 When Aria Croft finally shed her mourning gloves, disguised herself as a boy, and joined the crew of the Lady’s Grace, she thought she was just escaping her family situation. Once aboard, her identity is revealed by the dastardly pirate Bastian the Bastard and she’s threatened by forty irate crewmen. But discovering the boy she once knew in the pirate’s leather boots pushes aside her fear of being thrown overboard by superstitious pirates. Under Bastian’s protection, she finds her body responds to him in all ways, even as her mind continues to rebel.
Sebastian Du Loc, more widely known as one of the hardest pirates on the sea, is stunned to find a curvaceous vixen aboard his ship. Not just any woman, but the sister of his late best friend. To keep her luscious body out of the hands of the rough crew, Sebastian proposes she become his mistress for six, lust-filled weeks. But when they finally reach land, will he be able to give her up or will his possessive nature rule?
THE REVIEW:
Lord of the Sea is a delectable, quick read, filled with robust action of the pirate persuasion.
Aria Croft has spent far too much time in mourning as one after another family member succumbs to war and illness, including her beloved brother. And that brother's best friend was one Sebastian Du Loc, a man who found his calling on the high seas, a man turned pirate: Bastian the Bastard. Aria poses as a boy, wheedling her way onto Lady's Grace as a crewman, only to be found out in no time flat by the man she knew from childhood.
And as they say: Bastian makes Aria a deal that's hard to refuse and one thing leads to another ... and another and another.
Do have a cooling elixir handy because you are going to need it. The 'scenes of affection' are steamy and have nothing to do with it being humid below decks. There's peril aplenty and it doesn't take long for either of them to realize that deals are made to be broken.
It's fun, it's sexy, it's a quickie. I love it when I can tap the off button on the Kindle with a big smile on my face.
 What happens when you have a reputation as a cad and you hire the perfect man to work in your office? Surviving the rough patch in the economy, Braxton Todd’s LA PR firm was flourishing.
Braxton hires someone to give him relief from the hectic non-stop phone calls and emails from his demanding clients. And not only was Braxton going out of his mind with too much work, his love life had taken a dive ever since he had gotten the reputation as a hit & run lover, which he was; ‘A one-date-wonder’.
Fabian Rhys was sick of temp jobs and when he received the offer from Braxton Todd, the infamous PR man whose reputation was a splattered all over the tabloid press, he knew one thing. He could not be attracted to a man who had a notorious reputation as a one-hook-up cad. But when Fabian started working for Braxton, and could see the press had painted Braxton in a terrible light, the two men began to dance around each other at work, terrified of ruining a good thing.
When a pair of A-type individuals find working with each other a breeze, what will it take for them to jump the divide into each others’ arms?
Maybe it was two simple words. Marry me.
THE REVIEW:
Braxton Todd is everyone’s first choice but no one’s coup. He’s a cad, a roué, and below the smooth exterior of the ultimate achiever rests a man who’s never given love a chance. He is a character you are prepared to hate but cannot because his vulnerability is all too real, too ragged and raw. Very few get close enough to see beyond the mirror finish (his office manager is one and she is a devilish delight of a matchmaker).
Fabian Rhys has skills that fell under the bus of an economy gone flat. Cool, calm, and über professional, he might just have axed his way out of the interview with Braxton, but thanks to that minx of an assistant he is hired. And what he does is prove his worth from the minute he steps into the office.
Braxton has been coerced into being auctioned for a cause: the prize nominally dinner, the expectations something else entirely. And for three nights the man goes through purgatory (it’s worse than that, way worse). In this WeHo ‘Verse, the author trots out a few characters we’ve met before (in 'I love you, I hate you' - and they haven’t improved any in the intervening period). They all task him, and not just for a night, using Todd’s business connection to continue the pursuit.
Braxton is way more polite that anyone has a right to be, but it wears on him to deal with Neanderthals and the crushing demands of the A- and B-listers he serves.
