thegreatmanda's reviews
441 reviews

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall

5.0

I’ve already reviewed the print edition of this book. Specific to the audio, I’ll just say that I have a significant Will M. Watt bias and I’m not sorry for it, but even if I didn’t, his performance of this book is perfect.

Release by BL Sparrow

dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

🚨Extremely taboo adult subject matter, as with the other BL Sparrow works I’ve reviewed. Explicit sexual content between two brothers, abusive parents including religious abuse, and behavior a lot of people would consider religious desecration. Absolutely not for everyone.🚨

As is also true of the other Sparrow works I’ve read, taking this novella for what it is, it’s very well written and executed. I believed the feelings and progression of the relationship between the MCs, and I felt for their situation. Believing their feelings is key for me; if something feels like I’m reading taboo porn without any authentic feelings or insight into the participants, that’s where it gets too weird to be enjoyable for me (no judgment at all if you feel otherwise, in either direction).

Use Me by BL Sparrow

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

5.0

⚠️‼️Taboo novella, including but not limited to incest (twin brothers) and public sex.

Taking this at face value for what it is, it’s great. It’s hot, and it’s even a little emotionally satisfying, which was a surprise considering how short it is.

I see several reviews on this work saying, “I don’t know why I like this,” or similar. We can always spend hours getting into the general idea of cultural taboos, and in fact BL Sparrow includes an excellent and brief author’s note on this at the end of their works. I prefer to leave it at this: I read a wide variety of sexual content that sometimes contains acts I would never have any real life interest in, or would actively disgust me in real life. I’m not completely without personal fictional icks, but I can find nearly anything sexy in fiction if the characters are enthusiastically into it. This particular taboo falls into that category for me. I wouldn’t choose to discuss it with my mother, for example, but I’m unbothered.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest and Sexual content

Haze Me by BL Sparrow

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A

5.0

Taboo warning for incest (sex between half brothers), public/group sex and humiliation, dubious consent and concerning power dynamics.

I don’t always review story/novella length stuff but the writing in this one was really good, and taking the story for what it is, it was well done and enjoyable.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest and Sexual content

Oleander: A Great Expectations Reimagining by Scarlett Drake

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Make it hurt.

The angst was angsting in this book from page one.

This poor kid, having to carry so much and be emotionally older than his years, and this other poor, smitten idiot with no idea what he’s getting into. Cas and Jude are the kinds of characters I want to reach through the pages and folds of reality to hold and protect and parent as no one in their lives is really doing (Luke, bless him, does a great job when he can, but he can only do so much if Jude won't talk to him). The other adults in their early lives can all go directly to hell, with a special circle of that hell reserved for a certain lawyer.

When I got to the end of part one,

the scene of Jude walking in on Caspien and Blackwell was as heartbreaking and visceral as it could have been. The repetition of saying the bedroom door was closed, the significance of it, was such a great detail. There was enough coldness in Caspien to thoroughly break Jude wide open, but he also had those minute flashes of feeling, there and gone again, to make the reader suspect what he’s really feeling in the moment.

I thought the author did a masterful job of showing us Jude's heartbreak and despair without forcing the reader to wallow in it.

It broke my heart the way Caspien

, during the harrowing encounter he and Jude have after Finn's party,

equated forcing a sexual encounter with dubious or no consent with behaving "like a man instead of a little boy". As a character, he shares a lot with Laurent from Captive Prince for me; they both speak volumes about their past abuses as subtext only.

The minute Jude saw his bruises in Oxford, I had a feeling about where they had come from, and I hated finding out how right I'd been.

I gasped aloud when I realized the epilogue was Caspien's POV, and I loved getting those little insights into his thoughts and memories. I think I read the page where he finally says I love you three times.

The ups and downs of Jude's life are heart-wrenching to the point that I had to briefly glance at the novel's postscript, just to make sure some of it would somehow work out in the end. I'd gone through so many emotions when I finished reading that I felt physically tired. This is the kind of book that makes me want to go back and finish writing my own half-novel, with the hope that it could also make a reader feel some big feelings.

Favorite Quotes:

"There's not a soul alive who cares about me, Jude. This isn't bloody news to me." It didn't come out like he was looking for pity, but like some well-known fact he was tired of.

"You don't need to act like this, you know," I said calmly, though my heart was thundering behind my ribs. "Like nothing means anything or like everything's a joke. You don't need to act like that with me."

How had I gone from loathing his every molecule to hanging on his every word? How had I gone from plotting his murder to dreaming about the scent of his skin and the shape of his hands? The wanting of him had grown so immense that it had the power to stop me in my tracks.

