On Wings, Rising by Ann Somerville

My friends know that I'm not an huge fan of futuristic romance, but I can be "converted" if the book is good. And On Wings, Rising is very good. Ann Somerville recreates an entire universe and mixes up legends and technology.

The setting is a post apocalyptic colony planet where people have to live more or less like in a country village of the nineteen century. Energy is a rare goods, things work most thanks to human and animal work, people live on barter but there are still the tax! and also very high! Homosexuality is not a crime, but unnecessary: in a world where procreating means having more hand at work, a man or woman who choose not to gave birth are only weight for the community. Dinun is one of that men, and even if he had three kids with a woman (it's not really said, but probably through artificial insemination...), he didn't marry, mostly since the woman didn't want a man in her bed, and since Dinun prefers to be alone if he can't be in a same sex relationship. He jokes that the childs are tax relief, since a man with offsprings pays less tax.

During one of his searching trip (Dinun collects stones and furs to barter in the village) he makes a stunningly discovery: a injured angel. Angel in Dinun's world are mythical creature but not the fairy men of our tales: they are bigger than an human, with white fur all over their body and leathery wings; their bones are lighter than human ones, and so even if they are stronger than an human, they actually are lighter and apparently delicate... very much like birds I should say.

Hundreds years before, Dinun's forefathers chose to mix Angel's DNA with the human's one to create a stronger breed, a breed who can live in the harsh condition of the newborn colony planet. They were right, since the new breed survive, while the full-blood humans wither and die; with the lost of technology, chimerical humans also lost the knowledge, and so Angels become myth and no one see them again.

Now Dinun has in front of him an Angel who can't speak like him but only shrill, who can read his mind and send him flash of image to communicate, an Angel who was harvesting his child in a pouch like a kangaroo when he was injured by a full-blood human from off-world who stole his child. When Moon, the Angel, is nursered to health, Dinun and him discover that other five Angel childs were stolen and their fathers killed. Dinun sets himself to help Moon, for the good of the stolen childs but also since he is starting to feel something for the beautiful creature.

Moon is not a simple characters; apparently playful and sexy, he is behaving like his similar: Angels live in small pack within the village, they share bodies for comfort and relieve, they don't know the concept of couple like family. Sex is not only a way to procreate, it's also a way to voice joy and belonging: when Moon starts to see Dinun as a fellow companion, it's only natural and right to share also their body. Moon is also young, he is still not a grown Angel, and so it sounds right that his character is somewhat more playful than the others; but the impression the reader can have of him as a tender "puppy" is soon shattered when we see him in battle (probably the scene that gave me more problem...): but again, Moon is behaving like his people always do, according to a natural law that found its fundamentals more in the Nature course rather than in beliefs instilled by traditions.

Dinun is an easy character to like; he is tender and caring, he follows the rule, live and let live. Even if he is alone, he is not really mistreated by the villagers, maybe he is only considered a bit odd. I believe that his loneliness is more due to his own decision rather than to a real ostracism. Sometime I found him a bit too detached from his own relatives, something that maybe allows him to be more at ease when he is far from them.

In the end I would like to add something on the erotic part of the book. I believe that in the past Ann Somerville's works was sentenced as too much cold and not enough graphic detailed... I haven't find lacking on that department this book. It was not an easy task, since we are speaking of men with real different characteristic (fur, wings, pouches...), but I really enjoyed all the sex scenes, but also the playful erotic teasing of Moon... maybe I would like to read something "more", since technically, Dinun is still a virgin, at least in one way as I said in my tags... read no anal sex. But this is book one in a series and then I'm the one who skip the sex scenes if they are too much in comparison to the plot!

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/on-wings-rising

Amazon Kindle: On Wings, Rising: Book 1 of the Encounters series

Reaching Higher (Encounters 2) by Ann Somerville

In the previous book the pair of lovers were in a way "naivee": Dinun, even if adult in age, was still new to love; being gay in a farmer society where all that matter was how many children you can have, made him a different from his similar, and so it was quite easy for him to accept to share his life with Moon, a wild Angel, a breed of men with white fur and wings.

In this story there is another type of diversity, due to the "alien" nature of one of the main character. More, he is not only "alien", he is also the villain, one of the men that in the previous book tried to kidnap the Angels' babies to study their DNA. To Raelne is now given a chance: life imprisonment or cooperate with the government to retrieve the lost technology knowledge; in exchange of that cooperation, Raelne has a very slim possibility to repair the spaceship and return back home. Since Raelne has just realized that what they did is not exactly an honorable thing, he accepts and as interpreter and colleague he has Suaj. Suaj is an human like Dinun, a breed of men with mixed blood, human and angel together. But in Suaj the Angel DNA is more remarkable, and he is like them, with almost black skin, white fur and he would have also a pair of wings if they were not surgical removed as an infant.