The chemistry between Fabian and Braxton is palpable. They dance around their attraction, each man with compelling reasons not to get involved. And it all boils down to a matter of trust, of taking a chance, of trying a connection that second, then a third time. Each character brings something unique to the table: strengths and weaknesses, insecurities, histories. It makes them ‘real’, it makes them highly ‘sympathetic’.
Marry Me is about emotional growth and recognizing when it’s right and when it’s time to step up and own feelings. The scenes of affection, while graphic, were not ponderous. Instead they pulsated with emotion, giving this reviewer page after page of sigh worthy moments.
I had a few quibbles: mostly centering around point of view which tended to wander, at times making it difficult to know what was a phone conversation, what was Braxton’s POV or Fabian’s (a tap of the ruler on the editor’s palm for not seeing that).
I will confess, I started this at 11pm, intending to read a couple pages. At 4:30am I clicked the Kindle shut with reluctance, wondering what comes next in this world of larger-than-life characters.
I’m loving this ‘Verse. Because of the POV issues: 4 stars.
Genre: M/M, erotic romance, contemporaryKINDLE
 One man by day, the other by night. With cowboys this hot, who needs sleep?
Eight months after her lover, Holden, went off to join the Alaskan fishing fleet, Laurel gave up on him and soothed her broken heart by focusing on her dream of owning a small organic farm. Now her crop is growing—and so are her feelings for Jens, the hunky rancher who owns the land she’s tending.
Behind her affection for Jens, though she hides a secret: she still aches for Holden. If Jens knew she once loved his best friend, she fears he’ll walk out on her, too.
When Holden returns to find his girl in Jens’s arms, he’s nearly crippled with jealous rage. And with fear that she’ll run away from them both unless they figure out a solution—fast. It’s Jens who comes up with the crazy-hot idea to share her.
As their three-way dance of seduction heats up, the sexual and emotional barriers fall like dominos. But now it’s Jens who’s holding onto a secret. One that could not only destroy their tenuous bond, but leave them all without a home.
Warning: Contains two sexy cowboys who want the same woman; and, in winning her heart, they discover a steaming-hot attraction for each other.
THE REVIEW:
HARD RIDING: Totally smokin’ hot, I’m talking a furnace full of glowing flaming coals.
One ranch plus a twenty acre extension, a gal looking to kick start a new career in organic farming, two hot guys who co-own said ranch/farm.
We first met Jens, the one who didn’t run off to Alaska to work the fishing fleet for a long eight months. Jens and Laurel are having a thing, a powerful attraction that Laurel isn’t sure she’s free to pursue. The problem of course is Holden, the guy off fishing and Jens business partner. She and Holden had been hot and heavy, then off he goes and like guys do, he fails to keep in touch.
What’s a girl to do, especially when the old paramour reappears out of the blue, finds Laurel and Jens together and fists fly. It takes some cooling down and no small amount of negotiating to get the men seeing reason.
Laurel teeters on a financial disaster if she can’t make her organic farm fly, and the two men know it’s in their best interests to keep her around until (and if) she can make up her mind and pick one of them.
The problem is: Laurel loves both of them and when the offer to share comes on the table, it seems the answer to all their problems. With a coin toss it’s Holden by day and Jens by night. I did wonder about how the acreage was going to get planted what with all the shenanigans going on in the bedroom, but somehow they manage to tend to business, in many creative and steamy ways.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any hotter, Jens and Holden realize they have a developing attraction for each other. Faster than you can saddle up old ménage a trois the action ramps up to cold shower with ice cubes.
I mean … whew.
There’s a complication (but of course) as a neighbor comes forth with a prior claim on Laurel’s leased acres, a claim that Jens tries to handle on his own.
I loved the two male characters: they weren’t cut from the same mold, they had very different approaches to lovemaking, they were ready and willing to commit to Laurel yet maintain realistic concerns about it working out. In a word each man was vulnerable.
Laurel was the weaker of the three, her character was more window dressing than useful contributor (even factoring in the emotional landscape), and it wasn’t clear, beyond the mind-blowing sex, why she’d be considered a life partner for a hard-working farm boy. But maybe that’s just me. Mannequin or no, Laurel was definitely the stage upon which the sexual landscape was painted in brilliant, steamy colors.
