Captured: A Dark Romance by R.A. Frick

TITLE: ⟫ Captured: A Dark Romance

AUTHOR: ⟫ R.A. Frick

RATING: ⟫ 1/5

BLURB: ⟫ Running away from small-town Montana to Los Angeles, and meeting the handsome Jayantha, Cal thinks his luck is getting better. The man with Jay is looking for models, but Cal gets kidnapped and brought far away from his American life and innocent world view.

Jay learns his family has secrets of their their matchmaking is a front for kidnapping people to sell. He's not sure how to save himself, let alone the innocents they have imprisoned...

Can Cal trust anyone, or will he have to save himself?

*

Content Warning: If you like your stories dark and twisty before the romance happens, this book has that in spades. If you like your romance fluffy with insta-love, this is not the book for you! Third person, past tense, dual POV. Full content warning inside.

REVIEW: ⟫ I love a dark and twisty romance so this sounded like it would be well up my street. Judging by the other reviews this has received, this hit the mark for a LOT of people. Unfortunately, not for me.

None of the characters were built into someone to care/root for; lots of the story seemed to make little to no sense, with villains that were worse than caricatures; I seriously do not understand how any of this made it past beta readers because it was just all so off. It had the bones of a really good, interesting story but unfortunately it was never truly fleshed out.

The relationship between Jay and Cal could barely be called a relationship – in fact, the blurb says if you like insta-love, this is not for you but there is no other way to describe the situation-ship between the two men. There was no reason for Cal to trust Jay, and certainly no reason for Jay to want to save Cal and the others. Even the ‘intimacy’ between Cal and Jay was transactional at best and the fact that Cal was a virgin before anything happened between them actually makes things feel so much worse.

There felt like there was a lot of MF content, albeit non-consensual, and just overall I don’t think this was the book for me at all. I’m not going to get into the whole editing, spelling thing because I know that isn’t the substance of the book, but there were errors in who was speaking, etc that didn’t help.

I received an ARC from GRR.

Berserk by Romilly King (The Teams Book #5)

Title: ⟫ Berserk: A Hurt Comfort Gay Romance (The Teams Book 5)

Author: ⟫ Romilly King

Blurb: ⟫ Come along with Berk and Snipe on a road trip to inner peace.

I’m a vegan rage machine who will try any alternative therapy to calm the beast inside me. He’s a gun crazy sniper who until now looked at the whole world through his scope.

We aren’t a match made in heaven. We argue constantly. We like to pretend we are barely friends but he’s the only person I can tolerate when the anger gets out of control.

There is a resonance between me and Snipe and I’m going to help him get over the life changing injuries he got while on a mission with me.

I’m calling it duty.

He’s calling it pointless.

I’m not stopping until we’re both in a better place. Whatever it takes - sweat lodges, crystals, howling at the moon. We’re going on a road trip together and we’re gonna get healed.

Berserk is the fifth book in The Teams Series. It’s a hurt comfort story of the complicated relationship between a man with anger management problems and an ice cold killer who needs to find a new way of being. Expect weird therapies, much banter, and a strangely sweet love story.

Review: ⟫ If I had paid to read this book, I would be steaming angry.

This was – it wasn’t even hurt/comfort so much as just – I cannot even express what this book is. Actually, I can. It’s an insult.

The Teams has always been about what happened to the handlers and witnesses after the programme closed down. And I was really looking forward to finding out how a man who defines himself by his ability to be an amazing sniper would deal with losing half of his sight and his manual dexterity. This book was full of alternative healing methods – sometimes feeling like it was taking the mickey out of them – and the relationship between the two male leads was just not explored at all. I was expecting hot alpha males and got limp lettuce. I kept reading expecting things to get hot, to get interesting, but by the time I got to the end I was just raging with disappointment. This book was a shambles and I hate that I spent the time looking forward to it and reading it.

I give it 1/5 and only because it means I can stop waiting for the series to end and know that this is the final nail in the coffin.

The Quarterback Keeper by Rheland Richmond & Emerson Beckett

Title: ⟫ The Quarterback Keeper
Author: ⟫ Rheland Richmond & Emerson Beckett
Blurb: ⟫ Alex

I'm the starting quarterback for the Portland Pirates, and I have a thing for my son's teacher. Except I didn't know the cute blond on the beach with the giant dog was, in fact, my kid's teacher until two months later at Open House.

Christian took my breath away during the second week of my two-week vacation at the beach and introduced me to things I never knew could feel so good and be so right. I think he just might be the one who inspires me to tell the world that this NFL quarterback is bisexual and in love with a man.

That is until I blew the best thing to happen to me since my kids were born. All I know is I have to get him back. I had to find a way to keep him.

Christian

I never imagined I would meet the love of my life while being bowled over on the beach by the overeager Newfoundland I was dog-sitting. But that's exactly how I ended up on my back in the sand, wrapped in his arms and pressed into the sand by the six-foot-five dark-haired Adonis on the beach. Did I mention he had two beautiful children?

Our week together was worthy of a sexy modern-day fairytale full of promises about the future until he sent me the text that broke my heart. And how was I supposed to get over him when his adorable six-year-old son was in my class?

Find out how Alex and Christian ache to overcome some daunting complications to reunite in The Quarterback Keeper, Book One of The Package Deal Series.