The relationship between Raelne and Suaj is not easy at first; Suaj can't hide the fact that he is not very fond of Raelne's people and what they did. Even if he is not a wild Angel, he looks at them like his real people, and so, in a way, he takes upon himself their rage on Raelne. Raelne instead is fascinated by Suaj, I believe both as a potential lover (even if his interest is a bit fetish like) than as a friend, since Raelne has a very curious mind, and Suaj stimulates his desire of knowledge.

It's more a battle/meeting of mind than body; probably if there was not an intellectual interest, Raelne and Suaj would never come to have also a sex relationship, and the intellectual nature is what lead all their future encounters: neither of them will never arrive to let their heart take their decisions, the rationalism will always be first. Even if, in the end, if really faced to a choice, it's possible that for once...

Again there is still the fascination of a relationship between two very different men, not only in culture but also in shape. This time the difference is not so strong, Suaj lost most of his original physical traits, and maybe the author is a bit more reserved in describing him, helped also by the fact that Suaj is dressed (less details to give). Also the language barrier is no more a problem, and so the reader can concentrate more on the characters than on the setting: the two of them and their interaction is not so different from a "normal" one, they bicker like an all too normal couple, and also feign to despise what they really want.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/reaching-higher

Amazon Kindle: Reaching Higher: Book 2 of the Encounters Series

Amazon: Encounters

Reading List:

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Cover Art by Anne Cain

I'm true, I was scared to read this novel. It's true, I have a pink glasses perspective on the world, but not since I don't know how scary and cruel the world can be, but since I prefer to not read and see what it's too painful to accept. And so I was scared by Kelland; I knew this is a novel very near to the author's heart and I feared to be too moved by the author's voice... strange isn't it, when you avoid what it's too good.

Another reason why I have always delayed to read this book was that I was not expecting for it to have hope, I was ready to being plunged deep into a dark drama and not having even the small hope of an escaping light somewhere. It's not like that, Kelland is that light. Kelland is the guiding light of all the characters in the book, all of them tainted by the dark, but who found a way to escape that darkness. All of them other than two, who fell victims, but their sacrifice helped the others, and one of them will put an end to the evil circle.

The novel is both simple and difficult to read. At first the reader is perplexed, there are a lot of jumps in time, and the characters seem all different and disconnected. The only common element, Kelland, is not the same for all of them, and so, even it gives the idea of being lost in a labyrinth. But the writing style is linear and not oppressive. Once you get the thread of the story, it's easier to follow it, and every piece falls in the right place. There is an evil character and Kelland is out there to help all the other characters to find their right way out of the labyrinth.

Minh and Toan are two brothers from Vietnam who built a new life in America. Minh married Theresa, and he seems happy and balanced, a typical average America man; instead Toan, gay, is living in Los Angeles and always seems to pick up the wrong man to love. Kelland appears in Toan's life and Toan at first believes to have finally found the right man, someone who will not leave him, like his brother Minh did and later also Calvin, the first boyfriend Toan had and his childhood friend. If Kelland appears to Toan, it means that it was Toan who was tainted by the darkness, but this is the first mystery the reader will have to follow down.

George is a 9 years boy, who is starting to realize that he is different. He loves Jesus, he was instilled from his family that he has the vocation, he will go to seminary... but George has forbidden desires in his heart, when he sees Jesus on the cross, he sees not a God but a man, and his love for Jesus is not a "pure" love. Probably due to the self-condemnation George already did to himself, when the taint reaches him, George at first sees it like a right punishment. But George is strong, stronger that he believes, and way stronger that the other boys tainted before him. Kelland appears to George like an angel, but he only pushes George to take the last step towards the right path George already envisioned in front of him.

Lucas is probably the most sad part of the book, with the story of another boy I cannot tell since it's essential you find for yourself. Lucas is a suicide teenager who died almost at the beginning of the book, but which story will follow all the other characters till the end. On the contrary of George, Lucas had not the force to fight against the evil, probably since Lucas believed that no one loved him. George loves Jesus, and in God and Jesus he finds the force to fight; it's not a coincidence that Kelland appears to George in the guise of an angel, since an angel is someone George is willing to hear. An angel represents the purest imaginary of faith, not tainted by what the men did and built around that faith. God, through Kelland, chooses to save George and sacrifice Lucas... no one has never said that God is magnanimous; in his wrath god is tremendous, and he needed Lucas' sacrifice to reach his purpose. Melanie and Gareth are Lucas' parents. They are not bad parents, but probably they were not ready or available to listen to their son's trouble. Kelland appears to Melanie, and he will use Melanie as a tool for God's avenge.

Kelland is not an easy book to read, most since you have to find the strength to start it. Once you do, it's easier, since you are immersed in the life of the characters and you are trying to find what links them. And it's not Kelland, instead Kelland is who will help them to break that unhealthy bond.

http://www.casperianbooks.com/catalog/1-934081-19-1.html

Amazon: Kelland

Reading List:

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I'm not usually drawn by menages stories, but I read and re-read the blurb of this novel, and was so attracted by it. A beautiful fallen Angel, Rion, new-born to the world like a baby after his fall; the farmer sidhe who takes care of him, Rex. A story sets in Scotland, a land I visited and loved... it was too tempting to not read, and I'm very happy to have surrendered to temptation.

