real and imagined. Dylan is now ready to fight for Cary.

So this is a nice little story, some romance, some sex, and great background stories for both of these guys. They both have some issues, there is more to the end of their previous relationship than Cary knows, and it all comes out. I was a little uncomfortable with Cary’s treatment of Kevin, his sometimes boyfriend, but other than that I really liked this story. A good balance between drama and romance. With just a bit of Valentine’s Day worked in.

RATING: 

Helping Hand by Anne Tenino

Hmmm… I really hope this is the beginning of a story! I liked it, but it was so incomplete. Lucas is a gay teen, just finishing high school in a small logging town. It is the Bluewater Bay we are familiar with, but none of this story has anything to do with Wolf’s Landing. It’s about a small town kid, trying desperately to get out. He is accepted at an art college in California, but has to break it to his family that he not only wants to go to college, but it’s an art college, not in Washington, oh, and he’s gay.

It’s a great beginning, and I so wish there was more! There’s no romance to it, we just get a glimpse of Lucas and his bright future. There is a odd few minutes of passion (on Valentine’s Day) spent with his brothers best friend, but it doesn’t go anywhere. There’s no real connection between the two, just a few stolen minutes, and the hope that maybe sometime, there might be something there. It is a good coming out and coming of age story, and Lucas seems like a good kid, a strong character, he works through his family issues and I hope he gets his happy ever after. But we don’t know that from this story. It’s well written, I do like Anne’s stories, and this one is good, but it just ended and I wanted more. I know, it’s a short story, but it was over so fast!

RATING: 

I’ll Be There by Z.A. Maxfield

Ha! That was hilarious…. I can’t say it was the most plausible story I have ever read, but it was fun! Even more so because of the location. We met Spencer, the British actor, and Nash, the auto mechanic in Hell on Wheels, the third Bluewater Bay book. Spencer and Nash have a nice little romance with a bit of drama, and live happily ever after. But…. it’s time for their first Valentine’s Day as a couple and they aren’t in the same state! Spencer is an a convention in Bloomingdale Illinois, and Nash is stuck with cancelled flights in Dallas, having promised Spencer he’d be there. Nash calls his genius twin brother, who gets his geek squad friends to come up with a plan to get Nash to Spencer! This is the sweet, hilarious completely unrealistic part. But it was so good!

So I went to GRL last year, at the Indian Lakes Hilton Hotel, in Bloomindale Illinois, that this story is partially set at. ZA was there too, and she nailed the oddities of that hotel just perfectly! From the odd medallions in the center of the round rooms ceilings, the cave bar, the miles of cold tunnels… I remember it all! It was fun to read about a place I have been to that was so strange. The story is sweet and goofy, Spencer and Nash are not together but for a very few minutes at the end, there is no sex, but it was still a great addition to the anthology. And it has a happy Valentine’s Day ending!

RATING: 

This was an interesting anthology, some fit with the Valentine’s Day theme, some didn’t. Some had a lot to do with Bluewater Bay and Wolf’s Landing, some didn’t. I liked them all, I like these authors, and the stories were all well written. I liked that some had existing couples from previous books, and I liked that some had new to us characters. The ones with existing couples gave us a little glimpse of what they are doing now, and the ones with new characters I’m hoping will have books of their own (one we know already does, Amy Lane’s book is out in a couple of months). If you haven’t read the Bluewater Bay books you should be ok reading this as a standalone novel, but you really should go read the other books too. I love this series, I like that the books are written by a diverse selection of authors but all center around a town and a television show. I also like that it’s set it my neck of the woods! I liked this book quite a bit!

OVERALL RATING:  (should be 4.25 average but we’ll round up!)

BUY LINKS:

Riptide

Amazon

ARe