Tag: Romance

Girl in the Mirror by Alix B. Golden (Aug. 2012 Pick of the Month)

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Publisher/Date:  I Bleed Ink Publishing, Aug. 2012
Genre:  Romance
Pages:   204
Website:  http://www.alixbgolden.com

Rating: ★★★★½ 

You can’t run from your past, and you certainly can’t run from the GIRL IN THE MIRROR.

While the prequel to this novel, Girl, Shattered, is available now, Mirror is its full-length story from blogger turned book author Alix B. Golden with many layers – a surprise love, suspense, drama, parental woes – yet the center of them is Christen Calhoun. The by-day bank teller is uninspired by her job and only finds comfort in her camera; it doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t suit her father’s dreams for her.

Neither does dating women. Especially the ones Christen involves herself with. Still reeling from her last burn with thieving ass Alicia, she decides a no-strings attached relationship is exactly what she needs in Kam, a writer she meets online with a girlfriend. Christen sees nothing wrong with the two having a fling. At least that’s how it begins. It ends just as badly.

*girl in the mirror shakes her head*

Christen could never tell her Pops about these dead-end hookups. Since a young girl, it’s always been just the two of them after her mother’s passing. He never understood her decisions – staying in Savannah after graduation instead of returning to Atlanta, why she couldn’t find a man and make him a “Grandpappy” – nevertheless he did want to see her happy.

The problem is Christen can’t please herself. She suits her personality to the women she dates, and every bad romance she gets her further away from whom she is. When she looks in the mirror, the truth stares back, but then loneliness sets in and fools her heart into thinking it’s love.

It’s only when the worst imaginable happens that Christen returns home to find the love she needs – and makes the girl in mirror finally smile back.

Golden’s Girl in the Mirror shines. What I liked most about Mirror is its dimensionality. The storyline took several twists and turns, tying nicely to make an enjoyable novel. In Christen, you see a woman with so much potential go from settling to avoid being alone to realizing her true reflection is what’s important.

Reviewed August 2012

Fantasies, Sex, Lies, & Love… Chronicles of the Heart and Mind by Harmonie Reigns

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Publisher/Date:  CreateSpace, Feb. 2012
Genre(s):  Romance, Erotica, Poetry, Short Story
Pages:  212
Website:  http://harmoniereigns.wix.com/harmonie#!info

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

The Plot: In most cases, relationships usually include FANTASIES, SEX, LIES & LOVE…CHRONICLES OF THE HEART AND MIND in some fashion. That’s what Harmonie Reigns asserts in her collection of dramatic short stories and corresponding poems. Love can be reunited in (“The Encounter”) or reassuring (“In the Blink of an Eye”) or life-changing (“The Librarian”). On the other hand, it can also be deceitful (“The Office”) or simply about the panties (“The Truck Stop”). With Reigns, you never know what you’re gonna get.

The Good: Reigns delves into hearty plots with each tale. She draws you into the characters, allowing you to care about the two (or sometimes three) people in the relationship that matter the most. And the sex found between the pages is scorching.

The Bad: Although the stories were hot, the excessive grammatical errors were not. It did slow me down at times. Also, some of her poems I couldn’t quite get into.

The Bottom Line: Read Fantasies for the love and the lust, and you won’t be disappointed.

Reviewed August 2012

Fantasies, Sex, Lies, & Love… Chronicles of the Heart and Mind by Harmonie Reigns
CreateSpace, Feb. 2012
212 pages
Contemporary Romance/Erotica/Poetry/Short Story
http://harmoniereigns.wix.com/harmonie#!infoRating: 3 out of 5

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

The Plot: In most cases, relationships usually include FANTASIES, SEX, LIES & LOVE…CHRONICLES OF THE HEART AND MIND in some fashion. That’s what Harmonie Reigns asserts in her collection of dramatic short stories and corresponding poems. Love can be reunited in (“The Encounter”) or reassuring (“In the Blink of an Eye”) or life-changing (“The Librarian”). On the other hand, it can also be deceitful (“The Office”) or simply about the panties (“The Truck Stop”). With Reigns, you never know what you’re gonna get.

The Good: Reigns delves into hearty plots with each tale. She draws you into the characters, allowing you to care about the two (or sometimes three) people in the relationship that matter the most. And the sex found between the pages is scorching.

The Bad: Although the stories were hot, the excessive grammatical errors were not. It did slow me down at times. Also, some of her poems I couldn’t quite get into.

The Bottom Line: Read Fantasies for the love and the lust, and you won’t be disappointed.