Tags: First Time Gay; Single Dad; Bisexual Experience; Sports Romance; Football Player and the Teacher

Review: ⟫ Not the most auspicious beginning to my reading in July.

I tried to read this – I kept trying to read this. I cannot even imagine just how many times I picked up my kindle and turned to this book. It either sent me to sleep or I got so bored that I was reading pages and realising that I was taking absolutely none of it in.

I wasn’t even going to leave a review because I felt guilty for the fact that I simply did not like this book. The characters were flat and uninteresting; the writing felt formulaic and uninspired, and no matter how much I loved the idea of the storyline, it just didn’t pull me in.

I couldn’t even explain what went wrong – it takes a lot for me not to finish a book – but this just left me completely cold. I am considering seeing if there are other books by these authors to see if it was just the collaboration between them that didn’t work for me because I want to give them both a fair shot.

Ultimately, I didn’t finish reading and for what I did read, I can only score this a 1/5. 

Spirited Situation by Louisa Masters

 

Title: ⟫ Spirited Situation (Ghostly Guardians #1)

Author: ⟫ Louisa Masters
Blurb: ⟫ When you can talk to ghosts, things are bound to get spirited.

The ghosts have been there since before I can remember. When I was a kid, they doted on me, but as I got older, they got more demanding. I’ve spent my whole life seeing and talking to dead people and trying to pretend I’m not, because the living just don’t understand. Nobody wants to be around the freak who claims to see ghosts.

Until I go to Mannix Estate.

Once a private country home, then a posh hotel, it was closed after a suspicious incident but is now an immersive historic experience. It’s also haunted AF, and everyone knows it. Finally, I’ve found a place to work and live where I can be useful. Where I’m actually wanted.

There are only two problems: I spent a hot, sweaty, satisfying night with Ewan the blacksmith before I knew we’d have to work together. Everyone knows sex with colleagues is a bad idea, right? Even if he’s the world’s most ripped cinnamon roll.

Plus, the ghosts are keeping secrets. There’s something going on that’s not normal, even for a haunted estate. And I suspect that when the truth comes out, I’m the one who’ll have to deal with it… and it won’t be good.

Review: ⟫ I think I might be in a book slump. I had high hopes for this because the blurb sounded really intriguing – the idea of finding somewhere to call home where you ability to see and speak to ghosts is not only understood and accepted, but a bonus? Sounds excellent.

But for me, this entire story just felt really flat. I kept reading in the hope that something would spark and I would begin to feel invested, but instead I just felt like I was working. There were so many meetings, lots of talking, and so very, very little doing.

Even the chemistry between Josh and Ewan was flatter than a pancake, which is saying something considering they had a night of life-changing sex that made it impossible for them to keep away from each other. Not only did I not get what they saw in each other, I didn’t care.

The secret the ghosts are keeping was so out of left-field – like, it’s been absolutely fine for fifty years but suddenly because Josh turns up it’s a HUGE deal that must be dealt with immediately? It’s not like they couldn’t have communicated all of this to the people living at the Estate! There are more in the series but I can’t see me diving in here again.

1/5 from me unfortunately.

Master's Boys by Patricia Logan - Books #1 - 7

Title: ⟫ Master’s Boys (Master’s Boys #1 - 7)
Author: ⟫ Patricia Logan
Blurb: ⟫ DOMZ.com is an online BDSM sex club where members pay good money to owner Zachary Teak for the privilege of being humiliated by his Doms. They can tune in online to watch from the privacy of their own homes or make an appointment with one or more of his in-house Doms for a scene to be broadcast via live-streaming. Lately though, things seem to be changing at DOMZ.com as it is rapidly becoming a refuge for throw away boys. Whether Zack realizes that his Doms have become more than mentors and the young subs every gay man’s fantasy, no one really knows but business is booming and DOMZ.com is hotter and sexier than it’s ever been.

Review: ⟫ I found the first book to be shallow, unimaginative and by the time I reached the second story, offensive.

I'm not even sure what I was expecting. I managed to finish one story and thought it was more than a little shallow. The world building was minimal (there was more information in the blurb than in the story), and the bad guy in the first story was a caricature and that’s trying to be nice. The relationship between Wade and Phoenix was superficial and slightly unbelievable - Phoenix picks Wade up from a street corner, installs him in an apartment, feeds him and buys him new clothes - all within the first few chapters. And Wade was in love and ready to do anything and everything that Phoenix wanted. A little too much like Stockholm Syndrome for me.

After that, it just got even more unbelievable - why did Phoenix think that Wade would enjoy being a Cam Boy? And the BDSM? I know there's often more than a little suspension of disbelief when reading this type of thing, but this was almost too much for me. I finished the first book which seemed to be a HEA and moved on to the next.

And this was where I decided the book was a DNF for me. The dialect/slang the author chose to use didn't work for me in the slightest, and yes I was a little offended. I assume it was meant to be authentic for the area, but instead the whole thing felt stereotypical and old-fashioned, from the way they spoke to their attitudes. Perhaps that changed further on in the story but I couldn’t bring myself to read more. I think if I’m going to read any more of the author’s works, I will stick to their Prosper Wood series. 1/5 from me.