It's true, there is some menages inside the story, and probably a female character who has a small role in this book, will take a main role in the continuous of the series, but Falling is basically a manlove book. Rex is a creature of earth, he is bonded to the land he takes care of, and while he nurtures it, he is nurturing back. It's centuries that he is living in the Lowlands, him a creature from the North, and he doesn't know why his People sent him there till the day he finds Rion, a Fallen Angel. Rex knows that he has to take care of Rion as he took care of the land the People gave him, but it's not a simple task; a Fallen Angel can gone mad, and if it happens, the sidhe who takes care of him has to kill his protege.

At first Rion is like a baby, he has no knowledge of his past and neither of the life on Earth. Everything is a discovery, but it's simple enough since they live in a secluded farm. And when Rion finds out that also Rex is a special creature, it's even simpler: Rion is no more alone in a stranger world. But Rex realizes that he is beginning to feel for the beautiful angel, and while for him it can be a choice, Rex has experience of world and different lovers, for Rion it's not. Rion has to make experience and if he will decide that he wants to spend the rest of his immortal life with Rex, then he will do it judging in full cognition of the facts.

The story is basically simple, and the legends involved are ancient, so there is nothing new, but nevertheless it's a very good story. I feel the myths, and the love for them. Rion and Rex live far from reality, but from what little hints I read here and there, I believe the time is middle-late XIX century; the strange thing is that it's not important when the story is set, since it has an immortal feeling: the same story could have been taken and moved at our time, and it would have been the same.

It's also pretty sexy and naughty, the sex scenes between Rion and Rex are always light but good, sometime even kinky, since Rion always maintain his "angel" look, complete with long white feathered wings, and Rex sometime is in his sidhe form, with little colorful wings and a tail. Despite this, the sex is nothing strange or icky, there is only the added bonus that Rex's tail is one more appendage that can be useful... Since I'm talking of the sex, maybe it's right to also spend some word on the het sex scene: as I said there are women in the story, and not only one. Both Rion than Rex, before starting their relationship, have het sex experiences with other sidhe, willingly or unwillingly; there is also a menages a trois, but it's really very short. As I said, all the het aspect of the story are so uneventful that you can really almost forget them.

There are many factors that drew me to this story, the cover (yes I liked it), the Fallen Angel (I'm a bit naught, sex with an angel...), the magic, Scotland... all of them are masterfully blend in a very nice story. So nice that I'm quite interested in reading also the second book in the story, even if it seems from the blurb that it's more an F/F story, and it's not usually my cup of tea.

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1135

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The best word to describe Angels of the Deep is "dark"; it started in the dark, both literally than figuratively, to continue always in the dark. Even when it's daylight, the darkness is there, and sincerely I always had the feel, reading this book, that there was like a cloud covering the sun, and even if the events take place during the day, no real sunlight was allowed in the story. The only light I perceived was the artificial one of neon, a light that was cold, in this way reinforcing the darkness and also the coldness. No sunlight means no natural warm. All in this book was dark and icy.

I realized that I concentrated more on the feeling it left me than on the story, but it's also hard to give you a short summary of the story without giving up the end, but I will try. At the beginning of the book Beck is an orphan, a ward in the hand of a priest; unfortunately Beck is suffering an unspeakable hell living with the priest, a pedophiles who calls Beck his Angel. As expected in this situation, Beck is escaping reality building a world of his own, till the day an ancient woman appears and "frees" Beck from his hell. Jump ahead in time, Beck is now an adult, married man and soon-to-be divorced. It seems that he loves his wife, Cat, but not in the way he should love her; Cat is a good woman, but when Beck is near her, I feel more friendship than love passing between them. On the other hand, Beck is feeling something strong for someone he should not, Sean, his partner in the police facility they both work for.

Also Sean is aware of the feelings between them, and he would be willing to try, but Beck is unwilling. He finds all the right excuse, he is married, he can't do that to Cat, Sean is a co-worker... strange enough one of the excuse is not that he is not gay, as if the gender of them is not important... Anyway I had the feeling that the real reason was that Beck is still traumatized by what happened to him when he was a child. Beck is the exactly profile of an abused child, unable to tighten real bond with a lover, reluctant to speak of his problem, ready to lie to  therapists when they near the real problem. The only thing that I will not add to the other typical thing is Beck being gay, since, first of all it seems not to be one of his "trouble", and second, as I said before, his relationship with Sean is strange, and being both men seem not to be the real problem between them.

All right, telling you these things, I covered more or less 50 pages of the more than 300 pages of the book, and I can't say more, since from this moment on the reader is plunged inside the story right in the middle of the event and will resurface only in the end. The author don't prolong the broth with water to make it last, but serve the main course and let the reader to deal with it in full play mode. The story takes is direction and goes straight to the end without hesitation and not leaving to the reader neither the time to breath. I was turning the page hoping to find a moment to stop, and instead there wasn't neither one. The book is 300 pages long, but no one of these pages is an embellishment, they are all center stage events.