Reviewed August 2012

The Other Side of Joy by April Joy Bowden

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Publisher/Date:  AuthorHouse, May 2012
Genre(s): Poetry, Romance
Pages: 100
Website:  http://www.apriljoybowden.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Since elementary school, April Joy Bowden has nurtured her love of poetry. It was her release, her connection to the world, her first love.

Bowden’s long-time courtship with verses birthed THE OTHER SIDE OF JOY, a moving work of poems about the emotions and passions manifested by love.

The North Carolina resident and full-time photographer breaks her book into four sections: joy, pain, intimacy and ecstasy. With each, she supplies the rules, and the words she utilizes to describe each facet are truthful and familiar. It’s evident she’s lived it.

The glass remains shattered on the floor
Life’s little remainder that this was the last time the Storm would walk through my door
The broken pieces of my soul, my life, my heart
A subtle hint, a blatant call that we are truly apart
No time, no reason
To mend, fix or repair
Four long years to love, to laugh, to care

What’s also interesting about Joy is the storytelling found in her poems. Bowden is vivid in her depiction of desire.

I awake prior to the sunrise
As my eyes open
Behold the beautiful caramel kissed woman who lay beside me
In the moonlight
Her bosom glistens
And every curve has a story to tell
A story that because I’ve listened
I know so well

In a small amount of pages, Bowden says and expresses a lot in The Other Side of Joy. You can also check out Bowden’s co-authored memoir, High: On Love & Addiction, revealing the ordeals in loving a woman consumed by drugs, which is just as genuine and heartfelt as Joy.

Reviewed August 2012

She Say, She Say by Olivia Renee Wallace

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Publisher/Date:  Olivia Renee Wallace, May 2012
Genre:  Romance
Pages:  215

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

It’s amazing how two women in love can see their relationship so differently, as in the alternating narration of SHE SAY, SHE SAY by Olivia Renee Wallace.

Coeds Shanelle Carter and J.B. Donovan, by all appearances, seem to be total opposites. Shanelle is the big woman on campus: sorority president, hottie with a body and all-around good girl.

J.B., in her own words, is a “big ol’ studdin’-ass mofo,” but don’t let that fool you. She’s editor of the campus newspaper, a conscientious student, and a hard worker.

Shanelle has always kept her distance from J.B., yet feels as if she knows the writer through her articles and editorials. The gap between them is narrowed one day when J.B. catches “Miss Popularity” staring at her, and they hit it off from there.

Both J.B. and Shanelle slowly let their guards down, but Shanelle is the one who figures she has more to lose by dating someone so different from her well-to-do family, friends and sorors. Though their passion is unlike any she’s ever experienced, she can’t – or won’t – allow herself to be seen with J.B.

J.B. has too much pride to take occupancy in Shanelle’s closet. Though it’s the hardest thing to let Shanelle go, she has to. She’s not ashamed of who she is. If only Shanelle could be the same way.

Through a series of missteps and second chances, who’s to say these two won’t finally see eye to eye?

Wallace’s She Say, She Say has a great connection in Shanelle and J.B. These two were fire together, both out the bedroom, but most especially when they touch. When reading, it’s as if they’re in their own cocoon, blissfully oblivious everyone but each other. With that being said, it’s a shame that most other details – like the name of the school, what the women’s majors are – are completely left out. If Wallace had expanded the background of the characters and the world around them, it could have made a much better book.

As it stands, though, She Say, She Say is speaking pretty well for itself.

Reviewed August 2012

Midtown by Alix B. Golden

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Publisher/Date:  I Bleed Ink Publishing, June 2012
Genre:  Romance
Website:  http://www.alixbgolden.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

MIDTOWN, ATLANTA — Four friends sharing a house in the gay-friendly, upwardly mobile area of downtown Atlanta contend with love and life and drama in this entertaining book by popular blogger Alix B. Golden.

You should know Golden from A Brown Girl Gone Gay (and if you haven’t, you should). There, she writes about her Southern lesbian lifestyle with humor and flair, and her first novel is no different.

Midtown follows four lesbians under one roof, so you know that means — drama.

But not in a scandalous way (well, a little scandal). Ed, Ash, Ki and Brie became best friends while attending Florida A&M University, better known as FAMU, who got into plenty of mischief at the school.

Now as cohabitating adults, the four are living, working, and sleeping together (literally and figuratively). That’s where the drama comes in.

