Reviewed by Anna Lynn

TITLE:  It’s Complicated

SERIES:  A Reservations Story

AUTHOR:  Kindle Alexander

PUBLISHER:  Kindle Alexander LLC

LENGTH:  420 Pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 7, 2021

BLURB:

Nightclub manager Julian Cullen runs Reservations with impeccable precision and a deep sense of pride. But repressed memories from his abduction two years ago surface, leaving him struggling emotionally. Julian vows to reclaim his previous life but doesn’t factor in the biggest distraction of all: the handsome cowboy hanging around the club intent on gaining his attention.

Entrepreneur Beckett St. Clair built an industry-leading survivalist training company through hard work and dedication. The tough as nails outdoorsman can navigate any situation or so he thinks…When a chance encounter with a guarded night club manager leaves him tumbling head over heels into uncharted territory.

One man is lost to his past, the other dreams of a future.
Both men will soon find out love is never easy…it’s complicated.

Reviewed by True

TITLE: Claim Me, Love Me

AUTHOR: Jaiyde Thomas

PUBLISHER: Self-Published

LENGTH: 235 pages

RELEASE DATE: November 4, 2021

BLURB:

The only way to fall in love is to take the first step.

For Caleb, that first step leads to fear, violence, and the death of the only boy he’s ever loved. He won’t—can’t—admit who he is to himself. How could he ever share his deepest secrets with someone else?

Josaiah has known he was gay since he was seven. He’s experienced in more ways than one—with sex, with other men, and as a Dominant. But love is something he can’t accept or give, and he’s walled himself off from any kind of affection.

Can Caleb confront his ghosts and learn to love himself and his new Dom? Will Josaiah remember how to love, and be loved in turn? As Caleb and Josaiah take the first few steps toward each other, their pasts threaten to overwhelm their future.

Reviewed by Kat

TITLE: Real Mann

SERIES: Bear Valley (Book 2)

AUTHOR: Aries France

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 270 pages

RELEASE DATE: December 14, 2021

BLURB:

Bishop

A real man is one who has seen active duty, who can take the high pressure and high demands of working for the FBI. So, why does it feel that I’m missing something? Why can’t I keep shoving my desires down, when that has always worked before? And why does Bear Valley, Colorado seem to hold all the answers to what could be real in my life? I’ll do anything to protect the place and people who have become important to me, no matter the cost. Maybe a real man can be honest about what he wants, and who he wants. Maybe a real life could be so much better than the lonely one I am living.

Quinn

The ingredients that can be blended to make flavors of beer. The permanence of brick and steel. That stuff is real. Solid. Dependable. Precise. And I know to be a real man—the kind of man like my brothers are, and not like the one my father was—I need to be those things, too. But I’m not. Not the real me, anyway. No, the real me is the one who needs adrenaline to push out the thoughts and feelings I can’t handle and does whatever it takes to get it. And there is no better adrenaline rush than the one I get from Bishop Frost. He’s the most real man I have ever met; there is no way he could want the real me.

This book is a contemporary MM romance with a HEA, but contains adult content for mature audiences only.

◆◆◆

Bear Valley is a series about four brothers living in a small ski-resort town. The series begins with Forever Mann.  Real Mann is best enjoyed after reading Forever Mann. Bear Valley is named after a fictional geographical location and contains no shifters, bear or otherwise.

Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  His Fairy Share

SERIES:  Starfig Investigations Book 3

AUTHOR:  Meghan Maslow

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  376 pages

RELEASE DATE:  May 1, 2020

BLURB:

“Why does this always happen to us?” –Quinn Broomsparkle, wizard extraordinaire

Six months have passed since wizard Quinn Broomsparkle left behind his indentured servant shackles. He’s in love with his half-dragon/half-fairy familiar, Twig Starfig. He’s got a home. Friends. A job. And a father-in-law he could do without. A pretty close to perfect life. But as Quinn has learned the hard way, things rarely stay peaceful for long. Especially when a Starfig’s involved.