Kirby Crow is not famous for being sexy, she is more famous to be a teaser (she will never be free of that title after letting me suffer for one very long book, Scarlet and the White Wold 1, for a kiss, and for another even more long book, the second in the series, for a sex scene...), and Angels of the Deep confirms it; even if, truth be told, there is sex in the book (and not only in the last chapter) and there is also a continuous running of eroticism in all the pages, all the characters, not only Beck and Sean, are all very physical, and their body reactions are pretty clear and described. So the only moment that the icy cloak I felt on the story is raised, is when that sexy running surfaces here and there.

http://www.mlrpress.com/ShowBook.php?book=ANGELS01

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Amazon: Angels of the Deep

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Cover Art by Analise Dubner

The StarCrossed series by MacLeod and Valentine is not a simple series to read, since it tests a lot of "romance" boundaries and not only. Above all it questions the main rule that good is white and evil is black and they don't mix, and even if mix, in the end the evil has to go through a purification process to be considered good. Here instead, the evil is evil and remains evil till the end, enjoying its lustful life in plenty.

Jace and Konnor are demon twins who now live in "peace" at Salem, managing a night club. Jace is the same demon that, in Demon Tailz, a previous short story in this series, eat alive a man who was mourning his lost lover... the fact that the man was searching that fate to be reunited with his lover in an alterlife, and that Jace, in a way, helped him, doesn't change the true that the demon enjoyed his "meal". There is then the little fact that this is a twincest story, but well, I believe that this particular kink is now quite surpassed, and almost normal, and then we are talking of demons here, so, well, human laws don't exactly apply to them.

In Objects in the Mirror the reader has the chance to know something more on the past of these two demon brothers and so understand why they are so bound together; but he has also the chance to see that these are not "tamed" demons, they have not conscience: when it's time to hunt, and eat, it doesn't matter if the prey is innocent. Maybe of the two brother, Jace is the more bloody and lethal, but it's not that Konnor is innocent, his unwillingness to hunt is more a question of like or not like than a conscience issue.

Jace and Konnor are the main characters but not the only important in the story; there is also Gennady, their vampire adoptive father, and Fallon, his young werefox lover, and Jericho, almost an adoptive brother. And then a lot of other minor characters, all of them with the same characteristic: they live in a border zone, between right and wrong, between good and evil, and no one of them is perfect. Even the angels in this story have their little dirty secrets.

As I said the two authors test a lot of "no-way" rules of romance: twincest, sex in shifted form, the rule that the good hero, even if behaving as a villain, has to not mingle with the real villain, and if he must, at least he has to not enjoy it. It seems almost that the real good one, the innocent souls in this story are doomed, and only the ones with cracked halo are allowed to survive. And then the authors play also with the main romance rule, the one that says that the good hero has to be beautiful and the villain has to be ugly... in this story instead you can't recognize the evil from the good from the outside exterior, since it seems that all of them are in their way beautiful, the authors manage to make beautiful even the demons in their demon form (with tails, claws and horns).

It's quite a strange book, but just the fact that it doesn't pass and go letting you unaffected is a proof that the main scope it was targeting is reached, it makes wondering and doubting the reader his own belief on what is right and what is wrong.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=227&products_id=1841

Series: StarCrossed
1) Demon Tailz: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/486448.html
2) Opposite Ends of the Spectrum: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/523638.html
3) Objects in the Mirror

Reading List:

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Cover Art by Rose Lenoir

Again the demon story by this duo of new author MacLeod and Valentine is one of unexpected interest and pleasure for me to read. Why unexpected? since if you asked me before if I would like to read of the debauching of an angel, involving demon shape monsters, probably I would have answered with a big NO! And instead I was again enthralled by the story.

Kelly is a male beautiful androgynous angel: with beautiful long scarlet hair that match his wonderful scarlet wings, Kelly is the main attraction of a freak show. Before being taken in captivity he was not a strong angel, and since he is almost starved, he is really weak and unable to escape his prison. Then the owner of the freak carnival decides to put in cage with him an incubus, Dekin. At first Dekin is fair and gentle with Kelly, he almost convinces him that he will not harm him in any way, not only he convinced Kelly he also convinced me, that I was just imagining him like a "good" incubus... but Dekin is a demon and he behaves like a demon.

Between remains a captive forever and being an alley of a demon, Kelly chooses the dark side; but even if he makes a bargain with a devil, he still remains an angel, with his beauty and innocence. Never ever during all the book, Kelly looses his inside goodness and his calm and serene behavior, even when subjected to the worst thing that could be happen to a pure soul, the violation of his body, Kelly is forgiving and welcoming, he is a real martyr. If not for the way in which the authors manage to build a relationship between Kelly and Dekin, I don't know if both characters would be independently nice: and instead, in this way, Kelly comes out with being a strong character, in attitude if not in body, and Dekin like a more brooding demon as I was expecting; he is almost like a dark hero, someone who has to do unholy things in name of the good angel that is waiting for him. Only behaving in a good way Dekin feels enlisted to love an angel, Kelly becomes is criterion.