Ed can’t stop her woman, Taylor, from being unfaithful, despite giving her a manager’s position in her bookstore.  Ki and Brie can’t seem to settle down and find the right women, but decide to gain a cuddle buddy in each other. Rounding out the crew is Ash, the straight friend, back into town and ready to declare her newfound sexuality, and hopes they accept her.

Between these women is an unbreakable friendship, but their romantic connections are definitely complicated.

Golden’s Midtown is a crazy ride in a fast car — in a good way. The characters are appealing, and feel like women you might have known during your undergrad years — and you’d still hang out with them now.

Reviewed July 2012

Nightshade by Fiona Zedde

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Publisher/Date:  CreateSpace, Mar. 2012
Genre(s):  Romance, Suspense
Pages: 144
Website:  http://www.fionazedde.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

The life of contract killer can be solitary. Just ask Brownwynne St. Just in Fiona Zedde’s NIGHTSHADE.

After losing their parents at 12 and 15, Wynne and sister Celeste harden into career women: an assassin and a pimp. Wynne admires her older sister as a role model of sorts, but even she can’t help her when love has stolen Wynne’s heart.

From the beginning of this novella, one would never think Wynne was capable of love. Pleasure, followed by the thrill of death, is her modus operandi, and there have been women whom she could have fallen for – if she wasn’t hired to kill them.

Time for love is something Wynne doesn’t see as important. Though she’d never admit it, she’s lonely, but her job fulfills her, something I don’t think she could quit even if she tried. She’s so good that her inbox is flooded with requests. It usually doesn’t catch up with her, until the past of one of her previous hits resurfaces in the form of a woman Wynne could easily off – or get off on.

Will Wynne kill love before it begins?

We’re used to the dazzling and tantalizing love stories Zedde provides, as well as the exotic lush locales and electrifying erotic adventures – Bliss, Every Dark Desire, and Taste of Sin are just a few – but Nightshade is a little bit different. More dangerous. More sinister.

Reviewed July 2012

SBF Seeking by La Toya Hankins (June 2012 Pick of the Month)

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Publisher/Date:  JMS Books/CreateSpace, Jan. 2012
Genre:  Romance
Pages:  234
Website:  http://www.latoyahankins.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

“Goin’ to the chapel and we’re gonna get married…”

Wait, not so fast.

That’s what Yvette Thurman said to herself before walking down the aisle to her longtime boyfriend, Martin in SBF SEEKING. by La Toya Hankins. She comes to this decision after much thought – and after placing a personal ad seeking a white man to fulfill a secret fantasy.

Ironically, it leads Yvette to a woman.

Yvette knew she was choosing the wrong path in marrying Martin, only saying yes because she “didn’t know what else to say.” Her relationship with Martin began when she was a college freshman; now a 25-year-old magazine writer, it doesn’t suit her needs physically or otherwise. Something is missing.

In her attempt to find it – and at her friends’ and family’s insistence – Yvette breaks up with Martin. The only thing they didn’t expect was that Yvette would happen upon love with a woman. Her first female relationship, it’s full of all the affection and chemistry she was sorely missing – and provided her something she didn’t even know she could have.

Now her inner circle – best friend Danita, mom Lena, twin sister Yolanda, and close pals – has something to say about this new love Yvette’s found with Jasmine. It doesn’t faze her as she charges ahead without any qualms. She’s doing her for the first time.

Hankins debut novel is funny, and sensitive, and while Yvette is naïve to the pitfalls of coming out, she’s a sincere character with a distinct voice. So are her family and good friends who add a greater dimension to the first-person story. In SBF Seeking, Hankins creates a woman you’ll be happy for when she finds her first love, but want to wake up to the realism of first love.

But who are we to begrudge Yvette’s happiness? Shoot, I’m rooting for her next adventure.

Reviewed June 2012

Finding Us by T. Jurrette

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Publisher/Date:  Lulu.com, July 2011
Genre: Romance
Pages:  140

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

It was more than a year ago when I pronounced there were no marriages in the novels I read. I’ve finally found one, thanks to T. Jurrette’s FINDING US, a great lesbian novel about marriage and its ups and downs.

Dana Reynolds and Te’anna Marks (better known as Tea) get to know each other through a mutual friend, and after taking it slow, find themselves deeply in love, beginning a life together. Tea, finally leaves her comfortable job as a retail buyer to launch her pastry shop, and Dana is satisfied with her work as a legal assistant with the District Attorney’s office.

Despite having ghost of relationships past hanging over them – Tea being friends with an ex, while her social-climbing girlfriend Camille makes unwelcome appearances – they press on. With a near perfect love, their next logical step is marriage.

