Aerulan

This is a weak 2.5 stars, and I'm a little mixed about it getting that much to be honest. I thought it was excellent. Right up until the end when it all went completely to shit. If it weren't for the truly awful ending -and even worse epilogue- that absolutely ruined the whole thing for me this could have been a 5 star read.
The story set up all these really interesting ramifications for the piper technology and the League that ran everything and the secrets that were being kept from the pipers themselves as well as the public and all the way through the book those were built up and built up and then apparently Carver decided "fuck it" because the end didn't bother to address any of it.

NOTHING to do with pipers or the League (or what they are actually doing or how aware they are of what pipers can or or ANYTHING about any of it) is addressed or resolved or even acknowledged again after a couple hundred pages of build up. So fuck that. 

I loved this one, OMG so happy to find a good time-travel romance. I love the idea of time-travel books, but it's really hard to find ones -especially in the romance genre rather than straight up fantasy or scifi- that actually handle it well. Time Waits does it wonderfully. I can see some people maybe being a little put off by the fact that both MCs (Dieter in particular) are  foulmouthed snarky bastards but it worked so well for me. I love that sort of character and here I got two! And beyond a shared tendency for sarcasm and profanity they've both got very distinct personalities that set them apart from each other and which dovetail nicely together. I loved them both and a lot of their interactions gave me a huge grin. The mechanics of time-travel are largely left unexplained beyond 'we've made a very high tech machine that does it' but the implications of time travel both moral and practical are explored in the story and create some fascinating depth to the plot. I'll be honest this one also really works for me because it aligns pretty neatly with what I've always thought seemed to make sense in terms of changing history, particularly to avert major events like wars.

I'm definitely going to be looking for more from this author, now she just needs to publish more. Preferably lots and right now.

This one made me really uncomfortable.

Kayden is 19 at the time of the story and the other MC Logan is 28. The problem I had was the story constantly emphasizes the age difference, frequently calling Logan the "older man" while Kayden is referred to as a teenager a lot. Like a lot, a lot.  Logan frequently thinks of him as a "teen" or "boy" including during intimate moments.

Yuck yuck yuck.  Considering that Kayden was abused for years by a pedophile framing his relationship with Logan in terms meant to draw attention to his youth particularly in contrast to Logan's age at 28 seemed really distasteful.

I could maaayybe (though honestly, probably not) get past that if the rest of the book was any good but it really isn't.  I can't think of one element of it that I liked enough to salvage even a little of it for me. I can think of lots of other ways I didn't like it though.

Ran some searches on my kindle just to see those terms were as prevalent as I thought.

111 results for 'boy'

31 'teenager'

23 'teen'

4 'young man'

27 'younger man'

Ick.

Nope didn't like this one at all. Picked it fairly at random 'cause the blurb sounded decent. And it's BDSM, which I thought would be a good thing but, I really don't like a lot of the way it's portrayed in this one -and in a lot of romance novels m/m and het both. Bram the Dom in this one, decided that Ethan (sub) was 'his' within seconds of meeting him. While Ethan was at the hospital to get treatment after being badly beaten by his brother! Yeah that's appropriate. And he keeps thinking of Ethan as 'his boy' way before he ever broaches the subject with E. Which is just, not ok. People, even submissives, aren't objects you can just pick up and keep at your whim without any input from them. The way Ethan is so desperate for affection and validation makes the situation even more unsavory. Because he's so eager for anyone to like him he'd agree to whatever they asked.

I thought Bram's behavior towards Ethan was frequently infantalizing. And it's one thing if that's the dynamic you enjoy and you choose it, totally another if one party decides that's what you get and expects you to live with it.

In the beginning Ethan complains that Bram treats him like a kid (his objection that he's a man is prompted not because the way Bram is acting is insulting -and it totally is- but because why would Bram want someone sexually when he has to take care of them like a little kid. Blech.) Ethan is scolded for swearing, because 'Bram's sweet boy' doesn't get to say things like that ( fuck off, seriously.) For leaving the room/house and not telling Bram where he is going. Urk barf no. And none of these things are negotiated first, or at all. Bram decides and Ethan is just expected to accept whatever he's told.

And one that really bothers me, Ethan throughout the book jokes with his friends Zeke and Aiden trading insults and giving each other a hard time, it's mutual and a facet of their friendship, no malice intended. It's also one of the rare example of him having a personality beyond 'needy needy needy'. And every time Bram hears it he admonishes E, frequently in front of his friends- and/or punishes him for it. Fuck you Bram. I mean that sincerely. You are an asshole. You don't get to dictate how he relates to his friends.

I feel like I need to read a good BDSM now, where all parties are equal, even (especially) when they aren't.

This is an incomplete and fairly rough review. I haven't finished reading this one, because I'm not sure if I will. I wanted to get my thoughts at least partially in order now.

This one had some really positive reviews on GR and it sounded promising so I was excited to start it. But I'm 78% of the way into it and I'm liking it less and less the more I read. I know people get different things out of the same books. So maybe I'm weird or oversensitive, because hardly anybody in the reviews I read seemed to mention this issue but I've got some serious problems with this book and it's really ruining it for me.