All of my fears then led directly back to the same place: Never seeing Caspien again.

As long as Caspien Deveraux breathed, I would love him.

What on earth was wrong with me that I wasn't satisfied with this? Here was a man holding me to his chest and telling me my comfort was important to him, my feelings were important to him and yet my fucking soul ached for someone who'd thought nothing of either.

"Do you hate me?" I asked.
He frowned and shifted forward, closer, and held open his arms. I went into them and let him hold me.
"You know I don't. Jude, sometimes you're so fucking childlike, it scares me a little." He said, "I think I hate the person who hurt you, but then I remember that he was a child too."

"I miss you," he whispered, so softly it felt like an exhale.
I froze, unable to breathe or move, pinned there by the hint of desperation in his voice. If I hadn't watched his mouth move, I'd have assumed I imagined it.

"Was Bennett based on anyone?"
"What do you think?"
He nodded, smiling a little. "Thought so. Christ, he was awful."
I looked at him. "Misunderstood, I'd say. Easy to hate a guy like that without taking the time to understand him."

I nodded, watching him now with the same sort of covetous look strangers often did. Everything about him drew me in. How he smelled, the sound of his voice, his laugh, the shape of his mouth. But mostly, it was always this: the way he had of looking at me. As though I was something he needed in order to breathe. Some vital commodity he would die without.

No matter who or what I came to him as, he'd loved me. Every version of me. And I felt like myself only when he saw me. He looked at me the same way he looked at the world, with warmth and wonder and curiosity.

Hot Mess by Emma Hart

funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I picked up this audiobook on sale because I was looking for something different, and because I really enjoy Will Watt's work. In general, this is a little more sweet, chaste, single-dad energy than I normally go for, not a lot surprising or emotion-inducing about it for me, but, you know. It was entertaining and fine!

The biggest reaction I had to the plot was that I wish the United States would calm the hell down about sex. It's a natural part of life. Most humans do it. Almost all humans could probably do with better sex education than we ever get.

I was also hoping to see a little more of the trio of modern-day Macbeth witches,  Agnes, Elsie, and Maude, but alas. 

Solo in Cider C**ntry by Philippa Foxx

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced

5.0

Solo in Cider C**ntry is unlike anything else I've read.

For one thing, it’s rare for me to get this strong of a sense of place from reading a book. This one very much pulled me out of everyday life and felt like a visit to the West Country; a bit of a vacation every time I picked up the book.

I also really loved the character of Alex; I have a very hard time relating to fictional women, and she’s a nice change from that. She has a life plan, a full range of emotions, a job that she sometimes kills it at and sometimes can’t concentrate on. She has a libido more familiar to me than I’ve ever seen in a fictional woman, ever. Sometimes she does the wrong thing; sometimes she does the right thing. In short, Alex is a whole person, even as a single, female main character in a romance novel. For a novel main character to feel like a human being should probably be the baseline, but it’s so rare for women starring in romance that I almost always give up and read M/M so I have two characters to care about.

Without giving too much away, there’s also a whole cast of interesting characters apart from Alex, with their own lives and problems. This is a romance, but it also has fulfilling friendships and a slice-of-life bent, with different people moving in and out of the story for their own reasons. Some of those reasons are sexy, at least in this edition—there is Solo in Cider C**ntry, which is the version I read, and then there is Solo in Cider Country, which is the same story minus the sex. The sex is really good, so unless you really don't want to read sex scenes, I personally recommend the former. 😉

Sex scenes involving more than two people are really hit-or-miss for me, and I’m delighted to say that the one in this book is lovely. The men developing their own closeness to each other, apart from Alex, felt especially sweet (and is, again, a subversion of norms I don’t like, in MMF scenes focusing entirely on the woman’s nudity and availability for interaction with each man).

All of these characters and connections build up to a truly excellent conclusion that has me thoroughly in my feelings, in the best way.

Favorite Quotes:

No one ever looks bad with a book. Other book people know that it's like carrying another universe around with you that you could dive into at any moment. A powerful thing.

There are innumerable people I will happily do something with, but a limited number with whom I can joyfully do nothing.

Not only had Viola fit in a blow-dry for herself, but also a proper haircut for me, at incredibly short notice, with, she assured me, her second favourite hairdresser. But, as her first was based in a small suburb of Florence, that couldn't be helped.

