B Reviews

Just One Thing by Holly Jacobs

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne
19355356
Grade: B
Hotness Level: Ember
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary
Published: 6/10/14
Reviewed by Kate
198 pages

Lexie has had a terribly tough adult life.  Seriously.  A really hard life.  Just one thing after the other.  As she struggles to come back from the last thing, she starts walking to the local bar each Monday, just for one drink. She slowly starts talking to the bartender Sam.  Each week he asks her to tell him “just one thing” about herself.  Through these small confessions, Sam and Lexie slowly start a relationship and start to heal.


This one is hard for me to review because it wasn’t an easy romance (and easy romances are the kind I like to read).  An easy romance where the hero and heroine meet and you know that it’s going to be pretty easy going except for that one conflict that would be resolved in the last few chapters.  No.  This is a romance where you know instantly there is going to be drama.  And a lot of it.  And no shortage of tears.


This one centers around Lexie and as she slowly tells her “one things” to Sam you get to discover her journey to Sam.  And just like Sam, you discover it one thing at a time.  One tear-jerking thing at a time.  Sam has a past that slowly comes out as well, but honestly it’s Lexie’s story that overshadows everything.  Everything including the budding romance between Sam and Lexie.


It would be easy to say that I didn’t like this one.  It would be easy and wrong.  This story sucked me in during the first chapter and wouldn’t let me go until it was finished.  The “one things” are written in flashbacks and I knew every time I picked it up I was going to be crying, but I had to get the next piece of the puzzle that is Lexie.


If you like your romances carefree and lighthearted this probably isn’t one for you, but if you like Danielle Steel or similar authors, give this one a try.

Bad Company by K.A. Mitchell

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

10804074

Grade: B+
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, m/m
Series: Bad in Baltimore #1
Published: 6/7/11
Reviewed by Anne
154 pages

Kellan and Nate were best friends as boys… up until right before freshman year of high school, when Nate trusted Kellan enough to tell him he thought he was gay, only to have Nate turn around and help a group of boys bully him at school.  Then their fathers had a falling out at work, and Kellan’s family is pretty much responsible for ruining Nate’s life. 

It’s been years since that happened, and Nate’s now a successful newspaper editor and advice columnist, but Kellan is still a sore spot with him.  So he’s shocked to the core when Kellan approaches him in a gay bar asking for his help getting back at Kellan’s dad.  Kellan wants to make his dad think Kellan is gay, and having Nate be his boyfriend would make it even harder on Kellan’s dad.  Kellan is quite an asshole, but he persuades Nate to play along, but then confuses them both with his curiosity about all things gay, his ever decreasing asshole-ish behavior, and the feelings he seems to be developing for Nate.

What a great read!  Right now I’m fairly new to m/m books and I’ve been working through recommendations others have made of really good books.  It’s a great place to be, reading one good book after another!  Oddly, Bad Company was a book that had mixed reviews.  I’d read that book two in this series was incredibly good, but not so much this one.  So, I actually read the second book, Bad Boyfriend, first.  I really liked it, so I decided to read this one, too.  Maybe my low expectations helped, but I really enjoyed the story!

I loved it when Kellan and Nate worked through issues by Kellan composing oral letters to Nate’s advise column persona.  It was so sweet!  Kellan and Nate were actually both assholes in their own way to each other, and that’s what really created teh conflict in this story.  Their affection for each other was believable, though.  Kellan’s questions and concerns about gay sex seemed realistic.  Watching him figure all of it out was pretty entertaining.

Eli was an interesting character – even though I’d already read his story in Bad Boyfriend.  The causal sexual affection he had for others was a new thing for me.  I’m not sure what to make of it, but it worked for Eli.

I highly recommend this book.  It’s going on my best of the year list!  What older book do you really like and think everyone should read?

Dangerous Ground by Josh Lanyon

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne
16150524
Grade: B
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, m/m, mystery, suspense
Series: Dangerous Ground #1
Published: 4/22/2008
Reviewed by Anne
89 ebook pages

Taylor and Will are special agents for the Department of Diplomatic Security.  They’ve been together for three years.  They’re great friends and are both out of the closet gay men, but not lovers.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have an attraction to each other, but they’ve never acted on it.  Still, things were thrown out of balance a few weeks ago when Taylor was shot.  He’s almost ready to come back to work, but the strain between them is an issue.  They decide that a weekend camping together will give them time to work through things.  As if working around emotional shrapnel between the two of them isn’t enough, they stumble across the remains of a plane used in a crime a few months ago.  Now there’s a lot more on the line than just their friendship and work relationship.

I’m pretty picky when it comes to mysteries.  I really enjoy some authors, but find others to be way too intense for me, especially without the balance of a romance or HEA.  I do enjoy JD Robb, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and Josh Lanyon, though.  I’ve been slowly working my way through Lanyon’s backlist.  That’s what brought me to Dangerous Ground.  

Lanyon hasn’t failed me yet, and this was no exception.  Will and Taylor are interesting and distinct characters.  I liked the way they were both caught off guard by their feelings for each other and it was interesting to watch how they handled them.  They have a banter and humor together that kept me smiling.  The suspense was realistic enough to keep me wondering how in the world they would work things out.

I’m glad I read it, and now I’ve got a new series to read!  That said, it didn’t grab me and refuse to let go the way that the Adrien English series did.  Still, I look forward to the rest of Taylor and Will’s stories.  How about you?  Do you read mysteries?  If so, do you have a favorite series?