Some of the books I've read... Oh my!

The joys of reading have never been as evident to me as they have been over the last few weeks. I admit it, I'm a Book Slut ~ and darned proud of it too!~ and being a fairly new reviewer for Ebook Addict and Dark Diva Reviews has been a slice of heaven! While not all of my heavenly reads have been from my review work, a fair bit has.  I've slowly been making sure that I add long-time-eTBR books to my reading list.  I really wish that there were more hours in the day... and that I could dedicate them to just READING.  But, alas, my family does come first and they do like to eat, so.... :grin:

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• I finally made a place for Z.A. Maxfield's Notturno in my line-up and it was everything ~ and even a bit more ~ than I had thought it would be.  Sometimes the lead-in to a story ~ aka other people's comments, raves and reviews ~ end up leaving me with a slight to severe let-down. Let me say that I've not seen ANYTHING that comes close to the power of Notturno... and that's saying a LOT!
  I'm not making mention of ZAM's Blue Fire 'cause I've just recently reviewed it here... :sigh: My oh my... Adam and Jared
  
  
  
• T.A. Chase's Nowhere Diner: Finding Love has been in my TBR since its release... I know! And while I knew that I was going to love it ~ everything else that I've read by this marvelously talented author has been fabulous ~ it still managed to take my breath away. I'm sincerely hoping that this is only the first in a series of stories featuring Cookie's diner... I could spend a long, long time there and never be bored!
  

A few of the review books that I've read lately out-and-out blew me away.  I've come to find that there is a plethora of amazing, talented and just-plain-fantastic, ebook authors around and it's been a thrill to find so many of these and add them to my favourite-and-auto-buy list.  The latest additions, in no particular order:

• Chrissy Munder ~ Fair Wind
• Nicki Bennett ~ Flight
• Neil Plakcy ~ Three Wrong Turns in the Desert

which led me straight to Mr. Plakcy's Gaylife.com (which has been in my TBR since its release)

• Shawn Lane ~ Beyond the Norm
• Mychael Black ~ As Above, So Below
• Jet Mykles ~ About Something
• Rowan McBride ~ One Shot
• Rosalie Stanton ~ Firsts

I'm not including here books that I've read and reviewed by authors that I already collect; the above are all new-to-me authors that have blasted their way into my heart and onto my list... Thank heavens! The tried and true favourites:

• Ethan Day ~ As You Are
• Josh Lanyon ~ I Spy Something Wicked

I actually waited to read "Wicked" because Mr. Lanyon's I Spy Something Bloody was also a long-time resident of my eTBR (I know, I know....); once I figured out that "Wicked" was a sequel novella to a book in my TBR... well, I'm not crazy... much.

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So I decided that today was a great day to at least catch up on my book list; at least here.  My poor eHarlequin blog is starting to collect all kinds of spiders and ghostly sounds.  Ah well... I'll get better at the time organization thing... I hope!

Josh Lanyon's Adrien English Mysteries

I've been finding so many fantastic writers via emails that I get from various ebook publishers; now that could develop into a problem... someday.... maybe....

Or not. LOL

Anyway one of my more recent *finds* is Josh Lanyon. The first story of his that I read was called Dangerous Ground and I was hooked, big time, from the get-go. I love romances; I love gay and mènage romances; straight romances and definitely the erotic romance. I've discovered that, while I'm actually a very white-bread type of person in *real life* I've got another persona in my reading life. Who knew?

Through a number of new-found authors I've discovered that, in the name of romance and true-love, I enjoy stories from just about every genre and sub-genre going... Erotic romance is one of my newest reading genres... actually since I joined the eHarlequin.com community last year!

So, as I was originally saying; Josh Lanyon has become another of my favourite and auto-buy authors. It's not just that he writes gay (or m/m fiction) romances, but that he writes amazing mysteries that get me right from the start.
Now, I'm not a new fan of mysteries: He!! no! I grew up reading Agatha Christie ~ and by now I have nearly every one of her many, many books. I also enjoyed reading Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason stories as well as the odd Ellery Queen.
But I guess my earliest foray into the mystery story would be the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Rick Brant's Science Adventures and the Ken Holt stories: the latter two had been my uncle's books and when I chanced upon them, they became MY books!

So being able to enjoy my beloved mysteries as well as gay erotic romances was a match made in heaven.

I've just read the first two of Mr. Lanyon's Adrien English Mysteries ~ Fatal Shadow and A Dangerous Thing ~ and immediately went back to Loose Id and bought up the next two Adrien English stories as well as two other of JL's books. (Um you may sense that I get a tad acquisitive upon finding a new F&AB [favourite and auto-buy] author... and you'd be RIGHT!)

So, without further ado (or rambling....) here are my reviews for Josh Lanyon's first two Adrien English Mysteries ~ Fatal Shadows and A Dangerous Thing.

Relationships can be murder. Bookseller and mystery author Adrien English is looking for love in all the wrong places -- and, according to hot and handsome LAPD detective Jake Riordan, it's liable to get him killed.

Before reading these first two of Josh Lanyon's Adrien English mysteries I was already a fan of the man's work. The first of his books that I read was Dangerous Ground and it was gripping. The mystery in each of his stories is well crafted and I'm left wondering whodunnit 'til the end... but then even if I weren't I wouldn't be troubled by it as I'm not the type of person that *needs* to solve the mystery before the end ~ I'm just along for the thrill of the ride!
Add to the mystery element is a deep and intriguing character development ~ somewhere among the man-on-man love relationships is often one man who is unsure of his sexual identity ~ especially in relation to the other lead male character.
Suffice it to say that after reading Fatal Shadows and A Dangerous Thing, I made a stop by the online bookstore and came away with four more of Mr. Lanyon's wonderful, and very tempting!, stories. Definitely a new favourite and auto-buy for me.

Excellence: 4.5 stars of 5
Steaminess: Yummy to Heat Wave

1st of the Adrien English Mysteries

FROM the Website:
A serial killer is stalking gay men, and a tawny-eyed LAPD detective wants bookseller Adrien English in handcuffs -- for all the wrong reasons!

MY NOTES:
Let me start by saying that the character of Adrien English was nothing as I had imagined him to be... I'm not sure why, but his name for me, conjured up a rather stuffy British detective who was also gay and a bookseller. Far off the mark? You bet! Did it bother me? Not a whit.
I really enjoyed Adrien's character... he wasn't a detective by any means, but when his best friend was murdered and he was the suspect, the whole business of discovering who the murderer was basically fell into his lap.

RATING:
Excellence: ~ 4.5 stars of 5
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BOOK READ: Josh Lanyon; A Dangerous Thing; Loose Id, LLC; May 2007
2nd in the Adrien English Mysteries

FROM the Website: When his romance goes south, Adrien heads north to the California Motherlode country. Can murder -- and Adrien's favorite LAPD detective -- be far behind?

MY NOTES:
In this story, Adrien's a step removed from the murder that he stumbles upon... but it's on his property and from the very beginning if something can go wrong, it does! The plot was, I found, somewhat more serpentine, but I still found it difficult to book the book down.
The more that I get to know Adrien English, the more I become hooked on his stories... and sometimes I was roundly cursing out Jake... but the path to true love never runs smooth. Another excellent chapter in these fascinating mysteries!

RATING:
Excellence: ~ 4.5 stars of 5

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