Had high hopes for this one (I'm really in the mood for haunted house/evil spirits type books right now, it's almost Halloween after all), but I was pretty unimpressed. The haunting elements were fairly standard and brief, no scares to speak of. And I really didn't get Tom and Leo together, they were either sniping at -or thinking in negative terms about- each other in a way that made it seem like they genuinely didn't like each other. Or they were fucking or thinking about fucking and even with the 'the demon is influencing them' element it just didn't work for me. Felt like they were only together because the author wrote it that way but there was nothing in the story that made the pairing make sense. Just.. nope. Didn't work. The demon stuff could have been creepier but in a short book, maybe that's expecting too much but honestly you could have skipped the other characters, the tabloid reporter, witch and reverend and just had Tom and Leo sent out to the house and skipped a lot of fluff, the other characters were mostly just there for exposition about what the demon was, and for that the priest was the only one necessary and to get scared by the baddie a couple times and then they left before the end. That space in the narrative could have been used to make the character development a little more coherent or to add in some actual scares.

Nice low conflict, minimal angst May-December romance. I liked both main characters and how they were together. Solidly written, quick enjoyable read.

Pretty typical Quick. Which was the problem I had with it, there wasn't anything new about it. This one felt very much like her other paranormal historical romances. You could have transplanted the H and h from many of her other books into this one and they would have slotted seamlessly into place. Even the conversations between Beatrice and Joshua felt like treading the same ground that the H/h usually go over in Quick's books. It wasn't bad, and if you like her books it'll appeal to you for the same reasons her others do, just don't expect Quick to take any risks at all or try anything new with this one. For me, I've read enough of her other books to make all the similarities to past books glaringly obvious and to really suck all the fun out of reading this one.

I'm liking this one so far, decent worldbuilding, and it's hot.

One problem I'm having is the names for the main characters. One of my pet peeves is gender neutral/ambiguous names in romance novels, I'm fine when one character has a name that could work for a man or a woman but when both do it's just irritating, it takes too long to get it fixed in my mind who is which and it just comes off as a bad choice.

The H in this one is Tory which I guess is masculine? But it makes me think Tori as in short for Victoria  which makes it read as feminine and is what I'm more used to seeing.

The h is Alex -short for Alexandra- but that one sounds masculine and when paired with a H with a name that reads as feminine it just...

It's not a huge deal but it's a little irritation that keeps me from really getting lost in the story. It's like when you have multiple characters with similar names, it just forces you to stop and think about who is in the scene and then you're out of the story for a second.

I'll get over it as I read more but I wish she had picked a different name for one of them. Either one.

~ Having another name related issue. The plot revolves around machinations -involving a biological weapon- amongst the governments of several neighboring planets in a starsystem. Which have the most unimaginative names ever, Teran One, Teran Two, Teran Three, Teran Four, and Teran Five. And that's how they are written each time. Now I don't know, but it seems to me that the people of these planets would have come up with some other names for their homes, rather than it always being "Hi I'm from Teran Five!" Even just shortening it to T5 maybe?

 People like naming things, we name everything. Except for newly colonized planets we're living on apparently. I have a hard time believing all these different cultures/worlds are happy with being numbers. You're a group of colonists escaping from a plague ravaged Earth and desperately hoping for a new home and new beginnings, are you really going to be saying "our world should be called Five!"? Or would you be choosing a name that embodies all that hope? That celebrates what you've accomplished in surviving to reach this new beginning?

The main problem is each world -or their interests and influence- has a part in the story and it's constantly "Teran Two is this, Teran Four does that, Teran One will be" keeping it straight is a pain in the ass. And it makes the conversations sound so boring. The planets are often discussed together so you have a paragraphs peppered with Teran 1-5 over and over and over.

Surprisingly good. Well written. Interesting world-building, and I liked Starling as a heroine.

This is the second time I've read this and it was still a lot of fun. The suspense part moves along nicely and is complex enough to keep my interest even on a second read. I'd forgotten most of the details this time around, it was probably 500+ books ago that I read this before.

Sam was a great character, a lot of the time the skilled and competent-at-her-profession h meets the H and suddenly all her skills and intelligence disappears in a puff of pheromones so the H can save her and look suitably heroic. That doesn't happen in Flirting with Danger. Sam handles pretty much every challenge thrown at her and she does it well. And Richard actually respects her abilities even though he's not wild about how she uses them as thief. Which was a relationship dynamic I really liked. The story is pretty light, this one doesn't really fit as a romantic suspense -which is where I'd otherwise want to shelve it given the storyline- since while there is action and some peril the story never gets very dark or terribly well... suspenseful. But it's still makes for a fun, fast moving read. Good cure for angst overdose.

Loved this book. Watching them connect over the course of the book was just perfect. This would have been a 5 star for me

Still a really great read, the story is quite different, and really well written. Cara McKenna is obviously a very talented author, been terribly impressed by everything of her's I've read.

Started this one once before and had to quit at the point where the h tells the H that "he doesn't kiss right" because the abbess/mother superior whatever she was at the convent where the h grew up told her all about kissing and never said anything about tongues being involved. And of course if the nun didn't mention it then clearly you're doing it wrong. :facepalm: I really don't like stupidly naive virgin heroines and Mairin definitely fits in that category. Though to be fair in other respects she's somewhat more competent. Came back to try again because I wanted to read the other books in the series. And apart from the h being a wittering idiot when it comes to anything related to sex, or men, or how men and women relate, it was a fun read.