His Grandfather’s Watch (2015) N.R. Walker This is a very sweet story, told in two parts. The first part is Alex–a young man who works in his family’s antique store working with clocks and watches, falling for Callum Winters, who comes into the shop to try and learn more about a watch he inherited. The […]
Principles of Spookology (2020) S.E. Harmon (The Spectral Files) Rain Christiansen is back home, working with his partner Daniel McKenna in the newly created PTU, an offshoot of the cold crimes unit, except that they get their leads through the cold cases through Rain’s talking with ghosts. Unfortunately, the ghosts won’t leave Rain alone, and […]
Secret at Skull House (2020) Josh Lanyon (Secrets and Scrabble) This second mystery finds Ellery still working to keep his inherited book store open, but at least the local theater group is putting on a production of one of his screen plays. Then the news breaks: someone has purchased Skull House! That someone is moving […]
P.S. I Spook You (2019) S.E. Harmon (The Spectral Files) Couple of things to note, start with the fact this is self published, so parts of it are a little rough. Not typos or anything, but there story could have been tightened up in a few places where I got confused or felt like I […]
Family Matters (2018) Angel Martinez (Brandywine Investigations) This is two books and a short story. The first story is about Dionysus and Leander (the Minotaur of the cover. (with a KILT. Which is PERFECT.)) The second story is a short story about a young woman stumbling upon Artemis and the muses in the forest. “That’s […]
Open for Business (2016) Angel Martinez (Brandywine Investigations) This is three interrelated stories, of gods and men and angels and monsters. The first book is about Hades, who has been surprised by divorce papers from Persephone. He comes to the world (things aren’t that busy for him after all) and opens a private investigation business. […]
Gumption & Gumshoes (2013) Alex Kidwell August Mendez moved to the city in the hopes of following his dreams, and when he gets the opportunity he decides to try. A sense of freedom surged through me, that euphoric realization that I was staring at a whole weekend of nothing but cheese curls and old movies, […]
Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones (2020) Ngozi Ukazu Y’all. I love this comic SO. MUCH. No, you just don’t even understand how much I love this comic. You need to read this RIGHT NOW. Publisher: First Second Rating: 9.5/10
Dead in the Shop (2018) Dahlia Donovan (Grasmere Cottage Mystery) Valor and Bishan are struggling after the events of the last book. Someone is trying to kill them–has killed people around them–and they don’t understand why. And that’s one of the interesting things about this story–that there isn’t really a good why. Don’t get me […]
Dead in the Pond (2018) Dahlia Donovan (Grasmere Cottage Mystery) The first book ended with Valor and Bishan learning their beloved housemaster from Harrow–and a note that book two was going to end on a cliffhanger. So I bought book two AND book three, because I wasn’t going to be messing around when cliff hangers […]
Dead in the Garden (2018) Dahlia Donovan (Grasmere Cottage Mystery) This is a cozy mystery, set in England, and is both adorable and has an amazingly diverse cast of characters. Valor and Bishan are shocked and distressed to discover a dead body in their yard. But it becomes even more distressing when Bishan is arrested […]
Connection Error (2016) Annabeth Albert (#gaymers) Despite his best planning, Josiah Simmons almost misses his plane and is the last passenger on board. But when he sees his seat mate, he thinks maybe everything things are looking up. Ryan Orson is focused on one thing–get past his injuries and back onto the duty rooster. He […]
Goalie Interference (2019) Avon Gale & Piper Vaughn (Hat Trick) This book kept coming up on review sites and podcasts as one that people loved. Ryu Mori is ready to be the starting goalie for the Atlanta Venom, but the team has traded someone and now Ryu is supposed to play in tandem with Emmitt […]
Bookmarked (2015) Piper Vaughn (Heartsville) Mark Werner’s dream was to run a book store, and he’ll do anything to keep it open–including reaching out to the man who writes his favorite series, but was incredibly rude to him a year earlier. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? This story tried really hard. I […]
Checking Out Love (2015) R. Cooper Jeremy Song is a graduate student who is not always good at focusing but very good about being exciting. The problem with being one of those people fascinated by everything was that he annoyed those humans around him who didn’t think it was fun to learn and question and […]
Hottie Scotty and Mr. Porter (2016) R. Cooper Scott Yun moved to Montgomery to help his sister take care of her kids, but it’s an extremely small town, and one of the few single gay guys is extremely cute, but also a widower. So Scott goes to work at the firehouse, helps to care for […]
For Better or Worse (2017) R. Cooper Everyone in town things Javier has a secret lover–because a guy that handsome and fit couldn’t possibly be single. His mother and his aunts called him “choosy.” His sister and cousins thought he was full of himself for not wanting to go out with their friends. The people […]
Band Sinister (2018) KJ Charles Set in England in the early 1800s A lot of us are struggling right now, so this is a good time for comfort reads. If you’ve read Georgette Heyer’s Venetia, you’ll be familiar with this story: younger sibling is hurt and has to stay at manor of notorious (and wealthy) […]
Color of You (2017) C.S. Poe Bowen Merlin has moved to Lancaster NH to take a job for the county, as the music teacher and director for the high and middle schools. It’s a big change, to have moved from NYC, but he is excited about the change. And then he dumps hot apple cider […]
Finders Keepers (2018) N.R. Walker Griffin Burke has moved to Coolum Beach for a new job–and a promotion. He’s good at being a hotel manager, even even better, he enjoys it. “Do people really expect room service to be included?” I scoffed. “You work in customer service, right?” “Point taken.” When he finds a lost […]
Play It Again (2019) Aidan Wayne Dovid and his sister Rachel are YouTube stars. They actually make their living from it, first becoming famous after Rachel recorded Dovid ranting about how he hated it when people didn’t pronounce his name correctly. But he also spends time going to schools and talking abut bullying because that’s […]
Work for It (2019) Talia Hibbert (Just for Him) The world is making me feel out-of-sorts, so I decided to re-read a book I very much enjoyed. The first time around I read this book before the rest of the series (this is essentially the last book) so re-reading it after having read about the […]
Rend (2018) Roan Parrish (Riven) Oh. My. God. So much crying. I hate crying. Yet, I kept stifling tears as I read this story. Kids in the system slipped through the cracks in school because they didn’t have a support system. They didn’t have people helping them with their homework, or telling them they could […]
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (2020) Charlie Adhara (Big Bad Wolf) Cooper Dayton and Oliver Park are trying to buy a house. Well, Oliver is looking at houses and Cooper is horrified at how much money Oliver wants to spend. So what do you think of this place?” Park asked. Cooper bit his lip. “What do […]
And Everything Nice (2016) Ada Maria Soto The only way Angelo knows to tell a guy he’s interested is through food. Specifically, baked goods. He held out the plate. He’d gone for his chocolate-chip cookies, always a good icebreaker. They weren’t too large, making them harder to justify refusing. He used the vanilla paste instead […]