no kink

Copper King by Vivian Arend

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

21458176

Grade: B+
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Shifter, Bear, novella
Series: Takhini Shifters #1
Published: 5/6/14 
Reviewed by Anne
*Note: This book is part of the Alphas After Dark Anthology
 
Jim is on a yearly vacation.  He’s a workaholic, especially since his parents died, but his good friend pulls him out to play at least once each year.  This year they’re in Vegas.  Lillie is also in Las Vegas.  She’s having her very first and last wild weekend.  When Jim sees Lillie, sparks fly.  When he offers to show her around the shifter side of Vegas, her bear can’t resist his.
 
I really enjoyed this novella.  I can’t believe I haven’t read Vivian Arend before.  She does shifters right!  Not the over the top humor of Shelly Laurenston, who is a favorite of mine, but just really well written shifters.  I love it when a shifter’s animal side shows through in her human side, both in actions and little things like Lillie wearing a shirt polka dotted with teeny tiny teddy bears.  There is plenty of humor, too.  Not over the top humor, but the kind that makes you smile while you’re reading
 
I did predict the twist coming in this novella, but it still worked really well, so I didn’t care.  The whole setup (for the twist) stetched my willingness to suspend disbelief a bit, but again, overall the story worked for me.  I’m definitely going to be reading more Vivian Arend!

Ink and Flowers by J.K. Pendragon

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Ink and Flowers

Grade: B-
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, m/m, Coming Out, novella
Published: 6/4/14
Reviewed by Anne
89 pages

Luke, a shy anxiety ridden college student, needs a place to live. He’s practically broke and determined not to have to move in with his overbearing family. There’s a guy that comes into the flower shop every week who scares the heck out of Luke, just due to his rough looks and many tattoos, and the fact that he hit on Luke once. His name is Cooper. Cooper makes Luke a hideous bargain – have sex with me and you can sleep on my couch. Luke has spent a lot of time telling himself he’s not gay, but he agrees to the bargain anyway.

This is a fairly straight forward set up for a novella, and you certainly get the story promised, but there’s a LOT packed into this novella! You’ve got a controlling and repressing family, severe depression, anxiety that’s not really addressed, the question of paying for art school, Cooper’s career and mysterious trauma, Cooper’s habit of handling problems by running away, and erectile dysfunction! It’s a bit too much for this short of a story.

It was refreshing to read about a couple who didn’t have immortal hardons for each other, but I was disappointed that it seemed like their sex life depended on the ability to have an erection. I expected to see a discussion or practice of non-ejaculatory ways to be intimate. But, then again, I’m already complaining that there’s too much packed into this book! It was also interesting to read about a character with anxiety and see how it affected his life. But, again, it was disappointing that no treatment was pursued. Luke’s anxiety had a big impact on his life. So much so, that it’s difficult to believe that it will go away just because he’s come out.

This story is told solely from Luke’s POV, but that worked for me. The mystery around Cooper’s motivation and his transformation from jerk to sympathetic character was well done! Luke’s character growth made me want to stand up and cheer! Despite having so much packed into it, I enjoyed the story and would read more by this author.

Static by L.A. Witt

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Static
Grade: A-
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Sci-Fi, Gender Bending
Published: 1/20/14 (first pubbed 6/17/11)
Reviewed by Anne
208 pages

Imagine a world where some people can shift into the opposite gender. And just like the werewolf shifter romances I’ve read, these shifters consider each of their forms/genders a part of them. It’s a setup I couldn’t refuse! Then you add in a society only starting to accept shifters, and you’ve really got an interesting world.

Damon has been dating his girlfriend Alex for two years. Her relationship with her parents is very strained. When he doesn’t hear from her after a visit home, he goes looking for her and discovers that she’s a shifter, and due to some surgery her parents forced on her, she’s now stuck in her male form.

I didn’t want to put this book down! It made me think about gender and sexuality and it was a sweet romance to boot! The world building was easy to understand, and the shifting was no harder to accept than any kind of animal shifter. The re-developing romance was realistic and easy to read. The process by which Damon fell in love with Alex again was slow, not immediate, and that read very true to me. It also involved Alex accepting that someone could love him in whichever form he was in. That made for a slow paced romance, but it was realistic. There were times they were on the verge of having a conversation that got put off. When they finally got around to it I could see that it was a good thing they had waited – they’d each grown over the course of the story to the point that they could discuss it without hurting each other as much. That’s some good writing!

I highly recommend this book – it’s going on my best of the year list and it was one of my most interesting reads as well! In the past year I’ve really enjoyed some other reads that have made me think about gender and what it means. I recommend Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight and Wallflower by Heidi Belleau. I also found the blog Raising My Rainbow, http://raisingmyrainbow.com/ about a family raising their gender non-conformist son. The blog and books have all made me think, and I hope they’ve made me a more accepting person. How about you? Any stories about gender bending sexuality and stereotypes you would recommend?