I remember once, at another wedding, probably in that same hectic summer, an awful man—somebody's uncle or somesuch—had kept touching all us girls' bottoms. He had made the mistake of touching mine, and I had told him, loudly, that if he did it again, I would smack him right then and there in front of everybody. So, to me, it had been a fair cop when, the next time he had touched my bottom, I had slapped his face so hard that his false teeth had flown out, and been lost under a table until the next morning.

As I walked away, I quickly turned to look back at him, secretly hoping he was watching me leave. But he was already walking away in the opposite direction, eyes front. Maybe I hadn't left as much of a mark on him as he had on me.
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Try as I might, I just couldn't stop thinking about her.

"I have counselling and stuff. It doesn't affect me as badly now, and I've learned that being around the right people can be just as cathartic as therapy—people who build you up, you know? You're one of those people, so you deserve to know that...you're fixing me too, in a way."

Spellbound by Allie Therin

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I am, in fact, spellbound. I’m the biggest sucker for an M/M “damsel in distress” situation. Rory’s fear and defiance and secret, desperate yearning for Arthur to comfort and protect him are my personal favorite brand of gentle angst. Arthur’s reaction to Rory becomes very “touch him and die” early on, which is another of my favorite tropes. I love them together so much. 

I liked that neither main character was someone who would be seen as a master in their magical world, with Arthur having no magic ability and Rory’s ability being subordinate, very situationally useful, and something he's still learning to control. Something like Zhang’s or Jade’s ability might seem like more obvious “main character energy”.

It's a fine line to walk to make a fade-to-black romance still feel sexy (when the characters are not ace and are meant to be in a sexual relationship), and I thought the author nailed it (so to speak) with this couple.

Favorite Quotes:

“Because you’re never obligated to do something just because someone offers you a lot of money to do it.”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he said, through clenched teeth, holding on despite his prickling skin. “You come out of the past and you stay out.” 

“You’re going to hold on to yourself.” 
Rory made a broken sound. “I dunno if I can.” 
Arthur’s heart lurched. “Then you hold on to me,” he snapped, “because I won’t let go. I’m going to anchor you to the present and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

I want him to walk through those doors, tell me I don’t have to face this alone, tell me I can hold on to him ’cause he won’t let go.

I never met anyone like you, Ace, like a lighthouse in a storm, take me with you—“Go back to bed.”

“Oh no, absolutely none of that,” Arthur said immediately. “Stick to telling me to go to hell. There will be no sweet manners and puppy eyes from you or I’ll end up wrapped around your paranormal pinky.” 

“We’re allowed to have complicated feelings,” Arthur said softly. “You can be grateful for what you now have and still mourn a loss.”

“If you took a chance, if you let people in, there’d be a war for you,” Rory said hotly. “I’d fight an army if—”
If I thought I could have you. He snapped his mouth closed before the rest of the sentence escaped. Geez, he had to shut up.

“An hour ago I would have bet my entire trust fund you didn’t even like me.”
Rory reached up and touched Arthur’s face. “You woulda lost every penny.”

“I’m so tired of the past,” he whispered against Arthur’s ear. “I’m so here, in this moment, and I want to stay with you.” 

“Ace. Arthur. I thought I was lost. Don’t let me go.” 

Oak King Holly King by Sebastian Nothwell

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I took my time reading this book because it pulls the reader into a dense, fully-formed world and cast of characters so thoroughly. It felt long because there are a number of side-quest storylines that take place over the course of most of a year, but the thing is, all those storylines pay off and contribute to an absolute banger of an ending (iykyk). Shrike and Wren are sweet and lovely and sexy, and I'm buying the sequel of short stories immediately because I need more of them.

Favorite Quotes:

The warm rough palm laid against his own as if, like pages from a book, they were meant to nestle together for centuries, with their interlaced fingers as binding.

A touch brimming with mercy paired with eyes bereft of pity. Meeting his gaze felt like returning home.

Wren's kiss, as ever, proved a balm for Shrike's wounded heart.

His Lordship's Coachman by Maxime Jaz

emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

2.0

I really wanted to love this, but the writing was distractingly… bad, or maybe just in a style I couldn’t stand. I had to skim a lot of it to get through the book. There were three main annoyances for me: a lot of incomplete sentences/sentence fragments; constant use of ellipses in the dialogue; and using “that” and “those” as determiners so often it became weird and noticeable early and didn’t improve.

The characters were strong, and I was invested enough in Archibald and Darren to stick with them and see how it ended. The angst was angsting, a little harder than I personally needed it to, but it made their reunion very sweet. There was a lot of non-graphic animal abuse that made sense for the time period, story, and characters, but it was almost too much for me.