You Know Me As Lad

Holy F*cking Sex Bomb!!!

This little story was mega sexy, sweet and did I mention SEXY?! Adam is fighting to meet the deadline for his school paper and needs a computer FAST. He ends up using his roommate's and clicks on who knows what which leads him to jock boy Josh's porn stash. Josh's kinky, BDSM porn stash right as Josh walks in. This leads to Adam and Josh creating so much sexual fire that I almost passed the hell out a few times.

Somehow this story manages to be sexy, raunchy, sweet, dirty, cute, and hot all at once. Good lawd, these boys are just discovering themselves and each other and already they are burning shit up!

This was an awesome little story and I will definitely be looking for more from this author.

Old school Aliyah Burke and I loved it. This couple weathered the test of time.

The sugar coma is always worth it

I have read this book at least ten times and EVERY FREAKING TIME it melts my sugar greedy heart. Every time. I am a sucker for books with kids in them as most people know but that doesn't mean I love all books with kids. This book, however, hits all of my happy happy joy joy buttons.

No conflict!!!
This is very simply a book about a single dad who wants to raise his babies somewhere great and meets the love of his life in the process. No explosions, no inner struggles, no evil family members, no guns, no...well I think you get it. Nothing but love, baby!

Peter spent his life savings to pay a surrogate mother and he ends up with twins. Deciding he wants to raise them in the country he moves and as a result meets Chad who's the sweet, hot park ranger. Insta-love? Yeah, we have some of that up in this here state park! Now, this is classic Sean Michael sex scenes and whatnot but I never care because these guys are adorable in a very old school M/M way from when I started reading this genre back in the early 2000's. They're full of lovey dovey truncated sentences. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Babies!!!
We get not one baby but twins. A boy and a girl who are freaking adorable. The book is basically the first year of their lives. I love that they aren't just decorative characters. This is really a book about the family as a whole. Peter, Chad, and the kids are building something and it's awesomely portrayed. Sean Michael does uncomplicated feel good family books so well and this one, along with Daddy Daddy and Me, is one of the best.

So, I recommend this book to anyone who's yearning for some cheesy but really sweet writing. This book is definitely not one for everyone, so really read the reviews before you buy is what I'd advise. Me? I love it. No shame in my game. I LOVE it.

People!!! From where can I get a copy of this?!

I changed the rating from five stars to two stars. This book tried to defeat me but I stuck to it. It was painful. So painful. Repetitive, simple and in some places just bad writing. I'm kind of sad that I didn't love it like I remember loving it the first time I read it. Oh well.

It was sweet...until the cliffhanger. The romance is resolved but everything else is up in the air. Gah.

Where do I get this??

This looks like it will be crazy fucking amazing!!

Another sweet home run in this series for me. I loved it more than the first one!!

I was jonesing for some Calmes and this definitely fed my habit. On to #2!!!

Well, this was the best of the Velvet Glove series so far if I remember all of them correctly. There was a TON of sex though. Good gawd, halfway through and I was skimming. What made this worth reading was me wanting to know when Malachi and Hercules were going to come out with their relationship. It was like:

A little bit of dialogue.
Sex sex SEX
A little bit of dialogue.
Sex SEX SEX
A tiiiiiiiiny bit of dialogue.
SEX SEX SEX!!!!!

They tired me out just reading about it. But still I like these guys and wanted to know when they would be open. It eventually happens after the reader has to wade through rivers of cum to get the HEA. Still, it does happen.

This was 2.85 stars.

The guys were sweet and the premise was...strange. Sweet but strange. This is the first puppy play story I've read I think and it was definitely an experience. It had slightly less sex than most Sean Michael books but that's not saying much. Tyg was deep into the puppy play. He even thought and spoke in very simple sentences. He thought of his hands as paws and just didn't have much about him that was strictly human. This made for an interesting reaction from me because a lot of times I felt like I was reading about a dog who happened to speak and have sex with Dane, his rehabilitator.