There is a lot of sex in this novella, down and dirty sex, it's almost like it has to be so down and dirty to exalt the purity, of the loss of it, of Kelly. Some of it, in particular in two scenes, it's quite a non consensual sex, one almost a rape, so be ready and warned. But as I said, I believe that it was necessary to give a dark background to the angel to shine as much as possible.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=229&products_id=1755

Series: StarCrossed
1) Demon Tailz: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/486448.html
2) Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

Reading this book I realized that I don't know much about angels and demons, and about the Creation and the Fall of Lucifer. These are five stories about love between angels and demons, and about the power of clean all the mistakes that sometime love has.

Hunter and the Prey: Lev is an Angel. He trains the young Angel to be warriors and to destroy the evil creatures that roam the human world. But he can't destroy one of these creatures, the demon Alael, cause he loves him. And when Alael decides that it's time for them to be together, no one can deny them.

Angels of Blood: Irael is a fallen angel who proclaims himself god of a tortured world. The Order of Chaos is not happy with the angel's behaviour and want to destroy him. But Adon, one of the Angel of Creation, has his own plans on Irael, and he will do as he wants and the winner takes all.

Unholy Need: Nichael is an angel who has to hunt and kill a powerful mage, but during his mission he stumbles upon Nias, a young demon. It seems that Nias displeases Lucifer and he was sent in a mission where he clearly can't survive, and Nichael has to help the young demon, cause now he can't let him go.

Order of the Highest: Talah is a demon spy, former lover of Sepha, a powerful ancient demon, he has to lure one of the Highest, a powerful group of angel warrior. But when he meets Aridas, he knows to have found the only thing missing in his life. But can he be free from the binding he has with Sepha?

The True Fall of Lucifer: After years and years of loneliness, Lucifer has to admit that he misses his former lover, Michael. And since also Michael wants Lucifer back, what prevent the fallen angel to reunite with his true love?

All the stories are pretty short, more or less 30 pages each, but are full of details and reading it you have a feeling of light and shadow, of deep black and flash of blinding colour. There are also many hints of bondage and submission, of pain that enriches the love making.

All the book is setting in a fantasy world, so it's not strange to see all these angels and demons around, they are not some otherworldly creatures in a normal world, they are normal creatures in a mythical world.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/realms-of-fantasy

Amazon Kindle: Realms of Fantasy

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Cover Art by Anne Cain

Bound to Fall is the final book in the Encounters series; is the parallel story of both couples of the previous two books, the chimerical human Dinun and his Angel lover Moon, and the chimerical human (but with an heavy Angel genetic legacy) Suaj and his human lover Raeln.

Both these couples have problem to overcome to be happy together: Dinun finds out that he can't live in Moon's world due to his health condition, and he wants pretend from his lover to be captive in his "narrow" world: Moon is not used to live in the confined space of an home, he is born to live in the open spaces where he can fly. On the other hand Raeln, even if deep in love with Suaj, and more than happy in their relationship, misses home; he is aware that he will not find anything better at home for him, but still he longs for a world that he still considers his own. When an spaceship from Raeln's planet asks to land, it's the change for all of them to test their bonds.

There is a clear shift in the story at the middle: the first part has almost an utopian mind, made of "friendly" scientists who want only to learn and develop new ways for living better; the second part almost ends in a nightmare. Unfortunately what happens in this futuristic world, is what always happened when different cultures meet and don't "mix"; there is always one part that believes to be better and to be allowed to judge and bring pain in other life in the name of the wellness of their people, doesn't matter if this means to injure others.

Said that I would like to spend a bit of good words on the characters. In this last book there are two characters that I believe had the space to develop and grow as they hadn't had in their own story. Dinun, in the first book, was a nice character, but he was almost too naive, smitten by the powerful Angel who was his lover, he didn't have the chance to have on the reader a strong impression. Now instead he is the leading man in the relationship, he is maybe more angry and mourning, but he proves a strenght that I hadn't found before. Sure Moon is still the stronger in body, but finally Dinun behaves as an adult.

The second character that I see in a different way is Suaj; oh yes, he is still a bit detached, but now I can see that he cares for his human lover. He is not obviously the passionate character as Raeln, but at least I have no more the impression that for him Raeln is only a nice benefit deriving from his work, I finally have the impression that Suaj would not be happy if Raeln should decide to go back home. Probably he would be find a way to overcome the pain, but at least he would feel it.

There is clearly more passion and more open feelings in this last book than in the previous two. It's not necessary a question of sex, if I remember well there is only one real sex scene, but the characters are more open, they arrive to the reader in a more direct way, and so they leave a deeper impression.

http://www.lulu.com/content/5940701

Series: Encounters
1) On Wings, Rising: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/393060.html
2) Reaching Higher: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/485944.html
3) Bound to Fall

Reading List: 

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It's not the first time that I read a fantasy romance regarding Angels and Demons, but usually they didn't effect me too much, I didn't find any fascination in them. Instead this short novel by Molly Church, only 29 pages, has the feeling of a longer novel and it appealed to me in a strange way, since it mixed another element usually I'm not fond of, the D/s role play.

