Grade: C

Dear Bam,

Stories about people who turn out to be something other than what they think they are always intrigue me. And in the Philip K. Dickian vein of writing, I love being in the dark about what is fantasy and what is reality, with small hints to both deceive and make me think more along the way. Well, either that or have a twist that you don’t see coming, and when it happens it so hard to wrap your brain around that you question your own reality. Unified Souls is that type of story, but I figured out the plotline, complete with twists, almost immediately since the author was kind enough to spell everything out. Which left 353 pages of character development, worldbuilding and backstory. I’m not saying I’m smarter than the average bear, but when you read this on the first page, well…you know where the author is going:

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[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: B+

Well, before I started reading Ms. Bryce, I would have said m/m stories weren’t my thing at all. The few contemporaries I’ve looked at always seem to feature an alpha top and a mega-femme bottom, who is a worse pussy than any TSTL heroine. But Ms. Bryce whisks her characters away to lush worlds where our gender roles don’t hold water. Each of her stories takes place in a richly realized fantasy setting that evokes comparison to Arabian Nights, Scheherazade and her 1001 tales.

In From this Night, we meet Suryo and Alasson, a couple who has been betrothed from birth. You see, their fathers hit the bottle heavy one night, and in the way of all “I love you, man” and “No, I love you more” drunks, they pledged before gods and men that their next born children would marry to unite their families and end an old feud. The gods clearly have a sense of humor because their next born children were both boys.
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Grade: A-

Dear Bam,

I remember standing in the bookstore with Slave to Sensation in my hand, wondering if I really felt like reading another shape-shifter book. Like a true putz, I put it back on the shelf because I thought it was… who knows. Too purple? Too sexy? Too something. Then I read your review and posted this in the comments section for all of you who don’t remember:

DAMN IT, BAM! I had this in my hand in the bookstore yesterday. WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE POSTED IT EARLIER?? Yes, I’m yelling at you. I spent $25 at lunch on two new books and I KNEW I should have added this to the stack.

Yep. Ran out that day to get Slave to Sensation and devoured it like a bag of peanut M&Ms. I couldn’t tell you what the other two books I bought were, so shame on me. As you can imagine, I couldn’t wait to get my greedy paws on Visions of Heat. I’m happy to say that Ms. Singh didn’t disappoint with her second effort in the Psy/Changeling/Human world. For those of you who didn’t read the first book in the series, do not fear. Ms. Singh deftly describes the world of the Psy who believe themselves superior above all the other humanoid creatures on Earth. In 1979, the Psy created SILENCE (shouldn’t it be called Psylence? Too J. R. Ward?) in an attempt to rid their population of hatred, jealousy, greed, and other such negative emotions. Of course, you can’t get rid of the bad without destroying the good, so the Psy are locked in an emotionless world that seems full of totally frigid robots. For those of you who were delighted by Slave to Sensation, fear not. Ms. Singh does not get into a repetitive cycle when world-building, and reading about the PsyNet, Psy Council and Psy hierarchy brings new perspective to the Changeling/Psy/Human landscape.

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[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: B

First, let me just say, when I saw the cover, I was like, are they kidding? In a book with manlove, they put a giant towering phallus on it? Also I think it doesn’t evoke the setting very well. When I saw the cover, I thought My Sun and Stars would be about two knights getting it on in medieval times. It’s definitely not. But on to the meat of the story.

Sephil is a special kind of prince, and by which I mean, he likes to invite a bunch of catamites back to his palacial pad and have wild monkey sex from dusk til dawn. His family has washed their hands of him, so he has this “woe is me, poor little rich boy” thing down pat. Well, he’s bored and lonely with his life so he decides to replace his personal guard. He likes his men big, rough and mean, you see, plus the guards always put up such an interesting fight before succumbing to his boy-whore wiles.

That’s how Adeja gets his new job. Mind you, he’s told it’s a promotion, but he’s wondering why all his guard-buddies are snickering behind their hands. They know he’s off to serve the cake-boy prince and the last sad bastard who had this job got shipped off to the frontier, guarding a dangerous border. Being Prince Sephil’s bodyguard sucks. Often literally.

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Grade: B+
And yet here’s another heroine who saves the world with her vagina! Just kidding, children, but her magic is concentrated in that area. Fab-yoo-luuuus! You know, I was looking around the romance blogosphere for reviews to this book and found… very little. Way to drop the ball, people! What is going on? How could you guys have ignored this book? It’s frickin’ awesome! It’s got a smart heroine, a kicky little narrative, clever dialogue, sizzling sex between the heroine and the hero, and the best part? The hero isn’t a super-duper spy genius James Bond-spliced-with-MacGyver type. In fact, he is kind of a goober; he thinks he’s super-slick, but keeps trusting the wrong people, and half the time, the heroine has to save him. But don’t let that scare you. The man is charming, witty, and… well, I lurved him. My biggest problem with this book is the same one I have with every single “OMG, I totally had no idea I have all this power” storyline: the heroine has POWERS OF CONVENIENCE, which leads to some contrivance and consequently, some eye-rolling on my part. The last quarter of the book also fell apart for me because it was written in a different tone from the rest of the book and some of the scenes seemed inserted in order to keep the hero and the heroine away from each other. I mean, it was obvious to me that the two of them were perfect for each other, so the last thirty or so pages of this book felt like… padding. Other than that, I lurved this book. LURVED it.
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