I might have a quibble with how a small town was going to come to terms with this ‘arrangement’ (something both men alluded to when voicing concerns about other affairs) and a general ‘flatness’ about Laurel’s character, perhaps because her main roll was cat-in-heat. I had no trouble buying the men’s attraction with each other because it developed slowly and naturally as their feelings coalesced around their need for Laurel.
This is a page turner with lots of sex (of the jaw-dropping, good, steamy variety), sympathetic characters, a real plot, some conflict and a nice resolution. It’s well-written, well-paced and well-edited (kudos to the editing team). It hits most of the bullet points for this genre.
This is my first Em Petrova novel; it’s definitely not going to be my last.
A very solid read: 4 stars.
 Brew Lloyd, openly gay, returns to his hometown of Noble, Nevada, to live in his parents’ home while they travel to see his dying uncle. Brew’s been gone since graduation, avoiding his gay-hating father, yet all the while taking the money offered to him almost as a bribe from his father for not accepting him or his sexual orientation. Upon his return, his lawyer-father maneuvers him into securing a summer job at a ranch called The Chase. There, Brew finds himself face-to-face with an old fantasy—the rancher’s son Chase, former football hero at the local high school, a soft-spoken and dynamite-looking young man.
Chase has struggled with his sexuality for years, and has shunned dating in favor of staying on the ranch. Unable to come to terms with his frequent fantasies of a young man he’d secretly admired in high school, Chase pours his emotions into hidden erotic writing. But now, when he sees Brew again after many years, he’s forced to confront his hot desire for the glib guy who’s not shy about his own sexual preference.
The Review:
It’s a familiar story: the father who can’t deal with his son’s sexual orientation, the son who compensates and punishes through manipulation and self-indulgence. Brew returns home after years away, living off the largesse of his father’s fortune, to find nothing much has changed. Tasked with taking care of the house while his parents are called away to tend to the father’s dying brother, Brew is maneuvered into working for an old family friend, Roy Grayson, a rancher with a looming problem with the BLM and their claim to rights to a substantial portion of the ranch property.
Brew is willing to give the job offer a try, despite the tasks being very far from his comfort zone of intellectual pursuits and total immersion in the SoCal gay subculture.
Chase is Roy’s son, a hardworking young man, who has struggled silently with his sexual orientation, although he never took it further than an apparent obsession with a former high school student: Brew, the object of his dreams and lusts. Chase explores his inner landscape by writing out his fantasies and sexual desires.
The two young men are thrown together to work on the ranch and, not surprisingly, the attraction is immediate, intense and quite sensuous. They are adults, they have the means and opportunity, and Brew takes steps to initiate Chase into the pleasures of male-male sexual encounters. Along the way, each man comes to realize that their attraction is far more than skin deep, especially for Brew for whom relationships with other men had been a frequent, albeit far from long-lasting feature in his life.
Against the backdrop of their sensual explorations is the subplot of corporate greed and collusion with a government agent that threatens a family’s ties to the land and its long history. Some of the better scenes involve Brew and Chase pursuing ways to outwit the machinations of those looking to strip them of their heritage.
Brew extends a plea for help from his father but the death of his uncle means he will have to rely on his own wits to come up with a solution that will satisfy an informal appeals process.
The characters are likeable, the issues contemporary, the setting interesting, the tone upbeat and sensual. For me, the HEA came too soon (very early on in the narrative). I would have preferred a more in-depth character study, more conflict between the characters, and less of a ‘tying up loose ends’ approach to the finale.
But that’s just me. For others, this is a very pleasant read, with extensive ‘scenes of affection’ handled (no pun intended) competently without requiring a GPS, and an ending that works reasonably well.
The editing is better-than-average (and I am a stickler). Would I journey back to Noble, Nevada for more adventures? You betcha.
For this genre (male-male romance) it’s a solid read, four stars.
****
I purchased this book from Amazon for my own reading pleasure. All opinions are mine, and mine alone.
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