Summoned to his home realm and a past he’d thought left behind, Quinn and Twig find themselves in the middle of evil machinations . . . with no clear enemy. When Quinn’s younger brother, Zak, goes missing, it’s Starfig Investigations on the case.

Being the first wizard in a thousand years isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. On top of a missing brother, a broken-hearted red fury, an archivist with a secret, and a ghost pirate-parrot who’s determined to return to his captain, Quinn and Twig’s relationship is sorely tested when questions—and unhappy answers—about their mating dilemma are pushed to the fore.

All Quinn wants is his fairy share of happiness. Is that so much to ask?

Reviewed by True

TITLE: The Life Revamp

SERIES: The Love Study #3

AUTHOR: Kris Ripper

PUBLISHER: Carina Press

LENGTH: 288 pages

RELEASE DATE: December 7, 2021

BLURB:

All Mason wants to do is fall in love, get married and live happily ever after.

The hunt is beginning to wear him down…until he meets (slightly) famous fashion designer Diego. Everything sparks between them—the banter, the sex, the fiery eye contact across a crowded room.

There’s just one thing: Diego is already married and living his happily-ever-after, which luckily (or not) for Mason includes outside courtships.

But not quite in the way he’d always imagined.

Mason thought he knew what would make him happy, but it turns out the traditional life he’d expected has some surprises in store.

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  To Melt a Frozen Heart

SERIES:  Rossingley

AUTHOR:  Fearne Hill

PUBLISHER:  NineStar Press

LENGTH:  129 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 14, 2021

BLURB:  

Freddie Duchamps-Avery has only one desire this Christmas: to ask his beloved Reuben to marry him. However, with his needy father moping around, finding the perfect, romantic moment to propose is proving tricky.

The Rt Hon. Charles Duchamps-Avery is a successful politician, a hopeless father, and a miserable divorcé. Facing the prospect of Christmas alone in London, he accepts his son Freddie’s generous invitation to join the gang at Rossingley. Yet, being surrounded by happy couples only serves to remind of his past mistakes and a looming, lonely old age.

If only a handsome, enigmatic stranger would appear and distract him…

Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  Mack’s Rousing Ghoulish Highland Adventure

SERIES:  Mack’s Marvelous Manifestations #3

AUTHOR:  AJ Sherwood

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:  230 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 3, 2021

BLURB:

Mack did not sign up for hunting unknown ghost-eating creatures.

But that’s what he gets when he and Brandon arrive to help Eli and husbands at an old inn situated in the Scottish Highlands. Now he’s surrounded by terrified ghosts on the run, zombie-ghosts that look eaten, and no one knows what the baddie is.

They’re running out of time to figure it out though, because whatever it is? It’s herding ghosts straight for the inn. Scarier still? It’s killing healthy people in a week to eat their soul.

If someone could please come up with a game plan? Mack would be forever thankful.

Before, you know, they all get eaten.

Tags:

Scottish mythology rears its head, not in a good way, it’s a hot mess but they’re trying dammit, emotional baggage check, Brandon wants a kilt and sword, Mack wants him in a kilt, it’s a mutual desire thing, Mack being a BAMF, Havili protectiveness rears its head, friends being awesome, no one gets thrown this time, Quinn’s a kissing monster when drunk, Romance novel your highlander is missing, personal growth is hard, shower sex, character growth.

Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  Fairy and Impartial

SERIES:  Starfig Investigations Book 4

AUTHOR:  Meghan Maslow

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  384 pages

RELEASE DATE:  September 30, 2021

BLURB:

All Twig Starfig wants is to settle into mated life with his wizard and be a good leader to his clan. No drama. No heartache. A happily-ever-after fit for a dragon. Or half-dragon, at any rate.

Instead, Twig and Quinn get roped into a new case involving missing orc stones. Yes, those really are a thing. Twig’s dad is on the PR warpath . . . again. Quinn’s little brother can’t seem to stop pining over their housemate. Someone—or something—seems to be following them. And getting quality time alone with his wizard is more difficult than keeping one’s virginity at an incubus party.

