Let Them Try by Reno MacLeod and Jaye Valentine

The police motto “to serve and protect” takes on all new meaning in Let Them Try.

Twenty-six years of dedicated duty as one of Baltimore’s finest should earn a man some reward. One autumn night in a dark cemetery, Officer Rick Baker is forced to reflect on his lonely, closeted life when he meets a strange young man under peculiar circumstances.

Diego is unlike anyone Rick has ever met, and Rick has to face a new reality he’d never imagined in his wildest dreams. Couple Rick’s deeply rooted need for love and companionship with Diego’s remarkable gifts, and even the threat of hell might be too tempting to resist.

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Reading Round Up: June 2010

Happy Canada Day! June was quite the eclectic reading month for me from contemporary romance, to horror, to political intrigue. I re-read and finally put pen to paper to review Purple Hearts by Reno MacLeod and Jaye Valentine a contemporary romance that is simply a pearl of a short story. I also read two Amber Allure titles The Delaneys and Me by Anne Brooke an enjoyable erotic romp and Rick R. Reed’s latest horror title The Blue Moon Café a chilling werewolf tale, both of which I reviewed for Three Dollar Bill (TDB) Reviews. And for Rainbow Reviews I read and reviewed the final book in the Condor series by John Simpson, Condor and Falcon.

The Delaneys and Me by Anne Brooke (Amber Quill Press/Amber Allure) – Read Review

Purple Hearts by Reno MacLeod and Jaye Valentine (M&V Tailz) – Read Review

The Blue Moon Café by Rick R. Reed (Amber Quill Press/Amber Allure) – Read Review

Condor and Falcon by John Simpson (Dreamspinner Press) – Read Review

The Blue Moon Café by Rick R. Reed

Someone – or something – is killing Seattle’s gay men.

A creature moves through the darkest night, lit only by the full moon, taking them, one by one, from the rain city’s gay gathering areas.

Someone – or something – is falling in love with Thad Matthews.

Against a backdrop of horror and fear, young Thad finds his first true love in the most unlikely of places – a new Italian restaurant called The Blue Moon Café. Sam is everything Thad has ever dreamed of in a man: compassionate, giving, handsome, and with brown eyes Thad feels he could sink into. And Sam can cook! But as the pair’s love begins to grow, so do the questions and uncertainties, the main one being, why do Sam’s unexplained disappearances always coincide with the full moon?

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Reading Round Up: April-May 2010

The business of real life continued to interfere with my reading and reviewing during April and May. Too much work and lack of free time prevented me from reading as many books as I normally would over a two-month period.

On the positive side, virtually all of the books I did read fall into the category of very good to excellent reads. So the theme for Spring 2010 is quality over quantity. I’m starting to get through the backlog of reviews and hope to fall into a more regular pace of reading and reviewing for the month of June.

The Boy Can’t Help It: Sensual Stories of Young Bottoms by Gavin Atlas (Lethe Press) – Read Review

The One That Stayed by TC Blue (Torquere Press) – Read Review

Safe As Houses by Alex Jeffers (Lethe Press) – Read Review

Still The One by Shawn Lane (Amber Quill Press/Amber Allure) – Read Review

Tales From The Sexual Underground: Fact, Fiction and Stranger Than Fiction by Rick R. Reed (MLR Press) – Read Review

Happily Ever Before by Jaye Valentine (Noble Romance Publishing) – Read Review

Tales From The Sexual Underground by Rick R. Reed

“I wanted to write about people who were not just out, but out there, people who lived their sexual lives in ways most of us could only imagine … and for whom the flavor vanilla had absolutely no appeal. I interviewed porn stars, prostitutes, self-proclaimed sex pigs, and delved into bizarre sexual practices. It was eye-opening, arousing, and a lot of fun (but never, never good clean fun). I also include here my favorite dirty stories. They all explore a side of life that exists not in the twilight zone, but in my favorite destination … the sexual underground.” ~ Rick R. Reed ~

Tales From The Sexual Underground: Fact, Fiction and Stranger Than Fiction by Rick R. Reed is a daring and provocative collection of forty-three short non-fiction essays and fictional stories that explore the fringe of gay male sex – “fetishes, porn, misdirected affection, misguided objects of affection, polymorphous perversion or just plain perversion.” Both the title of the book and much of its substance are borne of a weekly column Mr. Reed wrote for a Chicago entertainment magazine called Nightspots. These non-fiction essays are complemented by the author’s favorite fictional dirty stories and the collection represents some of the author’s best writing to date.

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Reading Round Up: The Best in Gay Fiction for 2009

Virtually all the books I read this year are in the area of gay fiction (erotica, romance, horror, suspense, urban fantasy, western/cowboy, young adult, etc.), and as the year draws to an end I thought I’d put together a list of my favourite books and stories for 2009.

The two books that standout the most and I consider my #1 reads for 2009 are Amnesic Nostalgia by Zea Miller and Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction by editors Timothy J. Lambert and R.D. Cochrane. These two gems rightfully take their place as part of the list of some of my most favourite books.

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Sins of The Messiah by Reno Macleod and Jaye Valentine

It is the year 2039 and the world is a better place, thanks to one man. Fresh from college, Malcolm Wilder engineered a cheap fix to fossil fuel dependence. The new energy-for-all economy brought on world peace with famine, disease and environmental degradation all but a thing of the past. As Earth and its people began to heal, creatures once thought to be the stuff of myth decided it was finally safe to reveal themselves.

A decade later, Malcolm is a corporate giant living in exotic Dubai. Malcolm’s business partner and lifelong friend, Levi Tanner, is concerned that Malcolm isn’t allowing himself to enjoy his fame and fortune. Levi finally takes Malcolm to Mortal Sins, a local hot spot that caters to those looking for something a little different in the way of adult recreation. There, he meets Suki, a demon, and other “mortal sinners.” Levi and Suki reveal themselves to him, but more importantly, reveal to Malcolm his pre-ordained destiny.

While Malcolm struggles to digest their revelations about who and what he is, he’s also dealing with the jealous tensions between Levi and Suki that have become noticeable to all and he begins to feel the weight of the sins that surround him. But, little does Malcolm know that the world still has a few problems of biblical proportions and that all hell is about to break loose. And, just when things seem their darkest, an unlikely visitor brings the world an unexpected message of hope.

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The StarCrossed Series (Stories 1 to 3.5) by Reno Macleod and Jaye Valentine

The setting is modern-day Salem, Massachusetts the New England coastal town famous for its witch trials of 1692. For centuries Salem has been trying to erase the horrible images of its past of witch hunting and twenty-first century Salem is nothing like the town immortalized in Arthur Miller’s “Crucible.” In a complete turnaround, the town began welcoming all witches, and today, one in four Salem residents either claims to be, or to know, a witch. There are other beings that have also made Salem their home – demons, angels, vampires and were creatures. Most of Salem’s residents both earthly and otherworldly try to live as peaceably as possible with one another. But dark forces hover and they are not always found amongst the seemingly obvious.

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