Yare'ach is a warrior angel, mortally wounded during a battle. The female Hellborn who finds him, instead of pitying killing the angel, decides to take him to her lord, Ayve. Ayve is a demon, a fallen angel, and he has a sadness inside of him that nothing seems to soothe. The Hellborn feels that this wounded angel and the demon have something in common and maybe she hopes to please her master with a new toy.

But for Yare'ach being used to live in Hell is not simple. As an Angel he was incorporeal, his body had no needs, nor for food or sex, and so he is totally unprepared when it slowly start to make request apparently without consent from its own owner. Yare'ach and Ayve start a D/s relationship where Yare'ach learns to be the perfect submissive, since it's in the Angel's nature to follow the orders of a superior lord. I like Yare'ach's character since his uncertainty and unsteadiness seem true, even if, in a way, he is not a full grown or independent man: he doesn't discern between good and evil, he doesn't know what they are, he is happy only when someone else could tell him what to do and give him directions and a safe place. Ayve is a complex character not fully developed in this short story: we know he is a brooding man, that he is sad and not happy, but that he finds comfort in Yare'ach, in taking care of the Angel, sometime more like a father than a lover.

I like also the setting, a medieval fantasy world, Hell is an huge stone castle without any of the modern comforts, always surrounded by an eternal night. Other than some hint on the characters having wings, there is nothing that make this a fantasy novel, no magic, no paranormal events, and also for this I liked the book.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1694

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

The title has a double meaning: Pablo is an hustler in a futuristic world. In this apocalyptic setting, the profession of whore is centrally controlled as every other profession, but obviously is not a revered one. There are different level of prostitution, and Pablo unfortunately is on a low level, he walks the street by night. When one of his clients expresses a bit too much of interest in him, bordering on violence, Pablo knows that it's time to change line of work.

He replies to an ad by a coven of three magicians in search of a Touch: here the first meaning of the title, a Touch is a human being able to arise and direct sexual powers; obviously this could imply physical contact and maybe also sex, but Pablo is not worried of that. Better being an independent worker with the possibility of choice, than depending on the will of strangers night after night. And here is the second meaning of the title, since Pablo is looking for some touch, but not a physical ones, he wants a connection with someone, something that goes beyond the merely sex act.

The three of the coven are quite different: Zee is gentle and caring, always with a tender touch for Pablo; Tole is brisk and rude, not violent, but he almost seems to despise Pablo; and finally Win, the man from which Pablo wants more touch of everyone else. He can't resist to the beautiful man, but it's not only a physical reaction: Win is among the few who, seeing Pablo, are not only seeing a whore. He is actually interested in what Pablo likes and wants, and put Pablo's needs and desires in front of his own.

The story has a paranormal turn almost at the end, and maybe all the question is not so well explained. In the story there is far less sex than expected and this maybe is not even a bad thing, but above all it's not the multiple menages it was hinted in the blurb. There are only three sex scene, and one you can forget since it's Pablo's work before meeting the coven, the second is the only full and for me interesting one, and the third is more or less a making out with multiple partners but with not full sex included. So, strange to say, the book is more my cup of tea than expected.

http://www.loose-id.net/detail.aspx?ID=839

Amazon Kindle: Utopia X: Looking for Some Touch

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Christine M. Griffin

Mael Black, the prince of London, and Cian Carmichael are a strange couple. Cian is an angel but his behavior is far from angelic; he is a warrior and even if he is a match for Mael, I feel him like the strongest in the couple. Or maybe is only since Mael is more a brooding character, it's most difficult to read his feelings. Even if Cian is dangerous, he is more open than Mael, and in a way, more exposed to danger.

In the sequel of The Prince's Angel the supporting characters are almost as important as Mael and Cian. There is the developing of the story between Cornelius and Brandon, old enemies who change their face like Selena and Lee, new friends like Michael. This is a choral book, and every little story concurs to entertwin a very complex book, as complex as the fantasy world that recreates, a gothic tale dark and dangerous as dark and dangerous is the night where it is setting.

From the first book, Cian is changing, maybe love makes him more vulnerable. In the first book, even if Cian was the warrior of the light, he was close and mourning, so dark that in comparison Mael was nicer. Now instead Cian is more open and it's the turn of Mael to face the hostility of his court for his chosen companion: not all are happy that he is consorting with a vampire hunter... And so the enemy are outside, but also inside his very home.

Mael is somewhat undertone; in the previous book Cian and Mael are balanced opponents and lovers, here instead the lion share goes to Cian.

The book is not very long, 125 pages, and there is also a lot of sex, not only between Mael and Cian, but also between other supporting characters, like Cornelius and Brandon (I like this couple, I think they stole a bit the scene to Mael and Cian). Although sex is between ethereal creatures like angels and immortal creatures like vampires, it's a very "normal" erotic act, very humanly, if not for a bit of blood play.

The book end with an open point... will Black and Carmichael thinking to a third book?