Happily ever after seems in arm’s reach, especially when soon after the wedding the couple works to get Tea pregnant. Dana has never been happier, having the love she wants and adopting Tea’s family since being estranged from her own.

When Dana is formed to work closely with the bougie Camille, she neglects to tell Tea how bad things are the office in order to protect her wife. Thinking she can handle Camille’s harassment, the hole Dana’s in gets harder to climb out of.

And Dana doesn’t want to lose Tea – the one thing in the world she calls home.

Jurette’s Finding Us is a noteworthy portrayal of married lesbians. Though Tea and Dana’s love appears easy, the decisions they face are far from it. It depicts what sacrifice matrimony really is. Finding Us simply shows love isn’t faultless, but is still worth it.

Note to T. Jurrette: I’m waiting for my sequel. I want to know what happens with one of my favorite couples.

Reviewed June 2012

Jazzy Ladies Productions by Ericka K. F. Simpson

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Publisher/Date:  Xlibris Corp., Dec. 2011
Genre(s):  Romance, Suspense
Pages:  576
Website:  http://www.ekfsimpson.com

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Remember Alice’s much-hyped chart used on The L Word to graph relationships between her friends and the women they knew?

In reading Ericka K. F. Simpson’s latest novel, JAZZY LADIES PRODUCTIONS: NOTHING IS AS SWEET AS IT LOOKS, it needs its own chart to keep up with all the characters and storylines.

And you will want to track every single hookup or association in Simpson’s ambitious work, cause it’s just that engrossing.

First, begin with Dionne, an open mic poet who has several female admirers and desires a real relationship; her best friend, Vincent, a hardcore playboy who can’t give up the women even for the one he really wants; and Dionne’s live-in, college-age niece following in her aunt’s lesbian footsteps.

Then there’s Logan, the MC at Dionne’s open-mic events, who has her own crew: the forever funny Beverly, rowdy realtor Logan, and conflicted Sonja torn between two women.

And finally, Lena, a Virginia teen taken in by her aunt, Vanessa, after her father and grandmother pass away. Her older cousins, Gabby and Mercedes, show her the ropes as sorority girls and help her acclimate to Middle Georgia life.

In the center of all these connections are Jazmine and Karen, life partners and owners of Jazzy Ladies Productions, a local lesbian entertainment company. They host the open mic nights that Dionne performs at, that Logan hosts, and that bring all the ladies (and Vincent) together in love, sex and friendship. But Karen and Jaz – with pasts to run from – also have more sinister links to one character in particular.

Can you guess which one?

At 576 pages, Simpson’s Jazzy Ladies Productions is a big but pleasurable read. The pages fly by as you get into each plot, and you’ll want to see how all the ends tie together.

Simpson, as always, captivates.

Reviewed June 2012

Letting Go…Almost A Trilogy of Alternative Short Stories by Monica Cooper

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Publisher/Date:  KumaSon Consultant, June 2011
Genre(s):  Romance, Short Story
Pages:  392
Website:  http://www.kumason.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What’s the use of LETTING GO…ALMOST?

To discover a love yet experienced based on the touching book by Monica Cooper.

Her tome features 3 novellas centered on couples who could find love if only they succumbed to its power. Pasts may hinder you, imaginary barriers can be overcome, and the right one could be right in your face, but you have to be able to let go and let love.

The first tale surrounds Dylan, an abused woman stranded by her Lexus in a small town while trying to escape. She’s taken in by Ms. Mae, a caring elder with a granddaughter, Tori, who can fix Dylan’s car in her shop. Dylan and Tori don’t hit it off, to say the least, but through Ms. Mae, they learn each other’s pasts aren’t that different. Things get more complicated when Tori and Dylan find out they share a common link.

Vampires and mortals are to oil and water, yet in Cooper’s second story, they yield pleasurable bedmates – if only Martel could let go of standing traditions that forbid the creatures from mingling with humans. Martel knows Sanai is literally worth fighting for, but dark forces could see to it that the two never see the light of day.

The last tale in Letting Go involves Asilia, in a relationship with a man when she meets Kai. The attraction is undeniable and mutual, but it leaves both ladies confused: for Asilia, whether it’s worth leaving her boyfriend; for Kai, how long can she wait for something that isn’t hers and isn’t promised. As it happens often in life, fate makes the decision for them.

In short, Cooper’s words in Letting Go…Almost flow like honey, delightfully poignant, sentiments felt.

Reviewed June 2012