Although my primary reading genres these days are fantasy and romance/erotica, detectives, especially police procedurals, have always held a special place in my heart, so when I received this book in exchange for voting for it rather casually in the Kindle Scout program, I got a pleasant surprise. Which just goes to show that you […]

Read more "“The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton” by Katherine Hayton"

Although my primary reading genres these days are fantasy and romance/erotica, detectives, especially police procedurals, have always held a special place in my heart, so when I received this book in exchange for voting for it rather casually in the Kindle Scout program, I got a pleasant surprise. Which just goes to show that you […]

Read more "The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton” by Katherine Hayton"

Wow! One of the most riveting books I’ve read in a while! In a near-future post-apocalyptic Northern Ireland (already a bit of a post-apocalyptic place in real life), teenage orphan John Dray agrees to run an errand for a local ganglord in exchange for food–only to discover after the fact that the errand was to […]

Read more "“Irish Carraig” by Jo Zebedee"

4 1/2 stars, rounded up to 5. I was immediately intrigued when I came across this book. I have to admit I’m a sucker for those stories where we get to hear the side of the “bad guys,” and it certainly seems like classical Greek mythology is in desperate need of a retelling from the […]

Read more "“Medusa” by Michael F. Butchin"

“Dog Poetry” (Собачьи стихи) is a deceptively simple collection of poems about the author’s dog. I say about the author’s dog, but really they are just as much meditations about life, perception, and happiness. They follow a somewhat chronological format, with the first poem (Prologue # 1) written from the author’s point of view, describing […]

Read more "“Собачьи стихи” by Radislav Lapushin"

The glut of books currently on the market about naive young ingenues being introduced to the pleasures of being stalked, controlled, tied up, and flogged is fascinating and, I argue, not without a strong feminist/pro-female element (stay tuned for more thoughts on that, or check out my reviews of Sophia Scarlet’s Absolution series), but some […]

Read more "“Dancing Backward” by Thomas Lavalle"

I was very excited by the premise of this book, and there a number of things that I really enjoyed about it. I have an entirely amateur interest in Chinese culture (and Asian/Pacific culture in general) and enjoy books and movies featuring it. On that level, this book was very satisfying: there are detailed descriptions […]

Read more "“White Tiger” by Kelly Chan"

A fun collection of stories from a perspective that gets all too little attention: that of the submissive male. Despite this being (apparently) a pretty common preference, you rarely encounter it in fiction and even more rarely in a positive light. Due to their brevity, these stories by necessity only skim the psychological surface, but […]

Read more "“Yes Ma’am: Erotic Tales of Male Submission”"

Very excited to announce that “The Midnight Land: Part One” has been chosen as a finalist in the Fantasy category for the 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year awards!  In a competition with over 1500 other entrants, it’s pretty great to have made it this far. Feeling the #indielove! Stay tuned for the winner announcements […]

Read more "“TMLI” is a Fantasy Finalist in the INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards!"

“The Surgeon’s Mate” is a genre-bending book in the vein of…well, I’m not sure, actually, but the closest example I can come up are Peter Hoeg’s books like “Borderliners” or “The History of Danish Dreams.” Like them, “The Surgeon’s Mate” combines history, fiction, autobiography, and a bizarre dash of surrealism and magic. Taken together, the […]

Read more "“The Surgeon’s Mate” by Alan M. Clark"