P.S. Wonderful cover by Anne Cain, I believe at her debut for Torquere Press

http://www.torquerebooks.com/zencart

Amazon Kindle: And the Two Shall Become One

Amazon: And the Two Shall Become One

Series:
1) The Prince's Angel: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/66739.html
2) And the Two Shall Become One

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Anne Cain

Zack and the Dark Shaft (Zara's Bois 1) by Gracie C. McKeever

Please don't make me comment on the title...

Zara is a spoilt white wasp brat. She is selfish and childish. But she has to have something good in her, cause Quincy, a black businessman of success, considers her his bestfriend. And so Zara asks Quincy a financial help when she wants to open an exclusive gay club. Yes cause, even if Zara is deeply in love with Quincy, Quincy is gay and has no idea to be involved with Zara in something more than friendship.

Then Zara is killed in a casual accident, she falls in a lift dark shaft (yes this is the real "dark shaft" of the story...) and she reawakens in a Limbo with two angels who give her a chance: two weeks on earth to fullfill her desire to be with Quincy. And to realize her desire she has the opportunity to share the body of her twin brother, Zack (what a convenient chance, in this way she will have also the necessary "equipment" to draw Quincy...)

Quincy is a very good friend with Zara. So good that, when he met Zara's twin, Zack, and he was immediately attracted by the cute man, he has rejected his feelings knowing that Zara was in love with him. But now Zara is dead, and he has no intention to let Zack go away.

Suddenly Zack is very "open" and "friendly" with Quincy. And Quincy accepts this unexpected gift; but then Zack begins to fade in front of his eyes: weight loss, restless sleeping... Maybe Zara has no intention to leave Zack's body after two weeks?

The story is good and original, but I have the feeling that Gracie McKeever has closed it too soon. The first part is very well plotted, but the end is a blurr of scenes... maybe this is due to the fact that this is the first book in a series and we will have the chance to read more in the next enstallments.

http://www.sirenpublishing.com/graciecmckeever/zatds.asp

Amazon Kindle: Zack and the Dark Shaft [Zara's Bois 1] (Siren Publishing)

Ingenue's Choice (Zara’s Bois 2) by Gracie C. McKeever

Second in the Zara's Bois series, where a soon-to-be angel, who was a very spoilt and selfish woman in life, has to play the role of matchmaker for human soulmates (mostrly men) who haven't found yet the way to met.

This time is mission is to help Patryk, a wasp fair good boy, a bit workaholic, to find his happily ever after with Keir, a former painter, now bartender, who happens to be also a very hot African American guy with a tendency for D/S play.

Patryk is out from an abusive relationship with a lover who has misjudged Patryk's need for domination as weakness. Now Patryk has some problem issue to trust again a man, but Zara is ready to push him a little toward Keir. Keir has lost his iper jealous lover in an accident soon after their last quarrel. Still hanted by remorse, he has given up his art. But when he meets Patryk, inspiration blossoms in his heart together with love.

But there are some problems to overcome, like their different social environment, and Keir's fear to be again the only one for a man.

The story is prettry simple and smooth, with not much drama. It flows quite till the end. Very pretty the scene of the first date between Keir and Patryk.

http://www.sirenpublishing.com/graciecmckeever/ic.asp

Amazon Kindle: Ingenue's Choice [Zara's Bois 2]

Bouncer's Folly (Zara’s Bois 3) by Gracie C. McKeever

Of the three on the Zara's Bois series I read, this one is maybe my favourite.

Zara has been a good girl in her last mission, and so her angels want to reward her: she will return on Earth, her soul in the body of another lost soul who left too soon. What they didn't say to Zara is that her new body is a male one, and when Zara reawakens in the arms of sexy bouncer Ramsey, also another part of Zara's body awakens, a part she isn't used to have!

But Zara is a girl of many means, and she plays all the better she can with what she have. And the fact that Ramsey is very attracted by Trevor, the twinkie in which body Zara is now, is a plus: Zara will finally have the man she is attracted, since this time she has the right body! Only that Trevor was a drugs addicted and his old friends are not all willing to leave him alone. And then there is also the problem of Travis, Trevor's twin, that understands since the first time they meet, that the soul inside Trevor's body is not his brother's one.

I like how the author manages Zara's transition from woman to man: since she awakens, Zara thinks and acts like a woman, but the first time she has sex with Ramsey, and she fully understand the difference between a woman and a man (with a first hand experience), she stops to be an "her" to become an "him".

I think this is the last in the series, unless the author wants to tell the story also of Travis (who is straight for now) and Trevor (who has the "little" problem to not having a material body in this moment...). All the story till now were a bit short, this one is less than 80 pages, but pretty original.

http://www.sirenpublishing.com/graciecmckeever/bf.asp

Amazon Kindle: Bouncer's Folly [Zara's Bois 3]

Amazon: Zara's Bois

Series: Zara’s Bois
1) Zack and the Dark Shaft
2) Ingenue's Choice
3) Bouncer's Folly

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

This is a very very short tale, less than 15 pages (I think I have never read a story soo short), but funny and enjoyable.