To make matters worse, Twig’s old enemies start dropping like fairyflies, and they find themselves smack in the middle of an inconvenient murder investigation with a certain red fury as the main suspect. With everyone in Lighthelm convinced of Bill’s guilt—and by association Twig’s—Starfig Investigations is on the case.

Is there no one in the Elder Realm who’s fairy and impartial?

Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  On a Midnight Clear

AUTHOR:  Lily Morton

PUBLISHER:  Serlf-Published

LENGTH:  212 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 17, 2021

BLURB:

It can safely be said that Lord Barnaby Greenwood is not having the best of Christmases.

He’s penniless, up to his eyeballs in debt, and about to lose his estate. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that when a local property developer offers a lot of money to buy King’s Wood from him, Barnaby is very tempted. But his father had always impressed on him that the green wood was sacred and must be protected at all costs, so he finds himself saying no.

He knows this will result in the loss of his home, but duty comes before everything. However, that fateful decision leads instead to a magical Christmas for Barnaby, complete with an old god who grants him a favour, and a beautiful statue that comes to life.

Cosmo is perfect for him. He’s funny and kind and completely enraptured with Barnaby, and for the first time in his life, Barnaby falls in love. But how can this lead to anything but heartache, when on the last stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, Cosmo will go back to being a statue and take Barnaby’s heart with him?

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Pros & Cons of Christmas

SERIES:  Pros & Cons #6

AUTHOR:  A.E. Wasp

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  87 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 1, 2021

BLURB:  

Christmas time and the gang is celebrating leaving the threats and dangers behind them with a week long house party in the country. It’s the perfect opportunity for a murder.

★★★★★

My name is Charlie Binghman. Well, it was back when I was a conman. Now I’m done. Finished. Out of the business. A vigilante grifter no more. Charlie Bingham is dead for real this time.

All I want to do is spend the rest of my life in peace and quiet with the man I love. (Stop laughing, Shook. No one asked for your opinion.) So, why not celebrate our survival and happiness with a big holiday party? Let’s have a house party over Christmas week, I said. We can invite friends and family. It will be fun.

Of course, it’s chaos from the moment our first guests arrive in the middle of a blizzard. Things go downhill quickly from there. And that’s before a stranger shows up full of questions and Ridge finds a dead body.

Now I have a house full of wanted criminals, an uninvited guest, and a corpse in the kitchen.

If I want to keep all of us out of jail, I’ve got to keep the journalist occupied, keep the guest amused, and keep my grandmother in the dark until I figure out who the dead guy was, who would want him dead, and who murdered him right under our noses. No problem. Good thing I have my team with me. We should be able to figure this out in no time.

Right?

Reviewed by Taylin

TITLE: Crooked Shadows

SERIES: Whitethorn Agency #2

AUTHOR: M A Grant

PUBLISHER: Carina Press

LENGTH: Novel

RELEASE DATE: December 14, 2021

BLURB:

Everyone has secrets. Especially those who live in the shadows.

Cristian Slava doesn’t fear much. After he was betrayed by the man he called an uncle, leaving upstate New York for the Carpathian Mountains of his childhood is more a matter of practicality than fear. With him is Atlas Kinkaid, a former marine turned fierce bodyguard…and fierce lover, albeit a hell of a complicated one.

Cristian’s cunning is tested by the politics and intrigue of the vampire families of Romania, and the warm welcome he and Atlas were assured of quickly turns to ash as they race to unravel the mystery of an old friend’s disappearance. Searching for the missing vampire draws them into a web of betrayal and half-truths that reaches further than Cristian ever could have imagined, and they uncover a string of grisly murders that bear a striking similarity to the attack that changed Atlas’s life forever.

Stalked by the past and uncertain of the future, Cristian learns he does have something to fear after all…

Losing the man he loves.