Despite the fact that I didn't know quite what to make of this story I did like it. It was cute. Almost a three but then it became a little too much sex at the end. Still, cute.

So Many Things I'm Not Going To Do

I'm not going to rate this book. I'm not going to give a rundown of the plot. I'm not going to take the time to process and intellectualize how it made me feel not only as a reader but as a reader who was diagnosed as bipolar type one 17 years ago. I'm not going to do any of that.

You're about to get a bundle of fresh feelings and impressions from someone who can't be the least bit objective about this book. You're about to get possible spoilers. You're about to get a review that's maybe a little raw, pulls no punches, and is blunt. I don't know any other way to write this review.

I HATED the beginning of this book. The first 50% made me want me want to punch a hole in the wall. For one thing it was needlessly flowery. All of the imagery it tried to create kept me from feeling the raw emotion that really is being bipolar type one, according to me, doctors, family and friend, and other mentally ill people I've come into contact and shared war stories with. I'm no expert but, goddammit, I have experience coming out of my ass.

I feel like I need to explain about the raw emotion that I needed to feel but that was blocked by the overuse of ten cent words and melodrama. Bipolar one is a unique type of crazy. A lot of the time that you have no control over yourself or the irrational and detrimental things you're doing, unless you are in that really deep break from reality, you are aware you're completely irrational and FUCKING EVERYTHING UP. Maybe Ash's narration was supposed to reflect the fact that he's a writer but, in my opinion, I don't give a damn who you are, what you do for living, or how smart you are, there is nothing poetic about losing your grip on sanity. It's ugly, confusing, fucked up, and sometimes it's grimly humorous. There is nothing poetic about being so tired of everything, including yourself, that you would take a blade to your own flesh. There's nothing poetic about your world shrinking down to almost nothing because mental illness has basically killed it.

There is NOTHING poetic about it. I felt like this book tried to make it that and it felt disingenuous. It made me feel removed from Ash's pain and weariness. It killed any type of compassion I might have felt for him. He was just some selfish prick, making excuses and not giving a damn how his actions affected others. It pissed me off that I felt that way. It pissed me off that I ended up feeling that creating a character like Ash and trying to justify his actions with pretty words was a cop out. I couldn't stand it and more than once I wanted to give up on this book. For 50% of the book, Ash was this horrible stereotype of the things people have told me over and over they expect from someone who is bipolar. Are there people out there like that? Probably but I'm sick of seeing that version. Absolutely sick of it and no amount of flowery and dramatic writing is going to change that.

A little around the 50% mark the book takes a turn for the better. The writing tones down and the characters become more than just stereotypes. Niall, the friend, was pleasant surprise when his motives and feelings become clear. Though he does something absolutely horrible he is also someone who's been there for Ash. Why he's been there is questionable but, in the end, it boils down to the fact that he was there. Niall's character kind of made the book for me at that point; the conversation between him and Ash at the wedding being the most authentic moment in the whole book.

Darian was a flat character for me. I liked him well enough and believed he loved Ash but was left feeling unsure of whether he could weather the storms. It had nothing to do with his level of intelligence or anything like that. I appreciated that Darian saw the man behind the mental illness but I don't think he got it. I wasn't left feeling like he could do what Niall had been doing for years. I needed to be in Darian's head to really feel like he had some depth to him. Either that or I need more action from him than going to a wedding, cooking for Ash, and some time at the Essex Fashion Week.

And then we have Ash. I never liked him and, to tell you the truth, I don't know if I was supposed to. He was selfish, sarcastic in a way that was tinted with meanness, kind of a jerk, and just unlikable. It had a little to do with his illness but most of it seemed like that was just the way he was. As much I wasn't sure if Darian could deal with all of Ash's shit, I also didn't feel like Ash deserved Darian; not because he was mentally ill but because he needed to get his damn life together and be more deserving of the kind regard that people had for him.