Rory and Tad are two young and happy lovers. They live together, they have steady work and a comfortable life. All perfect. But one day Rory wakes up with something new on his body: two big and soft with wings! He can't understand how, and then the wings seem to not have any specif power if not enriched his sex life with new sensations... a fact this last that he fully appreciated. And then Tad seems to not have problem with the new appendances of his lover.

But how can Rory have a normal life with two wings on his shoulders? And if he finds a way to get free of them, will he not regret to lose the new fantastic sex life he has discovered?

Little and funny story, a sip to savor during your lunch time!

http://www.torquerebooks.com/zencart

Waiting Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=waiting+reading+list&view=elisa.rolle 

Since three years Samael, the Angel of Death, has found a new mortal lover, Daniel, and Raphael, the Archangel of Air, empath and former lover of Samael, can feel it and it's slowly destroying him.

He has since a long time (ten thousand of years) regretted his decision to not follow Lucifer and Samael on earth and instead to remain in Heaven with his brothers Michael, Gabriel and Uriel. But now the sorrow is too strong and he tries to forget all in the drunkness. He lives on earth and this is not allow for Angels and maybe he will be banished from Heaven.

Lucifer, the Son of the Morining, has his own reason to hate Raphael. Him, like Nathaniel, the Lord of Creation and his former lover, has had no courage to follow their beloved on earth. But now, if Raphael will move on earth, and will live in the same dimension with Samael, everyone is at risk: two opposite forces one against the other could lead to destruction. So he makes a pact with Raphael: one night with him and he will allow to Raphael to live on earth and maybe Samael, feeling the ultimate betrayal of his former lover, will forget forever of him.

This is a very short story and you will finish it with the desire to read more. I have the strong feeling that Fallen Angels 1 was a complete story, and this one is only a connection to a subsequent one. I only hope that Dark Eden Press will release soon the next enstallment.

http://shadowfirestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13_39&products_id=11

Series: Fallen Angels
1) On Death’s Wings: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/155556.html
2) Fall From Grace

Waiting Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=waiting+reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

Samael is a fallen angel, the angel of death. He is not a forgivin person, someone who feels pity or is used to do good thing. But one night he sees a pimp beaten to death a young boy and decides he doesn't want that someone else take him the right on live or death on human. And so he kills the pimp and take the hustler home.

Daniel is a lost soul. He is so lost that when someone hold him an hand he takes it without esitation. Live or death is not so important for him now. But between pleasure and pain, Samael is gentle with him and he now wants to be with him forever, or at least for all of his mortal life.

The story is very short and I'm happy that, maybe, this is only a brief prequel to a more complex story. I have no really the chance to know well Daniel, and have only some hints on Samael: he is not like a knight in shining armour, he is a man a great hunger and easy to explode. Daniel is a simple boy with a awful life, but he has not the wounded soul of someone who has no reason to live more.

I will look forward to read more.

http://shadowfirestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13_39&products_id=1

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

 

The plot involving an angel who falls in love for his protege is not original, we have seen that in book and movie (above all Wim Wenders), but usually these stories have not an happily ever after.

Instead in Testament to Love, Ariel Tachna has chosen to tell us of a forgiving Lord, who thinks that love, and also physical love, is an expression of Love toward him, and so he allows to Emmanuel, one if his angels, to remain with Cameron, a poor painter.

Emmanuel was sent to Cameron to teach him to see again the beauty around him. Cameron is a good man, but not a successful man. His wife has left him, taking away their daughters, and now he lives only to gain what little money he could to send him to his ex wife. But when Emmanuel enters his life he has another reason to live: the simple days he passes with him, working and chatting. If he can have also sex, it would be perfect, but he contents himself also with the companionship.

But Emmanuel can't stay with him, not forever, and eventually he has to leave; but when he learns that Cameron has tried to commit suicide, he has only one choice left: became a fallen angel...

Another short story, enjoyable and well written. The sex scenes are fresh and somewhat naive, don't miss the erotic wings of Emmanuel...

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/napsizedreams.htm#Testament_to_Love

Mael Black is the prince of London's vampire. He is dark and dangerous, but he is like a pater familiae for his vampires: he takes care of them and like an old warlord he holds court to listen to their problem. He is not a lonely warrior.

Cian Carmichael instead is a lonely warrior, an angel who has lived too many years among the madness of the human world and now his behaviour is more similar to human people than angels. He is a hunter of rogue vampires but he fights alone, in the shadows of the city.

Cian is irremediably drawn to Maen, but a vampire and an angel is an impossible couple. But love maybe can create a place among two different existence to allow to two lover to share their bodies and at the end also their hearts.

The very originality of this novel is that the darker character is Cian, the angel, he walks alone in the shadows, instead Mael, the vampire, has duties that oblige him to deal with an entire court of people.

A very romantic gothic novel setting in a modern London but with the atmosphere of endless time. This is not the tale of a fallen angel, but his quest for the true love.

http://www.torquerepress.com/

Amazon Kindle: The Prince's Angel