Reviewed by Anna Lynn

TITLE:  Wake The Dead

SERIES:  The Godstone Saga #3

AUTHOR:  Jocelynn Drake

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:  404 Pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 26, 2021

BLURB:

The dead wait for Caelan.

The Goddess of Life has sent Caelan to wake her brother, the Dead God.

But crossing the reclusive country of Zastrad is even more treacherous when Caelan and his friends aren’t sure they can trust their guide.

The four friends will be tested by violence, death, political intrigue, and secrets better left in the dark.

When Caelan finally reaches the fractured godstone, he may have to give up everything to save the family he’s cobbled together.

Reviewed by True

TITLE: Sins of Yesterday

SERIES: The Arizona Series #1

AUTHOR: Romeo Preminger

PUBLISHER: Self-Published

LENGTH: 264 pages

RELEASE DATE: January 5, 2022

BLURB:

The first book in Preminger’s Southern Gothic, family secrets epic: the Arizona series.

It’s 1984, and fifteen-year-old Arizona is doing his best to take care of his younger brothers and sister while their daddy drives a truck cross-country and spends his paycheck on booze and gambling. In small town southeastern Louisiana, his family is known as the lowest of the low, and they say it’s on account of a family curse that’s so ugly, no one would dare speak of it.

Then Arizona’s daddy loses his job, and things go from bad to worse. He baits Arizona into a fight, and their brawl results in him and his brothers and sister being split up by Social Services. Arizona is determined to make a better man of himself and take care of his siblings, but he’s up against a world controlled by adults, small town prejudices, and unfathomable family secrets that will change everything he thought he knew about himself.

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Navarro

SERIES:  Rebel Sky Ranch #

AUTHOR:  Kelly Fox

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  295 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 28 , 2021

BLURB: 

My late wife made a bet with me: if I marry her brother, I have to take his last name.

“That’s the rule. You marry two Navarros, you become one of us.”

Renée always did have a sense of humor—even as she was dying—but I’ll never love anyone the way I loved her. Falling for my brother-in-law? Psh. Desi’s almost twenty years younger than me and far too pretty.

Besides, my son would never forgive me.

Still, it’s getting harder and harder to deny our chemistry with every encounter. I just want to pretend that none of this is happening.

God, what if I can’t keep pretending?

The worst kept secret at Rebel Sky Ranch is that I’m deeply, tragically in love with Wyatt Goodnight.

Not only is he my late sister’s husband, but he may have changed my diapers once upon a time. And his son, my best friend, hates the fact that I’m in love with his father.

Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it.

There are times when I think I’m the only person who sees the real Wyatt. The man who sacrificed everything for my sister, who moved heaven and earth to try to save her. The man who wants a life beyond the ranch.

But he denies us, ignores his own feelings, and pretends that his hands don’t know the exact weight and measure of me.

What if he never sees how good we could be together?

Age gap, hurt-comfort, size difference.

Reviewed by Kimberley

TITLE: Boystown

SERIES: Boystown S12

AUTHOR: Jake Biondi

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 272 pages

RELEASE DATE: December 23, 2021

BLURB: The aftermath of the helicopter attack on the Ciancio Spire sets up the epic finale of the entire BOYSTOWN series. As family members come together to mourn the deaths of loved ones and reminisce about the past, the mastermind behind the attack plans to put an end to the Ciancio and Mancini families once and for all.

In the meantime, Theo Baxter, obsessed with Joseph Mancini and his deceased father Cole O’Brien, seeks to realize his dream of a relationship. However, the arrival of Theo’s mother Reverie Manning to Chicago brings about a shocking murder.

While Hope Ciancio struggles to keep her father’s family secret hidden, Neil Ciancio and Cody Mancini work to uncover it. When the truth is finally revealed, multiple lives are impacted, setting in motion yet another scheme that puts lives at risk.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, four loving couples prepare for their joint wedding day; however, the presence of a shadowy figure threatens to turn a day of celebration into one of tragedy. After twelve seasons, the saga of the Ciancio and Mancini families reaches its unforgettable conclusion.

There’s no place like BOYSTOWN!

Reviewed by True

TITLE: A Christmas Miracle

SERIES: Winsford Green #4

AUTHOR: Ruby Moone

PUBLISHER: Self-Published

LENGTH: 164 pages

RELEASE DATE: December 16, 2021

BLURB:

Alfie Hope’s life is perfect. Managing Darley Hall for an employer who hasn’t visited the house in five years. It’s more than a job, it’s his home. A safe haven for him and the staff he considers family. That is, until their master passes away and a new master inherits. A new master who wants to live in the house.

Jolyon Mortimer Devereaux was stunned when he inherited Darley Hall. It offered an escape from his life, his lover, and his awful family. He arrives to find an estate manager who is outrageously handsome in a gentle, yet rugged way, but someone who clearly has never been a servant in his life!

Alfie and Jo grow tentatively closer. That is until a shock Christmas arrival blows everything wide apart, leaving Alfie and Jo struggling to hold on to their love. It will take a Christmas miracle to hold them together.