This is a lot of negatives but I felt okay about the last half of the book. My overwhelming reaction, though, is not all warm and fuzzy. It's not one of deep emotion. All in all I was mostly disappointed. That's going to be a really unpopular reaction to this book but it's my honest reaction. It's too bad.

This is one of those books that I sincerely hope gets turned into a series.

Evan gets caught in a gang shoot out and ends up in a coma for a month and hospital bound for two months after that. When he wakes up he's having visions and they're not nice visions. They're not nice visions at all.

Evan's having dreams where he's seeing through the eyes of a kidnapped girl who's being held hostage. The girl's family has hired a P.I. firm to handle their case and the first thing Evan does when he gets out of the hospital is to go to the P.I. firm and tell them what he knows. Why? Because Evan is a good guy, that's why.

I really liked Evan because he was just a plain old good guy through and through. He knew that it would look suspicious, walking into the P.I. firm with a bunch of pertinent information but he still did it.

I can't say that I only liked Evan though because I actually liked every character in this story. Chase, the head of the P.I. firm and Evan's love interest, was a sweetie. He gives Evan a place to stay and keeps him safe because Evan is a bit of a trouble magnet.

Then there's Toby and Kay, the other two P.I.'s who play as much of a part in the story as Evan and Chase. They become Evan's friends and make him feel like he's a part of something.

The thing I liked the most about this story was reading about how the relationships and friendships developed. Everybody got to know each other and all of the characters clicked. As a group, Evan, Chase, Toby and Kay were funny together.

Also, there's more than one case in the story which I loved because it made me feel like I was watching a crime show on television. These characters would be great in a series.

This was one of the better stories that I've read in the last few months. I'll be looking out for more from this author.

ETA: Re-read on 2/02/12 and I loved it even more the second time around. The way this story progressed and the way the author really had everyone get to know each other is something that more authors should do.

This book is the perfect balance of mystery, romance and friendship. I also loved that it had such a positive and kick-ass female character.

Please, please, please let this turn into a series.

This book was unbelievably cute. I finished it in one sitting when I haven't been able to finish anything else for months.

Jerry is a socially awkward FBI agent. He's respected for his encyclopedic mind and his ability to sniff out information. The thing is that nobody likes working with him in the field because he's a bit of an uppity know-it-all. As a result Jerry never gets to be the superstar who makes the arrest. Bummer, right? Jerry thinks so.

John Flynn is the anti-Jerry. He's cool, slick, gorgeous and people adore the man. Jerry is mostly annoyed by Flynn and wants Flynn to take his beautiful self off to go be awesome somewhere else. Unfortunately, Jerry is stuck with Flynn on a case.

I loved it that in the beginning, Jerry was annoyed but attracted to Flynn while Flynn was oozing mysteriousness and awesome everywhere. Jerry was intelectually condescending while Flynn was socially condescending. Even better? They called each other on their superiority complexes.

Now, if Flynn was cool and collected for the whole book it would have been boring. That doesn't happen, though, because when Flynn can suddenly read minds he loses it. Telepathy...telepathy is like kryptonite to Flynn. That's when the book gets better than good. Suddenly, the relationship between Jerry and Flynn is a lot more balanced and these men become one of the most adorable and funny couples I've read about.

Jerry, Flynn and their cats Oliver and Phoenix are so entertaining that I fell in love with them and didn't want this book to end. Somehow, the paranormal aspect didn't seem like taking the easy way out to me because nothing fell into place just because Flynn could read Jerry's mind. If anything, it created a couple more problems. It was delightful to watch Jerry and Flynn work through everything and build a relationship.

If you're looking for a book with lots of sex, this probably isn't the book for you. If you're looking for a book where you get to see the evolution of a relationship from antagonistic to deep romantic affection with a heavy dose of friendship, then this is the book you want to read. Recommended a hundred times over.

Oh, I LOVED this!!!!!! Review soon to come.