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE: The Mystery of the Spirits

SERIES:  Snow & Winter

AUTHOR:  C.S. Poe

PUBLISHER:  Emporium Press

LENGTH:    231 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 30, 2021

BLURB: 

Antique dealer Sebastian Snow and Homicide detective Calvin Winter have been happily married for a year and a half. In that time, there’s been nary a mystery in sight, and for a recovering sleuth like Sebastian, an uneventful life is exactly what he needs.

That is, until Calvin’s lieutenant enters the Emporium and demands insight on a bizarre object known as a spiritoscope, hailing from the early days of the Spiritualism movement. Sebastian’s extensive knowledge of Victorian curiosities leads him to consulting for the NYPD—putting him at odds with his husband. And as the bodies begin to stack up, so do the seemingly dead-end clues, which if Sebastian can’t make sense of, might result in a whole lot more death.

Mystery, murder, and marriage… Sebastian’s back.

Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Mountain Topped

AUTHOR: K.M. Neuhold and Mia Monroe

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH:  221 pages

RELEASE DATE:  January 7, 2022

BLURB: 

Can a fantasy about being shared turn into something more? Bowen’s about to find out when he gets Mountain topped.

Is there a bigger gay cliché than falling in love with your straight best friend? Oh, I know; a random hookup with a dude from the gym.

I didn’t think I’d ever manage to fall for anyone other than the unattainable Hawthorne, but the more time I spend with Aldis the more I… like him.

As for my straight best friend… do straight guys usually stare so much when you’re wearing gray sweatpants?

I never thought the drunken admission of my deepest fantasy would lead to the three of us hooking up and Hawthorne looking at me like that. Now my best friend and my hookup-turned-more are bonding over their shared love of mountain climbing, the three of us are, ahem, exploring, and I’m hoping this is more than just a messy fling.

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  A Sanctuary for Soulden

SERIES:  The Lords of Bucknall Club #4

AUTHORS:  J.A. Rock and Lisa Henry

LENGTH:   255 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 28, 2021

BLURB:

He wasn’t meant for a quiet life.

Philip Winthrop, Viscount Soulden, is a fop. An idle popinjay with nothing more on his mind than how to best knot his cravat. He definitely doesn’t spy against the French. Or arrange hasty weddings. Or occasionally commandeer the navy. And he certainly doesn’t seek out mortal danger in order to combat his pervasive ennui. It’s all just a big misunderstanding when he’s shot by a French intelligence officer during a merry riverside chase. And what a wonderful bit of quick thinking to pretend to be a corpse in order to get himself taken to the local surgeon’s autopsy cellar. The French will never find him there. If the French are even looking for him. Which they’re not. Now he just needs to locate a way out before this surgeon fellow attempts to dissect him.

He’d rather deal with the dead than the living.

Surgeon Edmund Fernside does his best to heal the living, but in truth, he’d much rather look into the gaping chest cavity of a corpse than into the startling blue eyes of a…corpse that just climbed off his autopsy table. Well then. Lord Soulden is clearly a man with some complicated secrets. But with the French in hot pursuit and a rather brutal gunshot wound, Soulden’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and Fernside discovers that he enjoys the pleasure of his company. In more ways than one.

Now, trusting each other could mean the difference between life and death.

As Soulden learns to be still for the first time in his life, Fernside wonders if perhaps it’s time to spread his wings a little. They can only hide from the outside world—and from their pasts—for so long before the secrets they’ve uncovered about each other strain the growing attraction between them. Each man must decide whether a life of comfortable lies is preferable to one full of difficult truths. And whether the sanctuary they’ve created together is something worth fighting for.

A Sanctuary for Soulden is the fourth book in the Lords of Bucknall Club series, where the Regency meets m/m romance. The Lords of Bucknall Club can be read in any order.

Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  The Viking and the Drag Queen

SERIES:  Campo Royale #2

AUTHOR:  V.L. Locey

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  214 pages

RELEASE DATE:  January 5, 2021

BLURB:

Who will emerge the victor on the battlefield of love?

Tyr Hemmingsen had his life mapped out at a young age. The only son of the late Danish hockey great, Elias Hemmingsen, Tyr has always done his best to follow the plans his father had laid out for him. Finish school, make it into the pros, become team captain, find a biddable young lady to marry, and win a championship so the Hemmingsen name lived on eternally on the side of a massive silver cup. Like the good son he is, Tyr has done as his father wished, no matter how it peeled away layers of his true self. Then, all the neatly placed supports that hold up his so-called life come crashing down during a night on the town. Tyr might be known as the “War God of Wilmington” on the ice, but there’s no battling the effect Gigi Patel LeBay has on him.

Elijah McBride lives for the spotlight. As Gigi, he bewitches and bedazzles the crowds at the Campo Royale Club. His vibrant stage persona is the face he presents to the world. Underneath the rouge, eyeliner, and lipstick is a young man who still feels the sting of his parents’ disapproval and rejection of the son who wears wigs and dates other men. With his drag family and older brother in his corner, he’s finally found peace in his life. Until the fateful night a massive hockey player shows up at the club. There’s a world of hurt in Tyr’s soft brown eyes, and Eli finds himself falling for the big man, despite all the barriers he’s built around his tender heart.

The Viking and the Drag Queen is an opposites attract gay romance with heavy checking, lipstick worship, an out and proud queen, a closeted athlete, family lost and found, twink/jock, a new beginning, and a well-cinched happy ending.